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Like PressThink? More from the same pen:

Read about Jay Rosen's book, What Are Journalists For?

Excerpt from Chapter One of What Are Journalists For? "As Democracy Goes, So Goes the Press."

Essay in Columbia Journalism Review on the changing terms of authority in the press, brought on in part by the blog's individual--and interactive--style of journalism. It argues that, after Jayson Blair, authority is not the same at the New York Times, either.

"Web Users Open the Gates." My take on ten years of Internet journalism, at Washingtonpost.com

Read: Q & As

Jay Rosen, interviewed about his work and ideas by journalist Richard Poynder

Achtung! Interview in German with a leading German newspaper about the future of newspapers and the Net.

Audio: Have a Listen

Listen to an audio interview with Jay Rosen conducted by journalist Christopher Lydon, October 2003. It's about the transformation of the journalism world by the Web.

Five years later, Chris Lydon interviews Jay Rosen again on "the transformation." (March 2008, 71 minutes.)

Interview with host Brooke Gladstone on NPR's "On the Media." (Dec. 2003) Listen here.

Presentation to the Berkman Center at Harvard University on open source journalism and NewAssignment.Net. Downloadable mp3, 70 minutes, with Q and A. Nov. 2006.

Video: Have A Look

Half hour video interview with Robert Mills of the American Microphone series. On blogging, journalism, NewAssignment.Net and distributed reporting.

Jay Rosen explains the Web's "ethic of the link" in this four-minute YouTube clip.

"The Web is people." Jay Rosen speaking on the origins of the World Wide Web. (2:38)

One hour video Q & A on why the press is "between business models" (June 2008)

Recommended by PressThink:

Town square for press critics, industry observers, and participants in the news machine: Romenesko, published by the Poynter Institute.

Town square for weblogs: InstaPundit from Glenn Reynolds, who is an original. Very busy. Very good. To the Right, but not in all things. A good place to find voices in diaolgue with each other and the news.

Town square for the online Left. The Daily Kos. Huge traffic. The comments section can be highly informative. One of the most successful communities on the Net.

Rants, links, blog news, and breaking wisdom from Jeff Jarvis, former editor, magazine launcher, TV critic, now a J-professor at CUNY. Always on top of new media things. Prolific, fast, frequently dead on, and a pal of mine.

Eschaton by Atrios (pen name of Duncan B;ack) is one of the most well established political weblogs, with big traffic and very active comment threads. Left-liberal.

Terry Teachout is a cultural critic coming from the Right at his weblog, About Last Night. Elegantly written and designed. Plus he has lots to say about art and culture today.

Dave Winer is the software wiz who wrote the program that created the modern weblog. He's also one of the best practicioners of the form. Scripting News is said to be the oldest living weblog. Read it over time and find out why it's one of the best.

If someone were to ask me, "what's the right way to do a weblog?" I would point them to Doc Searls, a tech writer and sage who has been doing it right for a long time.

Ed Cone writes one of the most useful weblogs by a journalist. He keeps track of the Internet's influence on politics, as well developments in his native North Carolina. Always on top of things.

Rebecca's Pocket by Rebecca Blood is a weblog by an exemplary practitioner of the form, who has also written some critically important essays on its history and development, and a handbook on how to blog.

Dan Gillmor used to be the tech columnist and blogger for the San Jose Mercury News. He now heads a center for citizen media. This is his blog about it.

A former senior editor at Pantheon, Tom Englehardt solicits and edits commentary pieces that he publishes in blog form at TomDispatches. High-quality political writing and cultural analysis.

Chris Nolan's Spot On is political writing at a high level from Nolan and her band of left-to-right contributors. Her notion of blogger as a "stand alone journalist" is a key concept; and Nolan is an exemplar of it.

Barista of Bloomfield Avenue is journalist Debbie Galant's nifty experiment in hyper-local blogging in several New Jersey towns. Hers is one to watch if there's to be a future for the weblog as news medium.

The Editor's Log, by John Robinson, is the only real life honest-to-goodness weblog by a newspaper's top editor. Robinson is the blogging boss of the Greensboro News-Record and he knows what he's doing.

Fishbowl DC is about the world of Washington journalism. Gossip, controversies, rituals, personalities-- and criticism. Good way to keep track of the press tribe in DC

PJ Net Today is written by Leonard Witt and colleagues. It's the weblog of the Public Journalisn Network (I am a founding member of that group) and it follows developments in citizen-centered journalism.

