Atlanta Media Bloggers

Let's have a virtual meeting this month!

Hey y'all!

Yeah, it's been cooooollld out, and rainy enough to curl your hair. And yeah, a whole bunch of us have conflicts up the wazoo, preventing us from making a goodly quorum for our monthly mind meld.

And yeeeaaah, SOME of us got to go on a cool road trip, and they need to be telling the rest of us who didn't go some wacky stories, amazing anecdotes, and tortured theories about Web 2.0 and unConferences (what the hell is an unConference, anyway? I'm asking this on behalf of the peanut gallery. There are no stupid questions around here).

The topic for our meeting, if we had been able to hold it, was going to be Online Communities, and the intangible something that makes them hold together, that gives them power, that structures cyberspace perhaps more strongly than in some of our real lives.

What is it? One friend once told me that online communities were fake, no more real than the people who gather at around the piano in the lounge at an airport bar. He said there's nothing that really ties the people together, no strong ties, no obligations. People come, and they go.

And some of us actually like communities that have that kind of freedom, the freedom from guilt and obligation, the knowledge that the people who are present are there because they want to be, not because anyone is making them. That was one of the beautiful things I discovered in my online ethnography of the very strong communities of the Xenaverse, the fandom groups centered around the TV show "Xena: Warrior Princess."

I think of it like gravity, the so-called "strength of weak ties." Of all the forces in physics (electromagnetic, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force), gravity appears to be the weakest, the easiest to overcome (don't believe me? Jump!). But gravity is like a prevailing wind. You can stand against it, but it ends up shaping everything (even the shape of the cellulite in our legs!). Gravity holds entire solar systems in orbit, and more. I think the weakest force field can actually be the strongest.

Businesses look at the blogosphere and social media as an opportunity, but often they see it as a top-down opportunity for them, rather than a chance to harness real bottom-up grassroots force.

But is that a real force? Or is it like herding cats?

Or maybe the mindset is all wrong. Maybe its wrong to even think that cats should be herded in the first place.

Soooo, what are we doing here? Do you want to be here? Are you obligated to be here? Do you get something of value out of being here? Is this a cool community to be a part of?

If so, I hope some more of you will chime in in this space. It's been a while since I sent out invitations on how to use this site, but I am happy to resend any invitations that got lost or misplaced. Just zap me a note.

If you have a blog or blogs, a good blog promotion strategy is to get hooked in with an existing community, so that people start reading your blog, and folks comment back and forth on each others' blogs, and we can spread some link love around.

I SURE WOULD LIKE TO BE SPREADING SOME MORE LINK LOVE AROUND!

So if you've got a blog, post up a little introduction to it here on this site, with your link. Tell us why we should peek in, check your blog out. Maybe you're feeling shy, just getting your blog legs. We'll hold your hand. That's what link love is all about.

We're Atlanta Media Bloggers. We're into blogs. We have blogs. OK, all together now:

Send us your links, your huddled URLs longing to breathe free...

Ahhh. Isn't that better?

Let the virtual meeting commence.

All in flavor? Up hosed?

respectfully submitted,

Chris Boese

"10 Commandments of Web 2.0" cracks me up...

Found it on the AU Blog, and wanted to point up my favorite bits.

Link: The 10 Commandments of Web 2.0.

The 10 Commandments of Web 2.0

1. I am the Lord thy Google, which have brought thee out of the land of Web 1.0, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other search engines before me.

[...]

2. Thou shalt not take the name of Apple in vain.

The music of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the RIAA and the tyranny of MSN. Blessed is he, who in the name of iTunes and 99 cents, shepherds the weak through the valley of “The Darkness,” for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of “Lost” children. And I will Digg down thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my Macbook. And you will know my name is Steve Jobs when I lay my DRM vengeance upon thee.

3. Thou shalt not make copies of any Flickr image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth without first checking the creative commons license. Thou shalt not download it thyself and serve them from your server.

[...]

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Get the hell out of the house Sunday. Seriously. The world will not end if you don’t blog for 1 day out of the week. Go take a walk in the park or streak a football game. It will give you something to blog about on Monday.

