Everything I know is Wrong

I read Andrew Keen’s brilliant book The Cult of the Amateur over the weekend. I read it in one sitting.

I’m stunned. I’m shocked. I feel lost.

In short, with a mere 200 pages, Andrew convinced a hardnose like me that I’m wrong. About everything. About a great many things having to do with the internet.

I spent most of Monday in a fog. I felt like deleting my blog, shutting down my business, and going to work on a lawn crew for the next ten years. I’m not joking.

I think I’m starting to recover a bit. But who knows?

A Dozen Dirty Reasons to Get a Gravatar

You don’t know about Gravatar, do you? Of course not. That’s why you’re reading this. See? You’re still reading. Follow me, young padawan learner and let me teach you the ways of the Gravatar.

If you are an English major and hate creative explanations, or if you don’t like being told what is good for you, then you could just jump over to Gravatar.com and read the dry explanation there.

Okay, everyone else. We got rid of the stooges in the class. Let’s get back to the fun.

Technorati Top 100 shuffle still needs more work

Photo by The Wandering Angel. Much ado is being made over the Technorati “bug fix” two days ago. However, much more work by Technorati needs to be done.

The fix was to count sub-domains separately from their parent domain. No one but the losers of ranking on the Top 100 have really anything negative to say about that because, in most people’s minds, this is how the ranking should have been done all along.

However, Technorati claims that their blog ranking system is for the purpose of ranking authority of different blogs. Notice I didn’t say “websites”, but “blogs”. But, what constitutes a blog?

Peter Patera Strikes Back - at Spam!

A fellow blogger, Peter Patera, took a little time (okay, a lot of time) spam-baiting a Sri Lanka spammer into carrying on the most insane email conversation I’ve ever seen. You should read his account if you can afford the time. As I commented there, “If we all join hands and stand our ground, the enemy will flee back to Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Budapest, and other forbidden territories.”

Peter’s emails are tongue-in-cheek and clearly meant to reveal his true intent. But the spammer carries on the conversation, sending Peter all sorts of files and attachments, and in the end, doing five terrible website mockups - for free. All to try and win Peter’s business at a dirt-cheap rate of $14/hour.

Why Reading Blogs is Crucial to being Smart

It’s 2007. Few people in your neighborhood read blogs. Depending on where you work, you may have coworkers who don’t know what a blog is, much less a “blog reader”. Most people you know read more each year from magazines, trade journals, books, and newspapers than they ever read from a blog.

Not me.

I’m going to tell you why reading blogs is absolutely crucial if you want to be smart, well-informed, and street-smart. Moreover, I’m going to show you how reading blogs will make you more sociable, friendly, and confident.

©2004-08 Lawrence Salberg. All Rights Reserved. I chose and recommend Nathan Rice's ElegantBlue WordPress theme.