Here's Simon Waldman's blog. He's the Director of Digital Publishing for The Guardian in the UK, the world's most Web-savvy newspaper. What he says counts.

Novelist, columnist, NPR commentator, Iraq War vet, Colonel in the Army Reserve, with a PhD in literature. How many bloggers are there like that? One: Austin Bay.

Betsy Newmark's weblog she describes as "comments and Links from a history and civics teacher in Raleigh, NC." An intelligent and newsy guide to blogs on the Right side of the sphere. I go there to get links and comment, like the teacher said.

Rhetoric is language working to persuade. Professor Andrew Cline's Rhetorica shows what a good lens this is on politics and the press.

Davos Newbies is a "year-round Davos of the mind," written from London by Lance Knobel. He has a cosmopolitan sensibility and a sharp eye for things on the Web that are just... interesting. This is the hardest kind of weblog to do well. Knobel does it well.

Susan Crawford, a law professor, writes about democracy, technology, intellectual property and the law. She has an elegant weblog about those themes.

Kevin Roderick's LA Observed is everything a weblog about the local scene should be. And there's a lot to observe in Los Angeles.

Joe Gandelman's The Moderate Voice is by a political independent with an irrevant style and great journalistic instincts. A link-filled and consistently interesting group blog.

Ryan Sholin's Invisible Inkling is about the future of newspapers, online news and journalism education. He's the founder of WiredJournalists.com and a self-taught Web developer and designer.

H20town by Lisa Williams is about the life and times of Watertown, Massachusetts, and it covers that town better than any local newspaper. Williams is funny, she has style, and she loves her town.

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing at washingtonpost.com is a daily review of the best reporting and commentary on the presidency. Read it daily and you'll be extremely well informed.

Rebecca MacKinnon, former correspondent for CNN, has immersed herself in the world of new media and she's seen the light (great linker too.)

Micro Persuasion is Steve Rubel's weblog. It's about how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the business of persuasion. Rubel always has the latest study or article.

Susan Mernit's blog is "writing and news about digital media, ecommerce, social networks, blogs, search, online classifieds, publishing and pop culture from a consultant, writer, and sometime entrepeneur." Connected.

Group Blogs

CJR Daily is Columbia Journalism Review's weblog about the press and its problems, edited by Steve Lovelady, formerly of the Philadelpia Inquirer.

Lost Remote is a very newsy weblog about television and its future, founded by Cory Bergman, executive producer at KING-TV in Seattle. Truly on top of things, with many short posts a day that take an inside look at the industry.

Editors Weblog is from the World Editors Fourm, an international group of newspaper editors. It's about trends and challenges facing editors worldwide.

Journalism.co.uk keeps track of developments from the British side of the Atlantic. Very strong on online journalism.

Digests & Round-ups:

Memeorandum: Single best way I know of to keep track of both the news and the political blogosphere. Top news stories and posts that people are blogging about, automatically updated.

Daily Briefing: A categorized digest of press news from the Project on Excellence in Journalism.

Press Notes is a round-up of today's top press stories from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Richard Prince does a link-rich thrice-weekly digest called "Journalisms" (plural), sponsored by the Maynard Institute, which believes in pluralism in the press.

Newsblog is a daily digest from Online Journalism Review.

E-Media Tidbits from the Poynter Institute is group blog by some of the sharper writers about online journalism and publishing. A good way to keep up

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February 23, 2005

Two Letters in Reply to "A Little Detail in the Sale of About.com"

Mike Phillips, editorial development director at Scripps-Howard: "Many of our own newsrooms are in the early stages of the transformation. And at the New York Times? It's never gonna happen. They know it, too." Plus: Daily Peg Doubts About's Worth.

My recent post about the New York Times acquisition of About.com brought these two replies. One is from the offices of a traditional news provider, the Scripps-Howard chain. The second is from an upstart born on the Web, The Daily Peg: “I’m a Google junkie and I almost never land on an About site.”

Background: A Little Detail in the Sale of About.com to the New York Times.

Letter One from Mike Phillips, editorial development director for Scripps-Howard Newspapers, a division of the E.W. Scripps Company. Phillips oversees 21 newsrooms in the chain, which includes the Cincinnati Post, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, the Memphis Commercial-Appeal.

