★ Content Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink

All I can say is, I take heart in the fact that I was moved to write about “content” on the same day as MG Siegler. If you don’t buy what I had to say, take it from someone who knows eminently what he’s talking about.

Content Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink – 2/12:

The only thing I can offer is the advice to take everything you read in the technology press with a grain of salt. Perhaps several. The likelihood that at least part of it is nonsense is very strong. And stronger by the day.

What I Hate & Love About Blogging

I hate that blogging is a quantitative business. I’m not talking about eyeballs and page views here. You gotta eat, right? I’m talking about assembly-line creativity. X blobs of “content” per day.

I hate that assembly-line blogging arises out of resignation to the notion that people won’t read. If we produce only one or three excellent stories per day, not enough people will read them, the thinking goes. We’re better off constantly updating, constantly getting in the Internet’s face like a mosquito, so that irritated people will occasionally slap. It isn’t true of a quality audience, but the thinking holds.

I hate that the assembly of blog posts is treated as a competitive industry. Pro bloggers behave as though page views are scarce. That’s a poor description of reality. Attention is scarce. Page views are the freest, most abundant thing on the Internet. But the assembly-line blogs have all fallen into the same patterns, because they all must meet their quotas. On the path of least resistance, they all cover the same things. Thus, the headline becomes the most important part of the article.

I hate that blogs develop fatigue because of the grinding nature of their business, so that no energy is left to experiment. We go with what works and can make only small and frivolous adjustments. Joke headlines. Infographics. “Hey, let’s use more pictures!” Giveaways. References to bigger, more viral flavors of the day.

This is not a limitation of the blog medium. It’s a failure to take advantage of its simplicity. The blog is the minimal tool of the real-time, social Web. And this is what I love about blogging.

I love that the blog is a blank box. A practiced blogger can abuse the box into holding many kinds of shapes. An expert blogger can reconstruct the entire box. One only needs to be a hack Web designer to be a world-class blogger of shapes.

I love that any number of digital skill sets can be used to color in a blog’s shapes. A blogger can be a writer, a photographer, a filmmaker, a podcaster, a musician, a painter, alone, in combination, or all at once.

I love that the costs of producing a blog are so minimal that those who are good at it can make a living.

I love that so many developers, designers, engineers and companies have put so much work into making the blog accessible from all kinds of devices in all kinds of places. The shapes on a blog can be multi-dimensional, able to re-flow themselves into differently sized containers and be valuable in all of them.

I love that all the great science-fiction writers are right: a high-tech future without high-tech storytelling would take us nowhere.

What I Learned About the Wired World on Jury Duty

Last week was the first time I'd ever been called for jury duty. I put it on the RWW team calendar weeks in advance. I figured I'd miss one day at my desk. I'd spend it sitting in a waiting room, voraciously reading Twitter and shouting from the sidelines. I was wrong. I was chosen for a jury trial that lasted all week. I sat in the voir dire session, answered questions honestly, and before I knew it, I was in the booth.

Before long, I could tell why I was chosen. It was a civil case, and practically all the character evidence was in the form of email, Facebook and Myspace posts. That's all we had to juxtapose with the in-person testimony and figure out who was telling the truth. It was a bit embarrassing at first. What did this have to do with justice? But that became clear. There are lots of new lessons to learn about being civil in an online society, and judges and juries are how we common-law countries work that stuff out.

Read more on ReadWriteWeb.

In which I learn what SAY Media is via another site's story about its acquisition of ReadWriteWeb. [UPDATED]

As a result of the stupid-ass embargo culture, I found out on Twitter this morning that ReadWriteWeb has been acquired by SAY Media. I don't know anything about this company, so I have no preconceptions. They say we're going to get a site redesign, and that sounds great. I look forward to seeing the wireframes.

We were told of a surprise 7 a.m. meeting midday yesterday and given no more information than that. I was certain acquisition was at hand, but I could not imagine by whom. Now we know, I think.

I'm excited. I love the spirit of our team, I think it's full of great writers, and I'm glad we'll get a chance to grow our platform. I mean platform not the way tech blogs use it — meaning something involving computers and stuff — but in an older sense. I'm at ReadWriteWeb because it's a group blog full of strong voices. We have our own takes on things. That's what I want out of a site, and I think it's what readers want, too.

I'm thrilled that Dan Frommer will be joining us. I look forward to learning from him. It sounds like the team will be expanding, too. If we get more comrades as crazy as we are, you can look forward to a good time.