5. Honor thy fathr and thy mothr: thy website names may not be long.

[...]

6. Thou shalt not kill your comments.

Only Seth Godin and Satan have blogs without comments. If you’re going to have a blog, let people interact with it.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery (if you have an AOL account.)

The AOL data leak showed us all the dangers of search histories and large companies releasing large amount of semi-personally identifiable information. If you’re going to get some cookie, delete your cookies. And if you can, cancel your AOL account.

[...]

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against Wikipedia.

I’m looking at you Steven Colbert. We can’t have just anyone modifying the sum of all human knowledge at will. Not unless we live in Washington and/or our last names start with O’Reilly.

10. Thou shalt not bookmark thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not bookmark thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.

It’s called tagging now and you should covet it like crazy. And you must put it in a cloud – it’s most angelic.

[...]

Arianna Huffington is keynote speaker at the Decatur Book Festival tonight!

Link: The AJC Decatur Book Festival | Event Schedule.

Sorry for the last minute notice. I'm not too organized these days.

It's at Agnes Scott College, Presser Hall, 8-9 pm.

I've always wanted an excuse to poke around the Agnes Scott campus. It's so beautiful.

Anybody feel like going? I plan to be there. While she isn't directly scheduled to talk about Huffington Post (slated to talk about her book on work/life balance), I expect she'll get some questions about the Post during the Q&A session, if there is one.

I'm a fan of what she's done with the Post, both in its navigation and architecture, and its sense of being a "stable" of a wide range of well-known people. She's given them a forum to blog and unleashed a powerful and now influential collective voice on the blogosphere and beyond.

In particular, I hope to ask her for more information about how she set up her deal with Yahoo! News, both to repurpose content from her site, but also getting primo structural representation in the opinion section of the Yahoo! News page. Did she make the deal the way it has usually been done with newspaper syndicated columnists? Or was there more of a trade or exchange aspect involved? Did she approach Yahoo! News, or did Yahoo! News approach her? I'm just really curious about the business model of the arrangement. Inquiring minds want to know!

Keynote Address

The AJC DBF is proud to announce political columnist Arianna Huffington as its keynote speaker! Join Ms. Huffington as she opens the festival Friday night at Presser Hall at Agnes Scott College with a discussion of her new  book, On Becoming Fearless… In Love, Work, and Life.  

View Arianna  Huffington’s bio.

There's a ton of other events at the conference, plus a festival atmosphere with a book market on the Decatur Square, a barbecue and fireworks among the many things scheduled.

Activities In-Depth:

• Antiquarian Book Fair
• Barbeque and Fireworks
• Children's Activities
• Cooking Authors and Demonstrations
• Food, Beer, and Wine
• Keynote Address    
• Live Music and Poetry
• Panel Discussions and Book Signings
• Writer's Conference
• DBF Stages
• Event Schedule

That grid schedule is just a BEAR to read tho. Wish they'd redesign it. Here's some other events that pertain to blogging:

PANELS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

E-Storytelling: In which we discuss the new form of writing commonly referred to as online fiction, from short stories to comedy pieces to email-text-and-Instant-Message-as-storytelling device. 10 a.m.

• John Warner, editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
• Jack Pendarvis, author of The Mysterious Secret of Valuable Treasure, Pushcart Prize winner
• Jamie Allen, editor of The Duck & Herring Co.

Real Writers Blog: In which we discuss whether today's writers need a web site, a blog, a podcast, and/or a MySpace account.  1 p.m.

• Laurel Snyder, poet and NPR contributor
• Tayari Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling
• Touré, contributing editor with Rolling Stone
• Amy Guth, author of Three Fallen Women

I'm also interested in this session by The Atlantic Monthly fiction editor. Gotten a few rejection letters from him over the years! But I think I need special (free) registration, and I haven't heard back yet.

Magazine Fiction: In which Atlantic fiction editor C. Michael Curtis discusses the realities of rejection, cover letters, and other literary matters. 5 p.m.

• C. Michael Curtis, Atlantic Monthly, author of Faith: Stories and God: Stories.

