| « 504 4 Ever | A Router Protests » |
The A-Lister’s Demise
January 31st, 2006
The Ignorance of Crowds
Scoble came across some good points about how aggregation sites put a fellow in an echo chamber. The echo chamber! Agahst! That’s my beef with the blogosphere. A conversation gets started and all anyone can say is “here here”!
There are two sides to every story, in the blogosphere. Pick your side, set up your straw men, and make with the punches.
What it means to have your news condensed via Memeorandum…
But there’s a problem. Ever since I’ve started using it to the point where it replaces many of my other sources, I have gotten stupider.
I can feel it - I don’t think as fast, flexibly, or freely.
This is a well-known phenomenon in psych and econ - I’ve been locking myself into a diet of reinforcing information. Nothing really challenges my beliefs, and so I get hyperpolarized, or echo-chambered, sure - but the deeper effect is that I also get stupid, fast.
This was my pre K blogging experience. Then, in the thick of it, nothing but non-sense among bloggers.
Since then, I’ve come to understand that the A-Listers are for the most part, real estate. They have a voice because they have the first mover advantage. We meet there, because, like the NOLA.com forums, it’s not because the software is good, or that the conversation is well moderated. We all know where it is. We know we’ll find each other there.
Jeff Jarvis bummed me out something fierce asking if New Orleans should be rebuilt, just as she was deluged. What conversation is this to have with a heart broken carpetbagger?
Conversation, my ass. You’re broadcasting at me. Jeff! I thought you cared!
Echos of the news cycle. Retoric. Fap.
Live hand grenade on the coffee table? Let’s discuss.
Multitudes! Multitudes!
Scoble shares an insight, ringing true, as Scoble will.
The horror of blogging is one part multitude, one part diversity. Too much that is too different. Too much that is too specific. Pity the A-Lister, they are the hubs and routers, and they are overwhelmed.
Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » On the StupidTrain
I think there’s something to that. But my thing is that I notice my life is being split up into many more tiny little slices than before. First of all my email load is just going nuts. More than 200 per day that I ANSWER (and many times that that I read, but don’t require an answer). Plus, feeds. Plus Digg. Plus plus plus plus. So, I don’t spend much time on one thing. Overall I’m getting more knowledge and breadth, but on a granular level I’m not mastering anything. That trend scares me.
That trend is a long time coming. I’ve noted before, but not so explicitly. The read/write web is not going to scale. We need new tools for routing. We need to accept that some of us are routers pure and simple.
The currency of the blogosphere is not the link. No, sir. It’s the quote. Nothing draws them like a pull quote. Nothing says I love you like a pull quote.
In 2006 there will be pull quote software. It will be boss.
The pull quote is the slip road of the blogosphere. We won’t get off without a road sign. The road less traveled needs a preview.
In 2006, if you come here, I’ll move you swiftly along. I promise.
The Sophomore Blogging Class of 2006
My favorite a listers, by the way, Robert, Hugh and Bob. They are faves because I like to read ‘em, just like Angeliska and Evelyn, my own personal A-Listers.
I grant them their celebrity. In the blogosphere, we all flirt with celebrity.
Then there are the bloggers that are in my own little blogosphere. Niti, Maitri, Dave and Ric. These are the members of my blogging class, a year out now. We link among each other, because we know each other, personally or remotely. Although they can strike me dumb with awe, I’m much more comfortable with them, considering them fiends friends and peers.
I trust Niti to route information on software and design, Maitri on New Orleans, and Dave on Ann Arbor, just as I’ve always trusted Hugh MacLeod to tell me what blogging means, and where it’s going.
I’d like to see Bill Knecht, Mark Meves, and Stephen Goodfellow join the frey, with their nacent blogs. I’d like to build my blogging class by virtue of luring new and active voices to the blogosphere.
As they arrive, the echo chamber will dissipate. We’ll have our circles, well find our conversations, the Long Tail will guide us.
Divide and Conquer
My blogroll will contain Robert, because he’s linked to me in times of need, because I read him.
That’s it. No more A-Liseters.
If you want me to read you, you read me. If you want me to link to me, you link to me.
Let’s flirt with each other in our comments sections. Let’s get to know each other in e-mail. Let’s build real friendships. Not cross branding arrangements.
Let’s quote, not link, so we can have meaningful conversations, public conversations, with context.
Quote not the blogs of the A-Listers.
Quote the blogs of the people that speak to you. Quote the blogs of the people that care about you. Quote the people that share your passions. Quote the people share your postal code. Quote the people that you love.
Give the overwhelmed A-Listers a break. There’s too much information to route. We all need to do our part.
Is it Dykstra? Divide an conquer. The crux of computer science. The crux of social networking.
(8)
|
Comments 
Nice! Pity I was ‘conversing’ with you by email and on the phone to have read this post earlier…. heh… so tell me, did you mean to say ‘fiends and peers’ or was that a typo?
Ha! Yeah. I’m thinking about rules of engagement, now that I’ve read Dave Winer’s post.
That was a bit much. He seems to need to get a little further away from his celebrity. Reminded me of one of the popular girls at high school.
Thanks for the shout out, I’m happy to be considered a fiend rather than a friend. Your Freudian slip was definitely showing there. Ha!
Speaking of which, and in full appreciation of your brand of crazy, you should give 3 Mustaphas 3’s Friends, Fiends & Fronds a listen. I love it!
Oh, and … psssst, some of us have been blogging since 2001 but didn’t call it a weblog or a blog. They were just posts on my website, the evolution of which looks something like vi and emacs Blurbs –> HTML Mental Ooze –> HTML Procrastination Central –> PHP Radical Soup –> Blogger VatulBlog –> WordPress VatulBlog. Maybe I should chart the path of the Blog A La Me. Always sophomoric, but never a sophomore, darling.
Maitri
It is to say that I’m happy to have met you. I’m always happy when you comment in my blog. It is so good to be able to converse with you in this way. So you’re not a sophomore, no, but you’re one of the less than twenty bloggers that I read daily.
That’s the point of all this. That I’m not taking part of the blogging churn that mirrors the cable news cycle. I’m far more interested in the bloggers in my own city, people that write about my city. This Hollywood blogging model chafes.
To quote a great line from a superb yet Oscarless movie, “Likewise, I’m sure.” I’m glad I met you as well, Alan. I’m hoping that in the months ahead, you and others will help me discover (or rediscover) New Orleans after six months of being gone and returning to a city that’s not quite as I left it.
What a long, strange trip it is. It’s overwhelming.
And I hope to come down for a visit soon — I’ve been away too long. The past week I’ve been experiencing a bit of “blogathy” and let things slide, but I need to get back into the conversation. That is to say, I agree wholeheartedly with what you wrote here, Alan.
Dave
Do get down here. I’ll have to post photographs of my dive.
How do I describe it? The EPA has a term for it. I call it quaint.
Alan
I’m not sure that “fiends” isn’t more applicable sometimes - speaking for myself of course!
You’re right about the “A-listers” - often the value is in the comments section, where they provide a forum for discussion between others. Perhaps better described as a “venue”, like for other conferences, conversations and confrontations!
BTW - I started reading you because you commented somewhere (gapingvoid from memory), and you sounded like you cared - you sound even more like that these days, post-Katrina, and I think you’ve got more interesting because of it.