Category: Weblog Concepts

  • Boing Boing Nation

    Speaking of blogs that reach that swift updraftian rapture, is this the Boing Boing Decade or what? Boing Boing Generation? I want my Boing Boing TV! Yeah, not just a Boing Boing show, but a whole SCTV-like network. Let’s see… I’d watch Captain Doctoroo with the kids in the morning. Tune into The Markneil Frauenlehrer…

  • Insert clever pun on 'power law'

    Notes need links, syntax: What is the exact power? (kottke’s model) Has this number changed? Does it change? Is it changing? If so, what is it approaching? If so, is shape changing to become closer to L or \? (I suspect L) If so, then there are really two categories, verticals and horizontals with an…

  • 'I get it' meme update

    We’ve recently started an independent blog conference on the Well, and Salon blogger Bruce Umbaugh reminded me of a klog-related epiphany I wrote about in an entry back in August called I get it. At time I asked people to link to it as “xian gets it” but while I was correcting the permalink and…

  • Time for the healthy paranoia backlash?

    I was wondering when the recent PageRank, SearchKing-inspired, and homeland-security aware “Google as Big Brother” tremors in the force would converge on the Blogoogler deal. I started seeing it in my too much blog reading over a long Valentine’s-Day weekend and in my aggregator: Google buys Blogger. Okay – we have to feel good for…

  • Denton on Blogoogle

    Nick Denton is all over the Bloogle story. I especially like his suggestion that Google should support and open standard for weblog updates and indexing.

  • Standing Room Only at Live from the Blogosphere!

    Preliminary reports are coming in from SRO (see the entry following the one I’ve linked here as well, although he mentions sighting me—or another xian?—there when as far as I know I was still here up north at the time): Dear Bloggers: Well, the jig is up. I’ve seen you. I went to the Live…

  • Bloggle? Googer? Google buys Pyra

    Why am I always the last to know? Dan Gillmor reports that Google is buying Pyra. In the short term, the main effect will be greater stability for Blogspot users. Over at his blog, Dan is also collecting commentary from bloggers about this move. Most seem to think it’s a good fit. I wonder if…

  • xian's 115th dream

    I think I can safely file this under “blogging too much lately.” I had one of those long, convoluted dreams last night, much of which I can still remember even as the internal dream logic has started to tatter. Near the end, I was in a motel room with Mark Pilgrim. We were discussing Shirky’s…

  • Imminent death of Salon predicted —Film at 11

    Yesterday I was tipped off by the Raven about this news story in which Salon warned that it might not survive past this month (February, 2003) and that it hasn’t paid any rent on its office space since December. I dropped by the Well (which predates but is currently owned by Salon) to check in…

  • Just can't leave it alone

    I’ve already overcommented on the Burningbird: Boys with Toys thread (and related) at BurningBird, but I went back and read the three entries and their tails of comments again and I still feel that the various points of view are largely talking past each other, partly because they (we) are also having a metaconversation. The…

  • Mouthing off

    Regular readers of this space may have noticed that I seem to be commenting more often on politics and media-coverage of same and less often about blogware and suchlike. I suspect the impending war has focused my thoughts in that direction, or made it much harder to focus my thoughts on the nitty-gritty of webhackery.…

  • My work here is done

    I can die happy now. I’ve been noticed by the blogeur.

  • Blog startup advice for newbies

    Dave Pollard of How to Save the World offers some advice for blog beginners ported from the world of entrepreneurship. I’ll summarize the points here, but you’ll have to rack up a hit on his blog to get the full picture: Give the market what it wants. Be patient. Don’t copycat. Learn from your successes…

  • FIONA on Radio Userland

    A picture ~= 1 kiloword, right? I’ve had that feeling too, at times. Anyway, Fiona is my new favorite cartoonist. When will we be seeing her work in the New Yorker (or in Salon proper, for that matter)?

  • Shirky on blogging and inequality

    Internet pundit Clay Shirky writes about power-law distributions and the popularity of certain blogs. He disputes the idea that there’s a specific “A-List” but says that unequal distribution of readership is inevitable. Mark Pilgrim mostly agrees. Dave Winer mostly disagrees and thinks that Clay needs to start a blog himself to truly understand the medium.…

  • It's like watching grass grow

    Scot Hacker points to this fella’s Daily Photo Project, consisting of a daily picture of his own face with roughly the same expression. Over time you see his hair grow in between haircuts. Cool idea, especially if he can keep it up. He’s been doing it for five years already! As Scot says, “The irony,…

  • Another deadline…

    …another slow blogging day. Go read Will Blog for Food by Heather there’s no way I’ll spell her last name correctly from memory and I’m too lazy to even cut ‘n’ paste it.

  • CalPundit interviews TPM

    Kevin Drum interviews Joshua Micah Marshall about his blog, journalism, blogging, journo-bloggers, and big media. His permalinks seem to be out of whack, but it’s the newest entry at the moment, so just drop by CalPundit and look for Friday, February 7. Here’s a taste (quoting Marshall): Clearly, a number of journos are starting weblogs.…

  • Don't buy this book

    Doing a little ego-surfing the other day I found my name on an unfamiliar blog. Turns out it was an item listing books about blogging with a link to my (since-canceled) book. (Note: the title was going to be The Hidden Power of Blogging, not The Hidden Power of Blogs, but whatever.) It seems that…

  • Conversational blogging

    Steve Bowdrick writes in the Guardian (UK), that the best blogs leave room for the reader and other bloggers to complete, refute, or expand on the ideas expressed: Weblogs produce a class of conversation that is, if it works, of the highest quality, fuelled by the open-mindedness of the blogger and continually refreshed by provocation…

  • Socal envy

    Let me be the last one on my blog to link to the upcoming “Live from the Blogosphere” panel/event in LA (February 15). Looks like they’ll be all wi-fi’ed out, so we’re expecting immediate instablogging throughout, OK?