I hope this deal means that SAY finds value in our voices. If that's the case, I'm flattered. Honored, even. I've only worked for fledgling organizations before (save for a one-year stint in the Providence, RI school department, but let's not talk about that). Working for a bigger company will be a new experience, and I love new experiences.

I read Erick Schonfeld's post about the deal with some interest, and I agree with his analysis. In order to be a free media company with a big reach, you have to be an ad company, too.

That's okay with me. It might make your journalist's nose itchy, but so be it. As I've said on Twitter before, I have foresworn the title of Journalist in this position. I'm a storyteller, or at least I aspire to be. I tell the story of the Internet and how it connects humankind. Of course I'm responsible to be fair and accurate when writing true stories. But we're in service of the future, not the present. That's not journalism; it's an agenda.

There are agendas inherent in writing about technology. I think they're good agendas. We write in favor of the Web Itself and for the best possible technology for accessing it. It's the platforms, if you will, that matter to us, and the best things built upon them get covered. That's the difference between tech blogging and PR; our allegiance is to the future, not to any product.

So if I can keep doing that, that's great. Honestly, I don't really care about the technology in and of itself. I'm not a Technologist. I'm not an engineer or a developer. I'm a writer. I care about the story. As long as the story is good and people are listening, I'll keep telling it. I look forward to seeing how SAY Media can support good storytelling. Here's the story SAY and Richard, our Commander-In-Chief, are telling about the deal:

SAY: Welcomes ReadWriteWeb from SAY Media on Vimeo.

I think that's a pretty good story. I'll keep listening. If the story gets boring, I'll be bored, too. I don't let myself stay bored for long.

UPDATE 12/16: I've had more chances to see SAY's way of doing things, and I'm profoundly impressed. Check out this bold blog post from SAY's president about why they wanted us. I'm so much more excited now.

The Dock Podcast

My Internet friend Jamie and I have started a podcast. It’s called The Dock Podcast. Like, the dock on the main screens of Apple devices where the apps go. But also like a tranquil place to sit and watch the waves.

On The Dock Podcast, we discuss what people do with their technology and how they do it. We’re interested in workflows and playflows alike. We happen to be Apple people, but we’re open to anything with circuits. If you do something cool, and you use a computer to do it, we want you to come on our show and talk about it.

Check it out at thedock.tv. All the show links and notes are there, and you can subscribe to the feed through RSS or iTunes. You can also follow us on Twitter @TheDockPodcast.

We’ve got three episodes so far. It’s just Jamie and me in those, but we’ve got some great guests lined up, and you’ll hear about them.

• Episode 0 – Let’s Get This Out Of The Way
• Episode 1 – iPhone Part 1: Bloody Cheeseburgers
• Episode 2 – I Hate Times New Roman

Please do visit us on iTunes and leave a rating. We want to reach the people and help them make their stuff work better.

And if you’ve got feedback, which we’d love, email us at dockpodcast [at] gmail DOT com, or hit us up on Twitter @JonMwords, @atjamie, or @TheDockPodcast.

We love you!

♻ Recent goodies you may have missed.

Something I love about the ReadWriteWeb team is that we’re all contemplative people. We aren’t as hyper as some of the higher-volume sites. We love to sit back and think about the implications of what we’re doing while our coffee steams up our glasses.

As a result, we each get to write some posts that indulge our curiosity and teach us, along with a few readers, about little, hidden aspects of the Web. These posts don’t go viral, usually, but I think we all find them well worth our time. They’re also usually more long-tail kinds of posts, as opposed to daily news — things that are worth reading for a long time to come.

I’ve decided to create a new kind of post on this blog to highlight a few of my favorite recent RWW stories. Look for the recycling symbol (♻). There won’t be any regular timing for these; I’ll just post them when I feel the spirit.

Here are my choices for today:

• 10/11/11: Love of Control Has Made Tablets Indispensable
• 10/ 7/11: This Is Your Brain on 3D Ads
• 10/ 6/11: Google Maps Adds New Crowdsourced Maps of Afghanistan, Iraq & Elsewhere
• 09/30/11: KarmaGoat: Support Your Causes By Selling Your Stuff
• 09/26/11: Thoora is Your Robot Buddy for Exploring Web Topics

As always, you can follow my RWW posts from my author page via RSS or just as a bookmark. Thanks for reading, Internet friends.

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

When I got the chance to cover Steve Jobs' resignation as CEO of Apple, I was thrilled. It was a legacy I was honored to recap. But today, I had to write the post I never wanted to write. Steve Jobs has passed away at the age of 56.

