connecting*the*dots

I’m currently working to prep the project environment of one of my clients — a domain that relies on ad sales for survival. The stakeholders have hired me to lead the redesign of their site, which includes the information architecture. Knowing the degree of “get it” in the domain, I need to provide easily digestible “IA” education before I can move forward with my design methodology to improve the tactical findability of their most valuable content.

Yes, it’s a typical IA consulting gig, but I’d like to establish a reusable approach; not for creating explicit architectural solutions across different project types, but with a presentation of explicit, findability techniques.

I’m looking for feedback of my current progress, so if you’d like to participate, feel free to comment on this post or contact me at spcoon [at] seancoon [dot] org. Please feel free to point me to any existing work available online as well. Once I’ve pulled together my findings, I’ll iterate my work and release it into the ’sphere for anyone to use.

The Baseline

Humor me for a moment and try to forget everything you know about classification, structure and order. Instead, imagine that the only element of a web site (we care about) is the most holistic/granular information object:

• On flickr, it would be the image page
• On Amazon, it would be the product page
• On Wired, it would be the article page

Now imagine that your goal is to increase stickiness across this entire object level. Remember, the revenue model is ad sales, so the more content explored, the better for my client.

Each of the previously mentioned domains have crafted specific information architectures to accomplish this goal of “stickiness.” They also have extremely different revenue models, so the “value” of findability is relative to the nature of the product, the domain’s degree of advertising/marketing and the bottom line.

For example, flickr image pages aren’t weighed down with contextual recommendations of similar images from other users (similar to how products are displayed on an Amazon product page) but the inclusion of a simple globe icon next to an image’s tag does expose index pages of similarly tagged photos from other users. This increases discovery, which both entertains me (the user) and increases page views for potential ad clickthroughs.

Different context; similar goals. Expose avenues of findability in the interface to increase domain stickiness.

I’m currently illustrating technique similarities (that are not domain specific) for optimizing information architectures to expose valuable content. Again, consider this exercise an effort to describe a baseline standard, or best practices for findability that can be reused in one way or another across project types.

Along these lines, I’m clarifying techniques by using non-specific terminology (i.e. contextual and relational are generic terms, as compared to collaborative filtering). Secondly, I plan on augmenting the illustration for this particular client by labeling specific values (a 1 to 10 scale, possibly) to the various avenues of findability, distinguishing the value proposition (ROI) between focusing on, say, relational discovery compared to categorical browsing. I won’t be able to complete this second part until user research has been finalized.

Here’s my current list of best practices:

• Object level contextual discovery: Hyperlinks to contextual content, embeded within the primary object of the page (i.e. hyperlinks within an article to other articles, linked notes on a flickr image, etc.)
• Object level relational discovery: Accessible related objects, determined via appropriateness (i.e. as simple as “Related Articles” or as complex as “Other shoppers purchased…”)
• Object to index level relational discovery: Using tags to move from the object level to the index level (i.e. flickr globe icons, del.icio.us tags, etc.)
• Index level relational discovery: Related tags presented from a mass sample of tagged objects (i.e. a tag search on Technorati creates a list of related tags to the original query on the index page)
• Tag/Meta-data search: Optimizing tagging to improve the results when searching objects that have been explicitly tagged (i.e. Gmail labels, Technorati tags, flickr tags, etc.)
• Full-text search: Optimizing objects and result pages to increase precision and to manage recall into precise, secondary, relational options in the presentation layer
• Categorical navigation: Traditional top-down navigation, with a focus on keeping categories both shallow and non-cascading, while keeping the breadth of topical choices as narrow as possible

The diagram (177kb .pdf) displays another element — Third party relational discovery, which is specific to partner deals with external domains.

Ideas, feedback, critique; all appreciated.

You have to love it when the guy behind “President Bush” starts snacking on a bag of potato chips.

(via Matthew Gross)

So what do you do when the grind of the city commute smacks you in the face? You find a comfy spot in the back of The Jazz Gallery and let Steve Coleman’s workshop grab ahold of your soul.

Coleman wasn’t on my radar before tonight, but leave it to Jonathan to introduce me to a hot act in the Jazz scene. This guy is dope. He’s currently playing a 1-1-2-2-2-1-1 then a 1-1-2-2-2-1-1-1-1 then a 1-1-2-2-2-1-1-1-1… 1-1 beat, getting his drummer up on cue to the progressive, deterioration of the riff. Man, this is a workshop. Sue Mingus runs a “workshop” with the B and C players of the Big Band and Orchestra, occationally practicing new compositions. I love you Sue, but that’s not a workshop. That’s income.

Steve just invited audience members to join him on stage and work out the riff. Now with two women on the mic and the drummer carrying the beat, he gets abstract off the beat — like a launch point of a ramp built in progressive takes.

