Steve Kirks reimagines the future of blogging. It is a beautiful, elegant vision. I want the drugs he's taking.

Create a different kind of aggregator, one that's a browser first and RSS reader second.

Read the rest...

Lies, by Al Franken

Anger is a great motivator. I'm waiting until after the California election to read this. btw, I trademarked the word "Lies".

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I'm a few hundred pages into Phoenix but stopped to read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Designing with Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman

I've been pulling this out a few times a week.

Treason, by Ann Coulter

Give me a break.

Smart Mobs

An inkling of a big thing. OK book. Excellent weblog.

What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and...

Take that, Coulter.

The Great Big Book of Tomorrow

Time to get this. Now. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow.

Fast Food Nation

I'm too scared to read it.

Why Girls Are Weird

Does it help dealing with it?

Stiff

Have you ever prepared a body for burial? I have. Nothing instills carpe diem faster or deeper.

Cryptonomicon

I had chills reading this. Scenes from my life. Right down to the sysadmins in trenchcoats with guns.

Hillary Clinton Memoir

I'll wait for the movie.

No Logo

Strident. Makes the case.

Pattern Recognition

If you liked "No Logo"...

Purple Cow

Selling the book was more creative than the book itself. But worth it just to grok deeply that your best marketing bang comes from a product, and not its promotion. 

Bobos in Paradise

I have it. I can't remember why.

The Weblog Handbook

Buy in volume. Give as stocking stuffers. Require as a classroom text.

Sleeping With the Devil

Was this a first lady's biography? If so, which one?  

Google Hacks

Yay, Rael!

The Chicago Manual of Style

It's red! What happened to the classic orange?

The Gunslinger

I'm waiting for the TV movie.

The Da Vinci Code

I'm waiting for the movie.

Traci Lords

I'm waiting for the movie. No, wait...

Neuromancer

To understand the times, the effect of technology, read this yarn.

Emergence

Huge idea. Pretty good explanation. Needs a fieldbook.

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

I'd rather get my meaning in a can, please.

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

Is this a how to guide?

Atlas Shrugged

A reality distortion field. Read with care.

How to Be Good

Anything to do with Good to Great?

American Gods

I liked it, but not worth that much fuss. Try Icelandic sagas.

Snow Crash

If only for the pizza delivery!

Cascading Style Sheets

hmmm. Maybe there's more I could do.

Northern Lights

Find the hidden allegory.

Nickel and Dimed

Anguish. Struggle. Not getting by on minimum wage. 

Linked

I studied the math. This is the context. And the game play.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Only five?

Good to Great

Boils down to "You'd better pick lucky parents." 

Seabiscuit

Saw the movie.

Tivo Hacks

Just bought it.

Stirland summarizes the state of the art in newspaper discussion groups. Mentioned:

Slashdot's Rob Malda knows how to foster an online community, Vin Crosbie's tips for news sites, Advance.net, AJC.com, Alternet.org, Amazon.com, Atlanta Journal Constitution's Maynard Jackson coverage, Belo Corp.'s DallasNews.com, Belo Corp.'s GuideLive.com, Belo Corp.'s WFAA.com, Boston.com discussion on church abuse story, Chicagotribune.com, CNET.com, CNN.com, Dan Gillmor's tech blog, Fredericksburg.com, Howard Rheingold: The Virtual Community, Latimes.com, Movietickets.com, MSNBC.com's science blog, New York Times forums, NYNewsday.com, NYNewsday.com opinion boards, NYTimes.com's Debates page, NYTimes.com's Sept. 11 discussion, Sacramento Bee politics blogger Dan Weintraub, Sunspot.net, The McKinsey study: The Case For Online Communities, Washington Post headline feed, Washingtonpost.com, Washingtonpost.com message boards, Weather.com, Web Lab.

Link-rich reporting makes me all tingly.

James C. Bennett's analysis, Anglosphere: Converging universes, examines the political effects of the English language blogosphere breaking down national barriers.  

Separate as the British and American information universes have been until now, a process of convergence has begun that will continue until there is only a single Anglosphere information universe. In this, the differences between right and left (for example) become more important than the distinctions of national origin. This process is already foreshadowed in the leading edge of the information universe, which at this point in time is the blogosphere -- the world of the Web logs, or blogs.

and

The blogosphere was given a strong boost by Sept. 11 and its consequences, particularly the Afghan and Iraqi wars. One salient characteristic of the blogosphere debate was that the pro- and anti-war debates tended to fall out by position on the political spectrum rather than by nationality.

Each side furthermore linked indiscriminately to newspaper and network Web sites on a pan-Anglosphere basis. This meant that blog readers throughout the Anglosphere began to find themselves linking to the Guardian, Times and Telegraph in Britain, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Sun Times, or Australia's Sydney Morning Herald or The Age indiscriminately. In the blogosphere, the sun never sets on the Anglosphere press.

... the rise of the blogosphere will likely affect Britain disproportionately to America.

The essay devolves into gibberish. What's a Tory paternalist, or "wet" faction? Isn't Cambridge in Massachusetts? Has the Conservative Party opened control to its rank-and-file? Is Michael Moore a Brit? Does the BBC really have a closed world-view, worthy of opposition?

And then, a glimpse into the future:

At some point linkage will be so fluid and transparent, and indexing and search so effective, that documents will cease to be stand-alone artifacts, and the entire body of information in English (and for that matter, the entire body of information in other languages) will become in effect a single artifact, probably the most complex human artifact ever to emerge. Intra-Anglosphere national boundaries will become rather weak demarcation lines within the structure of that artifact. Linguistic boundaries, on the other hand, will remain significant decouplers for the foreseeable future, resulting in a number of such massive informational artifacts existing in parallel. It is these that will be the parallel information universes of the future.

Aaahhh. Who is James C. Bennett and why doesn't he have a weblog?

"The exposed life is not the examined life"
— Hank, The Young Girl and the Monsoon

Snapshots are not journalism. Photojournalism elevates snaps. Into narrative. Into context. Into engagement.

Snapshots aren't art. Art elevates snaps. Into questions. Into provocation. Into emotional or cognitive triggers.

Snapshots aren't erotica. Erotica elevates snaps. Into suggestions. Into sensual memories. Into teasing.  

Moblogging may have innate characteristics. But there is so much more we can bring to the practice. What tools and skills do we need to moblog to higher callings? To make meaning? To engage?