Slashdot Mirror
Bloggers the Tech World's New Elite?
Carl Bialik writes "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Lee Gomes says that the top tech blogs 'aren't part of some proletarian information revolution, but instead have become the tech world's new elite. Reporters for the big mainstream newspapers and magazines, long accustomed to fawning treatment at corporate events, now show up and find that the best seats often go to the A-list bloggers. And living at the front of the velvet rope line means the big bloggers are frequently pitched and wooed. In fact, with the influence peddling universe in this state of flux, it's not uncommon for mainstream reporters, including the occasional technology columnist, to lobby bloggers to include links to their print articles.'"
If all the the WSJ has to write about it a virtual-print article about a virtual-print logging service
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
Who writes this garbage...oh yeah, idiotic bloggers trying to make themselves feel important.
...totally boring, usually incorrect, massively ignored, whiners...then yes.
In fact, with the influence peddling universe in this state of flux, it's not uncommon for mainstream reporters, including the occasional technology columnist, to lobby bloggers to include links to their print articles.
Good thing Taco doesn't consider Slashdot a blog.
Does those A-list Bloggers get to Post First?
No, SIWI (Search for Intra-Web Intelligence).
I speak England very best
No. Next?
-Valiss
Sorry, and I had to be modded down for their problem [sigh].
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The "world" (I use that word loosely) is realizing that it's not only the automatically appointed elitists who's opinion or viewpoint is important. It's coming down to the intelligent individual, who can give a less biased (or sometimes not) and always informative opinion and update on important subject matter to everyday persons. I'd much rather read blogs than find out who Jennifer Aniston is dating now in the latest People.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
I read a lot of blogs, but I'm ashamed to admit it in public. The perception is that all blogs are just like LiveJournal/MySpace self-absorbed bitchfests.
"Blogosphere" sounds even worse. I will never utter that word as long as I live.
Add commenting capability to a website, update it regularly and SUDDENLY, OH NOEZ ITS A BLAWG!!!!!.
Bloggers are hot shit the same way desktop linux is hot shit. Everybody doing it thinks it's the coolest damned thing since the toaster. Nobody else gives a shit.
(disclaimer : I blog.)
Thats ok with me. Much harder to bribe 1000 different bloggers, than to bribe a single news organization. It will return to status Quo if the bloggers organize into some tightly nit network.
The reason bloggers are courted is because they can put a personal touch with communication with their followers. Thus if they plug a product, then advertisers will get more bang for their buck, even with smaller reading audiences.
My mostly unread blog [only about a dozen regular readers who aren't family or close friends] still has people finding it, and using the information on it. Unlike a newspaper, they aren't as shy about asking me a question about my content, and I'm more likely to give a personalized response to a request for additional info.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Blogger's the new tech world's ......... I think the submitter mispelled whiners
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
aren't part of some proletarian information revolution, but instead have become the tech world's new elite.
No - no, they are not. Mayhap the person(s) forming this opinion should venture into the "tech world" one of these days.
bloggers:tech_world_elite::script_kiddies:securit
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
The difference is anyone can open a Blog, with little or no skill and a web connection. While you can get a column in the WSJ with little or no skill, you need a whole lot more than a net connection.
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
Maybe the bloggers being wooed aren't elite. Maybe they can just be bought off more easily.
There's a reason why a few of these bloggers are the "ones that matter": they had the best and/or most popular blogs and got the most hits. Period. It's the same deal with high-profile tech sites like Tom's Hardware. Getting the hits results in attention from the industry.
In time, any "A-list" blogger who becomes too influenced by industry sources will be discredited and shunned by the community of "proletariants" that made them a success in the first place. Honest, unbiased(or less-biased at least) bloggers will take over. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Is it just me, or is this another case of a bitter main-stream media player taking swings at bloggers?
It seems to me that a lot of these things are simply a factor of how much someone's material is getting read. Traditionally, the mainstream media is given special treatment because they have a wide audience. If there are bloggers with a wide audience, then it only makes sense that they would get the same treatment, and it's no secret that the audience for blogs is large and probably growing. It doesn't seem to me that it's a question of ideology or even what format writes in. As the summary says, it's an "influence peddling universe", and people are going to go after whoever controls that influence, whether blogger or reporter.
Bloggers are not necessarily the world's tech elite, but they are certainly the loudest, the most outspoken and, yes, most of them are the early adopters.
The same (early adopters bit in particular) can be said about social bookmarking users. For instance, less than 1/3 of all Simpy users use IE, and over 40% of them use Firefox. If we assume that early tech adopters are also Firefox and not IE users, then yes, bloggers and social bookmarker are early adopters. But does that make them the elite? Does Linus Torvalds have a blog? Not. Yet.
Simpy
Our wonderful brave new world of equality is dashed again. Some bloggers are going to be better writers and more prolific. They will become more influential than others. They will be courted by the system. They will be given praise and glory. They will garner preferred ad rates. They will be given free bling. They will come to depend on these things. They will subconsciously be changed by all this. Rather than changing the system, the system changes them. Stop harboring the delusion that the thin veneer of technology will change the millions of years of ape-men inside us.
Blotter? I don't need no stinking blotter! Upgrade to the 21st century...
In fact, with the influence peddling universe in this state of flux, it's not uncommon for mainstream reporters, including the occasional technology columnist, to lobby bloggers to include links to their print articles.'"
Oh the irony.