I think you need special registration for this one too, but I know there are comedy writers in this group, so I thought I'd pass it on:

WORKSHOPS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

That's Not Funny: A Definitive Guide to Written Hilarity, Wit, and Mirth, By Prof. Rev.  John Warner, Humorologist. 3 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Political bloggers would probably love to be a fly on the wall in the $13 admission brunch with a former editor of The Nation. I dunno if any spaces are still available tho.

And one of the Indigo Girls, Emily Saliers, will also be speaking on a topic with her father.

A delightful parable by Nick Carr

This whole topic has generated much kerfuffle in the blogosphere, but it's the kind of kerfuffle I like, because it forces introspection, forces one to examine unquestioned assumptions about whether online interfaces are as democratizing as the spin often claims, whether there could be political/social biases embedded in deep structure interfaces.

The folks who have roundly spanked Carr for claiming things that they say the open "Home on the Range" of the Internet makes impossible have a point, but still, Carr's humorous parable rings true more often than not, particularly in the opening bit, and the epilogue.

Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The Great Unread.

The Great Unread

Prelude

Once upon a time there was an island named Blogosphere, and at the very center of that island stood a great castle built of stone, and spreading out from that castle for miles in every direction was a vast settlement of peasants who lived in shacks fashioned of tin and cardboard and straw.

Part one:
On the nature of innocent fraud

I've been reading a short book - an essay, really - by John Kenneth Galbraith called The Economics of Innocent Fraud. It's his last work, written while he was in his nineties, not long before he died. In it, he explains how we, as a society, have come to use the term "market economy" in place of the term "capitalism." The new term is a kinder and gentler one, with its implication that economic power lies with consumers rather than with the owners of capital or with the managers who have taken over the work of the owners. It's a fine example, says Galbraith, of innocent fraud.

An innocent fraud is a lie, but it's a lie that's more white than black. It's a lie that makes most everyone happy. It suits the purposes of the powerful because it masks the full extent of their power, and it suits the purposes of the powerless because it masks the full extent of their powerlessness.

What we tell ourselves about the blogosphere - that it's open and democratic and egalitarian, that it stands in contrast and in opposition to the controlled and controlling mass media - is an innocent fraud.

Part two:
The loneliness of the long-tail blogger

The thing about an innocent fraud, though, is that it's not that hard to see through. Often, in fact, you have to make an effort not to see through it, and at some point, for some people, the effort no longer seems worth it. A few days back, the blogger Kent Newsome asked, "Who are the readers of our blogs?" His answer had a melancholy tone:

The number of bloggers competing for attention makes it seem like the blogosphere is a huge, chaotic place. But it only seems that way because we have all ended up in a small room at the end of the hall. When people refuse to converse with me or go out of their way to link around me, it hurts a little. Until I remember that while they aren't listening to me, no one in the real world is listening to them either ...

[...]

The best way, by far, to get a link from an A List blogger is to provide a link to the A List blogger. As the blogophere has become more rigidly hierarchical, not by design but as a natural consequence of hyperlinking patterns, filtering algorithms, aggregation engines, and subscription and syndication technologies, not to mention human nature, it has turned into a grand system of patronage operated - with the best of intentions, mind you - by a tiny, self-perpetuating elite. A blog-peasant, one of the Great Unread, comes to the wall of the castle to offer a tribute to a royal, and the royal drops a couple of coins of attention into the peasant's little purse. The peasant is happy, and the royal's hold over his position in the castle is a little bit stronger.

[...]

Epilogue

One day, a blog-peasant boy found buried in the dust beside his shack a sphere of flawless crystal. When he looked into the ball he was astounded see a moving picture. It was an image of a fleet of merchant ships sailing into the harbor of the island of Blogosphere. The ships bore names that had long been hated throughout the island, names like Time-Warner and News Corp and Pearson and New York Times and Wall Street Journal and Conde Nast and McGraw-Hill. The blog-peasants gathered along the shore, jeering at the ships and telling the invaders that they would soon be vanquished by the brave royals in the great castle. But when the captains of the merchant ships made their way to the gates of the castle, bearing crates of gold, they were not repelled by the royals with cannons but rather welcomed with fanfares. And all through the night the blog-peasants could hear the sounds of a great feast inside the castle walls.

