Monthly Archives: January 2006

Pray for Herb

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The All Spin Zone: SpinDentist: Pray for Herb (via Philly Future):

No, that’s not a stoner’s lament as he scrapes up the last of his stash and wondering where his next hit will come from. It is an emblem of a cyber-phenomenon, where a community residing on the internet, in this case the Philadelphia Eagles Message Board (EMB) (registration required), is mourning for one of their own. Herb, a member of that community for many years, is dying (article by Dave Spadaro is here.) The outpouring of love is amazing, and while this cyber-community has many members who have met each other, it is not like these people are lifelong friends. They all met on a Message Board, yet their love, support, grief, it is very real and touching. It makes me dizzy in a sense, that so much connection can be felt by so many whose real world connection is mostly through a modem.

..He’s a member of the military, a husband of Jess, and the father of three little ones aged seven and below. Today he lies in a bed, and I imagine there are tubes connected. His cancer is in the very last stages, and he may not make it through the weekend. But he will be taking phone calls from his friends on the EMB, all day probably. They will call to cheer him up, and they will call so that Herb can cheer them up, just as if they are real friends. “Real” friends? Well, it seems we aren’t in Kansas anymore, and those definitions we so comfortably hold do not hold any longer.

… I met Herb first in late November of 2003 at an away game in Charlotte, the “MOFO Roadie.” A bunch of us gathered to attend the game, but also to meet. It was odd addressing others by their screen names. I met NotPlainJane there for the first time, and subsequently married her. But EaglesFeva, FastFreddie, Beermonkey, DieHard, RSbirdman22 and Emerald Eagle were also there. So was “73,” Herb, and he was healthy and in remission, but he was already a strong focus for the group, because we’d rallied for his first bout with the big “C.” We joked about his big feet.

Several months ago it was discovered that Herb had a tumor. the cancer had come back and it has now invaded throughout his internal organs. Herb is at the end. And yet, he brings the people of the EMB together in his ending. I expect we’ll run some sort of fundraising for Herb’s kids in the next week or so. We’ve done that before for one of our own, and that fundraising ultimately ended up in inspiring the organization of a charity, Fans Helping Fans. I’m guessing we can raise $10,000 entirely online to help establish a college fund for the kids. In a global sense that’s not much, not “Abramoff-like” money for damned sure. But doing so entirely on the internet among a group of people who first met there is a phenomenal feat. It is the face of the future, where emotion and caring burst from the confines of family and neighborhoods and extends through the internet, as it has here.

del.icio.us is going to die, so is Digg, so is Flickr

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Hey, it’s not my prediction! I’m taking some factors Bill Burnham mentioned in reference to walled gardens and Homestore, Monster, EBay, Match.com and riffing on them:

  1. Content Availability: Generally speaking, the more “self published”, publicly index-able data there is, the more vulnerable the walled garden.  As I mentioned in my prior post, 10 years ago very few people/businesses had their own web site.  Today, the situation is dramatically different with most businesses and an increasing number of people having their own sites.  Almost all of these sites are not password protected and can therefore be fully indexed by search engines.   If a Walled Garden is charging to distribute or provide access to data that can now be easily aggregated from “self published” web sites, it is in an increasingly tenuous position.
  2. Index Affinity: The more willing a data owner is to make their data available for indexing, the more tenuous the walled garden’s business.  In most cases data owners are quite content to disseminate their information as widely as possible, however there are some cases where limited distribution of data is preferable.   
  3. Process Simplicity:  Walled gardens can create value by not only aggregating and displaying data, but also by providing a process for acting on that data.    The more complex the process, the more value the garden is adding to the overall transaction.  Conversely, if a garden has a highly simplistic process where it simply displays aggregated information, it is highly vulnerable to search led attacks.

Don’t these factors apply to del.icio.us, Flickr, Digg, RawSugar (sorry Bill), Wink, Yahoo!’s My Web 2.0, or even MySpace? In fact, how about any service that asks me to sign up for an account, and to post content to it, that I already post – or want to post – on my blog?

