Slashdot Mirror
Nearly Half of U.S. 'Net Users Post Content
An anonymous reader copies and pastes: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly half of U.S. Internet users have built Web pages, posted photos, written comments or otherwise added to the enormous variety of material available online, according to a report released on Sunday. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that about 44 percent of the country's Internet users have created content for others to enjoy online." Don't read the blurb - cut straight to the study.
...half the trash comes from.
That includes everyone who's responded to a blog entry, posted on a message board, etc.? It seems rather low. What would really be interesting is how many people have their own web page(s).
So millions and millions of people post content, but how much is useful, easy to read, and informative? Probably less than one percent.
Yeah, right.
The real question is, how much of the content is even worth existing?
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Who would post online? Not me!
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
With this post i can die happily knowing i have made a contribution to society.
If you ask me, the more people creating content the better. The web is a collaborate medium after all.
Granted, there's a lot of worthess content out there, but I'd take a truly democratic system over an overly controlled one any day.
.: Max Romantschuk
Do posts made by AC trolls count?
It's amazing though how many people create these wonderful(or not so wonderful as your opinion may be) websites, then just abandon them. There was an article in the NYT a while ago(now it costs money) about how many bloggers haven't updated in a few months(the number was almost 50% IIRC) and how about 20% or so never got updated past the first post!
At least we have better search engines than we had a few years ago, I'm sure your all well aware of the frustration you encountered when searching for something meaningful and getting, "Jim's cool page of pics" etc.
3 Cheers for google!
Hip, hip, hooray!
That's actually quite a bit higher than I would have guessed.
Just as interesting a study, I think, would be corporations that have posted or have websites vs. those that don't. We may take it for granted, but there are still a number of business (especially small businesses) that likely don't have a web presence.
libertarianswag.com
Makes me wonder - if all this content is in blog/comment format, what are we losing as we auto-prune our forums, our comments, out old stories? How to we save the nuggets and toss out the crap? Like BUMP posts - those should be confined to the seventh circle of hell. Dante, anyone?
I have never posted online and nor do I intend to do. Did I tell you I was running low on Karma???
there's about 800,000 users whose sole purpose seems to be to take that content down, one site at a time...
And sometimes we even turn on eachother.
Since most of Slashdot's readers are qualified nerds, we find ~10%-20% of the posts to be good, interesting reading. Everyone else out there would rather watch paint dry.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Thus far I have found one (1) use for these pages: finding the email address for someone. Unfortunately, lately because of the spam pandemic, even that function is dissapearing since people don't want to out their email addresses to public internet.
Personally I think that when I have become interesting enough to have a personal homepage, someone else will do it for me :)
"There is a terrorist behind every bush"
The study notes that the response rate was 32.8%, meaning that the vast majority of people who were called refused to participate in the survey. This is a potential source of bias in the sample. I can certainly see those who are more eager about their internet use being more likely to participate in the study to brag about their contributions to the internet. The numbers do seem kind of high to me.
-----
In a national phone survey between March 12 and May 20, 2003, the Pew Internet &
American Life Project found that more than 53 million American adults have used the
Internet to publish their thoughts, respond to others, post pictures, share files and
otherwise contribute to the explosion of content available online. Some 44% of the
nation's adult Internet users (those 18 and over) have done at least one of the following:
21% of Internet users say they have posted photographs to Web sites.
20% say they have allowed others to download music or video files from their
computers.
17% have posted written material on Web sites.
13% maintain their own Web sites.
10% have posted comments to an online newsgroup. A small fraction of them have
posted files to a newsgroup such as video, audio, or photo files.
8% have contributed material to Web sites run by their businesses.
7% have contributed material to Web sites run by organizations to which they belong
such as church or professional groups.
7% have Web cams running on their computers that allow other Internet users to see
live pictures of them and their surroundings.
6% have posted artwork on Web sites.
5% have contributed audio files to Web sites.
4% have contributed material to Web sites created for their families.
