About Comments and High-Traffic Blogs

You know, I've said a couple of times previously that in my opinion, blogs that don't take comments aren't really blogs -- they're just kind of bloggy.

I still think that holds true for normal, regular-people's blogs. But I think I have to take into account the specialized nature of the really high-trafficked, "A-List" blogs (or whatever you want to call the really popular blogs that get a lot of attention).

Case in point -- normally, Gawker has an invite-only comment policy. However, at 5pm this past Friday, they opened up commenting by posting a username and password that anyone could use.

Things went downhill from there [language warnings -- I mean, it is Gawker after all]

They turned off open commenting after 30 minutes. I'm not sure if they deleted any comments, but there are about 80 left, including some by their invited commenters.

The really high-traffic blogs are a different kind of animal; because they're so popular, they attract a lot of eyeballs, which means they also attract a lot of attention from people who are attracted by a lot of eyeballs.

This group of people includes:

• Spammers -- people who want to try to drive traffic to their affiliate marketing Web site (or whatever) for monetary gain.
• Self-Promoters (a.k.a. "Attention Whores") -- people who want visitors to their Web pages or blogs. This isn't so bad in itself, but the lengths they'll go to drop their URL, usually in a manner that doesn't even pretend to be relevant, is what kills things.
• Morons -- Generally, people who just want to piss in the punch bowl (Can you tell I've been reading Gawker? They probably would have used a different bodily function, though) -- people who want to get a thrill from anonymously saying naughty things where lots of other people will see them.

Gawker is probably also a special case, since their content usually is centered around bad words and naughty thoughts -- live by the sword, die by the sword, eh?

Anyway, there are lots of different strategies for trying to moderate lots and lots of comments, but best ones involve devoting human resources to the job, which some folks aren't prepared to deal with. (Peer moderation is another strategy -- having fellow readers and commenters take a role in policing comments -- that's worked to varying degrees.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: high trafficked blogs, gawker, comment strategy, bloggy

Fun With Featured Feeds

So, I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but for about a month or two, we've been running a sort of programming experiment, where we feature a different Journaler's feed on the AOL Journals main page:

At the moment, the feed is coming from Stebrel's Morality and the Law blog; we've been featuring folks for about a week at a time.

Most blogs have a feed associated with them (the two major types are Atom and RSS -- you don't need to know this). Feeds are a way to subscribe to the content of a blog; raw feeds aren't meant to be read by humans -- you typically plug them into a feedreader or customized start page (I will talk about some different types of these later in the week.)

For AOL Journals users, you can think of a blog's feed as kind of a like an Alert, only one that can be delivered to a feedreader program or even another Web page.

So, what we did here was take the feed URL for Stephen's blog, then plug it into a feed module in the publishing tool (called "Big Bowl") we use to publish the Journals main page.

Even if you didn't follow all that, you can see the results -- the headlines and the first couple of lines from Stephen's three most recent entries automatically get displayed on the page.

In addition, we've got three AOL Editors' Blogs' feeds in a tabbed module also on the page. This version of the feed module only shows the headline, though if you hover over it with your mouse, you'll see the first few lines of the entry:

There isn't a feed module that you can use right now in your Journals, though there is one for AIM Pages -- for example, in my AIM Pages profile, I'm displaying the feed from this blog in the lower right column.

Anyway, in the current Journals main page test, we've basically been highlighting the feeds of blogs that for one reason or another probably weren't good fits as potential Guest Editors. This is just another way to highlight Journals.

We've barely scratched the surface of what's possible with feeds -- at the very minimum, I'd like to have an entire page of featured feeds and canned searches from people's blogs. We're still working on it.

In the meantime, if you would like to have your blog's feed featured on the Journals main page, drop me or Editor Jeff an e-mail or comment.

If you know your blog's feed address, that's great, although the smarter feed tools can find it automatically. To find out, click the "Get the Feed" link near the top of your Journal -- you'll see a list of feedreaders you can click to add the feed to, or click the arrow next to "Get the feed manually" to see the feed addresses listed:

We'll be talking more about feeds and feedreaders this week.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, featured feeds

Editor Joe: On Strike

Journaler Dpoem of The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind reports that at some point (I'm guessing with the R7 release), we got the capability to use the strikethrough HTML tag.

This is what you couldn't previously do strikethrough does.

The strikethrough tag is a carryover from the pre-correcting typewriter days and is deprecated by the HTML powers-that-be, but people like it because it provides a visual way to retain earlier information that has been corrected or otherwise superceded.

I'm not sure why we got it, as I doubt it was on any official feature lists, but please feel free to enjoy using it.

To use the strikethrough tag, just make sure you're in HTML mode (that is, the little dropdown in the formatting bar says "HTML", not "Text" -- this shows you the HTML tags that make your Journal entry look and act the way it does) and type the following:

<strike>text you want struck-through</strike>

After you hit save (or switch back the Text view), you should see this:

text you want struck-through

I have updated my entry about HTML allowed in Journals (which is linked from my All About Me area) to reflect this.

(On an unrelated issue, note the colon in this entry's title. This highlights the importance of punctuation, since without it, the meaning of the words changes dramatically.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, strikethrough

A Trifling Post About Circus Peanuts

Hi folks -- hope you all had a good weekend.

Despite the raging conflict in Lebanon (which I could easily take a blog-centric look at, I just haven't yet), this month still has the hallmarks of that late July-early August summer news slowdown.

How else would you explain the widespread coverage of the Ken Jennings 'Jeopardy' thing, or as picked up by the AP newswire this weekend, a story about Circus Peanuts, the alleged 'candy.'

A lot of folks have been blogging about it.

Personally, I can't stand Circus Peanuts (this from a guy who actually kind of likes Necco Wafers).

As noted, this isn't exactly covering new ground -- Circus Peanuts were covered by The Straight Dope in 1998.

But, you can see what your neighbors in the blogosphere are saying about the orange candy-thing -- here are a few links to blog search results: BlogPulse, Technorati and Sphere.

Blogger John also gave them a mention a while back. (He don't care for 'em, either.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: circus peanuts, necco wafers

Blogging on the Run?

Despite the title, this isn't some entry about moblogging (mobile blogging) -- though I do need to do another one of those.

Saw this item in Metafilter yesterday -- Farah Damiji, a former magazine editor and journalist, was serving a three-and-a-half year sentence in a British prison for running up over £50,000 in charges on credit cards that she stole from friends, as well as trying to tamper with a prosecution witness and attempting to get the charges dropped by impersonating an official.

She left on a one-day education furlough so she could attend a class, and she just decided not to go back.

It's not exactly 'The Fugitive', but then she goes, still on the lam from the law, and starts talking about it in her MySpace profile (and associated blog).

Remember when I posted yesterday that sometimes it's better to just keep your mouth shut?

I would suggest that this is one of those times.

The Times Online article says she has a borderline personality disorder, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

The Guardian News Blog has more on the story, including a suggestion that authorities try to contact her by leaving a comment on her blog.

