MeFi in NYT

June 30, 2003 6:21 AM

MeFi gets a brief (inaccurate) mention in the Times article the (not so) secret diary of a blogger today. "Any of the 171,151 members can nominate a link, but only those voted good enough by the others make it to the front page". Still, at least the author of the piece got his own weblog as part of the research.
posted by walrus to MetaFilter-Related at 6:21 AM (24 comments total)

171,151 members? imagine the megabitching
posted by matteo at 6:34 AM on June 30, 2003

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you MetaFark. Let the photoshop contests and Wil Wheaton love-ins commence.
posted by PrinceValium at 6:43 AM on June 30, 2003

I suppose there's a good chance that the weblog list (with the incorrect MeFi info) attached to the story was not even researched/written by the author, but assigned to somebody else. At any rate, there seems to be a great deal of naivete here that comes off as funny to us, but probably serves the majority of the publication's readers right well, which leads me to believe that it could be a "veil".

I must say, though, that in the time and space I occupy, none of my friends understands what a "blog" is, except for my husband, who has specifically asked about it, and who has now seen a sampling (especially mefi, needless to say). I imagine that if I were writing an article such as this for a non-tech, non-web publication I would probably use a similar approach.
posted by taz at 7:34 AM on June 30, 2003

taz: I would say the "Top of the Blogs" has two different authors: The first five seem to be by Michael Gove and the second five (including MeFi) are by David Rowan (who writes Technobabble for the Times) . The article was written by Damian Whitworth.
posted by ?! at 8:36 AM on June 30, 2003

Surely they couldn’t all be egomaniacs, exhibitionists or desperate loners.
posted by y2karl at 8:48 AM on June 30, 2003

I spy a new MetaFilter tagline!
posted by wackybrit at 9:09 AM on June 30, 2003

How to write an article on blogging:

1. sign up with a blogging service
2. post a couple of entries
3. e-mail and talk to the first few people who comment on your blog
4. 3 days and 5 posts after launching your blog, confess your true intentions with an open call for people to talk to you about blogging (for inclusion in the article)
5. write up the article
6. ????
7. profit

Is this the standard set by "professional" journalism? Tell me again why they're superior to blogs?
posted by filmgoerjuan at 9:56 AM on June 30, 2003

Where did the
1. item
2. item
3. item
4. ???
5. profit
thing start? I've seen it around a lot of blogs and would like to know. Any leads?
posted by woil at 11:01 AM on June 30, 2003

south park, i think...the underpants gnomes

1. collect underpants
2. ???
3. profit!!!
posted by amberglow at 11:05 AM on June 30, 2003

South Park. Underpants Gnomes Episode. I have never seen it, but that's not usual necessary with viral memes. The Motley Fool picked it up in late 2001, which may have been a big boost.

Plus, there's the Metafilter Wiki.
posted by weston at 11:08 AM on June 30, 2003

Thanks!
posted by woil at 1:17 PM on June 30, 2003

filmgoerjuan: Hear hear! I must have read almost a dozen articles about blogging that strictly adhere to your formula, and I'm convinced that the main reason they do it is so they can get a load of extra hits on their weblogs.
posted by adrianhon at 1:20 PM on June 30, 2003

but only those voted good enough by the others make it to the front page.

Voted? Others? Thought we were members whom self police the site. Wait, I am an other, no voting privileges.
posted by thomcatspike at 2:18 PM on June 30, 2003

but only those voted good enough by the others make it to the front page

Sounds more like Plastic.
posted by mischief at 2:33 PM on June 30, 2003

Well, I think it's dead on. Maybe just some semantic issues. Like, by "nominate" he clearly meant "post". And by "voted good enough by the others" he meant "not an ad or a linkless obit or maybe just really, really stupid." And by "make it to the front page" he meant "don't get deleted by the site owner, possibly after a flurry of discussion in the grey that may or may not deteriorate into a hair-pulling bitchfest and the banning of one or more fuckwits."

Clear as day, really.

Sounds more like Plastic.

Or kuro5hin.
posted by cortex at 3:57 PM on June 30, 2003

..and not to mention that the journalist is a recent graduate of the Jayson Blair School of Investigative Reporting..

But give him time, he's still green. Next time he won't even bother with starting a blog; it'll be straight to profit!!!
posted by jazzkat11 at 7:23 PM on July 1, 2003

Three million US blogs doesn't sound too far off, but the idea that there are only 25K blogs in the UK is obviously off. LiveJournal's stats alone indicate 23000 UK users, and I would expect about 27K UK users on Blogger, so it would be surprisng to me if the actual number wasn't about 100K.
posted by insomnia_lj at 9:48 PM on July 1, 2003

If a blogger posts in the forest, and no-one reads it, does it still bear counting?
posted by Jimbob at 10:08 PM on July 1, 2003

The worrying thing about noticing inaccuracies in reports on those things we know about, is that you wonder at those inaccuracies in reports on those things we don't know about.
posted by nthdegx at 5:00 AM on July 2, 2003

How to write an article on blogging:

Noticed this popular site's links have been mostly Blogs stuff for the past several months. Also it shows me how Matt is a leader in this industry.
posted by thomcatspike at 5:26 AM on July 2, 2003

The worrying thing about noticing inaccuracies in reports on those things we know about, is that you wonder at those inaccuracies in reports on those things we don't know about.

That's always struck me too. You go for years blithely accepting everything you read in the newspaper and then you read about something that happened in your neighborhood and see how much they get wrong.
posted by timeistight at 8:42 AM on July 2, 2003

timeistight - you know, i'm glad i'm not the only one with such an opinion. who can we trust?
posted by triv at 10:14 AM on July 2, 2003

What's that quote about trust, but verify?
posted by timeistight at 10:54 AM on July 2, 2003

What's that quote about trust, but verify?

Doveryay, no proveryay. It was apparently a favorite proverb of Lenin's before Reagan made it his own during arms reduction talks with Gorbachev.

who can we trust?

Completely? Without question?

Um...

I dunno about you, but if the "things you know about" experience helps someone get over the idea of completely trusting any one source of information, then it's a Very Good Thing indeed.
posted by mediareport at 11:18 AM on July 2, 2003