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Archive for the 'Technology' Category

Welcome Back, Henrik: More on Sarah Palin and Wikipedia

Published by William Beutler on September 9, 2008 in Barack Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Site Traffic, Technology, Trend Tool, White House '08, Wikipedia and William Beutler. 1 Comment

One of the best homebrew Wikipedia tools around is the Wikipedia article traffic statistics tool maintained by a young Swede who goes by the name Henrik on Wikipedia. At least it was, until Henrik announced he was going on vacation in July and the statistics fell into quick disrepair. Many began clamoring for his return (including yours truly), and some concluded that he wasn’t coming back.

Luckily, this past week, he did. Whereas many Wikipedia editors announce that they will be on leave and then continue to edit, this guy took his vacation seriously. And from what I hear, the Europeans do take some long vacations.

So if you’ve never seen this tool, I thought I’d take this day of much discussion about Sarah Palin and Wikipedia to compare two snapshots of Henrik’s tool for the main Sarah Palin article. First, the chart for May. Each bar represents one day, and the number with each counts raw page views. So how many views is that?

35,563 total. Not bad — in fact, that’s more than twice number of page loads at Tim Pawlenty’s article that month. I am not, however, suggesting we start using this like a futures market; the tool is highly sensitive to news articles that will send droves to Google with a particular keyword in mind, and then many of them to Wikipedia. So how many visited Palin’s article in August?

Notice how you can’t see those bars almost at all until the spike at the end of the month? Some of those slivers toward the end are 14,000+ views. The biggest day was somewhere around 2.5 million, for a total of 4,220,407 views for the month. Barack Obama’s page received a relatively meager 1,377,462 page views for the entire month (if only this tool had existed when Obama announced in Feb. 2007) and John McCain’s page received an even smaller 988,944. And both presidential nominees received a significant boost that day and for a few thereafter. How about Joe Biden? Better than the top of each ticket, but still about half of his rival undercard. This proves nothing except that Sarah Palin’s entry into the race drew a tremendous amount of attention, but we already knew that.

Now that the tool is back, I will plan to make use of these charts every once in awhile. Close readers will wonder if this is the Wikipedia feature I hinted at a few months ago, and others may wonder if I’ve given up on writing All the Rage for this month. The answer to both is no, so hang tight. As to whether this blog is now simply about Wikipedia… the answer is I don’t think so.

Bloggingheads.tv: The Week in Twitter

Published by William Beutler on August 11, 2008 in Barack Obama, Beltway media, Bloggingheads.tv, John McCain, Metapost, Mitt Romney, New Media Strategies, Online Campaigns, Republicans, Seriously, Technology, Twitter, Web video, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

Late last week I made my third appearance on Bloggingheads.tv with Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis; we talked about the politics of Twitter, whether #dontgo is a genuine movement or not, whether Obama is underperforming or overperforming, how to understand the different types of voters, why McCain’s “Celeb” ad was a success, veepstakes and the pointlessness thereof, including my favorite theory on why McCain will choose Romney. Check it out:

I might as well get this out of the way: I am not actually about to eat the viewer. It just looks that way.

Twitter Rapprochement: Personal Democracy Forum vs. Netroots Nation

Published by William Beutler on July 22, 2008 in #pdf2008, Blogs vs. MSM, Charts and Graphs, Democrats, Earned Media, Internet conferences, Netroots, Tech Blogosphere, Technology, Trend Tool, Twitter, Web 2.0 and William Beutler. 1 Comment

While we’re running Twitter mentions of political blog conferences through Flaptor’s Twist, here’s Netroots Nation (#nn08) this weekend with Personal Democracy Forum (#pdf2008) two fortnights ago:

Twitter hashtags #pdf2008 and #nn08 via Twist by Flaptor.

Even at one day fewer (two if you don’t count #nn08’s low-key Sunday) the bipartisan-ish Personal Democracy Forum generated remarkably more Twitter noise than Netroots Nation, and apparently not much less in the rest of Internet news.

Netroots Nation had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivering a speech on the main stage, certain to be covered by political reporters on the beat, but PdF had Arianna Huffington, arguably more Internet-famous than anyone in congressional leadership. The partisan nature of Netroots Nation probably attracted many from the substantial New-Old-New Left netroots movement, more than Personal Democracy Forum’s awkward mix of Obama-emboldened NYC progressives and McCain-indifferent DC conservatives. This despite the minor Twitter scuffle over Huffington’s imperious remarks.

It’s worth noting that NN’s location — Austin, Texas — is the same as SXSW (#sxsw) and its Interactive Festival, the locus of Twitter’s first widespread adoption in March 2007. On the other hand, PdF took place in midtown Manhattan, which by virtue of population and proximity surely has more Twitterinos (also, Tweeps) close by enough to at least tweet about not making it up/down.

But I think the best explanation for PdF’s modest Twitter supremacy is that, like SXSW and unlike NN, the audience it attracts is younger and more reliably tech-oriented. After all, the surveys show that liberal blog readers are older and primarily motivated by politics than the average Valley startup founder. One was first about tech, the other politics.

