Category: Random

I have a theory that for a weblog to be popular, it must i) have a definite focus for its writings, ii) be written well, iii) have a clear and appealing visual presence and iv) fabricate some form of online personality that people actually like (or be famous). My theory can be extrapolated into explaining why some weblogs are less popular than others. Those sites that are based upon complete whim of content will therefore be at a certain disadvantage, unless the personality expressed is particularly effervescent. I present the following breakdown of the top eight weblogs (according to beebo.org, [Issued May 11, 16:42 GMT+10]) as proof or disproof that my theory holds water.

[NOTE: Half way through this rigorous process, I began wondering whether or not this exercise was turning into a weblog review kind of thing. Which really doesn’t interest me that much. But since the post was so bloody long already, I thought I should probably see it through. Make up your own mind as to its validity (if any) and worth (if any). I promise I’ll try and think of something more interesting to write about tomorrow…]

• http://slashdot.org
  Billing itself as “News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters”, Slashdot is the communal weblog that comments on all the latest trends in techworld. Because of the number of people posting to it, it doesn’t have the advantage of a highly individual and distinctive voice, but it more than makes up for that in a well developed community feeling. Also, it’s sheer wealth of information compensates for a clunkiness of design.
  Focus: 10 Well Written: 8 Visual Presence: 7 Famous/Endearing: 8 Additional: 8 (for depth of content)

• http://kottke.org
  Jason Kottke’s personal presence is something of a weblog anomaly. It manages to tread the fine lines between personal, cultural and tech commentary, without sacrificing integrity and without pissing off people interested in one element more than the other. Of course it helps that he is one of the focuses of elegant design on the net at the moment…
  Focus: 7 Well Written: 9 Visual Presence: 10 Famous/Endearing: 9

• http://robotwisdom.com
  Robot Wisdom’s allure is a relative mystery to me (Rocky Horror Quote: “I didn’t make him for you), although the huge amount of content that it contains is impressively picked apart and commented upon.
  Focus: 10 Well Written: 8 Visual Presence: 4 Famous/Endearing:6 Additional: 8 (for depth of content)

• http://memepool.com/
  Memepool is a stalwart denizen of the old school of weblogging – selectively providing links and commentary to many of the more interesting sites around. Content is mostly self(web)reflexive, in the sense that most the sites and news articles selected are about the net itself, but there is an intriguing sense of play and wit behind the scenes. Very little in the way of personal content.
  Focus: 7 Well Written: 9 Visual Presence: 8 Famous/Endearing: 8

• http://camworld.com/
  A site which is serious about commentary and the dissemination of information in a clear and intelligent fashion. The design pays short shrift to the idea of making the site pleasant to look at, concentrating on a more modernist aesthetic of total functionality. And it succeeds admirably. The content is laid out on the page in an incredibly clear and logical fashion. The same attitude manifests itself in the content of the log itself: functionality is the key, laconic clarity the style, and technology the subject. The few elements of HTML trickery reveal this to be a site for and by tech people.
  Focus: 10 Well Written: 7 Visual Presence: 6 Famous/Endearing: 7

• http://www.stormwerks.com/linked/
  Zannah takes a completely different approach to the weblog, drawing the personal diary-like aspects much closer to the forefront, while still revealing herself to be a serious commentator on the web and the people who live in it. She’s also the first of our ten heroic webloggers to make a picture of herself a prominant part of the site.
  Focus: 7 Well Written: 7 Visual Presence: 7 Famous/Endearing: 8

• http://www.evhead.com/
  One of the team at Pyra, and hence a stable of the blogging community, Evhead’s log looks good, mixes technical content with personal content as if there weren’t any difference at all (which for many of us, there really isn’t) and has an unselfconsciously playful attitude towards HTML, XML and DHTML trickery (without overplaying them).
  Focus: 7 Well Written: 7 Visual Presence: 8 Famous/Endearing: 8

• http://50cups.com/strange.html
  Strange log this one – designed with a certain elegance, written with a certain charm, with content that has a certain appeal. But I can think of almost nothing to say about it at all. Mainly traditional weblog format: links with short commentary and little personal detail, with occasional bubblings of a singular personality wanting to break through.
  Focus: 6 Well Written: 7 Visual Presence: 7 Famous/Endearing: 6

I’m always amazed that my favourite weblogs aren’t more well read – I guess it reflects a divergence of interests in the community as a whole. Where were: riothero, megnut, kitschbitch, powazek etc etc… [Later Note (13/05/00) Evhead explains everything]

I thought it would be interesting to come up with some really cool, and yet weird and fucked-up domain names – you know – ones that no one would ever buy, and then name them here and see if anyone bought them. I came up with a few really good ones, including my absolute favourite rabidrabbit.com. Shock of all shocks: they’ve all already gone…

Now with permalinks. I have been resisting this trend for quite some time now, because it would expose my weird habit of continually adding to an individual entry. I have used this technique to keep a certain amount of logical flow on a page, and to keep important entries that I make in a day right up at the top. But now, alas, no longer. The other reason I have resisted these things is that I have this horrible feeling that barbelith is beginning to look cluttered. Things are just not where they are supposed to be, and there is too much colour pollution in my beautiful serene web/site/pool. But hey. That’s a matter for another day…

Come on now kids, play nice…

Does anyone want to buy me a computer? In my two months of homelessness, I have used net cafe computers only. And now I finally set up my own computer and it seems like I have stepped back about eight years in time. I don’t think I can handle it. The most terrifying thing about it is how much I dislike it being a PC. I have been a PC user for nearly ten years now. TEN YEARS. I made all those Mac jokes about how they were crappy and shoddy and boring and pointless and ugly. And now I find myself desperately pining for the sexiest G4 on the planet. I mean just look at it. I can’t stop drooling!

