Dave Sifry: "This weekend, I had a few hours of free time and I whipped a new feature with two interfaces:  It is a standard XML-RPC ping server... that you can add to your weblog software configuration... that will immediately add your weblog into a special high-priority queue for Technorati's indexing runs." [Corante: aa Corante on Blogging] 
7:42:57 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Clay Shirky reports on the preview of AOL's blogging tools he and a few others got on Thursday: "What happens at launch, and how the product develops over the first couple of iterations, could have a profound effect on how weblogging is used and perceived."

Jeff Jarvis: "Before we go any farther, allow me a moment to dare to lecture the blogging community: For us to be successful, we also need AOL's blogs to be part of our world. I don't want to hear us get snotty and snippy about AOL's entry into the blogosphere."

[Corante: aa Corante on Blogging] 
7:38:22 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Cameron Marlow: "In early March, 2003, I received a shocking email from Jimmy Wales. Jimmy was the former owner of blogdex.com, blogdex.net and blogdex.org, and emailed to offer them to MIT since he had no further use for them. No solicitation, no intent to sell, just the simple offer to move them over to MIT's control..." [Corante: aa Corante on Blogging] 
7:36:22 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Alan Reiter says many people are missing an important aspect of AOL's blog effort and the ability to post via an IM client: "It means you don't have to be held hostage by your wireless operator.  Since many of these new services are/will be operator-independent, it won't matter if your cellular operator doesn't offer a wireless Weblog service." [Corante: Corante on Blogging] 
7:35:24 PM      comment []   trackback []  



OK.  Here is a status report on the Weblog Network.

1. Sources of revenue.  I have five in mind.  None include banner advertising or sponsored sites.  I am going to work on firming these up and will keep them under wraps for competitive reasons. 
2. Expert weblogs.  The initial response has been great (my mailbox is full even though this is a holiday weekend).  I am working on a strategy for bootstrapping this into a structure (from both the readers and authors perspective) that provides value.  Great ideas on this front.  Will assemble a team to figure this out.
3. Infrastructure and hosting.  I am looking for ideas here.  The structure of the Weblog Network is fairly simple with relatively little centralized architecture.
4. Design and programming.  I have a preliminary conceptual design in place, however it is very rough and open to discussion.  Looking for help here of course.

If you are running a service aimed at webloggers and want to join in on this, let me know (BlogStreet, Daypop, Technorati, and others come to mind). [John Robb's Weblog] 
6:53:24 PM      comment []   trackback []  



The RSS tango. If you want a simple format that lets you notify subscribers when your site's content is updated, and makes it easy to include a few lines of that content so they can decide whether or not it interests them, RSS 2.0 fits the bill perfectly. If you want to syndicate all your content - every word, every script, every image - maybe what you're looking for is not a new syndication format. Maybe what you need is a news reader that understands XHTML.... [Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report] 
6:16:58 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Second Coming of AOL.

So now we know that the September that Never Ended is coming to the blogosphere.  AOL Journals enters Beta this summer and launches in the Fall. I blogged before on the business opportunity this presents for AOL.

Thursday, AOL invited Meg Hourihan, Nick Denton, Anil Dash, Jeff Jarvis, and Clay Shirky to critique its upcoming weblog product, AOL Journals. 

Jeff: AOL blogs!

Clay: AOL, Weblogs, and Community.

 

Clay frames the big questions for AOL.  Will AOL Journals be a set of blogging tools or a community platform?  Walled garden or open?  

AOL Journals will let users blog from IM, a leverage on par with Google's Toolbar push-button publishing and a further reduction in the transaction cost-to-post.  IM is more than messaging however, its a base of strong social clusters.  When you think of what AOL has to leverage, its more than 40 million users, its existing groups -- which if measured by Reed's Law is of greater value.  When buddy lists become blogrolls adoption will be driven by existing strong ties.

They are smart enough to speak RSS, our language and foundation for openness.  Jeff also makes a strong case for opening up AOL/T-W content assets.  But the backend is where new forms fourish.   Blogspace is more than individuals contributing content, we contribute code (and for the most part, get along doing so)

Jeff frames the big question for us.  Will blogspace be inclusive or attempt to redicule and reject new entrants?  We have a history of doing so.  Heck, Jeff did with AO.  LiveJournal is its own world because blogspace didn't build bridges and derides it as kiddy blogging.  If we do not embrace new entrants, the culture that makes blogging work will die.

The very fact that AOL held an A-list focus group is strong sign that they are listening.  Openness on the front-end and back-end, coupled with access to AOL assets, will provide AOL access to a wider market of opportunities.

[Ross Mayfield: On Blogging] 
3:29:56 PM      comment []   trackback []  



About Blogs.