Lets review those factors again:

* Content Availability: Generally speaking, the more “self published”, publicly index-able data there is, the more vulnerable the walled garden. As I mentioned in my prior post, 10 years ago very few people/businesses had their own web site.

On a blog it’s: Easy to post photos. Easy to post links. Easy to post text. Getting easier to post files of all sorts. Why should I post twice, three times, four times?

* Index Affinity: The more willing a data owner is to make their data available for indexing, the more tenuous the walled garden’s business.

That’s what bloggers do every day with links, photos, stories, etc. Bloggers encourage and want their data indexable. We even ping services the second we post new work to alert them we have updated so they can come and do just that. RSS and pinging have, in the words of Technorati, enabled the “world live web”.

* Process Simplicity: Walled gardens can create value by not only aggregating and displaying data, but also by providing a process for acting on that data.

See Moveable Type and WordPress. Then see any RSS reader: In particular My Yahoo!, Bloglines, Newsgator, FeedDemon, netnewswire, or any aggregator by Dave Winer. Yahoo! 360 has potential as well since it accepts feeds I can share.

In my mind, Flickr, del.icio.us, Digg, RawSugar, Wink, and MySpace provide social glue. There is huge value in how they aggregate and enable you to use what folks share. The value builds the more you use them. Each of these services rock.

But I’m getting tired of having twenty accounts to do what I can do from my blog. I know I’m not alone in this.

So some predictions (putting a pundit hat on – how scary!):

I actually don’t think these services are going to die because it’s so damn easy to aggregate! It’s very, very easy. At least on a smaller scale. And when you grow larger there is an expanding list of services to help.

So why can’t Digg pick up the latest post from my blog and put it in its queue for moderation – instead of me posting directly to it? Why can’t Albert post photos to his blog and have them show up at Flickr?

Trust. At Philly Future we handle it manually. We are intimately, socially involved in our community. TailRank, asks you to import your OPML file – the list of blogs you personally trust. Memeorandum starts its crawl from a list of selected blogs and goes from there. I imagine new services will come along to help shortly.

So prediction one: These services will provide tools to reverse the flow and enable you to post to your blog, having your participation shared there (see Technorati).

Prediction two: Any new service that intends to compete with Digg, Flickr, del.icio.us, and similar, that don’t recognize Bill Burnham’s walled garden factors will fail.

RSS syndication and tagging, with the upcoming additions of structured blogging and microformats are changing everything.

It’s about sharing with your circle of friends, your community, and if you want, your world. Hasn’t it always been?

In many ways, Memeorandum, and Tail Rank, and TagCloud are hinting at the future. And MySpace actually, if it doesn’t screw up, is in a good place since it’s used more as a primary blogging presence then as an additional outlet. And more than that, it’s becoming a brand.

But boy is this a brual post. Personally, it speaks to where I want to take Philly Future: Right now there needs to be some original works posted to provide focus – but long term – those original works should only come from your blogs, and Philly Future should provide additional functionality to share and to highlight them without repeating yourself in anyway.

This post follows related posts at Jeff Jarvis’s and David Weinberger’s (who is looking for service examples that allow you to use your social network as your news filter).

So the title of this post was a vain attempt to copy from folks like Jeremy and use a provocative headline to get you to read. It work?

Newspapers vs. Slashdot vs. IndyMedia vs MyDD vs Digg vs Blogs

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“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.” – Confucius

This is bound to be controversial: A spare description of newspaper websites, Slashdot, IndyMedia, MyDD, Daily Kos, Digg, and blogs:

When I go do a newspaper or magazine website, what do I see and what can I do?

I see a sets of headlines, story leads, and links. These are written by paid authors, usually on staff, and filtered by an editorial team. The editorial team I do not know, and have to go thru some work to discover and contact. Sometimes there are links for me to email the author of a story. Sometimes there are discussion threads attached to the stories themselves. But most have forums, usually far removed from these stories. Stories are almost always multiple paragraphs, original, detailed. Usually backed by the newspaper or magazine to be trust worthy. Additional context, including related links, on an author or story is accessible, but more times then not, it is trapped behind archive pay walls. There are rarely rewards for participation. Stories are sometimes vetted/discussed by the web community at large, but that discussion is hard to discover and is usually not linked from the story itself (that is changing – see Newsweek and Washington Post and their use of Technorati).

