Thought for food
Borrowing a concept from a fellow I used to work with. I give you my thoughts, you give me food. Yeah, going on lunchtime.
The topic of today's entry: "Friends-only" blogs/blog entries. This is something that's been confounding me for a while now. I see this from time to time, and it seems particularly prevalent on LiveJournal over other blogging services (Blogger, Xanga), and nonexistent on privately-hosted Movable Type/WordPress blogs, probably because they don't have those bizarre social-networking platforms to operate on installed on every damn site that hosts them.
Anyway, getting sidetracked. "Friends-only." I've been turning this over in my head for a while and I can't seem to decipher the logic behind the phenomenon. I've always seen the Internet as a communications tool. At its core, that's exactly what the Internet is. In the early days there were BBS services and IRC channels, newsgroups, LISTSERVs, and the venerable, ubiquitous E-mail. All of these served the same fundamental purpose: communication.
Once the World Wide Web (not the same as the Internet, though I'd like to think the folks reading me would know that) came into its prime (after the days of single-long-ass-page HTML documents with sliding rainbow HR tags--I'm talking late 90s/early 2000s here), there was a noticeable shift in focus away from the "wild-west" systems of old and onto forms of online communication styled after print publications. Some sites followed this more than others, and certainly there were those that went off and did their own thing, eschewing the trends of the time, but by many rights websites were becoming online magazines or newspapers.
Then, the next generation of Internet-based communication services (marketroids labeled it with the nonsensical and ill-thought-out moniker "Web 2.0" [1]) came into being. Blogs were a major part of this "Web 2.0" phenomenon. Not necessarily the first, but these days they're certainly among the most pervasive elements of the user-generated-content-heavy sectors of the Web.
Blogs (as if you didn't know) give users a way to easily publish information, opinions, thoughts, reviews, previews, code, specifications, requirements, images, sound, video, or just about any other kind of data imaginable. "So what? Big deal. You can do that with a website." True, but the advantage of a blog is that it does the dirty work of HTML/CSS formatting for the user, thus enabling publishing by those who have something to say but not the knowledge of markup languages to effectively say it. This is subject to debate as to its nature as a good or bad thing, but the point remains that blogs enable quick and easy publishing without having to sift through piles of code. This in turn enables someone to reach the large audiences previously available only to web developers, but with the simplicity of E-mail or BBS services.
So now we have people who can easily publish what's on their mind. "Fantastic," I say. "Go forth and publish! The pen is mightier than the sword! And give me back my pants!" Just seeing if you were still paying attention. So people go out and publish, but then, for whatever reason, blog-hosting services give people the option of posting "private" updates to a blog. This is where everything starts going down Counter-Intuitive Boulevard. The whole point of a blog, as I have always seen it (and maybe I'm just flat-out wrong about this and that's where the confusion lies), is that it enables one to reach large audiences with ease. Now, however, with "private entries" or "friends-only," that advantage is effectively nullified and we're back to the days of either communicating with the world at large via websites or, more specifically, communicating within small circles via BBS/Usenet/IRC/LISTSERVs/E-mail.
So...then...why not just use a BBS or E-mail if you want to communicate with only your friends? I'm sorry to burst bubbles, but NOBODY has a circle of friends large enough that they need a blog to reach them all. Hell, start up your own IRC server, host your own Invision/phpBB/vBulletin message board, or just use frickin' E-mail. I can't help but feel like I'm missing some fundamental part of the equation here. Marking a blog posting as "friends-only" seems like nothing more than some juvenile attempt at stirring up drama or provoking some jealous/indignant/angry emotional response. It's akin to hanging a sign with bright red letters saying "GOOD FREE STUFF INSIDE!" on a door whose doorknob has a numeric keypad attached to it (substitute biometrics/magstripe/RFID as your preference dictates). What's the point?
If you want to communicate privately, there already exists TONS of infrastructure for that, some of it decades old and developed to perfection. Seriously, when's the last time you remember having problems with E-mail because of a bug in the POP/IMAP/SMTP protocols? The protocols themselves, not someone's misconfigured server.
