Author Archives: Karl

I Miss Playing Live

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An admission: I play guitar and song write in a band named “My Brother’s Keeper”. I don’t talk about it much here – I’m shy what can I say?

About our name, “My Brother’s Keeper”: we are actually two sets of brothers. The drummer and bassist. Me and the singer. And no lie – both sets of brothers are brothers to each other. We are all family.

Last year “My Brother’s Keeper” was really starting to jell, we played two shows (one of which at The Sleeping Angels Music Fest) and even recorded a song in a semi-professional setting in the space of four months.

Then winter hit. Life intruded with some personal tragedies and people’s priorities change. I don’t think we’ve had a hand full of full band practices since last November.

For me this is still very important. I think my mental health requires playing guitar at loud volume with folks who have learned to play with me – as I have to play with them. There is a bond that forms unlike any other – I lack the words to describe it.

Anyway, I wanted to share with you our recording Second Chance. I think it shows off the potential of the band, given time to grow. A mix of hard rock, metal and punk. Hope you like it.

Wikis and Community

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Shelley Powers started a Wiki last year that I thought had a terrific concept behind it. The effort never really took off and it has been beset by spamers and vandals. She shares some thoughts:

Lesson Two learned: One backup is not enough.

Lesson One learned: wikis updated by the general public only work if there’s enough people interested in helping to maintain it to offset the spammers, trolls, and script kiddies. In other words, the only viable public wiki is Wikipedia.

And from her comments:

True a wiki can work if you have a strongly engaged community willing to maintain it. But I think you have to start with the community and then add the wiki.

Read more in “Scorching in the IT Kitchen”

I’m feel terrible I never got around to contributing. Has it been a year already?

Salon inching towards profitablilty?

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Big news if true from Wired – “Salon’s Balancing Act”.

More at Philly Future on two related Jeff Jarvis posts in which he defines the news editor “of the future” (hint – it’s already here!) and of possible business models to support news reporting.

Relevant quote from Wired article:

…whether there is a subscription requirement or a Site Pass, there is still a wall around Salon’s content — and that means the blogosphere ignores it. Without this persistent cross-linking, relatively few read its words, and as history is being made — or Googled — every day, Salon’s footsteps in cyberspace become fainter and fainter.

Salon’s experience is important to this discussion. Once you lose mind share – people stop talking about you. Salon needs to get it back somehow because the digerati are overlooking what are probably a host of lessons already learned. At least their stories don’t fall into a for pay archive and break permanent URLs.

OJR included Salon in a roundtable on the future of magazines. via Jeff Jarvis.

The power of a network derives from its nodes – the power of the web derives from people

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Fundable is an interesting web service that lets groups of people pool money to raise funds or make purchases. The tool takes advantage of the distributed nature of the web and reminds me of one of the seven habits – “Win/Win or No Deal”. If goals aren’t reached – everyone gets their money back.

Lets see…

* Have a trip you need to finance that your community might chip in for?

* Have a non-profit you want to send money to that deserves more than what you alone could send?

* Have an event you need to fund but have no idea where to get the money?

The list goes on and on….