   

What's been going on with me...

Hey y'all,

I been kinda quiet this week, because something both awful and tremendous has been happening to me, and it has to do with blogging, so I decided I should share it with you folks here.

I just launched a new blog Tuesday night, into Wednesday 3 A.M., and within its first 24 hours of existence, it got more than 1,800 hits, from all over the world, starting in Australia and New Zealand, within hours of the site going live. (2,500+ hits in 48 hours)

I'm still pretty new to this group, so you probably haven't gotten a good bead on my hobby horses yet, but a REAL big one for me is studying online cybercultures and communities, and working out ways to understand how online communities work.

This makes me somewhat of a hardass when it comes to certain marketing assumptions about passive audiences, because I insist on user-centered design, and also user-co-constructed design, or ideally, entire cultures or communities collaboratively authoring their own virtual landscapes, grassroots, bottom up.

You can see why the recent attempts to commodify and commercialize the blogosphere tend to give me the heebie jeebies. These appear to me to be overt attempts to co-opt true bottom-up communities with subtle market forces, to sell soap instead of making communities the true center of interactions.

I didn't study the force and empowerment of real online communities just to be able to better think up ways to co-opt them. Working in new media causes me all kinds of moral dilemmas when the prevailing winds favor commercial forces over community, content, and communications.

Sometimes I feel like these things are another variation of an experiment Ragu did during the 1990s with "Mama's Kitchen," trying to coalesce an online community around talking about all things Ragu, all the time. I mean, there's only so many spaghetti recipes you can share, you know? And the commercial agenda was just so overt.

That's why, when I went to do my dissertation research into cybercultures and communities, and how interfaces shape and are shaped by communities, it was important to me to find something REAL, vital, something amazing. And I did. It was pure luck. That's all it was, pure luck. I stumbled upon the most amazing dissertation topic in the world.

So like Margaret Mead, I did a cyber-ethnography as a participant-observer over a two-year period in that particular online community. I captured texts, charted online personas, analyzed chat room interactions, studied flame wars on bulletin boards, listservs, diagrammed web sites, and collected the creative and communicative output of a community that was tightly-knit, more and more empowered to greater social action and activism, AND a community that both competed with and interacted with the mass media providers which gave the community its center and reason for authoring its own virtual landscape.

I entered the community, became immersed in it, and along the way, it also changed me. I made life-long friends. That was important, because the point of ethnography is to become an insider, and to establish reciprocity with the groups you interact with, so that you are not only TAKING from them, but that you also give something back, so the relationship is balanced, and not colonizing.

Many of you know by now, the community I studied was the Xenaverse, the online fans of the show "Xena: Warrior Princess." This was actually a precursor of the academic "Buffy" studies that came later (heh, I did it first, but I also owe my work to the face-to-face Star Trek community researchers who went before me). I started my formal data-gathering in early 1996, and completed the dissertation in 1998.

The terrible, terrible thing that happened was over last weekend, but I didn't find out until late Monday night, after getting home from the Steely Dan/Michael McDonald concert at Chastain.

A dear friend of mine from the Xenaverse, an active, important, dynamic member of this community and a person I've known both online and in person for more than ten years took her own life in a small trailer in Haines, Alaska, a little town where she was the doctor and director of the small medical clinic, living the dream she'd had for as long as I'd known her.

I'd known her in New York; I'd known her in California when she was going to medical school, and I'd watched her take Xena as her model for living and insist on taking her medical training to the Alaska Bush, a place she'd dreamt of for years, to try to make a difference.

What happened to lead to this tragic event is a long story that I won't go into here. The truth is, an online discussion group I manage had just gotten one of her normal emails on July 31, and there was no sign anything was remiss, although we did know she was going through a tough time, health-wise.

By the time I got off work Tuesday, I knew I had to do a memorial blog site for my friend, and I finished at 3 A.M. (I don't know if you're familiar with the genre, but I've done two others in 2003, one for my uncle, because I couldn't make it to his funeral, and one for a dear professor who passed away a month later--you can see that one here).

