The Nielson Netratings, according to the BBC Online, has placed Blogger as the 10th most influential blog in 2003.
Placed at #1 is Google. Now, if Google could just acquire #2-#9 it could carry the whole Top Ten.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
2004 predictions
I'm sure this won't be the only blog we do picking up on predictions for the blogging world. One interesting prediction is from Wi-Fi Planet which repeats a rumor that Google intends to link it's Blogger software with a Friendster like engine.
The word around the industry is that Google will hook its Blogger software to a Friendster-type network (via an acquisition?) to tap into the ever-more-connected, open-standard-driven computing world.
They also see 2004 as being a "truly-connected world of online journals, Web collaboration and personals networking."
The word around the industry is that Google will hook its Blogger software to a Friendster-type network (via an acquisition?) to tap into the ever-more-connected, open-standard-driven computing world.
They also see 2004 as being a "truly-connected world of online journals, Web collaboration and personals networking."
Monday, December 29, 2003
Advice from veteran bloggers
Here's a new year's resolution for you: follow some advice from nine of the Web's most important blogs.
NetGuideWeb has collected advice from some of the top bloggers that is a must read for new and even for experienced bloggers. Here's a sample:
The beauty of a personal site is that there are no editorial guidelines. If you wake up on Monday you may feel completely different from the way you will on Tuesday, and your posts should reflect this. Eventually you'll find your own voice and a style you're happy with, and if what you write is interesting and/or entertaining, then you'll find an audience organically. You won't have to try to impress.
NetGuideWeb has collected advice from some of the top bloggers that is a must read for new and even for experienced bloggers. Here's a sample:
The beauty of a personal site is that there are no editorial guidelines. If you wake up on Monday you may feel completely different from the way you will on Tuesday, and your posts should reflect this. Eventually you'll find your own voice and a style you're happy with, and if what you write is interesting and/or entertaining, then you'll find an audience organically. You won't have to try to impress.
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Is Paris Hilton Video a legitimate blog?
In choosing the sites for this week's Top Ten BlogSpot hosted sites, what should come up in the number 4 spot but a blog called Paris Hilton Video.
This site has come from nowhere. It wasn't even close to the running before this week, much less #4.
But it does demonstrate again how easy it is to manipulate Google. If you look at the site, the title to nearly every blog has Paris Hilton in it --even where it doesn't make sense to have her name in the title. Now, why would anyone want to use Blogger and BlogSpot to create a blog that has no Google PR and did not exist until December 5? Maybe it has something to do with the links to sites like "Paris Hilton Sex Tape." To create a porn site gateway, all you have to do is pick a heavily used search term and repeat the term in a blog over and over and over. Google eats it up and rates it the fourth highest BlogSpot site in the past seven days. This really calls Google's reliability into question yet again (remember Google bombing?)
We decided to disqualify Paris Hilton Video since it appears to us to be a doorway to porn sites, not a legitimate blog. What do you think? You can vote on whether you think the site should have been included in our weekly Top Ten by going HERE and then to the bottom of the page.
This site has come from nowhere. It wasn't even close to the running before this week, much less #4.
But it does demonstrate again how easy it is to manipulate Google. If you look at the site, the title to nearly every blog has Paris Hilton in it --even where it doesn't make sense to have her name in the title. Now, why would anyone want to use Blogger and BlogSpot to create a blog that has no Google PR and did not exist until December 5? Maybe it has something to do with the links to sites like "Paris Hilton Sex Tape." To create a porn site gateway, all you have to do is pick a heavily used search term and repeat the term in a blog over and over and over. Google eats it up and rates it the fourth highest BlogSpot site in the past seven days. This really calls Google's reliability into question yet again (remember Google bombing?)
We decided to disqualify Paris Hilton Video since it appears to us to be a doorway to porn sites, not a legitimate blog. What do you think? You can vote on whether you think the site should have been included in our weekly Top Ten by going HERE and then to the bottom of the page.
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Buzznet
Here's a new service for photoblogging. Buzznet allows you to upload digital photos to it's "photoblog community." The service is currently free.
What makes the site interesting is the ability to comment on the photos and to create galleries.
Posting can be done by email or from the Buzznet site. The free service limits you to 10 posts per day and 200 per month.
What makes the site interesting is the ability to comment on the photos and to create galleries.
