Mmm, Yes, But

Antony Mayfield points to an interesting piece in the Guardian that worries about what it calls the Mmm, Yes, But culture that blogs can spawn:

They will write: "Mmm, yes, but have you considered ..." To which we will reply: "Mmm, yes, you could be right about ..." And so a wonderfully civilised post-Blairite conversation will ensue. I wonder. There's nothing very civilised about a lot of the posting happening now; it's more like a shouting match-cum-punchup. And that's why it's often so entertaining. There is something about the Mmm-yes-but theory of the blog that is quite disquieting. Even if it became a reality, it could result only in hesitant journalism, bland criticism and writing that is predisposed to dull consensus.

As a journalist and blogger, I too have noticed this practice. Indeed, I adopt myself. But this is not out of timidity, but because I think it is the only way if blogging is to lead to anything of value in terms of online discussions.

If you want to see why the mmm-yes-but approach is necessary, take a look at the comments on Digg or Slashdot. There you will see human nature at its worst, with abusive, ad hominem, logicless attacks on the other posts leading to yet more of the same. If, on the contrary, you answer with the mmm-yes-but technique, I've noticed how it quickly chills the temperature of the debate. Not, let it be noted, the level of the debate, merely the language in which it is framed.

So to the Guardian writer and his points, I can only say: mmm, yes, but....

Welcome to Iconistan

I'm such a sucker for clever neologisms:

There's a turf war heating up over a strip of web real estate called "Iconistan."

You won't find this mythical land on a map, as Iconistan exists only at the bottom of blog posts. It's where that little crowd of icons gathers, begging you to post a bit of news to Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us and various other social news and community sites.

5 Things I've Learned From a Year's Blogging

Today is the first anniversary of opendotdotdot. Since this fact is of little interest to anyone but myself, I thought it might be useful to extract what pearls of wisdom I can from the experience of writing 1,260 posts in that time.

1. Google is your friend

Over half the traffic that arrives on these pages comes from Google. Moreover, the absolute number of visitors directed here by the Google machine just keeps on going up. I can only presume that the more posts you make, the more Googlejuice you generate, and the more you move up the ranks. Indeed, when I take a look at some of the keywords people enter in Google before arriving here, it is gratifying to find this blog pretty highly placed, albeit for some pretty wacky terms (like "wackypedia" and "seed gestapo") as well as a few surprisingly mainstream ones (like "philip rosedale interview").

2. Yahoo and MSN are a waste of time

I'm constantly amazed at how utterly Google dominates the search engine field in terms of the visitors it provides. I had expected MSN to be way behind, but not Yahoo; in fact, I get more visitors from MSN than Yahoo, which barely registers at all. Maybe this says something about the kind of readers/searches that end up at my blog, but it also emphasises the importance of Google. Interestingly, Technorati also generates far more leads than either Yahoo or MSN.

3. People like tags

The first version of the blog had no tags, for the simple reason that Blogger did not offer the facility, and I was too lazy to do it by hand. But when the new Blogger beta came out with tags, I dutifully employed them. I'm glad I did, because people really like using them to search within the blog. In fact, like me, people are lazy: they just can't be bothered entering a search term in the blog search box, but they can summon up the energy to click on one of the tags. One consequence of this is that I intend to go back and tag all of the older posts, since it clearly is something people find useful.

4. People like weird stuff

I am resigned to the fact that I am completely unable to judge which posts will be popular or not. Sometimes I spend ages crafting some witty/profound/novel/hot post, only to have it roundly ignored by almost everybody. Equally, I've often knocked out a trivial/pointless/content-free post only to find everyone and their dog rush to admire its insights. Sigh.

5. It gets easier

In many ways, the most important lesson that I take away from a year's blogging is that the more you do, the easier it gets. This is not just because you learn to type faster, but also because I've found that blogging helps me think faster and maybe even better. It's also a direct consequence of the fact that it's such damn good fun.

It's the Big 1 - 0 - 0 - 0

This is my thousandth post.

Just thought I'd mention it.

Er, that's all, really.

Thanks for your attention.

True Open Access

One of the things that continues to amaze me about blogs is the quality of some of the writing. A case in point is this fantastic essay by Richard Poynder. It's an extremely thorough consideration of whether open access means that peer review is on the way out.

Here are a couple of ideas that were new to me:

In September, for instance, a group of UK academics keen to improve the way in which scientific research is evaluated launched a new OA journal called Philica.

Unlike both Nature and PLoS ONE, Philica has no editors, and papers are published immediately on submission — without even a cursory review process. Instead, the entire evaluation process takes place after publication, with reviews displayed at the end of each paper.

and

Philica is not the only new initiative to push the envelope that bit further. Another approach similar in spirit is that adopted by Naboj, which utilises what it calls a dynamical peer review system.

Modelled on the review system of Amazon, Naboj allows users to evaluate both the articles themselves, and the reviews of those articles. The theory is that with a sufficient number of users and reviewers, a convergence process will occur in which a better quality review system emerges.

And you're getting it all for free: true open access. I just hope you are grateful.

