L'oeil de Mouche

We created Joe.

This ignorant, ignorant man got a job with a website because they figured his ‘celebrity’ would bring them attention. And lo’ and behold, they bet right. Posting about it here, I’m contributing to it this very moment.

This is by no means the first time, as I’m sure any one of you could list off a hundred names of people we’ve made famous, and we’ve given a voice to. None of them earned that right.

All these people, these ‘celebrities’ are filling our media with useless drivel as a war in the Middle East gets bumped off the front page. This is a problem, and it’s not going to get any better.

In sum, blogging provides a “living portrait” that not only shows ideas and interests of a blogger, but also helps to get to know her as a person, by observing writing, linking and interaction over time. Such observation is not necessarily reciprocal, so asymmetrical relations are something that bloggers have to deal with. While it may be one-sided, learning about other bloggers from a distance provides an opportunity to make informed choices about possible closer contact with them, knowledge of their interests and personalities, as well as enough starting points for an interaction.

6 ans à regarder la blogiboule évoluer, se transformer, en bien et en mal, passer de cette petite communauté où tout le monde (ou presque) se connaissait à ce phénomène webmarketingeux deuxpointzero pouet pouet qui est aussi, et surtout, un formidable outil démocratique, à la portée de tous et même de ma grand-mère. Et c'est ça le plus important. Passées les querelles de clocher et les débats sur le pour ou contre la monétisation des blogs, passé le microcosme de la blogosphère parisianno-parisienne qui se regarde le nombril en gonflant artificellement son audience pour se faire plus influente qu'elle n'est, passées les gueguerres blogueurs vs journalistes, le vrai truc formidable dans tout ça c'est que n'importe qui peut désormais ouvrir son blog et y raconter qu'il aime manger des pommes. Les plateformes de blogging ont réalisé ce rêve que nous partagions à l'époque où nous avions l'impression de batir Internet : faire du Web un lieu d'échanges et de partage accessible à tous.

I was so good at keeping it up for so long, but I know I've been slacking off more and more over the years. I keep promising myself that I will do better, but then I never really do. I'm lucky to get in two posts a month.

But never fear. I'm not about to give up without a fight.

As a result of having less time to blog and increasing stress levels my blogging routines went broken.

In turn, writing suffered:

• Since I wasn’t reading others, writing was stimulated mainly by my own thinking and work. Although I can’t check it fast, I can imagine that the amount of outgoing links dropped dramatically.
• I wasn’t seriously following on the feedback of others on what I wrote, so potential conversations died at birth. I can also imagine that for others it was less interesting to link and to comment to someone who wasn’t very responsive.
• At the end writing wasn’t much about engaging, but more about just putting things “out there”.

Tout ce que je sais, c'est que je suis arrivée dans le monde du blogging à une époque où il était question de partager. Partager ses expériences, ses visions, ses idées, son vécu, son expertise. Partager non seulement par soif de se raconter, évidemment, mais avec l'idée que ça pouvait peut-être apporter quelque chose à quelqu'un, peut-être à une personne sur un million mais c'était déja pas mal.

Of course, I'm saying this from the POV of a workaholic who is trying to ween her way off of that lifestyle. Or rather, is hoping to ween her way off of that lifestyle once the dissertation is over. And who realizes that she's said that at every stage like an addict - I'll do it when XYZ. But still, I can't help but wonder - is it possible to really be in the flow and have work/life balance? Or will I find that, at the end of the day, I have to walk away from my work culture to have a life?
[via Tilly]

Not only can't I imagine charging for my blog, I'm practically in debt to the people who read it. I ought to pay them, not the other way around.

I would argue that the wiki way of thinking has enriched us because it’s taught us how we can create a community of interest and share this knowledge with the world.

Many blogs are now so cluttered with Blogher Ad Network ads, Google Ads, Blogads, Blogvertise ads and others sometimes all together that they feel more like splogs; I know there must be editorial content somewhere, but it’s damned hard to find.