L'oeil de Mouche
Beyond lies the web.

I try to remind myself when dating that a few of my obsessions seem lame if they’re not shared. I spend a lot of hours writing a blog that doesn’t bring me any income or further my professional career. To someone else this might look like a lame obsession. I’m okay with that.

I’m an adult. I’ve made a conscious choice to share so much of my life on the Internet.
To share a simple story about an adult friend who wouldn’t mind is no big deal. To share a story with no personally identifiable info is generally okay too. But to share a story about someone that could have consequences for them, and to make it personally identifiable and essentially permanent? I don’t feel I’m entitled to make that kind of call. To do so would be unfair.
If you’ve been reading my content for a long time, you may think you know a lot about me, and you certainly do, but I hope you can accept that you don’t have the complete picture. If your only interaction with me is through the Internet, then you never will. Your overall impression of me will be unnaturally lopsided because some aspects of my life won’t receive any meaningful expression through this medium. That’s a consequence of expressing myself in this way. It may seem to almost have the intimacy of a face to face connection, and it’s nice that we can get closer to that ideal, but it’s not the same. Even though I’m very open about my life, there are gaping holes in what I choose to share publicly. This mainly has to do with respecting other people’s right to privacy.
I think it’s best to assume that the Internet has no delete button. Assume that everything you post online is public, permanent, and personally identifiable.

Most women know from experience that showing off all the ways in which we like what "the boys" like can earn us a little bit of power, because it somehow gives us instant credibility if men know that we know all the rules in football or how to change a tire or whatnot.

My point is this…I know that I shouldn’t be needy, but I don’t want to be 100% independent either. And I think we give people (men AND women) the wrong messages growing up about this stuff. We aren’t rocks. We aren’t islands. We *do* need other people. And there are times we should take and times we should give in order to maintain the balance in human relationships.

Since rarity constitutes part of pleasure we take in many of the things we value, how rare should we allow a rareme to remain when it is in our power to influence its frequency ?
Nichoson Baker

People do things for reasons other than bolstering their egos and making money. You shouldn't need a motivation or justification to correct spelling or factual errors on Wikipedia -- a certain desire for orderliness, good grammar, or truth should be sufficient.

I don’t believe my link to a blog is an implicit endorsement of the entire archives of another blog. I’m willing to bet that I would find something I disagreed with strongly in the archive of any blog out there. I just link out because I found something interesting and want to share it.

That didn’t feel like the community I fell in love with so many years ago. It felt a great deal like the world we were supposed to be changing. In essence, the worst parts of the offline world – with it’s hierarchies, gatekeepers and power mongers – were becoming firmly entrenched in the new media that was supposed to circumvent this behaviour and create a new frontier. I was losing faith. And that is the last thing I want to do. There is so much hope left in the world. I still believe the good guys/gals will finish first.
But here at Le Web 09, I feel like I’m staring that ugliness right in the eye. The program is mostly made up of the members and sycophants of the cartel mentioned above. It’s only the morning of the first day and a big part of it has been filled with egos and posturing. I was really hoping that Le Web would actually be about ‘The Web’ – where it’s going, where it should go, how do we drive it in positive directions, the diversity of issues that we are still facing that are creating challenges for web-citizens, really ground breaking technology, visionary people and how we can all get involved in this change – but it isn’t. It is about a small group of friends and how they use/benefit from the web: Le Clique.

We created Joe.

This ignorant, ignorant man got a job with a website because they figured his ‘celebrity’ would bring them attention. And lo’ and behold, they bet right. Posting about it here, I’m contributing to it this very moment.

This is by no means the first time, as I’m sure any one of you could list off a hundred names of people we’ve made famous, and we’ve given a voice to. None of them earned that right.

All these people, these ‘celebrities’ are filling our media with useless drivel as a war in the Middle East gets bumped off the front page. This is a problem, and it’s not going to get any better.

In sum, blogging provides a “living portrait” that not only shows ideas and interests of a blogger, but also helps to get to know her as a person, by observing writing, linking and interaction over time. Such observation is not necessarily reciprocal, so asymmetrical relations are something that bloggers have to deal with. While it may be one-sided, learning about other bloggers from a distance provides an opportunity to make informed choices about possible closer contact with them, knowledge of their interests and personalities, as well as enough starting points for an interaction.

6 ans à regarder la blogiboule évoluer, se transformer, en bien et en mal, passer de cette petite communauté où tout le monde (ou presque) se connaissait à ce phénomène webmarketingeux deuxpointzero pouet pouet qui est aussi, et surtout, un formidable outil démocratique, à la portée de tous et même de ma grand-mère. Et c'est ça le plus important. Passées les querelles de clocher et les débats sur le pour ou contre la monétisation des blogs, passé le microcosme de la blogosphère parisianno-parisienne qui se regarde le nombril en gonflant artificellement son audience pour se faire plus influente qu'elle n'est, passées les gueguerres blogueurs vs journalistes, le vrai truc formidable dans tout ça c'est que n'importe qui peut désormais ouvrir son blog et y raconter qu'il aime manger des pommes. Les plateformes de blogging ont réalisé ce rêve que nous partagions à l'époque où nous avions l'impression de batir Internet : faire du Web un lieu d'échanges et de partage accessible à tous.

I was so good at keeping it up for so long, but I know I've been slacking off more and more over the years. I keep promising myself that I will do better, but then I never really do. I'm lucky to get in two posts a month.

But never fear. I'm not about to give up without a fight.