If you want to communicate publicly and have the skills (and the time, o ye accursed eternal arch-nemesis), make a website for yourself. Hosting is cheap and I'll set up your web server for you personally. If you want to communicate publicly and don't want to bother with hosting fees/server configuration/writing code, then use a blog.
If you use a blog, however, please attempt to understand that you're using an inherently public communications medium and that "friends-only" entries/blogs are doing nothing but cluttering up server space that could be better used hosting something that benefits everybody.
Quote of the Moment: "Turn ALL friends-only and private entries public, so everyone can see them. Thus rendering the "piggybackers*" obsolete, all the knives in each others backs will be totally revealed. Know those negative things you said in private about your boyfriend that he didn't know about? He would know now. ...and watch armageddon happen with a bunch of moody 19 year olds. :)" -British(51765), Slashdot.
(equally hilarious) Reply here.
Song of the Day: "Pillar of Salt" by Star Salzman.
[1]: This is tangential to the topic of this post, but I feel the need to clarify, for those who aren't active in IT circles, the reason why "Web 2.0" is such a reviled term among geeks. It's actually a simple explanation: Version numbers are intended to denote differences, be they large or small, in the form, function, or codebase of a piece of hardware or software. "Web 2.0" only refers to new applications for existing Web technologies, but does not accompany any change in the technical specifications of the World Wide Web itself. No new version of HTML is associated with it, no revision to the HTTP protocol, nothing. It seems petty or nitpicky to those whose passion is not technology but it treads on sacred ground, so to speak, to geeks and can cause a lot of confusion for those whose computer knowledge encompasses the general concept of versioning but who do not understand the specifics. The tech semi-literate are more likely to be interested in "Web 2.0" than the modern-day luddites, but at the same time are also more likely to be misled by marketing terminology into believing "Web 2.0" reflects some radical change in the way the World Wide Web operates. In reality, it reflects only a bunch of self-important bloggers, irritating teenage Myspace users, and campus-resident students at big, populous party colleges posting pictures of themselves in various states of undress and/or inebriation and spewing bullshit about how they're angry that their off-brand MP3 player was stolen from the locker room.
Now that I think about it, maybe "friends-only" isn't such a bad idea anyway. At least not if it spares me from having to read drivel like that.
The topic of today's entry: "Friends-only" blogs/blog entries. This is something that's been confounding me for a while now. I see this from time to time, and it seems particularly prevalent on LiveJournal over other blogging services (Blogger, Xanga), and nonexistent on privately-hosted Movable Type/WordPress blogs, probably because they don't have those bizarre social-networking platforms to operate on installed on every damn site that hosts them.
Anyway, getting sidetracked. "Friends-only." I've been turning this over in my head for a while and I can't seem to decipher the logic behind the phenomenon. I've always seen the Internet as a communications tool. At its core, that's exactly what the Internet is. In the early days there were BBS services and IRC channels, newsgroups, LISTSERVs, and the venerable, ubiquitous E-mail. All of these served the same fundamental purpose: communication.
Once the World Wide Web (not the same as the Internet, though I'd like to think the folks reading me would know that) came into its prime (after the days of single-long-ass-page HTML documents with sliding rainbow HR tags--I'm talking late 90s/early 2000s here), there was a noticeable shift in focus away from the "wild-west" systems of old and onto forms of online communication styled after print publications. Some sites followed this more than others, and certainly there were those that went off and did their own thing, eschewing the trends of the time, but by many rights websites were becoming online magazines or newspapers.
Then, the next generation of Internet-based communication services (marketroids labeled it with the nonsensical and ill-thought-out moniker "Web 2.0" [1]) came into being. Blogs were a major part of this "Web 2.0" phenomenon. Not necessarily the first, but these days they're certainly among the most pervasive elements of the user-generated-content-heavy sectors of the Web.
Blogs (as if you didn't know) give users a way to easily publish information, opinions, thoughts, reviews, previews, code, specifications, requirements, images, sound, video, or just about any other kind of data imaginable. "So what? Big deal. You can do that with a website." True, but the advantage of a blog is that it does the dirty work of HTML/CSS formatting for the user, thus enabling publishing by those who have something to say but not the knowledge of markup languages to effectively say it. This is subject to debate as to its nature as a good or bad thing, but the point remains that blogs enable quick and easy publishing without having to sift through piles of code. This in turn enables someone to reach the large audiences previously available only to web developers, but with the simplicity of E-mail or BBS services.