Posting can be done by email or from the Buzznet site. The free service limits you to 10 posts per day and 200 per month.
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Lack of crackpot blogs
There are no end of crackpot sites on the Internet. If you don't think so, take a look at CrankDotNet for a good listing of the far-out (the biggest category is conspiracy). Once you have spent a few days looking at a sampling of crackpot sites, then you can take a look at some of the anti-crackpot sites. A good example is Operation Clambake which is an anti-Scientology site. You have to visit that site just to find out why Scientologists are so afraid of clams (click, click, click).
As John Dvorak points out, there don't seem to be that many crackpot blogs. I hasten to add: yet.
Dvorak notes: "The one odd thing I've noticed, though, is the relative lack of true crackpot blogs (and I don't mean Gnomegirl!). I know they are out there and the useful blogging software should invite true cranks and wackos like nothing before. Where is the abduction blog, for example? Or the time traveler blog?"
A possible exception is the blog-like Meta Tech which reports wacky news in a "for-real" setting --sort of like the National Equirer. If you want to find out if that tired feeling you've been experiencing lately is the result of reptiles mating with you while you sleep, take a quick look.
Speaking of really weird things, have you noticed that the Blogger spelling checker does not include blog, blogging or even blogger? Further, if you tell it to "learn" these words, it refuses? This is what (or reptiles mating with me) keeps me up at night.
As John Dvorak points out, there don't seem to be that many crackpot blogs. I hasten to add: yet.
Dvorak notes: "The one odd thing I've noticed, though, is the relative lack of true crackpot blogs (and I don't mean Gnomegirl!). I know they are out there and the useful blogging software should invite true cranks and wackos like nothing before. Where is the abduction blog, for example? Or the time traveler blog?"
A possible exception is the blog-like Meta Tech which reports wacky news in a "for-real" setting --sort of like the National Equirer. If you want to find out if that tired feeling you've been experiencing lately is the result of reptiles mating with you while you sleep, take a quick look.
Speaking of really weird things, have you noticed that the Blogger spelling checker does not include blog, blogging or even blogger? Further, if you tell it to "learn" these words, it refuses? This is what (or reptiles mating with me) keeps me up at night.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Interesting blog
ihath is a touching blog that really gets to the fundamentals of things that are wrong with the world today. From someone who has lived in the places and experienced the conflicts caused by beliefs that one is not allowed to question, comes passages like this:
"I am not Muslim, not Christian, not Jewish", this I declare today, knowing full well what each word means. Not Sunni, not Shea'a or any other category. I believe that all religions should come with an expiration date. Valid for consumption until, beyond this date this religion will turn into poison if consumed. Since everybody is creating god in his on images anyway, I think that from now on I will create something that I like.
The style of this blog is to create long, comprehensive stories, rather than short journal-like blogs. The title of the blog that contains the quotation above is "How I lost my religion in the Holy Lands."
Not all blogs have literary merit and a true message. This one does. Highly recommended.
"I am not Muslim, not Christian, not Jewish", this I declare today, knowing full well what each word means. Not Sunni, not Shea'a or any other category. I believe that all religions should come with an expiration date. Valid for consumption until, beyond this date this religion will turn into poison if consumed. Since everybody is creating god in his on images anyway, I think that from now on I will create something that I like.
The style of this blog is to create long, comprehensive stories, rather than short journal-like blogs. The title of the blog that contains the quotation above is "How I lost my religion in the Holy Lands."
Not all blogs have literary merit and a true message. This one does. Highly recommended.
Blogs and political campaigns
Politics and the Internet used to be all about static Web Sites. These sites were pretty much nothing more than a political brochure. Then came the bulletin-board type political sites where people could post their opinions on political issues.
Blogs have changed all that. According to Common Dreams NewsCenter:
Every month, 250,000 people in hundreds of cities participate in meetups, local gatherings of political activists of every stripe who find each other online.
The result is a new form of intimacy between campaigns and their far-flung supporters, the creation of virtual political communities powered by people devoted to the candidates.
One of the most important aspects of the political blogs is the interaction between real people. Once this interaction takes place, there tends to be a sense of loyalty to the particular candidate. A real part of this has been meetups:
One of the most tangible results of the new wave of Internet organizing is the explosion of monthly meetups. Participants find each other through Meetup.com, an independent Web site originally designed to help connect the like-minded, whether they be Harry Potter fans or Chihuahua lovers.
