Monthly Archives: January 2005

01.12.05
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Tom Reynolds on BBC Radio Scotland

My good friend Tom, who keeps a blog called Random Acts of Reality about his work as an EMT, recently took part in a BBC radio discussion about bloggers who write about their jobs. You can listen to it in the BBC Radio Scotland archives – but click this link before Monday when the archive refreshes.

Four people took part in the discussion, including one employer who was rabidly anti-blog, and who started off by accusing Tom of racism. I suspect he’d taken a brief look at Tom’s blog, and misinterpreted a discussion about which languages might be useful for Tom to learn, (he works in a borough of London where there are a lot of non-English speaking immigrants) and immediately spotted an opportunity to attempt to bring Tom into disrepute. Not an intelligent tactic, considering that he was doing on the radio precisely what he was accusing bloggers of doing online – speaking without due thought and consideration.

Hmm, paranoid employer, demonised blogger… I see a theme emerging.

01.12.05
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First UK blogger fired for blogging

In the first case of its kind in the UK, blogger Joe Gordon from Edinburgh has been sacked by his employer Waterstone’s for a few mildly negative comments he made about his job on his satirical blog, The Woolamaloo Gazette. Joe was warned shortly before Christmas that he was going to be subject to a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct for bringing Waterstone’s into disrepute, but due to the festive season the hearing did not take place until 5th January. The hearing found that he had ‘violated the rules’ and he was summarily dismissed.

In dismissing Joe, though, Waterstone’s has prompted a massive backlash and huge amounts of very negative publicity – the story has been covered by BoingBoing, The Guardian, The Scotsman, The Bookseller, and The Register. Matthew Whitaker, who is a fellow blogger and a friend of Joe’s, is keeping a round up of all the press this story receives, and there have been a huge number of supportive comments on Joe’s own blog with many people writing to the company to complain or promising to boycott Waterstone’s completely.

As a bookseller with 11 years experience at Waterstone’s, and as someone responsible for organising many of the book signings that have taken place in the Edinburgh branch, Joe has the support not only of the blogosphere but also of authors such as Neil Gaiman, Charles Stross, and Richard Morgan.

All in all, this has turned into a major PR gaffe for the company – the blog-savvy media here have all been aware of the possibility of someone getting sacked for blogging because it’s happened several times in America, and they’ve been just gagging for a story like this to unfold here. I predict that it will be picked up now by the wider media, that Joe will get a whole lot of useful legal advice and support, and that Waterstone’s will end up with a large serving of egg on their face. Which will stick.

In the US, employment law exists but is weak – if you challenge your former employer’s decision to dismiss you, you are very likely to wind up on the heap marked ‘unemployable’ even if you win, but the situation in the UK is very different. Tribunals and unfair dismissal cases are taken more seriously, not just by the unions but by people in general. When someone gets fired unfairly, we tend to come down on the side of the employee. We like our underdogs.

My hopes for Joe, on a personal level, is that he gets the support and advice he requires to successfully challenge Waterstone’s and that he gets recompense for his dismissal which, on the face of it, looks very unfair. I also hope that he gets a far better job than the one that he was fired from. But looking at this more broadly, this case brings to light the fact that there has been in general a lack of thought about the issue of bloggers mentioning their work on their blogs and what that means. We need now to have some calm, sensible discussions about the repercussions of what has happened.

More to come when I’ve had a think about it.

01.11.05
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A good week for Technorati

In a week dominated by discussion of Six Apart’s acquisition of LiveJournal, Technorati has had its fair share of news.

Developer’s Contest

Technorati announced their developer’s contest winner, Joshua Tauberer, whose GovTrack uses the Technorati API to track the status of bills on the floor of Congress. This entry fits in neatly with Technorati’s interest in tracking politics, which it did in the run up to the Presidential election via a dedicated area on the site.

I would, however, like to see Tauberer and Technorati spread their interest a little wider than home-grown politics and develop GovTrack to look at data from other countries. Whilst Technorati is an American company, they have here an opportunity to broaden a few horizons by acknowledging that their user base is global and that in order to be truly useful applications of their API need to be global too.

It’ll be interesting to see what Technorati does next with the code that’s been written for their API. At the moment, it’s all dispersed around the web with varying quality of instruction for users. Having got this far, it would be good to see Technorati bring together their winners (there were five runners-up) and help them groom their code further for more widespread public use.

Boolean Operands and Watchlists

Dave Sifry announced last week that Technorati now allows you to create watchlists (cosmos searches that you want to keep an eye on) from keywords using complex search terms. Once your watchlist has been created you can use the RSS feed to keep up to date with new items as they come in.

