There is no “mainstream” media that is well-defined as Them, nor are webloggers suddenly Us. The term “The Media” is so nebulous that it includes us all. The line between the imagined “Us” bloggers and “Them” media outlets is so gray that it can’t be drawn. Media outlets in all forms are absorbing blog format, subjects, and culture and blogs of all forms are absorbing media outlets’ format, subjects, and culture at a speed so swift it will soon be difficult to tell one from the other, if it hasn’t happened already.

You are the media. I am the media. Blogs are a fixture in the mainstream. So when you decry the “MSM” as an imaginary villain, I know I’m done with your site.

A Whole Lotta Nothing: New rule

via dangerousmeta.

I want to disable comment approval here, but it doesn’t look like I have many options to fight the spam that shows up whenever I do.

Six Apart has a handy guide that makes a few recommendations, none of which I am entirely happy with. I’ll have to choose something however. I miss the conversation.

Read about it here.

Get the details and discussion at Om Malik’s on Broadband.

I’ve been experimenting with AppFuse and it looks like it can save considerable time getting a J2EE based project off the ground. There are some reasonable concerns over tools like this that bootstrap development projects, but from what I’ve seen with AppFuse, which uses what are generally agreed upon best practices throughout, these concerns are mitigated.

More at java.net.

Mark Glaser at OJR gives us a peek behind the curtain at Yahoo! News. Great read.

SixApart: Movable Type 3.16 is released. Looks like a ton of bug fixes. I’ll upgrade before I decide to migrate.

Question: is there any toolset out there that imports my content *and* lets me keep my URL structure and permalinks?

Adobe is buying Macromedia. What do I think?

I’ll let Roland Tanglao and Dan Gillmor speak for me (check his discussion thread) here.

A Whole Lotta Nothing: Strange, Troubling Privacy. OK, I’m officially freaked out. Even though I knew this was coming a long time ago. Hmmmm… who do I want to do background checks on? Hmmmmmm….

Technology brings the cost of so many things down to the average Joe. Including being outright evil.

There should be a law that you are informed whenever a background check takes place on you – so that you are aware of potential evil coming your way.

And yes, no doubt about it – this is evil.

Speaking of evil, The MIT Guide to lockpicking looks like it can come in handy someday. Heh.

Discussion at Slashdot on an interview with David Wheeler founder of Bricolage, a CMS that was developed internally for Salon but now powers an interesting selection of sites across the web, including About.com.