I wonder if Downview prison has a MySpace? Maybe they could add her as a friend.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: Farah Damiji, bite your tongue, myspace

Alerts Fix Successfully Installed This Morning

Morning folks -- the Journals tech team tells me that the patch to fix the problem of New Entry Alerts not going out was successfully installed this morning, so you should be getting Alerts normally now.

As I'd blogged previously, the installation of the R7 release on Thursday (see the new features) caused Alerts to stop working. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Assuming that's the last of the R7 issues, we'll now be able to focus on how-to instructions for embedding UnCut video and more into your Journals.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, aol journals status, aol alerts

Can't Get Enough of Them Stripper/Blogger/Authors

I always get annoyed and curious when a mainstream
news outlet talks about a blogger, but then doesn't link to their
blog.

In this case, it's an AP story featured on
CNN.com: "Office
drone by day, stripper by night."

Ooh,
stripper. Titillation ahead.
Giggity-giggity, as the kids say. Hey, it involves
blogs, so I can write about it.

Author
& Blogger Diablo Cody

The author, Diablo Cody (real name,
Brook Busey-Hunt) is apparently having a heck of a
year, with a screenplay being produced, a Letterman
appearance, plus of course, her stripper memoir:
'Candy
Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely
Stripper.'

The hardcover came out in
December. So why are we talking about this now? Oh, right:
Strippers!

I'm sure it's a
well-written and frank look at the unlikely tale of a
stripper-blah-blah-boobs-blah-blah-phone sex, but the stripper memoir
is not exactly virgin territory
(literarily-speaking, of course), especially in recent
years.

Anyway, the point of all this (strippers!)
was that the article mentions that she's been "A blogger since 2000
(her blog's name is not family
friendly)..."

Well now, isn't
that interesting.

A quick Google search on her name
turns up her blog on the Twin-Cities alterna-weekly ("alterna-weekly"
means it's free and has sex ads) City
Pages, which is called...

Um. This
presents a problem.

While I can link the blog with
an appropriate content warning, I can't name the
blog. So I'll just have to say that the blog is "[Another term for cat]
Ranch" [Aforementioned appropriate Content
Warning], where she also blogs
her reaction to the CNN story [another content
warning].

In closing:

Strippers!

***************

In another blogging
note, which I wouldn't say is related except for the dirty language,
Ana Marie Cox, founding editor of potty-mouthed
politico-gossip blog Wonkette.com [Content warning:
strong language] was just named Washington editor of Time.com, which goes to show
that penis jokes can get you far in life.

I'm going
to stop typing
now.

Strippers!

Thanks --
Joe

(p.s. If you haven't seen my blog before, you might want to go to my blog's main page and check out more entries, plus see a terrible picture of myself, embedded video widgets and other stuff.)

Tags: diablo cody,
strippers!,
wonkette, ana marie
cox

Alerts Test

Hi folks -- the Journals folks asked me to help test the Alerts fix -- the fix is scheduled to be installed tomorrow morning, and it's supposed to work in beta now, so I'm posting from the Journals beta.

[Update: It looks like it works.]

A-ha, you say, but didn't you say earlier that posting from the beta stopped triggering the New Entry Alert a little while back?

Well, yes, but the Journals folks say that they fixed that, too.

So, in summary, if you get this alert, that means that you can post from the Journals beta and people will get your Alert, in addition to getting them to work again on production.

If you want to give the beta Alerts fix a test, just post to your beta Journal, which you get to by adding "beta." to the front of your Journal's address -- for example, my Journal's beta address would be: http://beta.journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/

Note that changes that you make to your beta Journal are picked up by your real, production Journal.

Please let me know in the comments if posting from the beta triggers the Alert properly, and we'll await the successful installation of the fix tomorrow morning.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, journals beta, aol journals status, aol alerts

New Entry Alerts Status: Fix Install Pending, 7/28, 4AM ET

Hi all -- here's an update on the New Entry Alerts, which stopped being delivered after the Journals team pushed the R7 Release to production this morning: Journals Technical Project Manager Yoel just reported that the fix has been built and will be installed tomorrow morning, Friday, 7/28, at 4AM ET.

When it comes to being notified about new entries, AOL Journals and Journalers are a little different from other bloggers, in that we rely pretty heavily on New Entry Alerts. This is because Alerts are so conveniently integrated into Journals. Depending on what platform other bloggers use, they typically have to either find a third-party new entry notification service, or just use watch the feeds in their feedreaders.

For people who read lots and lots of blogs on a regular basis, using a feedreader may be a faster way to keep tabs on new entries. However, it's nice to be able to have a choice of delivery options.

We'll get that fix in. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, aol journals status, aol alerts

Sometimes, It's Better to Just Keep Your Mouth Shut

So, you may heard the story on Tuesday about a woman in Fredericksburg, Virginia (it's about 60 miles south of here) who left her pet cockatoo in a hot car while she was in a movie theater.

It was 90 degrees out. The cockatoo died. She was charged with cruelty to animals.

Well, obscurestore.com, where I saw the original mention, did a followup item about how the woman, Donia Monique Brooks (or someone claiming to be her), has been trying to defend herself in the comments section of the news article.

Then, of course, a bunch of folks from social link sharing site fark.com weighed in.

A pretty standard flamewar ensued, though it's ranged pretty wide in the almost-200 comments so far. Topics covered include animal rights, avian flu and Nazis.

Why am I talking about this? Partly to make a point about how pretty much everything is local now. Also, to just say that there's no force in the world as mighty as someone's righteous indignation. But, mostly, I just wanted to say that this is a perfect illustration of how sometimes it's just better to bite your tongue.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: fark, obscurestore, cockatoo, hot cars, Donia Monique Brooks, flamewars, bite your tongue

Journals R7 Release Installed, Plus Entry Alerts Status

Hi folks -- the Journals team reports that the Journals R7 release was successfully installed during the early morning install window earlier today.

They also report that there's a problem with new Entry Alerts currently not working due to the install. The team has decided to leave R7 in production while they work on the fix -- they know what the problem is and it's a high priority. [Update: 7/28: The New Entry Alerts have been fixed. -- Joe] Sorry for any inconvenience.

As I blogged earlier, here are the primary changes you'll see in R7:

• Mobile Blogging (Moblogging): Moblogging is the ability to update your Journal from a mobile device (like a cell phone); currently you can send text and pictures; in the mid-August update, you'll be able to send video,too.
  
  Moblogging works exactly the same as I mentioned in my Moblogging Beta entry, except you don't have to go to the beta to use it.
  
  Even if you don't plan on posting from a cell phone, note that moblogging uses a special e-mail address to post to your blog -- this means you can update your Journal using e-mail, from anything that can send e-mail -- it doesn't just have to come from your phone.
  
  This also means that you can share the address with other people, who will then be able to post to your blog -- obviously, you'll want to be careful with this.
  