Two boards added, a half peeled away, two and a half stiched on, pause for a second, add three and gone!…

Now an audience member is on the piano, riffing to the progressive beat, Coleman standing back, checking out the take… and the first woman on the mic scatting… add Coleman…

Coleman’s not only brilliant, he has the patience and explanatory skills of a teacher.

Alright, now he’s dropping the improv down an octive and slowing down the tempo, mixing up the original riff into more paused flashes of laddders. Live blogging a jazz show… if I could visually describe what I’m hearing, well, imagine it to be something like this.

Dope!

This is only the second time I’ve been back to the NJ/NYC area since I moved in September, and it’s the first time I’ve commuted in over three years. Stepping onto the NJTransit Bloomfield Station this morning immediately brought me back to the days of running to the Union Street Station with dripping wet hair and bagel in mouth trying to catch the N&R.

It’s strange how you notice the little things around you when you’re not a part of the scene, such as watching an entire car full of people reading their NYTimes (almost exclusively) by folding the paper into columns. Or how a triple seater gets claimed by two people, with one placing a large bag in the middle signifying “Go ask someone else to move. I need this space.”

No, I don’t miss spending an hour each morning struggling with the rest of humanity for a seat and a two-second head start out the door into Manhattan. But I have to admit, it is nice to be around people again.

UPDATE: Okay, I’m finishing this post at the office I’m working from this week. Let me take back everything I said about being around people. After I got off the train, I walked through at least five different scents of piss. My home office (sans piss smell) is looking good right about now.

I’m heading up to 14 Wall Street tomorrow until next Thursday in order to “feed the babies” (yes, that’s just a figure of speech). If any of my NYC/NJ people are free for drinks Mon - Weds, give me a shout.

Arab Palestinians have been screwed throughout the course of history, so it’s not hard to imagine how Hamas became the strong-armed, righteous voice of their people. Their tactics as a revolutionary front (social services, terrorism, etc.) are well documented, so now, as the democratically elected, legislative representatives of the Palestinian people, the question at large is how will they lead as a political party?

The transition to an open-political organization is going to be difficult at best, as Hamas’ senior leadership has been in hiding since Israel assassinated founder Sheik Yassin and then his replacement, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, just a month later in the Spring of 2004. They’re probably the most decenralized political organization in the world; the type of organizational change necessary to run legislative politics and foreign policy relationships cannot happen overnight.

And on the other side of the planet, how did the US react to this true democratic expression of change? Yesterday, President Bush awkwardly framed the US perspective:

A few of his comments were very telling (emphasis mine):

…The elections yesterday were very interesting.

On the other hand, I don’t see how you can be a partner in peace, if you advocate the destruction of a country as a part of your platform. And I know you can’t be a partner in peace if your party has an armed wing.

And so, the elections just took place, we’ll watch very closely about the formation of the government. But uhm… I will continue to remind people about what I just said. That uh… if your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you’re not a partner in peace…

First of all, if one doesn’t understand the history of the Jewish-Israeli/Arab-Palestinian struggle, as well as the corruption of the Fatah Party, then there is no way to understand how Hamas has become the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people.

As for this reaction to “an armed wing” of a party, can we please recognize the situation for what it is without the bullshit?

• During it’s foundation years, Israel created Haganah to defend Israeli settlers, which later became the foundation for the Israeli Defense Forces — Israeli’s army
• The outgoing party of yesterday’s election, Fatah, was an armed party, just not as overt as Hamas
• While the US does not have armed political parties, we do have the most powerful armed forces in the world

Everyone at the table is armed, each with an agenda and a stake to claim. Now that we have that straight, I guess the question remaining is who’s going to blink first?

(via swissmiss through Chris Glass)

(via Ethan)

Chris Penn, RIP

He always played the right-hand man, the bit part, even the little brother in real life, but he made every moment onscreen a memorable one. As a tribute, here are my all-time favorite Chris Penn moments:

• Footloose: For taking one on the chin (professionally) by letting Kevin Bacon teach him how to dance, in a montage sequence, to the cheesiest song of all time (check the title of this post)
• All The Right Moves: For being a dumbass by getting his girlfriend pregnant, thereby giving up his only chance to escape SteelTown USA on a football scholarship.
• True Romance: For being the no nonsense vice-cop that hilariously scared the living shit out of Cousin Balki
• At Close Range: (One of my all-time favorites) For looking his father in the eyes as he’s about to be put down for good. Just thinking about that scene makes the hair on my body stand on end.
• Reservoir Dogs: Favorite lines from a film chock full of great dialog:
  Nice Guy Eddie: The chick got tired of him beatin’ her so one night she walks in the guys bedroom and super glues his dick to his belly. Ambulance came and had to cut him loose.
  Mr. Pink: That ain’t all that bad.
  Nice Guy Eddie: Oh yeah, how would you feel if every time you had to take a piss you had to do a hand stand?
• GTA San Andreas: For being the epitome of a punk ass cop and letting me chase him down, run him off the road and waste his ass.

