An as yet unnamed seven month-old Northern Koala joey clings to his mother Tara after emerging from her pouch at Sydney Wildlife World July 31, 2007 in Sydney, Australia. The zoo has recently had three koala’s give birth to joeys, who have up until recently been mostly living in their mothers pouches, and suckling on milk. The Northern Koala species – a mammal – is on the vulnerable list of animals in New South Wales. By Ian Waldie/Getty Images.
Has it been a decade since blogs first emerged? Er, yes. I honestly can’t remember when exactly I started blogging as such. Maybe someone out there can let me know. I recall blogging the 2000 election campaign, and think of June 2000 as my blog-birth. That means I’m entering my eighth year of daily dishery. Oy. Anyway, Oxblog thinks it’s all been a fantastic success:
The Internet’s most powerful property is its capacity to connect users quickly to exactly what they are looking for, including high-quality writing on any subject.
This accounts for the tremendous amount of traffic high-quality blogs receive and explains why these bloggers are print journalists’ true competition. As technology expert Paul Graham argues: "Those in the print media who dismiss online writing because of its low average quality miss the point. No one reads the average blog."
Once this capability of the Internet is taken into account, the significance of blogging shifts. Imagine that only 5 per cent – or 75,000 – of daily posts are journalistic in content, and that only 1 per cent of these are of high quality. That still leaves 750 high-quality posts published every day.
Even by this conservative assessment, the blogosphere still yields a quantity of content that can challenge the world’s best newspapers.
What would I rather be doing? A lucrative op-ed column or a blog that racked up 3 million page-views this month? Put it this way: no regrets.
Every now and again, an old piece of journalism is born again. The web makes it much more possible. And so Jim Fallows’ classic 1996 piece on the media and America is getting raves from Yglesias and Nicholas Beaudrot at Ezra Klein’s blog. It’s well worth the half-hour. Jim responds here. I know it looks like Atlantic log-rolling, but it’s one hell of a log. Oh, and while I’m rolling, here’s Jim’s new post on the two-class corporate shares at … Google.
I loathe cell-phones, as anyone who tries to find me by calling soon finds out. I loathe other people’s cell-phones more – the loud voices, collapse of personal space, ADD obsession, attention-span evisceration. (Do you have my RSS feed, by the way?) But this is truly dark news whatever way you look at it:
New software that flashes words on cell-phone screens has traditional publishing houses chasing young readers with renewed interest.
Launched in England less than a year ago, ICUE software lets users read novels on their cell phone without the irritation of constantly scrolling through blocks of text displayed on the small screen. Instead, the text is flashed on the screen one word (or short phrase) at a time.
…While Tappuni says the company plans to launch ICUE in the United States, it will only do so once it has cracked the more technologically sophisticated UK market. "The UK is 18 months to two years ahead of the US cellular market," Tappuni says. "Only 35 percent of Americans have sent a text message, as compared to almost 100 percent in the UK."
The end is nigh. By "nigh", I mean 18 months.
In the "Scary Mary" genre, here’s a recut trailer for "The Shining" with a slightly different ambience.
A reader writes:
Hmmm:
"The right and other pro-war figures like Dean Barnett have a lot invested in this war succeeding and succeeding well. They have a lot invested emotionally, intellectually and most of all politically. That’s why they routinely dismiss or ignore bad news out of Iraq and hype good or even potentially fabricated news like the death of Pat Tillman.
It’s been interesting watching their tactics evolve over the past few years, from the spinning of Jessica Lynch to the veneration of David Petraeus. Interesting, but also revolting."
The straw poll is coming up. Are some of the candidates who say they’re not competing quietly hoping for a surprise? Chris Cillizza wonders.
One of the wonders of YouTube is not just the democratization of the election campaign. And it’s not just the ability of a blog like this to channel your favorite movie moments. It’s also a creative ferment of mash-up pastiche. The recut movie trailers here and here are a function of amateurs parodying and reimagining the popular culture. Mash-ups are in a similar vein – conflating periods, music, genres, idioms and visuals to create an endless plethora of pomo performance art. Here’s another example of this entirely welcome burst of pop-cultural exuberance. It’s a classic Fosse number, mashed up with hip-hop. So gay and so black. People are talking as if the YouTube era is already drawing to a close. I think it’s just beginning. And it’s evidence that democracy and technology need not debase the culture. Enjoy:
He’s now tied Clinton in New Hampshire and is ahead of her in South Carolina. Last month, in the same polls, he was nine points behind Clinton in NH and two points behind in SC. If more blacks and women start breaking in his direction, Clinton is in trouble. I think her husband is canny enough to realize she lost the foreign policy spat with Obama last week. In the end, fortune favors the brave.