Steve Jobs was the inventor of the machines that powered my imagination. When I was little, I used to cut images out of computer catalogs and tape together my own Macintoshes on paper from my parents' printer tray. I've been playing with Macs since I could read. They got me all the way through school. My entire career has been made on two Macintosh computers. I wouldn't be able to be who I am without Steve Jobs' contributions to humankind. None of us would. He changed everything.

God.

Mr. Jobs, I owe you so much. I hope you change the next world as much as you changed this one.



★ The State of the Art is Terrible

The Real Zack Morris published a lament about the state of computing today that actually brought me to tears:

The State of the Art is Terrible – 10/3:

The real secret they won’t tell you, heck, that I think is only dawning on a few people, is that today’s computing can’t take us into the future. It can’t provide true artificial intelligence or bring the kind of multiplication of effort that hackers take for granted to the masses. Computer science has utterly failed to tackle the real world problems, things like automating jobs so people don’t have to work, or working hand in hand with humans to explore solutions we have trouble seeing ourselves. We are so far from a Star Trek-style future utopia that it breaks my heart.

★ How to write good hyperlinks

Helpful Web writing advice from Iain Broome at Write for Your Life on creating links that convey meaning while remaining scannable for readers:

How to write good hyperlinks – 9/29:

When you write links, it may not feel like poetry, but you do have to engage people. What’s more, your primary job is to help them get from one place to another, all with the minimum of fuss.

Blogging The Fire.

No matter how high-minded a tech site’s philosophy may be, we all have to cover big gizmo launches. Everybody’s beat ties into the latest and greatest hardware somehow. Plus, on a big launch day, it’s where all the eyeballs are.

Today’s Kindle launch was one I’ve been anticipating; my first post ever was about it. It was a test of my skills before ReadWriteWeb even hired me, and they sprung it on me. I had no choice but to drop everything and write it. Granted, I was just working off of stuff the Wall Street Journal reported, but I had access to a wealth of past RWW articles to add context, and I did. The post wasn’t bad. As it turned out today, it was right about some stuff.

Of course, it was also dead-ass wrong about the main announcement, other than the fact that there was a tablet. The WSJ’s sources made it sound like it was separate from the Kindle line and that it was going to be iPad-sized. Of course, Amazon could have changed their mind about some of that since July, but probably not the size of the tablet.

When the scoops started coming in this month, they were breathless and bold, and they didn’t mention the fact that the first round of rumors was completely different. It’s like the WSJ was forgiven for reporting info that was totally wrong. The one thing that the WSJ was right about was the fleet of other Kindles that were announced, but recent scoops about the Kindle Fire tablet totally forgot about those.

Moreover, as my temporary hero Real Dan Lyons points out, even that scoop was wrong about the name, the price, and other crucial details. That didn’t stop Lemons from congratulating himself on being right, though. And that was a good post, too. I think he’s dead on about the implications. He’s also maybe somewhat justified in sniping back at Lyons for not going out and getting the scoop like he did. But where is the humility? What is soooo terrible about admitting when we’re wrong about the Internet?

Not to toot RWW’s horn, but my colleague Marshall Kirkpatrick laughed at himself for being wrong recently, and it was a great post! Tech bloggers are just normal people, and we’re hardly cool enough to be so haughty when we’re right about something, let alone when we’re wrong.

@hotdogsladies
Merlin Mann

In retrospect, I miss the days when journalists occasionally earned their unshakeable arrogance.

9/28/11 2:46 PM

Read-all-about-it scoops are awesome, even when they’re only about computers. But what’s awesome about them is the excitement they generate about the future we’re living in. That’s what’s awesome about tech news in general. It’s not the same as journalism about, you know, real things. We’re not doing a civic duty here. We are storytellers about the future. We should all be enjoying ourselves and thanking our lucky stars that we live in a world that supports enough amazing technological innovation that a few of us can make a living explaining what it means.

But when it comes to the day of the launch, and we’re all racing against each other writing the exact same blog posts (at varying levels of quality), are we using our energy wisely? Since we’re all so busy making up possible scenarios for months beforehand, how much good are we doing by banging out two blog posts before we brush our teeth in the morning because Amazon decided to launch on the East Coast?

Just think of all calories and gigabytes and gallons of coffee wasted writing the same sentences in hundreds of different ways today. Competition is healthy, but only as long as there’s a healthy goal. The goal is to inform readers, right? Not to beat each other. Right??

But I think we can all agree that Bloomberg are TOTAL DICKS for posting before the thing even started. Am I right? ;)

Photo credit: The Guardian