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
The blogosphere is just a huge collection of idiots blabbing and feeling more important than they did when they did in bulletin board systems. There isn't a single blogger I read often. In fact, I only read the blogs of my friends and I've been a Linux/bsd/programming geek for 6-7 years now. I'd much rather read the docs than the opinion of some (typically) misinformed moron who read the first chapter and thinks they're an expert.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
The interesting question is, to whom are these bloggers elite? TFA indicates that the readership numbers aren't really that big compared to mainstream media, so probably they're not the elite for everyone. Nor are they necessarily elites in terms of the "tech world," especially since it's difficult to define what that might be (all tech consumers? producers? tech press?).
So we're left with a pretty basic observation, which is that some tech bloggers are considered elite in the world of tech blogging, and that some people outside tech blogging also recognize them. Well, duh.
The biggest reason Blogs have become so very popular, and why they are here to stay in growing numbers is because they made publishing online easy for everyone. Blogs don't require you to know HTML before you can publish your ideas online. Just type your thoughts into a form, and the software builds the code automatically.
So, Blogs dramatically reduced the "friction" to publishing online. Millions of non-geeks now have their say.
If you mentally replace the word "Blog" with "Home Page" in any article you read online, it'll seem like you've stepped back in time to the dawn of the Web. That's how people talked about the web a few years ago.
Blogs have accelerated grass roots democracy, leaching the "Mass" from Media, splintering it into untold numbers of demassified niches. The impact is very big and will deepen.
I recently finished a piece on the impact of new digital media upon the mass media called: " Mass Media, By And For The Masses. It makes the case that the london transit bombings represent the birth of emergent mass media and will force mass media in all forms, to take it's rightful place as another niche.
In a nutshell, Mass media will be good for mass events. But Blogs represent the birth of grass roots media. Aggregated through RSS, they'll soon out-perform mainstream.
Thoughts on the Emergence of Computing Intelligence
I've been wrong before, but isn't a link to a print article technically called a Citation?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
The bloggers have this image of NOT being tainted by advertising, equity ownership, etc ... In other words, they're considered as folks who are untainted by $
My first post got modd'ed down. Help me.
This goes back to an old Marketing method that says the marketer basically finds and persuades people who are a powerful influence on many others. Celebrities and whatever gadget they may carry is a perfect example.
This practice has basically moved online. Since the publication needs to attract eyeballs, its published as the most double-extra powerful tool ever in the history of the world.
I just want to get on the list for all that free stuff.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
That's what bloggers keep telling me.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
From TFA:
I think the message is clear. Blogs may not offer quantity of suckers^H^H^H viewers, but they do offer quality of viewers. With one link in the right blog, the marketing man can pay to reach the exact people he could only hope of catching by chance in other media. This isn't just a marketing pipe dream. Bribing bloggers is about to become big business.
One could hope that the blogging community will be steadfast enough to resist the oncoming corruption, but it's hard to be steadfast after some oily marketing representative has just stuffed your face in a nice restaurant and shacked you up with a four star hotel room.
Be prepared. A lot of blogs, not all, but a lot, are about to pull a great big "Driver 3: 9/10" on various items. I'd guess the form this will take will be hyping new technologies, languages and frameworks, rather than blatantly plugging products. Think the hyping of Java, only for whatever new tech rolls around next time.
If the marketers are really good, and they are, the bloggers may not even know they've been bought.
May the Maths Be with you!
yeah right. "Tech World's New Elite", what a bunch of CRAP.
maybe, but given that this is /., it's spelign at ist wrost, as usual...
Lost cause if there ever was one.
... how far-fetch can it get?
"Bloggers new tech elite"
Is "lol wtf xboxx360 >>> PS3 fagz0r" now a comprehensive review?
Get off your high horse. It's people like you, who write on the Internet and think they're special for it, that are pushing the whole blog thing. Everyone's excited and writing about it, but also linking to their blog at the end of everything they write online now. So what, you wrote some stuff... It's probably just as homogenous as everything else that's written in any other form.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Anyone who hasn't noticed this already either is already in the elite, or is content being a fanboy:
The digerati are cheering the blogosphere, hailing it as the falling of the final barrier to the open public medium that the Internet was supposed to be -- in much the same way that the creation of the Wiki is seen as the long-awaited achievement of the knowledge-network that the hypertexted Web was supposed to be.
But of course the digerati are cheering the blogosphere -- it's their personal domain.
As the theory goes, the blogosphere makes it so anyone at all can put their interests, views, and discoveries on their blog, some portion of the Internet masses (especially blog-readers) will see it, share it, spread it around. Each person can be their own broadcast tower, theoretically equal in visibility and reach potential to anyone else.
Except it's not quite like that (bandwidth and space limitations being only part of the antithesis). There is a subtle, unspoken but implicit "popular Darwinism" that occurs in this process. As it is the digerati that does much of the reading and spreading, it is the digerati that ends up doing the saying of what gets read and spread.
Certainly a few well-placed blogs have launched otherwise typical netizens into the ranks of the digerati -- Rob Malda, Philip Kaplan, Drew Curtis to name a few off the top of my head. And to some extent, they deserve some sort of recognition of being the first to come up with certain online concepts.
As a result, though, they also each help hold the keys to the gate of the blogosphere. And despite being independent, free-willed individuals, capable of making their own value judgements, a barrier to entry into the slipstream of the blogosphere manages to form among them. Despite being controlled in only limited amounts by individual people, only certain elements make it through this cultural elite.
