Are Germans just… Wiki-Blogger?

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Whatever the author had in mind, it was everything else but quality research. Perhaps that’s why journalists fear them, why they hate them, why they cannot understand them: Bloggers are indefinable. I haven’t seen such a stupid and most false article about blogs and their authors. The author Jan Freitag combines illustrive thoughts to create the phenomenon of a „Wiki-Blogger“.

That term is supposed to describe the typical blog author of the German blogosphere. But does that really fit? No, because now your deepest fear called Citizen-Media strikes back: Netzpolitik.org points out with some feisty quotes from the original source that blog authors are no mindless creation between SmartMobs, Wikipedia authors, discussion community board writers, and they certainly do not origin from the Chaos Computer Club. Clearly, one site not to read is the Neues Deutschland – Sozialistische Tageszeitung – but by promoting and criticising them in the blogosphere only pushes them ahead.

[via Kat on ICQ, Netzpolitik]

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100 blogs in 100 days

Duncan published an interesting approach of push-promoting blogs: 100 blogs in 100 days! I am not sure whether he’s going to accept the MikeSchnoor.com since Kat and myself are writing some posts in German, but I decided to write him an email and „submit ourselves“. His requirements are rather simple, and you may submit your blog unless you’ve already been included in his blogroll:

Email me at editor@blogherald.com with subject line of „100 blogs in 100 days” with your blogs details (name, url etc..). You also need to include up to, but no more than 100 words about your blog, what it does, what it’s about, or why the readers of the Blog Herald should visit it that will be published as part of the post. In return though I’ll be inviting Blog Herald readers to provide some feedback in the comments here on what they think about your blog.

I thought of giving him such a nice cross-mixture of whatever we’ve been covering here, and I’m still not satisfied with it since 100 words don’t really cover everything. But then, why covering everything if you’re trying to be unique? That’s the „for now“ description of the MikeSchnoor.com blog:

In the fast living media, all words are weapons of mass destruction. They become a powerful tool which can be used by everybody. The focus of the authors is centered on ideas concerning culture, politics, media and management. Therefore, the MikeSchnoor.com shows a non-German perspective written by Germans. But instead of having a tight bond to one nation, we prefer to become international managers with our studies at the University of Flensburg. In the end, our goal is just to support the reader with an alternative to their urban reality.

I thought that’d read nice, but we’ll see in time. One thing I already hate after mailing him 10 minutes ago is the fact that I’ve included two slogans without even noticing: „Words are Weapons of Mass Destruction“ as seen in the title logo (above), and „The Alternative to Urban Reality“ as my previous slogan for the former Sichelputzer site. I shouldn’t consider my knowledge from the marketing courses while writing anything here…

[via Blogherald]

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Wahlidiotie Deutschland

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Liebe Politiker und Politblogger,

mit zunehmender Begeisterung schreiben nahezu alle großen Parteien mittlerweile um die Wette. Die deutsche Blogosphäre unterhält ihre Politblogger wie bei Wahlblog.de und Wahlblog05.de, auch finden sich zahllose individuelle Blogserver: Silvana Koch-Mehrin (FDP), Petra Pau (Linkspartei/PDS), Martina Krogmann (CDU), Katrin Göring-Eckardt, Hermann Otto Solms (FDP), Brigitte Zypries (SPD), Jörg Tauss (SPD), Andrea Nahles (SPD), Katherina Reiche (CDU), Rainer Stinner (FDP).

Was ich aber dort lese ist größtenteils nur müdes Geblubber, was die Autoren von sich geben. Es sieht fast immer wie ein kläglicher Versuch aus, ein wenig die Profile des einzelnen Autoren/Kandidaten an die Öffentlichkeit zu bringen. Anstatt von den Möglichkeiten der Blogosphäre zu nutzen, passiert nichts. Wieso nicht einmal gezielt eine Schlammschlacht machen sich die Frage stellen, wieso eigentlich die Wahlprogramme und Wahlmanifeste der eigenen Partei keinesfalls für Deutschland eine Verbesserung bringen. Auch ein schöner Vergleich: Vergleich zwischen deutschen Politblogs und dem US-Vorbild.

Hier mein Vorschlag des Tages an euch Politiker: Denkt doch einfach auch mal an die simple VWL. Was ihr mit den geplanten Veränderungen erreichen möchtet, resultiert doch nur in kurzfristigen Effekten, deren Wirkung nach dem Einsetzen (und nach der Wahl!) verpuffen. Aber der Großteil aller Politiker hat davon ja nie gehört. Nebenbei sind gravierende Veränderungen an der Mehrwertsteuer ein Tod für das Leben von Studenten, die gerne das Studium in der Regelstudienzeit beenden und ganz gewiss kein BaFÖG beziehen (dürfen). Wenn wenige Prozentpunkte mehr oben drauf geschlagen werden, muss ich schon 20 Euro mehr im Monat für den gleichen Nutzen bezahlen. Was dann aber passiert ist der freiwillige Verzicht auf Konsum. Dies spiegelt sich im Feierabendbier wieder, aber auch in jedweder Hinsicht der Lebenshaltungskosten. Und bestimmt zieht die Masse im Kleinen auch mit, wenn es um Konsumverzicht geht.