You are missed.

This “Boycott MSNBC” meme being promoted by the “Open Letter To Chris Matthews” blog and pushed by big-time, left bloggers is disingenuous at best, and a horrible strategy… period. Forget for a moment that Chris Matthews compared Osama bin Laden’s recent choice of language to Michael Moore’s, the facts regarding Moore are just not being represented correctly. The “Open Letter…” blog states:

What’s this all about? Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared Osama bin Laden to Democrats…

Wrong.

1. Michael Moore is not a registered Democrat
2. Michael Moore does not hold office
3. Michael Moore is an independent documentary filmmaker, one who goes after both corrupt corporations and government administrations

1992 was the last time Moore was registered as a Democrat. In the past, I’ve had my own problems wrestling with how he has been positioned by both the media and the RNM as a “Liberal Democrat” due to his hardcore stance against the Bush administration. And then I experienced F9/11 on opening night and my eyes opened even wider regarding the actions of this administration, realizing that Moore wasn’t being partisan, he was being as direct and honest as humanly possible.

I’m sure Democrats feel a rush when an independent, creative voice rips apart the opposition party — especially one as corrupt as the Bush administration — but these actions don’t exclusively subscribe a voice such as Moore to the Democratic Party’s brand of progress or politics, nor should the Democrats want such to be the case.

As an independent (or non-affiliated here in North Carolina), I respect Moore’s perspective because he doesn’t belong to a political party. Michael Moore will reach more people to act and/or vote against corruption as an independent filmmaker, than a labeled “Liberal Democratic” filmmaker. The sheer amount of bloggers that are blindly supporting this meme is poor strategy.

Stop feeding the machine their propaganda. This is a short-term tactical reaction, one that will negatively affect Moore’s long-term output of truth if he’s pigeon holed as a Democrat.

UPDATE: The blog has changed its intro to now read:

What’s this all about? Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared Americans who are concerned about the war in Iraq to Osama bin Liden…

Well, at least they got the Democratic issue corrected, but Matthews only compared Moore’s language. This boycott is retarded. Shit, I’m watching Keith Olberman no matter what Chris Matthews says.

I’ve had the Koran sitting on my bookshelve for the past ten years; I have no idea how The Message has alluded me until this past weekend.

While the historical accuracy of the film and its brilliant acting took center stage, there were explicit elements of both the production and storyline I found especially intriguing.

For instance, Islamic law forbids portraying either the voice or likeness of the Prophet Mohammed (that concept would put Christianity straight out of business), so when certain scenes called for interaction with The Prophet, director Moustapha Akkad made the call to turn the camera into Mohammed’s silent point of view.

The cast of followers spoke directly to Mohammed, yet they were simultaneously engaged in conversation with the audience, providing us with the positioning of The Prophet. In 1976, this may not have been viewed as a compelling technique, but in the age of first person shooter video games — where we directly engage and interact with the narrative, driving the storyline as we gaze into the eyes of AI avatars — the technique shifts meaning over the years. Very retro-cool.

In terms of the story, both the politics and marketplace of Mecca circa 600 AD were fascinating and generated numerous offshoots of thought.

The film reveals that the ruling class of Mecca kept the populous in-line, and themselves profitable, through establishing a marketplace of ~360 idolic “Gods” — wooden or clay figures, sold to individuals and families alike to provide good luck. The families blindly worshiped them as their personal saviors (talk about instant, add-water religion) and left the ruling class alone to continue their manipulation of the market and society.

When Muhammed returned from the mountains and began sharing his first poetic drops of the Koran, amongst the numerous stanzas (of eventual Islamic law), the message that forbode the worship of other gods was explicit. “There is only one God” quickly became the righteous chant of all classes of men who followed Muhammed’s revelations. Upon experiencing this shifting of inclusion (of social classes) and exclusion (of idolic gods), the local merchants/governors took this challenge of authority as a direct threat to the well-greased mechanism of Mecca’s economy, class and power structure and responded with force.

The mere concept of “There can only be one God” was more revolutionary than any number of armed men storming the city because their God could not generate a profit.

After digesting the film, my mind’s eye kept returning to the current global struggles between Islam and the West, asking the question as to whether or not we’re going through a historical recurrance on a global scale. I mean, the World Trade Center was considered to be the most prolific iconic representation of the American (and Western) financial system. Could Ramzi Yousef and Osama bin Laden possibly have targeted the WTC in ‘93 and 9/11, respectively, in an attempt to make a deep seeded philosophical connection with fellow fundamentalists, tying the traits of modern day global capitalism to Mecca circa 600 AD?