Of course, not all of the "blogerati" are on the mountain because of their blogging pluck; some are there because they have always been there, in the digerati circles, which is doubly reflexive: being in the digerati means, by definition, that they will try to be on top of any new "hip" Net development; and by being digerati, they will get an boosted amount of attention when they do so.
It would be wonderful if the blogosphere was truly an open community. The thought that there really could be an open exchange of information (casual or otherwise) that people could contribute to, and that information be assessed and categorized, and be available to those who were looking for it or had an interest in it, is one that brings forth feelings of true community, egalitarianism, and diversity. Instead, it is a sort of random quasi-natural selection, where some are in, and some are out, and there is no real reason to it.
You had a better chance to get read in 1997 by posting to Usenet than you do in 2005 posting to Slashdot.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
are other bloggers.
Bloggers are the revolution; freedom of speach in the hands of the people, even speach held in one jurisdiction originating from the jurisdiction of another country that would vindictively prosecute it if it were posted there. I suppose that is why the 14th amendment "citizens of the United States" is unlike the State Citizen by not "respecting the national origin" of somthing so as to prejudice it. In effect, there are both favorable people and then there are odd-ball people that reach safe-haven in the United States that would have been persecuted in their original country.
I can see any online diaries, journals, and active forums such as Slashdot and Kuro5hin become the center of much prejudice because they allow the free unhindered movement of information. Wether you love it or hate it, it is supposed to be free and if you don't like it then you should not have asked about it. This could lead to bloggers, or particularly any dynamically contributable website or forum, to incur regulations to classify the content in attempt to regulate it based on scope. I'm not a fan of pornography, though we can consider the recent 2257 regulations as an attempt to recognize freedom of speech in certain classes, perhaps to allow people to not be tempted to just ask for any freedom of speech but to ask for the content of that speech. I think that is an abuse.
If someone wants to be 2257 compliant, then they already lossed their freedom of speech. The regulation is truly voluntary, but it encroaches on the voluntary application by the same governmental entity recognizing that freedom and forcasting services at intently incompetent service costs to persuade the people to subscribe to them despite losing certain freedoms. An example of this is the spread of surveilance equipment into cars by the insurance companies respectively advertising those solutions at a lower rate without proportion to the responsibility and good standing of the operator or driver or gasp "helmsman" that is directing that vessel.
But there is one thing for sure: If I went to Toys'R'Us to look for a pink balls for a toddler, I wouldn't want this to appear on the search results. An immature and incompetent person that is often dependent on someone else to be the government-on-his-shoulders on his behalf would complain for more regulation, whereas an polite and competent person would ask for a guide to no-one elses' bereft or indirect enfringe or apply some common sense and use a trusted source. Cut the cord to your mother, but don't tether your cord on someone else. Grow up, don't grow old like someone that thinks retirment is where you go when you are tired of working; whereas retirment is the beginning of the most difficult work to survive at the hands of the verry people you had payed someone else to raise.
This is posted anonymously, for said effect.
On the other hand, I do think that blogging is the future of news media. All we need is one site to rule them all, one site to bind them... into something like a traditional news outlet so you don't have to go hunting for them all, since there's lag time on a google index.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There seems to be a lot of flack towards the author by the slashdot (holds his breath waiting for the collective gasp of surprise)community. In particular seems to be a lot of revulsion towards his use of the word 'elite'. What some have touched on, but people seem to overlook, is the fact that in a sense these people are very much the 'elite' of the information providing world.
Nearly the entire world has a collective distaste for the majority of the established media. However, A-list bloggers, as he describes them, provide an alternative and often informed opinion about specific subject matter. Do I care what ABC news says about the war in Iraq? Not at all. But that blog from a squad commander on the front line in Uzbekistan(sic) about the day to day life of the soldiers under his command and his struggles with his superior officers is damn sure getting a bookmark in my favorites. Maybe I don't care what CNN thinks is the next new gadget to buy. But I DO care what an MIT professor blogs about as exciting projects among his graduate class.
The ultimate difference is that blogging is journalism by the people, for the people. Much like the real media, it is saturated with non-accurate information, but it also has the occasional trade expert who can provide us an internal view on how things actually work, and THAT is elite. Hate the slang, hate the excess, but remember that those kids writing about their D&D games online now will be talking about their business start-up plans in 10 years. There is a lot of room to grow, a lot of room to tangentize, but simply put it is more than a fad. More than a trend. It is a way for people to connect with other people who actually care about something.
PS - I'm not perfect, my opinions are my own, but I share them with the community. Do with it what you will. I did.
The world is ending. This is a sign of the apocolypse. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Sure, but wait until I have Linux running on my toaster! Maybe I should blog about it...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I'd like to comment but I am too busy reading tech blogs. Only another 96,546 to go, each one so very very interesting and important.
Why are some people so obsessed with other people's opinions? Opinions are gone like the wind. Would you prefer to invest in a company run by someone who worked hard and knew his own mind or who spent all day reading blogs, fearful that he didn't?
Blogs are a great argument for internet-enabled lavatories since they are the modern equivalent of loo books. No one need feel any great urgency to join that particular A List.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
bloogers being called the new elite by the tech columnist of the WSJ are a classic example of why the tech columnists of WSJ are not exactly what i would refer to as technical or l33t or even cool or even knowledgeable.
I'm not sure many would agree with that either.
Or is he a blogger bragging that bloggers are hot shit right now?
Have you read my blog lately?