It worked for k10k.net – they’ve got Apple sponsorship – so why can’t it work for me? I’m a shameless prostitute. I’ll have myself tattooed with the Apple insignia. I’ll do anything, goddammit… So this is a blanket call to the world out there: –

Oh Lord, Won’t You Buy Me an Apple G4
My friends all have PCs
I don’t know what for

I’ve built many websites
But now I’m in awe
Oh Lord, Won’t You Buy Me An Apple G4

God! I finally took the emode “What is your true colour” test that has been cycling around the blogs, and it came out with this, which is a bit of coincidence if you ask me:

“Vibrant and charming, ORANGE is the color of your personality.”

New blogs proliferate like some form of weird fungal infection on the net. There never seems to be an end to it (good). And along with blogs come blogmemes – viral ideas attached to the fungal media produced by relatively disease free human beings. The blogmeme of the moment is a design feature – the dotted-line. After the relative success of barbelith orange, I will come out and say that dotted lines will be the only thing to be seen in this summer. That’s so a good look…

My comments about language (yesterday) seem to be echoing around the net with some speed. In the course of the day I have written a very apologetic e-mail to Tracy for using her as a launch-pad for what is clearly a much larger rant, been chastised for criticising American culture as low-brow (never my intention), been introduced to the regional variations of dialect in Newfoundland, been agreed with by a New Zealander and told I am naive by someone else. Here’s a selection of the best comments that have emerged in response to my ravings:

Matthew Rossi: “When you just assume the rest of the world exists to become more like you, you don’t need to worry about things like [culture]. America is a monster. A bastard born out of deformed magecraft and naked opportunism, it rolls over other national identities like the Cohort of Julius Caesar meeting Vercingtorix. Bastard confident, a great big engine that chews up shit and blood and hate and spits it out all over the landscape.”

Prolific: “I was taught by mostly Brits and Americans in a teacher training college in Utrecht. Oddly, there were none of the ‘my English is better than yours’ vibes there, perhaps because these were language teachers. We were told ‘adopt an accent, any accent, be it American, English, Welsh or Irish. It will help you sound more convincing.'”

Kitsch Bitsch: “I can most wholeheartedly agree with Tom when he says that the worldwide awareness of American vernacular far excedes the average American’s awareness of regional versions of the language.”

Daily Doozer: “I don’t want to get into a nasty argument about cultural imperialism and the proliferation of American media. I don’t want, particularly, to talk about any perceived or real damaging societal effects. Personally, I think that at the moment I’m a typical student and I’ve completely lost faith in capitalism (and it’s probably a phase I’ll go through before I become a corporate lawyer).”

LEWD, the London Elite Weblogging Detachment that I alluded to a few days ago is beginning to come together. Or at least it seems likely that it is – people seem to have been rather flummoxed by my complete lack of contact details. Sorry to not so soft, LEWD blog #1. Daily Doozer is also trying to start some kind of IRL weblogger meeting, which I am more than up for. Perhaps it can become the basis for WXW1 (West by West One), Katy’s idea to compete with those American chappies and their SXSW.

Dull weblogger? Take a life altering pill and become more vibrant and throbbing. Continuity.nu was the only site that picked up on my challenge to spice up a blog, and even then, well:

“There are a few [weblogs] that are genuinely dull.” Thanks, Tom. Webloggers all over the world are now thinking, gosh, I hope I’m not dull.

Just for fun, and because I am terribly proud of (most of) them, here are a few buttons I recently designed for timeout.com:

Oh and one last thing! Mark! What on earth are you talking about?

“I had a randon ICQ message the other day, asking me what kind of shampoo I use. Stupid question, right? But the more I’ve thought
about it, the less stupid it became. I *KNOW* people by their scent. If Tom was to use Herbal Essence
instead of my suspected Head and Shoulders, he’d be a totally different man than I thought him to be.”

The scariest thing is that I actually don’t even know what shampoo I use. At the moment I am stealing odds and ends off my flatmates. That could mean anything. Particularly as I don’t have a sense of smell. I could be dousing myself in a great big girlie “flowers and ponies” kind of shampoo. Ick. Gross. Note to self: Go To Boots. Buy Shampoo. And Shaving Cream. And Light-Bulbs.

Referrer logs reveal that yesterday, Barbelith was visited by 666 people. This unholy convergence of number and anti-establishment content leads me to conclude that I must be the anti-Christ. This is quite frustrating as I have enough to do already. I just don’t have the time. I am going to a wedding tomorrow (working on the assumption that at some point ever I will get my arse in gear and organise it). In the meantime I have to organise a working phone system, the disposal of two double beds, the repair of a boiler and the installation of cable television. Bringing about apocalypse will just have to wait a little longer…

There aren’t that many weblogs talking about the riots in London on May Day. I had decided initially not to talk about them (I thought everyone would be at it), but as time has passed I find the subject more and more interesting. I would love to see more commentary from people though – if anyone sees anything good, e-mail me on tom@no-spam-please-barbelith.com. In the meantime, read other webloggers: KitschBitch, BlueLines, Grim, Blorg and Ed’s Weblog.