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This reminds me of the rather odd moment a few years ago during the BlogOn conference at Berkeley when a Microsoft speaker (was it you? I've forgotten...) asked for a show of hands of people who used Windows on their laptops. Out of the two hundred or so in the audience, only a tiny number raised their hands. It seems most of the others were using Apple laptops or Linux. What this showed us all, instantly, was that the "digerati" of the blogging world were simply not using the same tools that were used by those in the real world. The tool choices of blog technology developers and blog technology users differ drastically.
You shouldn't be surprised that BlogHer and Gnomedex aren't representative of the real world since the folk who attend BlogHer and Gnomedex aren't representative of the real world.
bob wyman
One last thing. The early adopters predicted the move to Apple (did you see the market share jump last quarter?) as well as the move to Firefox that's underway.
Michael: actually, so far early early results show that there isn't much of anything on almost ALL of the Windows Live Space URLs sent through.
Basically I think people are gaming Windows Live Spaces so that they get a cool icon next to their name in MSN Messenger.
And I really mess up things because I do a lot of my work blogging on the weekend and queue the posts up to show up during the week so I don't lose work time to blogging.
Why recreate the wheel? I'm sure Tony Conrad of Sphere and David Sifry of Technorati would likely have some pretty good data on the subject.:) They might be willing to share and add value to the conversation.
For the Record I'm a:
Windows XP user
WordPress User (I left a list of Wordpress wish list enhancements in my August 5th post)
Taking 1 hour of updating on a Sunday afternoon? Sounds like a ridiculously small sample which potentially gives you hugely wrong results.
What you need to to do have credible results is do this for a whole week. But for your own sanity I recommend you don't.
88,395 links for spaces.live.com
1,641,806 links for wordpress.com
1,917,709 links for wordpress.org
Im not arguing or anything, just intruiged as to what we now constitute as a blog.
One downside is that Windows Live Spaces does not allow you to have your own domain name (i.e. mydomain.com) and still leverage the Windows Live Spaces technology.
Also, I hate typing Windows Live Spaces...stupid marketing monkeys...
I await your wonderful judgement.
Oh, yeah...do you Americans get irony?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your test isn't going to tell you anything.
Approximately half (I don't remember exact %) of all Windows Live Spaces are private and don't send pings to any service (including search engines and our own updates page). These Spaces are hidden from the world in almost every way.
And they are, in a lot of cases, the most active for obvious reasons.
Spaces started as a communications tool for your Messenger contacts (friends and family) and that's how a *lot* of people use it today.
PS. I'd also like to know who "shoved it in your face".
But, is this a blog? http://isbeliamoorehead.spaces.live.com/
How about this?
http://loveableleonamae.spaces.live.com/
How about this?
http://lno-nd.spaces.live.com/
How about this?
http://rocoko0525.spaces.live.com/
So, is MSN counting these as blogs?
If so, the numbers are inflated.
Even if the obviously dubious Microsoft numbers are accurate, one fact, is undeniable, with 72 million blogs, maybe a handful worth reading...
there isn’t much of anything on almost ALL of the Windows Live Space URLs sent through.
Geee, you don't say. Finding anything remotely blog-like in Spaces is a serious effort. Typical Microsoft tho, all churn and corporateish, totally uncool, not making any impact, all covered up with the self-delusional hazy accounting. MSN is a blackhole.
But isn't that convenient. Call private whatsits "blogs" so there can never be a discussion of who's really biggest.
Well, sorry. That doesn't fly. If you're going to make a claim of having "blogs" then you gotta put up.
One of the five definitions of "blogs" I put in front of Bill Gates two years ago as part of a thinkweek paper was that they must ping a ping server so that they'd be discoverable. So, private Web spaces are NOT blogs in my book.
No. It's not. Blogging is a well-known gesture. Here's the five things that blogging is:
1) Easy to do. Type in a box and hit publish.
2) Discoverable. THrough search engines. IE, public.
3) Social. I can track when you link to me from another domain, either through search engines, through trackbacks, or through my referer logs.
4) Permalinkable. I can send you a link directly to a post.
5) Syndicatable. I can use a news aggregator to read your content, which lets me read a lot more blogs.
Don't have one of those five things? You aren't a blog. Period. Not up for discussion.
Another definition? Blogging got its name from Pyra's Blogger. It has all five of these things (although private "blogs" aren't blogs in the strictest definition since they wouldn't be discoverable by Google or Live.com).
