3/30/2006

Did Martin Luther predict the blogger movement?

»The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.« (Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s)

If found this quote in the entertaining list of bad predictions. This almost reads as if Martin predicted blogging in 1530: People write for the sake of vanity, to make a name for themselves or, being pro bloggers, for profit. Now, what’s so evil about this?

1/8/2006

Blogs are dangerous for those not in the know

For the last week the German blogger scene was busy with two rather similar incidents: Renate Holst, an employee of the federal court »Sozialgericht Bremen« threatened to sue Shopblogger, a very popular blogger here, because he used the term »Sozialgericht Bremen« in the title on one of his posts that then appeared on the first result page in Google for this term. Almost the same time, Günther Klum, the father of supermodel Heidi Klum, threatened to sue another popular blogger, because he used Heidi’s name in one of his posts titles.
Both Klum and Holst seem to have made a serious impact - but not in the way they expected. The threatened bloggers posted about the incidents and immediately got a lot of coverage from other blogs. Through worldwide inter blog connections the stories made it to well read US blogs and even made the digg front page. Then mainstream media kicked in: The popular German magazine Focus did an interview with Renate Holst, where she managed to even make matters worse by explaining, she just wanted the blog article in question to disappear. Some call this censorship. Meanwhile Klum managed to piss of the well respected Handelsblatt newspaper.
So what’s the punchline? By 2006, Weblogs have established extremely powerful networks. Anyone with an interest in public relations should be very careful about attacking well networked bloggers. Some people say, there is no such thing as »Bad Publicity«, as it is always good to be in the spotlight. I believe Holst and Klum have done a lot of damage to their brands’ reputation though, and neither of them expected this to happen. They simply underestimated the power of the word of mouth.

12/5/2005

Instant comments to be outlawed in Germany

There has been an awful decision by the district court of Hamburg, Germany, that currently heats up the discussion in the German blogger scene. There have been some comments on the discussion forum of Heise, the premier German IT News site, which seem to violate a third partie’s rights.
Now the court decided Heise will have to check all bulletin board posts and all comments on their news before putting them on the net. At this sites popularity, that means they have to check more than 200.000 posts per month, which basically means they have to shut down their boards and disable comments on their news. If this decision holds up, this could be the end of the open comment system, as it is currently practised in weblogs around the world. While this may also stop the spam, in my eyes this will bring the German web back into stone age.
I’d like to know how my non German readers feel about this subject. Is this court’s decision sane at all?

11/12/2005

Turn your blog into a podcast

While podcasts are still gaining momentum, talking into a microphone is not everybodys cup of tea. I for example, feel a lot more comfortable typing on a keyboard, especially if in a foreign language (my native tongue is German). Seems like sometime soon, people like me will have the opportunity to have a podcast too with read.io, a service that automagically turns RSS Feeds into podcasts. While read.io is currently in private alpha and not yet available for the general public, one can listen to a demonstration at NonFiction. Looks like their text to speach still needs improvement, it doesn’t really sound that good.
[via Web 2.0 Central]