Googlebombing for fun and profit
Those following the googlebomb discussion over at BB‘s might find this MeFi discussion interesting.
Retro-greement
I was going to comment on a recent post from Shelley when I realized that I already had, sorta.
More, and more lucid : Content != Elvis?
…The preoccupation of decision makers with content and broadcast communication is also not new. In the early 19th century, the explicit policy of the U.S. government was to promote wide dissemination of newspapers. They were regarded as the main tool for keeping citizenry informed and engaged in building a unified nation. Hence newspaper distribution was subsidized from profits on letters…
The policy of the U.S. government to promote newspaper “content” at the expense of person-to-person communication through letters may or may not have been correct. It would be a hard task (and one well beyond the scope of this work) to decide this question. However, there are reasonable arguments that the preoccupation with newspapers harmed the social and commercial development of the country by stifling circulation of the informal, non-content information that people cared about….
A skeptical reader might say that all this historical stuff is amusing but irrelevant. We live in the 21st century, and our high-tech present as well as our future are on the Web, where content is universally regarded as king. Studies of the Internet regularly find that Web traffic makes up 60 to 80% of the bytes that are transmitted. Certainly most of the commercial development effort on the Internet and almost all the attention are devoted to content. Thus even if content was not king in the early 19th or late 20th centuries, it might be king in the 21st.
There are three counterarguments to the above objection, all of which support the “content is not king” thesis. All argue that the dazzling success of the Web has created a misleading picture of what the Internet is, or is likely to evolve towards. One argument, to be discussed in more detail later, is that the future of the Internet is not with the Web, but with programs like Napster or (even more, because of its decentralized nature) Gnutella, which allow for informal sharing of data.
The second argument is that content is not king of the Web. Most of the traffic on the Internet is corporate (especially if we include internal intranet traffic that is not visible on the public backbones)….Because browsers are a user-friendly tool that is ubiquitous, a multitude of services have been squeezed into a Web framework. They help perpetuate the image of the Internet as primarily a content-delivery mechanism. (Note that the Web was invented to allow scientists to communicate with each other and access data, not for content delivery.)
The third and final argument is that even if content were king on the Web now, the Web is not king of the Internet. This may again seem absurd, especially in view of the statistics quoted above, that most of the Internet traffic is Web transfers. However, consider again the U.S. postal system of 1832. Content certainly dominated in terms of volume of data. Newspapers sent by mail weighed about 20 times as much as letters. Further, the density of printed matter is higher than of handwriting, and a typical copy of a newspaper was likely read many more times than a typical letter. Hence newspaper “content” was probably delivering at least a hundred times as much information as letters. But volume is not the same as value. Letters were bringing in 85% of the money needed to run the postal system in 1832. On the Internet in 2000, it is e-mail that is king, even if its volume is small.
– Andrew Odlyzko, Content is not King
The policy of the U.S. government to promote newspaper “content” at the expense of person-to-person communication through letters may or may not have been correct. It would be a hard task (and one well beyond the scope of this work) to decide this question. However, there are reasonable arguments that the preoccupation with newspapers harmed the social and commercial development of the country by stifling circulation of the informal, non-content information that people cared about….
A skeptical reader might say that all this historical stuff is amusing but irrelevant. We live in the 21st century, and our high-tech present as well as our future are on the Web, where content is universally regarded as king. Studies of the Internet regularly find that Web traffic makes up 60 to 80% of the bytes that are transmitted. Certainly most of the commercial development effort on the Internet and almost all the attention are devoted to content. Thus even if content was not king in the early 19th or late 20th centuries, it might be king in the 21st.
There are three counterarguments to the above objection, all of which support the “content is not king” thesis. All argue that the dazzling success of the Web has created a misleading picture of what the Internet is, or is likely to evolve towards. One argument, to be discussed in more detail later, is that the future of the Internet is not with the Web, but with programs like Napster or (even more, because of its decentralized nature) Gnutella, which allow for informal sharing of data.
