Comments on: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Blog: The Endless Conversation http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080104/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-blog-the-endless-conversation/ Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:01:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Steve Ballmer http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080104/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-blog-the-endless-conversation/#comment-3768 Steve Ballmer Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:49:15 +0000 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080104/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-blog-the-endless-conversation/#comment-3768 ... are you people kidding? … are you people kidding?

]]> By: Alan Sanders http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080104/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-blog-the-endless-conversation/#comment-2307 Alan Sanders Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:05:50 +0000 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080104/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-blog-the-endless-conversation/#comment-2307 In the digital world, one can indeed keep a ball rolling until it grows into a giant snowball. The question becomes: Who created it, and for what purpose? In the digital world, people are making mountains out of molehills each and every day—on Digg, on YouTube and on countless blogs. The celebration of the irrelevant is upon us; and just as tv viewers must scroll through a dense forest of corporate-sponsored talking heads to find the occasional truth-telling journalist, so anyone looking for truth on the internet—on *any* subject—must take the trouble to find islands of responsible reporting floating in a sea of uninformed nonsense. In retrospect, the best thing about print journalism may have been that not just anybody could write stories that would be read by untold thousands every day. Maybe you were a good journalist, or maybe not, but at least you had to know enough about journalism to get a job writing stories for a living. In the digital world, any moron with a computer and an internet connection can become an instant expert. In fact, you don't even need a computer. The local library, or an Apple Store, will also do just fine. Nor do you need any professional credentials of any kind. One's status on the worldwide web seems to be almost solely determined by how many eyeballs visit your site and read your stories. As I write these words, this is starting to sound like a really scary scenario. Imagine a cross between Wikipedia and Frankenstein. Imagine a world where what is true is solely determined by what the majority believe to be true. Which makes it all the more important that real journalists (with real opinions and real integrity) make their voices heard in the digital world. Keep up the good work! In the digital world, one can indeed keep a ball rolling until it grows into a giant snowball. The question becomes: Who created it, and for what purpose?

In the digital world, people are making mountains out of molehills each and every day—on Digg, on YouTube and on countless blogs. The celebration of the irrelevant is upon us; and just as tv viewers must scroll through a dense forest of corporate-sponsored talking heads to find the occasional truth-telling journalist, so anyone looking for truth on the internet—on *any* subject—must take the trouble to find islands of responsible reporting floating in a sea of uninformed nonsense.

In retrospect, the best thing about print journalism may have been that not just anybody could write stories that would be read by untold thousands every day. Maybe you were a good journalist, or maybe not, but at least you had to know enough about journalism to get a job writing stories for a living.

In the digital world, any moron with a computer and an internet connection can become an instant expert. In fact, you don’t even need a computer. The local library, or an Apple Store, will also do just fine.

Nor do you need any professional credentials of any kind. One’s status on the worldwide web seems to be almost solely determined by how many eyeballs visit your site and read your stories.

As I write these words, this is starting to sound like a really scary scenario. Imagine a cross between Wikipedia and Frankenstein. Imagine a world where what is true is solely determined by what the majority believe to be true.

Which makes it all the more important that real journalists (with real opinions and real integrity) make their voices heard in the digital world. Keep up the good work!

]]> By: Chris Keene http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080104/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-blog-the-endless-conversation/#comment-2306 Chris Keene Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:03:39 +0000 http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080104/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-blog-the-endless-conversation/#comment-2306 You have eloquently demonstrated that Facebook is the <a href="http://www.keeneview.com/2008/01/facebook-roach-motel-of-social-media.html" rel="nofollow">Roach Motel of Social Media</a> An interesting related point is that Google also prevents bots from scraping the data that they themselves have scraped from others. How long before the content providers wise up and charge scrapers like Google for the privilege of Hoovering their content? I predict that the 11th commandment for Web 2.0 is “Always be the scraper, never the scrapee.” You have eloquently demonstrated that Facebook is the Roach Motel of Social Media

An interesting related point is that Google also prevents bots from scraping the data that they themselves have scraped from others. How long before the content providers wise up and charge scrapers like Google for the privilege of Hoovering their content?

I predict that the 11th commandment for Web 2.0 is “Always be the scraper, never the scrapee.”

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