Saturday, August 03, 2002

Ray Ozzie's blog Ray Ozzie's blog. Ray Ozzie has fired up his Radio blog again, at a new location. He asks: ... [Jon's Radio] 2:37:17 PM

Amazon RSS. Sean Nolan: Amazon RSS. "Wouldn't it be nice to have an RSS feed for all weblog-related books at Amazon, so that when new books became available you'd know about them? Thanks to the magic of web pipelines, it's become a pretty trivial thing to put together." Excellent!  [Scripting News] cool - another thing to implement in the weblog 2:19:22 PM

Rhetoric of weblogs The Rhetoric of Web Logs. The Rhetoric of Web Logs Meg Hourihan, one of the creators of Blogger, and the author of Megnut, wrote on essay for O'Reilly Network on "What We're Doing When We Blog." Meg makes a number of intelligent, accurate observations about the nature of web logs, including emphasizing their "commonality." She writes: If we look beneath the content of web logs, we can observe the common ground all bloggers share—the format. The web log format provides a framework for our universal blog experiences, enabling the social interactions we associate with blogging. Without it, there is no differentiation between the myriad content produced for the Web. Go read her excellent essay, then come back for my piffle, if you must. Ms. Hourihan has begun to document the beginnings of a rhetoric of web logs. Now, lest you begin foaming at the mouth, at the use of "rhetoric" in reference to blogs, I would like to remind you that the true meaning of rhetoric is the art of persuasion using language, and that a rhetorician is a master of communication, using specific tools, techniques and methods. Classical rhetorical theory divides the art of rhetoric into five parts (I'm cribbing wildly from Richard Lanham's excellent A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). The five parts of rhetoric are:  Invention  Arrangement  Style  Memory  Delivery Though Classical rhetoricians were largely interested in the spoken word, as any writer will tell you, these divisions, or "steps" if you will, work quite well for modern writing, or even blogging. Ms. Hourihan, in her anatomy, has neatly presented us with the various attributes of the second part of the blogging ars rhetorica, the arrangement.  The basic unit is the "post" rather than the paragraph or page.  Posts are listed in reverse chronological order, with the newest at the top of the page.  Posts are date-and-time stamped.  Posts contain links, often to primary sources.  Posts are archived, at regular intervals, often by virtue of the software used to create the formatted post and mount/upload it to a web server.  Posts are associated with a permalink, allowing them to be retrieved in isolation, from the archive.  Writers' email addresses are prominently featured, allowing immediate contact, and encouraging incorporation of emails into a post. Much of the arrangment of a blog is taken care of by the wonderful tools, Radio, Blogger, MoveableType, that allow us to separate content, our words, from presentation. But the other parts of rhetoric are also slightly changed in blogs as well. Invention, for instance, relies in part on the role of the blogging and Internet community, since blogs depend on linking. Memory is moved largely outside the human cerebellum to silicon, as we utilize Google and other search engines, and bookmarks. Style is perhaps the least changed, since we are still using words and text, albeit presented on the flat-panel pixilelated LCD. Delivery is entirely changed from the format used by Cicero; we upload and the 'net disseminate for us. I'll probably post more about this as I come to grips with blogging rhetorical strategies. [Instructional Technology] One of the periodically intimidating aspects of blogging is the standard of excellent thinking you find yourself having to strive for. 10:29:21 AM

Just write The Call of the Blog. A lot of malaise in Blogaria lately. Some complaining of bloggers’ block, some on-again-off-again, plenty wondering if blogging is what they need or want to be doing with their time. Others are noticing that blogging isn’t all cat pictures and... [Caveat Lector] Which closes with this wise comment: Blog however you want, whenever you want, as often or as seldom as you want. Use as much or as little of the technology as you care to. Adhere to common blogging formats or not, as you choose. Watch the big bloggers or not; pay attention to bloglomerations or not. If you feel you need permission to do any of these things, you’ve got mine, no questions asked, not least because I don’t believe you need it. 10:22:56 AM

Personal KM - PEP Radio Free Blogistan - PEP (Personal Expression Project). This sounds like what I would like to have. I would like to be able to access control what goes in my blog. Some stuff for family, some for friends, some for work, some for the public etc. Still digging!For several years now I've been slowly spec'ing out an ideal personal publishing platform for posting a peck of pickled peppers.... Uh, sorry. No, actually I mean a system with a well designed content database at the core and a great deal of flexibility both in how to submit content (client, web, email, handheld, wireless?) and an equal degree of flexibility about how to stream or syndicate the content out. [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] Until I can get one of these, my Radio weblog will have to do (and it's doing OK). 9:47:48 AM

Academic Weblogging. Quote: "K-Logs are a close fit to the academic culture. Here are ten reasons why." Comment: Read also this response from a recent PhD on why weblogs are not a good idea for certain scientific communities. [Serious Instructional Technology] 9:18:59 AM

© Copyright 2002 Jim McGee.