Yeah, the film was that deep. Now I’ve got to check out Reza Aslan’s recently published book entitled “No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.” Based on Jon Stewart’s interview with him last night and the reviews of Islamic bloggers, it’s bound to be enlightening on numerous fronts.

No matter where we go as a community, we have to remember how we got here:

Pick up the documentary today.

(Full disclosure: my brother, Andy, is the documentary filmmaker)

Deborah Howell, the much maligned Ombudsman for The Washington Post, has created a stir; she reported that Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. Whether one wants to believe it or not is not my concern. Her column created an outroar in the blogosphere and incindiary comments began to fill the editor’s blog. Jim Brady, Executive Editor of The Washington Post, tried to deal with the situation:

As of 4:15pm ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely.

At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues. Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would be critical in nature. And we were fine with that. Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp.

But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we’ve decided not to allow comments for the time being. It’s a shame that it’s come to this. Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it’s a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.

We’re not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it. Any thoughtful feedback on that (or any other issue) is welcome, and you can send it to executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.

Thanks,
Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

So, the ombudsman of an institution can erase comments and lobby to shut down their feedback channel from customers? Can someone please explain to me the purpose of the role again, specifically for an institution that supposedly sheds light on critical matters to the public?

Here’s my email in response:

jim,

people who are online, commenting on your blog, are used to being flamed. they’re participating elsewhere, and have been for years. don’t try to turn this into a case where WaPo is “protecting” anyone.

as backwards as it might sound, lower your commenting standards, remove the worst when they are submitted, and go on about reporting the news.

welcome to the world of free expression. “adding blogs” to your realm comes with the price of bringing one channel of WaPo down to street level. it may not be the salad fork you’re used to, but it’s still a vehicle for consuming necessary roughage.

-sean

I realize that WaPo might be stinging from harsh criticism and frank language, but this shouldn’t motivate Brady to react in such a drastic manner. I mean after all, it’s a WaPo blog, the editor’s blog at that. Not all of us peasants are good and proper; some are mentally malnurished, but we’re taxpaying peasants just the same, and obviously, interested enough in WaPo to spend our time flaming each other and WaPo staff on comment threads.

This is a healthy sign for an institution. It might register as backwards, or uncivil, but so is your average football game on Sunday when you’re not watching it from the comfort of your living room.

“Transparency and reasoned debate” cannot be managed, otherwise you’re just adding back the filters of mass consumption that blogs have removed from the web. Commit to the medium and over-engage in the discourse; it’s the only way to make a connection with the people that care enough to fire back at you.

We are the voices that will be heard, whether you like it or not. Deal with it.

UPDATE: After receiving a form response to my above email from Michael Golden, the Director of Customer Relationships (strange, the email was addressed to Jim Brady at executive.editor@washingtonpost.com), I stubled upon this great post from Jesus’ General.

Wake up WaPo.

Welcome, fellers. I’m sure you’re going to be successful tilting that liberal network, CNN, back to the middle from their left-leaning ways.

Anything for ratings, eh?

UPDATE: Well, it didn’t take long for Beck to land on Keith Olberman’s World’s Worst Person segment:

I don’t think I can top this gem, but I have to add some taint flavor of my own.

Back in 2002, when I was Nerve dating, I met a very attractive and seemingly cool woman. Our profiles showed we were both into hip-hop, specifically Talib Kweli, she was at a non-profit while getting her post-grad degree and lived just a few neighborhoods away in Brooklyn.

Perfect.

In our first email conversation I told her that I lived a subway stop away in Gowanus. Well, she had no idea where Gowanus was, so I described it as the “taint between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens; it doesn’t get much love.”

As you might imagine, I’m (happily) dating *a different* woman today.

Sure this is politics, but it’s politics with a purpose; to expose the truth. Transparency rules the day (the hyperlinks are mine).

January 17, 2006

The Honorable George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The Justice Department is currently investigating the web of corruption surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Even at this early stage of the investigation, there is reason to believe that Mr. Abramoff may have had undue and improper influence within your Administration. There is no reason to wait for indictments or convictions before the American people learn of the role Mr. Abramoff played in the Bush White House. We therefore call on you to make public as soon as possible an accounting of Mr. Abramoff’s personal contacts with Bush Administration officials and the official acts that may have been undertaken at his request.

Some of Mr. Abramoff’s ties to the White House have already been reported in the press. For example, it is well known that Mr. Abramoff was a prodigious Republican fundraiser who attained the rank of “Pioneer� after raising over $100,000 for the 2004 Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. You have returned $6,000 of that money, but have not answered the question of what benefits, if any, were extended to Mr. Abramoff on account of his Pioneer status.

It has also been reported that Mr. Abramoff served as an adviser to your transition team and that you met with him personally. The American people have a right to know how many times you and senior staff met with Abramoff, and what benefits, if any, Abramoff received from this high degree of access.