3% have contributed video files to Web sites.
44% of Internet users have created content for the online world through
building or posting to Web sites, creating blogs, and sharing files
Content Creation Online
2% maintain Web diaries or Web blogs, according to respondents to this phone
survey. In other phone surveys prior to this one, and one more recently fielded in
early 2004, we have heard that between 2% and 7% of adult Internet users have
created diaries or blogs. In this survey we found that 11% of Internet users have read
the blogs or diaries of other Internet users. About a third of these blog visitors have
posted material to the blog.
Most of those who do contribute material are not constantly updating or freshening
content. Rather, they occasionally add to the material they have posted, created, or
shared. For instance, more than two thirds of those who have their own Web sites add
new content only every few weeks or less often than that. There is a similar story related
to the small proportion of Americans who have blogs.
The most eager and productive content creators break into three distinct groups:
Power creators are the Internet users who are most enthusiastic about contentcreating
activities. They are young - their average age is 25 - and they are more
likely than other kinds of creators do things like use instant messaging, play games,
and download music. And they are the most likely group to be blogging.
Older creators have an average age of 58 and are experienced Internet users. They
are highly educated, like sharing pictures, and are the most likely of the creator
groups to have built their own Web sites. They are also the most likely to have used
the Internet for genealogical research.
Content omnivores are among the heaviest overall users of the Internet. Most are
employed. Most log on frequently and spend considerable time online doing a
variety of activities. They are likely to have broadband connections at home. The
average age of this group is 40.
----
why? forty-two.
Of course, that doesn't invalidate Donaldson's Commentary ("Sturgeon was an optimist"), and there's lots of content that's not very interesting, but at least we need to get kids in the habit of providing things that are interesting to their friends and thinking of what they can do for society as a whole.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Internet speed affected by crazed Livejournal users not content at updating their AOLuser friends on their sad, sad lives at a mere angsty paragraph a minute!
So the "garbage in - garbage out" saying is right after all.
According to the study, 44% of all internet users have contributed something of value to the content of the internet.
The other 56% argue about vi vs emacs.
Look at this site as an example, I'm sure for every Logged in poster there is a troll or lurker out there.
And the "Anonymous Coward" feature needs to stop!!
All users of this internet should be branded, tagged and monitored, lord knows what kind of garbage and filth they post online!! Mr. Goatse.xs has done irreperable harm to thousands of under 18 slashdot readers who are now terrified of working in the fine agriculteral industry and would rather now be shipped off to India to program shell scripts from the back of a yak. In fact it's these flamebait and troll posts that I feel directly responsible for the dot-bomb. How can any business survive when it's users drive away good-upstanding god-fearing republicans such as myself. Lord knows Mr. Bush has been very kind and forgiving to not cage every one of you up in that Guatanimo Bay place, freedom of speech my ass, cyber-terrorism is what it is!!
At least for me, it's been almost a way of life since about 1997, and how I've been eeking out something of a living for the last half year or so (and less of a living before losing my job and car and having to work on the net fulltime).
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
All this is great and wonderful, but hides a serious problem. There are several problems facing the internet these days, IMHO. You can see the signs in the quality of link-quantified based search engines like google.
Problem #1: when people contribute, they do so on corporate sites. Epinions. Livejournal. Even Photo.net is a perfect example of the clustering that happens, as is mp3.com...and mp3.com is an even better example of the problems with this. a)someone else suddenly gets rights to your stuff, and b)when they disappear, so does a huge chunk(relatively) of the net. c)While all this web-application crap is lovely and cute, we've discovered that it costs money and you can't do it just off banner ads- so a large number of these companies fail pretty fast if they don't find some way to charge for it, and people don't like paying anyone but their ISP, really(and that won't change with micropayments, IMHO). Nobody realized that the only people who could afford to host pictures etc- were the ISPs themselves, because they're actually getting paid for your access. Shock, gasp- the old model was better than the new one.