About.com empowered their 400 Guides with blogs last week.  Blogger and former SVP of Content Howard Sherman makes a case for significance:

• It's probably the single largest addition of content to the blogosphere to date.
• All of these sites are advertiser supported so it should help give credence to blogs as a viable business model.
• The sites are using Moveable Type software which is a vote of confidence in Moveable Type's technology.
• Another large media company -- in this case Primedia which owns About.com -- has adopted blogs as a publishing and communications tool.

The quasi-independence of Guides and structure of their site made this move easier than other traditional media outlets could do with editors.  You have to hand it to them for doing it right, selecting a best-in-class tool and turning their people loose.  How clueful.

The question is if Primedia will learn from this experience as the relevancy of their core business, trade magazines, is under the greatest threat from blogging.

[Ross Mayfield: On Blogging] 
3:28:15 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Blogs in the Workplace.

An NY Times article on weblogs in business that somehow missed Socialtext ;-(

..."People are starting to use Web logs to archive data that would have otherwise been lost," Mr. Tang said. He noted that much of the company's internal communications had been via instant messaging [~] and was lost as soon as the correspondents closed their chat windows. Now, though, employees are starting to post transcripts of relevant discussions on the Web logs, he said.

"It's not just making life more convenient," Mr. Tang said, "but actually giving us something new we didn't have before."

[via Scripting News]

[Ross Mayfield: On Blogging] 
3:26:45 PM      comment []   trackback []  



How selection of blogging tool functionalities influences specific uses of blogs?.

Clay Shirky about AOL choices for their blogging tools [Corante: Social Software]:

AOL, by its nature, will affect the future of weblogging by choosing to emphasize or de-empahsize certain aspects of these patterns, and some of those choices are already made.

I really wonder if there are more research on how selection of blogging tool functionalities influences specific uses of blogs [I touched this issue in my BlogTalk paper and also discussed off-line with Michael at I-KNOW 03].

 

[Mathemagenic] 
3:11:02 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Links.

Morning references:

• More on conference blogging [via James Farmer]
• Blogs in the Workplace (nice reading about corporate blogging with some case-study like material)

[Mathemagenic] 
3:09:49 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Space Blog. LooseChanj writes "Ed Lu, a member of the Expedition 7 crew of the ISS has been sending back some extremely well written and interesting commentary about his ... [Slashdot] 
3:08:29 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Via Hylton Jolliffe comes news that Blogdex finally has the Blogdex domain, through the generosity of Jimmy Wales, creator of Wikipedia. Should make a huge difference. [Scripting News] 
3:04:29 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Where did I and we go?
We moved our offices; that's where. Now we're mostly set up and ready to get back to it. Mostly. I have much I need to respond to. I hope I can gain ground this week.

Richard MacManus from Down Under was thinking about topical organization of blogging. He mentioned us. Thanks Richard!

I wrote a comment on his blog. I repeat to keep talking about why we're doing what we're doing.

"Richard, Thanks for mentioning itopik ... a directory by topic. Also, we have itown ... a directory of blogs by geography, place, or town.

I would argue that all the efforts are complementary and can be automated by some and humanified by others. We are choosing to humanify a bit the process hoping to be a bit more intelligent in our organization as Yahoo was in the beginning. Seeing linkages that perhaps software might miss. Granted slower, but in the end a lower signal to noise ratio we think.

I revert back to a simple notion on how we tend to think... people, places, and things. So we are helping to organize things and places. We all write about so much more than just our hometowns and a few topics... but my observation is that we keep coming back to some basic themes and our hometowns.

Writing on the web will grow to a massive proportion most likely as we both believe. Consequently, every effort to organize will be helpful and needed. Some will no doubt be better than others. But the task is so huge that I think multiple efforts will be valuable... even if someone brings us the Rosetta stone of organization for online writing.

It's is my hope that we can build a village of good efforts and be mutually supportive. Thanks again for mentioning our humble attempt. We don't pretend to be geniuses; we just want to be helpful. "

Hope you had a great Fourth of July as well. We celebrated my in-laws fiftieth wedding anniversary a little early last night. A little surprise and a dinner that we knew they would like at the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle, GA.
After dinner back to their house for a trivia game of things from their lives. What an accomplishment and blessing to for all of us when a couple has loved fifty years. [Harvey Kirkpatrick: itopik.com News] 
3:03:35 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Tasty tutorials and network effects. Mike Pick's sweet little tutorial on Pull Quotes and the Web, and Hebig.org's CSS trickery in "About the Title Pictures" will not only repay your interest, but the existence of material of this quality on independent personal sites also says a great deal about the rise of entrepreneurial authorship among designers. It also shows how network effects have succeeded at decentralizing the medium, as was intended from the day the web was created. But with that decentralization comes a question: what is the value of centralized web design resources like A List Apart when so much excellent material can be found across ten hundred thousand million design blogs? [Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report] 
3:34:28 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Blogs in the Workplace. The online journals known as Web logs are finding favor as an efficient way to communicate within the workplace. By William O'shea. [New York Times: Technology] 
3:28:35 AM      comment []   trackback []