In addition, it has been reported that your Administration removed a federal prosecutor who was investigating Mr. Abramoff’s secret lobbying contract with court officials in the U.S. territory of Guam. Indeed, the prosecutor was replaced only one day after he issued a subpoena for records, and the case was subsequently dropped. The Guam public auditor has since concluded that territory officials paid Mr. Abramoff, via a third party, a total of $324,000 in smaller increments in an effort to circumvent the requirement of a sealed bid. Did the White House exert any improper influence on behalf of Mr. Abramoff in this case?

Finally, David Safavian, who served as the chief procurement officer in your Administration, was recently charged with obstructing Senate and executive branch investigations into whether he aided Mr. Abramoff in efforts to acquire property controlled by the General Services Administration. Were other White House officials aware of Mr. Safavian’s ties to Abramoff, and did those ties play a role in Safavian’s appointment to a high-ranking Administration position?

While the above-described connections between Abramoff and the Bush Administration have been reported, others remain unknown. For example, Americans have a right to more information about Abramoff’s role in the “K Street Project,� the initiative launched by Republicans in the1990’s to link lobbyists to Republican officials in Congress and the executive branch. What role did your Administration play in the K Street Project, and did White House officials have direct contact with Abramoff in this regard?

In the upcoming State of the Union address, you will presumably call for reforms to address lobbying abuses. But such rhetoric will ring hollow until you reveal the ways in which Jack Abramoff himself may have improperly influenced your Administration over the past five years. As the leader of your party, you have the opportunity to set an example and call for openness and accountability from your fellow Republicans. The American people need to be assured that the White House is not for sale.

Sincerely,

Harry Reid
Richard Durbin
Debbie Stabenow
Charles Schumer

(via Harry Reid through C&L)

The presentation is close to 30 minutes long, but if you have any interest in the future of our society through the lens of culture, knowledge, creativity, politics, hell, if you have any interest in being an informed and participating citizen with this world, grab some chips and a brew, get comfortable and digest this presentation.

IP-extremism… so true.

(via Lessig Blog)

This shouldn’t come as too much of a shock to anyone by now — it’s practically common knowledge — but I’m sure there are still some folks still hiding in their bunkers. From Common Dreams:

WASHINGTON - A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was “unlikely” because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department.

…the State Department’s review, which looked at the political, economic and logistical factors in such a purchase, seems to have produced wider-ranging doubts than other reviews about the likelihood that Niger would try to sell uranium to Baghdad.

Among other problems that made such a sale improbable, the assessment by the State Department’s intelligence analysts concluded, was that it would have required Niger to send “25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers” filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.

The analysts’ doubts were registered nearly a year before President Bush, in what became known as the infamous “16 words” in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

The White House later acknowledged that the charge, which played a part in the decision to invade Iraq in the belief that Baghdad was reconstituting its nuclear program, relied on faulty intelligence and should not have been included in the speech. Two months ago, Italian intelligence officials concluded that a set of documents at the center of the supposed Iraq-Niger link had been forged by an occasional Italian spy.

The editor-in-chief of Al-Ghad, Ayman Al-Safadi, the man responsible for hiring Jill Carroll years ago, wrote a moving piece in yesterday’s paper. Natasha Tynes provides a translation:

Freedom for Jill Carroll

By Ayman Al-Safadi

She sought to educate her people about the truth of what’s going in the Arab world, which she loved before setting foot in it. She put her life at risk by struggling to convey the voices of Iraqis to American public opinion, which was showered with wrong information about the developments in Iraq. She was rewarded with kidnapping. Jill did not hide in Baghdad’s Green Zone. In her coverage of Iraq, she did not rely on statements made by American and Iraqi officials. She wanted her reports for the reliable Christian Science monitor to reflect the pulse of the Iraqi street. Jill wanted to tell of the suffering of Iraqis and to reflect their ambitions. Her respect for the truth took her to the most dangerous parts of Baghdad. She ended up in al-Anbar, hostage to kidnappers with unknown identity and objectives.

I met Jill in the United States years go when she applied to work for the Jordan Times, the paper for which I was editor-in-chief. She seemed ambitious, excited and anxious to develop her knowledge of the Arab world and its issues. I decided to hire her immediately as Arabs greatly need professional and informed American journalists interested in conveying their point of view to the American reader. Investing in a neutral and professional American journalist is an investment in the needed effort to correct the image of Arabs that is being ruined by either ill-intent or ignorance.

Jill worked in Jordan before she moved to Iraq after the occupation of Baghdad. Her knowledge of the Arab world deepened and her journalistic reports provided an objective and complete coverage of what is happening in Iraq. Jill was the voice of truth. But this voice has been silent for days. What the kidnappers reaped was silencing a pen that was on the side of truth and objectivity and that expressed the ordeal and issues of Iraqis.

