Via this Slashdot thread (which was about a NY Times article on the accuracy of blogging, which wasn’t very good), but the thread led me onto a trail of blog entries to an interesting Clay Shirky piece about the economics of information, and why micropayments for news & textual data are destined to fail (basically, because it is hard to judge whether the cost of that information, small as it may be, is still worth it before reading it). I had similar discussions about why I thought the licence fee, rather than channel-based subscription was still the best for way of funding the BBC’s output, both televisual and online. Satellite and cable channels are streamed by topic (sports, history, movies etc.) to give an exclusive focus to give their advertisers a fixed niche of the populace to appeal to. As the BBC is meant to be inclusive and has no advertisers it does not need to go down that route.

Anyway, I digress, but the article is interesting reading. Its more focused on the providers of free content, and how creatives can discard publishers and can publish for themselves at much lower cost, but at the same time with less chance of directly profiting:

This disrupts the old equation of “fame and fortune.” For an author to be famous, many people had to have read, and therefore paid for, his or her books. Fortune was a side-effect of attaining fame. Now, with the power to publish directly in their hands, many creative people face a dilemma they’ve never had before: fame vs fortune.

It hints (without making a proper prediction) that as blogging and online publishing has empowered individuals the most, it will be individuals’ efforts (media such as text and still images) that are more likely to fare well compared to collaborative efforts like music and video…or maybe instead just that music and video will be produced in pairs and threes rather than in large groups - there is an increasing range of small-scale video and audio productions showcased on things like b3ta.

Speaking of articles about blogging, a disappointing three-way discussion in today’s Guardian, asking whether it was more than vanity publishing - the discussion from all three, either consciously or subsconsciously, is phrased in the slightly exhibitionist, confessional style that many weblogs are in. Generally, I have little time for “my day was like this” blogs (And yes, I know I do it occasionally in this blog, sorry) unless they really are interesting (only one of the three correspondents, Salam Pax fits into that category), and the much more exciting, meme-oriented, link-rich style of blogging (which was how I found the Shirky article above), which allows you to get to the 1% of personal material (and the opinions and links related to it) on the web that actually is any good, is what really makes the medium so exciting and promising, and not just an electronic Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Not that the blogosphere is always a supplier of good content. Why the hell people think this is so damn good I have no idea (it’s near the top of blogdex, for fuck’s sake).

The Register had a good, if slightly waffly article on ID cards and how they might fail, which was published a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve only just remembered to blog it. Also out is a bit on IDs this month’s Cryptogram by Bruce Schneier, which is even better - although US-based, it applies equally to us, and succinctly points out why they will not make us any more secure or safe. I recommend reading both if you’re interested in the topic.

Also the Reg today had a story on the t-word, which has (acording to my referer logs) prompted a flurry of people Googling for the term, and coming to this site looking for more information but just finding a comparatively dry blog entry. Sorry. Feel free to look around though, there’s other fun stuff here…

McDonald’s CEO dies of a heart attack.

He may be dead, but irony definitely isn’t.

This Register story is wonderful - a Nigerian astronaut is allegedly trapped in orbit around earth, and the scammers asking you for your bank details to help fund his rescue.

Incidentally, I got some 419 spam from my mail form page the other day - which surprised me greatly. I’d have thought that the spammers would be using lists of email addresses and abusing open relays and letting the computer do all the hard work for them, rather than actively seeking out forms like mine and copying-and-pasting it all in…

This blog entry made me laugh.

While I’m at it, some personal-type stuff - a big “thank you” to everyone who turned up at my various birthday bashes this weekend, apologies to anyone I was incoherent to, ta to Armand and Marion for recommending venues, and thanks very much to Andy & Claire for the teapot, and Francis for the Bill Hicks book. I enjoyed myself muchly, although I am now officially knackered. Bit of de-tox and lots of sleep required.

And finally…Australian opposition leader promises “bling bling” if he gets elected. Go on Michael, do the same…

Damn. I could have really done with few of these last night.

Off to scrounge painkillers from my housemates…

There’s been some recent bumpf about the Conservatives’ plans to use the Internet more in their campaigning. The first such example is LetDownByLabour.com, though I struggle to see the point of it - it’s only preaching to the converted. Its “make an advert for the Tories” appeal almost smacks of “we’ve run out of ideas, help us out, please!”, although I will acknowledge that they’ve sort-of grasped the nettle and latched onto the idea of using the web as a way of getting voters to interact with them. Unfortunately, it is more of “What can you do for the party?” and not “What can the party do for you?”, and the aim of the site is to produce print and TV advertising, i.e. one-way media (critics have made a similar point about the Dean campaign). They still have a lot to learn.

This is not to say Labour or the Lib Dems have done much better, apart from a few individual MPs’ good efforts (e.g. Tom Watson) there has been precious little usage of the more exciting opportunities for voter interaction that the internet and blogs provide from any major party, although this is probably because the anarchic nature of the internet clashes with the political parties’ own desire for order and control.

The mention of viral marketing is an interesting one. Most people interested in politics and who actively seek out political material online are pretty set one way or the other. But the spread of memes involves much less personal motivation in obtaining information and so would probably be more effective in spreading a message to less committed floating voters, who are the Tories’ prime target. But I can’t think of any decent political party viral campaign ever, only a few single-issue memes. More importantly, I don’t think even those memes persuaded many people to change their minds, or set their hearts on a particular stance (any examples that might prove me wrong, please do tell me). Viral marketing tends to be gimmicky and amusement-related, something which does not translate well to political campaigning. I remain to be convinced that an online viral campaign will give the Tories any extra political clout.

Been checking the referer log, a lot of people seem to be coming to my site looking for information about ‘toothing’ - to my horror, this site (specifically, this blog entry) is the top result when Googling for ‘toothing uk’, even beating the Wired article the blog entry links to. How? Why? Does anyone know how to do an anti-Googlebomb?