December 07, 2004
Wikipedia to Wikinews
Wikipedia, a free online encycopedia, has extended itself to Wikinews, where citizen journalists report the news. Although Wikipedia has a long entry describing blogs, Wikinews doesn't yet. Read a Wired story that says Wikinews is an effort at traditional journalism even though the journalists are amateurs.
Posted by Samantha Israel at 05:29 PM | Comments (9)
December 05, 2004
Wisdom of the crowds
Three days before our last election, Andrew Coyne asked his readers for their unbiased predictions. His revised prediction: Tories - 124, Libs - 102, Bloc - 55, NDP - 26, Independents - 1. His readers weren't far off. Colby guessed 140, 91, 55, 21. Damian Penny gave the Conservatives a 107-103 win over the Grits, and Wells was one of the few to call it a 125-108 Liberal victory. "These are barely more than random guesses," he typed. "Which is why I'm putting them on Andrew's site instead of my own."
Others who voted for a Liberal win, only 72 of 279 entrants or 25 per cent, said things like "this is not the result I want to see," and "this'll be a heartbreak for me but..."
As we now know, the Liberals beat out the Conservatives (or as some of Coyne's readers like to say, the "theives" beat the "good guys") 135-99. Coyne told me:
If they wanted one party to win, they'd say they thought they will win but wouldn't bet money on it.
Although readers showed wishful thinking more than anything else, Coyne's wisdom of the crowds experiment was a great example of reader contribution.
During the election, some of the best writing was contributed by readers. It was quite sharp and funny. They used mine as an outlet. I learned things from them that I didn't know. It turned into something between a conversation and an exchange.There's a benefit to being part of the conversation. You get a connection with your readers. Whatever you're writing, you have to have your reader first and foremost - what will entertain or persuade them - and feedback from them makes it all the better. Every writer, no matter what the form, doesn't want to be isolated from the reader. Interaction always helps.
Posted by Samantha Israel at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2004
Blog Wars
Read what Paul Wells calls another absurd, boring shitstorm.
Posted by Samantha Israel at 03:11 AM | Comments (0)
Microsoft joins the scene
Microsoft started it's own free blog tool - MSN Spaces - to compete with Blogger and the like. It's about time. Read more.
Posted by Samantha Israel at 02:45 AM | Comments (2)
Bloggers know how to par-tey
Just got back from the GTA Bloggers & Photobloggers party. We missed David Akin, but it was indeed good times. There were 50+ people there, beer in the bathtub, karaoke, twirling musical singers and accordion guy playing some kick ass tunes.
Best quotes of the evening:
I'm the blog nazi - Liz Vang, Toronto community livejournal master
I used to dance before I blew up...Gay penguin has a lot of typos cuz he types with his beak - Leah, gay penguin blogger
I write about aliens who make boob jokes - Brett Lamb, blam blogger
Guys on guys, no. Girls on girls, ya. Blog on blog, YA! - Kyte blogger
Bitch-ass-ho out.
Posted by Samantha Israel at 02:15 AM | Comments (3)
December 03, 2004
Word of the year
Merriam Webster's dictionary named blog the #1 word of the year. It was the first of ten most looked-up words on the site, along with incumbent, hurricane and partisan, but the dictionary has yet to provide a definition in its paper version. The 2005 11th edition will include blog as: a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks. Funny - of all the articles I've read about this, none explained that blog is short for weblog. Not even the dictionary.
UPDATE: Urban Dictionary is ahead of its time. Its definition of blogs takes the cake.
Posted by Samantha Israel at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)