The fate of Jill has been unknown. And no one knows who and why she was kidnapped, for she is the one who stood by the Iraqis. What is evident is that Iraq has lost an honest voice biased in favor of the Iraqis’ right to a safe and prosperous life. Anyone who can help free Jill Carroll bears a moral responsibility to do their best to release her from captivity. Nothing justifies hurting an innocent human being who deserves only appreciation from the Iraqis for a role performed with the utmost dedication, honesty and integrity. No cause justifies breaking a pen that inks the truth.

Let me be very clear.

When a political party loses all form of power to the opposition party in a democratic government, one cannot equate the nuances of that situation with a plantation system.

I don’t care how many times the Dems have been shutdown, squashed or run out of the halls of Congress; for one reason or another, the Dems lost their power.

What type of power did black folk have before the plantation system? How about within the plantation system? The analogy is stupid and offensive, especially when presented in Harlem with a majority black audience on MLK day.

As for Clinton’s perspective on this Republican administration, I couldn’t agree more. I just hope the retarded aspects of her rhetoric doesn’t negatively affect the 2006 mid-term election.

I was catching up with my good friend Jonathan Daniel last week–he just returned from an African, Middle Eastern, Asian solo hike–and he managed to bring the war in Iraq much closer to home.

The plight of abducted journalist Jill Carroll has been covered extensively by Xeni Jardin on Boing Boing over the past few weeks. I never made the connection before, but apparently Jonathan and I are only separated by a few degrees from Jill, as we grew up with former Montclair, NJ resident Dan Murphy, Jill’s colleague at The Christian Science Monitor.

Jill’s captors have made demands for her release. Please help keep this story active.

I could get really snarky with this post (yes, Tish, I do have it in me), but I’ll let the images below speak for themselves:

(via Miss Rogue and David King)

A snippet:

[…] “The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment’s notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?” […]

Here we go again.

A blogger is just a writer with a cooler name
Why Blogging vs. Traditional Media Has Been Oversold
By Simon Dumenco

I’ve been thinking of what I am — about what any media person in the digital age is — since having coffee last week with a 30-something newspaper editor who bemoaned the fact that newspapers keep on setting up blogs as these separate, exotic add-ons to their Web sites, instead of integrating blogging into their usual newsgathering operations. There’s simply no good reason to segregate the functions, he insisted.

And it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing — writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology. Even though I tend to first use Microsoft Word on the way to being published, I am not, say, a Worder or Wordder.

It’s just software, people! The underlying creative/media function remains exactly the same.

OK, you might argue, blogging is aesthetically a different beast — it’s instantaneous media. (Well, since the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle, pretty much all media has had to learn how to be instantaneous.) It’s unpolished. (The best blogs I read are as sophisticated as anything old-school media publishes.) It’s voice-y. (The best old-school media I read tends to be voice-y.) It’s about opinion, not reporting. (The best reporting to come out of MacWorld in San Francisco last week was published on blogs.) It’s, well, often sloppy and reckless (and Judy Miller wasn’t?).

OK, then, you might further argue, the Internet itself treats blogs as structurally distinct things. Well, sure, there are blog-specific search engines (Technorati, Icerocket, blogsearch.google.com, etc.), but the lines between blog and non-blog content are rapidly dissolving. Traditional news organizations and blogs often get seemingly equal weight as news sources in Google News. And just last week, I found out about Sprint’s West Coast fiber optic network outage from the new Gmail “Web Clipâ€? ticker that sits atop my e-mail inbox — and the clip came from a blog, not a traditional news organization.

So why does the idea of the blogger as The Other continue to persist? Because many bloggers, of course, like the idea of being all alterna; it’s a point of pride, a tenet of the “blog communityâ€? (whatever that is), that bloggers are superior to the musty, lumbering, out-of-touch traditional media. And for traditional-media types, blog/blogging/bloggers are variants of a sort of linguistic armor — labels that allow old-school-ists to convince themselves that they are the true professionals, and they needn’t radically alter the way they work (i.e., work way faster, interact constantly with readers, be vastly more voracious, etc.) to compete with the amateurs, the arrivistes.

Of course, the false dichotomy gives rise to internal inconsistencies — like at The New York Times, which is acting like David Carr is one thing (he’s a columnist!) when he’s doing his Monday media business column and another thing (he’s a blogger!) when he’s doing his Oscar-season dispatches under The Carpetbagger rubric on NYTimes.com, even though both are edited by a Times editor before being published. (By the way, why isn’t The Carpetbagger called The Carrpetbagger?) Those who remember David’s spirited, nearly instantaneous media reporting at Inside.com know that he was “bloggingâ€? way before there were blogs. (A historical note: I was a columnist for Inside; David and I never worked together directly, though we shared editors.)