In some ways, I built the site as much for me as for the community that had given me so much. It was a way to deal with my grief, to honor and give expression to all the different aspects of her life, and to give the virtual communities which were so much a part of her life a place, a focal point to express their feelings as well.

My heart is still so full at the incredible response to this site, and people are still subscribing, still leaving guestbook entries. Someone contacted me about the memorial service in Haines on Sunday, wondering if I could in some way host an open chat space for a virtual memorial service at the same time, maybe in Second Life, something we had done in the Xena Palace back in the day, when "Xena" was still on the air. It was an amazing thing I documented in my dissertation, online funerals and weddings, other parties.

But this is 10 years later. Theorists write about the "strength of weak ties," but what I'm finding right now is that these ties are not weak at all, were never weak. I saw it in the way the news swept around the globe, swept across cyberspace, within hours, within days.

This is something corporate interests can never duplicate, bottle, or harness. That is the sheer beauty of it. It is something true, real, and moving. It is dynamic, empowering, and bottom-up.

I made this blog because my friend will never have a gravestone, and because she has no other family but us, so this site is her gravestone in cyberspace, a place where her people, her tribe, can find her, can remember her and tell tales of her great deeds like they were stories told around the campfire, to be passed on.

I did not create the site. I just gave it a platform, and like any memorial service, the people who come to speak about the person we've lost are authoring the space into existence with the shape of their words, their feelings, their memories.

I know I'm getting sentimental here, but I'm just in awe of what is happening, and I have no one else outside of that group to tell about it, to share the story with.

Chris

Another voice heard from on BlogHer...

From a person I haven't heard from in the blogosphere in a while, Burningbird (Shelley Powers). I've missed her perspective and am happy to have it back.

While it may be controversial, I couldn't resist pulling a few bits out, for discussion or whatever. I wasn't at the conference, so I can't say one way or the other about things that only eyewitnesses know.

This is sort of hard to excerpt, so if you're into this, I really recommend reading the original and popping off to all the different links in it.

Chris

Link: The Bb Gun | Blog Archive | Measuring Success.

Measuring Success

August 1st, 2006

Before I started the new weblog(s), I told a friend that I was going to avoid saying anything even remotely critical about BlogHer. It does no good to do so, I told him.

I’m sure he knew that I could not follow this vow. I don’t know if being critical of Blogher will do any ‘good’ or not. I do know that fighting for women to be heard–inside blogging or not– has been a part of me for too many years to see it co-opted into a new business model; or used as an excuse to disregard women (even the flirty, sexy, beautiful ones) the other 360 ought days when BlogHer is not running.

I wanted to point you to Jeneane and Stowe Boyd’s response to Dave Winer’s Blogher recap. I particularly want to empathize Boyd’s reaction to the conference, which I found honest and direct.  Tara Hunt also came out with a post related to some of the ‘bloghim’ responses. In addition, she provided her reasons why Blogger is not for her–most of which parallel other’s thoughts.

I’d already mentioned my concerns about the marketing aspects of BlogHer. These were, in a way, enforced by Lisa Stone’s only mention of the conference at the BlogHer site. In it she discusses the ’success’ of the women in the keynote panel of the conference; their success, and how, it would seem, the new BlogHer measures such:

If success is the best revenge, revenge must be sweet indeed for this quartet. For today, each of these women todays enjoys kudos from their readers/users (even critics), while at the same time being able to point to cold, hard facts such as Web traffic and revenue that demonstrate their ideas were worth pursuing.

Is that the true mark of a good idea within weblogging? Web traffic and revenue? Not writing or worth of the thought or the person…web traffic and revenue?

Women make up 50% of weblogging. That used to be a rallying cry, demanding that we be heard. Now it’s been reduced to facts and figures to place in front of the likes of Johnson & Johnson, GM, or some condom maker. This is influencing, heavily, the direction BlogHer seems to be taking.

Barbara Ganley wrote on some of this, in reference to the fact that DOPA passed–a law that has dangerous implications to the freedom of the Net in our country. Not a word was mentioned at BlogHer:

[great quotation snipped]

If DOPA did not generate interest, where was the emphasis at BlogHer? From what many of the attendees stated: Mommyblogging.

[...]

