Archives for September 2003
Advice for members of online communities... (September 30, 2003) Here's three pieces of advice that apply as much to moderators and administrators of message boards as much as to the people who are unfortunate enough to have you as unduly elected presidents for life. The first piece of advice...
Around the back of Broadcasting House... (September 29, 2003) Anyone who has passed by Broadcasting House in recent months will have noticed that it has been carefully gift-wrapped in white sheeting and scaffolding. Underneath the chrysalis it's hard to guess what's going on, but from the otherside - from...
On Gordon Brown's Speech... (September 29, 2003) The full text of Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour party conference is well worth a read whether or not you rate his aspirations or his ability to achieve them. I personally think it presents an interesting and honourable model...
Modelling a space for group-activity... (September 28, 2003) In preparation for a piece of work we're doing this afternoon, Mr Webb and I have been thinking around social software and its relationship to the other things we do in our lives. In other words - how often is...
Enhanced reality: Noise in Space? (September 28, 2003) So it occurred to me (while watching some dumb sci-fi TV series set in space) that maybe spaceships that make noise in a vacuum isn't such a dumb idea after all. I mean, obviously they wouldn't (couldn't) make any noise,...
Everything in moderation... (September 28, 2003) What follows is an enterprise that only the most anal and beard-stroking of smoking-jacketted social software enthusiasts could possibly enjoy. While I was writing it I could almost feel myself rocking backwards and forwards in my leatherette chair with quiet...
On building a valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Document! (September 27, 2003) This won't mean a lot to a lot of people, but I just thought I'd report (with a certain amount of glee) that I just wrote a template for a friend's website and ran it through a validator and it...
On Joel Veitch, Cultural Icon! (September 26, 2003) I got quite a shock on the bus yesterday. As we passed Selfridges I glanced at the new window displays only to be startled by the awesome presences of Blode, a Giant Bee, a Frightened Boy and many other smiling,...
Another year, another proposal... (September 25, 2003) Another year rolls by, and with it comes (and passes) another ETCon Proposal Deadline. The afternoon of the deadline seems to be becoming nothing more than a pan-world panic proposal-writing session - with about half the people on my buddy...
On work and weblogging... (September 25, 2003) So without denying for one moment that I am very lucky to have the job I have and that it's extraordinary, it does have one drawback. Working in a team that only has the function of thinking up new things...
On the weirdo in the perspex box... (September 24, 2003) This is one of those posts that gets me into trouble with people. If you don't like rude words, or have any particular love for David Blaine then walk away! Walk away! So I want to talk a bit about...
Hence the paucity of updates... (September 21, 2003) The last few days - it has to be said - have not been the easiest of my time on the web. I've been spending more time that I would like dealing with problems on Barbelith trying to work out...
Quote of the day... (September 17, 2003) "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," said Benjamin Franklin....
A brief design history of plasticbag.org (September 16, 2003) I've wanted to do this for ages, but I've never had time just to push it out into the open. So, without further introduction, here's a brief design history of plasticbag.org neé Barbelith. Barbelith, it has to be said, had...
Going to the Blogs... (September 16, 2003) I've just noticed there's a Spiked online weblogging event going on tomorrow at the South Bank called Gone to the blogs: The blogging phenomenon in perspective. The panelists will include Brendan O'Neill, Perry de Havilland, Bill Thompson and James Crabtree....
On "At Home With Hitler"... (September 15, 2003) So Simon Waldman has been asked to take down the At Home With Hitler spread by Homes and Gardens. The full story is here. Someone's already put up a mirror, which I can't help thinking is a good thing. The...
Oh Weblog Nostalgia... I may die... (September 13, 2003) In March 2000, I'd been a weblogger for about four months. Blogger itself wasn't much older. The directory pages which tracked the start of each new public weblog are still up online and you can see new weblogs starting at...
On persuasion through fear and rhetoric... (September 13, 2003) If all I cared about was traffic, then of course I'd write more about politics. Or religion. I wrote about religion a while back, and - yeah, I got lots of traffic. And I also had to spend about two...
Browsers to be crippled for Flash plug-ins... (September 13, 2003) Well then, one way or another - at least for the foreseeable future - it looks like we have confirmation that we won't all be using Flash as our dominant way of designing for the web. Via 2lmc, I've been...
Apple Ipod Infographica... (September 11, 2003) So here's a thought - the Apple Music Store has sold 10,000,000 songs. And the new iPod now has space for 10,000 songs. So if you needed a place to put all those 10,000,000 songs, you would only need 1,000...
Friendster as neocortical prosthetic... (September 9, 2003) I've been reading connected selves on the 150 person limit for weak ties and its relationship to Friendster: "When i have 200+ friends on a site like Friendster, i'm not a social networks anomaly. What is actually being revealed is...
Is "amateur" an insult? (September 8, 2003) Microdoc News has responded to my piece on Mass Amateurisation with a corresponding piece taking me to task on using the word 'amateurisation' when I should use the word 'empowerment' (Mass Amateurisation, Blogging and Google): Mr Coates has done it...
One big clump of recommendations engines... (September 8, 2003) I'm doing a bit of work around recommendations and recommendations engines at the moment, and I'm finding it really illuminating. The thing I think I'm most surprised by is how unclear the boundaries that surround the whole concept actually are...
Orlowski influence on BBC article? (September 8, 2003) So there's an article over at the BBC at the moment about Google celebrating its fifth birthday. As part of this article there's this paragraph: Web logs, or blogs, pose a particular problem for Google as one of their defining...
On being grouchy with BTOpenworld... Again... (September 6, 2003) So like a great great many people in the UK who can't get easy access to cable, I get my ADSL from BTOpenworld. BTOpenworld is the online part of that-which-used-to-be-called-British-Telecom before it was privatised twenty or so years ago. Now...
(Weblogs and) The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything... (September 3, 2003) 1// Before the world of the weblog was the time of the homepage. Back before we knew any better, it was the homepage that was going to transform the world. Everyone was going to have them. They were going to...
On Jenny Everywhere... (September 3, 2003) My wonderful cult are getting a bit of exposure at the moment and it's all because of Jenny Everywhere. My involvement in the whole enterprise was fairly negligible - I started a thread to try and get people thinking about...
Post-war stories... (September 3, 2003) From Dear Raed a couple of days ago: While my family is waiting outside something strange happens, one of the soldiers comes out, empties his flask in the garden and start telling the medic to give him his, the medic...
