Category: Media

“Trackback” is one of the most interesting features of Movable Type, and not terribly difficult to understand: I post an article on my blog, and you comment on it at your blog. You send me a “Trackback”, which appends a little note to my article pointing to yours. Everybody who’s inspired by my article is therefore reachable from my article’s Trackbacks. Not too complicated, and very nice and tidy.

Trackbacks drive some people crazy, however, either because they can’t understand this simple notion, or because they’ve got a stake in some sort of blog software that can’t support them, and as a result we get irrational criticisms like this one at Daring Fireball that’s endorsed by Dave Winer:

First and foremost is that TrackBack a two-way protocol. Both sides of the transaction, pinger and pingee, need to speak TrackBack for a ping to work. This is not so much of a problem if both web sites are running, say, Movable Type. But if the site you’re linking to doesn’t support TrackBack, you can’t send it a TrackBack ping. Nor are you going to get TrackBacks from sites that link to you, when those sites don’t support TrackBack.

Yes, John, two-way protocols don’t work without two-way cooperation, but guess what, all protocols are at least two way, and that’s what makes them protocols. If you just want to talk to yourself, you don’t need no stinking protocol.

And the fact that Trackback is currently not supported by blogware that never has been able to handle an archive competently – that means Blogger – is not a serious barrier. Everybody leaves Blogger for something more serious as soon as they don’t need the training wheels. We call that “progress”, and it’s a Good Thing.

Phillip Winn’s blog goes into more detail on why the TrackBack attack is silly.

For some reason there’s an unusually high level on conflict in the blogs I read these days. A couple of chicks, neither of whom is actually named “Moxie” are duking it out for exclusive rights to the handle; Kim du Toit and Sarge Stryker are up to their eyeballs in rage over drug testing; Brian Carnell is spanking Dave Winer over the latter’s claim of being an “intellectual” (clue to Dave: intellectuals don’t just listen to NPR, they read books); and over at Reiter’s, we have a contest between Fleishman and Jeffrey Belk pitting CDMA against WiFi for the title of wide area broadband champion, even though neither contender is both “wide area” and “broadband” at the moment.

The wireless tiff is the only one that’s especially interesting, in my book, but I’d be happy to go a few rounds on Python vs. Java if anybody’s interested, and I’ll take either side.

This parody of some tech bloggers is pretty funny. See if you can guess who this is:

Darwinism’ims. Leftist shrill rant. Leftist shrill rant. Link Link, Blog friend link. Leftist shrill rant. Leftist shrill rant. Leftist shrill rant. Touchy-feely Leftist shrill rant. Bleeding-heart Leftist shrill rant. Capitalism is evil. Commons is good. Neo-Communism rules. Leftist shrill rant. Good and Evil do not exist, but Andrew Orlowski is the Devil. Link Link. Interesting things. One paragraph sum up of this link here. Link Link, Blog friend link. Leftist shrill rant. Blogs as Education. Blogs. Blogs. New meme here, rant there. The Internet is a whole water-skiing pyramid of giants. Utopia. Blog friend link. Blog friend link. Leftist shrill rant. Touchy-feely Leftist shrill rant. Bleeding-heart Leftist shrill rant. New meme here, rant there. Link Link, Blog friend link. Leftist shrill rant.

No, it’s not Lessig, so you’ll just have to read the whole thing.

Via Robert Scoble, who didn’t write it.

HowardOwens.com is number 45 on Technorati’s list of most interesting blog newcomers, and would be higher except for a bug that gives about 40 places to the same site. While Howard’s blog isn’t brand-spanking new, it’s been getting a lot of attention lately in the form of new links, at that propels it onward and upward in the Blog Nielson’s.

The Silicon Valley slump, H1B visas, excessive consumption, the war on drugs, and the death penalty are the topics on the new The Lone Nut @ Home blog by my buddy Mike Nelson. Mike’s a real pioneer in the digital video and real-time systems business, with an eclectic set of views that defy easy categorization. Check it out.