In your keyword search, either for a cosmos or a watchlist, you can now use “” to enclose a set phrase, () to enclose a sub-phrase, and the Boolean operands OR, AND and NOT. (Note: the CAPS are important – don’t use lower case). This allows you to get very specific with your searches and weed out a lot of the cruft that can get in the way of good results.

But as far as I can tell, they do not have wildcard symbols, which is a shame. If I want to look for “social network*” where * equals any ending, I have to think of the variants myself – ‘social AND (network OR networks OR networking)’. Nor can I replace a word in a phrase, e.g. “too * to be true” to find ‘too good to be true’ or ‘too fishy to be true’, or a letter in a word, e.g. ‘stac?’ to find ‘stacy’ or ‘staci’, as you can in Google.

Another limitation is that you can’t sort your keyword search results by authority – it will only display the most recent entries. If, for example, you are searching for information on a current event and you want to see which entries have most links, you are going to have to wade through all your search results and pick them out by hand. That’s a shame because the authority view would be very useful when trying to get a feel for how the blogsphere is reacting to big news.

Quick Claim

Technorati have also now made the blog claiming process easier. Whereas before you had to insert a piece of code into your blog template so that Technorati could verify that you really do own the blog you say you own, you can now do that using your blog username and password. This allows Technorati to call your blog API to make sure that the URI, username and password all match, thus verifying your ownership.

This new Quick Claim works for all the major blog vendors such as TypePad, MT, Blogger and Blogware. Joey deVilla has a great ‘how to’ for Blogware users but the principle is the same for all blog platforms.

Technorati Searchlets

Finally, Technorati are now providing searchlets – code that you can add to your blog to provide a search facility. The code is automatically customised for your blog and allows users to search either your blog individually or all blogs indexed by Technorati.

Technorati have been developing some useful services over the last few months, and I’m glad to see them continuing this trend. I would, however, like to see them address some nuts and bolts problems with Technorati, such as the discrepancies between ‘most recent’ and ‘by authority’ URI search results, and between your own cosmos stats and your stats as displayed in a someone else’s cosmos; the listing of internal blog references (i.e. when I link to a post of my own) in that blog’s cosmos; and the inability to cleanly deal with blog hosting companies whose software creates two URIs for the main page, e.g. http://chocnvodka.blogware.com and http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog.

I would also again like to state that the Technorati site needs a redesign – its navigation is far from optimal, forcing as it does the user to keep going back to the main page in order to get to different areas of the site. I dislike websites that have their content divided into silos that you can’t jump sideways between, particularly sites as small (in terms of pages, not database size) as Technorati. Their navigation at the moment is dire from a usability point of view and it desperately needs fixing.

Disclosure: My personal blog is hosted at Blogware, and I am a friend of Kevin Marks at Technorati. At least, I hope I am, after this.

01.06.05
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The rumours are true -Six Apart has bought LiveJournal

I’m not surprised, and I don’t think many people will be. I am, however, pleased to read in Brad Fitzpatrick’s announcement and Mena Trott’s blog post that much of what I wrote yesterday was dead on the money. There’s more information on the Six Apart FAQ and on their Professional Network Introduction to LiveJournal.

Unlike the pessimists and nay-sayers, (some of whom have changed their minds), and the odd angry LiveJournaler, (I looked for more but could hardly find any substantive bile), I think that this acquisition is good news. I don’t think that the Balkanisation of the blogging world – and whether you like it or not, LiveJournal is a part of the blogosphere – actually does anyone any good. The fact that some people on both sides despise each other is not a positive and I hope that by working closely together Six Apart and LiveJournal can do something to heal the rift.

I’m not saying that everyone should just love each other, (although that would be nice), but recognising that one tool does not fit all and that a range of tools are requires to provide for the needs of a range of people would be a good start. The truth is that whilst there are plenty of LiveJournals that fit the LiveJournal stereotype of angst-ridden teenage goth, and plenty of TypePad blogs that fit the blog stereotype of self-important opinionated idiot, there are more people using these tools which do not fit the stereotypes than some people would admit. There are LiveJournal-style blogs and TypePad-style journals.

And this is not a problem.

All blogs have validity within their own context, whether they are pulling 10,000 visitors a day or are a nanoblog aimed only at close friends and family. Mena talked about this at BlogTalk in July last year, and also at SuperNova:

We evolve from publishing for thousands, to smaller groups [said Mena]. She wants, she says, to move from a readership of 10,000 to a readership of ten; but ten people she cares about and would like to have over to her home. Also, she’s noticing that a substantial proportion of the TypePad blogs are basically private for-friends, with no desire for general public exposure.