The second argument is that content is not king of the Web. Most of the traffic on the Internet is corporate (especially if we include internal intranet traffic that is not visible on the public backbones)….Because browsers are a user-friendly tool that is ubiquitous, a multitude of services have been squeezed into a Web framework. They help perpetuate the image of the Internet as primarily a content-delivery mechanism. (Note that the Web was invented to allow scientists to communicate with each other and access data, not for content delivery.)
The third and final argument is that even if content were king on the Web now, the Web is not king of the Internet. This may again seem absurd, especially in view of the statistics quoted above, that most of the Internet traffic is Web transfers. However, consider again the U.S. postal system of 1832. Content certainly dominated in terms of volume of data. Newspapers sent by mail weighed about 20 times as much as letters. Further, the density of printed matter is higher than of handwriting, and a typical copy of a newspaper was likely read many more times than a typical letter. Hence newspaper “content” was probably delivering at least a hundred times as much information as letters. But volume is not the same as value. Letters were bringing in 85% of the money needed to run the postal system in 1832. On the Internet in 2000, it is e-mail that is king, even if its volume is small.
– Andrew Odlyzko, Content is not King
[more…]
I’m not sure I agree with Mr Odlyzko, entirely, but that may only be a matter of semantics. My feverdream defense of ‘content’ a couple of days ago took as its launchpad an understanding of the word that is broader than the one Mr Odlyzko uses (and in some ways is actually diametrically opposed to it, but that’s a side-issue, I think). Blogs as open letters, as content rather than Content….
One of the things Mr Odlyzko is saying is that the internet is not a broadcast medium. As obviously wrong as it seems, thinking it is was one of the core dumbass mistakes that businesses were making before the bubble burst, one of the dumbass mistakes that’s still being made. AOLTimeWarner indeed. LOLTimeWarner, maybe. (Ba-dump dump tish! Thank you, you’ve been a great audience. I’ll be here until Thursday!)
One-to-oneness is where value (questions there are aplently about the word ‘value’, too) lies, more than one-to-manyness (Mr O talks about letters and newspapers, about email and the web). The bridge between the two concepts is (ta-daaa!) the weblog, of course. It’s not email, but it shares much of the intensely personal nature nature of correspondence. It’s not ‘Content’, at least not in the way that Big Media regards it, as a ‘non-recoverable expense‘. But it is true that blogspace contains some of the most compelling writing and imagery and pure fun that’s available on the internet or elsewhere, ‘content’ that’s constantly renewed by the passions of thousands of individuals singing their individual songs for the pure joy of the singing, and for the comradeship that comes from finding people who hear similar music in their heads…
This message of Mr O’s reminds me very much of the sort of thing that a certain Mr Locke (quoted recently here: “You can broaden the pipe as far as you want, but if everybody can play, it’s not broadcast any more. There isn’t that control of the passes. The channel is out of control and that makes it a different game…”) and his cohort of merry cluesters have been saying for a while, and are still saying.
I like it when things come together like that.
This is a test post
This is a test post using w.bloggar.
Edit : Now, that’s cool. The propellor on top of my beanie is spinning like nobody’s business.
Obfuscation
You know what pisses me off right at this particular moment? Using words to confuse the point, to play the goddamn shell game, to obfuscate rather than clarify.
There are a few around the neighbourhood who weave sky-piercing towers of words, intricately knitted and syntactically exciting, that leave me cold. I’m impressed by the erudition, by the verbal pyrotechics (and I used to blow sh-t up for a living, briefly, so I oughta know), but I learn nothing after reading what is said except how clever-clever the author of those words is.
If you can’t make a window onto something for yourself or for someone else by what you write you’re masturbating. My advice is that you do it in private, Big Shooter. Play with the language, sure, but keep your hands above the table.
So saith the wonderchicken.
(Edit : And if anyone should think this pronouncement has anything to do with the latest sh-tfight in MeTa, in the interests of practicing what I preach, I say clearly : it doesn’t.)
Going Through The Motions
Ok, I really mean it this time, this is it before I go to bed and disappear for a few days : I’d just like to say that if any of the folks who come here daily to read the latest wonderchicken droppings have felt that I’ve just been going through the motions of late, well, heck, shucks, and golly, you’d be semi-right. I haven’t been trying as much as I ought to have, I admit this freely and I promise (although, of course, you should realize that my promises are Not Worth The Pixels They’re Written With, when it comes to things like this) to try a little harder to actually write well rather than just barf out whatever comes into my head, unedited, in the future.
