Andrew Lark

Welcome Deb To THe Blogosphere...

Oh my god... Deb! Good timing. Would have been bad to mix this one up with the launch of Huffington's Bloid. Congrats. Let's issue new postage stamps!

The SNAFUs Continue...

Newsweek reported false, unsubstantiated rumors as fact. They falsely reported that U.S. interragators in Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran by flushing it down the toilet, sparking riots across the globe. They took their time in correcting this massive error and buried it when it was time to face the rioters. This pretty much says it all...

Newsweek may have admitted Sunday that its sloppy reporting, about how a U.S. soldier at Guantanamo Bay flushed a Koran down a toilet, led to riots in Afghanistan which killed at least 15 people, but they hardly made their concession prominent in the May 23 edition of the magazine, especially online where, on the magazine's home page, you'd have to guess that this headline, "The Islamic World: How a Fire Broke Out," had something to do with a retraction. And to read Editor Mark Whitaker's message, you'd have to know to click on "Letters and Live Talk" in a left side column, then, under "More," choose "The Editors' Desk." And even then, whether online or in the hard copy, Whitaker didn't approach an apology until the last sentence of his last paragraph: "We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst."

Here's the story on "How A Fire Broke Out". And here's Newsweek's somewhat pathetic response. Shame on you!

ROD Strikes Again

Replacement Obsessiveness Disorder (ROD) struck again today. There seems to be a continuing base need for blogs to replace something - and for us to be subjected to news based on replacement theories. And so we have today the stunning news that... are you ready for it... Blogs haven't displaced media. What, they needed a study to figure that out?

Then we have: "The study dispels the notion that blogs are replacing traditional media as the public's primary source of information, said Michael Cornfield, a senior research consultant at Pew." So, let me get this straight - you form a ludicrous notion, prove it with some "interesting" research and bingo, you've got news that warrants reporting. Spare me.

And this. "Bloggers follow buzz as much as they make it," said Cornfield. "Our research uncovered a complicated dynamic in which a hot topic of conversation could originate with the blogs or it could originate with the media or it could originate with the campaigns." Ok - so anything could originate anywhere. That is complicated? (And why couldn't the use of "blogs" in either of these remarks be replaced by "media".)

Did this study actually reveal anything that merits reporting or is it simply fuel for a defensive and skeptical media machine on what must have been a slow news day?

Oh, then we have:   The study also found bloggers act as guides for the mainstream media to the rest of the Internet ... Echoing that finding, a University of Connecticut poll released on Monday showed eight in 10 journalists read blogs.

So blogs aren't influential then - or only in influencing he influencers? This would seem to counter the prior comments in the report.

Blogs are part of a new Cascade of Influence - they influence dialog and set the agenda. And the sphere of influence is just getting started. "The Report" would appear to give no credence to the power of the Blogosphere as an echo chamber of sorts in which media comment is amplified and dissected - and the power of that dialog to influence communities of interest. Or, as said well at Pennie Wallie...

The blogs are clearly a product of “emergent behavior”. When a non-trivial number of people start posting and cross posting stories on the Internet, the phenomena that arises is infinitely more than the sum of the individual components. As the number of participants in the blogs increases, the resulting phenomena assumes properties that were not forseen. The blogs are a self-correcting, multi-tasking, multi-threaded, massively multi-participant, online, real-time application...

What really gets me though is the notion that one form of media must die for another to rise - it is flawed and tiresome. First, it assumes that's what we want and that's why blogs are important. Wrong on both counts. Second, it assumes that's what happens. It doesn't. TV didn't kill Radio. Radio didn't kill newspapers. Each technology inflection point drove a new form of communication. We're simply at that point. Can't we revel in the richness of this rather that engaging in another day of ROD?

Dan has an interesting perspective on this.

News Blinks & Pointers: May 16, AM '05

• Work Creep... this is so sad... Get a life people!
• Yawn... Explorer to get tabs... ooooooo... now thats innovation!
• New BBC Blog Column... "Many critics claim that blogs have nothing to say and are pure self-indulgence. This new column, Weblog Watch, will be keeping an eye on the blogs and seeing if the criticism is justified."
• If you don't understand what Creative Commons is, watch this...
• Lots of cool photos...
• And, Stamps.Com are back open for business...

And Now For Some Good News...

Bring on the direct shipments of wine from anywhere to everywhere...

''States have broad power to regulate liquor,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. ''This power, however, does not allow states to ban, or severely limit, the direct shipment of out-of-state wine while simultaneously authorizing direct shipment by in-state producers.''

''If a state chooses to allow direct shipments of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms,'' he wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

.. The decision puts in doubt laws in 24 states that ban out-of-state shipments, although the opinion suggests the laws will be upheld so long as in-state and out-of-state wineries are treated equally.

The Washington-based Institute for Justice says the 24 states that ban direct shipments from out-of-state wineries are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont.

IBM Blogs

IBM released it's anticipated Blog policy today - created as a team effort using a Wiki - by bloggers, for bloggers.

Dan's Bayosphere...

Dan's launched what will probably be the first of many ventures with a "call to arms"...

"Let's build a space where people can find news and opinion they can trust, and information that helps us in our daily lives."

It's a small nit (like very small) but it annoys the crap out of me when people put the RSS feed/XML button at the bottom of pages. Stick it up front so us lazy buggers can drag and drop while reading the post that bought us to your site...

International Blogging Machines...

Tom reports on IBM's plans to launch a major blog initative next week.

One of the key things I advise companies to consider as they look at blogging is how their company's behavioral norms will manifest themselves in the blogosphere. Both in how they engage in dialogue and drive it. IBM has an incredibly deep technology bench so it will be very interesting to see what topics the dialogue is centered on and the tone that develops.

GMSV Becomes A Blog...

One of my fave sites becomes a blog...

I've Always Wondered What Gabby Dog Was On About...

Now I can know.... A dog translation service over the phone...