Citizen-Generated Media (CGM)

Hawaiian Vacation

While I take some time off here on the Big Island, I’ll be working on my book project and see what type of Publisher I might get for my ongoing creation…

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

20 million blogs and counting

Here’s a milestone post from Kevin Marks on the 20 millionth blog per Technorati.

We seem to be doubling every five (5) months or so.  I wonder how much of that is due to sploggers?  Check out http://www.splogreporter.com/

Splogs rise up again and Cuban rails

As I mentioned in August, the issues with blog spammers threaten to ruin a pretty good thing with our blogosphere.  Cuban implores Google to add a challenge system, while blogburner boy, Rick Butts, continues to deny any wrongdoing in the WSJ in stating, "I'm not going to pretend to say we're altruistically creating blogs for humans to read," he says, adding that other companies have mimicked his software and sold it to spammers.

Hmmm…so if Butts is not altruistic, then he must be taking advantage at some level?  Maybe just a clogger and not a splogger…

Baseball Playoff Pilgrimage to St. Louis

Just because I live in New York does not mean I’ve been brainwashed into the notion that the Designated Hitter rule is good for baseball.

My beloved Cardinals are playing for one of the last times in the NLCS at old Busch Stadium, so I hopped a quick afternoon flight and got downtown in time for Game 2 against those pesky Astros.  Here I am at the game with my good friend - Jim Watry.

                              

I hope to make the Redbirds’ home opener in the new Busch Stadium.

Announcement of Blooker Prize from lulu.com

Has the blogging phenomenon produced any contemporary Edgar Allan Poes or Louisa May Alcotts?  I’ll answer this in a roundabout way.  Remember when the Cowardly Lion asks the Wizard of Oz for some courage?  The Wizened Wizard’s reply was something to the effect that “You don’t need courage.  You need a medal so that everybody can see that you’ve got the right stuff.”

A website named Lulu.com is following the Wizard’s advice, and is sponsoring the Lulu Blooker awards, the world’s first literary prize devoted to blooks, books based on blogs or websites.   Lulu is a print-on-demand service that would not exist without the Internet, but it has appointed an independent panel of judges.  “No favor will be shown to blooks published on Lulu,” they say.   They may indeed be right.  The chair of the three judge panel is Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing, the most linked to blog on the web, and one of the most consistently entertaining and eclectic.  Doctorow has already published three science fiction novels that he first developed on his other blog, Craphound, which he also uses to solicit ideas and executions for cover art for the print versions of his books.  Another judge is Robin Miller, the editor-in-chief of Open Source Technology Group, an early spot to find all things Linux.  He is also a frequent contributor to Slashdot, the only blog in my opinion that rivals Boing Boing in breadth of scope and vision.  The third judge is Paul Jones, director of Ibiblio and a professor of library science and mass communications at the University of North Carolina. Ibiblio archives open source collections, from the out-of-copyright books at Project Gutenberg to Folkstreams, the best American documentary films “streamed directly to you.”  Three prizes will be given, one for fiction, one for non-fiction, and one for comic books.

The first annual Lulu Blookers will be awarded in April 2006, and I predict this is an award and an idea that will gain traction as blogs penetrate the priestly world of the literary elite.  Note that the initial three judges are white males and the prize is limited to blooks in English.  I can see these barriers fading away sooner rather than later.

This Press Release, describes the award from their perspective.

Bursting a Marketing Hype Bubble - Is it really Web 2.0?

Marketing hype?  Probably, as we’re more like at Web 4.0. If you really look at web (ok, network) history and consider the precursors of ArpaNet, Gopher, Archie, Usenet, email, websites, blogs….I really have a hard time specifically calling it Web 2.0.  However, this tide is hard to push back, and if you consider all the technical and marketing blowhards that continue to beat this (and long tail) into the ground, we’re probably stuck with it.  OK, maybe I’m just hacked that I could not attend and this is probably not the time to fight a marketing tide.

I think now more importantly we are moving into what I consider the real Holy Grail for the web – which is video– and perhaps even web 5.0?  Convergence has long been postulated, and it is here.  Broadband penetration announced at 60%+ in last weeks post is further evidence for this trend.

AOL and Verisign set the valuation bar for blog networks

While making a platform from the platform itself, Jason Calacanis of Weblogsinc.com is the first big splash of someone cashing in on the blogging phenomena.  Calacanis accepted somewhere between $25 and $40 million from America Online for Weblogsinc.com, while retaining managerial control (to date).  While the content of the blog network is broad and compelling, it doesn’t hurt when the publisher broadcasts he is on pace to bring in $1million in Google AdSense revenue annually.

AOL’s desperation to differentiate a tarnished brand and business model no doubt helped the valuation for Calacanis.  In his third entrepreneurial attempt, he hit a home run, and the Weblogs deal is now the valuation benchmark for blogs or blog networks going forward. Blogs have been giddy in their valuation process now that Calacanis has broken new ground.

In virtually the same breath this week, the father of RSS, Dave Winer sold out his Weblogs.com, for a reported few million to Verisign.