Madeleva, Meridian, and The Blog from the Core

The World Wide Web sure does establish some unexpected connections.

Lege.

Confer.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 12/28/04 08:34:11 AM
Categorized as WorldWideWeb Stuff.

A Couple of Looks at Blogging

First, an article by blogger Ed Driscoll at TCS, yesterday (embedded ellipsis in original):

For those of us Webloggers who track the media the way that sports fans follow the NFL, 2004 will be remembered as the year the mask not only slipped, it completely came off the mainstream media. Newspapers and television networks were happy — almost gleeful — to toss their previously vaunted claims of objectivity into the dumpster, to help defeat a president that, almost to a man, they despised.

Fortunately, the Blogosphere was there fight to back. Coming of age on and immediately after 9/11, there were numerous bloggers who watched with a combination of horror and glee at what we saw happening to the media in 2004.

It was horrific because most bloggers actually want to see a well-functioning press: one that reports the news fairly, and offers a wide range of opinions. And ideally, doesn't mix reporting and editorializing in the same story.

On the other hand, we were gleeful, at having so many stories to debunk and so much context to fill-in.

So… from the home office in San Jose, California, allow me to present, via my 1972 IBM Selectric and my jammies, the top ten events that ricocheted through the Blogosphere in 2004. They're presented in order of importance, not chronologically; no doubt, you'd assemble a very different list; but I trust you'll agree with at least some of these choices....

Also, this article at Fortune, yesterday, about the Blogosphere and the Business World:

.... Blogs are challenging the media and changing how people in advertising, marketing, and public relations do their jobs. A few companies like Microsoft are finding ways to work with the blogging world — even as they're getting hammered by it. So far, most others are simply ignoring it.

That will get harder: According to blog search-engine and measurement firm Technorati, 23,000 new weblogs are created every day — or about one every three seconds. Each blog adds to an inescapable trend fueled by the Internet: the democratization of power and opinion. Blogs are just the latest tool that makes it harder for corporations and other institutions to control and dictate their message. An amateur media is springing up, and the smart are adapting. Says Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman Public Relations: "Now you've got to pitch the bloggers too. You can't just pitch to conventional media."

Of course, it's difficult to take the phenomenon seriously when most blogs involve kids talking about their dates, people posting pictures of their cats, or lefties raging about the right (and vice versa). But whatever the topic, the discussion of business isn't usually too far behind: from bad experiences with a product to good customer service somewhere else. Suddenly everyone's a publisher and everyone's a critic. Says Jeff Jarvis, author of the blog BuzzMachine, and president and creative director of newspaper publisher Advance Publications' Internet division: "There should be someone at every company whose job is to put into Google and blog search engines the name of the company or the brand, followed by the word 'sucks,' just to see what customers are saying."

It all used to be so easy; the adage went "never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel." But now everyone can get ink for free, launch a diatribe, and — if what they have to say is interesting to enough people — expect web-enabled word of mouth to carry it around the world. Unlike earlier promises of self-publishing revolutions, the blog movement seems to be the real thing. A big reason for that is a tiny innovation called the permalink: a unique web address for each posting on every blog. Instead of linking to web pages, which can change, bloggers link to one another's posts, which typically remain accessible indefinitely. This style of linking also gives blogs a viral quality, so a pertinent post can gain broad attention amazingly fast — and reputations can get taken down just as quickly....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 12/28/04 08:20:19 AM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.

Catholic Carnival X

At Living Catholicism this week.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 12/28/04 08:00:17 AM
Categorized as Catholic Carnival & Religious.