A lot of the tendency to draw lines internally, I think, has to do with the fact that most old-school publishing organizations with online components invested heavily in the ’90s in then-state-of-the-art, but now-cumbersome online publishing systems, which are functionally very different from more nimble blogging software solutions. But over the next few years those legacy systems will be phased out and everyone publishing online will be using some form of what’s now commonly thought of as blogging software.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: In the very near future, there are only going to be two types of media people: those who can reliably work and publish (or broadcast) incredibly fast, and those … who can’t.

I had planned on commenting on the article itself, but I couldn’t (ironic, eh?). So here’s my email to Simon in its entirety:

———-

Simon,

While I agree with your premise of software being a non-differentiator to the act of writing, I have to disagree with you across the remainder of the board.

So why does the idea of the blogger as The Other continue to persist? Because many bloggers, of course, like the idea of being all alterna; it’s a point of pride, a tenet of the “blog community” (whatever that is), that bloggers are superior to the musty, lumbering, out-of-touch traditional media.

If you don’t understand what the “blog community” is… what form of masterbation did I just digest? No, it isn’t a point of pride; it’s a means for expression, the only mass form of expression many of us “bloggers” have access to and one which differentiates itself from writing in any other form:

1. bloggers don’t have editors breathing over their shoulders
2. bloggers understand, use and respect the community-building, conversational power of inline linking
3. bloggers provide a means for public discourse (comments/trackbacks) to their writing

Of course, the false dichotomy gives rise to internal inconsistencies — like at The New York Times, which is acting like David Carr is one thing (he’s a columnist!) when he’s doing his Monday media business column and another thing (he’s a blogger!) when he’s doing his Oscar-season dispatches under The Carpetbagger rubric on NYTimes.com, even though both are edited by a Times editor before being published.

Here’s a scoop: a blogger doesn’t have an editor. Your reference is simply an example of an old school media giant labeling something a blog that isn’t… pure and simple. That’s “quick, call it [a blog] because it’s hot” old media, glom marketing tactics. Period.

Also, regarding your thesis; a blogger wouldn’t have framed the discussion as you did, focusing on how blogging is the same as writing in “old media” by using this example of split media (a “column” in one area, a “blog” elsewhere). A blogger would have seen that split as a sign that “old media” isn’t comfortable with explicitly running with [point] #2 from above.

Old media absolutely does not like to send people away from their *domains* because they have an ad sales infrastructure to grease, one that is too menacing for a blind leap into the world of “links in, links out.” Too many salaries, benefits, careers, etc. are on the line.

We don’t have such concerns.

-Sean

ps. Since you don’t have comments on your “writing” I want to let you know that I plan on posting this email… just a courtesy heads up.

We who blog, incessantly rave about the progressive attributes of transparency. It’s not a beckon call that we own; political activists have been screaming for transparency in government since, well, forever. Transparency provides credibility. The truth shall set you free. You pick the cliche, they’re all spot on.

Well, in this Web 2.0 world that we live in (whether we realize we’re living in it or not), transparency is beginning to take root in interesting ways. Take the age old process of writing non-fiction; I’m starting to see authors not only openly talking about their books in gestation, but reaching out to Joe Q. Public for participation in the writing process itself.

Since April of last year, Chris Anderson has been publicly blogging his thoughts about The Long Tail, the term he coined proper in 2004. His blog tagline describes his transparent approach as, “A public diary on the way to a book.” One of his recent posts, Death of the Blockbuster, is a perfect example of the transparent methodology I’m talking about:

I’ve been collecting data on just how bad it’s getting in the music industry, and this useful list of the 100 all-time bestselling albums offered another lens on the meltdown. I looked up the release dates of each and grouped them in half-decade bins. The data speaks for itself:

If you want to do your own analysis, the underlying data is in this spreadsheet.

Anderson engages with his audience, invites them to participate in his thesis and provides the underlying data behind his perspective. The above post has generated a link from USA Today, numerous comments and two follow-up posts that further this particular aspect of Anderson’s thesis. Aside from his trademarked phrase, “The Long Tail,” the entire blog is registered under a Creative Commons license, a copyright permission which allows anyone to replicate his content (as I did above), as well as to use his research finding for their own use (as long as they give proper attribution to Chris wherever they publish).

Share and share alike and build a better world.

No, I’m not a hippie, that’s just how open, collaborative, iterative development works. Chris is writing a book, one which he’ll profit from, but his open-thinking and shared research and knowledge will undoubtedly influence others to progressively impact industry in various degrees.

David Weinberger, who is knee-deep in the process of writing his latest book, “Everything is Miscellaneous,” employs a similar approach to writing.