So now we have people who can easily publish what's on their mind. "Fantastic," I say. "Go forth and publish! The pen is mightier than the sword! And give me back my pants!" Just seeing if you were still paying attention. So people go out and publish, but then, for whatever reason, blog-hosting services give people the option of posting "private" updates to a blog. This is where everything starts going down Counter-Intuitive Boulevard. The whole point of a blog, as I have always seen it (and maybe I'm just flat-out wrong about this and that's where the confusion lies), is that it enables one to reach large audiences with ease. Now, however, with "private entries" or "friends-only," that advantage is effectively nullified and we're back to the days of either communicating with the world at large via websites or, more specifically, communicating within small circles via BBS/Usenet/IRC/LISTSERVs/E-mail.
So...then...why not just use a BBS or E-mail if you want to communicate with only your friends? I'm sorry to burst bubbles, but NOBODY has a circle of friends large enough that they need a blog to reach them all. Hell, start up your own IRC server, host your own Invision/phpBB/vBulletin message board, or just use frickin' E-mail. I can't help but feel like I'm missing some fundamental part of the equation here. Marking a blog posting as "friends-only" seems like nothing more than some juvenile attempt at stirring up drama or provoking some jealous/indignant/angry emotional response. It's akin to hanging a sign with bright red letters saying "GOOD FREE STUFF INSIDE!" on a door whose doorknob has a numeric keypad attached to it (substitute biometrics/magstripe/RFID as your preference dictates). What's the point?
If you want to communicate privately, there already exists TONS of infrastructure for that, some of it decades old and developed to perfection. Seriously, when's the last time you remember having problems with E-mail because of a bug in the POP/IMAP/SMTP protocols? The protocols themselves, not someone's misconfigured server.
If you want to communicate publicly and have the skills (and the time, o ye accursed eternal arch-nemesis), make a website for yourself. Hosting is cheap and I'll set up your web server for you personally. If you want to communicate publicly and don't want to bother with hosting fees/server configuration/writing code, then use a blog.
If you use a blog, however, please attempt to understand that you're using an inherently public communications medium and that "friends-only" entries/blogs are doing nothing but cluttering up server space that could be better used hosting something that benefits everybody.
Quote of the Moment: "Turn ALL friends-only and private entries public, so everyone can see them. Thus rendering the "piggybackers*" obsolete, all the knives in each others backs will be totally revealed. Know those negative things you said in private about your boyfriend that he didn't know about? He would know now. ...and watch armageddon happen with a bunch of moody 19 year olds. :)" -British(51765), Slashdot.
(equally hilarious) Reply here.
Song of the Day: "Pillar of Salt" by Star Salzman.
[1]: This is tangential to the topic of this post, but I feel the need to clarify, for those who aren't active in IT circles, the reason why "Web 2.0" is such a reviled term among geeks. It's actually a simple explanation: Version numbers are intended to denote differences, be they large or small, in the form, function, or codebase of a piece of hardware or software. "Web 2.0" only refers to new applications for existing Web technologies, but does not accompany any change in the technical specifications of the World Wide Web itself. No new version of HTML is associated with it, no revision to the HTTP protocol, nothing. It seems petty or nitpicky to those whose passion is not technology but it treads on sacred ground, so to speak, to geeks and can cause a lot of confusion for those whose computer knowledge encompasses the general concept of versioning but who do not understand the specifics. The tech semi-literate are more likely to be interested in "Web 2.0" than the modern-day luddites, but at the same time are also more likely to be misled by marketing terminology into believing "Web 2.0" reflects some radical change in the way the World Wide Web operates. In reality, it reflects only a bunch of self-important bloggers, irritating teenage Myspace users, and campus-resident students at big, populous party colleges posting pictures of themselves in various states of undress and/or inebriation and spewing bullshit about how they're angry that their off-brand MP3 player was stolen from the locker room.
Now that I think about it, maybe "friends-only" isn't such a bad idea anyway. At least not if it spares me from having to read drivel like that.
posted by Aidan Novastral at 10:09 AM
10 comments
