Blogging and Spam Update

One of the ways that you can tell if a new Internet technology is going to be successful is to look for skepticism. When people begin to say the hype exceeds the reality, it means we are on the way toward the reality exceeding the hype. I am not referring to new business models that are going to make water run uphill, but rather to fundamental technologies such as the Internet itself, the Web, Java, Linux, WiFi, and others. All of those were discounted in the early days. Blogging has now entered the phase when we can be sure it will be enormously successful and change the fundamentals of how information is written, distributed, syndicated, and archived. How do I know? A recent story by The Associated Press proclaimed that "Blogging still infrequent, study finds". The study found that somewhere between2 percent and 7 percent of adult Internet users in the United States are bloggers. The implication of the story was that "only" 2-7 percent of Internet users were blogging. I find the 2-7 percent number extremely encouraging. (read more)

Blogging Panel

The four Demo panelists and I are looking forward to our attempt tomorrow morning to reveal the big picture about blogging and where it is headed. In case you didn’t see the preview, it is here. If you want to take a look at what the participants and moderator have been writing about lately, there are links to their blogs below. The companies of the four panelists have some really great products that are worth taking a look at if you don’t already use them. I personally use something from each company. Movable Type is my primary tool for blogging. The product is excellent and so is the support. ActiveWords improves my productivity in blogging significantly. See story. I have not been a fan of Outlook but I must say that Outlook 2003 has some big improvements, especially in the ease and productivity of reading mail. Newsgator is a joy. It plugs into Outlook and makes reading blogs as easy as reading mail.

Here are links to the panelists blogs.

Mena Trott
Buzz Bruggerman
Robert Scoble
Greg Reinacker
John Patrick

Demo Blog

The Demo Blog is up and running, thanks to Chris Shipley of Demo and Mena Trott of Six Apart. Check is out at http://demo2004.blogs.com/weblog/

The Future Of Blogging

November was a busy month speaking with the media. Marcia Stepanek at CIO Insight magazine and I spent two hours talking about blogging. The focus was on the CIO and the enterprise, although the implications of blogging are much more broad and deep than just the corporate world. The interview was published under the title of "Expert Voice: John Patrick on Weblogs -
Contagious Media". The CIO Insight introduction of the topic said, "Weblogs, or blogs, are, at their very least, Web pages for self-proclaimed pundits, and often are nerdy, inane and barely grammatical. But increasingly, blogs are showing up on the corporate intranet, and, when left alone by corporate censors, can energize collaboration and give new life to the concept of knowledge management". (read more)

What Goes Around, Comes Around

"What Goes Around,
Comes Around" is an old saying. Blogging is making it more real than
ever. On August 15 I published a short
story about ENUM. A week or so ago, Ali Farshchian at CircleID wrote and
asked if I would mind if they were to republish the story. I was happy to share
the story and so it appeared in new clothing on CircleID a couple of days ago.
Michael at slashdot.org posted an excerpt
of the story this morning on slashdot.
Later in the day the ITU (International Telecommunicatoins Union) posted an excerpt
of the slashdot excerpt! What Goes Around Comes Around.  (read
more)

Who Knows Who Knows

I
have been fortunate over the years to have spent
a lot of time with journalists. I consider them colleagues and
have been able to maintain contact during my "e-tirement". Journalists
are very focused on the issues and talking with them keeps me on my
toes! They ask tough questions that really make me think. The In
The News page
lists the stories that refer to the conversations I have had. The primary way
I communicate is through the weblog which you are reading. Occasionally,
an editor will read one of my stories and ask to "re-print" it on
their site. I always agree to do this assuming the appropriate cross links.
The most recent case was the story
about convergence.
It has just been "re-printed" in CircleID.
CircleID Network describes itself as a "unique collaborative hub that
shares the control of its content with the community it serves". They
have an interesting model. (read
more)

Technical Upate

From time to time I feel a need to offer a technical update about things behind the scenes at my website. For those who are interested in music, motorcycles, or the big picture of where I see things going with the Internet, just ignore the updates. For those interested in the technical happenings, the updates are my way of sharing what is going on. Thanks to David Leip at IBM for reminding me to update my blogging setup. I now have two RSS feeds to the blogsphere. One feed is compatible with the Radio Userland blogging software which I was previously using and the other with my new blogging software which is Movable Type. This means that readers who subscribed using the prior feed will continue to get updates. Thanks also to Brenna Koch at Six Apart for helping me make the changes.

Astro Blogging

Blogging
isn’t just for kids or IBM e-tirees. Now there are astro bloggers! The two Mars
Exploration Rover mission spacecraft each have a LEGO
mini-figure suited up for space, virtualized onto DVD’s, and attached to the
spacecraft. The DVD’s also contain the names of four million people who signed
up to be part of the mission. To make the mini-figures more lifelike, the Planetary
Society has created an Astrobot Corps. Two "astrobots" — Biff
Starling and Sandy Moondust — are blogging
to the world about the mission. Blogging from outer space is just one of
the many interesting things going on with regard to Mars. The Planetary
Society and NASA along with the LEGO
Company have teamed together to establish "Mars Stations" to enable
anyone with Internet access to "drive"
through a martian-like world through the eyes of a robotic rover. 
(read
more)

Bloglet Update – No.2

I apologize for having to apologize yet again to my
bloglet subscribers! There has been a lapse in the email reminders that go
out when I write a new story. A couple of weeks ago I changed my hosting provider
(more on that in a subsequent story). I did not realize that this change would
impact things at bloglet.com which is
the service I use to notify my subscribers of new stories. Thanks to a number
of you for telling me you had not received any updates for awhile and wondering
if I had stopped writing. I don’t see that day coming anytime soon! I really
enjoy writing and I have a long queue of things that I want to write about.
Most of my stories fall into one of sixteen
categories.  (read
more)

Bloglet Update

I would like to apologize for a lapse in the email
reminders that go out when I write a new story. A couple of weeks ago I changed
the blogging tool that I use to post
the stories to my website. I did not realize that this required that I also
make some changes at bloglet.com which
is the service I use to notify my subscribers of new stories. Thanks to a
number of you for telling me you had not received any updates for awhile and
wondering if I had stopped writing. I don’t see that day coming anytime soon.
I really enjoy writing and I have a long queue of things that I want to write
about. Most of my stories fall into one of sixteen
categories.  (read
more)