“The whole “do not be evil” thing, and sort of a democratic approach to how information should be distributed and available for us. We’re all about giving anyone a voice, and Google’s all about finding out what’s important on the Web by what people link to and what people say.”
— Evan Williams (C|Net’s News.com)
Kerry Sipe, online news coordinator for The Virginian-Pilot is using wireless technology to file minute-by-minute Weblog updates on court proceedings in the trial of John Allen Muhammad (DC sniper). Something no other reporter in no other medium is doing because cameras are not allowed in the courtroom.
I haven’t seen Jackie Cash in thirty (thirty-five?) years. She was a year behind me in high school and I had a bit of a crush on her. She found her way to a couple of my websites last week:
“…we watched her nephews Everett and Matthew sing about Rudy and then she read every word about KBOA the early days. She really enjoyed it. You have a 20 minute interview with Paul about the radio and it was neat for them to hear his voice and share it with Robin’s children who never knew Mr. Jones. I just thought you’d like to know how you’re reaching people.”
This is, for me, the reason we spend countless hours constructing these websites. In hopes that somebody will find them and find them interesting. (Why has the “letter-in-a-bottle” analogy never occurred to me before?)
As I read Jackie’s email, the image I had of her was the high school girl I knew. And then I realized that she is now in her early fifties and –probably– older than her mother was when we were in high school. I confess to a strange sense of loss that’s hard to explain. My youth, perhaps.
“There are no secrets, only information you don’t have yet.” A great tag. Adam Curry’s blog.
Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader and South Dakota Democrat, “will post a daily diary on his official Web site as he drives around the state next month during Congress’ annual August recess, he said Wednesday. The diary is modeled on the growing phenomenon of the online journals known as Weblogs, or blogs for short.” More on the Argus Leader website. [via Steve Outing]
I’d forgotten how much I like (and agree with) John C. Dvorak. He was one of the headliners at Gnomedex and poked some good natured fun at “the Blogging phenomenon.” (Note to self: Try to have something useful or interesting to say). Dan Gillmor was on the opposite end of the spectrum regarding the importance of blogs and gave some powerful examples.
From an article by Hiawatha Bray in the Business Section (The Boston Globe) on the Weblogs Business Strategy conference last week:
“Consider: Every business needs to know what its employees know. Companies are crammed with experts on various topics whose knowledge goes to waste — because nobody knows what they know. Now give these workers an internal corporate blog, and encourage them to use it. Let them natter away on every topic that intrigues them. Harvest and index the results. You’ve mapped your workers’ brains. The company’s hidden experts will cheerfully reveal themselves, and the firm’s institutional memory gets an upgrade.” [By way of JOHO]
I have no idea if this is the real deal. But if it is, well, it’s kind of amazing. Or maybe not. If it IS legit –and at least one person has done some research– it’s just such a good example of blogging.
“…half an hour ago the oil filled trenches were put on fire. First watching Al-jazeera they said that these were the places that got hit by bombs from an air raid a few miniutes earlier bit when I went up to the roof to take a look I saw that there were too many of them, we heard only three explosions. I took pictures of the nearest. My cousine came and told me he saw police cars standing by one and setting it on fire. Now you can see the columns of smoke all over the city.”
Assume for the sake of discussion this what it appears to be. No governments. No big news organizations. Just some guy in a city under attack, publishing his thoughts, feelings, whatever… to the entire world. The Internet has changed/is changing the world and blogging is an important part of that change.
“And everything I ever learned about writing didn’t matter anymore. Everything I ever thought about writing went out the window as the breeze blew through my hair and the words poured out of me. I didn’t have to take writing seriously. I didn’t have to take words seriously. I didn’t have to sound like anyone else. I didn’t have to sound like The New Yorker — which weirdly, I sometimes sound like a little by NOT TRYING TO SOUND LIKE IT. So it showed me that I had a lot of hang-ups about writing and it showed me how to get over them fast. It showed me how to sound like myself. It gave me back my voice, which surprised people and surprised no one as much as it surprised me. Blogging was a place I could go and be me, completely, totally, unapologetically me. And if people didn’t like it, screw ’em. And I could write the hell out of the screen and if it blew up and disappeared, it didn’t matter anyway, because I could always come back and try something else again later. So despite all my inclinations towards bottles of ink and pads of paper, I started to blog and blog and blog and blog and there was no stopping me.”
William Gibson has a blog. I’d like to know if having a website (and blog) was something his publisher pushed or if he was enthusiastic about the idea. One interesting (and discouraging) item from his bio:
“I suspect I have spent just about exactly as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television, and that, as much as anything, may be the real secret here.”