Crimes in High Places

The ability of blogs to pick up on stories that the mainstream media miss or choose to ignore is by now well known; less remarked upon is the fluidity of the blogging world - the fact that a blog can comment on anything, even apparently far beyond its area of specialism.

A case in point is this post on Get Outdoors - "Everything you need to GetOutdoors". Hardly the place where you'd expect to find material headed "Chinese Troops Gun Down Tibetan Refugees". What's even more remarkable, though, is that this story, of international importance given China's continuing denial of human rights abuses in Tibet, is only now being picked up by the traditional outlets, who somehow overlooked it the first time around.

All power to the blogging elbow.

Update: The BBC has now picked up on the story, and is running a video showing the events. Interestingly, the clip was first shown on a small video sharing site in Romania - further proof that Web 2.0 is starting to trump MSM 1.0 these days.

Really Simple Second Life

If you needed any proof that the distinction between real and virtual is blurring hopelessly, try this: a way of displaying RSS feeds within Second Life.

Vladimir in the Belly of the Whale

Now here's a thought: Firefox developers being invited to visit Microsoft. They went, and, yes, came back without any obvious implants. One of them - Vladimir Vukićević - even blogged about it. Fascinating.

The Iceman Cometh

USA Today has a chilling piece about the increasing number of libel cases being brought against bloggers:

Robert Cox, founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, which has 1,000 members, says the recent wave of lawsuits means that bloggers should bone up on libel law. "It hasn't happened yet, but soon, there will be a blogger who is successfully sued and who loses his home," he says. "That will be the shot heard round the blogosphere."

Just think what it will do to the Technorati graphs.

Mind-boggling Bloglines

I must have blinked. Bloglines has started offering package tracking and weather forecasts. Makes sense of course: as blogs and RSS feeds in general become the common purveyors of information, you may as well use your aggregator to pull in info from all kinds of sources - even those that have nothing to do with the blogosphere.

The Politics of Blogging, the Blogging of Politics

I normally try to avoid posting about politics, since it tends to bring out the worst in bloggers on both sides of the political spectrum. But I'll make an exception for this, since I think it makes an important point about politics in the age of blogs:

Labour is a party that won and held power by mastering mainstream media, and as Mr Dale puts it "Blogs are a spin doctor's worst nightmare come true". That's bad news for the current ruling elite.

And good news for us proles.

The Commons: The Film

Now, here's an interesting idea: a film about the idea of the commons:

Our idea is to make the film a kind of celebration of the commons and remix culture by making a hybrid film that uses public domain images and sounds to create animated sequences, archival sequences featuring Spooky as a Zelig-like character, archival sequences in which Spooky interacts with the people in the footage, and mashups.

And to blog about it in the process:

My wife says I'm crazy to publicly blog my process of writing my next film. Too much pressure? No one should see the sausage making of the creative process?

I think it is a worthwhile exercise. It is a routine, to get the writing going. An appointment with whomever reads this. It is a leap of faith, believing in the value of the internet as commons. It is novel...sort of.

(Via OnTheCommons.)

Thinking and Working Out Loud

Antony Mayfield, on the "other" Open blog, has the following wise words to say about blogging:

A large part of my job is about keeping up my knowledge of what is happening in media, technology and marketing. It's not enough to read all that's out there I need to make sure I have digested, understood and it put it context for myself. When I blog that's exactly what I'm doing.

My thoughts exactly. In fact, I'd go further: blogging has become my notebook and general repository of digital bits and bobs. Whenever I find something of interest (to me), I usually bung it up; I hope that it will be of interest to others, but that's really secondary. A blog is as much a very practical tool for my everyday work as an exercise in itself.

On Faking It in the Web 2.0 Era

This is so true:

One interesting thing is - while its ludicrously easy to fake a resume, its actually pretty hard to fake a blog, because sustaining a pretence over time is much harder than doing so with one static document.

Right: that's why they're such bloomin' hard work.

A Blogalicious Roundup

With all the frenzied blogging activity that is going on, it's easy to lose track of who's doing what and why. That makes this Business 2.0 feature all-the-more valuable. Despite it's rather vulgar title - "Blogging for Dollars" (yes, shocking, I know) - it's actually one of the best mini-histories of the big-name bloggers.

For example, I've always wondered how TechCrunch's Mr Arrington managed his stratospheric rise from zero to blogger hero in a bare 12 months; now I learn that he comes with quite a pedigree:

Arrington, a 36-year-old entrepreneur behind a long list of unrecognizable startups, has suddenly become one of the rising stars of Silicon Valley.

...

Arrington also stumbled into the blog business. He was tossing back drinks at a bachelor party in Belgrade in 2005 when another Silicon Valley entrepreneur called with an idea for a startup based on the new technologies that have come to be lumped together as Web 2.0. Arrington began doing research about the emerging tech trend. He couldn't find one comprehensive source, and as he compiled his information, he decided to post it on a blog. "It was purely a hobby," he says.