  
• Embedded Video from YouTube and UnCut Video: Again, it's just like it was in beta, except better, since you no longer have to edit the YouTube HTML, and UnCut Video has autoplay turned off. Here are the instructions for embedding YouTube video -- you just don't have to go to the beta anymore, it will work in your regular Journal. Also, we'll get the instructions for embedding UnCut video up soon.
  
  
• Woohoo Slideshows: As I blogged yesterday, you can now embed Woohoo slideshows into your Journals. Full instructions are pending -- note that this current test version requires that you have an AIM Page profile with a photo module.
  
  
• User-Friendly Entry URLs: Instead of just being a number, the new URLs for individual entries include the date posted, plus the title of your entry. For example, the direct link URL for this entry is: http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/
  entries/2006/07/27/journals-r7-release-installed-plus-entry-alerts-status/1566
  
  This makes it a lot easier to see what an entry is about from the hyperlink, plus it should also improve how AOL Journals entries show up in search engine results.
  
  The new URLs are also longer than they were before, so keep that in mind.

As noted, we'll be busy over here updating all the relevant instructions, and we'll also keep you updated on the new Entry Alerts status.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: uncut video, moblogging, aol journals, aol journals status, r7

Preview of the Woohoo Photo Thingy (It's Nifty)

Hi folks -- as I just mentioned in my R7 preview
post, the guys over at AOL
Pictures just launched a new photo-display
thingy that you'll be able to use in your Web pages and
blogs -- it's called woohoo:

As you can see, you can click and drag the photos around -- double-clicking photos enlarges them, etc.

Like the AOL Pictures folks say
in their blog entry, this is an early test
version, so it requires that you have an AIM Page profile first.
Later versions of woohoo will have more features and won't require that
you go through AIM Pages first -- this was basically a slick
implementation that they put together really
quickly.

I'll do full instructions once the Journals
guys push R7 to production (tomorrow, 7/27, fingers
crossed).

In the meantime, you can play with woohoo
in your beta Journal (just add "beta" in front of your Journal's
address,
like:
http://beta.journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke
You
might want to create a test Journal to play around with, instead of
messing with your real Journal).

For example, here
is my AIM
Pages profile, which, to my enduring shame, I still haven't
done too much with.

If you note, the photos in my
AIM Page profile's photo module are the same photos that show up in the
woohoo module above.

The basic steps for getting a
woohoo photo thingy in your Journal
are:

1. Make an AIM Page profile -- make
   sure it has a photo module in
   it.
2. Add photos to
   the photo module -- you can copy them from your existing AOL
   Pictures
   
3. Go to woohoo.aim.com, then follow the
   instructions and click
   publish
4. Take the
   HTML code that they give you, and publish it to your Beta
   Journal.

Like I
said, I will provide full instructions with screenshots and all that
after R7 goes live to production.

If you do stick a
woohoo in your Journal, show it off! -- Leave a comment in this entry
with a link to your entry so we all can see
it.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: woohoo, aol pictures, r7, aol journals, journals beta, aim pages

Journals R7 Release (Redux) -- Launch Pending 7/27

Hi folks -- good news: the Journals team installed the R7 release to beta early this morning. If all goes well today, the plan is to install R7 to production Thursday morning, July 27, during the early morning install window starting at 4AM ET.  There will be a short outage during this time.

(Please note that while one day in beta sounds like an awfully short time to test,  the beta install is actually more for moving R7 to a staging area just immediately prior to production -- there's testing going on throughout the entire development process.)

If all this sounds familiar, it's because it is; I'm recycling portions of this entry, because the team originally tried for the R7 install at the end of June.

As I mentioned last time, R7 is a relatively small release that includes a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, including some infrastructure for some features that will be rolled out in future releases. Here's what's in beta right now that you can play with:

* Object Tags (Allows Embedded Video): As we mentioned last time, in beta right now, you can embed AOL UnCut Video and YouTube video players into your Journal entries. R7 will let you do all that in your "real," non-beta Journals.

Since the end of June, the team has added a few fixes into R7 -- for YouTube, you will no longer need to fiddle with the HTML code they give you  -- you can paste the YouTube embedded player code directly into your Journal. (See Journals Editor Jeff's instructions on how to embed YouTube video in your Journal -- we'll need to update these  -- or create new instructions, more likely.)

For UnCut Video, video autoplay is now turned off by default, so people visiting your Journal will need to click the "play" button to see the video. (Autoplay gets to be really annoying, especially if you can't figure out where the sound from the video is coming from -- this way, the viewer has control of whether the video plays or not.)

Also, you'll be able to embed the new woohoo slideshow thingy into your Journal. You can play with it in beta -- I just did, it's cool -- we'll do a more complete explanation with instructions when it goes to production, but it's essentially a nifty flash photo player that draws from the AOL Pictures in your AIM Pages profile.

* User-Friendly Journal Entry URLs: Here's what I wrote in June. It's all still valid, so I just did a  cut-and-paste:

Right now, the URLs (Web addresses) of individual entries are not the most user-friendly things in the world. For example, here's the direct link to my cow-orker entry: http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/entries/1121.

Now, you can't tell what the entry is about just by looking at the URL, since it's just a number.

With R7, we will be getting friendlier entry URLs -- they will automatically incorporate the date of the entry, as well as the title of the entry, into the direct link URL. For my cow-orker entry on beta, the URL is: http://beta.journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/entries/2006/02/13/about-my-cow-orkers/1121

As you can see, the front part of the URL is the same; after "entries", though, you get the date posted (Year/Month/Day), and then the title of the entry (with dashes instead of spaces -- it will truncate after a limit), followed by the entry number. (The entry number was kept at the end so that the tech folks don't have to completely rework the database).

Also, some characters (like question marks, double quotes, etc) will be stripped out to make sure the URLs work.

Old-style entries will redirect to the new ones; also, if you change the title of your entry, it will automatically change the URL, and the old URL will redirect so it won't break (which is nice).

If you don't have a title in your entry, that part of the URL will just be "untitled."

One note: the new URLs will be more useful, but they will also be considerably longer, so keep that in mind.

International will also get this change.

* Moblogging: Moblogging will be launched to production. It will work pretty much as it does in the beta (see my instructions on how to use Moblogging) -- you'll just be able to do it from your production Journal.

We'll do followup entries after a successful install tomorrow, but these are the primary points.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: uncut video, moblogging, aol journals, aol journals beta, r7

Ken Jennings, Record-Winning Jeopardy Champ, Says Alex Trebek Is NOT a Robot

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek: Not a Robot

Did you know that Ken Jennings, Jeopardy ace (with a 74-game winning streak, and winnings totalling $2.5 million), has a blog?

I didn't either, until I read the AP story on CNN.com: " 'Jeopardy' champ Jennings jabs show" (link via Fark) [Update: The story is currently running on the AOL Welcome Screen; also, AOL Entertainment News is featuring it, and also check out The Cooler Blog's take.]

Apparently, he started it in June -- he doesn't take comments, though he does have message boards (which are currently hosed due to all the linkage).