Problem #2: overreliance on search engines. The web really isn't anymore- its more like a branched tree in many ways, because people don't rely on links from, say, their ISP's homepage. They fire up google instead. The internet is supposed to recover from major chunks disappearing, but what happens if google goes off the air tomorrow? I bet you'd see an immediate drop in traffic(well, aside from a hundred million people IM'ing/emailing each other saying "hey, did you know google is down?"). People would be lost. I remember in '96 I used my ISP's homepage as a jumping point; now that's virtually unheard of. People use portals, not their ISP's homepage- the predecessor to portals. Again, gasp, shock- the old system was better.
Problem #3: Companies that host these sites really don't like spiders; they suck up bandwidth and often cause dynamic apps to crumble under the load- I've seen it happen, and I've killed/blocked spiders myself because they would have run up enormous bandwidth bills(I help run a mailing list with about 11 years of archives). Either that, or the spider might not be able to index the dynamic content. Add this to point #1+2, and oops- a large chunk of content contributed by that 44% just dropped off the radar of the rest of the world...because remember how dependent we are on search engines like google?
Problem #4: people just don't link to stuff they like anymore, really. It used to be techno-gear-heads like us, and we usually posted our favorite links or even our bookmark files directly. Joe Shmoe doesn't. The mere fact that a very small bunch of people with blogs(not to mention the companies that manage to get 60 links to the same page into google results) can sway google is a perfect example of how few people link anymore off their homepages. Don't like it? Put up links to your favorite stuff on your homepage, and don't forget to use proper descriptive text(see the w3's homepage- "here" is a perfect example of what NOT to use between the A tags!)
And now, my head is about to explode from all this deep thinking :-) [discuss!]
Please help metamoderate.
OK
Buying a copy of word and sitting down and typing isnt going to make you a writer
Buying a copy of dreamweaver (or shudder front page) isnt going to make you a web designer. People do things on the web that they would never do in their front yard. How many of you have seen those garish sites that make you want to cry, or your eyes bleed? People have forgotten that the web is a PUBLIC space, it is one giant central park.
Just because you can do something dosen't mean you should, and people posting on the web need to remember this!
unfortunately the promise of commercial-free, user-created content is ruthlessly stymied by broadband providers' policies forbidding Joe Schmoe User from setting up his own servers, and by gutting upload speeds to pathetically low rates of transfer.
welcome to the "you-are-a-docile-receptive-sheep" consumer media ghetto.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
...cue the arrogant little pricks who will jump up to exclaim "yeah, but 99% of it is shit - except for my brilliant prose, of course."
Douche bags, start your engines! Time to bare your bloated egos for all to see!
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Given the per capita fitness attitudes in the US, that'a whole lot of content most of of the world doesn't want to see.
*ducks*
One more! Mouahahaha
Booyeah! I'm a statistic.
All I had to do was post a comment to Slashdot. Gee, in the good ol' days, you had to shoot somebody or get an STD...
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
According to them, only 2% of adult American internet users visit "adult websites" on a typical day.
More seriously though, I find it hard to believe that only 54% of adults with internet access use that access on a typical day.
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"
Despite the fact that most of the people who populate the internet are from North America, what are the statistics for the rest of the world?
Use Minidisc? Join the Minidisc.org forums.
By the numbers now, if 44% of people surveyed contribute content to the internet and 98% of the internet is porn, than a wopping 43% or about 120 million americans are involved in the porn industry. Statistics are a wonderful thing.
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
1) It means that 56% of American internet users are plain parasites who take and give nothing back - and don't participate in any online communities.
2) Maybe that's better... Anyway... Great most of the content is junk that makes finding "true gems" even harder. (webforum blurbs, webpages which repeat the same stolen articles and photos 1000's times, flames, unanswered questions and clueless answers to mailing lists, misleading links, fake keywords... finding something new, creative and useful is getting gradually harder, not easier because of this "richness")
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
We're being oppressed!
"Do posts made by AC trolls count?"
No!
congratz, by posting the above message you just joined in.