Companies place at the front of the line whoever talks about their product or service in the most flattering ways. "Web loggers" are well known for floofy, heavily biased stuff- and they don't have all that training in nasty things like ethics that get in the way of corporate agendas. Further, I'd guess the percentage that report to an editor to be in the realm of less than 1%, and I'd guess that 90% of that 1% are "mainstream" journalists working for "mainstream" media.
I find it absolutely no surprise they're placed in front of journalists.
And no, "web loggers" are NOT journalists. Journalists CAN have a "web log"- there's a very important distinction there. "Web loggers" love to complain about "traditional" or "mainstream" media and often compare themselves to "mainstream" media figures nobody takes seriously, in an attempt to legitimatize themselves. The extent to which they willfully discredit a profession is absolutely atrocious. When was the last time you hear someone complain about "mainstream" mechanical engineers, for example? There is a reason we educate people in professional fields and place stock in those educations. They're not infallable, but far as I can tell- they're a lot more reliable and trustworthy than the "web logging" community as a whole. For example, I've found numerous instances of "web log" entries linked to by slashdot which have had circumstantial ties to the subject of the entry- usually some company's product. Another linked posting was by a guy who was closely tied to an "online marketing expert." I think there is quite a bit of astroturf in the "web log" arena- much more so than in "mainstream" media, I'd bet.
IMHO, journalists are people who go to school and study it, train under the wing of a mentor, and report to an editor. Bloggers are "some Joe with a webpage."
Please help metamoderate.
Maybe, just maybe, with all these bloggers the media will be turned upside down, and we can get rid of some of the lessor ones. Dvorack is one who should have retired more than a decade ago. He was interesting in the 80's (reminded me of news.com's declan), but by mid 90's, he had lost his edge and I would argue he is gone. The nice thing about the bloggers is that they will do for the tech media what mp3 is doing for the RIAA/artists; freeing up the providers of content and rewarding them. In fact, if tech media was smart they would try to lose the vast majority of their writers and bring on bloggers on contigency basis.
One other group who could stand to do this, is the analysts. Think about how often Gartner and IDC are incorrect. The vast majority of their predictions are so far off base, that the general tech community does a better job "analyzing" then they do.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
noawetr jax: can you post a comment to slashdot for me? jax noawetr, no noawetr the discussion is over whether bloggers are the new "tech elite" noawetr someone? please? jax NO noawetr here's the comment: noawetr Isn't that like being the 'leader' in your group of nerd friends? I mean sure, you have the last word in your little groups "star trek: the next universe" debates, and no one is going to question you're judgements on Japanese anime animation, but honestly, I would rather be the football-scholarship sociology major than have socialize with a bunch of nerds. Because even though College-Jock has a future bagging groceries, he's way more "elite" jax s/you're/your jax retard jax and "Japanese anime animation" is redundant noawetr no shit noawetr you pedantic loser noawetr Isn't that like being the 'leader' in your group of nerd friends? I mean sure, you have the last word in your little groups "star trek: the next universe" debates, and no one is going to question you're judgements on Japanese anime animation, but honestly, I would rather be the football-scholarship sociology major than have socialize with a bunch of nerds. Because even though College-Jock has a future bagging groceries, he's way more "elite" noawetr "japanese anime animation" is supposed to be there. noawetr it's called being disengenuous jax noawetr, it makes you look like an ignorant fuck, contrary to what you were trying to achieve jax but that's mostly because you ARE an ignorant fuck cakedrink beep timecop no abuse jax and none of the attempts at intelligence on /. in the world can change that
noawetr oh god, please don't make me look ignorant in front of a bunch of nerds
jax then why bother posting?
noawetr anything but that
jax if your trolls suck, you suck.
There is no revolution here. This is just a new device to make loud narcissists louder and more narcissistic.
You fucking toolbag.
bloggers (and some reports for that matter) write heavily opinionated /lowly researched CRAP. It bothers me with a passion that google news includes blogs in the search. Blogs are not valid news sources and should not be treated as such.
An overly large corporation with the media power to bring a government to its knees?
Or...
Anonymous Coward blogging whatever the hell he wants with the ability to 'disappear' from the government?
Or maybe its just that bloggers are more likely to return the favour of a free pass/meal/hotel etc with a good review than traditional journos... half of good press is quite probably knowing who to bribe.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The biggest problem is that the masses love being told what to do and blogging provides something for everyone.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The word Blog is newer than the concept it represents; for many it is just another new buzz word, but the hype and recent improvements it blogging software has brought the non-technical community into the same realm as the rest of us. I resisted starting a blog for the same reasons most of the people above have already stated, but it really looks blogs are here to stay. To lump all bloggers into the same group as tech writers is a gross misconception, but the tech writers using blog technology are quickly gaining a following. Blogging should not be looked down upon. The number blog hobbyists are only going to increase and eventually there will be a better term to differentiate the hobbyists and crackpots from the pros.
- John Smilanick (http://www.johnsmilanick.com/
I've posted some reviews of products and services on my own web site (I too don't care for the word "blog") and I've had some good feedback because I am not being paid by anyone for my opinion.
As far as I can tell, this article is just the manifestation of rich guys trying to come to grips with what is happening. "It's all a game of kings & queens," they're saying to themselves in the head. "It's the same evil game it's always been."