As I've opined before, I feel that a blog that doesn't take comments is "bloggy", but it's not really a blog.

Other than that, it turns out that Mr. Ken Jennings is a pretty funny guy.

Which is kind of why it's odd that the AP story plays it pretty straight, as if he was actually being serious in his blog entry about how to freshen up Jeopardy, where he:

• Suggests adding teenage sidekicks
• Advocates for adding physical challenges
• Says that Alex Trebek is a robot... though to his credit, in a followup entry, he posts a correction:

  "...we regret the insinuation that Mr. Alex Trebek is a robot, and has been since 2004. Mr. Trebek's robotic frame does still contain some organic parts, many harvested from patriotic Canadian schoolchildren, so this technically makes him a 'cyborg,' not a 'robot.' Ken-Jennings.com regrets the error."

I don't really have anything more to add on this, except it's easy to make mistakes when it comes to distinguishing cyborgs from robots (really now, who hasn't?), especially when you get into the gray area of biomechanical parts that don't necessarily come from animals.

Also, I wish my snarky blog entries would get picked up by the AP.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: ken jennings, fark, jeopardy, alex trebek, cyborgs, robots

MySpace: Music and Marines

Hi folks -- sorry I missed yesterday; I'm still untangling from a bunch
of unfinished stuff from last week.

I've got a bunch
of potential blog entries that are getting dangerously close to their
"Blog By" expiration date; here are two from last week about our
favorite outrageously popular social network/whipping boy, MySpace (unrelated to their
downtime yesterday due to the power
outages in California):

The first is a
MySpace-themed
music video on social video sharing site
YouTube; it's from hip-hop band Gym Class
Hereoes, and I'm using the embedded YouTube video player
to show it below:



The video takes the standard MySpace
behaviors and brings them into the physical world -- if you're familiar
with MySpace and their friend approval process and the MySpace profile
cliches and stereotypes, it's pretty funny. Plus, there's a happy
ending.

Of course, the band has a MySpace --
right now, they have, oh, 98,640 friends.

In other
MySpace news, there was an AP story about how the Marine
Corps also has a MySpace, to help them reach out to young
people who are potential recruits.

The article
mentions that previously, folks (such as the Army, which has its own free video game
as a recruiting tool) had been hesitant to set up a presence on
MySpace, because of all the well-publicized accounts of various crimes
and shenanigans involving the social network, but it seems like it's
too juicy of an opportunity for them to resist.

So
here's the Marine
MySpace if you want to check it
out.

[Reminder: If you want to embed video from YouTube or UnCut Video, both of these are beta features; if all goes well, we should be installing them to production this week. In the meantime, if you want to play around, here's Editor Jeff's entry on how to embed YouTube video; you follow similar procedures with UnCut Video -- just click "Snag an Embeddable Player" and copy that code. We'll have full instructions after the successful launch.]

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: myspace, marines

Robert H. Wooldridge, Jr. Memorial Blog Picks for 7/21

Hi everyone. As I mentioned on Monday, Bob
Wooldridge, my former boss, principal originator of Sports Bloggers
Live, all-around great guy and friend to all people and most
animals (except pandas -- get to that in a second), died
this past weekend.

His funeral was
yesterday. The church was packed, there were many fond memories shared,
and if you were driving in Silver Spring yesterday, I hope you weren't
delayed too long by the seemingly endless line of cars in the funeral
procession.

Now, Bob was no stranger to AOL
Journals; before he left AOL in May, he worked closely with all the SBL
bloggers, and he also had worked on a few blogs of his own, including
The
B.o.B: Blog of Buzzline.

Back in November,
he'd even popped up in the Editor's Picks, with a
Thanksgiving-food blogs theme: Boss
Bob's Boss Blog Blob.

Anyway, in memory of
Bob, I thought I would feature some blogs that made me think of
him.

Now, I didn't want to just pick blogs that Bob
worked on, or that I knew he read. This was mostly because I wanted to
make sure that this was appropriate, not some blogs promotion, and also
because a lot of the blog links we sent back and forth were in IMs, and
are now lost to the world.

Also, on a pragmatic
note, as mutual friend and cow-orker
Nancie pointed out, a lot of what he sent around
internally would be completely inappropriate for...
anyone.

So, I decided to open things up a bit. I
polled some mutual friends, and came up with some blog picks
inspired by Bob (in the sense of a movie soundtrack album
that features songs the director liked, but that never actually
appeared on screen).

Interspersed liberally
throughout will be some of my own memories and personal
observations on Bob:

* Inner Monologue
of Bandit the Panda: This is probably the
worst possible link for me to start out with, since
it's the exact opposite of a Bob blog pick, so I
will just have to call it anti-Bob
programming.

Bob had what I would call an
irrational hatred of pandas -- he thought of them as
furry, reproductively-incompetent, bamboo-eating freeloaders that
couldn't even get sex right. It made him livid.


Worse was the fact that pandas are still
so beloved, in spite of, or more likely, because of
the fact that they don't make panda babies very
well.

Anyway, Inner Monologue of Bandit the
Panda is a group blog written in the voice of "Bandit the
Panda", which is their name for Tai Shan, which is the official name
that the National
Zoo folks gave him, which is different from the nickname that
everyone else calls him, which is
Butterstick.

(Incidentally, the
World Wildlife Federation claims that wild pandas
are not
actually poor breeders, but this would not have dissuaded
Bob.)

* Waxy.org:
Links: Of course, Bob was always up on the latest
Web fads and memes -- all that stuff that pops up at
the same time on people's blogs, and that gets passed around in e-mails
and IMs and links pages.

There are tons of links
sharing blog sites like this -- I called out Waxy.org's links page,
since that's where the Star Wars
Kid really took off from.

I remember
sharing the Star Wars Kid video link with Bob -- both the original
version, and the followup versions with the special effects added in.
He also liked the Vader
on Wheel of Fortune minisite on YTMND.com. I think it was not
just because they were both involved Star Wars, but because they were
both created by fans, and they were both ridiculous and silly and
funny. That's my theory, anyway.

* André Mika's Fork in
the Road: This one is actually linked from Bob's
Buzzline Blog sidebar -- it's a foodie blog
by André Mika, a guy who's in New York by way of New Orleans.
He used to be a cook and restaurateur, and now writes from the other
side of the kitchen door, with restaurant reviews, recipes and food
talk.

(Random Bob Food Note:
After his heart episode last year, he'd been making an effort to eat
healthier, which on one occasion that I witnessed, involved
substituting waffle fries instead of onion rings.)

*
Capitol
Punishment: Now, being a Sports Bloggers Live guy,
you would expect Bob to be up on his sports. And he was. He also loved
history and reading and fronted a rock band in college, though, so
don't pigeonhole him.

I could probably do a few
editions consisting soley of sports and music blog links inspired by
Bob, but I won't -- suffice it to say, he was a fan of the Maryland
Terrapins, Washington Nationals and the Redskins, and took his kids to
more than a couple of games.

