Hi all -- just saw this link on Fark: The story last week about the 'Shrek'-fixated lonely guy who took his donkey, a latex bodysuit, and handcuffs to a hotel room for some quality time? It was a fake story -- it originally ran in their satirical Galway Worst section, though it didn't run online as such, and many news outlets went with it as a "strange but true" story.
All the attention brought down their Web site -- they had to put up a temporary page directing people to the donkey story.
I blogged about it, of course -- it was too good of a story to pass up. Though I will point out that I noted my reservations about the story.
Anyway, I just wanted to share the truth, no matter how much it hurts .
Also, I assume this means that there is no "Unlawful Accomodation of Donkeys Act" -- but there should be. Won't anyone please think of the children!
Thanks -- Joe
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Are You Pro- or Anti-Liveblogging?
The Wall Street Journal had an item on Friday talking about liveblogging: "The Minutes of Our Lives: Small, Private Moments Get Live Blog Treatment; Notes from a Funeral"
If you're not familiar with the term, liveblogging is just blogging about an event as it's happening.
At its rawest form, it's kind of like a chat transcript, only in blog form. You can do it in one big entry that you keep updating, or you can do it in lots of little, bite-sized entries.
People can liveblog about anything, though you typically see people liveblogging during events like conferences and seminars, and TV shows (especially things like awards shows, which really don't require all that much... thinking).
I've mentioned a bunch of times that I'm not a good liveblogger, since I blog at a more, um, deliberate pace. (How deliberate? I went to a conference last month and I still haven't blogged my notes yet. I suck.)
My rationale is that I prefer doing more analysis and editing, and if I do that, it means I'm not paying as close attention to what's actually going on. So I agree with this sentiment from the article:
Anyway, even if you're not a liveblogger, you can enjoy the fruits of those people who are. And you don't even have to consume liveblogs as they happen. For example, I've never followed along with Dave Barry's '24' liveblogging in real time, but I always check it later during the week -- it's a fun way to see people's immediate reactions. So I guess you can say I'm a liveblog consumer.
On the other hand, liveblogging your own personal, real life event, like a wedding, funeral or birth? That just seems psychotic to me.
Does blogging about a real-life event inhibit your ability to fully experience it? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Thanks -- Joe
If you're not familiar with the term, liveblogging is just blogging about an event as it's happening.
At its rawest form, it's kind of like a chat transcript, only in blog form. You can do it in one big entry that you keep updating, or you can do it in lots of little, bite-sized entries.
People can liveblog about anything, though you typically see people liveblogging during events like conferences and seminars, and TV shows (especially things like awards shows, which really don't require all that much... thinking).
I've mentioned a bunch of times that I'm not a good liveblogger, since I blog at a more, um, deliberate pace. (How deliberate? I went to a conference last month and I still haven't blogged my notes yet. I suck.)
My rationale is that I prefer doing more analysis and editing, and if I do that, it means I'm not paying as close attention to what's actually going on. So I agree with this sentiment from the article:
"Many agree that it's hard to fully participate in an event if you're trying to compose pithy, thoughtful notes at the same time. Some academics say the live posts are the latest twist in the decades-old conflict between living in the moment and memorializing it from behind a camera lens, only worse. "People who are live-blogging are psychologically more distant from the event," says Clay Shirky, a professor of social software at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program."Not to say that liveblogging can't be a useful tool, even for a slowpoke like me. If I'm taking notes on my computer, I'm typing away anyway. So it's mostly a mental thing -- I don't like posting unfiltered stuff, even if I would clean it up and tie it all together in a followup entry later.
Anyway, even if you're not a liveblogger, you can enjoy the fruits of those people who are. And you don't even have to consume liveblogs as they happen. For example, I've never followed along with Dave Barry's '24' liveblogging in real time, but I always check it later during the week -- it's a fun way to see people's immediate reactions. So I guess you can say I'm a liveblog consumer.
On the other hand, liveblogging your own personal, real life event, like a wedding, funeral or birth? That just seems psychotic to me.
Does blogging about a real-life event inhibit your ability to fully experience it? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Thanks -- Joe
About Journals Message Boards & Public List Pages
Okay, I admit it -- I haven't really been in the Journals Message Boards for a while -- I was poking around a little just now, since I just re-added a link to them from the sidebar of the redesigned Blogs main page. (We're cleaning up and tweaking a few things from last week's redesign.)
Playing around a bit, I noticed:
* Clickable message board signatures are back. How long has that been the case? I know that the disappearance of hyperlinks in sigs was an irritant for most folks, especially Journalers. (It's a good way to tell people about your blog, without getting all up in their face about it.)
* Our previous problem, where journals.aol.com URLs were breaking (because the message boards product was "helpfully" adding "www." to the beginning of all hyperlinks, whether it needed them or not), seems to be better.
