Archive - Jul 24, 2007
Keen and Kafka
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/24/2007 - 22:13Being the web 2.0 aficionado that I am, Andrew Keen’s book, “The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture” has bothered me. To a certain extent, I felt that it was because of his fundamental lack of understanding about the nature of authority and credentials. Yet I have just read the interchange between Mr. Keen and David Weinberger as posted on the web by the Wall Street Journal.
Tom Guarriello sums it up nicely here. Yet as I read the interchange a different thought occurred to me. Keen asks the question, “Is Web 2.0 a dream or a nightmare? Is it a remix of Disney's "Cinderella" or of Kafka's "Metamorphosis"?” He continues this metaphor, holding up Disney as the sought after cultural icon and Kafka as that which should be avoided.
If today’s Internet is killing our culture by causing content creators to be more like Kafka then like the Disney Corporation, then I dedicate this blog post to all the Kevorkianesque bloggers out there.
Or, to do my own Kafkaesque mashup, “Someone must have traduced Andrew K…”
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/24/2007 - 19:13
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The latest meme
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/24/2007 - 12:06Yesterday, Shine With Grace tagged me with the latest meme from JohnCow.Com.
It is the typical mailing list, ponzi scheme type meme. Copy the original list, which should include your blog already, if you’ve been tagged, and then add five more people to the list.
As I noted in a different list, if you get in early, your in good shape, but the meme can only go around six or seven deep before everyone in MyBlogLogs is reached. Also, as I’ve noted elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of copying the instructions. The more text that you have which is the same as on other websites, the more likely you are to be tagged as some sort of spammer and have your links denigrated.
Another thought about these sort of memes. Not only will this would increase your subscriber rate, which is probably a good bragging right, but doesn’t do much else for you, but it is also likely to raise your Technorati rank. My Technorati rank climbed considerably when I participated in the viral tags meme. However, the downside is that when you try to find who is linking to your site, all you find are the meme related posts, and you don’t find a lot of valuable content. Some people think this helps Google Page Ranks, but I don’t really think it does.
That said, I’ve been tagged and I want to honor that. So, here is the original list:
- Subscribe to JohnCowdotCom
- Subscribe to BobmeetsWorld
- Subscribe to LifeisRisky
- Subscribe to TheKingKongBlog
- Subscribe to My New Hustle
- Subscribe to GadgetTastic
- Subscribe to Life of Browie
- Subscribe to Disregard Me
- Subscribe to Everybody Go To
- Subscribe to Brian Vaughan
- Subscribe to Fuery
- Subscribe to Sam Breadstone
- Subscribe to Christy’s Coffee Break
- Subscribe to Behind The Page
- Subscribe to Shine With Grace
- Subscribe to A Great Pleasure
- Subscribe to Slingshot Thoughts
- Subscribe to TheNextPost
- Subscribe to Project Armannd
- Subscribe to Made To Be Good
- Subscribe to Necessary Skills
- Subscribe to Orient Lodge
- Subscribe to Chris Garrett On New Media
With that, here are the five people that I’m tagging:
- Subscribe to mard
- Subscribe to America in 08
- Subscribe to Cat on My Head
- Subscribe to Jafabrit
- Subscribe to My Life Starts at forty-two
I would encourage you to copy the list of sites and add your own five sites. That said, write your own thoughts about the meme. You will probably find it easiest to copy the source of the html and paste that in. If you have questions, let me know.