Capitol Punishment is a
local DC blog that covers the Washington Nationals, who were supposed
to have some grand reboot (of both the team and the stadium) after the
All-Star break, but that doesn't seem to be going so well right
now.

Oh, and while we're on sports, SBL's
Erin informs me that Bob loved STEELER BABY (well, she
says "Actually, I think it scared him more than anything else.") --
it's not really a blog, although it is... well, really
creepy.

* Vinyl
Mine [strong
language warning]: This one is a little convoluted, so bear with
me: Brandon sent me a link that he said Bob "truly
loved" -- it's a Flash
video of Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' [the video is fine,
though other content on the site may be objectionable], only
re-envisioned as a cheezy "tribute to
America."

Now,
believe it or not, I couldn't really find any Journey-themed blogs
(although you can watch the video
for Separate Ways, at least currently).


However, in my blog searches for "journey," I came
up with Vinyl
Mine, which is a music blog, featuring a lot of music
ripped from vinyl and converted to MP3 format.

A lot
of it comes from the 80s, but it's not the 80s stuff that you see in
the Time-Life commercials (incidentally, Bob was an editor with Time
Life Books for a buncha years before he came over to "new" media).


* Music is also behind the next pick, which is the
JefItoBlog, or in particular, the entry featuring
"The Complete Idiot's
Guide to The Replacements" [also features strong language].
As several people have noted in their blogs, Bob did love his
Replacements, and also his Ramones. But The Replacements were number
one.

However, it did surface that he also loved
Katrina and the Waves -- after 'Walking on
Sunshine,' he thought they would be the breakout band of the 90s. I
couldn't find any Katrina and the Waves blogs (do a blog search, and
all you'll find is hurricane-related stuff), but here's the band's site, as well as
Katrina
Leskanich's solo site (she left the band in
1998).

* Okay, this last one is a seventh, bonus
pick, and it's totally silly and self-indulgent on my part. As far as I
know, Bob had no real connection to or love of South
Africa. However, we had something of a morning
ritual:

Me: What's the
word?
Bob:
Johannesburg.

I
was going to feature the Joe
Blog (Joe = Johannesburg, or J'burg) -- I mean,
come on, look at the name -- but it's more of a rolling events board
than a blog. So, instead, here's Barbed Wire
Kisses, another music and concert blog, featuring
news updates from the South African music scene.

Oh,
and I have one more pick, this one from the man himself -- this was one
of Bob's "The List" picks, from April of 2003: It's a Hometown page,
the 'BJ and
the Bear' Fan Site, and Bob called it THE BEST SITE
EVER!!!

So that's my little take on some Bob blog
picks. Thanks for indulging me, and I hope you like the
picks.

If you want to see what other people have
written about Bob in their blogs, please check out blog entries
tagged with "Bob Wooldridge." If you do your own entry,
please feel free to tag it that way as well so that other people can
find it.

Also, the writeup
in his obituary is really good. (It also notes that anyone
who'd like to make a contribution can donate to the Friedreich's Ataxia
Research Alliance.)

Erin shared with me
one more thing about Bob -- in the farewell e-mail that he sent to the
SBL team, he closed out with lyrics from the Rolling Stones
song, Before They Make Me Run. I won't include the
whole thing, but here's the last
verse:

After all is said and
done
I did alright, I had my fun
And I will walk
before they make me run

Walk on, Bob. We
miss you.

Thanks -- Joe
Tags: Bob
Wooldridge, Journey, panda,
Don't Stop
Believing, Katrina and
the Waves, Guest Editors Picks

Your Mom Goes to College? (Or, Wanted: College Advice Bloggers)

(The first part of the headline is a reference to the movie Napoleon Dynamite, in case you were wondering.)

I just got a random request from the folks over at AOL Comedy, but it's for serious content -- they're working on a Parents' Corner feature package and are looking for some Journalers who happen to be moms or dads, and who can give advice on what the new crop of incoming college freshmen (um, "first-years," I guess), should bring with them to school.

If you have a blog and experience in sending a kid off to college, and are interested in being featured, please leave a comment with a link to your Journal, or send me an e-mail at JournalsEditor@aol.com.

Thanks -- Joe

Social Media, by the Numbers?

Hi folks -- just a couple of articles about social media that you might be interested in.

* 33 Places to Hangout in the Social Networking Era: Got this one off an discussion e-mail group -- it covers and links to 33 different social networks, grouped by category.

It includes some you've probably heard of, like MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook (AIM Pages even gets a mention, yay), and some that you might not have heard of, like Dogster (dog-focused), Yub.com (shopping) and MuslimSpace (a MySpace clone for Muslims).

With the exploding popularity of different social networking sites, it's no surprise that there are a lot of upstarts trying to carve out their niche on the Web. Who will still be around in 5 years (or even 2)? That wise group of philosophers, Van Halen, once said, "Only time will tell if we stand the test of time."

* In Video Shakeout, Will Eefoof Go Poof?: This is a San Francisco Chronicle article (via Obscurestore.com), talking about the social video sharing competitive landscape.

Of course, the top dog right now is YouTube, but according to article, there are around 240 more sites out there competing for a piece of the pie. So, it's a buyers' market -- and you folks are the buyers.

(Incidentally, if you click through to the SF article, you'll note that the full headline is really long. It's more like a full abstract, than a headline. This is to presumably to make the article more appealing to search engines. Just so you know.)

FYI, the offsite I mentioned this morning (which is just Day One) was pretty much a bunch of us talking about social media topics until our throats were raw and our ears were bleeding. Apologies for the graphic imagery, but it's been a long day.

Thanks -- Joe
Tags: social media, social video sharing, only time will tell if we stand the test of time

A Stunning Reversal?

Hi folks -- I'm actually in an offsite conference right now, but we haven't really started yet, so I thought I'd do a photo shoot entry.

It's been a while since I participated in one of blogger John's Monday Photo Shoots, and I am afraid to say that my participation in this one (Life in Negative) constitutes something of a fraud.

This is because the source photo (from my entry about July Fourth) is a fireworks photo -- here's the negative version:

Since it's a fireworks photo, it's got large areas of really sharp contrasts, plus it's shot with a long shutter, so there are all kinds of strange streaks of light -- that means it's already kind of striking, so reversing isn't really revealing anything new.

On a photo note, even though I have Photoshop, I used the freeware Irfanview program that John mentioned. It's primarily a photo viewer program (it does easy slideshows), it's a quick and easy way to crop and resize photos, and it also does batch conversions. It supports plug-ins and is very functional (though it works fine as a stock download), and of course, it's free.

In order to use it to reverse the colors, just open the picture you want to convert, then from the menu, select Image > Negative -- it will flip the colors of the photo:

You can then save the inverted photo as a new image file and upload to your blog in the usual way.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: Monday Photo Shoot, Irfanview

Bye to Boss Bob

The AOL and sports blogging community suffered a great loss over the weekend.

