Blogging Is Dead. Again.

‘We were all bloggers, or so it seemed circa 2003,” writes Jeet Heer:

“At the height of the blogging craze, there were even utopian claims made on its behalf: Blogging would give us (finally) the Republic of Letters that the Enlightenment promised, a world where everyone could be a writer and find an audience—an interconnected network where, in true McLuhanesque fashion, a divided world would become a unified global village. Thanks to blogs, journalist Trevor Butterworth wrote in the Financial Times in 2006, ‘power was shifting from the gatekeepers of the traditional media to a more open, fluid information society.’”

“A funeral for blogging itself feels not far off—or at least a mid-life crisis.”

More:

“What Were Blogs?” Jeet Heer, The New Republic

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Monica Lewis, 1922 — 2015

Monica Lewis, “America’s Singing Sweetheart,” replaced Peggy Lee in the Benny Goodman Band, had her own radio show and recording contracts, performed on Broadway, on early network television, in nightclubs and in movies. She died last week at the age of 93. Despite her impressive résumé, she will always be remembered as the voice of Chiquita Banana.

More:

“Monica Lewis, singer-actress known as voice of Chiquita bananas, dies at 93,”Matt Schudel, Washington Post

“Monica Lewis, 93, Dies; Her Apple-Pie Appeal Sold Chiquita Bananas,” Sam Roberts, New York Times

“Monica Lewis, Actress Who Sang in Chiquita Banana Cartoons, Dies at 93,” Variety

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NotionsCapital: 2012 in Review

This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2012 by readers from 188 countries. Those remaining 7 countries don’t know what they’re missing.

In 2012 there were 454 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 2,693 posts. Most were illustrated with mashups from our Flickr file.

The busiest day of the year was March 6th with 2,654 views. The most popular post that day was a typically hard-hitting think piece, “Oreo Cookie Centennial.” Best ever? 48,132 views of “Congress Reaps Pizza Harvest“ on November 17, 2011. Total views of NotionsCapital.com since August 2007: 1,122,131.

Thanks folks!

(Stats from WordPress.com)

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November 6, 2012

Election day. Go, vote.

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The Internet, Democracy, and Repression

Everybody knows that social media challenged or overthrew repressive regimes in North Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Everyone knows that the Internet promotes Democracy, right? Not so fast, says Evgeny Morozov.

Mr. Morozov emphasizes that networked digital tools can be used to maintain political power as well as challenge it, and recently spoke to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) about this. The video of his complete lecture is here, but this short animated excerpt is easier to follow and more fun:

Bittman Live Chat, 2PM Tuesday, March 22nd

New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman will live chat with Grist’s Tom Philpot at 2:00 PM Eastern this afternoon. Questions welcome.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Blogging is Dead. Again.

 

“Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation.

The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.”

–“Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter,” Verne G. Kopytoff, New York Times.

 Related: “Social Media and Young Adults,” Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, and Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

 Short link: http://bit.ly/hTRv3k

Image (“Anatomy of a Blogger, after Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Egypt Shuts Off The Internet

“Egypt may have turned off the Internet one phone call at a time,” Los Angeles Times

“Egypt cuts off internet access,” Charles Arthur, The Guardian

“How Egypt Turned Off the Internet,” Kyle VanHemert, Gizmodo

“The Internet goes dark in Egypt,” Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, ZDNet.com

“Egypt severs internet connection amid growing unrest,” BBC News

“Egypt’s Internet Blackout: Extreme Example of Just-in-time Blocking,” Masashi Crete-Nishihata and Jillian C. York, OpenNet Initiative

“Egypt: An Internet Black Hole,” Global Voices

“Egypt shutdown worst in Internet history: experts,” Katia Dolmadjian, AFP via Yahoo News

“In Egypt, should Internet access be an inalienable right?” Monica Hesse, Washington Post

“The Tweets Must Flow,” Twitter Blog

“Statement on Internet Shutdown in Egypt,” Global Network Initiative

“Egypt turns off internet, Lieberman wants same option for US,” Sean Bonner, BoingBoing

“Internet Security Savvy is Critical as Egyptian Government Blocks Websites, Arrests Activists in Response to Continued Protest,” Eva Galperin, EFF

“Egypt Cuts Off The Net. Net Fights Back,” Ben Rooney, Wall Street Journal

“6 Ideas For Those Needing Defensive Technology to Protect Free Speech from Authoritarian Regimes and 4 Ways the Rest of Us Can Help,” Peter Eckersley, EFF

Short link: http://bit.ly/f4xE1B

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Minimalist Minimized; Food Bloggers Panic

Mark Bittman is retiring his weekly “Minimalist” column after 13 years, but he will stay with the New York Times, writing  for the Op Ed page and Sunday Times Magazine and producing “Minimalist” cooking videos for the paper’s website. He has a cooking blog — actually, two cooking blogs — and will start another on food policy.

Nonetheless, these changes have provoked panic in the Foodie Blogosphere, dished up in this platter of link-guini:

 

State of the Blogosphere

Technorati’s annual State of the Blogosphere report begins here, but the Fast Company version is a faster read.

 

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