I originally spent an hour writing a big, long post about fansites, wikis, forums and how they’ve changed so drastically over the last ten years.
But it was too wordy. Too fluttery. So I deleted it all.
Instead, I’ll leave you with this:
If you’re running a content-centric site (like a fansite) but are apprehensive about flipping to a wiki platform, why not go half way?
Open your site to contributions – just moderate everything!
Instead of seeing wiki contributors as your replacement, see them as your helpers. They’re the little elves pitching in where necessary. You’re still in control, the site is still yours, the content is still part of your site. Just cite, thank, and appreciate the fact that crowdsourcing has helped improve your product (the website itself).
It’s not user-generated content, it’s user-assisted content.
(For the record: This post was sparked by a forum discussion tied to a big, non-work-related project I’m involved in.)
I just received one of those good ol’ fashioned mass FW’s from some family members regarding a “HUGE VIRUS COMING!” that – according to the email – is “the worst virus announced by CNN“. Here’s the content of the message:
Hi All,
I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus!
I checked Snopes, and it is for real. Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!
You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,’regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C of your computer.
This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.
If you receive a mail called’ POSTCARD,’ even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN.
It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.
I went ahead and did some quick research, as I often do in these cases. Mass-forwarded emails warning of incoming virus threats are always fishy, so I’d rather doublecheck than help spread the panic.
As expected, the following article from About.com accurately described the email I had received:
Thus I quickly went ahead and informed my family members that this “huge incoming virus” is completely bogus. There are some additional articles elsewhere, too: Sector Zero hoax, Virtual Card for You “Virus” is a Hoax (from 2001!). Needless to say, the number of sources disproving the “warning” greatly outnumber the sources supporting it.
Here are some added tips to keep in mind, if you ever receive this email (or any email similar to it) in the future:
Verify the sources. When someone claims to have checked with a news source (such as CNN or Snopes), they should provide a link.
Search for more information online. Before you start panicking and forwarding the email to everybody on your contact list (a great way of collecting email addresses for spamming, unfortunately), check to see if there are any other warnings online. When major virus threats are imminent – and when anti-virus software providers are sending out warnings – they alerts are quickly picked up by other news sources. (News agencies are in the business of spreading panic, after all.)
If you have proof that the email is a hoax, let everyone know. Calmly respond to the bulk email with links to credible sites. Provide an excerpt from the article and politely inform them that the email is a hoax. (Hopefully they haven’t unplugged their computer from the wall yet.)
UPDATE @ 11:50am EST: The story has been going strong. What started as confusion over a Twitter trend has become mass coverage of China blocking social media sites. The silver lining: this goes to show just how influential social media really can be. I’ll leave it to crowdsourcing @ Now Public to cover the growing story. Hopefully we can start getting more opinions siphoned out of China…
UPDATE @ 9:30am EST: As a couple of the comments to this post point out, we’re quickly approaching the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre, and it appears that China is attempting to shut down access to the outside world for the next several days.
Popular sites – including Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress.com, Blogger and even Microsoft’s recently launched Bing - have been blocked by the Great Firewall of China.
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At the moment of this post, one of the trending topics on Twitter is #fuckGFW. The active tweets are written almost entirely in Chinese. So what’s going on?
First of all, a quick dive into Google reveals that GFW – when applied to the context of China – stands for Great Firewall. Tie in a history of Chinese search engines (including Google China) blocking certain content, and the issue at hand is clearly related to internet censorship in China.
A subsequent search brings up the Wikipedia article for the Chinese “Golden Shield Project“, another name for the firewall. From Wikipedia:
It has been nicknamed the Great Firewall of China in reference to its role as a network firewall and to the ancient Great Wall of China. A major part of the project includes the ability to block content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through and consists of standard firewall and proxy servers at the Internetgateways. The system also selectively engages in DNS poisoning when particular sites are requested. The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical.
So this is all well and good – we now know that the Twitter trend has something to do with internet censorship in China and the aforementioned “great firewall of China” – but why the trending topic? Why now?
I’m still not entirely sure, myself. I’ll be keebing tabs on this trend for the rest of the day. If you can provide any additional insight, feel free to leave a comment.
Saying that Trent Reznor has a bit of a following on the web would be a drastic understatement. He’s well known for going against the grain and trying new things with online distribution, including the release of entire albums at no cost (and somehow making money from it) and elaborate Alternate Reality Games (definition of ARG is available here, via Wikipedia).
Trent recently sat down with Kevin Rose on the latest installment of Digg Dialogg. The majority of the discussion revolves around marketing, promotions, product distribution and doing business online (all relative to the music industry, of course), but is nonetheless worth a watch even if you’re not involved in the music scene.
The entire video is about 40 minutes long, but it’s absolutely worth it.
Think of personal blogs as a series of show-and-tells that are indexed and archived for future reference. More bloggers = more posts = more shared knowledge. So even if you don’t have a mob of readers subscribing to your RSS feed, it doesn’t mean your blog is useless.
The internet is a busy place, and there’s way too much activity going on for folks to start reading personal blogs on a regular basis. Most of us lead completely mundane lives that are of no interest to anyone (and I’m not about to start pretending thatmy life is any different), so it’s no surprise that the average blogger doesn’t get a whole lot of exposure.
But personal blogging shouldn’t be about having a dedicated stream of followers keeping tabs on our every action; a blog should be more of a database for our knowledge and experiences. Our incoherent musings will go unnoticed for the most part, but every now and then we may post something that is of interest to a wider audience. You never know when an inconspicuous blog post might come in handy for someone.
I don’t expect my blog to be bombarded with traffic at any point in the near future, and that’s absolutely fine with me. But for all I know, I may end up posting a tutorial (or some other equally geeky thing) that proves to be of some use. The same could be said for anyone and everyone who maintains their own personal blog.
With that in mind, I urge everyone to at least give it a shot.
(This post was created in response to the generic “blogging is retarded and useless” comments I’ve seen scattered on various sites.)
If you find yourself constantly scrambling to upload images to the web, you’re probably rocking with imageshack or Photobucket right now. Thought I’d share a link to IsaraPIX (image hosting for a cause!) before kicking off to bed.
