Saturday, December 20, 2003

Pictures taken at Clark and Gephardt talks today. 

Saw two presidential campaigns today: Clark (in Derry, NH) and Gephardt (Manchester). I asked Clark a question, to see if he had an idea that money might not be such a big issue in this election and future elections. This is an idea Lessig tried to explain in his Lydon interview, and that I've been saying over and over. Now Jeff Jarvis has echoed the idea via Jay Rosen -- the campaigns, while they use the Internet, are one-way not two-way. That's what I was hoping Clark would say, and he almost did. Got a lot of good pictures, not sure how I want to present them yet. Clark has become a much more compelling candidate since the last time I saw him, before BloggerCon, in Sept. Gephardt, imho, was going through the motions. Lots of laborers there. He talked about jobs and health care. Clark almost gave a schpiel about the First Amendment. He's getting close to where I want a candidate to be. Also, I really feel he could beat Bush, if he can win the nomination. I had audio, but somehow the Rhomba decided to format itself, and in doing so, wiped out the recordings. Next time I'll copy the files as soon as I plug the device in. 

Off to see Clark (1PM) and Gephardt (3PM) in NH today. 

The eyes of Joi Ito oversee weblogs.com.  

Kaye Trammel asks what RSS can do for you, and almost nails it. It's true you are being generous by publishing what you write in RSS; and it does make it easier for the reader, but you get something in return -- commitment. A person who subscribes to your weblog is saying they want a permanent relationship, they want to read everything you say. Someone who doesn't subscribe comes when they remember, or when someone else points to you. Not much commitment there. BTW, a subscription doesn't mean they agree with you, or even like you. Remember the old agage: Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. 

Erika Stutzman: "The University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication is hosting a Weblogs in Journalism seminar in January, yet another sign that the online journals and forums are starting to mature." 

The Blogosphere and the Holidays 

First, if this time of year makes you cheerful, have a happy. I'm pretty ambivalent. There are some things I like and some things I don't. I see the pressure to buy for what it is. Pressure, which I don't like, and commercialism, which I also don't like. I love buying nice things, but almost no one knows how to do that for me like I do. I suspect that's true of everyone.

One of the things I like about this time of year is that so many people seem to have a time to do interesting and fun things. It's like everyone gets a mini-sabbatical. It's time to go to a game, to the movies, a museum, out to a long lunch or visit with a few bloggers you haven't stayed in touch with. Next week I'm going to be in NYC. Maybe there will be an opportunity to do some or all of that.

Randy Charles Morin sent a question about this. Does the blogosphere pick up or go on holiday during the holidays? Here's what I said.

1. I don't have any data, but I do have subjectives.

2. The actual flow goes down, around the 25th way down.

3. But the volume of real work goes up, because people have time for projects that require attention or thinking, which they have more of in the coming two-three weeks.

I've done some of my best work in this period in years past. My first two XML projects, siteChanges.xml and scriptingNews format (which became half of RSS 0.91) were hatched in December 1997. Last year in this time period I helped my parents get through a tough time. I was telling my brother yesterday that I have fond memories of this, it gave me a strong sense of purpose, and a sense that I made a difference. That also happened during the holidays last year.

So mostly the holidays are good. I especially like it when stress isn't a big part of it.