When I go to Slashdot, what do I see and what can I do?

I see a set of headlines, story leads, and links. Stories are usually written by its community, however anyone can post anonymously. Stories are filtered by an editorial team that is accessible, and don’t have to go thru hoops to contact. Each story has a discussion thread that enables one to give immediate feedback to the author, editors, and community. Stories are usually a single paragraph, most times just the a summary pointing to another original piece (many times from a newspaper – but not always), however, longer original pieces *are* posted that resemble what you would find in a newspaper. Participants in the discussion thread help critique stories for accuracy and relevancy. Participants in the discussion thread help filter the discussion thread itself by ranking the relevancy of these comments. Additional context, including related links, on the author or topic is easily accessible, some of which is posted in the discussion thread. There are huge rewards to participate – to submit stories, to participate in discussion threads. Stories are sometimes vetted/discussed by the web community at large, but that discussion is hard to discover and is usually not linked directly from the story itself.

When I go to IndyMedia, what do I see and what can I do?

I see two sets of headlines, story leads, and links. Stories are usually written by its community, however anyone can post anonymously. All stories are shown in the newswire right hand rail (usually located there). Stories given emphasis are filtered by an editorial team that is accessible, and don’t have to go thru hoops to contact. Each story has a discussion thread that enables one to give immediate feedback to the author, editors, and community. Stories are usually a single paragraph, most times just the a summary pointing to another original piece (many times from a newspaper – but not always), however, longer original pieces *are* posted that resemble what you would find in a newspaper. Participants in the discussion thread help critique stories for accuracy and relevancy. Additional context, including related links, on the author or topic is easily accessible, some of which is posted in the discussion thread. There are huge rewards to participate – to submit stories, to participate in discussion threads. Stories are sometimes vetted/discussed by the web community at large, but that discussion is hard to discover and is usually not linked directly from the story itself.

When I go to MyDD or DailyKos, what do I see and what can I do?

I see a set of headlines, story leads, and links. Stories are written by its community and are filtered by via popular vote, everyone is accessible (for the most part), and can be contacted directly. Each story has a discussion thread that enables one to give immediate feedback to the author, editors, and community. Stories are usually a single paragraph, most times just the a summary pointing to another original piece (many times from a newspaper – but not always), however, longer original pieces *are* posted that resemble what you would find in a newspaper. Participants in the discussion thread help critique stories for accuracy and relevancy. Additional context, including related links, on the author or topic is easily accessible, some of which is posted in the discussion thread. There are huge rewards to participate – to submit stories, to participate in discussion threads. Stories are sometimes vetted/discussed by the web community at large, but that discussion is hard to discover and is usually not linked directly from the story itself.

When I go to Digg, what do I see and what can I do?

I see a set of headlines, story leads, and links. Stories are written by its community and are filtered by via popular vote, everyone is accessible (for the most part), and can be contacted directly. Each story has a discussion thread that enables one to give immediate feedback to the author and community. Stories are one to two sentences. Some pieces span up to a paragraph and can resemble what you would find in Slashdot, but are not the norm. No original pieces are posted. Participants in the discussion thread help critique stories for accuracy and relevancy. Additional context, including related links, on the author or topic is easily accessible, some of which is posted in the discussion thread. There are huge rewards to participate – to submit stories, to participate in discussion threads. Stories are sometimes vetted/discussed by the web community at large, but that discussion is hard to discover and is usually not linked directly from the story itself.

When I go to a blog, what do I see and what can I do?

I see a set of headlines, story leads, and links. Stories are usually written by its author, or team of authors, who act as their own editor. You usually don’t have to go thru hoops to contact the author. Each story usually has a discussion thread that enables one to give immediate feedback to the author and community. Stories are most times a single paragraph, usually just the a summary pointing to another reference, however, longer original pieces are posted that resemble what you would find in a newspaper or magazine. Indeed, story structure varies widely. Participants in discussion threads help critique stories for accuracy and relevancy. Additional context, including related links, on the author or topic is easily accessible, some of which is posted in the discussion thread. There are huge rewards to participate, to comment, to connect. Stories are sometimes vetted/discussed by the web community at large, and it is getting easier to discover since most forward thinking blog authors include links to Technorati and other conversation bridging services.

