Category: Radio Free Blogistan

  • Open thread

    We never have an open thread here on RFB. I shy away from generic-titled link-remaindering and so I’ve never liked the way “Open Thread” looks in my RSS reader. I realize that this has to do with the weak integration of blog and discussion board ways as discussed recently, but not in an easy way…

  • Jimmy Carter is blogging from Africa

    The Carter Center’s website is publishing journal or weblog-style reports by Jimmy Carter from the field. He is currently in Africa. It’s not blogging in the sense that it’s not automatica and direct and easy, but their using the terminology themselves, so I think that counts. First ex-Presidential blogger? [via Seb’s Open Research (via Geodog)]

  • Standing on the verge of nonprofit blogging

    One of the more popular (commented-on, linked-to) posts here in the last year or so was my somewhat sketchy Weblog strategies for nonprofits entry. At some point I was talking to CompuMentor about some kind of panel discussion on the subject in SF but I haven’t heard anything about it lately and I’ve been kind…

  • Blog media dinner at Bastille last week

    Though it’s sure to annoy Stavros, I have to say I had a mighty fine time meeting face-to-face with a bunch of smart webloggers and new media types last Wednesday, February 18. Susan Mernit invited me (and blogged about it in Navigating the Info Jungle). J.D. Lasica co-hosted it (and reported on it in his…

  • Three reasons to use WordPress

    Matthey “Doubting” Thomas offers

  • Structuring blog entries for scanning

    Jon Udell, one of the deeper thinkers around on matters of weblog, syndication, journalism, and information overload has come up with some important “best practices” suggestions for structuring weblog entries to facilitate efficient scanning by readers trying to follow many information sources through their RSS feeds, in Heads, Decks, and Leads: I’m reversing my former…

  • Next-gen blogging tools

    Dave Winer is planning BloggerCon II and is soliciting ideas from blog users (as opposed to developers) about what features the next generation of blogging tools should offer.

  • Biblography

    Over

  • Hit 'em where they ain't

    Blogfather Glenn Reynolds advises would-be webloggers to pioneer underreported topics, instead of crowding into overpopulated subject-areas, such as war and politics, in The Next Wave at Tech Central Station: There are lots of political/national security blogs (“warblogs” as they’re sometimes called, though most of them spend a lot of times on non-war subjects). There’s always…

  • Does your blog have a blog?

    Chuck “Blogumentary” Olsen and Lori “Secret Farm” Idontknowherlastname have started a blog together called MetaSecret MicroFarm in which they are blogging about their blogs. I tell you, it’s infinite regresses all the way down.

  • TidyText plugin makes MT posts valid XHTML

    90% Crud: TidyText: TidyText is my new plugin for Moveable Type…. It adds two new text formatting options for entries that will run them through HTML Tidy to make the XHTML valid before building the entry. Most of us want to support web standards, for me it’s a pain to remember to change & to…

  • Rollcall

    Should we have a meeting? Maybe by irc? Just to check in. We’ve got some pending business: redesign, site architecture, link logging, access to this blog. Some have been too busy to post much lately. Is that a problem, anything to worry about? Should we invite more contributors? Or, as I hinted in a post…

  • Shhh! The audience is listening

    Let’s all be on our best behavior. Christopher (Back to Iraq) Allbritton is teaching a digital journalism course at NYU this semester and recently assigned the class to read a few blogs during the current week and comment on them. It’s rather humbling and instructive to get feedback from people just jumping into the blog…

  • Globo blocking blogs?

    An orkut message I received from a “friend” of jibot (a bot that heralds visitors to the #joiito irc channel) accuses Brazilian company Globo of blocking access to the Blogger-driven blogs it hosts to anyone from outside Brazil and of preventing users from accessing their (free) blogs until they pay for a Globo subscription: Isn’t…

  • Combatting linkrot

    Every now and then Kevin Drum at Calpundit puts in a little plea to other bloggers to take a few modest steps to avoid linkrot.

  • Slate diary based on Salon blog

    I noticed that Interns’ Diary (“Two medical interns examine their roles as healers while learning to be doctors”) was high on the Salon blog rankings charts last week with a huge traffic spike coming in the form of referrals from a Slate weeklong diary featuring Ingrid Katz and Alexi Wright, the two interns in question.…

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  • Gnomedex 4.0, Tahoe, late Sept.

    Chris Pirillo just sent a notice via orkut pre-announcing Gnomedex 4.0, which may not be the best conference for “we stopped drinking” geeks. I really wanted to go last year and my schedule didn’t permit. I think my late September is wide open, so chances are I will make it this time.

  • Blogging my book

    I can finally talk a little more about my current writing project, by far the most fascinating book I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on. The working title is The Power of Many and it’s about – broadly speaking (my publisher doesn’t want me to be too specific yet) – people networks with digital…

  • This social software stuff is tricky

    Wow, danah boyd took me to school (without naming any names, which was kind of her) and I’m learning a difficult lesson. Over at misbehaving.net, she writes in sexist jokes and Orkut invites about a note I sent to the group of people there marked as my “friends.” What happened was that I saw as…

  • I think Ben Brown really likes me!

    From: “Ben Brown” <member@orkut.com> To: “Christian Crumlish” Subject: Re: is orkut over? Dude, you should really stop with the friends-of-friends messages. I have no idea who you are. This message was sent by Ben Brown to Christian Crumlish.