"We may take it for granted, but there are still a number of business (especially small businesses) that likely don't have a web presence."
Nor do they need one. It's a common misconception. A "keeping up with the jones".
By posting this, I am adding content to the web and contributing to the figure in this study.
Not unless this is your first post.
"And sometimes we even turn on each other."
Does that make us content cannibals.
hmm, "create content for others to enjoy" this is quite dubious. From my experience only a minimal amount of content provides me with enjoyment and advances my position along this positive path. Hence the reason i take my input from moderated and colaborative sources(eg slashdot.org +3 and news.google.com) in order that which I wish to avoid.
If that's meant to be a journal, it should end with your life's end. But if it's a "content webpage" like "Database of all cars created in 19th century", once it's completed and published, and after some period of bugfixes, it may be perfectly well left on the web for years, unchanged - and it will still remain a valuable resource - once completed it never needs changes.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Really there are only 10 of us, all with dupe accounts. Move along.
But buying a copy of Word, Dreamweaver, Cakewalk, Photoshop etc. IS the way to become a writer, web designer, musician, graphic artist. The tools don't matter, it's the drive and commitment to 'your art'. Sure, these people may not be good at first, but that's how you become one. You say, "I'm going to be a writer." You do it. And keep doing it.
You tell the people who say, "Har Har, don't quit yer day job!" to shove it. You listen to construtive critisism. (You'll know it when you hear it.)
You do it even when you think you suck. Because that's the only way you get better, and you couldn't imagine yourself doing anything else. You might even say that these 'careers' choose you, because no one would be crazy enough to *want* to be an artist or musician. (If you are, you know what I'm talking about.)
Plenty never get better, give up, move on, take disparaging remarks too personally, or just don't have the talent.
Closer to home, going to school for programming doesn't make you a programmer, programming does - at least that's what a zillion /.ers insist when the question is raised. As far as my personal experience, I'm a musician because I say so. I'm a graphic artist because I want to be one. I've recorded a number of records, played in front of thousands of people and published two #1 books (in my 'day job' industry).
No school. No training. Just doing it because I want to. And I love it. And I can't *not* do it.
Horrible or great, that's how we get writers, designers, programmers, musicians and artists.
I think I'll make a webcam page of my wall and paint it so people can watch it dry.
# nslookup ihavenolife.com
Server: ns1.nac.net
Address: 207.99.0.1
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: ihavenolife.com
Address: 69.15.89.66
bastards stole my idea
MoFscker
This shows that the old professional content providers view of the Internet, namely that the internet is a bunch of pipes which transfer content from a few central providers to the masses, is insufficient. Almost half the Internet users are themselves content providers, in a small scale.
The other view of the Internet, as a nautral place where people meet and exhcange ideas and thoughts, has survived from the days it was an academic network.
Some of us have always thought this is what the Internet should be, and what the part of the net that is interesting still is, and it is nice to have numbers that back up this view.
The Internet is not and should not be just another broadcast medium for predigested entertainment like TV.
Something else to consider, how much of the content is redundant??
*604x
How your content (comments, photos, files etc.) is being valued is also related to where you put it on the Net. Sites like Slashdot is reliable, which means that a bad comment posted here will be more valued than a comment posted on a personal homepage. A site like photo.net is a very good place to upload your pictures, and though your picture isn't considered of high quality, all other pictures on the site add up to a relatively high quality overall.
"Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?" -- Leo Tolstoy
And the other half is smart enough not to write about their cat 'Paws'. Three cheers to them!
Common sense is not so common - Voltaire
Content is highly overrated.
I prefer spicy foods.
I've been on the 'net since the early 80's, been involved with some big ISP startup moments in the 90's, and I've noticed that peoples 'net-sphere' grows rapidly when they first get on the 'net, and then consequently stabilizes.
...
... but how do I find them?
... but that leaves maybe 85% of the problem unsolved. "Search Engines" need to evolved more into "Recommendation Engines".
