The Reality Club: Digital Maoism

These are the points that I thought were signifcant in this article:

1. The author has some concerns with the way that wikipedia has been elevated to such importanct and how it has come to be used and regarded. The collectivism that is utilize online is more of a resurgence of the collective being all-wise, influential, and authoritative. The author states that this is very different from a democracy or meritocracy. He also contends that there are other site that have concentrated on channeling the collective and have become the most
"Meta" site. The author refers to the "so-called" artifical intelligence and the need to erase personality and become meta.

2. Core belief that whatever is created in the wiki world can be incrementally corrected as it unfolds. The author further states that accuracy in a text is not sufficient. A text has to have more than a collection of accurate accounts; there needs to be an expression of personality as well.

3. Trends have appeared in which content on the Web is giving the appearance as if it is emerging and speaking to us as a supernatural phenomena. The author argues that this is where the internet crosses the line into delusion.

4. Author is fustrated with sites that have been unwilling to be critical of content on the web for in order to make the Meta-aggregator site appear to be coherent. What we are seeing today is a rise in fallacy of the collective.

5. Blogging is not simply writing; it involves stating your perspective that is not in response to yesterday comments on gaining a large audience.

6. Paritcipating in wiki world tends to foster a loss of insight and subtlety and a disregard to considered opinion.

I thought that the author provided and extensively detailed argument of the digital maoism. I read the article and made some notes of what I basically thought were important point to share on my blog.

My Blog

I have been thinking as the semester has been winding down, that I probably will not continue this blog; for the very reason that I don't have the writing style nor the courage to share very personal details about my life. However, I am very happy that I had the opportunity to take the "Blogging On" course, since I feel that I have learned a tremendous amount about all aspect of the Web. I will continue reading popular blogs that I have come to enjoy and I will search for blogs that have purpose of mission for sharing information. If I am fortunate enough to locate a cause that is of interest to me, then I may decide to create another blog as an advocate for awareness, change, funding, etc.

Being an information seeker, I will not only continue reading blogs and visiting some of the site that we reviewed in class, I may even post comments as well. Based on what I have read in certain blogs, commenting on post can be somewhat addicting. I don't feel at this point in my life, I have the time to spend more than five hours daily on blogs.

Basically, I wanted to share that I really enjoyed the class and that I do feel like a more informed citizen. Thank you.

Blogs Into Blooks

This is interesting to me about blogs turning into blooks. Is the only criteria for blogs turning into blooks based on the large audience they attract? How is a blogger notified that the blog will be considered a blook? I am curious to know whether these panel of judges that awarded the first Blooker Prize experts in both blogging and publishing books. I can definitely see how Julie/Julie Project blog evolved into a book. I most certainly would visit this blog site and possibly consider purchasing the book. I would assume these blogs that turn into blooks are minimal beacuse it has to take a great deal of time and effort to create such a successful blog to attract thousands of people and eventually become a blook. The majority of bloggers don't have the amount of time to design a blog site that would attract the masses. I am interested in the topic and plan on researching it more tomorrow-of course to blog.

Social Networking Sites

I decided to join the friendster and Live Journal sites and have been trying to navigate my way through the rules of engagement. I feel that the content on Live Journal provides more support to new users than friendster. I also felt that when I was attempting to set up my profile on friendster that I was joining a dating site than a community that encourages participants to interact with people of similar interst. I am somewhat uncomfortable on the friendster site; the format and content reminds too much of site that assures consumers that they can indeed find their soulmate on a particular site. I have decided not to create a blog on friendster; although I did post on a communal group that listed their interest being health and fitness. I prefer to spend more time at the Live Journal site. I did set up my account and profile, read through the frequently asked questions and recent news on the site. I will start a journal with some friends, and venture out to groups that have similar interests. I will blog about it in a few days...

Based on some of the readings on social networking, I found one point interesting in terms of how participants project themselves into the internet with the hopes that other people will find them interesting and will interact with them. Additionally, participants will write their community into being through friending. I would think that this could be somewhat intimidating to a new user, if they fear that other participants may not want to interact wiht them.

I found this blog that discusses the ten stupid things that Friendster user do.

Community Values

Since I am a novice to online communities and the logistics as to how they are formed and sustained; I really do not have much to say in response to the list from the Shirky’s article. I will summarize what I read for me to better understand online community building. I did my own search to familiarize myself with the topic and I found an interesting site that focuses on creating online communities and connecting people.

My summary of online communities:

• Communities grow as a result of interconnected membership.
  
• Communities are either small and focused or large and unfocused.
  
• The internet is edited all the time by users posting the most popular and successful sites. Additionally, there are sites that will edit there web page and allow there readers to post comments as well.
  
• There is an automatic filter that sort through the content of what is good quality and what is mediocre.
  
• Community is valued by the infrastructure of participants and the attitude of the users.
  
• Innovative Live Journals are good examples of communal interface in which the environment is modified to replicate the community that uses it.
  