Scripps also owns the Ventura Country Star in California, where podcasting and blogging are just part of normal practice. See Mark on Media, Ventura Does It, for a good introduction to what they do already in “Webcentric” delivery. Phillips writes:

Some of us at Scripps have been talking today about PressThink’s Feb. 20 post about the New York Times and About.com.

The conversation started with “This sounds right, so should we rethink our archival policies?” and moved to “This sounds right for a national newspaper, but what about our newspapers, which are intensely local?”

That does change some things, but not everything. Intensely local newspapers operate outside the MSM as most media commentators think of it. Yet, they are being driven by many of the same forces driving the New York Times:

  • Print revenue is stagnant.
  • On-line revenue is growing rapidly (25-50% per year, depending on where you are).
  • And, just as the publisher wakes up, does a projection and sees where salvation is coming from, it appears that we are rapidly approaching a new pricing model: pay-by-the-click, instead of pay by the inventory unit.

So, to continue the online revenue growth rate and get it up to a third or a half of total ad revenues as rapidly as possible, the newspaper must grow web traffic as rapidly as possible. It’s the only way to make pay-by-the-click pay off.

That means shovelware needs some new friends.

So, is permalinking as much a no-brainer for intensely local newspapers as it is for the New York Times?

Well, maybe— in a limited way.

We don’t need to spider out and draw the search engines to us. That’s not how most people needing local information come to local newspaper web sites. They already live in the community and already know about the site. What will get them to use the site more, and tell their neighbors about it, is a better site.

Permalinking makes the site better, but a blanket permalinking policy would be wasteful.

As we talked about this, our online general manager, Bob Benz, said a lot of an intensely local newspaper’s content has no tail potential - that is, nobody’s ever going to want to access it again after the usual seven-day expiration date.

I counter proposed with what I dubbed the Phillips-Benz Continuum. At the right end of the continuum is obits— surely the example of local content with the longest tail. At the left end is a story about a proposed sewer project moving from one level of administrative review to another— surely a story with no tail at all. All the other content is in between. After a bit of rigorous measurement and discussion, surely a newspaper could calculate where on the continuum, on the average day, permalinking should start.

On the typical day at the typical newspaper, I’d say that point would indicate permalinks for no more than 15 percent of the content.

There are many implications to that guess, and yes, they all say something about the state of newspaper content.

And that’s where the conversation is today: “Why get excited about permalinking when so much of the content doesn’t deserve it?”

And so, though I started my day with a flutter of excitement about permalinks, I head into the afternoon back where I was last week:

  • We need to get serious about open source journalism.
  • We need to get serious about moderating local civic discourse rather than gate-keeping it under the old ed/op-ed model.
  • We need to get serious about Web-centricity. This is the big one. It means building deep, highly useful local data bases and floating on top of them local news and local conversations in whatever combination of online and print makes sense. That, in turn, calls for deep cultural and operational change in the newsroom.

That’s not easy, but intensely local newspapers can pull it off. They are influenced by the MSM, but they aren’t full members. They aren’t as bogged down by all that tradition and all that arrogance. Many of our own newsrooms are in the early stages of the transformation.

And at the New York Times? It’s never gonna happen. They know it, too. Must be why they had to buy a no-brainer.

— Mike Phillips

Letter Two is from the publisher of the Daily Peg, who also heads Pegasus News, a Web-based, hyper-local news company that plans to launch a beta version in Dallas some time this year, in direct competition with the major news providers there. The “for-now-anonymous” founder of Pegasus News has a day job in the industry; and at his request I have not used his name. But he can be reached here.

In my mind, the pearl in your post is: “Times journalism, like the content of other Big Media firms, is created primarily for offline use, and then re-purposed on the Web. (When that cycle is reversed, the Web era in journalism truly begins.)”

I think that one shift in mindset will be what really turns things around. Sometimes I fear I’m counting on it too much — but in our early days, I think this will be our most noticeable differentiator.

As far as our model, we intend to be fully searchable, but think that there is a middle ground between freely available and walled off. We’re still working it out, but our thought is that you can Google us and read any story you want for free and without registering, but you’re limited to x number of stories a day at that level (“x” being something greater than one and less than the whole site.)