At least, it doesn't appear to be doing it in all cases.
If you manually create the hyperlink in a board post (I note that the popup box where you paste in the URL was getting blocked by my AOL popup blocker), the links seem to work, though I see some recent posts in the boards where the extra "www." seems to have been automatically added.
Guess I'm a little bit out of touch when it comes to the boards (the blogging keeps me busy enough).
So how long have these two items been fixed?
Lastly, here's a reminder -- if new folks post in the boards, and forget to post their blog's address, you can see their public blogs by going to their public list page; the address of any Journaler's public list page is:
Thanks -- Joe
Playing around a bit, I noticed:
* Clickable message board signatures are back. How long has that been the case? I know that the disappearance of hyperlinks in sigs was an irritant for most folks, especially Journalers. (It's a good way to tell people about your blog, without getting all up in their face about it.)
* Our previous problem, where journals.aol.com URLs were breaking (because the message boards product was "helpfully" adding "www." to the beginning of all hyperlinks, whether it needed them or not), seems to be better.
At least, it doesn't appear to be doing it in all cases.
If you manually create the hyperlink in a board post (I note that the popup box where you paste in the URL was getting blocked by my AOL popup blocker), the links seem to work, though I see some recent posts in the boards where the extra "www." seems to have been automatically added.
Guess I'm a little bit out of touch when it comes to the boards (the blogging keeps me busy enough).
So how long have these two items been fixed?
Lastly, here's a reminder -- if new folks post in the boards, and forget to post their blog's address, you can see their public blogs by going to their public list page; the address of any Journaler's public list page is:
http://journals.aol.com/screennameSo, for example, my screen name is journalseditor, so my public list page address is
http://journals.aol.com/journalseditorIt shows this blog, and a test blog. I have some other private test blogs, but you won't see them in the listing, unless you're an allowed reader of those private blogs.
Thanks -- Joe
Tuesday Slushpile: Geography Quizzes, Dumb Mistakes and Homophonia
Hi folks -- sorry I've been slack lately; I have a
lot of catching up on stuff and entries that I need to get to. You can see
some of what's pending, mooted, or otherwise not gotten to yet in the
slushpile-tagged
items on my del.icio.us
account.
A couple of items that I do want to get to:
* Geography Quizzes: Over the weekend, blogger
John mentioned a 50 U.S. states in 10-minutes quiz that was
going around (it's located
here) -- you can add to that 53 African Countries in 10
Minutes (I did horribly), and
245 Countries in 10
Minutes (it's apparently a
little finicky when it comes to full names of nations and
spellings and such -- I haven't even attempted it yet.)
(FYI, all of these quizzes use Ajax,
which is a way to do dynamic Web content without having to reload the
page every time something changes.)
* 5
Common Mistakes That Make You Look Dumb -- in a
medium where you are primarily known by you're words, cutting down on
silly spelling and grammar misteaks helps people focus on the dumb
things your actually saying on purpose, rather than by accident.
(There were three deliberate errors in that sentence. Did you catch them? Link via Digg,
which at times is the poster child for people who don't care about
spelling, grammar, punctuation or typing without swear
words.)
* Riffing on that theme, check out the Homophoner, which
converts text into its homophonic equivalent (words that sound the
shame, but have different meanings and spellings). For example, "If you
give it some text, like here," it will give back:
There's plenty of other stuff in my slushpile,
so check it out.
Thanks -- Joe
lot of catching up on stuff and entries that I need to get to. You can see
some of what's pending, mooted, or otherwise not gotten to yet in the
slushpile-tagged
items on my del.icio.us
account.
A couple of items that I do want to get to:
* Geography Quizzes: Over the weekend, blogger
John mentioned a 50 U.S. states in 10-minutes quiz that was
going around (it's located
here) -- you can add to that 53 African Countries in 10
Minutes (I did horribly), and
245 Countries in 10
Minutes (it's apparently a
little finicky when it comes to full names of nations and
spellings and such -- I haven't even attempted it yet.)
(FYI, all of these quizzes use Ajax,
which is a way to do dynamic Web content without having to reload the
page every time something changes.)
* 5
Common Mistakes That Make You Look Dumb -- in a
medium where you are primarily known by you're words, cutting down on
silly spelling and grammar misteaks helps people focus on the dumb
things your actually saying on purpose, rather than by accident.
(There were three deliberate errors in that sentence. Did you catch them? Link via Digg,
which at times is the poster child for people who don't care about
spelling, grammar, punctuation or typing without swear
words.)
