Archive for May, 2005
Dissecting Blogebrity
Saturday, May 28th, 2005Blogebrity is obviously a fake, but even though that that is fairly widely known, it still spreads. A magazine that launches it’s site as part of a competition to create the best meme, where the only content not ‘coming soon’ is a list of the people most likely to help drive this particular meme, bloggers, oh cummon. The wonderfully sarcastic strapline, worthy of Andrew Orlowski “isn’t it about time that someone talked about bloggers” will make any blogger gullible enough to believe it, regret having been so vain.
Regardless of the scam, Blogebrity is really, really interesting: it’s a weblog with ZERO content which has grown faster than almost any other.
This is not a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, here the Emperor knows he is naked but the people cannot see it.
Strip away the graphics and rearrange the content and what do you have:
A two column weblog where the main content column is a sign that says coming soon, a site that will treat bloggers like celebrities and the right hand column is a blogroll.
The blogroll is cheekily ranked A, B or C list, mixed around just to encourage some scuffles and put a few noses out of joint but whose sole purpose is to feed off vanity, rather like people who obsess about their Technorati ranking or join the line outside the nightclub that has the longest line and the snottiest door policy.
But the most interesting thing about Blogebrity is that although it has the highest number of inbound links of all the Contagious Media Showdown entries, it does not have the highest traffic.
Blogebrity is an interesting experiment to see if you can create a viral meme where there is almost no information payload within the replicator by making it highly attractive to potentially contagious hosts, a ‘headline only’ meme. It seems that this extreme does not work as well as a ‘full content’ meme, i.e. it has infected the web (with more links that any other entry) but not people’s minds (lower page views). But it does work surprizingly and depressingly well, who knows, it might actually be worth putting some content up and creating a real site out of it after all - providing it still keeps its tongue in its cheek.
Contagious Media entry rankings.
The virtual line outside of the Blogebrity nightclub.
tags: [memes]
permamark in: Wists
Losing marbles to keep them. British Judge rules that museums are allowed to receive stolen goods.
Friday, May 27th, 2005Imagine if someone sailed up the Hudson and made off with the Statue of Liberty's crown.
The marble frieze, hacked from the Parthenon, Greece's greatest treasure, is 'owned' by the British museum.
And now, a moron of a judge, (vice chancellor Andrew Morritt) has ruled that: the British Museum Act - which protects the collections for posterity - cannot be overridden by a "moral obligation" to return works known to have been plundered. "
In effect this means that museum pieces are protected by the law, even if the law was broken to acquire them. It means that museums can receive stolen goods, something which is illegal for everyone else.
This creates a moral justification for the Greeks to plunder the UK at some point in the future, I guess.
But it gets worse. This ruling was based on:
Four drawings that "were stolen from the home of Dr Arthur Feldmann by the Gestapo in 1939 when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. Dr Feldmann was tortured and murdered by the Nazis and his wife Gisela died at Auschwitz. All the drawings were acquired by the British Museum shortly after the second world war."
This is a law that's sole purpose is to protect crime.
permamark in: Wists
How to get a job as a writer at Gawker
Friday, May 27th, 2005Answer, write a blog about Gawker - do it well, show that you can write and it will end up on their radar.
Which after all is a repeat of Gawkers’ method itself: Write a gossip column where the initial subjects are other gossip columnists, hacks and flacks, then it will get noticed by the people who promote stuff. Down right PReditorial!
Flattery will get you everywhere.
Chris Mohney did just that, with arguably the longest ever resume:
Gawkerist: Nick Denton Finally Pays Us to Stop Blogging
Steel Henge. Tomorrows Manhattan sunset will align perfectly with the grid.
Friday, May 27th, 2005If it is clear, Manhattan will flood dramatically with sunlight just as the Sun sets precisely on the centerline of every street. Usually, the tall buildings that line the gridded streets of New York City's tallest borough will hide the setting Sun. This effect makes Manhattan a type of modern Stonehenge.
Via Nick Denton
link »
tags: [architecture] [nyc]
permamark in: Wists
Perhaps money is the root of all good
Thursday, May 26th, 2005I overheard someone today use the clich
All religion leads to extremism
Wednesday, May 25th, 2005Salman Rushdie attacks an article in the Guardian by Dylan Evans which proposes a moderate atheist stance.
The problem with the moderate stance is that there is no compromise between belief and non-belief in the context of religion
The Huff and Puff
Wednesday, May 25th, 2005When is an embryo worth more than any other form of human life?
Tuesday, May 24th, 2005Byron LaMasters reports on the Stem Cell debate in Congress.
Bush has threatened to Veto on the grounds that:
He opposes that which “destroys life in order to save life”.
By logical extension, this means that Bush is opposed to most defense spending.
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