• Weblogs and Live Journal are self-creating and draw many like-minded people together into a cohesive community.
  
• A successful online community is able to maintain internal cohesiveness despite the environment.
  
• It will take a substantial amount of hardwork to create and maintain an online community than those necessary to run a good broadcast site.
  
  As I review the summary above, I realize that based on my previous readings of weblogs, I do have some knowledge of how online communities are formed. I do not feel that I currently possess neither the skills nor the attitude to create a communal site similar to Slashdot and other popular sites.

Pharyngula Rebuttal

Sharon’s critique of Nielsen’s article does not provide me with substantial arguments to dismiss the ten points that were made in reference to constructing successful blogs.
There is merit to what both authors stated in these articles. However, I do think the users will decide if indeed they would like to vary the topics of randomness, submit photos, embrace anonymity, and publish blogs frequently or not. I believe that it has more to do with the bloggers personal preference, comfortability, and technological expertise than the ten factors suggested by web designers. Although I think that in the beginning the ten points will be use; as the users gain an audience and allow their own unique personality to evolve along with the blog, all rules go out the window. The blogosphere and the community of bloggers that frequent the site are the one’s that drive the content.

The Labryrinth Unbound and Weblog Usability

I reviewed the Labyrinth Unbound article andI thought that some of the arguments in support of considering weblogs as literature were pretty interesting. On the other hand there were soem poingts that I did not agree with; specifically about every weblog being considered literary in the sense of how it is read. I would disagee with this statement simply because many blogs are personal in nature and the content does not take have a distinct literary form. Many bloggers utilize the blogosphere to express their thoughts, ideas, and to form a connection to a community that has similar viewpoints. Professional blogs have a tendency to take on a more literary and creative form, but I feel the majority of personal blog should not be considered literature. The weblog does resist the commoditization in the ways in which certain blogs are constantly being altered by new post and never completed. Most of what we consider literature is contained and commodified, in addition to various guidelines for publishing great works of literature.

In regards to the Weblog Usability article, most of the information is what we have been reading over the course of the semester. I thought it was helpful to review the material and the point of providing a photo was interesting to me and I have noticed this moreso with professional blogs. I would agree that it offers a more personal impression to the author. I can see how mixing topics on a blog could detract attention from the blog itself regarding specific topics; however, if the topic is personal in nature it would make sense to create another blog that focused on technology.

MySpace

I really enjoyed reading the MySpace article. The author's comments on anonymity and how the Web has enabled some users to become soliosist, when under normal circumstances they are introverted and modest. I do beleive that many popular blogs take on a life of there own, based on readership and what a particular audience finds interesting or even outrageous about the content. This lends me to surmise that many of the blogs are not authentic. Even somc of the very personal blogs or diaries appear to be searching for an audience.

The author states that many of the successful blogs have abandoned anonymity and still have created unique personalities online. I can definitely see how successful bloggers would eventually reveal their identity, but is it always advantageous? Not for those bloggers that have been fired from their jobs, due to the content on their blogs. I realize that as the users comfortability level increases as they continue to blog and their audience expands, some egos expand as well. I think it is beneficial for those users who can reinvent themselves on the
Web, find their creative source, and of course advertise on their blogs.

Underexposed...

I would agree that most bloggers use fictious names when creating their blogs do so in part to maintain some element of privacy. Additionally, prior to creating a blog, many prospective bloggers navigate through the blogosphere and are aware that since most bloggers use a pseudonym they in turn will assume the same format. I think that fear is another reason why bloggers assume pseudonyms; there is always the possibility that even with anonymity, readers could recognize the blog and negative consequences could follow. This is especially true, if bloggers decide to blog at their job, specifically about co-workers and superiors. There have numerous employee terminations due to blogs and e-mails that were posted while at work for non-work purposes.

I also think that when bloggers assume a pseudonym, there is higher level of comfortability, creativity, and reckless abandonment, because you are not constantly worried about your true identity being exposed. Although, I do wonder if these blogs are authentic in content, since accountability is lost with the use of fictitious names.

Monday's Class

During Monday night’s class, I thought to blog about Spazeboy, since I found him most intriguing as he appeared to me, to be the least comfortable discussing the evolution of his blog. I was surprised to see how young he was- early twenties, and based on his blogger profile he is a full time student with various interests. I am curious to know if he is majoring in the computer science/tech field. From what I understood about Spazeboy and the comments he made, he found the My Left Nutmeg site and began reading the blogs. Spazeboy had and opportunity to meet Ned Lamont on January 17, 2006, took pictures of him and started blogging about the campaign in June. What motivated him to continue blogging about Lamont was the increase readership/comments on his site. I would consider Spazeboy to be a very effective spreader of information blogger who enjoys having an audience comment on his perspective about politics and topics that interest him. He does a great job engaging his readers with multiple links-however not overwhelmingly so, videos, and writing style. I would think that because he has such a popular blog, some of what he writes to sustain and expand readership.