Joho the Blog isn’t a 100% topical slave to the complexities of data, information and knowledge (I rather enjoy his political and cultural posts), but when David does dive in, you can sense where his head is in the writing process. With some posts, he’ll directly reach out for assistance and perspective, while other posts are less direct with explicit ties, but steeped in organizational memes. David blogged before he took on his latest book, so he understands the value of releasing ideas out into the ether. Hell, he co-wrote the book on it.

Ideas out, ideas in. Links out, links in.

Now, this approach is far from widespread, as the majority of books still hit “the shelf” with guarded marketing plans as the only touchpoint into the potential reader community. Authorship equates with authority in many circles — circles which seem to care more about ownership of a thesis, rather than the conversation surrounding the subject matter and the avenues newfound knowledge takes once digested. But since the shelves themselves are changing and mainstream journalists and authors are beginning to blog themselves, this just might catch on and become SOP.

What would be the ramifications of such transparent collaboration beyond the target of binding particular pages?

David hosted an interesting thread about hyperlinks subverting hierarchies a few weeks back where the conversation shifted between the lines of power, organization and connections between people. Following that premise within the context of this post, imagine if authors who write life and death non-fiction (say, covering the war in Iraq) opened up to allow for community participation… Could the impact be greater than the explosion of citizen media alone?

Methinks so.

When Courtney asked me if I knew of anything similar to Northern State, the only band that popped into my head was the Beastie Boys, circa 1985 - 1989.

A trio, all white, from the NYC area, with shrill voices… but I gotta say that’s where the comparison ends; the NS lyrics are a mix of a message, sex, fun and being… hard? Unfortunately, one second everything feels contrived, while the next sometimes feels somewhat real. I guess I’m not feeling them, but then again I’m not a 24 year-old in NYC.

The following Northern State song seems closer to Limp Bizkit. What do you think?

Northern State - Girl for All Seasons (QT Movie, Real and WMP)

Beastie Boys - Hey Ladies

Limp Bizkit - Rollin’

By the way, YouTube is sick. Wait until the day we can post clips from live satellite keyword searches. Blogging is getting amazing.

Yes, this is prank is old and completely immature, but it had me giggling like a twelve year old boy for a few minutes.

Have you been getting little sleep? Worried about the state of our republic? Think George Bush is running wild without checks and balances?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you must read this post from “The News Blog.”

Great stuff.

Jan 6, 2006

Representative Howard Coble
United States House of Representatives
2468 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-0001

Representative Coble,

As an American, I look to leadership to represent my best interests through local representation. In divisive times—times of national crisis—I look for intelligent decision-making and when possible, for bridges to be built, not destroyed.

I lived in Brooklyn, NY on 9/11 and worked just blocks from the WTC. What happened that day shook me just as hard as my neighbors, my fellow Americans and the rest of humanity. The initial response of President Bush to go after al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a decision I 100% supported, but somewhere along the line, Osama bin Laden became an afterthought. The man responsible for thousands of homicides became lost in a decision to go battle an ideological war, against an enemy of Osama bin Laden.

The moment President Bush lost sight of the criminal act; I began to lose confidence in his leadership capabilities. Simultaneously, the rest of the world began to lose respect for us as a nation.

President Bush and his administration lied to Congress, and the people of the world, regarding the justifications for going to war in Iraq. The original Niger investigation came about through proven, falsified documents. Joe Wilson’s eventual investigative report, which disproved the threat of Iraq obtaining yellowcake, was then completely disregarded before reporting results to Congress and the UN. To top it off, a CIA covert op—Joe Wilson’s wife—was casually outed, as if our administration were passing loose gossip in high school.

And now it’s been revealed that President Bush, like Nixon three decades ago, has carried out an illegal wiretapping program against citizens of this country. I’m sorry, but this President does not represent the America I pledged allegiance to for 12 years as an impressionable child.

Is our Constitution not worth anything?

These are serious offenses, which constitute High Crimes and Misdemeanors. I urge you to support impeachment immediately.

As a recently established resident of Greensboro, I’m looking forward to us building an open dialog moving forward.

Sincerely,

Sean Coon

I hear you Herm, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to reverse the call.

A 4th round pick for a solid coach, a great motivator and class act… wow.

Good luck, Coach. I truly hope you kick some ass with the Chiefs. And back in Gotham, that black cloud continues to hover over this franchise…

(Tom Toles via Yahoo!)

With thirteen simple words, David Letterman expressed to Bill O’Reilly what the entire blogosphere has been squaking with post after post for the past month or so:

I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap.

Well, that just about sums it up for me. You know, I tried my best to stay away from this “War on Christmas” meme, but when David Letterman dropped that gem on Bill O’Reilly last night, I had to get a word out on this contrived issue.

To begin with, Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson may be a lot of things, but they’re not idiots; neither of them believe the bullshit they spew for one single minute. Both O’Reilly and Gi