stevendkrause.com

Cory Doctorow, who is one of the brain trusts behind one of the 5 or so most popular blogs out there, has a piece in Information Week called “17 Tips for Getting Bloggers to Write About You.” Much of it is common sense and/or about links. Incidentally, the IW site has some of the most annoying ad pop-up gimmicks I’ve seen in a while. I got some weird one just by hitting the back arrow.

I don’t know how much anthem writing I’m doing exactly, but via a comment on another post (which I just decided to make into a new post in itself) comes this piece from MiLife MiTimes, “Local Bloggers Write Ypsi’s Kick-Ass Anthem.” This here site is mentioned, along with EMUTalk.org and many fine and local Ypsi-Arbor blogs.

From the site Webware, this info/review on a new blog directory and review service, Blogged.com. I dunno, this may or may not be useful. I will probably play around with it as a means of coming up with “quasi-random” blogs to solicit for my BAWS survey and I will admit that I don’t think there’s a very good service that does this now. Still, is it necessary?

While watching the Oscars tonight, I’m sorting through my RSS Feed Reader.

• CCE gave my The Process of Research Writing a shout-out. I haven’t really had a lot of time to do much with this since I put it up on line last year and it’s not exactly a site that is just burnin’ up the Internets, but I do know that hundreds people have at least looked at this thing, which is hundreds more than would have looked at it had I left it as it was with my previous publisher.
• Via jill/txt, girls apparently blog more than boys. A potentially interesting link to follow through on for teaching, but since my BAWS project specifically skips the under 18 year old crowd, not so much for my research.
• Blackboard wins patent case. I have to be honest, I don’t really quite know what this means in terms of what other CMS tools or open source tools or what-have-you, but it sounds like it could be significant. I suppose one option is to just not use Blackboard at all, which I’ve happily managed to do so far.
• 12 Screencasting Tools for Creating Video Tutorials, which is from a site I think I’m going to subscribe to called mashable.com. Personally, I am very partial to iShowU, but there are a couple of other Mac options that look pretty interesting, too.

“The Waiter” at waiterrant.net has a book coming out. waiterrant.net is a very well-written blog that is just that, a waiter ranting (and in other ways discussing) the life of waiting tables at a nice restaurant in NYC. What I’d really like is if this guy would agree to be a case study subject for my BAWS project, but so far, the folks who have signed on for either the survey or the case study haven’t had the level of success of this guy with their blogs. I certainly haven’t been able to talk with anyone yet whose blog writing translated into a book deal.

Anyway, congrats to him, and check out waiterrant if you haven’t done so before.

… not a bad summary of blogging in general: “Blogs,” by Sarah Boxer in the New York Review of Books. I don’t agree with all of it for all kinds of different reasons, and I think it is an example of the classic mistake that the popular press always seems to make when talking about blogs– that is, they try to define them in some kind of relationship with journalism, and it is usually defined in negative terms. But it would probably be a good introductory reading to assign to get the “what are these blog things, anyway?” conversation going.

… all from this entry at kottke.org. My favorite is the first one, “Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle,” though there are many others.

… but I know a lot of people in the computers and writing community do. So I thought I’d pass along this link to the Drupal Cook Book | Nancy’s Information Site. I have no idea if it is any good or not, but I do know it exists, and I might be looking at it more closely when (or if) I get time. I’ve been thinking lately that some of the options that drupal offers might make it worth it for me to abandon emuonline (the local tool for online teaching) in favor of something I run myself, either something like drupal or something like moodle. We shall see….

I haven’t read it yet, but I’m posting a link to “Clancy Ratliff: Blogger Scholar … Blogger-Scholar” in Computers and Composition Online for three reasons:

• Clancy almost always has smart stuff to say.
• I can see this figuring into the class I’m teaching right now.
• One of the interviewers, Meredith Graupner, was one of our best and brightest in or MA program at EMU and took several classes from me. Congrats, Meredith!

I’m not sure if this is the sort of thing I should be posting on my blog now or not, especially with the project I’m working on, but I think it is awfully spot on: it’s an entry from Design Observer, “What’s in a name?” I mean, part of my research has to do with the ways in which bloggers and commentators portray identity online, and I guess I should appear to be neutral on that. But as this and other posts from the past suggest, I’m not neutral on this, and my experiences as the sitedad over at EMUTalk.org have made me even less neutral. Anyway, a long passage that sort of sums up the problems here:

A rose is a rose, and a real name at the end of a blog post is an indication that the person who authored the statement is taking responsibility, indeed ownership of the words — it is a simple act of honesty. For too long bloggers have been given license that is not tolerated in letters-to-the-editor columns of newspapers and magazines (except in extraordinary circumstances). If one is willing to expound, exclaim, or critique it should be done under a real name and with links to a valid email or website address. If transparency on the web is the new black, then there should be no secrets.

Pseudonyms like “miss representation” or “Xman” or “Pesky Illustrator” or “Inaudible Nonsense,” or even the passionate, erudite “DesignMaven,” are not cute, they are cowardly. This indictment holds true for those who only use their first names as well (the many known only as Nancy or Chris, Dan or Steve). If a blogger or responder does not have the courage to own up to his or her ideas then why should readers accept or respond to them? Having a pseudonym is not about, as some argue, building a brand story or mystique; it is about masking identity, which is inherently deceitful. Unless one has a good reason — like being on a black list or having a life in peril by a repressive government — the practice of anonymity should be considered unacceptable.

Maybe this will show up in a book chapter on identity eventually– maybe with some counter-arguments from the “pro-pseudonym” camp.