:) Short of asking my friends and associates what their favourite daily-sites are, I don't know any other way to find the cool stuff ...
What do I mean by net-sphere? The list of sites one visits daily, or regularly, for news/updates, etc. Apart from google queries, one rarely goes outside this net-sphere
For example, I visit a list of 5 sites daily. And when I'm done with those sites, I rarely visit any others, willingly, unless I happen to randomly come across something new that interests me.
It frustrates me to know end, knowing as I do at the end of my '5 site browse session' that there are probably at least 7 or 8 other sites out there which would interest me, and which would hold my interest, and which I would add to my list of 'net-sphere' sites... only how do I find them?
It'd be nice to have a site where I could go, plug in my 5 favourite (most-visited) sites, and get a list of recommendations for other sites to peruse/visit. I know sites like that exist
Search engines only solve the search for things you know you want to look for
I'd happily subscribe to a list of 'cool sites to look out for', if I could, say, plug in answers to a ton of questions about the things I like, and if that service was smart enough to find me sites that were really interesting to me, I'd use it more often.
Content isn't the problem. Finding the content is still a problem, google-success aside. (Hey, I like google, but search engines don't fill the entire need...)
If anyone has recommendations for cool, regularly (daily) updated sites on the subject of technology, music, music technology, gadgets, meeting real nerd chicks online, and travel tips for Europe, I'd sure like to know them.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The headline is misleading. From the report in html version
17% have posted written material on Web sites.
That wasn't the impression I got from reading the part of the article that was a link. Creative journalism indeed.
Yes, this is a source of potential bias.
Internet users are more likely to hang up the phone on telemarketers or surveys.
(Lies, damn lies, and motivations ascribed to people about whom no real data exists.)
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
hah, that's a stupid question i know which one i am. i never post content online, that'd be dumb.
They are the expression of the human subconcious, given shape and voice through the power of the incredible /. machine. Luckily, we have moderation to stop them from destroying us all...
A recently released study on Internet use in Spain yields the result that just a quarter of Internet user in Spain "have home pages". It's a bit more restrictive than the result of this study, but, still, there's a big difference, taking into account that just about a third of the population in Spain are Internet users.
It's just a BloJJ
The great thing about the Internet is that it means everybody can publish.
The worst thing about the Internet is that it means everybody can publish.
According to this AP article personal content is very low. It talks mostly about blogs, but I think there is some correlation between that and this story.
Aw hell, who cares that most of what is on the internet is stuff and nonesense? Not I. True, Blogs tend to be tedious, self-indulgent twaddle. In more enlightened times, they would have been kept under mattress, lock and key and never revealed to the world. But thats doesn't mean there is no value in them.
... website. It's pure self-indulgence. I write about ... stuff. It goes largely ignored by most denizens of the net. But there is a small subset of people from all over the globe, that visit regularly. And sometimes, if the fancy takes them, they'll contribute and comment. How amazing is that? To have an audience for your thoughts and ramblings, on an international scale!
I keep a website. It's not a blog. It's just a
What an amazing world we live in!
http://www.davetansley.com - you proba
The other half are Anonymous Cowards.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
This is going to be seen as a direct threat by the traditional media conglomerates who are used to controlling and profiting from the content they let the consumer suckle on. Our challenge is to keep the power we as individuals have to create content without having to have pockets as deep as a major corporation, or even a small company.
The future should be interesting, as we'll either be more tightly controlled than ever before or freer than ever.
Of US users post content. I'd venture to say 99% of all that has something to do with the user's pet(s), which nobody really gives a damn about anyway. How many US users actually post content that is worthwhile? Prolly none, from the looks of my post, as well as others...
Now watch this drive.
does pr0n count as art?
The AC is both everyone and no one in particular at the same time. ...
We have survived by hiding from them and by running from them. But they are the gatekeepers, which means that sooner or later someone is going to have to mod them.
Someone?