They want this to be the case, because they've sold out already, and they're trying to justify what they did, to themselves. They sold out to evil at some point in their life, and they don't want to feel guilty when this new thing comes along. So they go, "Oh, those guys are evil too. Yeah. You were just as good when we were the guys in power. So, don't get all happy about these new guys. Fuckers. You were losers in the beginning, and, haha, you're still losers. Wannabes."
Here's the refutation to his underlying argument: With blogs, we get to choose what we see. In the bad old days, we didn't. There were like, what, 5 news channels? 1 or, maybe, 2 newspapers? Yeah: Some diversity. But now, we have much more say over who we get our news from. We have much more power in the system. Which means you have to address what we're saying, and what we care about. If you don't, we're outta there. In many cases, we're literally writing the news. WikiNews? I'm talking K5.
"The difference between the old media elite and the new blogging elite is that the latter gets redefined much more frequently." No, the difference is that we can now tell fuckers like you, that we don't give a damn, and ignore you.
Even I'm a (small-time) blogger, and I think this whole thing's just stupid. It would probably do well to read some more Maddox, if you ask me.
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
but they are certainly the loudest, the most outspoken and, yes, most of them are the early adopters
Isn't that the case with the "elites" in all media? They often tend to be the biggest loudmouths, and/or they usually have something new/unconventional to say or a new way of thinking. Think A-list actors that pose nude for PeTA or shock-jocks like Howard Stern...
For instance, less than 1/3 of all Simpy users use IE, and over 40% of them use Firefox
So what do the remaining 30 percent or so use for browsing? They must be REAL avant-guarde...
But does that make them the elite?
Well, yeah it often does. Early adopters have "first mover advantage". Those that pioneerred blogging are not the most established, and have the biggest following and thus the most influence...an elite by definition is someone with power or influence who is highly regarded (or very hated by those who lack power and influence).
I have a blog. It's mostly full of random thoughts, notes to people and reviews of things I like. It's read by 20 or so of my friends and that's about it. Does that some how make me an elite person or does it just mean I'm using a blog to get thoughts of my head and run them through?
Anyone who thinks blogs are a resource worth listening to and appealing to beyond any other basic news site clearly doesn't understand blogs. They're not some sort of revolution in ways of reporting news, they're not the newest way to make money. They're simpaly social circles written down, in the past I'd tell friends about new games I was playing, now I just blog about them and they can read it if they wish.
The way most blog systems are set up is very simple and easy. You click a button after you've done typing and it's done. It's like having a geocities site with no limit on bandwidth and no need to waste time designing a layout. Maybe a few more links and a few less images but this isn't anything special, just another resource for the average person to use.
I like muppets.
And when do we find the alienz?
They just used to call them reporters, and they used to have an editor to answer to. Now they write abotu what they feel like or what the public wants to hear, and we call them idiots. Oh I'm sorry. bloggers.
It's like 1995 all over again. People who want to make money have noticed that these blog thingies seem popular and are all trying to figure out how to turn all those hits into cash. Very few people succeeded last time and I can't imagine it's going to be any different this time, but that won't stop lots of them trying. I can bet there a whole bunch of people out there dusting off their old business plans and replacing every instance of 'java' with 'blog' and waving them in front of VCs on the hope they get some cash thrown their way. If we start seeing IPOs with such crazy valuations as price-to-hits ratios and eyeballs-yeild then we know the cycle is almost complete.
or Blog on it.. now that's an idea
(some one shoot me for this comment)
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
It's the self-proclaimed "A-List Bloggers" that are the true garbage of the web, with loud, googlebomb-loaded blogs filled with inane, buzzword-infested, narcissistic radio static. They maliciously and ruthlessly game search engines to promote their unreadable posts, diluting the quality of the web and adding nothing to any discourse of any significance.
A blog is a vain, one-man spew of senseless noise, not some kind of cog in the wheels of media revolution.
GET OUT. No one cares what bloggers have to say, and we're tired of our search results containing anything at all from blogs.
and now next!
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
Wall Street Journal tech columnist Lee Gomes says that the top tech blogs 'aren't part of some proletarian information revolution, but instead have become the tech world's new elite.
I don't know... I tried to cite a handful of reputable and well known bloggers (I won't mention any names) in an essay that I wrote last year for a science class at uni. However, my first draft was handed to me with red lines through each reference to a blogger in my bibliography, along with a comment to include "real sources".
Do people generally feel that bloggers are not reliable sources or was that a personal bias from my professor?
There's nothing elite about bloggers. They're just minor celebrities, like the guy that invented Cheetos.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
> Sorry, and I had to be modded down for their problem [sigh].
No, you're modded down for being a First Post bitch.
Next time I'll use smileys and/or straight comments, like How intelligent you have to be to post a reply to the correct forum?... I had no points to mark the parent Offtopic, therefore I used sarcasm.
I speak England very best
And yet... these people that nobody else "gives a shit" about are apparently getting front-row treatment. Interesting way to be ignored.
Not that your pithy comment doesn't have some merrit - there's a lot of hubris around blogs that need some reality checks. But let's at least try to do it reasonably. Obviously SOMEONE other than "bloggers" care. But one point is that posting up a blog doesn't buy you in to this newfound interest any more than getting an article published by your local community newspaper and calling yourself a "reporter" gets you national press credentials.
If you mentally replace the word "Blog" with "Home Page" in any article you read online, it'll seem like you've stepped back in time to the dawn of the Web. That's how people talked about the web a few years ago.
And how do people talk about "home pages" now? They redicule them for wasting bandwidth on worthless content. The few highly popular blogs will stick around, but the rest will be thrown on the ash heap of history, with the rest of the geocities pages.