References:

August 1999: Wired: Slashdot: All the News that Fits

August 1999: First Monday: Honest News In The Slashdot Decade

December 2001: First Monday: Independent Media Centers: Cyber Subversion and the Alternative Press

March 2003: Software (,) Politics and Indymedia

Slashdot-style software: Scoop

Alex Bosworth: Dynamics of Digg

Digg-style software: pligg-o-rific

O’Reilly Radar: nat: Digging The Madness of Crowds

digg.com: O’Reilly writer Steve Mallett has stolen digg’s code

Steve Mallett’s linuxfilter

Yahoo!’s Jeremy Zawodny: Slashdot is Going out of Style in 2006

Business Week: How Digg Uncovers the News

Slashdot: A Recipe for Newspaper Survival in the Internet Age

Guardian Unlimited: Will Slashdot be overtaken by Digg?

Slashdot: On the Matter of Slashdot Story Selection

Thoughts? Feedback?

Rock n’ roll ya know

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My face is pretty fucked up.

Take a hard look at my picture and you might notice my nose looks slightly off (it was broken three times), a scar running thru my right eyebrow, and a scar above my lip, again on the right. There’s a scar obscured by my hairline on my right forehead, and a scar obscured by my left sideburn.

Yeah, my face is pretty fucked up. End of story. Well not really. Each of those injuries are marks, they have their own stories.

This is the story of the scar on my right eyebrow, the most important one I earned.

Or to put another way, the story of how I met Richelle. And it’s not romantic. It’s crazy and makes me sound like a punk. But it *is* our story.

My brother Dante and me were talking about women. A topic we used to spend plenty of energy discussing. Both of us had been in a few relationships by that time (I think I had just turned 17, he was 15). We were sluts. Not so much intentionally. I would never call either of us a “player”. Far from it. We just lived close to our hearts, not knowing what the next day would bring. Whether we’d even be alive.

Case in point, we were having this discussion on the Broad Street line 15th and Market platform, underneath City Hall. I forget the circumstances of our being there, but they were not good. Things were going bad at home and we were both pretty much on the streets. We were on our way to see a show at the Empire rock club (long gone) in Northeast Philly to blow off some steam.

I had this bad habit of being too hard on Dante. He was a bit more fast and lose with women then I thought was healthy. Part of that was his charm – women seemed (still are) naturally attracted to him – and I always had to work a bit harder then to get attention. That was the focus of the discussion – how I had come up with a new plan to pick up somebody.

My plan: Bum a cigarette. No really! I explained that if I asked some girl for a smoke, I could instantly judge if I had a chance. So afraid was I of rejection. I get taged as an extrovert (Keirsey says I’m an ENFP), but I’m truly a social cripple. Going to something as simple as our monthly blogger meetups gets me nervous and I avoid public speaking. This would give me a way to pre-judge safely and to start a conversation.

Dante was incredulous. I didn’t smoke. Smoking sucks. But I had an earlier experience smoking, when I was around 12, that one of my mom’s boyfriends “cured” me from – he forced me to smoke an entire pack – one smoke after another. It was ugly. So I knew I could pull it off without looking like a fuckwad. And notice how many women smoke? It’s too easy a conversation starter.

Anyways, we trek to the show. The headliner is a glam band called Bang Tango. Metal with funky bass groove. The kinda thing you normally dance to. Or at least spend some time with a women too. Not to headbang. Not to mosh.

The Empire was a small club. Intimate. You were right up in the band’s face normally. Well, in their crotches at least. Short stage height. Tonight there were plenty of women here. Glam bands attracted them like nothing else back in the day.

