the pod bay door

:: What’s next in writing tools for weblogs? Dave Winer wants your opinion. I’m wondering if something like Textpattern is where things are headed. Then there is the corporate blog movement; anyone heard of SilkBlogs?

:: When I drive, I play word games with licence plates on vehicles in front of me. When it’s a plate with three letters, I try to form words using the letters in the order they appear from L-R. For example, my plate’s letters are WZN, which could be wheezing or waltzing. My previous licence plate was STR, which could be straight, stretch, mustard, magistrate, saturate, etc. Today I saw a plate with CRD, and could though of chord, card, cradle, etc. I also though of The Communards, an 80s UK band. Later while driving, I was switching radio stations (all of the pop music stations in Edmonton suck bobos), and the first song I heard was “Smalltown Boy”, by the Bronski Beat, which later became…The Communards.

Coincidence? Psychic phenomenon? Rift in the space-time continuum?

:: Grey Tuesday happened yesterday. An LA DJ, Danger Mouse, “created” a remix of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ White Album, and released it on the Internet, calling it The Grey Album. (Jay-Z had released an a cappela version of The Black Album to encourage sampling.)

EMI, claiming copyright of The White Album, is attempting to stop the album’s distribution, having previously sent Mouse a cease and desist order, re: online distribution of the record. The Grey Tuesday web site notes that “Danger Mouse’s album is one of the most “respectful” and undeniably positive examples of sampling; it honors both the Beatles and Jay-Z.” Jason Kottke suggests that “musical sampling without prior consent of the copyright holder should be legally allowed because it does our society more good than harm.” Hundreds of web sites turned grey on Tuesday in protest.

I can’t buy this argument. I’ve been a musician for 37+ years, and don’t see anything creative or inventive in the “sampling” of another artist’s original work by adding new lyrics or rhythm, then claiming credit (or co-credit) for it as an original work. That opinion notwithstanding, how does not informing a copyright holder that her or his music has been taken by another “artist” and morphed into something else, do harm to society? WTF?

So why am I against this, while not against downloading? Because I believe these are two different issues. If the music industry can get its act together (right, and the sun will go nova this weekend, too) to create a fee-for-service downloading service, I’d be happy to pay to download music, if the fee structure was within reason, and the quality of the product could be guaranteed beforehand. So far, the industry hasn’t responded. And P2P downloading is legal in Canada. With “sampling”, an artist takes an original work, changes it, and we are expected to view this as a new, creative and unique product.

DJ Danger Mouse “honors” The Beatles with this effort? The album cover shows Jay-Z in the centre, with The Beatles standing behind him, as if to suggest collaboration. Still other versions have him sharing space with The Beatles on the Revolver and Yellow Submarine covers. Sacrilege.

Many artists allow sampling of their music, but the process begins with permission to use copyright material, and then negotiations for compensation with the copyright holder(s). Many other artists, The Beatles included, do not allow sampling.

Then again, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

:: Mike sent word (no pun intended), that the Oxford English Dictionary chose blog as their Word Of the Day recently. In the OED, blog has two definitions, one as a verb, and one as a noun.

Also, here’s the OED entry for weblog, which as you will notice, has two definitions; the one from 1993 has nothing to do with blogs.

:: Dave Pollard, of How To Save The World, offers his list of the ten most important blogging ideas of 2003. He also has a page that links to his various entries on blogs & blogging, many of which provide advice, tips, surveys, and other items of interest. Examples include Good Weblog Design and Layout, and Secrets of Breakout Blogs. Also, check his list of favorite Canadian blogs (no, I’m not on it.) Also worth checking, his list of 14 time-savers for bloggers. My favorite is #13: “Learn to type properly.”

:: In addition, the New York Times Magazine featured its annual Year In Ideas issue on Dec 14, 2003, and considers these 67 movements to be the most important of the year. (Free registration required.) Do you agree? Billboards That Know You is cause for concern, the Pod Car is kinda cool, but Tribute Bands in Denial?

:: Geoff, on a blogging tear of late, wrote about Zempt, a multi-platform program that works with Moveable Type, and allows for blog posting without having to login to your MT site. I downloaded the app at work and at home, and it works brilliantly. Give it a try if you are an MT blogger. Another related app is w.bloggar, which works with MT and other blog software.

:: When composing an entry for your blog, remember to try really, really hard, not to accidentally hit CTRL and W keys together, the combination of which closes the page you’ve been working on, resulting in the loss of everything you’ve just written.

Like I just did.

Good night.

:: Geoff and I gave a presentation on Thursday afternoon called biblioBLOGS: Building Blogs and Sharing Information. During the session, we were asked about the difference between blogs and online forums. This is something I’ve thought about in the past, and the one difference that comes to mind first is this: forums seem to exist in a “question and answer” environment. Two days ago, I asked a question in the Moveable Type Support Forum about a style sheet problem. I checked back a day later, and a kind soul provided me with the solution, which worked nicely! I’ve posted “I need help” types of questions and received help, in other support forums such as Dell Community Forum and Blogomania. Forums need not be restricted to Q&A, mind you; many forums bring together those who share similar interests, such as music. Check out the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, featuring discussions on a wide range of music and hardware topics.

Blogs are more personal and of an individual nature. Posts tend not to be moderated, there isn’t an FAQ to read, and you don’t need to register and login to participate. One theme I see running through some of the discussion I’ve read is that blogs tend to reduce the signal to noise ratio – there is more content of substance and less waste of space in blog posts and related discussions. And consider that if you find information on a blog site that you want or need to know, why would you bother going anywhere else, subsquently, if your need has been filled? It doesn’t matter, necessarily, if the route to that particular blog was serendipitous. There is no way on the planet anyone anywhere, anymore, can get a handle on all that’s happening out there. Who are we kidding? (Well, Triumph likes to kid, “I keeed!!.”)

In any event, here are a few interesting entries that discuss blogs, forums, online discussion, and the like:

• Coates, Tom. Discussion and citation in the blogosphere… Plastic Bag, 25 May 2003.
• McIntyre, Al. Blogs vs. discussion forums. Al McIntyre’s Radio Weblog, 28 Aug 2002.
• Murphy, Gary Lawrence. Blogs ‘n’ boards. TELEDYN :: have blog – will travel ::, 27 May 2003.
• Ozzie, Ray. Architecture matters: the rebirth of public discussion. Ray Ozzie’s Weblog, 12 Aug 2002.
• Plato. Forums vs. blogs. The Ducks of Plato, 22 Nov 2002.

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