This understanding of the value of blogging for friends, which is basically what LiveJournal is all about, stands Mena in good stead, and I hope it is an indicator that Six Apart are capable of not only respecting the needs of the LiveJournal users, but also developing the site along lines that will encourage new users to explore what LiveJournal has to offer.

01.05.05
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Six Apart to buy LiveJournal?

Om Malik reports that he has learnt that Six Apart are to buy LiveJournal for ‘an undisclosed sum’.

The deal is a mix of stock and cash, and could be announced sometime later this month, according to those close to the two companies. If the deal goes through, then Six Apart will become one of the largest weblog companies in the world, with nearly 6.5 million users. It also gives the company a very fighting chance against Google’s Blogger and Microsoft’s MSN Spaces

Over on apophenia, danah boyd is deeply disquieted by the news.

My biggest concern is that a merger will stunt the cultural growth on LiveJournal that makes it so fascinating. My second concern is that Six Apart will not be prepared to deal with the userbase and will initiate practices that are more detrimental because of fear. […] My third concern is that LiveJournal will shift because of investor value. It’s already compared to blogging, but as its own entity, it doesn’t have to be evaluated on those terms. If bought by Six Apart, i’m concerned that SA’s investors will evaluate it on SA blogging’s terms instead of in terms of LJ. My fourth concern is that fear of control will limit the evolving identity production/consumption that makes LiveJournal so valuable for youth and marginalized populations. It’s already far too public for more people, but easy access to LJ from MT/Typepad could be a disaster for many LJers.

danah is right that there is a totally different culture at LiveJournal, compared to the blogosphere at large, and I agree that if Six Apart do acquire LiveJournal then they will have to tread very carefully in deciding what they are going to do with it. But I think danah’s a bit off the mark with her the characterisation of bloggers as largely uncaring and devoid of community spirit by LiveJournalers is a shame and a bit off the mark. (Changed due to danah clarifying her post on this – see comments.)

Bloggers care just as deeply about their online friends as LiveJournalers do, and cohesive communities do spring up within the blogosphere. The main difference is that communities on LiveJournal are explicit – they are created within LiveJournal and contain LiveJournals. They are easily located, easily joined and their borders are clearly and sharply defined. Communities in the blogosphere are fuzzier affairs with borders that shift as people come and go. They are harder to locate because there is no single place where they are listed and they are less explicit about who is in them and who is a friend of whom (as opposed to just being on a blogroll – even the ‘I’ve met’ markers used by some don’t actually indicate friendship per se).

The implication that LiveJournalers care, but bloggers don’t, is just plain wrong. I’ve seen innumerable examples of bloggers caring about what happens to other bloggers, from people supporting financially a blogger whose house burnt down to private support groups being formed to help a blogger through difficult times. I am sure that if you look, you will find all sorts of examples of bloggers supporting other bloggers, but perhaps they are less obvious than those on LiveJournal.

LiveJournal provides a toolset which is different to the average blogging platform, and it is the software, not the people, that allows for the high degree of social networking that happens in LiveJournal. From posting your mood and what music you are playing to the built-in aggregator of friends’ LiveJournals, to the potential for creating a semi-private walled garden through levels of permission, these tools are what creates such distinct and well defined communities.

Of course, blogs do not have all of these tools built in, and the communities that form within the blogosphere are of a different nature. Yet I do not believe that the blogosphere is all about the tool and LiveJournal is not. They are both about the tool, yet they are both also about the people. You choose the tool that works for you, and some of that decision might be influenced by the tools that your friends use, but it cuts both ways – some people choose LiveJournal because their friends use it, some people use blogs because their friends use them. It’s just that in LiveJournal, that trend is more visible because of the social networking that goes on within the tool.

For example, I just set up a friend with a MovableType blog which is hosted on her own server. I would never have set her up with a TypePad blog, or a Blogware blog, or LiveJournal, even though I have one of each myself and know how to use them. This is because MT is precisely the right tool for her – I know that she is going to want to start fiddling with the back end as soon as she feels comfortable with it. She will want to change the templates and the CSS and will probably do a bunch of other stuff that I couldn’t possibly predict.