London’s Times Online says it was bloggers that slayed the beast, in a story headlined “Editor falls to bloggers’ rapid poison”:

A proliferating band of independent writers known as “bloggers” (short for web loggers) is pumping out personal takes on the news, and one of the most persistent themes of their websites has been that Howell Raines, executive editor of The New York Times, would have to resign or be sacked.

The bloggers got their man last week and have been exulting in their power.

The article goes on to cover Kaus, Romenesko, Sullivan, et. al., with special emphasis on a memo to Times staffers by Adam “Big Time” Clymer that many read on-line before opening their email.

The fundamental problem with Raines, from the outside, was his use of the news pages to advance pet causes like Augusta, but from the inside it was the star system. Blogs or no blogs, Times staffers weren’t going to put up with the star system, and they would have found a way to bring him down, probably by leaking info to other media, so let’s don’t get too excited about our alleged power to manage the Times from afar.

Via Technorati.
Continue reading “What, me?”

We surmised a few days ago that the opponents of the FCC’s new ownership rules weren’t as interested in promoting media diversity as in silencing conservative voices. As if on cue, Moveon.org has launched a “media monopoly” fundraiser aimed at Rupert Murdoch:

Ironically, the campaign’s name betrays its purpose: Media Monopoly seeks to recreate the three network liberal monopoly of the 80s, before Murdoch shook up the system with an alternate view.

These folks do my work for me.

Brian Linse’s upset with the NY Times grave-dancing and general criticism from journalist bloggers:

Burning question of the day: What the fuck are Mickey Kaus and the journo-bloggers going to write about now that their favorite pinata, Howell Raines, is history? And more importantly, will anyone give a shit?

I guess the guys who are on the “inside” can be forgiven a bit of grave dancing glee, but we do have our limits. Where is the thoughtful and forward-looking analysis from guys like Kaus, Welch, and Layne? I love these guys, and they are all friends, but I’m disappointed in all of them. Anyone want to talk about what bringing the evil “liberal” Lelyveld back might mean? How about the impact that these events might have on the NYT’s traditional role as the drum major that most of TV news coverage follows? How about all the questions that I’m not smart enough to ask, but that we rely on our journalism pros to think of?

Dudes, FYI: Nobody outside of journalism geek circles gives a shit about the gossip!

Brian, FYI: it’s OK for journo-bloggers to write about journo stories on their blogs; that’s what they’re there for, and that’s why we like them. Techno-bloggers blog the inside baseball on tech, movie bloggers do the same for Hollywood, etc, etc, etc – that’s how the blogosphere works, people write what they know.

The sour grapes emanating from your corner has the plaintive and piquant frisson of one whose ox has been gored. You really can’t expect those who’ve been complaining about the Times’ liberal bias for lo these many years only to have their claims denied by partisans (like yourself) to be silent and dignified now that their analysis has been proved correct.

Losing the argument is a bummer, dude, but shutting up the winner or trying to foreshorten his gloating isn’t an option.

Link via Jarvis, Insta.

UPDATE: Brian clarifies that his beef is that the triumphalism is obscuring larger questions about the Times’ future. Fair enough, but who can say what happens next? The next turning point is the selection of permanent replacement for Raines, since Lelyveld is merely an interim boss, and once that’s been made public, we probably will be commenting on what comes next. There’s already been a lot of commentary on who follows Raines, and we’re pretty sure it’s not Andrew Sullivan.

You’ve probably already seen this bit from the LA Times:

And, in the end, it was the new world of Web sites, blogs, online editions and e-mails — not Raines — that set the pace of his exit.

… but let’s not forget that it was also the Internet that enabled Jayson Blair to plagiarize far-flung sources, so it’s really a matter of Internet self-correction, and a lot larger than a few blogs.

See Roger L. Simon: IF YOU RAN THE NEW YORK TIMES and cast your ballots. Mark Steyn seems to be the consensus choice for a spot on the Op-Ed pages, but Hitchens, Sullivan, Lileks, and Hanson are close behind.