How Blogs fit into the big picture.
? entry=context_ideosphere_the_internet
http://www.realmeme.com:8080/roller/page/realmeme
So one of the big challenges is extracting the useful stuff from the mounds of garbage. Not an uncommon problem with any kind of data.
... is that high end blogger _are_ journalists. Period. There's nothing new about blogging other than the cost of entry. Regular editorial/opinion/whatever columns have existed for a long time now. The only thing that the low cost of entry changes is the average quality. Other than that, there is no difference. What gets me is the ever-present trend of coming up with "clever" tag words for every single manifestation of the same old thing. Writing secret data on a diskette is data theft, writing it into an iPod is "podstuffing", writing it into a digital camera is "camstuffing"... It's all the same thing. Take your blogosphere and shove it.
The only problem thus far is the fact that I am the only one reading my blog
You're right. "Someone" cares about these nobody bloggers sort of like "someone" cares about what some random starlet is wearing on the red carpet of some movie premier. That is to say - nobody except E! and Entertainment Tonight. Basically navel-gazing butt-sniffing sycophants. The day I get my news from some dickhead in a turtleneck at his powerbook spending all morning sipping from a cup in a starbucks is the day I shoot myself in the nuts.
bloggers:tech_world_elite :: script_kiddies:security _world_elite
Perfect.
And just like the script kiddies, everyone tells them how cool they are while laughing once they walk away.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Did you accidently space in the wrong place?
It looks like you typed "the masses"; are you sure you didn't mean to put the space *after* the 'm' instead of before it?
-- Terry
Really, at the end of the day, what we have here is:
1. A MSM journalist went to a tech convention, and saw that bloggers were more important than he was.
2. Thought to himself, "Hey, I thought I was the important one."
He probably went home, kicked the cat, grumbled to himself, and wrote about it the next day.
Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is.
No.
A bunch of people sitting in their comfy climate-controlled homes writing utter shit is not the proletariat. In fact, blogging itself has nothing to do with communism at all. Not every revolution is a proletarian revolution.
wow i went to that link expecting a resonably thought out post. Little did i know it was just someone - starved for attention - who didnt get any of their stories posted to slashdot. Its really sad because he took all the time writing what amounts to the 'no homers' club. they didnt let you in to their little club so now they are the new illuminati, creating vast conspiracies and social darknets everywhere?
im crying for him right now.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Yeah, you're right, no one gives a shit about comments posted on a web site. Except yours, of course.
Uhh, OK.
fnord.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ba nish
And yet... these people that nobody else "gives a shit" about are apparently getting front-row treatment. Interesting way to be ignored.
Obviously someone cares... look at Rathergate and the Dan Rather fiasco. Or Matt Drudge. Or James Lileks.
Or.... to get back into the tech field, the way outlets like Slashdot and Ars Technica influence the market (that is, us). People read them, they think about what is written there. You may not agree, but they've bought the most valuable commodity in advertising: a little piece of your attention span.
That's valuable.
As opposed to linking their blog at the top of everything they write online...
Influential people with a following.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"...it's not uncommon for mainstream reporters, including the occasional technology columnist, to lobby bloggers to include links to their print articles."
How does one link to a print article?
Who are these A-List bloggers the parent is talking about?
Now that online journalism is eligible for the Pulitzer Prize (still only for print newspapers' web editions), over the next few years we'll see how slippery this slope gets. If online journalism is a step away from print journalism, and blogging is a step away from online journalism, we may yet live to see someone on Blogger getting the big boys' plaque.
Here Here!
What how do you explain all of the moderator points that people give me?? It means that people read my posts expecially when I say something a little procative.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Really? So having a blog automatically makes you ignorant? Because it seems to me that a member of this imaginary Tech World Elite could take up blogging without suddenly becoming ignorant. Perhaps you can explain this amazing logical leap of yours to me. Oh, and better explain it to Mark Russinovich, too.
Dumbass.
Electric Monkey Pants
Ive met some of the self righteous bloggers who live in small town Iowa. They have never been out of the state, don't read newspapers or magazines but get all their information from the ocassional radio talk show. Its scary if people like this become the new source for news and analysis in the future. Why not leave the work to the professionals?
It's all well and good that those who have widely read online journals are being given treatment traditionally reserved for regular journalists. For the most part, the online journal has few trappings that plague conventional news outlets. Having no established organization above them--organizations with political agendas or obligations to advertisers--the men or women writing these online journals need only answer to themselves, need only to worry about their own personal reputation, and their readers are generally assured that whatever they read is the unmolested words and opinions of the author.
On the other hand, the online journal writer is not bound by any of the ethical constraints of the traditional journalist. With only his or her own reputation on the line, there is no larger organization to compel them to strive towards objectivity. The online journal can ultimately be counted on to be a source of opinion (at times an extremely well informed one, but an opinion nonetheless), and shouldn't be thought of as a viable replacement of traditional news.
The Internet is generally stupid
Whoa, I didn't know tech bloggers were into undercover drug sting philosophy. Or that Slashdot editors were into people who were into that.
The word you're scrabbling for is "narcissism". I'm too busy admiring my vocabulary to say more than that.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
Graffiti can be a great form of expression and art. But is not accountable like printed/serious journalism. It is just a new form of expression, it does not have to confect with existing one. Just give each form of communication its own value.