Former Blog Boss Bob Wooldridge, longtime AOL guy, one of the principle creators of Sports Bloggers Live, my boss up until he left the company in May, and my friend, died on Saturday after being hit by a car in a tragic skateboarding accident. He was 42.

Yes, leave it to Bob to exit this world on a skateboard.

He was pretty well-known to AOL's sports blogging community, as he played an active role in SBL, especially behind-the-scenes, as a tireless advocate of blogging and promoting the community that sprung up around it and the show.

Here he is with the SBL crew -- he's kind of hiding in the back row, left, between intern Chris's big melon and Jamie's finger:

Here's a well-deserved close-up:

I didn't know it at the time, but as I was reading the Sunday paper, there was a short blurb about him in the Metro section: "Skateboarder Hit by Car, Killed."

As I skimmed the page, one thing jumped out at me -- the victim was 42. You don't really expect that when you see "skateboarder." It was kind of unusual, something that sticks with you. You don't dwell on it too much, though -- turn the page. Maybe remember to send the link off to a friend the next day as one of those odd death stories.

Then I got the phone call later that evening.

Jamie over at Mr. Irrelevant's Sports Blog shares the contents of a farewell letter that he never got the chance to send to Bob -- it's a far more eloquent message than I could ever write, so go check it out.

Also check out Jeff's entry in his Pixel Pusher blog, featuring video of two of Bob's top bands -- the Ramones and the Replacements.

For my part, here's a picture of a book that Bob gave me before he left the company -- it's the illustrated collector's 25th anniversary edition of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy':

Bob, we will always have our stories and our memories. You will be missed.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: bob wooldridge

If you do an entry about Bob and want to tag it so that others can find it, try using the Technorati tag "bob wooldridge" -- you can go to the beta and tag your entry from there, or just use the following code that you would paste while in HTML editing mode:

<br>Tag:
<a rel="tag" target="_blank"
href="http://technorati.com/tag/bob+wooldridge">bob
wooldridge</a>

Headed for the Hot Place

Hi folks -- hope you had a good weekend.

Over here in the mid-Atlantic region, the temperature is creeping up to 100 degrees:

This is kind of a big deal over here, though I'm sure people in the South and Southwest (not to mention every servicemember stationed in the desert) are wondering what the fuss is about (just like folks in the snow belt point and laugh when 3 inches of the white stuff shuts everything down).

It wasn't too bad this morning, but the humidity is supposed to be a lot worse tomorrow.

In other news, I'm sure you've heard that space shuttle Discovery touched down safely this morning, so congratulations on a successful mission and safe return.

And, getting about as political here as you're going to see me, let's just all hope for a speedy and peaceful resolution to the current flare-up in the Middle East.

Anyway, hope things are cool in your neck of the woods.

Thanks -- Joe

More Zidane-Headbutt Goodness

Hey folks -- first things first: Journals Editor Jeff has posted this week's Guest Editor's Picks over in his Pixel Pusher blog -- check it out.

So, on with the headbutting. As I was doing my previous post about the Zidane headbutt-inspired video being featured on video-sharing site YouTube, I got to looking around to see what other people were doing with it: YouTube search results for "Zidane Headbutt"

There are a few hundred results -- some are straight lifts off of the TV, others are remixes and parodies and re-enactments of varying quality.

For another view of things, I went over to freakishly-odd (and occasionally Not Safe For Work -- NSFW) YTMND.com, (which stands for "You're The Man Now, Dog." Why? It's a little complicated) where it looks like people's riffs on the Zidane headbutt have taken over the site for the past week or so.

What they do over at YTMND is typically take a short video clip or animated gif and set it to music -- there are established conventions and cliches that people use.

For example, in the "[Person's Name] Doesn't Change Facial Expressions" genre, all the creations are set to Steve Winwood's 'Valerie,' as you can see in the original, Lindsay Lohan Doesn't Change Facial Expressions.

For the Zidane headbutt, there are now hundreds of variations, a lot of them involving video game and other pop culture references -- you can see some examples below:

From left to right and top to bottom, we've got here:

• Katamari Damacy
• Nintendo
• Star Wars
• SNL's "Night at the Roxbury"
• MC Hammer
• Fidel Castro

And that's just off the first page of search results for "Zidane."

Even if you don't know the specific things they're referencing, they're still pretty funny. Or at least I think so.

Just more ways to waste time for a weekend. Which I hope you have a good one... of.

Thanks -- Joe
Tags:
youtube, zidane
headbutt, ytmnd, remix

Embed YouTube Video in Your Journal (Beta)

Hi folks -- Happy Bastille Day! Here's the wikipedia entry on the holiday, its history and significance.

Thus ends the educational portion of this entry. Here's the fun bit: Below is an embedded YouTube video that's tangentially related to the French holiday, as it features a new way to solve everyday problems inspired by French national team soccer player Zinedine Zidane, and his famous headbutt in this year's World Cup final:



But wait, you say -- forget about that silly video -- how do I embed the YouTube video player into my Journal?

Well, I'm not going to tell you.

That's because Journals Editor Jeff just did an entry about this very thing; check out Embedding YouTube Video In Your AOL Journal in his Pixel Pusher blog.

(Also see blogger John's embedded video -- he chose a video featuring cats.)

YouTube is one of many social video sharing sites out there -- AOL's own version is AOL UnCut Video, which we'll be talking about more in the coming days.

As regular folks get more comfortable creating and sharing their own content (not just words, but photos, audio, video and more), social media sharing sites are going to get more and more popular.

Of course, it's also fun to just watch.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: zidane headbutt, journals editor jeff, youtube, aol journals, embedded video

Two News Items

Hi folks -- just a few news items to ponder:

* NPR's Morning Edition (yes, I know we're in "All Things Considered" time now, it's been busy today) had a piece on how women's hearts are different from men's.

Surprisingly, it's not that women's hearts are cold and dark, but rather that heart disease develops differently in women and men, and shows up differently on angiograms, which may cause doctors to misdiagose it.

Here's a quote:

"They found that women did have blockages in their major arteries; the blockages just didn't look the same as in men. The plaque was there, but it was spread out smoothly and evenly against the arterial wall. In men, plaque lumps up; an angiogram would show bumps and lumps in the blood flow. A women's angiogram looks smooth.

The difference appears to relate to the way men and women store fat."

Interesting stuff -- also interesting that it's taken us (that's the collective us -- I'm a blogger, not a doctor) this long to realize this.

* Following up on my post about the Mumbai bombings: Earlier, I'd noticed that the traditional news media hadn't really been falling over themselves with coverage of the attacks.

Over at blog Sepia Mutiny, they're wondering why the blogosphere has basically ignored the Mumbai attacks (relatively speaking), compared to the coverage of other attacks, such as the transit bombings in London and Madrid, as well as the nightclub bombing in Bali.

The big ole sphere o' blogs is supposed to fill in for the stories that the mainstream media is supposed to miss, but perhaps the attention spans are more closely linked than we'd like to believe.