* Riffing on that theme, check out the Homophoner, which
converts text into its homophonic equivalent (words that sound the
shame, but have different meanings and spellings). For example, "If you
give it some text, like here," it will give back:
If ewe give it sum text, like hear.It's brain-melting, but fun. (Link via NYT blog Pogue's Posts)
There's plenty of other stuff in my slushpile,
so check it out.
Thanks -- Joe
Friday, March 2, 2007
Friday Blogplugs
Hi folks -- here are some more blogplugs, which are items that I want to highlight, things folks have sent me or, even best of all, entries you've labeled with the tag blogplugs (it's best of all because other folks can find other tagged articles just by clicking the link):
* Strictly speaking, this ain't blog stuff, but because of the the recent tornados and severe weather events, don't forget about the Red Cross and Network for Good
* Paul wants you to play a little game (hrm, unintended pun fun) called Six Degrees of Blog Separation -- see how far you can get.
* Annie is the Guest Host Blogger for CarnivAOL #34 -- submit your best underappreciated blog entry by Sunday, March 4th (I submitted an item, just because it was such a hassle getting it cleared)
* Journals Product Manager Stephanie (Whose blog everyone should read. Not just AOL Journalers -- everyone in the entire world. It's that good. Why do I sound like blogger John?) announces a Blogs 2.0 code-name contest.
* Ukgal36 is happy that her blog was listed on the Most Commented Blogs section of the Blogs main page. The secret to her success?
* Lastly for now, the AOL Pictures Team talks about some new AOL Pictures features they just rolled out this week, including view counts, an upgraded uploaded (tag and caption photos, while you wait!), and more.
If you want to blogplug an entry of yours, or an entry of yours talking up someone else's entry, just send it to me or use the tag blogplugs
Thanks -- Joe
* Strictly speaking, this ain't blog stuff, but because of the the recent tornados and severe weather events, don't forget about the Red Cross and Network for Good
* Paul wants you to play a little game (hrm, unintended pun fun) called Six Degrees of Blog Separation -- see how far you can get.
* Annie is the Guest Host Blogger for CarnivAOL #34 -- submit your best underappreciated blog entry by Sunday, March 4th (I submitted an item, just because it was such a hassle getting it cleared)
* Journals Product Manager Stephanie (Whose blog everyone should read. Not just AOL Journalers -- everyone in the entire world. It's that good. Why do I sound like blogger John?) announces a Blogs 2.0 code-name contest.
* Ukgal36 is happy that her blog was listed on the Most Commented Blogs section of the Blogs main page. The secret to her success?
"I think I get a lot of comments because I leave a lot of comments. It's that simple."Simple, but effective.
* Lastly for now, the AOL Pictures Team talks about some new AOL Pictures features they just rolled out this week, including view counts, an upgraded uploaded (tag and caption photos, while you wait!), and more.
If you want to blogplug an entry of yours, or an entry of yours talking up someone else's entry, just send it to me or use the tag blogplugs
Thanks -- Joe
Donkey Trashes Hotel Room, Crashes Web Site
Photo from the Disney movie 'Shrek.' You'll see why this is important.
"A man who was found dressed in latex and handcuffs brought a donkey to his room in a Galway city centre hotel, because he was advised 'to get out and meet people,' the local court heard last week."Things only get weirder from there.
The fellow's name is Thomas Aloysius McCarney, and he's been charged with cruelty to animals, lewd and obscene behavior, and with being a danger to himself.
(There had been some charges due to a damaged mini-bar, but they were dropped because the donkey did it. This is possibly the first, and only, successful use of the "Donkey Defense.")
Also:
* His lawyer says he's fixated on the movie 'Shrek' (McCarney "...could constantly be heard at work talking to himself saying things like 'Isn't that right, Donkey?'")
* He told the receptionist that the donkey was a "breed of 'super rabbit.'"
* After the donkey went wild in the halls, McCarney was found in his room, wearing the latex suit and handcuffs. (The donkey swallowed the handcuff key.)
* He apparently was fined €2,000 for violating the "Unlawful Accommodation of Donkeys Act 1837"
Now, the story seems to have hit the Internets in a big way -- for example, it was on the main pages of social link sites Boingboing, Metafilter, and Fark.
All the attention seems to have blown up the newspaper's Web site. Here's what you see:
To read "Lonely man brought donkey to hotel room, court told" click here.
Now, of course, the big question is: Is this for real? It's too early for April Fool's Day, and before it melted, the newspaper's Web site looked real.
However, the only references to the "Unlawful Accomodation of Donkeys Act" online are only found in the article.
And, as a Fark commenter noted, they also had an article written in the voice of a three-foot tall, plastic security guard [the article, like the rest of their site, is toast at the moment], so who knows?
Perhaps it's a bizarre promotion for 'Shrek the Third'?
Anyway, read the article, then leave a comment and tell us if you think it's real or not.
Now, get out and meet people!
