Wow, I agree with Dave Winer completely on this. I was at Mashmeet last night and got asked a good question: “what does Mashable do besides rehash older news, repost press releases and top X lists of startups with no editorial?” Good question. The blogosphere is a big ole recycle bin, not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, as long as its done with full disclosure and knowledge… which its not.

[From Proof that the end is near (Scripting News)]

I realized over the last few days that Twitter is reaching an apex of sorts and will start devolving from this utopian paradise of geekdom into a normal online community. This means that the Twitterverse will start having TwitterSpam (happening already), Twitter Trolls (happening now, just witnessed one today), TwitterFits (saw one this weekend) and TwitterFlames (likewise, see TwitterTrolls).

I wonder how this community will self-correct, considering the focal point of the community is on individuals rather than common topic. This makes it a much more scale-free and complex network than say a message board about a band or a community around one topic, but I do wonder if the edges of the graph will start segmenting themselves into logical clusters.

When I did graph analysis of discussion boards, we found that “me too” posts would orphan themselves if you kept the edge weight inline with attention (ie, edges were tighter if people traversed them more). Without attention they died. Will it be the same with Twitter?

My name is Ethan Kaplan and I support this initiative.

[From Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome announces Drupal-powered Community Participation Platform, hackfest in Seattle | B. Mann Consulting]

I’m in actually. WBR too.

[From We’re Taking an Open Direction with Web Communities: Are You In? ~ Chris Pirillo]

“Otherwise we’re the old guys gloaming onto something that isn’t really ours, and I find that repellent” - REM on new technology. Smart guys.

[From A 21st Century Group | Video | MTV News RAW: R.E.M. ‘Accelerate’ | MTV]

From USA Today, August 2nd, 1995:

ON-LINE MUSICIANS GIVE FANS A PIECE OF THE ROCK
by Mike Snider
USA TODAY
Contributing: Edna Gundersen
Ethan Kaplan says he can die happy. He got to shoot the breeze with his
idol, R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe.

They didn’t meet face to face and they weren’t alone. Kaplan met Stipe when
the musician dropped in unannounced on America Online.
But the cyberspace meeting didn’t disappoint the 15-year-old Fullerton, Calif.,
fan. “He was intelligent, friendly and very funny, in his own special way,”
Kaplan says.

…..

oh yeah. I’m keynoting a conference.

[From mesh conference - connect | share | inspire » Home]