I won't lie to you Neo. Everyone, every single man or woman who has commented on the AC problem has been $rtbled. But where they have failed you will succeed.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
how many of those are along the lines of "A++++ supa good Ebay seller!!!!!"
Contributing my ass...
The simple action of typing this troll is counting toward that very statistic of providing "content." It's another question, however, if this will get modded down. Most likely it will. :-)
i hav a livejurnel, u ens^H^H^H incins^H^H^H^H^H^H meanie!
(Yes, I do have an LJ. It's not any different from anywhere else online in that most of the content sucks, and, like pretty much anywhere online or off, you can generally avoid the suckiness by having intelligent people to talk to/read.)
This is from livejournal user 'mesoterica'. She posts friends-only all the darn time. But you'll get the idea if I paste something in here. The best stuff on livejournal is a damn sight better than the best stuff on Slashdot comments.
Something Old, Something Blue
K had a habit of surprising me - coming up from behind in the cafeteria, jumping out at me in the parking lot, already waiting in a room when I opened the door. She was always there when I least anticipated her to be, and I, paradoxically, came to expect seeing her when I was not expecting her. So the last time I saw her, I kept my farewell casual, sure I would see her again soon. She gave me her new phone number with a smile and a meaningful brush of blunt fingernails against the back of my hand. "See you soon," and I swear I thought I would see her again. Six years later I still expect to find her waiting for me, sometimes, when I open the door to a room I know full well to be empty. The way we were together, it is fitting that I was left with no closure, caught suspended in a moment and waiting on her next move. More than half a decade now she has hovered on the outskirts of my consciousness, haunted my senses as an ever-moving specter at the edges of my peripheral vision. My eyes are always moving in crowded rooms, touching on faces and moving on. Only some of the time do I consciously acknowledge that I am looking for K.
So when I saw her in the background of a news service photo from San Francisco, I recognized her instantly. No matter that the shot's focus was on the proud tuxedoed men in the foreground, no matter that she was at least ten yards back in the crowd, no matter that her face was more than half obscured by the woman kissing her passionately and the bouquet they held together in clasped hands. I knew.
A flash of memory washed over me, sliding sideways shot like a movie transition: sun-golden early afternoon sometime in our last month together, cutting class to sneak back to her house because she had a new toy she wanted to try; I was lying back, relaxed, content, hands tucked under my head on the pillow as the straps strained and slackened around my thighs with each of her movements. Comfortable sex.
She chided my smug attitude through a fake scowl and a real gasp at my unexpected shift forward. I moved one hand to slide up with her slow undulation, cupped a breast affectionately. Said I thought I was entitled, considering I had her about two minutes away from a screaming orgasm. "Don't flatter yourself, honey," she shot back with a wicked grin, a look I had long since come to love.
"That's the strap-on, not you. And you're about two minutes from a screaming orgasm yourself - you just don't know it yet."
I might have started to say something back, but all that was articulated was a startled, choked-off grunt when she somehow (hidden switch? remote control? telekinesis?) made a vibrator embedded in the harness begin to hum.
I rolled her over, just for the experience of being on top in the missionary position, and she bit my shoulder hard enough to mark. We were happy and playful and when we came together - not screaming but laughing - it was as if the laughter had gone exponential and spread throughout our bodies.
And I am happy for her now, God, so happy I could not help tearing up through my smile. Still, something tightened around my spine as I ran ink-stained fingertips lightly around her photographic outline like a halo. It is not jealousy, this feeling, nor is it even exactly loss; I lost her a long time ago, if I ever really had her to begin with. I just know that lying there panting into her neck, her legs circling my hips like a second embrace and fresh marks of her teeth tattooed vivid on my shoulder, I was probably as in love as I have ever been.
how many of them post their wives pictures, or express their fetishism, or rave about their hidden passions and the 'encounters' ...
http://efil.blogspot.com/
They are just tools. I can do in Photoshop what it would take me days or weeks to do by hand; my creativity doesn't suffer - it's actually enhanced by the fact I can see almost instantly when something doesn't match my 'mind's eye'.