Thanks -- Joe
Thursday, March 1, 2007
All About the New AOL Blogs Main Page
Hi everybody. As I mentioned yesterday, we launched the People Connection redesign, which includes a revamped Blogs main page:
First off, you'll note that the page is wider than it was previously -- hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone.
Next, starting at the very top, you'll see the new header that's on all the new People Connection pages:
Also of note, you can reskin the People Connection pages by clicking one of the little Skins buttons in the top right corner.
There are two skins available right now -- we'll be adding more choices. (Incidentally, this demonstrates why Cascading Style Sheets are so neat -- you can radically change the look of the page without affecting any of the content, just by clicking a button and switching to a new CSS.)
Immediately below the Skins chooser, you'll find an orange feed icon -- you can subscribe to an update of new content throughout the People Connection area (it's not specific to the Blogs page).
Moving down the page a bit, we have the AOL Blogs search (I think we need to adjust this a bit), as well as an updated version of the Face Wall (now called The Lobby) -- it highlights people's AIM Pages profiles, and can also be seen through People Connection.
Below the Search box, you'll find the Journals display module that shows you the Journals that belongto your Screen Name -- it works the same as previously, though the look has been updated a bit. (It's also where you can create a new Journal.)
Below the Journals widget are some editorial promo spots, and below that is a feed module that displays current entry headlines from a selection of other blogs.
Now, to the right is the most interesting new part of the page:
(FYI: AOL News' The Cooler and Daily Pulse blogs will probably stay in the #1 and #2 spots until they move off of the AOL Journals platform, just because they get so much comment traffic.)
On the other hand, Recently Updated Blogs will show blogs and entries that have been, um, Recently Updated. This includes new blog and entry creations and edits.
It'll probably be a little hit or miss (you'll see public test blogs, new blogs with no entries, etc), but it's a great way to see activity from Journalers who may not be part of the usual crowd.
Of course, both of these modules will only show public Journals.
Now, I asked if the feeds that power those modules could be used in a regular feedreader, and they can't (right now) -- John Panzer says:
Now, we'll be adding new features to the page as we go along, and there are few things I want to add back on the page (like some getting started and help resources, and a link to the blogging message boards), but it's a pretty good start and we're all pretty happy with the way it's going so far.
Anyway, if you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment, and if you like, you can also post on the redesign feedback message board.
Thanks -- Joe
First off, you'll note that the page is wider than it was previously -- hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone.
Next, starting at the very top, you'll see the new header that's on all the new People Connection pages:
Change the look of the page by clicking a skin.
Also of note, you can reskin the People Connection pages by clicking one of the little Skins buttons in the top right corner.
There are two skins available right now -- we'll be adding more choices. (Incidentally, this demonstrates why Cascading Style Sheets are so neat -- you can radically change the look of the page without affecting any of the content, just by clicking a button and switching to a new CSS.)
Immediately below the Skins chooser, you'll find an orange feed icon -- you can subscribe to an update of new content throughout the People Connection area (it's not specific to the Blogs page).
Moving down the page a bit, we have the AOL Blogs search (I think we need to adjust this a bit), as well as an updated version of the Face Wall (now called The Lobby) -- it highlights people's AIM Pages profiles, and can also be seen through People Connection.
Below the Search box, you'll find the Journals display module that shows you the Journals that belongto your Screen Name -- it works the same as previously, though the look has been updated a bit. (It's also where you can create a new Journal.)
Below the Journals widget are some editorial promo spots, and below that is a feed module that displays current entry headlines from a selection of other blogs.
Now, to the right is the most interesting new part of the page:
Most Commented and Recently Updated Blogs
(FYI: AOL News' The Cooler and Daily Pulse blogs will probably stay in the #1 and #2 spots until they move off of the AOL Journals platform, just because they get so much comment traffic.)
On the other hand, Recently Updated Blogs will show blogs and entries that have been, um, Recently Updated. This includes new blog and entry creations and edits.
It'll probably be a little hit or miss (you'll see public test blogs, new blogs with no entries, etc), but it's a great way to see activity from Journalers who may not be part of the usual crowd.
Of course, both of these modules will only show public Journals.
Now, I asked if the feeds that power those modules could be used in a regular feedreader, and they can't (right now) -- John Panzer says:
"These are not feeds. They are XML documents that leverage some standard elements but are basically our proprietary format."The good news is, we could probably turn those into feeds with a little development effort, but we would first need to think this through.
Now, we'll be adding new features to the page as we go along, and there are few things I want to add back on the page (like some getting started and help resources, and a link to the blogging message boards), but it's a pretty good start and we're all pretty happy with the way it's going so far.
Anyway, if you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment, and if you like, you can also post on the redesign feedback message board.
Thanks -- Joe
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