But no one would care if MSN wasn't flinging their 72 million penis around, arrogantly claiming the biggest in town.
But that's a pretty silly definition for someone who claims to get trends :)
We've always said Spaces is more than blogging alone, so I've personally never been a fan of calling it a blogging service. But Marketing isn't my job.
The only reason people uses MSN Spaces is because it was pushed to them as part of MSN Messenger. People on my contact list barely write anything and they simply use it as an avenue for posting pictures, which I definitely don't consider blogging.
Microsoft is lucky to have such a large userbase to push these services to. Otherwise they'd be dead in the water. They are definitely not one to brag about blogging.
I agree those spaces that you linked to in your comments that said "There are no entries in this blog." Should not be counted as blogs. I bet the majority of their 72 M "blogs" have this comment in them.
See http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/paper/html/id/299/Char... for a paper with the data.
Our approach to differentiating echt blogs from splogs and from random feeds was to build a training set and then use it to train an SVM model. the accuracy for the blog/non-blog decision was about 98% and for the blog/splog decision was about 88%.
I think your 500 words and two posts a month constraint is quite reasonable. Generous, even.
http://www.chinaherald.net/2006/07/blogs-market...
Perhaps I'm too cynical, but is it not possible that Microsoft has simply created a Space for every registered MSN Messenger user? This would account for the inflated numbers, and a quick email to someone at Microsoft should give you your answer.
I agree with most of your criteria, except I do believe that original images, whether photographs or artwork, should count as a blog post. There's a reason it's called multimedia.
http://www.eu.socialtext.net/loicwiki/index.cgi...
China's New Obsession with Blogs and How Companies Can Benefit
"The total number of blogs in China will grow over 200% from 37 million in 2005 to nearly 120 million by the end of 2006."
http://china.seekingalpha.com/article/13336
500 words per month!!!
Even if you just blog 50 words per month...You are still bloging. I think the methadology should be that you blog once per month and 50 words.
Not everyone has the time you do to blog robert.
If the average population wrote 500 words per month there would be low productivity :-)
You've got the source, the themes, the plugins, the support, etc. And it's free. I heart WordPress.
I agree completely with your definition of a blog.
I also completely disagree that it is THE definition of a blog. Any more than there is A definition of religion.
Part of your book's major message is that its the conversation. If you and I were in a debate, one might mistake our verbal communication as the only vehicle of the debate.
But anyone who watched Al Gore and George Bush would know that presentation is a big part of it.
Deaf people can also debate and not say a single word.
So if blogging is a naked conversation, I'd say it surely can be a stream of pictures. Neither you nor I choose to communicate that way. But others might and it weakens the blogging community to undermine those other forms of communications.
seriously dudes, msn spaces as a blogging platform sucks ass, its cluttered, ugly, and slow.
and to claim the spaces is the largest blogging platform that is, is just rediculous.
Wikipedia's Definition of Blogging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging)
Advisor-Norris
I see how you rate it as being generous. But I could also see a blog having at least a 50 word post once a month being closer to the truth for a lot of blogs. I'd say 500 words and 2 posts a usuable blog.
Interesting back and forth and as you can guess I'd vote for Wordpress, but I'd guess either Blogger or MySpace as the top blogging sites.
1. There currently is not a limitation to how long you grant rights to the Public for use of your content.
2. There currently is not a limitation to how or where the Public can sub-licence your content in any medium in any edited form. By posting your content you grant the public this right.
I'm interested in hearing your results.
Sue
I can tell you that I did a lot of surfing on spaces, and most of what I saw were not blogs in the strictest sense. I can say that with 70+ million sites, even if five percent are blogs, that's still 3.5 million.
Another interesting thing to note is that this is perhaps Microsoft's only web project that hasn't totally failed. The interface is pretty easy, the technology is pretty decent and now, with Live Writer, one can blog if they wish.
All you anti-MS people need to take some pills. You can hurt yourself that way.
Sue : )
In a rapidly moving news environment, FDF operates a 24/7 press office and provides communications support to members FDF is the voice of the UK food and drink manufacturing industry. We work hard to promote the interests of the UK's most important manufacturing sector.
and want to add the most tech advanced blog on this page. What is the best way to do it? Shall I do it on the same page or add another?
Cheers