Thursday, February 6, 2003Washington Post: New Kids on the Blog. Another "gee aren't they neat" piece. Anyway, if the pros are so good at "established principles of fairness, accuracy and truth" why do they get the facts wrong, and skim the surface and repeat what has already said so many times? These pieces always set up the same question -- will weblogs replace traditional media, and they always conclude that it'll never happen. Somehow I wonder if that's not the purpose of these pieces. Don't the editorial people at the Washington Post care about this clear conflict of interest? It's like asking a Republican to review a Democrat, and passing it off as non-partisan. Still waiting for a professional review that treats our work seriously. Read Chris's story below. We're piecing together a new publishing medium. Someday you'll use it too Leslie as will the Washington Post. I'm sorry I did the interview. [Scripting News]
- Posted by William A. Riski - 11:41:48 PM - comment []
In my mind, the rise of Weblogs parallels events in the 16th Century when one of the first networks - reliable postal service - appeared. Shortly after people like Locke and Galileo and Descartes began writing each other about their discoveries, and then scientific academies formed, where these letters would be read aloud to others who shared an interest. The world has never looked back, since. Think 'Renaissance'. Think 'Industrial Revolution'.
I make no claim to be on a par with Galileo, or Locke, or even Doc, for that matter, but I do believe that the global network and easy-to-use Weblog tools, RSS feeds etc. have fundamentally changed authorship. It has been democratized, and pushed down from the small, theoretically-highly-expert, professional cadre that were the norm in broadcast media to include a wider group of both amateur and professional authors who are the norm in peer networks like Weblog communities.
This is a good thing, and you saw it operating last Saturday morning, when the Columbia foam-strikes-wing theory emerged on numerous Weblogs, hours before NASA and big media outlets made mention. That theory was stitched together through Weblogs talking, and branching, and picking up informed opinion, eyewitness acounts and media clips. The theory just emerged as interested, thoughtful people put the pieces together: it was like a human parallel processing machine.
Ross Mayfield: Repealing the Power-law.
Bonus links: Craig Burton's The Web Renaissance. That was two years ago, almost exactly. And one year ago, Phil Wolff's Craig Burton wants the world to dance.
Glen Campbell: Talking to the air. So, to the two of you who regularly read this crap, I say, "thank you." To the rest of you, I say, "I hope you found what you were looking for." Enjoy. Glen also reports something I had seen but couldn't re-find: AOL Reports First Drop in Subscribers. From the EWTIA (even worse than it appears) department, here's the killer: Figures from Jupiter Research show that AOL holds slightly fewer than one in three U.S. dial-up subscribers, but just one in 30 broadband accounts. It's a little hard to stick a free CD in a slot and get 1000 hours of free broadband out of your current dial-up connection.
[The Doc Searls Weblog] - Posted by William A. Riski - 11:38:57 PM - comment []
A friend points to the lyrics of "Fire in the Sky", by Jordin Kare. It was while reading it that Buzz Aldrin, #2 man on the moon, broke down on TV...
Prometheus, they say, brought God's fire down to man.
And we've caught it, tamed it, trained it since our history began.
Now we're going back to heaven just to look him in the eye,
and there's a thunder 'cross the land, and a fire in the sky.
Buzz says more here on his site.
The lyrics in my own head are from Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush"...
Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun
... and Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky."
On a less musical (but more useful) note, Dana Blankenhorn has some interesting stuff to say about Space Elevators.
Also Saltire on space debris.
Bonus links: Lyrics for "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean", (also with sound) written by D.T. Shaw in 1843. And Woody Guthrie's Roll On Columbia (can't find the music, but the tune is the same as Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene).
Also: Starscapes, a moving NASA memorial, with stunning photography.
[The Doc Searls Weblog] - Posted by William A. Riski - 11:36:11 PM - comment []
