Cause for jealousy
: A few remaining notes from the Yale conference (below), which was a success. I'm not a fan of conferences in general; they're often lazy blatherfests. But this was different. This was a room filled with born-smart people with proven talent who were all passionate about weblogs. Wish you were there.
: Last night's dinner, courtesy of Yale, was also memorable. I was among the last to arrive and thus ended up at the side table with Mickey Kaus, Josh Marshall, Prof. Jack Balkin of Yale (who should have a weblog soon) and Glenn Reynolds with other guest appearances. Take what I said about the whole room above -- regarding smarts, talent, and passion -- and now distill it to a rich essence and you have the dinner conversation. Weblogs attract an amazing bunch of people.
: Josh Marshall covers some of the dinnertime discussion about blog triumphalism.
: Josh also spoke to our search for rules and standards and he summarized it all elegantly and eloquently: "The transcendent rule is fundamental honesty with your readers."
Same with the new as with the old: Credibility is your only asset.
: In my panel, John Hiler gave a nice talk on how weblogs are addictive for webloggers and their readers and how we feed each others' addictions: the ultimate feedback loop.
: Blogs bring speed -- amazing speed -- to media. David Gallagher told a hilarious anecdote about finding a story he was reporting for the NY Times blogged even before he wrote it (Glenn Reynolds and Dave Winer both told the world they'd been interviewed).
David also told about a story he wrote getting what he thought was a skewed headline at Slashdot and as soon as he finished speaking, someone in the audience had the Slashdotter who wrote that headline on IRC chat, ready to continue to debate with David.
Meanwhile, I was talking with Nick Denton on IM and told him that Glenn Reynolds had quoted him a few times and plugged Nick's Gizmodo in his keynote. Nick said he knew; he'd already read it on some of the blogs reporting on the speech, live. He told me to tell Glenn that he'd sold $5841.11 worth of Amazon gadgets on Gizmodo already this month. I turn my laptop to Glenn and show it to him and then mention that in my talk. It gets blogged again. Speed. That is a key value blogs bring. Beware, though: speed means that there is less opportunity for consideration and craft and checking of facts (though as bloggers pointed out at the conference frequently, comments and email and other bloggers take care of corrections with equal speed). Blogs are small and cheap. They are built for speed.
: In an earlier panel, Denise Howell, an attorney, made fascinating points about law firms using blogs to establish their expertise; blogs can be a marketing tool. There's potential there.
: Librarian Jenny Levine and I spent much time after the talks talking about how to bring blogs to local (which I believe is a killer ap for them: they will report the minutae that others cannot afford to report; this is what led to Glenn's comment quoted somewhere else that your world will be covered by The Blogger Next Door). The problem is that libraries and newspapers and governments and companies don't want to take on the liability of hosting all these blogs (insert libel seminar here). I suggested that Jenny get one town with a few bloggers and host a MeetUp confab and have them inspire and invite other bloggers and soon, we will see a story in Newsweek about the the town that becomes the Blog Capital of America. Who wants to start?
: Donna Wentworth of Corante and Harvard made good points about how blogs are fueled by authors' desire to please others. Kaus confirmed this when he was asked why he cares about getting Drudge links and traffic (and thus dreads ever pissing him off); it's all about being read, it's about being popular. I said something similar in my talk (see the stuff about populism and pleasing the audience). There was a lot of that at this conference: themes that came up again and again, which just means that we, the community, are starting to figure out what the blog thing means, although we still protest that we haven't.
: More coverage at the bottom of this page.
: At this conference or the last one, I may have just coined the term "nanomedia" as a description of this, our new medium. If I didn't, someone else will claim credit quickly. That's how blogs work.
At a long-ago lunch with John Hiler and Nick Denton, I also coined this "emerging media" but didn't try to claim credit, since there are so many such claims in blogs. That, too, is how blogs work.
: Here are the photos. I'm the guy in the suit (this, Mr. Big media) and gray beard (thus, Mr. Old Media).