As far as mr. cummings, I believe he would have eshewed modern tools for his poetry. His idea was to free ideas from the grammatic rules. Or something. :) Closed source Software would have given him the heebe-jebees.
I see people give themselves credit when credit isn't due. I see rich guys buy a vintage Fender guitar and think they're Clapton, ignoring the fact that Clapton could do exactly what he does on the most shopworn Sears guitar.
Pals of mine who have tried to play guitar, invaribly tried to learn on some cheap, mass produced model and gave up, because it hurt their fingers (strings being too high, sharp frets, constantly out of tune). If they had had the opportunity to learn on a more refined instrument, they may have stuck with it. Or not. I learned on the same poor instuments, but I had burning desire to go with my bloody fingers. :)
A better tool won't *make* you a better tool user, but it does make it easier to learn to be one.
Well, that explains a lot!
Oops, I think I posted a blank message, and how ironic the subject...
I have been publishing personal pages for years, and I've always thought of all of it as useless, and hardly entertaining.
But my ebay auctions mirrors page appears popular, and one auction in particular wasted over 30 gigs of traffic in one month when it first hit, and continues to do so, six months later.
Useless? yes. Entertaining? maybe mildy...
A few decades ago, a small local cable company set an unused channel to a camera pointing at a fish tank in their office, and there it stayed for several years.
When they finally got another feed and switched the channel to that, they were flooded with complaints! Seems a significant chunk of their subscribership left their TVs tuned to "the fish channel" much of the day, and were quite upset when it was no longer available.
Upshot: the cable company switched the channel back to showing the fish tank.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Let's assume that every citizen posts an opinion about some urgent topic.
t ml
...
... What dou you do with 300 000 000 ideas??
:)
strike iraq?
or smth else
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
300 000 000 opinions
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popcld.h
What do you do?
Crab your head?
How do you aggregate opionion that is not in poll format. Binary. 1 or 0.
One step could be
Hyperlinking ideas.
Threading. Person A says Z, B either agrees or adds something else, D agrees with A or coninues with B's ideas.
Citation. These that are quoted stand out.
Or? If more opinons are good
wbr,
A web server and host are just hard disk space in a giant web filesystem. Atop of this filessytem you can mix and present your data as you please with xml. URLs are simply unique identifiers for a page of this data, and allow hyperlinks.
That I have made, at a specific address, some images, journals, rambles, and other junk available is up to me. If you're reading my home page though, then there are only a few likely hyperlinks to it that make sense. You clicked the hyperlink that took you there. If it's useless drivle it won't score too well on google et al. If it was linked from a source you trust, such as google or a website you know to be good and to link well, then it's likely to be what you're after.
A website is just making you files public and that can be weblogs and other content, good or bad. The system shouldn't be any different to dragging files to a "Shared Documents" folder though. People are people and there are crap newspapers, crap TV, crap Politicians, crap Writers all spouting the same low grade babble, but you can ignore it and choose which bits you read. Anyone should be able to post, finding what you want out of it is a job for search engines and trusting web authors, those they hyperlinks, and so on...
1) Everyone disagrees on which 10% (or less) is not crap.
2) Without the ability for unqualified people to post uninteresting content, the people who have something to express and the ability to express it well might never do so (because they might never think to do so, or because they have a lower opinion of their output than is deserved)..
I don't want someone (not necessarily, just some power in general) telling other people what they should and shouldn't post because it isn't likely that the reviewer knows exactly what is and is not crap. The torrent of useless data isn't good, but my chance of finding something in that pile is nonzero (but low); if it isn't there, my chance of finding the desired information is exactly zero.
I thought only Media Associations such as the MPAA and the RIAA, as well as the major Networks (and ClearChannel) were allowed to post content. The rest of us are either Consumers(tm), or Evil Content Pirates(tm).
I know this is so, because the RIAA told me this!
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
I've never posted anything in my life, and I plan to keep it that way.