Posts from December 2003

Social software

Social software
: Lots of smart folks are trying to figure out what the hell social software is, even as money pours into it. The problem is, the Internet is already the social software and rather than artificially imposing new social software on it — rather than trying to turn us all into social spammers — the real trick is freeze-drying what’s already happening in the real world and virtual world instead of an artifical one: What do all my links signify about my network; what does my network have to say about the topics that matter to me; and perhaps, what connections can my connections make (but why would they?)? That’s the trick; that’s the mega McGuffin and everybody’s chasing it.

Know-it-alls

Know-it-alls
: On Jessica’s Well:

Resolved: This House (OK, this Blog) believes that the collective knowledge of the blogosphere is greater than the collective knowledge of professional journalists regardless of the subject.

Well, I could argue that today but that would be beside the point. Will we come to this tipping point (if we haven’t already)? I’d go with the affirmative, wouldn’t you? [via Michele]

At the start

At the start
: Michele recalls the start of the amazing Command Post.

She and the site aren’t getting enough credit for their impact on news. This group blog did a phenomenal job finding, editing, selecting, and presenting the very latest and best news on the war. Nobody but nobody did that better. They showed the true potential of weblogs and editing by mob; they showed us the future of collaborative news. No, they didn’t report. They edited the world and did a great job of it. Hats off.

Pissy on the pissy

Pissy on the pissy
: In an incredibly long-winded, humorless, overblown rant, one Arthur Silber attacks me for dubbing those who would see a dark lining to the silver cloud of Saddam’s capture as the Coalition of the Pissy.

I was simply paralyzed by this massive, apparently unanswerable intellectual onslaught. But then I remembered that the originator of that phrase has written for periodicals such as TV Guide, People and Entertainment Weekly. Lest you think that is merely a cheap shot: I mention those publications only because they reveal the kind of complex and nuanced intellectual pedigree from which slogans such as this latest one spring, as I will proceed to document in this post. I also realized something much more important: all those who adopted Coalition of the Pissy as their war whoop of condemnation against anyone declining to join their mindless dance of joy are nothing more than moral bullies and intellectual thugs. They are the enemies of mind, and of thought — and they are the enemies of truth, justice and freedom in a very deep sense. They are the advance guard of the Truth Police. For them, history does not exist, nor does the past in any meaningful sense at all, nor does the future.

These barbarians live only in the moment, only in the now — disconnected from everything that has become before, and from everything that is likely to flow in the future from our present actions. Thought, principles and ideas are alien to them, in the most profound sense imaginable.

Oh, my. But you forgot: We eat puppies, too. [via Kevin Eugene Cole]

Sir Web

Sir Web
: Tim Berners-Lee deserves no less than knighthood.