i believe that as the internet and social networking evolves, we will see creative ways that social networks will provide for their users to monetize their content. Its surprising that google, facebook, myspace, and the many other social networking sites havent figured out a way to monetize their users activity.

Yeah I heard ya you crazy ass whatchamacallit-Wachenheimer rantin' like a crazed bitch Buddy. What up? LMMAO

We cannot talk about this anymore because someone might hear us.

Poobah!!! Watch out world, I'm coming through.

what you just described below is reality and reality always sucks (its raining outside i cannot play freezbee with my dog so thought i write a comment) buddy if our president thinks like you i 'll be honored to serv-u......playng the victim isnt going to get you erected ...so get up stand up stand up for your rights and dont give up the fight

Statement of Audience. I realize that nothing I say matters to anyone else on the entire planet. My opinions are useless and unfocused. I am an expert in nothing. I know nothing. I am confused about almost everything. I cannot, as an individual, ever possibly know everything, or even enough to make editorial commentary on the vast vast majority of things that exist in my world. This is a stupid document; it is meaningless drivel that I do not expect any of the almost seven billion people on my planet to actually read. People who do read my rambling, incoherent dumbfuckery are probably just as confused as I am, if not more so, as they are looking to my sorry ass for an opinion when they should be outside playing Frisbee with their dog or screwing their life partner or getting a dog or getting a life partner. Anyone who actually takes the time to read my bullshit probably deserves to ingest my fucked up and obviously mistaken opinions on whatever it is that I have written about- - Your next President, Buddy Friendly Wachenheimer

I, in an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff of weblog authors, propose that all weblog authors create a Statement of Audience once per month (or, every two weeks if possible) to facilitate understanding of their place in the universe and the importance of their writings. I offer the following Statement of Audience as a template, and apply it willingly to this entire essay:

Proposal and Conclusion. As we can see, clearly weblogs are fucking retarded as a general rule. Most weblog authors either think they have something important to say (self-centered and egotistical authors), or believe that they have an audience that cares what they think (delusional and irrational authors.) What can be plainly seen is that most weblog authors need something to push them back into the real world from the self-centered and delusional world they have created for themselves.

The Author Model. This model is a weblog that tries to legitimately attempt daily writings. Each writing, either fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, is methodically created and displayed for the intent of disseminating the original work (or following the creation process, see the Expert in a Field model, above) of an author. Authors may mix relevant comments with their work, commenting on what they were thinking when they created a particular piece of art, or comment on life in general in order to facilitate an audience understanding of their frame of mind. This is the hardest to distinguish from the blathering idiocy of most weblogs because it is the model most open to interpretation, however, weblogs that follow the Author model should consistently focus on the work of the author, rather than their lives, unless it truly also qualifies for the Celebrity Figure Information model, below.

The Chronicle Model. This model is a weblog chronicling the history of something that someone else might find useful. It could be someone's personal accomplishment. A diary of how they earned their pilot's license. A history of someone's professional triumphs. An autobiography or memoirs. An autobiographical account of someone's first tour of duty in Iraq.

The 'Opinion Of Worth' Model. This model provides opinions from someone the of notoriety. Sort of a cross between the Celebrity Figure Information and Expert In A Field models, there are some celebrity opinions of whom we care very much to hear about. Movie critics could offer film critiques. Professional journalists could offer political or financial opinions. CEOs might offer business opinions, etc.

Ha - Bill - totally. In the world there are bloggers and there are commenters. By the way, I would have used quotes, not apostrophes there. Also, not sure about the comma after "and."

The 'Celebrity Figure Information' Model. This model provides an insight into the lives of persons of public interest. A model might keep a weblog of their daily routine or places they travel. A television star might comment on their personal lives or events they attend. A professional sports player might comment on games (see Expert In A Field model also) or just on how they are feeling.... (good points Bill)

I need to add a subset to the species known as 'blog commenter.’ That would be A) The commenter who ignores the points of a lucid, insightful post in order to point out a single typo, and 2) Any coward posting anonymously who contributes nothing.

The 'Expert in a Field' Model... This model provides comparatively advanced/expert commentary on an area of interest. An astronaut might keep a public journal of training for his trip to space. A mathematician could keep a journal of his daily thoughts on his research into graph theories. A National Geographic photographer could post daily comments about photographic techniques on their trip through Africa. A programmer could post their progress on their project in a daily diary format.