The idea is that registration, and maybe even subscription is crucial to our ad model. But, the ads are primarily local — and its locals that will primarily use us every day multiple times per day. (We hope!) So why should I hassle you in New York with registration in order to monetize serving up an ad for a Chinese restaurant in East Dallas that does neither you nor the restaurateur any good. I can’t imagine a lot of folks out of market wanting to read more than a couple things a day on our site — and if they do, that’s another business altogether.

Of course, the New York Times is in a different business than we are— they are a “national” site. We’re all local, all the time.

Another reason to let anyone read a few stories a day without playing the registration game is so that we can be “part of the conversation” on blogs etc.

A key, we think, to registration is really delivering a reward for registering, something that most sites don’t do. At the NYT, registration doesn’t enhance the site— it’s just a ticket to the fair. If you register with us, we’ll customize your homepage with both implicit and explicit preferences based on where you live and what you like to read. And, if you shop at our advertisers who are in our pay-for-performance program, you’ll get cash rebates. (Real, effortless rebates — not the silly shopper programs a lot of papers are trying.)

To the original question. I don’t think the About purchase was a great
deal. Two things I’ve come to realize from my close watching of this world the past year are that:

1.) Previously sci-fi technology is now insanely commoditized and cheap. My original budget to build our site? $3 million. (Admittedly guessing high.) Now, it’s less than $100k for stuff that, as one of my compatriots says, is “just barely distinguishable from magic.”

2.) A really great idea can now build critical mass in a frighteningly short time. See Bloglines. See podcasting.

The upshot? The New York Times, if it had really wanted to, and would break free from bureaucracy, could have built something way cooler and more trafficked than About in ninety days.

One ancillary thought on why I question the About deal. Search engine
placement is primarily in the hands of the people who make search engines. If Google changes its algorithm tomorrow, that whole rationalization for the purchase is moot. And anecdotally, I don’t buy that they get such great placement. I’m a Google junkie and I almost never land on an About site.

— Daily Peg

From the Daily Peg: Core Principles.



After Matter: Notes, reactions & links…

My NYU colleague Adam Pennenberg in Wired News takes on the Wall Street Journal’s online edition with its subscriber fees and closed archive:

The Journal should take the bold step of jettisoning its subscriber model and open up its archive to the public. In the end, it would make up the loss of subscriber revenue with money from advertising, which has been growing briskly. Sure, it might take a while — perhaps many years — but this is the only way for it to ensure its long-term survival.

A radical move like this would also send shivers down the spines of competitors like Forbes.com, which doesn’t charge for content and got rid of registration requirements when it discovered they drove away traffic. One reason Forbes.com was able to get off the ground was that it offered free content while the Journal made people pay. If the Journal hadn’t done that, Forbes.com might not have become the online power it is.

Wanna know what citizen journalism looks like as it unfolds on the Web? Click here. “Contributing reader” hits it dead on. The name explains the idea. Via Ed Cone.

Lex Alexander announces it at his News & Record blog: Citizen journalism is here.

Told you yesterday I hoped to have some Public Square-related news to report today, and I do.

The News & Record’s YourNews has gone live. You can now write and submit your own news stories for publication on our site.

John Robinson, the blogging editor, says the path chosen by the News & Record is greater transparency, more interaction with the community and further dissolution of the barrier between the producers and consumers of news. (Commenting on Tim Porter’s advice.)

Lex Alexander has his own site, Blog on the Run. See his Political-blogging burnout … or something else? I found a lot to think about in that one.

Paul Maidment at Forbes.com, Stop the Presses:

Publishers have long gained from the economic inefficiency of the advertising market. As Lord Leverhulme, the soap baron, is reputed to have said, “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half.”

Not so on the Internet. Advertisers can be sure every ad they buy is seen and track its effectiveness. The measurability of Internet advertising keeps money firmly in the pockets of advertisers that in the past went to publishers and supported shareholder profits or good journalism.

For newspapers unable to adapt to this world, the only business model available is to grow by acquisition and cost-cut to profitability.

Steve Outing at Editor and Publisher, whose column is called Stop the Presses: “Too many people at leadership positions of major news organizations are in a defensive posture when it comes to citizen or participatory journalism. They’re in denial— and that spells trouble for their organizations.”

Writers, bloggers: send me your interesting About.com related links. Anyone who works there have something… you know, challenging and original to say? Reply to something you heard. E-mail PressThink.

My favorite photo of The Gates in Central Park.