On the other hand, if you guys enjoy the brainbarfage, then hell, I’ll keep that up! I’m nothin’ if not flexible.
Next week I start the all-pr0n format…
Capitalism Gone Mad!
I’m mercifully free of hangovers lately, as I’m on some Chinese herbal medicine, and I’m not supposed to drink while taking it. This is good, for a change of pace, and I find my brain is ticking over quite nicely.
Spent a couple hours today designing a few logos and putting up a Cafe Press shop. Why the hell not, eh? I noticed Oliver’s recent post about having one, and figured I might as well give it a blast.
The three logos are here, here, and here (large images, popups). The shop is here. I make a buck from each item sold. Support the wonderchicken! Buy neat stuff!
Or not, I don’t really mind too much…
Being John Googlovich
A huge number of Googly-searches showing up here lately have been for bottle+f–k, which I assume is a niche-porno thang. It’s all good, if nasty and pathetic.
What amused me when I clicked one of the referrers for the ‘bottle f–k’ search in the recent-referrer gadget over on the right there, was that as of the latest GoogleBot index of the EmptyBottle, not only was I hit #4 for ‘bottle f–k’ but the quoted text was ‘footsore random dogsh-t wandering’ which I don’t even remember writing, but is Pure WonderChicken Poetry in my mind. Sums up the last decade and a half of my life, by criminy-cheesetoast!
And really, since I (when I’m in my right mind) write most of this sh-t for myself for the most part, the fact that that amuses me a whole bunch is all that counts, ain’t it?
Moveable Type Rocks
I’ve got to say, the more I play with this thing, the more I like it. It’s powerful, flexible, and easy as pie for a semi-geek like myself to customize.
I draw your attention to two new features over on the sidebar to the right : a list of the five most recently-commented upon entries, and a list of all the blog categories, with a post-count beside each. I played a bit fast and loose with the categories when I imported from Blogger, but they’re relatively accurate, for the most part. Please feel free to waste hours of your precious time perusing the archives – there’s some stinky crap in there, but there’s some Good Eatin’ too, if I do say so myself.
We're On The Road And We're Gunning For The Buddha
I read Mike’s latest : well, OK, inebriated as I am at the moment, I skimmed Mike’s latest, and I f–king give up.
I know it’s not a competition, but I Live To Win (though I’ll deny that if you quote me), and to be honest, there’s simply no way I’m going to be able to kick Mike’s ass, bloggishly speaking. Through sheer quality, and undeniable volume, he’s winning the Blog Primaries.
This is a major setback for me, wonderchicken fans, and I recommend that if you have any love for me, if you’ve ever had any love for me or plan to have some love for me in the future, even if only a little guilty tingle down there under the kitchen table, if you have any desire whatsoever to see the Solid Family Values of The WonderChicken prevail, I ask to you to consider the removal, yea, the bloggy occupation of the territory of this South African bodhisattva – I implore you, I beg you, I COMMAND YOU, click your tight little inter-buns over to Mike’s blog and abuse him mercilessly! Talk some sh-t! Quote bad poetry! Make references to Things Semitic and suggest that he Doesn’t Like Them! Abuse the man until he resorts to linking to random Daypop Top 40 transients with a textual arched-eyebrow, with a hipster-goof mock-sarcastic word or two, until he winds up posting the results of the latest “Which Star Trek Voyager Character Are You?” quiz, until he abandons the long-form post forever and begins to exhibit all the outward symptoms of a terminal speed-freak, which is the behavioural lot of those approaching the terminal stages of webloggerdom.
Fly, my pretties, fly!
Great Minds Think Alike
Accordion Guy, one of my favorite blogstars, ended up getting inspired by the same photoshops at Something Awful, like me, on the same day, and doing a This Man Is Your Friend remix too…
Synchronicity. This would be an amusing meme, if it propagated, I reckon. Not that I’m suggesting such a thing. As I’ve mentioned before, deliberate meme-propagation annoys me. Chafes my…well you know what it chafes.