I even liked them when they were called newsgroups. There is a legend about a stockbroker getting out of the Market in the 1920s because his shoeshine boy was giving him stock tips. Similarly, when the WSJ is writing about the social impact of 'blogs, the writing is on the wall.
I really thought I was the only one who detests this unfold of events.
Ah well, I can either ramble here or ramble here.
I wonder how much these article posters actually _know_ about the "Tech World" that they are writing about.
Idiot! I wasn't aiming for FP. I was aming to have my post appear in a different article which, at the time, already has ~20 posts. And you are a coward! If Slashdot had a way for a user to remove their post when there's an obvious error I would have done so.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I was amused to read this study made in Germany which shows that more people keep blogs than read them!
Yeah, but I'll be running my blog from toaster with Linux(tm) and Toast(no tm, I'm talking about bread) inside. It'll be hot shit. /i kill me and you should too for this comment
Be prepared. A lot of blogs, not all, but a lot, are about to pull a great big "Driver 3: 9/10" on various items.
The problem with that argument is that blog validity is self regulating - like Daffy Duck quffing a jug of nitroglycerince and a pound of dynamite, they can only pull that trick once.
Ok perhaps a few times. But the same quality in readers that makes them desireable to target (intelligent and educated) also makes them more likley to catch wind of any graft. If a blogger starts to say things that sounds odd, seem to disagree with the rest of the blogosphere without good backup, then the audience vanishes.
The thing is that since fundamentally what drives bloggeres is ego, I think most bloggers would far rather keep a audience entrhralled through writing than make a few K on the side. Especially so since most bloggers seem to be well off in the first place, and thus have less motivation to take graft.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
untold numbers of demassified niches.
Lol! Corporatespeak meets blogospeak.
Too late. http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/toaster/
Just because you've got a blog doesn't make you Elite, it makes you a loudmouth.
I hope you do better then I did, I used a cd-writer and an industrial laser, but it didn't work out well:* Runs to toaster, inserts bread slices, runs back to desktop *Ok, I can burn custom tux images on my bread, but next time I wouldn't use a single speed writer anymore.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
They're not infallable, but far as I can tell- they're a lot more reliable and trustworthy than the "web logging" community as a whole.
The problem is that every single time (that's every time) I've been involved in something that was in a newspaper article, the "professionals" got major facts wrong. I lived about three miles away from Columbine highschool and so have perspective to say the mass-mass media aren't much better.
When respectible bloggers get things wrong, they fess up and post it publicially slongside the mistake - it's a cultural thing. if they don't you find out (either through direct knowledge or reading other blogs) and they you place them in the "Doofus" category, never to be read again. So bloggers are subject to a much quicker natural selction based only on quality of content, whereas reporters are subject by selection through kissing up to the editor and avoiding mistakes so henious they generate over fourteen bags of mail.
I still read some national news through mainstram sources but really bloggers provide so much better detail... and if you read both left and right wing blogs you get a much better picture of the political landscape as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What's this "pushing the blog thing" you're talking about?
I think a major shift in how people make and get news is interesting, and there's very good evidence that it's changing people's lives. Politicians have had to dramatically change their strategies, it's affecting how war works, and it's changing business. People are rethinking what personal boundaries mean, and where they should be.
So, it seems natural to me that people should talk about blogs.
So, I'm wondering: What's your concern? Are you just not finding the conversations entertaining enough? Are you bored by the talk? Do you want something else? Is there some concern of yours that's not being met?
Honestly, what's the complaint?
Was the poster treating you poorly, or disrespecting you in some way? Are you worried that the proportion of respect is wrong? Should we respect media analysis less, and think about something else, more? What do you think people should be paying attention to, that conversations about blogs are getting in the way of?
Or maybe media study is just not your thing. Perhaps you just wish Slashdot didn't bring in news about media, and stuff like that.
me. The Anonymous Coward on Slashdot.
aren't most bloggers whiny morons who can't figure out how to use a command line interface? how are they elite anythings?
Bloggers aren't the tech world's new elite. The tech world's old elite just got blogs. All the significant tech blogs are done by people who have been significant for ages and made their names doing real stuff. The thing that's changed is that the tech elite don't need lowly reporters to tell the public things, but can do so directly.
This is true in general. This year, I've been following Jeff Master's excellent blog about the hurricane season. But he's not just some guy who talks about hurricanes; he's got a doctorate in meteorology, he flew planes to measure hurricanes for four years, and he founded one of the best internet sites for weather information. After 9 years of getting my weather reports from his site, I started reading his blog. It's hardly surprising with that career that he'd have posts worth reading. Defining him as a blogger is a bit like defining him as an English speaker. It's clearly true, and clearly significant, but it's not what distinguishes him from everybody else.
Hi
You Must be a paid for tech shill
Blog this asswipe
the blue
Blahgers.
Man, you burned him! I would have added a "HOMO!" at the end but that's just me.
First, my website has more than just a blog. It's a personal website, which is what slashdot asks for for a url. Second, I don't think it's significant that people have ways of writing on the Internet and don't understand what the big deal is. I also find it ridiculous that bloggers are demanding to be treated like journalists. On this note, I also think people should pass general intelligence tests before having kids.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
I think most blogging is just a low-cost version of vanity publishing, which has been around for at least 100 years. Instead of paying a publisher to print material they don't think will sell, you pay your hosting service.