This also explains what I see as TechCrunch's biggest problem: its reluctance to call a dog a dog. Too often reviews end with some mealy-mouthed cop-out along the lines of "well, I can't quite see what the point of this me-too video Web 2.0 site is, but it's not bad and maybe somebody will like it", which is less than helpful. (Maybe this is why I love The Reg - there's nothing like a bit of sarky Brit journo bile.)

The rest of the piece has other useful backgrounders on the alpha bloggers. Do read it if you care about any of them. If you don't, well, er, don't. (Via TechMeme.)

Openness, "Terror" and 1984

One of my earliest posts on this blog was about Craig Murray and how he was using his blog to get out into the open ideas and information uncomfortable to the British Government. Well, he's at it again, dealing with issues that the mainstream media once again seems strangely loth to discuss.

This time, he's offering a rather different interpretation of the alleged UK plot to blow up planes. The basic idea is simple: that the revelation of this plot took place when it did because it was politically expedient to do so, not because of any inner necessity based on the state of the preparations. As well as the obviously convenient disappearance of the war in Lebanon from the front pages for a while, it also provided ammunition for Dick Cheney in his attacks on a particular strand of thought in the Democratic Party (read the post for the details).

More generally, the dramatic "thwarting" of the alleged plot provides yet another "justification" for draconian security measures, on the basis that it is better to lose a bit of liberty than all of your life. But of course, this convenient equation only works if the perceived threat is great enough, which requires, in its turn, a steady supply of reminders about the potential horrors of terrorism (which are real enough). The fact that few alleged terrorists have actually been convicted, even among the people that have been arrested, suggests that things are not what they seem.

Similarly, the strange "error" of releasing the names of most of the people held in the current "emergency" - which means that there is no hope whatsoever of convicting them, given UK laws - can be seen as a convenient way to have your terrorist cake and eat it: in a blaze of publicity you get to arrest people that are later quietly released because of some terrible "blunder" by some Bank of England functionary.

The only difference between this situation and the one painted by George Orwell in 1984 is that, today, squaring up to Big Brother we have the Big Blogosphere.

Danger: Blogger in Beta at Work

On Monday, Google finally came out with a beta version of its Blogger upgrade. God knows it's needed it: Blogger has fallen further and further behind its rivals, which is pretty extraordinary when you consider Google's lead in other fields.

The good news is that I will at last be able to add tags easily. The bad news is that there may be some strange sights as I explore new options and generally fiddle-faddle around. Your patience is appreciated.

Blogging with Style

Well, more blogging in the style of the Telegraph: this is their blogging guide, which they've kindly made available. And well worth reading too: you can't have too many of these, since they represent a kind of group wisdom as help and hints get passed around. (via Open (finds, minds conversations).)

Sign of the Times

When Microsoft adds full blogging capability to Word 2007, you know it's (a) really time to start blogging if you haven't already or (b) time to stop if you have.

Actually, this is rather a clever idea; kudos to Microsoft for thinking of it. Pity I stopped using Word after version 2 - OpenOffice.org: are we listening? (Via Ars Technica).

The First Blogger - and His Chaos

Wandering around the Net (as one does) I came across this: certainly one of the least-attractive sites that I've seen in a long time. But as soon as I noticed that familiar face in the top left-hand corner, I knew where I was: back in Chaos Manor.

Now, for younger readers, those two words might not mean much, but for anyone privileged enough to have lived through the early years of the microcomputing revolution, as chronicled in Byte magazine (now a rather anonymous Web site), they call forth a strange kind of appalled awe.

For Pournelle's columns - which still seem to exist in cyber-versions if you are a subscriber - consisted of the most mind-numbingly precise descriptions of his struggles to install software or add an upgrade board to one of his computers, all of which were endowed with names like "Anastasia" and "Alex".

Along the way he'd invariably drop in references to what he was doing while conducting this epic struggle, the latest goings-on in space exploration (one of his enthusiasms) plus the science-fiction book he was writing at the time (he always seemed to be writing new ones each month - impressive).

The net effect was that his articles ran to pages and pages of utterly irrelevant - but compulsively fascinating - detail about his daily and working life. I half-dreaded and half-longed for the monthly delivery of Byte, since I knew that I would soon be swept away on this irresistible and unstoppable torrent of high-tech logorrhea.

Visiting the site, I noticed the line "The Original Blog", linked to the following text:

I can make some claim to this being The Original Blog and Daybook. I certainly started keeping a day book well before most, and long before the term "blog" or Web Log was invented. BIX, the Byte exchange, preceeded the Web by a lot, and I also had a daily journal on GE Genie.

And in a flash, I realised why I had been mesmerised by but ambivalent about Pournelle's outpourings all those years ago. They did indeed form a proto-blog, with all the blog's virtues - a captivating first-person voice weaving a story over time - and all of its vices - a level of information way beyond what any sane person should really want to know, given the subject-matter.

Pournelle is right: he probably was the first blogger, but working on pre-Internet time - one posting a month, not one a day. However, it is hard to tell whether what we now know as blogs took off all those years later because of his pioneering example - or in spite of it.