(Link via Boing Boing)

Thanks -- Joe

More Words From AOL Pictures

As I mentioned previously, here are a few other items recently blogged in the AOL Pictures blog that you might find useful:

* Here's How to Contact the AOL Pictures Team, including how to submit pictures that you would like to see featured in their blog (like their Picture of the Week from last week, which is a series of rainbow shots).

* Will from the Pictures team is soliciting advice for a new digital camera to replace his ancient, brick-like 2.1 megapixel monstrosity.

With all the digital photo expertise around him, might he be fishing for comments? Nah.

Here are my two most recent cameras:

Me with my cameras -- I'm using a mirror that was given to us by the Business Conduct folks. I include myself in the shot since I am apparently a narcissist.

My current camera is on the right. It's a Canon PowerShot SD200, which was already obsolete at 3.2 megapixels when I bought it last year (around $200 bucks, including a 1gb SD card) -- it's about the size of a deck of cards.

The size, weight and screen size difference compared to the the S200 next to it is pretty dramatic. The S200 is a 2.1 megapixel camera which I also bought when it was obsolete, with memory card, for about $200 bucks.

[Update, 7/13: I've gotten a few comments from folks who aren't quite following the camera talk -- I took a few shortcuts in my entry, so here's what's going on -- I'm basically comparing my old camera, a 2.1 megapixel model, to my current camera, which has 3.2 megapixels.

A megapixel is a measure of resolution -- how much a digital camera can capture, which determines how big the photo can be. Unlike film, digital pictures are made up of dots, or pixels. The more dots you can use, the bigger the picture can be. "Mega" is the prefix for "million", so 3.2 megapixels is about 3,200,000 dots.

Digital cameras store their images on memory cards, of which there are different types -- my current camera has a 1-gigabyte memory card -- the type is called "SD" or "Secure Digital" -- it's about the size of a postage stamp and fits about 1,500 pictures.

I explain more about megapixels and other digital camera stuff in this earlier entry: Go Wild With Your Digital Camera.

Thanks -- Joe]

I am more of a snapshot guy, though sometimes I find myself wishing that I had a more fully-featured camera. And that I was a better photographer. I do like that fact that the SD200 fits easily into my pocket -- being small-statured, I also have small pockets.

In fact the current versions (SD450? SD500? Something like that) are slightly thicker and heaver, though the display screens are ginormous.

Anyway, as with any gadget, it really depends on your needs. But I've been happy with the Canon series so far. The fact that they have Maria Sharapova as their pitchwoman has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol pictures, digital cameras, digital camera recommendations, canon powershot

Uh-Oh, Joe's Annoyed Again

Cow-orker and AIM Pages person Stephanie just sent an item to a social media and blogging listserve I'm on.

It annoyed me:

(If you know my AOL blogging history, when I get annoyed, other people tend to get very angry. At me.

Fortunately, the people with whom I'm annoyed don't read my blog.)

The reason I'm annoyed is that Dell just recently launched a corporate blog.

I don't particular care for Dell, nor do I hate them. (Unless we have a strategic partnership that I don't know about, in which case I absolutely lurve them.)

As blogs go (even corporate blogs), it was pretty lame. Of the first eight entries, the first seven are pretty much video product brochures and press releases (essays, if you want to be charitable.)

Then, the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice and the Dissemination of Best Practices [Blogging Division] got ahold of it.

And the virtual truncheons started falling.

"You're not being transparent!" *WHAM*

"This isn't real!" *BOOM*

"OMG, you guys don't get it!" *CRASH*

"Where are the links? I see no links!" *THUD*

"Blogging is conversation!" *WHACK*"

The eighth entry, of course, is all about a properly-chastened Dell falling over themselves to be authentic, and transparent, and real and all that good blog stuff.

Now, I agree with all these folks in an academic sense. I've inflicted my own advice on people, both in this blog and elsewhere, about why and how I think companies (and people) should blog.

But, folks, if some company wants to have a crappy blog, let them.

Instead, we have a virtual feeding frenzy: Hey, I'm piling on Dell! I've got credibility! See my blog, buy my book and see me speak at the next conference! Let's all pound on Dell and then on each others backs as we congratulate each other for getting social media. High five! (Visit my blog! Subscribe to my feed! Love me!)

If "eyeballs are currency," I guess that makes all us bloggers Attention Whores.

Even better, let's get all righteous as we guide companies onto the Eightfold Path to enlightened corporate blogging, which will of course save the world.  Oh, no, wait, I forgot: This is marketing -- we're not saving the world, we're figuring out ways to better sell [stuff] to people, most of which they don't need (which is why it needs to be marketed in the first place).

Anyway, I don't have a neat little bow with which to wrap up this entry, so I will just say that I believe in world peace and ponies for everyone.

(Please note that this is not some passive-aggressive "Look at me, look at me!" plea for attention. The people who read my blog don't care, and the people who care don't read my blog. I just got annoyed again.

Also, just as last time, this blog entry is rated approximately 50-65% serious, which is down from last year's 60-75%.  Especially the part about the truncheons. And the attention whoring. And the part about marketing not saving the world. I note that this similar disclaimer cut me absolutely no ice last time.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags:
dell, annoyed, ponies for
everyone

New AOL Webmail "Blog This" Feature and Some Tricks

Hi all -- so, Will over at the AOL Pictures blog has a couple of recent entries that should be of interest to Journalers (and others). Here's the first -- it's actually about Webmail, AOL Pictures & AOL Journals.

The new version of AOL Webmail went live this week at http://webmail.aol.com (it'd been in beta until now).

It has some new features, including some tweaks to the design and a full formatting toolbar (which is new, at least for Firefox browsers, I'm not sure if IE had it).

One of the new features is the ability to post the content of an e-mail directly to your blog via Blog This -- it's very similar to the "Blog about this entry" feature in Journals (which I've mentioned before). It works like this:

1. As you're reading an e-mail in Webmail, if you want to post it to your Journal, click the "Action" drop-down menu in the mail, and choose Blog This:

   

2. This will open up a very familiar-looking Add an Entry page. Edit as needed, pick which one of your Journals you want it to publish to (via the drop-down menu -- you also have the option to create a new Journal on-the-fly), then click Save at the bottom:

   

3. There is no Step 3.

It's pretty convenient -- it's also kind of another sneaky way to kind of get to multi-author blogging (the other being the Moblogging Beta). Both of these methods involve contributors sending e-mail to specific addresses -- in the moblogging beta, they're sending it directly to your blog's special e-mail address. With Blog This, they're sending it to your e-mail address, and you can act as editor/moderator.

Both of these methods are workarounds until we get full group blogging (not sure when that will be).

How did I get started on this? Oh yeah, Will at AOL Pictures came up with a way to use AOL Webmail and its AOL Pictures integration to post nicely-formatted photo entries to your AOL Journal.

You basically just send yourself e-mail, check it in Webmail, and post it to your Journal using Webmail's "Blog This." Check out his step-by-step instructions.

