A note about blogs. I just posted this in a private space, but thought it was worth reposting here:
Some of us are seeing weblogs as an early step in the evolution of the web (or, some say, a revolution in the way the web is used), and the general label for the stuff we're talking about is "social software." Social software supports group forming, an activity that wasn't necessarily in the heads of the folks who created the first blog systems as simple content management, emphasizing individual publication. Blogs are evolving, though, as nodes in social networks, and bloggers are drawn to group-forming activities and software developments that emphasize the connections as well as the nodes. It's possible to see blogs as a bunch of discrete publications that order random posts in reverse chronological order, but you get away from that pretty quickly when you get into the space and se what people are actually doing with their weblogs.
Discuss A note about blogs [weblogsky]
Interesting. The work that Paolo and I are doing is about elevating blogs from their discreteness and into a world of connections made through topics!
My friend and former colleague Paul Walk has implemented a MovableType template for generating an ENT 1.0 feed. Cool! Well done Paul.
Top 10 E-mail Marketing Mistakes. You could do a lot worse than read this: Optin News: Top 10 Email Marketing Mistakes Companies Make [MarketingFix: Worst Practices in Email Marketing]... [Dangerous thinking]
I'd highly recommend subscribing to David's newsletter Changes. Good common-sense advice about good marketing. Before I met David I didn't really believe there was such a thing!
REDUCE Spam Act. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren today introduced her REDUCE Spam Act. That Act is in part based upon the idea that I have bet my job on. This has led some friends to write that they hope the law is not passed -- some because they believe it won't work, some because they don't like this or any regulation. To the first group, I appreciate the concern, but remain unworried. To the second, I understand the concerns, but remain convinced. The general idea of the statute is that spammers must label UCE, and if they don't, then the law enables a bounty system to pay people who hunt down those who fail properly to label. I've been getting lots of questions about how this would work, and as many are similar, it would obviously help to post a FAQ. It would be great to get more questions beyond the first wave, and a FAQ would certainly help. This final draft does have a nice modification that was suggested by a particularly skeptical friend. The label requirement initially is a simple ADV: in the subject line. There are obvious problems with mandated protocols, and so the modification requires either an ADV: or "an identification that complies with the standards adopted by the Internet Engineering Task Force for identification of unsolicited commercial electronic mail messages." This is a nice modification that both creates an incentive for the development of other protocols, but vests that process within a body that so far has resisted capture. I was originally worried that any industry standards group would be open to capture. But I have lots of confidence that the IETF will be able to suss out spammers. The key to this idea is, as Congresswoman Lofgren puts it, that the Act would enlist a bunch of 18 year olds in the battle against non-complying spammers. "Between the 18 year olds and the spamsters," as she puts it, "I'll bet on the 18 year olds." Me too. [Lessig Blog]
Sounds like a good idea and, most importantly, progress in the right direction. How will this work if spam originates outside the US though? A good follow-up step will be to drum up support in the UK and Europe generally.
Resident Evil 4
(GameCube)
80%
Morrowind
(PC)
15%
GTA San Andreas
(PS2)
5%