Acceptable Uses of Weblogs...There are acceptable uses of weblogs? SURE! Weblogs aren't fucking stupid under the following situations/paradigms....

Can we get a half-caf blog with extra foam?

Even the word "Blog" is fucking stupid. If weblogs weren't so fucking pathetic, "blog" wouldn't probably sound as idiotic to me as it does I guess. I just hear it and I think about someone standing in a Starbucks ordering a "Half-caf Venti Latte with soy milk and no foam." To me, the word 'blog' represents the type of mentality that goes into a weblog; a need to be trendy about something completely unnecessary and over-hyped, as my pal John Q Public might say.

....what about John Q Public? Where does he fit in? I'm just along for the ride, what do I know.

Michael Iva and Buddy Wachenheimer = 80% of the content here ;-)

Clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-c...

they are addressing more people than they actually are and makes them FEEL like there are far more unknown people listening than they actually are. A decrease in communication efficacy with an increase in communication overhead in order to replicate a mass communication channel that does not apply to the audience addressed for the express purpose of a satisfying a feeling of unearned self-importance...sounds silly doesn't it?

Communication Issues with Weblogs. One of the things I find most annoying is that weblogs take away a lot of the interaction between people on the internet. Communication mediums like chat, email, instant messaging, etc. all facilitate direct electronic human/human interaction. They directly imitate, by design, communication channels used in the real world, such as telephones, direct in-person conversation, etc. They were designed this way because, over thousands of years, these are the methods of communication that have risen to the top of the usefulness list. People communicate and socialize much more effectively when communication happens in real-time. Ideas can be exchanged dynamically in small bursts of information which can be efficiently communicated quickly. Chat, for example, allows a one-to-many realtime conversation to take place, just as a group of people sitting physically at a table could all do. These are the methods of communication that work best at communication within small groups. Weblogs take us away from that. They are designed to mimic mass-communication channels where realtime communication is not possible or practical because of the large number of audience members, such as news sites, magazines, newspapers, etc. They take communication back to an 'announcement' mode of communication, where comments are the only feedback given, if any, and the original speaker doesn't even know who their audience is until after feedback returns. It decentralizes small group communication and decreases its efficiency, which is ironic, considering that the vast majority of weblogs are only read by a few people. Can you picture these weblog entries, individually or as a whole, being presented at a microphone in front of a crowd of people? Of course not. Why? Because what they have to say is FUCKING STUPID and nobody in the real world would give a flying fuck. The analog doesn't fit the material. Still, webloggers like the format because it makes them FEEL like

this blog needs a "standing ovation" Bravo Buddy you outdone yourself this time

There are typically three types of comments: 1. Conversation. "Hey, I found your comments on "Why do users generate content" to be waaaaay off. Here's why." 2. Random misc. "Dood, I like "content" too!" 3. Return comments (comments by the original author), typically in the form: "Haha...good one." Comment type one, conversation, is the only useful type here. Actual dialogue about a subject may actually be useful to both participants, help them refine their opinions, check their data, etc. This is the only time weblog comments don't suck. Bear in mind, weblog conversation comments are comments by people who are no more qualified to make statements on a given subject than the original author. Weblog entries about serious subjects are designed to mimic real editorial posts by experts on major news sites or internet magazines...but poor imitation is all they are capable of in the end and the blind leading the blind may SEEM like they are going somewhere, but who knows if they actually are? At best, at least conversational exchanges in comments offer SOME value to weblogs. The real suckass part of weblog comments are that they suffer all the same problems as weblogs for the most part and when not engaged in relevant conversation (that is, for the most part), they range between vapid and fucking unbelievably vapid.

Weblog comments (suck (usually)). This brings us to a facet of weblogs almost as twisted as the weblogs themselves, weblog comments. Weblogs often accept reader comments to posts. Undoubtedly, the existence of these comments serve to validate the weblog poster, proving conclusively that their thoughts and personal feelings are being heard. What's happening here? Something magical happens to a weblog that accepts comments: a dialogue is started when someone posts a weblog entry and someone else posts a follow-up. That feeling of shooting off a message into the void is replaced with joy; someone IS listening! Some anonymous person is actually reading a weblog entry by the author and is moved enough by it to comment on it!

PAID, MY ASS. The latest rumors say it's gossip, you know grapevine sour grapes.

-where?, who? how?

People get paid to blog? I've been doing something wrong then.

If he controlled the internet http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/v...