Comments on: Weblogs as Liminal Oscillation http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/03/08/weblogs-as-liminal-oscillation/ faults | sins | abuses Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:10:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Aaron http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/03/08/weblogs-as-liminal-oscillation/#comment-23664 Aaron Thu, 09 Mar 2006 08:44:50 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/03/09/weblogs-as-liminal-oscillation/#comment-23664 I'm presently writing a thesis that presents the blogosphere as an <i>eek!</i> open information exchange, or marketplace, where information is valued in terms of attention. Attention comes in the form of links, trackbacks, emails, comments and direct hits. Most bloggers value the intrinsic worth of being able to express themselves and see attention as a nice byproduct. It's always nice when someone takes notice of what we've written, isn't it? There are, obviously, at least two values in writing. If you generate a concept so far ahead of its time that no present person can comprehend it, the information will be of little value or use to them. Its true value would be realized once other people had the tools for understanding your life's work; in this sense value would be realized far into the future. Then there's the exchange value of it. I'll bet the Felsch-Kincaid stats on this blog post of yours would be quite high - indicative of a high level of education required to process the information. Which is why blog posts on <i>Weblogs as Liminal Oscillation</i> just don't get picked up by Fark. From what I've found out from Technorati, the inactive blogosphere (those who haven't updated in three months) is growing 1.5 times as fast as the active blogosphere, which implies that every day the active blogosphere shrinks in proportion to the whole. So maybe people have done some tire-kicking and found out that this style of writing isn't what they thought - they thought they'd get more attention and accolades for their minimal efforts. Unable to write for writing's sake, they begin to drop out, as their concept of value was something external to them (comments, trackbacks etc). I’m presently writing a thesis that presents the blogosphere as an eek! open information exchange, or marketplace, where information is valued in terms of attention. Attention comes in the form of links, trackbacks, emails, comments and direct hits. Most bloggers value the intrinsic worth of being able to express themselves and see attention as a nice byproduct. It’s always nice when someone takes notice of what we’ve written, isn’t it?

There are, obviously, at least two values in writing. If you generate a concept so far ahead of its time that no present person can comprehend it, the information will be of little value or use to them. Its true value would be realized once other people had the tools for understanding your life’s work; in this sense value would be realized far into the future. Then there’s the exchange value of it. I’ll bet the Felsch-Kincaid stats on this blog post of yours would be quite high - indicative of a high level of education required to process the information. Which is why blog posts on Weblogs as Liminal Oscillation just don’t get picked up by Fark.

From what I’ve found out from Technorati, the inactive blogosphere (those who haven’t updated in three months) is growing 1.5 times as fast as the active blogosphere, which implies that every day the active blogosphere shrinks in proportion to the whole. So maybe people have done some tire-kicking and found out that this style of writing isn’t what they thought - they thought they’d get more attention and accolades for their minimal efforts. Unable to write for writing’s sake, they begin to drop out, as their concept of value was something external to them (comments, trackbacks etc).

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