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July 29, 2004

All blog all the time. Please make it stop.

Scripting News: 7/29/2004

But tell me this, why should readers care if your job is safe? And they say bloggers are self-obsessed.

Yeah, but the rest of the press is reporting on other stuff besides the schwag they got at a party and how hard it is to hear what's being said. But the inability of the press to get your URL right is the sort of hard-hitting alternative coverage we've come to expect. And this adds a whole new perspective to the TV coverage of Edwards' speech last night. (Did you know they send out advance copies of the speeches?) All I can say is thank God for Josh Marshall.

The Republicans may have already noticed the paucity of blogging coverage, since they skipped the application process and just sent invitations. (Anyone know if the invitees are listed anywhere?) Based on what I've seen from the majority of convention bloggers so far I wouldn't credential them to cover a school board meeting, let alone a national convention. I can see it now:

"There's no wi-fi in here. Jesus, school board meetings are boring. I don't have any kids, why should I have to listen to this?"

What it comes down to is this. So far, the convention blogging reality is lagging far far behind the convention blogger hype machine. I'm not seeing anything that justifies the kind of "blog triumphalism" (in Josh Marshall's phrase) which seems to be the main focus of the convention coverage from certain quarters. At the moment, TV and print is a much better bet for information.

Posted by John at 10:43 AM |

July 28, 2004

Yes, but it's a deep navel.

Salon.com Technology | The new blogocracy

Cheerblogger Danah Boyd goes long with a piece in Salon (reg required, sorry):

The tendency of bloggers to talk about blogging is often criticized, yet this practice of self-reflection is precisely what makes blogging a valuable contribution to public discourse. Bloggers are highly critical, questioning creatures. Whatever their subject, they document their observations and examine them inquisitively.

If only they were at all highly critical and questioning re: themselves rather than everyone else, you might get some agreement about this from me. But given that the convention blogging I've seen so far has shaken out pretty much exactly as I suspected, I call bullshit on this.

I expected that the better-known political bloggers - Atrios, Josh Marshall, Kos - would have interesting things to say. The rest haven't done much of anything (Did you know that the press gets advance copies of speeches? The convention is boring! Look, there's Tom Brokaw! You had to go to Boston to figure this out?) and already are making excuses for the utter banality of their "coverage". If this is citizens' media, I'll take the elites' offering, thanks.

Posted by John at 1:18 PM | | Comments (1)

July 26, 2004

Free software straw men.

Open Source Myths - by Neil Gunton

One of the central tenets of the Open Source philosophy (as it seems to be understood by the average person, at any rate) is that all software should be free. This seems a little unrealistic to me, for one glaringly simple reason: Development takes time and effort, and the rest of the world that we all live in is most certainly NOT free. We have to pay for everything else - a place to live, food, clothing, services, you name it. Even artists have a socially-accepted way to make money, and art is possibly one of the closest things to programming. So I fail to see the reasoning behind the suggestion that I should be expected to provide the fruits of my labor to the world for no financial reward.

I understand what this guy is saying, and to a certain extent I agree with it. But you've gotta compete. "Software should not be free because I want to make a lot of money writing it" is not a compelling argument against the commoditization of software. The art analogy he refers to reinforces this. Few people get rich making art. Most artists work a day job to support their creative activities. They may be even more motivated, given that they continue to do it despite the difficulty of making a living at it.

Besides, what's the solution? Ban free software? The barn door is long since open. Innovate or die.

Posted by John at 12:56 PM |

July 22, 2004

Blog politics as usual

Just now I read an Wired news article about the bloggers attending the DNC next week. It's full of the usual stuff about how trad journalists are threatened by the presence of bloggers there.

I'd really like to see something interesting come out of the bloggers at the DNC, but I bet I won't. I'll bet that instead of people trying to find another take on a probably quite boring convention, I'm going to get lots and lots of stories about the lack of wifi in the convention hall, how badly the bloggers are being treated by old media hacks, how revolutionary the bloggers are, how the future is all about the blog, etc etc. How the conventions - hell, the whole election - should be all about the revolutionary medium of the Internet .

Jeebus crow, for once, I beg you, please don't. Try and actually write about something besides yourselves and your revolutionary world-changingness for once. I can get your usual self-involved self-reflective brilliance every day without your traveling to Boston. Please, write about something besides yourselves and your other blogger pals for once. Maybe what's actually happening there. You know, like the old media hacks do. Get your head out of your media-stuffed, parasitic, navel-gazing asses just this once.

This is why I've been away a while.

Posted by John at 1:24 PM |

July 3, 2004

Hey, you never know.

Want to see what the future of advertising looks like? The cronyist, undisclosed, insidious kind? Read this post.

It's an ad disguised as a critique of ads! How pomo.

One other thing: You want a feed for nonexistent products? I'd like to subscribe to a feed that lists the winning NY State Lottery numbers, the day before they're drawn.

See the problem?

Posted by John at 8:20 AM | | Comments (4)