: Yale serves bottles of "Yale Water." I'm hoping that drinking it makes you smarter.
: I attach my speaking notes at the "more" link below.
: Here are my notes.
YALE CONFERENCE NOTES
How the Internet changes media
- The Internet is the first medium owned by the audience
- In all other media, the editors, publishers, and producers talk to the audience; they say what you should know.
- In the Internet, the audience finally gets a voice.
- This is not just about politics; this is about what matters to the audience. It’s like sitting in the Dennys and listening to what people care about, only you don’t get heartburn.
- In my services, what people care about is kids’ sports: 250,000 page views and thousands of posts on high school wrestling in NJ
- The wise editor, publisher, producer will listen to this audience – and make money. Fools will ignore them.
- I bring this populist philosophy to the medium before there was this medium. I was a TV critic and I defended the taste of the American people based on the ratings; given a chance to watch quality shows (fads excepted) the audience will watch quality. This is the same populist philosophy I bring to my theology and my views of media, politics, and commerce.
- Simply put: If you don’t innately trust the aggregate intelligence, taste, and morality of the people, then you do not, you cannot believe in democracy or capitalism.
- That is why I love the Internet: I am a populist and this is the people’s medium.
- (The risk of having a weblog is that in conversation you often end up repeating yourself to people who read you or, worse, quoting yourself to people who don’t. Now I’ll do both. I wrote on my weblog yesterday that I’d spent the day with lawyers dealing with a family will and I was struck at how lawyers – and once upon a time, I was going to be one – are dedicated to the too-often-futile effort to protect us from man’s bad behavior. I wonder whether you can be a populist when that’s how you spend your days. I, on the other hand, seek the attention of the audience; that is what probably makes me a populist).
The weblog is really the highest form of interactivity – so far; the most refined state of audience content
- First there was usenet, then web pages, then forums and chat.
- What sets weblogs apart is one word: Quality
- Someone produces a weblog; someone selects and edits and writes and designs and, most times, puts his or her name on the product. Someone cares.
- And thanks to the meritocracy of links, the best weblogs rise to the top. Cream rises. Popular weblogs do – because the audience judges them to be relevant or right or entertaining or wise.
- Thus, in this chorus of the audience’s voices, webloggers are the soloists; their voices rise above.
Does the weblog replace journalism?
- No
- Webloggers are, all in all, pundits; they are commentators and columnist and occasionally philosophers and even editors. But with very rare exceptions, webloggers do not gather original facts, real news. They point to it. They comment on it.
- In an age when Daniel Pearl sacrifices his life in search of the news – the truth – it is terribly egotistical, hubristic, and blind of webloggers to say that they replace journalists. Journalists – real journalists, not just human press conference tape recorders – gather real facts. They are vital to a democracy.
Do weblogs affect journalism?
- Yes
- But not yet. First, editors, publishers, and producers have to wake up and listen. For this is a medium that is all about listening.
- What can we learn from webloggers: What the audience or at least the vocal part of it is saying. It is not representative and should not be taken as such. But you will find the buzz here; that is why I call my site buzzmachine.com now. The Internet takes the pulse of the audience, the consumer base, the democracy faster than anything and webloggers sniff out and edit that buzz. That is of real value to news and to the democracy.
Finally, what have I learned from my own?
- When I lost my faith in the people, when my populism flags, I regain it through my weblog.
- I started after surviving September 11 at the World Trade Center. I could not let the story go. I knew and loved weblogs; my company invested in Blogger/Pyra and Plastic.com. But I didn’t create a weblog because I had nothing to say. Now I did.
- As I revealed more and more of what happened that day, the reaction from people, the support is sometimes startling.
- I made friends through weblogs.
- The truth is that weblogs vary from journalism and media in this way, too: They are a community, a true community in an online world where that word is overused. Weblogs make media personal.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
: In Norway, anyway.
: And in Antarctica, too.
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