Yet, in setting up my friend with her blog, the only connection between us will be a blogroll link with a little asterisk by it (or possibly two). The link between us remains largely invisible to the public, even though she is one of my closest friends. But, had we both been LiveJournalers, then our friendship would be made explicit because of the way one creates links between friends. It is the tool which is making communities visible, it is not down to the people.

There is a cultural gulf between Six Apart and LiveJournal, which is as much to do with people’s perceptions and prejudices as with reality, and Six Apart are going to need to tread lightly if this acquisition goes ahead. They have, however had practice.

In July last year, Loïc le Meur sold U-Blog to Six Apart, provoking fury amongst a small section of the U-Blog community. As Stephanie Booth explains, U-Blog had a very strong community that had grown up around it, but when Loïc sold it to Six Apart and offered U-Bloggers a discount on a new TypePad account, there was a small core of people who were deeply unimpressed. The protestations lead to arguments and the situation got a bit messy. Eventually, the furore subsided, but that experience should have provided Six Apart with a good insight into the way in which people feel loyalty to a given tool (even in the blogosphere) and how easily it is to anger people both accidentally and through negligent communications. (Indeed, Six Apart’s own licencing fiasco should have taught them that lesson.)

I therefore feel hopeful that if this rumour is true, Six Apart will have the wherewithal to act with sensitivity and empathy, and not ignore the cultural ramifications of what they are doing, both in terms of the LiveJournalers and the MovableTypers/TypePadders.

Of course, all that cultural stuff is important, but so are the business reasons why LiveJournal might be selling to Six Apart. If one were going to look only at the cultural aspects of the two companies, one might wonder what there is to be gained by this acquisition, but if one makes a few assumptions one can start to see a few possibilities for growth.

I do need to make a disclaimer here: all this is speculation. I have no inside sources and no information. I’m just thinking a few thoughts and wondering if they have any validity at all. We will have to see what reality is, as and when it happens.

LiveJournal is funded by donations and a paid upgrade plan that provides it with enough cash to support its core of employees. But rumour has it that Brad Fitzpatrick has no real interest in running LiveJournal as a business and whilst that is fine for smaller companies, eventually some enterprises reach a size where they need business plans and strategic thinking. It may well make a lot of sense for LiveJournal to be bought by Six Apart, providing them not only with extra resources for product development and maintenance, but also the business acumen to keep LiveJournal going.

The benefit to Six Apart may have a bit more to do with the way that they are perceived at the moment. Ben and Mena created MovableType themselves and I suspect that they have/had an emotional attachment to it which would have made it unpleasant for them to have to impose a licensing structure to it. Equally, the perception of Six Apart within the blogosphere was badly damaged by that whole licensing snafu – suddenly Ben and Mena were seen as sell-outs who betrayed their open source roots. But in buying LiveJournal, Six Apart have the chance to earn back some geek cred by pledging to support the open source community that surrounds the software itself.

There must also be sound business reasons for wanting to buy LiveJournal that I’m not even touching upon. Joi Ito, who is Chairman of Six Apart Japan and whose company, Neoteny, invested in Six Apart, is such an astute businessman that I cannot imagine he would back an acquisition like this if it didn’t make sense. And that is, I think, good. Businesses need to be strong in order to survive, and if Six Apart can provide LiveJournal with the right sort of support, then there is no reason at all why LiveJournal can’t continue to flourish.

I don’t share danah boyd’s pessimism at all, instead I am optimistic that this acquisition will prove to be good for both Six Apart and LiveJournal, providing cross-pollination amongst developers and a healthy future for both platforms.

Of course there is no need – and nor would it make any sense – for Six Apart to try to move LiveJournal users over onto TypePad, which appears to be the main fear of those commenting on MetaFilter. This is unlike their acquisition of U-Blog, where there was a small blogging platform created and maintained by one person. In that situation it made sense to shift users to TypePad where there were more resources for support and development, but there is no sense in Six Apart trying to impose a complete tool change on LiveJournal users. It would be a disaster from every perspective.

But there are undoubtedly areas where both platforms could benefit from seeing how the other works and even if they don’t share code, they could certainly share concepts. TypePad could become more sociable and community oriented with the built-in aggregators offered by the LiveJournal friends pages and the centralised groups page. LiveJournal could benefit from TypeKey, allowing more flexibility in how users configure their comments preferences and TypeLists providing the ability to share what books and music the user is interested in.

In fact, the more I think about this, the more I hope that this rumour turns out to have substance because it would provide an opportunity to both bridge a gap in the blogging/LiveJournaling world (which to me currently seems more damaging than useful) and create a spectrum of tools suitable for a wide variety of people.