New truths of new media at Lost Remote
If we are ever to move past the "gee whiz" stage of tech, we need to preach some gospel and evangelize the new media. We need to spread the word -- the good news if you will. The time for opinion is over. Here is the New Truth...
THX to Jeff Jarvis for the heads-up
Doc Searls was talking the other day about scholarly works being available online, and the ways this could be helpful.
From the standpoint of writers, this could be a real blessing in terms of being able to access the correct information – or at least information that is more correct than is generally available. Those of us who write articles intending to inform on non-fiction topics are often confronted with advocacy research in the guise of serious study, and that is a big problem if you’re interested in accuracy.
If you’re not familiar with advocacy research, what it is usually consists of a paid study for marketing or other purposes, with an outcome favorable to whatever idea those footing the bill expect to get across to the public. We’re all familiar with those kinds of statements in advertising like, “4 out of 5 dentists recommend Toothpaste A” or “studies show Handsoap XYZ kills ten times more bacteria!” Most people recognize those “studies” for what they are, and may even have come to expect them in marketing situations.
Unfortunately people like numbers and statistics, even if they don’t make any sense, or are scientifically unsupportable. Emphasis on this kind of information is so often used these days by activists for all kinds of causes, that I’ve noticed a good bit of advocacy research creeping into publications from government agencies and non-profits, where its use is nothing short of misleading and dishonest.
With the genuine article available online for anybody to see, this could go a long way in helping the public get a better, more reliable understanding of issues they need to deal with. This could mean the end of advocacy research, and that would be a great benefit for everybody – everybody, that is, except those phony institutes and fake thinktanks.
This is not my blog.
It was never intended for me to spout my opinions, which is one the reasons it took so long for me to put my name up there.
You might ask what was it for, then?
Well, it goes like this: it was originally intended back in 2003, to serve as a central location for a group of writers (associated with Writer On Line, hence the name) who were learning to promote their books, to report their booksignings and other events. That didn't happen. Back in those days, most of the book authors I knew were pretty much disillusioned with anything online, and particularly suspicious of blogs. Many of them insisted they would never, ever have anything to do with something as weird and unknown as blogs.
By now, as many of you know, that idea has changed. Lots of authors are using blogs to promote their books, and written works of all kinds, and so when Writer Online Magazine's new owner approached me to try something like this again, I figured it was worth a shot.
As part of their Writer's Learning Center program, we're offering a class on writer's promotion. This is not the kind of class where you study for a while and then go out and put into practice what you learned, it's a hands-on active group that will begin promoting from the git-go. Meanwhile, I'll be giving the newbies the benefit of my two years in the blogosphere, and many more years promoting things in other ways. It won't all be about blogs, because writers need to get out and about in their communities as well. So there'll be a bit on how to go about the in-person side of being a self-promoter.
As we get the newbies comfortable with blogs, and we all get comfortable with each other, there will be group events and plenty of networking going on! Maybe some offline group events too - who knows? Nobody has ever done anything like this before, so there's really no way to know how it will all unfold. Something I do know is that there's plenty of power in even the smallest group of blogs; and it's also a big help to be part of a group of people who are all doing the same things.
All the particulars are here.
Let's see what kind of a splash we can make!
Interesting commentary over at the Blog Herald on Google News, and its (albeit temporary) inclusion of a Nazi site, while ignoring some of the A-list bloggers.
Well, back in 2003, I was actually reporting news on my activist blog, and try as I might, I could not get Google to get past the idea that all blogs were simply personal journals and nothing else. Now they’ve gotten past that issue and recognized that a blog can contain any kind of content, I haven’t even tried to submit that blog to Google News.
That’s because over time, the focus of the DesertLight Journal has changed. Instead of publishing reports contributed by activists all over the world, it now includes much more commentary, with a US-centric approach. It’s become a jumping-off point, at times, for discussion in other places, such as forums and listservs.
Does that kind of conversation constitute news? I’m not really sure. It does appear that the definition of what is and what is not news is changing. I’ve always defined news as something happening, and the reporting of same. Does the reporting at some point become the news? Doe the commentary on the reporting also become news?
Heck, I dunno. These larger questions are bit much for this early in the morning ;>)
Here’s why:
I'm beginning to see some misunderstanding here. In this case, it's about somebody revealing a company's trade secrets, which in my mind is a different thing than say, writing an expose of a political party, or government entity.
It doesn't really address the question of whether bloggers are journalists.
Kleinberg refused to say whether Bhatia, O'Grady and Jade were members of a protected class of journalists. He did not rule against the reporters because they wrote for relatively obscure Internet sites, he said, but because they violated trade secret laws. - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Judge Kleinberg said the question of whether the bloggers were journalists or not did not apply because laws governing the right to keep trade secrets confidential covered journalists, too. - BBC
I think that particular issue is a red herring on the part of the blogger’s legal team, which, of course, is their job. That’s what lawyers do – work with the words and meanings to make them come out in their client’s favor.
Every now and again there will be a case where a journalist would/could go to jail for refusing to reveal a source. But these cases are about other things -- reporting on crimes, wrongdoing, manipulation of funds, etc.
This case is about corporate right to privacy, and the right of a business to own its property without interference. From anyone.
In this case, the bloggers revealed a corporation's trade secrets to the public. This was not information they had a right to have, it belonged to the corporation, and the bloggers used it for their own purposes, hence IMHO it was theft. A company should have the same right to own its information as an individual does. Just because it's a mega-corporation involved in this case doesn't mean it shouldn't have the right to keep its secrets. I think Apple is well within its rights to want to know where the initial theft occurred, so they can take steps to prevent it happening again.
For example, if it was Dave's Bakery involved and the Bigcakes Blog took Dave's secret recipe for the cake he sold all the over the world, and put it on the blog, Dave should be able to find out where Bigcakes got it, if the blogger wouldn't tell. Generally speaking, if anybody can make that special cake Dave sells, then it devalues the cakes from Dave's bakery.
This is a whole different kettle of fish than political commentary, or reporting news of the government’s budget. Those kinds of things are already public property, so to speak.
The business world has a different kind of situation, and a different set of rules. We still work under a capitalist system where people can own and control their property. As somebody engaged in small business, I would not want anybody taking something I’d worked hard to create giving it away to all and sundry just because they could. It doesn’t matter if the commodity is information or cakes. While I certainly think transparency is a good thing, it should be on my own terms, when it comes to my work or my property.
I know not everyone will agree with my point of view, but I bet if the bizbloggers think about it they probably will get what I’m saying here.
I've only spent a little time with this, but TBTN is just wonderful! IMHO ;>)