Schon nach der Idiotie der Einführung von Studiengebühren für uns Studenten (und junge Leute), die noch nicht einmal BaFÖG erhalten und sich so verschulden sollen, habt ihr mein Vertrauen verloren. Sollen die Menschen, die die Zukunft des Landes tragen, einfach abwandern? Die Begründung für solches Verhalten habt ihr, liebe Politiker, doch schon selbst geliefert. Und wählt jemand die Partei, welche für einen selbst nur Verschlechterungen plant und das Leben einschneidet? Nein.

Seid doch ehrlich und gebt zu, was in euren Blogs steht ist nur Propaganda im Miniaturformat. Ohne Halt und Fuß wird mit dem Spielchen weiter gemacht. Sobald die Wahl vorbei ist, gebe ich euch noch eine Woche um über das Erfolgs- oder Miserfolgsgefühl zu schreiben, und dann sind eure Zeiten als Blogautoren vorbei!

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Blogspeed

Earlier today while having an instant chat with Katharina, she told me that I’d have blogged too little today. I honestly wonder about that as being a problem. Not that I blog quite regularly and constantly, I rather enjoy to write down my thoughts (and opinions, of course) and just unleash my mind’s power to the public. Nevertheless, today I haven’t had any real reason to pull the trigger and shoot it out. Instead I rather preferred to keep things within me and not vent or scream out loud. But I’ll surely contribute to the Blogosphere with a few thoughts about the changes in the German media about „Das Vierte“ and perhaps I’ll give some insight into ideological troubles from an english-speaking perspective to support Katharina’s post about Mr. Anal Mr. Analytical Edmund Stoiber.

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WordPress Exploit

WordPress Logo

There’s yet another small major security bug for WordPress users: Florian Holzhauer explains on how to disable the bug which allows to execute an entire set of PHP or shell commands.

There is an exploit for WordPress up and including to 1.5.1.3 out in the wild, which works on webservers with enabled register_globals.
The quick fix is to place
unset($wp_filter);
in index.php at the very top, right after declaring „php“ before any other php statements.

There’s no guarantee and liability for the success or any possible errors caused by this mini-workaround, so the best idea is to use an upcoming WordPress version which corrects the bug.

[via Blogbar]

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Lost in the Blogosphere

Just after explaining why I had started blogging, Shirazi covered the other side – the Death of Blogs. And while looking at the mentioned examples, I had the same question in my brain: Why are people counting the number of newly created blogs like Technorati‘ s Chiefmaster Sifry does? Aren’t those blogs which are lost, abandoned and closed more important to count in order to get the final number of blogs that exist – and not just those that matter? And on top of that, please let’s be real – what would these estimated numbers ever explain except the fact that people try to rely on themselves and (secretly) overthrown the classic media companies by being a new media phenomenon.

[via Light Within]

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First-Timer

I just thought about the past and was wondering what caused me starting to blog. First of all, I was used in maintaining my own website a few years ago. Around Autumm 2003 I began writing some mini-episodes of myself as a bunch of hand-crafted website without using any CMS. Anyways, after having some sort of time-lagging while publishing articles more or less constantly, I stopped putting effort into that webspace. Who knows why, I don’t know – but around November 2004 I was a regular again under the banners of two blog hosters until now.

But what was the first blog that inspired me? I don’t know it anymore, and I wonder what it really was. But no, I was probably searching for some easy-to-use CMS. While I admit that I still had memorized the basic ideas of my former employer’s content-management-system, I never really felt an urge to reprogram a CMS from scratch. I was lazy! I preferred to use some OpenSource stuff, and well – since I haven’t had the opportunity to use a database on my own, I was bound to these free-hosting services that offered me a framework to get startet.

After becoming disappointed from the stuff on i.e. Sourceforge, I guess I was googling for blog, blogs or weblogs – not sure which and when. But whatever kept me there was the germanspeaking Blogosphere. And for being the „First-Timer“ as in reading the first blog, I figure it was either Nico Wilfer, Thomas Gigold, Jörg Kantel or Robert Basic. Thanks!

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IceRocket stays IceRocket

As already explained in the comments by Blake, it’s fact that the rumors about the renaming of IceRocket came to an end. Mark Cuban won’t use the name „BlogScour„, but instead they will focus on some more IceRocketing. ;)

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So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!

Robert Basic left my daily reads at the M-E-X Blog. He’s been one of the (if it’s ever appropriate) A-Listers of the German Blogosphere. While I know some background information that lead to his depature, I’m not going to spread any false rumors here. The good thing is: He is back!

I’m surely going to read him in the future and added already his links to my RSS reader and blogroll, but I’m definately interested in the future of the M-E-X Blog, too. I’m not sure what will happen there, but let’s keep an eye on it.

(BTW Robert – can you please update my link in your blogroll? It directs to the old account…)

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Blog-Designer Database

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Those who want it, those who need it:
Hugh MacLeod and Alistair Shrimpton have created this new central database for blog-designers as a wiki. And no fear, they allow those who design websites professionally to be added to the list.

People are always asking the both of us, „Where can I find a good blog designer?“ We thought it was time to come up with an easy-to-use solution that anybody on the planet could make good use of. If you know anyone who qualifies, please spread the word. Thanks.

I remember there’s been some similiar attempt by the Design Directory which covers almost every kind of design and not just blogs. On the other hand, why searching for a good designer if you can’t create a design on your own? Okay, that’s a company problem and hardly the problem of individual blog authors… ;)

[via ProBlogger]

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