BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Bloggers on stage

6 comments on Bloggers on stage

Bloggers on stage
: Doc is running a panel on blogging. He tells a great story about getting a tour of the Dean HQ via a laptop cam and “meeting” Joe Trippi that way.

: David Weinberger says that what excites him about this so much is just how unofficial it is; it’s not undersecretaries of something blogging, it’s the people.

: Halley says she reads first the bloggers she least agrees with. She starts with Andrew Sullivan.

She has a good list of 10 trends of political blogging.

: The guy in front of me is playing solitaire. Different clicks for different folks.

: Dave Weinberger says it’s fascinating that political blogs turned out to be as much social as informational. “They’re really not about information at all. They’re about group-forming.” Right. Amen. (I said that some weeks ago.)

: Dave says the inefficient interaction of the comments on the Dean blog turned into an advantage: It’s hard to flame someone as an asshole when their comment just scrolled up .

: Phil Wolff (Joi’s picture here) asks how to keep people involved when the election is over. Doc asks what this is without an election. I shout (rudely) it’s local government. Someone else (Ruby) shouts it’s political action on issues. She also says, when asked by Doc, that she plans to get back to local politics when this is over because she wants to have an impact. Doc asks the audience how many people want to get more involved in local politics now. Many hands raised. Impressive.

: Dave: “If you want to see a real echo chamber, don’t read the candidates’ blogs, read the daily newspaper… That’s the echo chamber that really worries me.”

6 responses to “Bloggers on stage”

  1. Steven I. Weiss Avatar
    Steven I. Weiss

    “Folks” doesn’t rhyme with “Clicks.” Some other words do, however.

  2. JayT Avatar
    JayT

    “: Dave Weinberger says it’s fascinating that political blogs turned out to be as much social as informational. ‘They’re really not about information at all. They’re about group-forming.’ Right. Amen.”
    Dr. Shirky asked how Blogaria devolved into such a STAGGERING collective delusion about Dean, and the Deaniacs and the campaign.
    This is one reason. I don’t mean to downplay the importance of the social aspects, but Blogaria hasn’t been ABOUT disemminating accurate political information… So, the end result is that Blogaria disemminated a WHOLE bunch of incorrect information.
    That was the biggest part of the problem, in fact.
    (Net could have been, and could be, used for BOTH social interaction and accurate information… These are not necessarily mutually exclusive.. that’s just the way it is right now in Blogaria.

  3. Matt Welch Avatar
    Matt Welch

    I think the word “echo chamber,” vis-a-vis that panel, could be more accurately applied to the general politics of the panelists, rather than the content of daily newspapers. Free Richard Bennett! Not that I’m looking a gift press pass in the mouth, mind you … (and it definitely had interesting moments)….

  4. Tim Oren Avatar
    Tim Oren

    Trippi brought up that Repubs outdraw Dems for contributions under $100, $1k, up to $1m. Here we’ve got an organization that impacted on the wall (in terms of electoral effect) trying to engage small contributors in the Dem party using the Internet, while the GOP folks get on with it, largely in real space. Compare. Contrast. Discuss. Anyone? Buhler?

  5. JayT Avatar
    JayT

    That’s what COULD (at the very least) have pointed Trippi to the idea that trying to win an election by sheer volume of dollars WOULD NEVER WORK. The GOP will raise more money in this election, no matter how much the Dems raise. Not to mention, the former philosophy of the Democratic party being that spending $100s of MILLIONS in a Presidential election is “not a good thing”, in general.
    That used to be the philosophy, anyway…
    Trippi and Blogaria orchestrated a “vote”, way back when, that snuffed a principle that’d been a part of the Democractic Party platform for 20 or 25 years. So WHILE they sneered that there wasn’t enough difference between the Democrats and the Republicans (being predominantly Naderites and non-voters at the start, and probably currently)..
    Well while they sneered that “Joe Lieberman was a Republican”, they converged one of the few Really Big differences between the two parties, unwittingly I’m sure.
    :
    Dr. Shirky and Dr. Weinberger, otoh, both underestimate the success of the Net in this campaign, and underestimate Blogaria’s responsibility in the wasting of another $40M USD.
    Dave Winer wants to (like almost all of Blogaria) point the finger at “Big”, as usual… This time DW’s telling Big Print pubs that it was the fault of Big TV.
    Wasn’t All Mr. Joe Trippi’s fault either.. I’m not suggesting that. But who’s could BE at fault? Was it Blogaria that sucked the Bigs into Blogaria, or did the Bigs lazy reporting lead them to just fall (pretty easily) into the meme??
    The Linux “Open” Source meme that “we’re all equals, but some (who are technology “experts” (cough)) are more equal than others”. The Linux folks essentially guaranteed the win, so IF it doesn’t happen (or at least a VP slot), then they might have some “uncomfortable truths” to face and more-than-a-few things to try to explain.

  6. JayT Avatar
    JayT

    Errata: “GOP will raise more money in this election” the coming year, I would imagine.
    The actual quotes (and there are (will be?) many, Many, MANY in threads from the Dean blogs) were more like “JOE LIEBERMAN IS JUST A REPUBLICAN!!”
    Doing the math, that would alienate 100% of the people that troubled themselves to vote in the prior election.
    And this phrase and many more (a statistically significant number abundance of which contain the word “stupid”), I believe, calculates to a fatal flaw in the campaign strategy right from the git-go.