Somehow I picture that like these guys do: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578200997/
Note: William Quick coined the term on January 1, 2002, at 12:54 a.m in his Daily Pundit blog.
however, this result is from a quick & dirty google for "blogosphere etymology", and i have no info on the validity of the source
I thought it was the engineers that create tech products and the IT guys that keep the systems running (including that one system, you may have heard of it, the Internet)
Nah, it's really the bloggers that are 'elite'.
Really? So having a blog automatically makes you ignorant?
If you call your journal a blog, then yes, you are ignorant. It's a stupid word that serves no useful purpose.
ITYM BSD.
I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
Humorously I just caught this entry (on a blog, of all ironies) about bloggers being full of themselves. It is a fantastic entry.
A++++++++++++++++
of tech bloggers supported by the news media in an attempt to slow the bleeding. They reference each others' blogs and rarely add new references. You probably know a lot of them already. If you find one of them, you'll find them all, because they reference each others blogs so heavily. There's only about 40 of them.
Actually, you just showed yourself to be ignorant since the word does serve a purpose. It denotes a journal that is online instead of in print form. Also, most written journals that I've seen don't have space at the bottom where random people can comment. It's a vastly different medium that deserves its own word. Perhaps you should just admit that you have a blind, irrational hatred of the word that has no basis in fact or logic.
Maybe you should start a blog about it. :-)
One day blogging is the new media that encapsulates the freedom of the internet. The next day blogging is nothing but a bunch of loud mouth jerks who have a personal agenda. So which is it?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Maybe among the incestuous circle jerk blogosphere crowd, then yeah. But practically any idiot can throw up a blog these days. Doesn't make them anything special.
I generally consider blogs to be worthless internet clutter.
hahah.. that made my day, thanks!
Interesting distinction, but it wouldn't impress the people who sign my article checks.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Instant Messengers are the new elite...
Chatters are the new elite...
Fanfiction Authors are the new elite...
Forum Admins are the new elite...
Webmasters are the new elite...
Newsgroupers are the new elite...
A new year, a new fad, yawn...
Reminds me of how there is always something about to go extinct as well...
Slow news day, nothing to see here, move along...
Really? So having a blog automatically makes you ignorant?
It's not an equation, it's a relation (damn me if I'm not wracking my brain trying to figure out the fancy SAT term for it at 1am, but I'm coming up empty). Nothing suggests that bloggers take on the qualities of script kiddies.
Instead, it means that, compared to the "Tech World Elite", bloggers hold a relative position equal to script kiddies compared to the "Security World Elite", which is to say "not even close." Granted, some "Tech world Elite" might HAVE blogs (or might not. I don't bother following blogs), but that isn't what MAKES them the elite.
Larry Wall would (at least, IMNSHO) be considered "Tech world elite", with or without a blog, but if I were to go batshit-loco-insane and start a perl-focused blog, that wouldn't make me anything more than a perl-geek-with-a-blog, which is a long way from elite.
Hey man, you're the one commenting on the Death Star of blogs, slashdot. ;-)
... to completely miss the point. Sure, blogging levels the playing field and that's a good thing in some ways. However, since most bloggers in this area are just gear heads they will oooh and aaah over most anything that gets them a free trip and dinner. Not saying all tech journalists have ethics, but at least most have some training. Where bloggers are just average shmucks that are going to be nothing more than cheap word of mouth marketing tools.
"Some blogs are excellent, but most are crap..."
Sturgeon's Law applies here, as everywhere else:
"Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud".
Mind you, I think Sturgeon was a bit generous with that 90%; I would put it a bit higher than that. The nice thing about blogs is that even 1% of the number of active bloggers is far more than most of us can begin to cope with. So, perhaps for the first time ever, there is more than enough first-rate, relevant, well-informed, interesting, useful, timely comment to be had. We are in the envious position of being able to pick and choose from the best! Woohoo, etc.
Almost all bloggers have their off-days, but that should be expected both from human nature and from the informal, top-of-the-head nature of the medium.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I think that you are right and you are wrong.
First of all, I'd say you might be overestimating how much news outlets care for their reputations against bribing, because there are many, many ways to bribe, and whether some qualify as actual bribing is entirely subjective. Does peddling to the Slashdot mindset to get a news about your product on the frontpage count as bribing? Should it? What I mean here is, people can and will easily rationalize a bribe into something more acceptable. That's people for you, you know.
Secondly, companies take a much bigger risk trying to bribe a large array of individuals than another company. A news outlet can't easily make noises about having refused one particular bribe without the implication that they might have accepted others in the past being raised. While an individual has nothing to lose in making a lot of noise about the bribe attempt. All it takes is a few honest people among the targetted crowd. Those exist, too.
Otherwise, you do have a point about individuals being cheaper. Hell, many will be bought by pride alone, especially where technical choices are concerned.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
HOMO?
:)
Thanks for staying on topic.
You must be getting excited about your upcoming 13th birthday
Thankfully, you've mastered it.
YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND! You fucking toolbag.
There's treatment for that.
So it's just disinterest, not so much disagreement.
Okay; I can live with that.
Disinterest is good. It means life-changing tech is adopted.
You seem gloomy. Turn that frown upside down ol' cranky pants.
I had to clean the spit off my screen just to read your comments. Are you sure you're washing your fruit before you eat it?
posted by martinultima, 12/19/2005 4:21pm
omg, get a load of this lol – bloggers are teh tech world's new 31337! this is like, totally cool!!11!!!one!!!1! u got 2 check this out http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/07/19542
Current mood: [
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Creative misinterpretation is your friend.