Meanwhile, the ever more ubiquitous micro-blogging service’s strong showing at the political conference probably bodes well for its long-term mass acceptance.

Assuming Twitter isn’t down, of course.

Expecting the Spectator

Published by William Beutler on July 8, 2008 in Google, Journalist Bloggers, Spam, Technology, Website Design, William Beutler and YouTube. 0 Comments

I don’t know why, but since last night, the American Spectator’s website at spectator.org has been blocked for being a “reported attack site”:

American Spectator website blocked as “attack site”

Fortunately, perhaps, Google provides diagnostic tools for those curious about where the site has gone:

Google diagnostics on the Spectator as an “attack site”

Alas, I don’t know enough about network security to make a diagnosis. (Dammit Jim, I’m a private eye, not a doctor.)

As of this morning, I can get the website to load in Safari but not in Firefox 3, albeit intermittently. The front page is accessible, but when I try to visit the blog, I get this instead:

American Spectator will cause “harm” to your computer

In the past, Google has been accused of removing conservative-aligned content from YouTube and from Google News, but I see no evidence that this is what’s happened this time. I’m not even quite sure why Google is responsible for making this call or providing these diagnostics.

What’s most likely is the Spectator’s webmaster left a security hole unplugged and the site was taken advantage of by opportunistic spammers, which is something of a tautology.

I’ve put an e-mail in to a contact at the Spectator, and if I find out what happened, I’ll provide an update in this post.

Update: Looks like I called it. The site still isn’t working for me in Firefox, but via Safari, they offer this explanation:

We have received a number of inquiries regarding the fact that Spectator.org has been designated a “harmful site” by Google, because of outside entities attempting to use our site to distribute malicious software. We have been working with our Web hosting company to address the issue, and believe that it has been resolved and that our site is safe to visit, though there is a lag time before Google can remove the “harmful site” status. In the meantime, if you normally find us via Google, you can still visit us by typing Spectator.org directly into your browser, or by entering our site via Yahoo. Thank you for your understanding.

All the Rage #15: Seven Words You Can Say on Wikipedia

Published by William Beutler on June 29, 2008 in #pdf2008, Entertainment, Obituary, Rhetoric, Sports, Technology, Television, WikiRage, Wikipedia and William Beutler. 0 Comments

If it’s Sunday (or, admittedly, sometimes Monday) it’s Blog P.I.’s weekly post about the ten most-edited articles on Wikipedia:

  1. Wall-E model courtesy Andy Castro on Flickr.Article: WALL-E
    Why: Disney-Pixar’s latest movie hit theaters this weekend, and it’s unsurprisingly shaping up to be a hit, posting Pixar’s third-best opening ever.
    Detail: Wikipedia aims to be as impartial as possible, but what can you do when the subject is universally acclaimed? You fine-tune the language and cut back on verbatims, as one editor advises: “Well, as you say, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, so it will be difficult to get the reception section sounding anything less than a puff piece. However, and speaking as the editor who added the current version of the reception section, I entirely agree that the reviews should be paraphrased better, with fewer direct quotes.”

  2. Article: The Stolen Earth
    Why: The penultimate episode of the latest run of Doctor Who episodes on BBC One.
    Detail: Which means there’s a very good chance we’ll see the final episode appear in one of these slots next weekend. Of the numerous British articles included in this list over the past few weeks, Doctor Who has ranked the highest most consistently.

  3. Article: 2008 NBA Draft
    Why: If you’ve ever wondered where all these new basketball players come from, perhaps you should learn about the NBA draft.
    Detail: The NBA still hasn’t caught back up with football in national prominence, but basketball fans still eagerly anticipate and closely follow draft night each year. With two televised rounds of thirty picks each and numerous trades, that’s a whole lot of updates on one night — and as Wikirage shows, most edits did occur all on one night.

  4. Article: Night of Champions (2008)
    Why: It’s not the WWF, that’s the World Wildlife Federation. It’s WWE now — World Wrestling Entertainment.
    Detail: If the NBA draft is a bit less-attended than the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and his TARDIS (yes, I’ve been skimming the Doctor Who pages) at least it is a little better-attended than this WWE event. This page was reverted and protected and reverted, but not necessarily due to vandalism. More the problem seems to be enthusiastic but inexperienced editors adding information in the wrong place and even trying to use the page as a forum. This happens often on some popular subjects, and it makes me wonder about members of the WikiProject Professional wrestling. No doubt the project counts among its members some dedicated and knowledgeable editors, but it seems that they find themselves having to undo a lot of the “help” they get. I doubt the same happens at WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology.

  5. NBA Draft archive photo from Noam Galai on Flickr.Article: Guitar Hero World Tour
    Why: Previously titled Guitar Hero IV, makers of the next installment of the popular video game series have continued to make new information available over the past few weeks, but was protected from unhelpful help (see above) until early June. Now the gates are wide open.
    Detail: Allowing people to add spurious rumors such as the planned inclusion of a Soulja Boy track with no guitar instrumentation (since removed). Interesting also that video games seem to show up in this list months ahead of release — the title won’t be out until late October — while movies typically don’t appear until the week of release.

