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Monday, January 12, 2004
A Short History of Blogging
Middle Ages
1993 – Al Gore invents the Internet
1994 – Dave Winer starts DaveNet. Model T of web logs. Sample post: "XML+RPC+WEB+ODB+WIN=MAC"
April 1, 1997 – Dave Winer starts Scripting News which he says is the longest continuously running weblog on the Internet. Sample post: “Fat Pages are Our New File Format”
Renaissance
1997- Somebody named Jorn Barger comes up with the name “blog” as a contraction of web log. Barger disappears. Name sticks.
1998 – A handful of people who spend too much time indoors begin linking to each other and exchanging ideas. Most of them are named Jason. Because participation is limited to those who know how to write code and are moderately social, there are only 23 weblogs at the beginning of 1999 and their content is mostly XML+RPC+WEB+ODB+WIN=MAC.
1999 – Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan start Pyra Labs to create a Web-based tool to help project managers share information with co-workers. While Meg is on vacation in July, Evan is goofing off and creates the software we now call Blogger. Everybody agrees that Blogger is kick-ass and wants a free copy but nobody can figure out how to make money from it.
Modern Days
January, 2001 – George Bush is appointed president by the Supreme Court. Blogger has 75,000 registered users.
2002 – Liberated by software so simple even a moron can use it, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds and other political junkies, journalists, consultants and exasperated citizens by the thousands take to their keyboards in full-rant mode.
February, 2003 – Google buys Blogger, which then has 1.1 million registered users. Everybody agrees it’s a cute thing but wonders how Google plans to make money at it.
2004 – Howard Dean demonstrates once more that the Internet changes everything.
posted by Jerry Bowles
5:35 PM
Memo to Howard: Think Republicans for Dean
To visitors of this blog it is not news that the holy rollers in the Bush administration doctored intelligence to justify going into the beast of Babylon or employed sales tactics that would make a car dealer blush in promoting a tax plan to turn us into a banana republic. But it still makes news when more reasonable judges like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the IMF get into the act .
Pause to consider that both of these organizations are stuffed not with “leftists” and Democrats, but intelligent Republicans of the old Bush I/Council on Foreign Relations school. (Forgive me if I have overlooked something, but I am not finding any refutation of the Carnegie report by its Board.)
Add to that the sentiments expressed by Christie Whitman in today's NY Times suggesting that "moderate" Republicans are feeling a tad left out of the Bush zeitgeist.
What if Howard Dean, the presumptive Democratic nominee, were to soon focus not on the “undecideds” who are probably idiots anyway but to go straight to the “moderate” Republicans whose internationalist views have been ignored and who have been “red-lined” by organizations like the Club for Growth? These guys are probably secret Clark supporters but could be wooed without too much effort by an intelligent guy who stayed awake in his poli sci class. Besides, they have gravitas, they have bipartisan glamour, and they have cash. Without compromising any position substantially, Dean could represent the Republican wing of the Republican party. Evelyn Keyes
posted by Jerry Bowles
12:05 PM
Is Dean vs. Bush a Real Choice for America?
Many would have us think, including The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol in a post here last week, that the best choice for the country is between Bush and Dean because they are so opposite and thereby present a real choice, not the echo of past elections. I disagree, mainly because Dean’s positioning as the challenger is too extreme and based on the past. He wants to fix everything when many, if not most Americans, don’t think everything is broken. Moreover, the Bush bus is already steamrolling to the middle, making Dean’s positions appear even more exaggerated. I’m not talking about cognoscenti nuances, but the broader, established perceptions of the general public within which most Americans think and act.
Americans insist on choice, but moderate their choosing. Americans are optimistic and live in the immediate future—yesterday is history. We forgive and forget. Americans are very practical. We aren’t interested in perfection, we like to make things work.
Based on 10 years of studies and research that I did for my book, The Stuff Americans Are Made Of (Macmillan Books, 1996), we know that practically all Americans love the range of choice that is uniquely available in this country, but a plurality, often a majority, exercise their actual choices within a narrower range of options. We give voice to choice, but act (vote) within a safer range of options. That's one reason there are no large third parties in America. We welcome micro-breweries but choose Budweiser; we like the Beetle but buy the SUV (which not incidentally from a marketing point of view all tend to look alike), and we fantasize about wilderness adventures but go to Disney World.
We welcome the new as a way to expand the range of choices, but we predictably stick to the old or a recognizable version of the old. That is why companies invest so much in branding and brand promotion. The one exception is telecommunications and technology where yesterday’s gizmo is today’s baggage.
The Dean/Bush choice is too extreme, on both personality and policy. It’s not a choice, say between flavors of ice-cream, a moderate range of taste and texture, but a choice say between pomegranates and ice-cream, an extreme range. Americans have come to accommodate a public debate on the traditional range of choices in governance and public policy, such as abortion, minimum wage, school vouchers, drilling for oil in the wilderness. And, yes, there has been an echo in many past elections leading to a vote made more on personality than on policy. However, Dean significantly broadens the range of issues the electorate must face because he has a personal stake in them, such as civil unions (gay marriages), the complete wrongheadness of the war in Iraq, repeal of ALL tax cuts (it’s harder to take back something you have already given), and so on.
Dean further complicates matters because he sees the choices in black or white. Choice positioned in right or wrong terms does not work for Americans. Positioning choice as a process does work. Dean does not say, as he should, “We have a choice here. If we stay in Iraq it means this, if we leave it means this. I propose we do this and here is why.” Instead he just yells: “Take the country back.” (Note the use of the word “back” when as governor he ran successfully on “take Vermont forward”!)
What is a clearer real choice? Clark vs. Bush. Clark is new to national politics, a true outsider, and his style and temperament draw a safer contrast with Bush that is more favorable for Clark than for Dean. Former governors become presidents, but only once in the last century did a general become a president, and he weren’t that bad, not the greatest, but better than some governors. Clark is the opposite of Dean and still presents a clear choice with Bush. He is more forward looking, calls for new tax cuts and among other things for a new definition of patriotism, one that welcomes choices. On the critical issues of war and terrorism, Clark gives credit to Bush on the front end of Afghanistan, but lays out a different choice on the back end where Bush is bogged down. In addition, he talks about the processes he would use to define the choices and make the choices, and his military training would better enable him to make course corrections and field adjustments. In this manner he presents a choice in a less confrontational, in-your-face way, a choice that would be more acceptable to the SUV-driving, Budweiser-drinking, Disney-going adventure seeker in his Nike shoes and Chino pants.
posted by Josh
12:03 AM
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