There were quite a few cute ones as well. Two of them in particular. Sisters. Both of which Dante started to pick on immediately. They were standing in front of us, their hair was high – real, real high. One of which, he patted her hair down (dude is short), and made a crack. I think she made a remark right back. She, in particular, was something. Hot. Tight flannel shirt. Was that a Poison T underneath? High-heeled boots. Tight jeans. Bright smile, nice legs, and an ass that didn’t quit. There was something about her. Indeed, when she turned around to respond to Dante, and I saw her face and heard her voice, I felt something in my chest I didn’t recognize.

Before you know it, the show started. And Dante and me started a mosh. This is *not* the style music you normally do that to. This was too small a place. But what the hell. We had that steam to blow off remember. A few joined and the typical circle you would see form at a thrash or speed metal concert grew. The band fed off it. Got aggressive. It was good.

Then wham! Some dude attempted to headbut me and instead put his teeth into my eyebrow. Blood ran down my face.

Rock n’ roll ya know. It hurts. But I didn’t feel it all that much. Dante looked concerned. I couldn’t see how bad it was. He asked how I felt. Ran and grabbed a cup of ice. Then asked the cute girl for her bandana. She looked with some form of combined horror/sympathy/sarcasm at me and gave him the bandana. We soaked it in ice and wrapped my forhead.

And I continued to mosh.

Look, I had no health insurance. Didn’t know if I was going to live past tomorrow. Didn’t feel much pain. I had no idea the thing would scar like that.

Besides, that girl was cute.

After the show we made it early outside to see the band pack the bus. They said thanks for the pit. They never knew Philly could be like that and never had a show with so much energy in the audience.

I kept an eye out for those two girls. When they passed by I asked the one who had given her bandana for a smoke.

Indeed there was something special about her. That next month I ended the rest of my relationships, unbeknownst to her – I couldn’t think of seeing someone else while seeing her. She forced me to fall in love, even if I thought I didn’t want to and was frightened of it.

She got me thinking about tomorrow. And I know you know that the feeling in my chest was my heart. It still feels the same way whenever I look at her, talk to her, think of her.

The funny thing is, Richelle’s parents would long think it was my fault she smoked, but the reality was different as you can see. I quit just a few years ago. Richelle still does.

If you’re reading – love ya baby.

Scott McNulty at MacWorld

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You may know him from Blankbaby, his terrific local blog, including podcasts and now videocasts, or the Philadelphia Webloggers Meetup, which he runs as a volunteer for Philly Future. Maybe you know him from Wharton, where he’s on the IT staff. But for those Philly folks who don’t know, he also works for Weblogs Inc’s The Unofficial Apple Weblog and yesterday must have been near Mac nirvana. A notable post, for me, was his probing of Apple folks into explaining how that, with work, iWeb can publish to non iMac servers. Scott rocks.

The whole of Weblogs Inc has been on fire these past two weeks with its coverage of CES and now MacWorld. I mean… who needs CNet anymore?

Scott, if you’re reading – I have no idea how you do it all man. And ya make it look easy.

Had a check up on my back today

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My back’s been hurting worst recently. Admittidly I haven’t been doing my exercises the way I should, but they were discouraging when I did. The pain would never go away (scale of 1 to 10, I’d say always a 2 and sometimes a 5). Now I’m always a 3-4 and sometimes a 6. So it helped. But not much.

Anyways, good news from the doc is that there has been no progression in my state: I have unstable type II spondylolisthesis, same as before and it’s not degenerative.

I just need to get back on the bandwagon and exercise. It sucks, because long term, I know I won’t be able to keep pace with this. It’s only a matter of time. But as of now – I’d be lieing if I said I was in overwhelming pain. Additionally, I have none of the symptoms that are truely frightening, like numbness of the legs, or pain while walking. In fact, my pain comes on stronger while standing in one place and moving little if at all, like standing in line, shaving, doing dishes.

Someday I should share with you how I think I did this to myself. It’s funny. Well not really. But I can laugh at myself. That’s what counts.

Help me with a reading list

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I’m building a reading list related to online publishing in relationship to newspapers and journalism.

You can see the ongoing list here, but in terms of books, I’m not as well read as some. What I have as must read books are:

Suggestions, thoughts?