More’s a crowd
: So Popdex started a new group weblog called Metapop. Sorry, but I’m unimpressed.
It’s a bit of a mess with no organizing principle and no apparent quality control.
So you get posts like this:
Z39.50 OCLC has, in the PowerPoint presentation Non-Member Use of Cataloging Records called Z39.50 users rogues. The tone is much like the RIAA going after KaZar. Z39.50 the next P2P?
Arrrgh. It reminds me of the old, bad days of Usenet: Clutter clatter.
This is so old net. We’ve advanced past this. Slashdot and Plastic added technology to organize things. Metafilter and especially BoingBoing have a collective voice.
To me, the state of the art in collaborative blogging is unquestionably Command Post. That’s because (1) it has a theme, a raison d’etre that gives the posters a clear reason to post and the readers a clear reason to read (read: it’s more than just blather) and (2) it had a self-correcting means of editing itself (that is, in the first days, there were repetitive posts but the community created its own editing standards).
Command Post has true value. Beat that.
: Update: Metapop blogs the blog on the blog (this being our habit, here among the blogs). I’m impressed that they take the criticism well. My suggestion: Decide what the hell Metapop is about; give it a mission; give it a tagline and live up to it. What separates Metapop from Metafilter and BoingBoing? Decide and do that and you’ll be much better.