Terry Heaton, The Devaluation of Information, on the overturned hierachies strewn about.

The Internet — with its Postmodern, deconstructionist architechture — makes it seem that all knowledge is “public” knowledge and all information is “public” information. It was built without a centralized command and control mechanism, and, therefore, the ability to tap unlimited databases is available to everybody. This is what makes Google so powerful. Absent any top-down structure, Google (anybody) is able to search and retrieve from those databases at any level, which, among other things, renders the portal Website concept irrelevant.

Forbes on the About deal: “The New York Times Co. just bought the world’s biggest blog.”

OK, About.com isn’t technically a blog, but it is a massive collection of content produced by non-journalist experts. For a small salary, 500 About.com guides produce myriad Web pages that the company turns into cash by selling ads. Together the guides have amassed 1 million pages covering 55,000 topics, from fly-fishing to cross-stitching.

Richard MacManus, Blog Branding: About.com and Kottke. “As a writer whose goal is to (very soon) earn a decent living via blogging, I wonder how viable the ‘work for peanuts’ approach of About.com is nowadays.”

“Isn’t that what blogs resurrect: the cacophony of the town square?” Jeff Jarvis, media man and blogger, and Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times, continue their exchange of letters.

If you’re not reading Memeorandum you’re missing an interesting cut on the news and the weblogger’s ways with it. Good for sampling the pulses and waves that cross the blog world.

Posted by Jay Rosen at February 23, 2005 12:13 PM   Print

Comments

Mike's discussion begins with the assumption that everything a newspaper does belongs on the Web. This is a problem that requires another discussion. If he and others could bring themselves to reinvent the whole newspaper/Web thing, they might that all Web publishing will be based in sophisticated blog form. Then, the permalink machine will just hum in the background.

Posted by: Terry Heaton at February 23, 2005 12:42 PM | Permalink

"We don't need to spider out and draw the search engines to us."

Believe it or not, I find most of my local news with google news because of the horrible search interface on the local news site. If the local media monopoly model is going to break down, search engines are going to become even more important. Maybe something like a hybrid of Google Local and Google News will emerge.

Posted by: Kirk House at February 23, 2005 2:51 PM | Permalink

Ventura County Star.

Posted by: marky48 [TypeKey Profile Page] at February 23, 2005 4:12 PM | Permalink

Mike Phillips' example of a "short tail" article (that need not be permalinked) brought a smile to me.

"At the left end is a story about a proposed sewer project moving from one level of administrative review to another-- surely a story with no tail at all."

While that story might not hold much lasting interest to the casual, skimming, recreational browser, That is precisely the sort of story that professionals try and dig-up, sometimes years after it has appeared "in print". Administrative review is a notoriously bumpy and illusive process, and one which frequently leads to litigation. Disputes arise over a sparse record that often has to be supplemented by local news stories that often are the only extemporaneous record of events, other than the sometimes deliberately obscure "official record". I'm sure journalists appreciate the ability to go back in time and chronologically track a story, and its often the case that a story grows surprising legs. So don't be too quick to cut them off. Mr. Phillips' example is to me a great illustration of an essential aspect of the Internet: no one knows exactly how it is used and how it will be used. So many people are using it in their own unique and unpredictable ways, that it is hard to follow, let alone predict.

This topic is of unusual interest to me, because it touches on a wider area than just the news business. I have been conducting my own, anecdotal "google watch" ever since the fabulous coming out on Wall Street. For years google has been too good to be true, but now it is quickly becoming too commercial to be true.

What started out as a logical search engine -- one in which the results bore a readily apparent relation to the preciseness of the search phrasing, is quickly becoming more "nuanced" or perhaps more influenced by factors other than the relation of the potential targets to the subjects the searcher was aiming for. Some of this may be pure cyber-physics, but why do I have the feeling that the skids are being greased in an increasingly commercial way? While these new developments may not pose a problem to a site such as this, which is social and topical in nature, what does it say for the more pedestrian and permanent presences on the web? Sites for small businesses, for example, who may have come grudgingly into the cyber-age, and who have neither the expertise or the resources to tease out reasonable results from the search engines. When you gain an advantage through purchased-trickery or by an association with a company financially associated with the search engine entities, the bidding war is on, and the informational race is rigged and essentially called off. Not only is an important utilitarian aspect of the web seriously compromised (results may vary, depending on who pays what to whom), but the potential for mischief is surely out there. I'm not whining over the prospect of commerical Dawinism; I'm lamenting the rapid bastardization of the most useful aspects of the web.