[Journaler Pharmolo reminds me to remind you that this particular gimmick only works with U.S. Journals and Webmail right now.]

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol pictures, aol webmail, aol journals, aol journals how to

Blogging the Mumbai Bombings

So, four days after the first anniversary of the July 7th London attacks, we have another series of simultaneous transit bombings, this time in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), India.

Over 150 people have been killed, with hundreds more injured.

Maybe it's terror fatigue, or maybe it's because it's happening half a world away from us over here, but I don't see a full-court press on this attack in the U.S. media.

Fortunately, you don't have to listen to me whine about it -- as with most things online, you can find your own information about what you're interested in.

The news Web sites are all carrying the story as front page news (for example, AOL News, BBC News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC).

Looking at blogs and social media, Metroblogging Mumbai is group-blogging the story (their sister blog in Pakistan, Metroblogging Karachi, sends its support -- I'd linked them back in October, after the South Asia Earthquake).

Also, here's the Mumbai bombing entry in WikiNews. If you're familiar with Wikipedia, which is a group encyclopedia that anyone can add content to, WikiNews applies a similar model to the news.

(In wikis, you're relying on lots and lots of interested people to contribute, edit and police content, instead of small group of editors. Consequently, their coverage can be a lot broader than a standard encyclopedia, though there are challenges, especially when it comes to controversial topics.)

Here are some additional search results for "Mumbai Bombings":

* Google News
* Technorati
* Sphere
* Feedster

(FYI, there's isn't a lot of discussion of the bombings that I could find in AOL Journals right now.)

Best wishes and support to the victims of this bombing and all terrorist attacks.

Thanks -- Joe

Tag: mumbai bombings

Warning: Bad Writing Ahead

So, now that this morning's rostering nastiness is out of the way -- on the way in, I heard on NPR's Morning Edition (it was one of those "wacky news" bits they put on the half hour) that the winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced.

The contest is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who, besides coining the phrases "the great unwashed" and "The pen is mightier than the sword," is also credited for writing perhaps one of the worst opening sentences in all of literature.

You may have heard of it -- his novel Paul Clifford starts with, "It was a dark and stormy night," which by itself isn't so bad. However, it goes on, and on, and on:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

To honor his memory, the contest asks writers to send in their best efforts at the worst possible opening sentence.

The contest spans many genres and subcategories -- see the full winners list to see all the honorable and dishonorable mentions.

Personally, I think they missed a golden opportunity to draw from an actual work published in 2006; here's the potentially award-winning entry:

"No one noticed the rock."

*** Editor Joe immediately ducks and moves to cover. ***

(Of course, that's the opening sentence to blogger John's The Ghost Brigades, available at fine bookstores everywhere in the 'verse and known space.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: dark and stormy night, Bulwer-Lytton, John Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades

CLEARED: Problems Viewing Other People's Journals

Hi all -- as I posted in the Journals Message Board, the server admins report that the rostering problem we'd been experiencing has been fixed, so you should be able to see other people's Journals normally now.

As I wrote previously, the rostering problem meant that you would get a blue screen error when you tried to view someone else's Journal while you were signed in (either using the AOL software, or signed in via a standalone Web browser, like when you're checking AOL Webmail or working with your Journal outside the AOL client software).

It was a little frustrating when I was first reporting the problem, since some folks saw the problem and others didn't. Fortunately, Journal Product Manager Susan pointed out the fact that she was only seeing the problem when she was signed in, which helped confirm that it was the same rostering problem that was impacting other products, as well as giving us our workaround (which was to view other people's Journals while not signed in).

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks -- Joe
Tags: AOL Journals, Journals Rostering, AOL Journals Status

7/11: 10:49am -- Problems Viewing Other People's Journals

Hi all -- looks like there's a rostering problem that's impacting Journals -- you can see and edit your own Journal, but you'll hit the blue error screen when you try to view someone else's Journal while you're signed in (via either the AOL software or a standalone browser.)

 

A temporary workaround to view other people's Journals is to use a standalone browser and NOT be signed in -- you can use a standalone, external version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, which comes with your PC; click Start > Programs > Internet Explorer. Just don't sign in, and you should be able to see other people's Journals.

The tech folks tell me that one of the rostering machines went sour this morning (rostering controls who can and can't see something, like the people who are allowed to read your private Journal) and they've got a bunch of people working on it.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: AOL Journals, Journals Rostering, AOL Journals Status

Blogging to the Flock

Hi all -- hope you had a good weekend. Saw a blogging item in local fishwrap on Sunday -- it was a Washington Post article entitled, 'Cyber-Savvy Pastors Blog When the Spirit Moves Them.'

The article was about how some technically-proficient pastors are reaching out to their congregations and communities via blogs.

Why blogs? Pretty much for the same reasons that people of all collars blog: Blogs are great for maintaining contact with people on an ongoing basis. Ministers are able to extend their relationships throughout the week (so not just on Sundays).

Plus, the conversational nature of blogs also gives the opportunity for
spiritual leaders to give folks a look behind the pulpit, and to personalize themselves and their message (not to mention let
congregants participate), in a way that a weekly sermon may not.

Of course, let's not forget that blogs are a way to reach out to young folks who do seemingly everything via their online social networks.

Just as pastors and ministers seek the benefits of blogs, so too do they face some of the challenges; take this quote:

Bailey said building a successful blog is not as easy as posting church newsletters and Sunday sermons under a clever domain name.

"The most common temptation is when you don't know what to write about, and you see that bulletin sitting on your desk," he said. "People are not interested in blogs that are PR announcements. It needs to be the personal voice of an individual."

Yes, even those who are blogging to save souls may need to struggle with writers' block from time to time.

Thanks -- Joe

Introducing Journals Editor Jeff (With His Editor's Picks for 7/7)

Hi folks -- please give a warm Journals welcome to
Journals Editor Jeff, who will be helping me
do what we do over here. (Which, if you didn't know,
is pretty much encouraging people to blog; highlighting the blogs of
AOL Journalers and AIM Bloggers; and talking about stuff that's going
on in the big ole sphere o' blogs, including stuff that affects all of
us bloggers.)

Here he is, as seen in his new
Journal, PixelPusher:

Jeff's been working in the Community
group for about a year. You may also know him as the "straight guy" in
his and Kenny's Straighten
Out column (which they promise they will turn into a blog
someday).

Recently, he's been familiarizing himself
with the AOL Journals landscape, so we got to the point where we wanted
to introduce Jeff to you with his Editor's
Picks for 7/7.

With Jeff on board, that
will give us some opportunities to find new ways to feature interesting
and noteworthy AOL Journals and AIM Blogs, taking advantage of all the
neat Web 2.0 technologies and the wisdom of crowds and the long tail
and all the other current social media buzzwords out
there.

Please say hi to Jeff in his Pixel Pusher
blog, and check out his featured
picks for this week.

Thanks --
Joe

Tags: AOL
Journals, Journals Editor Jeff, Editor's
Picks