If we, women and men both, follow a path where the only measure of success is the number of ads at our site, the links we have, the money we make, then the only power we’re exercising is that of consumer–catered to, perhaps; but essentially meaningless.

Melinda Casino, who is both a contributing editor and was a panel presenter at BlogHer, wrote a long and thoughtful response about her impressions of Blogher tonight. It was titled, appropriately enough, Goodby Grassroots BlogHer. In it she lists out her disappointments of the conference, including the marketing and, ironically, the lack of diversity.

[...]

I read in the liveblogging of the session on sex how the representative of the company that supplied the condoms for the goodie bag participated in the discussion. From this, I gather we can rest assured that the constuction of their condoms is of the highest quality.

I will freely admit that it is Melinda’s post that spurred me to write this one last post on BlogHer. When she mentioned this event, it reminded of all the concerns that have been expressed the last few years about the growing ’selling’ of weblogging–that one day we would be sitting there, in pleasant expectation of a conversation, only to be given a sales pitch. When the lines start blurring, we don’t know what’s real anymore. That will kill this environment faster than any law like DOPA.

[...]

I also wish, and I mean it, much success for the organization. I have no illusions that I will change anyone’s viewpoint with this writing. Perhaps the emphasis on women’s purchasing power can, this time, be used as a weapon for social change. In this, I hope they succeed.

I’m going a different path, though. One that doesn’t measure success based on ads, links, and revenue. And I’m not going to look back.

Will Digg for money

Netscape boss Jason Calacanis is showing the money to the top users on Digg, Delicious, Flickr, MySpace, and Reddit for $1000.00 per month. Check out this lil' snippet from his blog...

..snip-snip..

Before launching the new Netscape I realized that Reddit, NewsVine, Delicious, and DIGG were all driven by a small number of highly-active users. I wrote a blog post about what drives these folks to do an hour to three hours a day of work for these sites which are not paying them for their time. In other words, they are volunteering their services. The response most of these folks gave back to me were that they enjoyed sharing the links they found and that they got satisfaction out of being an "expert" or "leader" in their communities.

Excellent... excellent (say that in a Darth Vadar/Darth Calacanis voice for extra impact).

That is exactly what bloggers told Brian and I three years ago when we started. Given that, I have an offer to the top 50 users on any of the major social news/bookmarking sites:

We will pay you $1,000 a month for your "social bookmarking" rights. Put in at least 150 stories a month and we'll give you $12,000 a year. (note: most of these folks put in 250-400 stories a month, so that 150 baseline is just that--a baseline).

Read: Paying the top DIGG/REDDIT/Flickr/Newsvine users (or "$1,000 a month for doing what you're already doing.")

It's The Content, Stupid

Finally! Somebody noticed content... whew. About time. Here's an excerpt from a recent CNN Money/Forbes.com piece about the saga at Rocketboom that points out a few things no one else bothered with. ORIGINAL content, not just cleavage, drove people to the Rocketboom site over and over and over again:

"Little noted in all the coverage however is how innovative Rocketboom has been. It's some of the best video you'll see anywhere - as much video art as news. The audio is fantastic, the writing consistently sharp, and the subject matter surprisingly diverse and entertaining.

"Eccentric, yes, but if you're interested in how crippled wheelchair-bound Kenyans support themselves by selling wireless phone calls, or if you want to see a flock of starlings repeatedly return to a tree in such numbers that they bend it over - this is the site for you. Did you know that online cartoons are becoming a huge phenomenon? Rocketboom will tell you about Diesel Sweeties and Explodingdog.

"Some shows are silly and others are completely serious, like one from June where Congdon interviewed investor and political activist George Soros. The site also articulately and humorously examines issues in contemporary technology. On her last official show, Congdon did a very funny and at the same time explanatory riff on network neutrality.

"In one episode in April, Congdon simply sat silently and looked at the camera for five minutes with a grave facial expression, occasionally moving a piece of paper on the desk. Such is the freedom that pioneers feel in this new medium."

What else could have driven so many eyeballs to the site? They said themselves that they spent not one dime on marketing or promotions and stuff like that. Story in full here:

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/14/magazines/fortune/rocketboom.fortune/