This commercial threat to the web isn't confined to search engines. Blogs are already being gobbled up and mutated into commercial link-engines. I'm sure there are fine minds at work already, trying to determine just how many links to "for pay" articles a blog can sustain before its readership strips it from their favorites. "The Daou Report" is a recent variant on this phenomenon. Just as its usefulness came to the attention of a wide readership, Salon scooped it up. What was a valuable resource to readers, was transformed into an annoying infomercial for a for-pay site. I'm not suggesting Salon isn't worth the subscription price, nor do I begrudge Daou his days to lounge in his luxury Salon, but I am questioning the wisdom of buying an "asset" only to strip of the very thing that give it value. Google built its following by producing satisfying search results keyed to the desires of those doing the searching. The new google is cashing in that following by transforming the relationship. If results are being skewed away from where people want to go, to re-direct them to where the money leads, they are liquidating google's capital for short term gain. If, on the other hand, the economic model is tied to results, as in a system where the most effective search engine brings the most traffic, which, in turn brings in the most ad revenue in the form of frame-ads that may irritate, but not obscure the essential information and essential purpose of a search engine, than reward follows function.

Posted by: Mark J. McPherson at February 23, 2005 11:58 PM | Permalink

While we're dreaming about permalinks and open archives and how individuals use the Web, here's my dream: Harper's magazine not only free and current, but all of H.L. Mencken's articles from the past , as just one example, there for research.

When one goes digging into an issue, whether it is for a national or local newspaper, yes it's possible to use a premium database search for some stuff back to the 1980s. I want it all there for easy access when I'm in a hurry on deadline, and it would seems the traffic would justify it.

Newspapers never profited much from subscriptions or rack sales anyway. That money always paid for distribution. There is no distribution cost online. No printing costs either, no paper, no ink. Is it worth a little bit of money from subscribers to lose all those ad dollars?

Posted by: gw at February 24, 2005 7:58 PM | Permalink

Michael Schaefer of DeepBlog.com e-mails:

Jay,

Wow, your "New York Times acquisition of About.com" piece and the reply letters have been so very interesting. What I would like to suggest to Mike Phillips is that we don't know what will play in the long tail so "Open it up." "Daily Peg" has it right: "Another reason to let anyone read a few stories a day without playing the registration game is so that we can be 'part of the conversation' on blogs, etc."

Mike's numbers might be reversed to permalink 85%; who knows who may be interested in a "proposed sewer project moving from one level of administrative review to another"? "Local News" is generally applicable in other ways: sewer projects happen all over the world and are probably searched for around the world, and local ads can be served by local residents who are more interested in a "web paper" that interacts with the World Wide Web. Adjust the permalink numbers once you have hard data (5-10years worth).

What I got from the pass few days at PressThink is: If you're a web paper--open up your articles to linkable achieves, learn how to optimize search engines, and you can't win at the game if you don't understand how it's played. It reminds me of the ancient wisdom of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Give it away, give it away, give it away, now."

And if not, local papers are going to have journalism veterans like Gordon Joseloff, editor and publisher of WestportNow.com, breathing down their locked-up necks.

Michael Schaefer

Posted by: Jay Rosenj at February 24, 2005 9:39 PM | Permalink

Take commerce out of the equation. Forget all about that stuff. This is a zen issue. This is about people working so intimately with their surroundings that the divider line is no longer there.

A large part of the problem the MSM is having is letters just like this one. The amount of myopia and book-smarts-only exhibited by this letter and by the MSM in general leads one to think that either you all are focusing on things that don't matter for a reason, mainly because you are too afraid of the powers that be to get into any real discussions of import, or your fancy colleges didn't really do what they were supposed to do.

I'm a self taught web designer who has built an entire search engine single-handedly. If you don't understand the genius of About.com and think it is merely about search engine positioning you are wrong.

Compare the bottom-up political approach with the bottom-up web approach. Follow Howard Dean's actions and you'll get a better understanding of where all the web will be heading.

How can the people most removed from reality, the one's at the top, have any clue as to what is really going on?

"America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." - William S. Burroughs

Posted by: commonground at February 26, 2005 12:09 PM | Permalink

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