Malacca Rattan?
This comment was left recently by B. Rai, in reference to a half-remembered post I made some time ago at Metafilter which mentioned the amusing and odd TV commercials for Malacca Rattan :
Hello there,
I just did a google search on the old Rattan To Go ads and I’m afraid to say that you seem to be the sole authority for info on this on the net. Only four results were found, and I read your comments on metafilter.com. I’m glad such a television treasure has not been forgotton!
I am an ex-pat Vancouverite living in London and working in animation. I saw these ads when I was a kid, but strangely they’ve stuck in my mind. The reason I’m writing is because I remembered this ad a while back and am basing a sitcom character on Blue Mancune, the star of the ad, who I believe lives in Vancouver. Unfortunately I cannot fully remember the lyrics to the tune. I’ve got:
Malacca for the money
Wicker for the show
——– to get ready baby
Rattan, to go
I’m trying to finish a script and this is driving me nuts. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks,
B. Rai
I just did a google search on the old Rattan To Go ads and I’m afraid to say that you seem to be the sole authority for info on this on the net. Only four results were found, and I read your comments on metafilter.com. I’m glad such a television treasure has not been forgotton!
I am an ex-pat Vancouverite living in London and working in animation. I saw these ads when I was a kid, but strangely they’ve stuck in my mind. The reason I’m writing is because I remembered this ad a while back and am basing a sitcom character on Blue Mancune, the star of the ad, who I believe lives in Vancouver. Unfortunately I cannot fully remember the lyrics to the tune. I’ve got:
Malacca for the money
Wicker for the show
——– to get ready baby
Rattan, to go
I’m trying to finish a script and this is driving me nuts. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks,
B. Rai
I can’t remember, but perhaps there are some other Vancouverites-of-the-80’s who can. Leave a comment if you can help, and perhaps the mystery lyric can be unearthed!
Tangentially, it pleases me greatly to be the sole authority on the net for something.
Almost There
OK, the newish layout is live. With IE 6 it looks like crap at 800 by 600, and is still a little wonky at 1024 by 768, but my brain hurts, and I need a break.
Please let me know if the new layout is killing your browser. It would be much appreciated. Thanks.
The instant-referrer gadget
The instant-referrer gadget down there on the right (no, further down, oh, oh, yeah…there!) has just shown me that scant minutes ago, someone reached here with Googlage : how+the+f–k+does+aluminum+sulfate+get+produced?. This is a thing of beauty to me.
Welcome, my chymical friend. Have a beer. Put your feet up. f–k Aluminum Sulfate, let me whisper to you tales of booze and madness. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll make you forget those covalent bonds, I’ll sing you the siren song that will lure you into a rich and deeply imperfect world of words and bad photoshops, I will sing the body eclectic…
Here Be Dragons…err Metablogging
Here Be Dragons Metablogging
I'm knee-deep in geekdom
I’m knee-deep in geekdom, grinning like a rocket-powered lemur, fiddling with code. Sure and it’s a heap of fun, laddie. So rather than write something new, I thought I’d cheat and whack up this explanation from my Metafilter profile of where the StavrosTheWonderChicken thing came from…
In the winter of 1992 (I think), Rick and I had just finished the Mumbles Walk. This is the pub crawl along a seaside stretch of watering holes in Wales, near Swansea, that apparently used to be a regular night out for Dylan Thomas. I’d like to say we were appropriately reverant, but we were just shambolically pissed, basically.
At some point, we stumbled by a phone booth that looked out over the mud flats and dejected-looking rowboats that had been stranded by the outgoing tide, and decided it was a simply great time to give our buddy Derek, back in Vancouver, a collect call. When the operator asked for a name to give for the call (this was back in the last century, before this stuff was automated), the name “Stavros The Wonder Chicken” just bubbled to the top of my brain, with no precedent whatsoever. The operator balked, but we begged, and when we overheard her telling James, his roommate, that she had a collect call from “Stavros the Wonder Chicken”, we laughed like the drunken poets we were.
A few minutes after his roommate James accepted the call, we found out that Derek had returned to his hometown because he’d found out that day that his father had died.
We went back to drinking.
Ah-yup? comments.