The Dean campaign has taken things up a notch. Through "DeanSpace", local campaigns are given server space to create their own local blog pages. The main blog then features links to some of the best local blog postings. A fantastic idea that seems to be working extremely well.
Blogs have changed all that. According to Common Dreams NewsCenter:
Every month, 250,000 people in hundreds of cities participate in meetups, local gatherings of political activists of every stripe who find each other online.
The result is a new form of intimacy between campaigns and their far-flung supporters, the creation of virtual political communities powered by people devoted to the candidates.
One of the most important aspects of the political blogs is the interaction between real people. Once this interaction takes place, there tends to be a sense of loyalty to the particular candidate. A real part of this has been meetups:
One of the most tangible results of the new wave of Internet organizing is the explosion of monthly meetups. Participants find each other through Meetup.com, an independent Web site originally designed to help connect the like-minded, whether they be Harry Potter fans or Chihuahua lovers.
The Dean campaign has taken things up a notch. Through "DeanSpace", local campaigns are given server space to create their own local blog pages. The main blog then features links to some of the best local blog postings. A fantastic idea that seems to be working extremely well.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Top Site Awards
This week's Top Sites hosted on BlogSpot seems to be controlled by the Iraq bloggers. Forty percent of our winners on Blogger Forum are about Iraq.
One of the interesting Iraq sites (well, they're all interesting) is Beyond Northern Iraq. This blog is by Stuart Hughes who lost a leg to a landmine while covering Iraq for the BBC. One of his blog features is a Web camera. Stu's Webcam shows a small, brightly lit room with an unmade bed. Stu looks intense as he writes on his computer.
Of course, the bad thing about Webcams is they catch you doing whatever you are doing --even if it's wiping your nose with your shirt.
This just in: Stu responds and says: "I wasn't wiping my nose -- I was just scratching it!"
Friday, December 19, 2003
Call girl site gets best writing award
According to the UK edition of Internet Magazine, one of the winners of the British Blog Award by The Guardian is belle de jour, the diary of a London call girl. The site is hosted on BlogSpot and here's a sample of the award-winning writing:
As most transactions in my business are paid in cash I find myself at the bank rather often. I tend to use the same one at a similar time every day. Cashiers are naturally curious people who would have to be brain-dead not to wonder why I come in with rolls of bills several times a week and deposit into two accounts, one of which is not mine.
One day I presented the deposit details on the back of a slip the Boy had been sketching on. The cashier turned it over, looked at the drawing, and looked at me. "This is good. Did you do this?" she asked. "Yes, well, I'm a... cartoonist," I lied. Which is how the people at the bank came to believe that I draw for a living. Whether they took the next logical leap of questioning why any legitimate artist would demand payment in cash is unknown to me.
One advantage of this job is not being limited to the lunch hour for running errands. Therefore, I tend to go shopping in midafternoon. "Live close to here?" the grocer by the tube station asked one day, as I picked out apples and kiwifruit.
"Just around the corner," I said. "I work as a nanny." Which is blatantly unbelievable, as I never have children visibly in tow and, unless the Boy is staying over, am only buying for one. Still, he nodded, and now occasionally asks how the kids are doing.
As most transactions in my business are paid in cash I find myself at the bank rather often. I tend to use the same one at a similar time every day. Cashiers are naturally curious people who would have to be brain-dead not to wonder why I come in with rolls of bills several times a week and deposit into two accounts, one of which is not mine.
One day I presented the deposit details on the back of a slip the Boy had been sketching on. The cashier turned it over, looked at the drawing, and looked at me. "This is good. Did you do this?" she asked. "Yes, well, I'm a... cartoonist," I lied. Which is how the people at the bank came to believe that I draw for a living. Whether they took the next logical leap of questioning why any legitimate artist would demand payment in cash is unknown to me.
One advantage of this job is not being limited to the lunch hour for running errands. Therefore, I tend to go shopping in midafternoon. "Live close to here?" the grocer by the tube station asked one day, as I picked out apples and kiwifruit.
"Just around the corner," I said. "I work as a nanny." Which is blatantly unbelievable, as I never have children visibly in tow and, unless the Boy is staying over, am only buying for one. Still, he nodded, and now occasionally asks how the kids are doing.
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