  6. Article: Deaths in 2008
    Why: Death and taxes may be inevitable, but only one ranks well in the list of most-edited Wikipedia articles.
    Detail: Passing this week: one of the most influential comedians in my life and the second half of the 20th century, George Carlin. And then some other people, including a 37-year-old American comic book artist of cancer, a 20-year-old Russian-Kazakh model who threw herself from her 9th story Manhattan appartment yesterday afternoon, and the 9-year-old University of Georgia mascot, Uga.

  7. Article: District of Columbia v. Heller
    Why: In the session’s most closely-watched decision, the Court affirmed 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a firearm.
    Detail: Through the week I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the claim bandied about that the case was the first to rule on the Second Amendment, and here is an amusing smackdown of Slate’s lead legal correspondent, who apparently was among the banditos: “We are well aware of U.S. v. Miller, and know much more about it than the sensationalist writer Lithwick. The article does not say that D.C. v. Heller is the first case to pertain to the Second Amendment or that has incidental remarks that could be interpreted as pertaining to the question of individual-rights vs. collective-rights; it is not the first such case, nor is it the second. It is, however, the first case to definitively or directly or comprehensively address the question.”

  8. George Carlin photo via eyewash design on Flickr.Article: Battlefield: Bad Company
    Why: Not the English rock supergroup, but a new video game from Electronic Arts which “puts the player in a fictional war against Russia, where gamers will lead a squad of AWOL soldiers fighting both Russians and Mercenaries.”
    Detail: I can’t really tell where all the edits went, except that editors have removed some unnecesary sections, but I was a bit surprised to find out that this page has existed since August 2006, presumably when it was first announced.

  9. Article: 2008 WWE Draft
    Why: Did you know the WWF WWE had a draft? Or maybe that should be “draft”? If it wasn’t for Wikipedia and this feature, I wouldn’t.
    Detail: Do you think Vince McMahon is mocking David Stern?

  10. Article: Camp Rock
    Why: The Disney Channel sitcom all but ignored in last week’s edition because I was trying to pay attention at Personal Democracy Forum is back again, down to the tenth slot from the third.
    Detail: For I think the first time, Disney holds the first and last articles on this list.

    11. Holdovers this week: Camp Rock

    Falling off the list: Everything else.

    Recurring themes: Top American film releases, Doctor Who episodes, the NBA, Disney.

    Honorable mention: I would have thought Carlin would have been ranked higher. Instead, it looks as if his page was edited heavily on June 22 but not much thereafter. And while there was some coverage this past week of the young woman who was fired for editing Tim Russert’s article before his death was officially announced, less has been said about Carlin’s article though an edit war of sorts took place here. Several people tried to add the correct data, only to have other editors ask for more information, changing the article back until receiving confirmation.

    Meanwhile, you still can’t say the seven dirty words on television, but as the headline implies, you most certainly can say them on Wikipedia. In the proper context, of course.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I feel compelled to note that I have made a few disclosed edits to a handful of Disney movie articles for distributor Buena Vista. However, I have not contributed to the Disney movies listed here — haven’t been asked and haven’t needed to do so.

Images courtesy andy castro, noamgalai and eyewash design on Flickr.

Let’s Just Admit Slatecard is the Republican ActBlue

Published by William Beutler on May 26, 2008 in Blog Consultants, Fundraising, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, RedState, Republicans, Startups, Technology, White House '08 and William Beutler. 5 Comments

In the past week or so, two online GOP operatives (neither of whom is David All) have separately suggested to me that the competition among the three Republican Internet fundraising websites is effectively over. Even I doubted the separation would happen this quickly, but as of now even a late push by one of the two laggards would have a hard time catching on.

Evidence that Slatecard, bootstrapped project of Republican consultant David All (and web developer Sendhil Panchadsaram), is “the Republican ActBlue” can be found throughout mainstream political coverage over the past six months. Here are just a few:

Campaigns and Elections:

Then why the development of small donor online vehicles, including the Democratic ActBlue and Republican Slatecard, that aim to raise small donations on the congressional level? Both tools are growing substantially, and several candidates for Congress are highlighted on those sites.

USA Today:

“Your average online donor is an impulse buyer,” said David All, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who last year founded Slatecard.com, which he hopes to be a Republican answer to ActBlue. So far, the site’s donors have raised more than $5,000 for GOP presidential candidates.

Wall Street Journal [$]:

Mr. All, the Republican consultant, started a rival site last October called SlateCard.com. It has raised just $300,000. “What I’m finding is a lot of Republican campaigns are just hiring college kids or using their son who has a Facebook account,” said the 28-year-old Mr. All. “They don’t understand what this is all about.”

Human Events:

Slatecard aims to raise money for Republican candidates in the same way that ActBlue has for Democrats. Slatecard lets users create profiles (“slatecards”) for candidates they support and then raise money by donating to that candidate and passing it on to friends, family members, co workers — anyone — through blogs, emails, and social networking groups.

Wired:

“If you read the statute, the result is not surprising,” said Don McGahn, an attorney who advises Slatecard, the Republicans’ answer to ActBlue. “However, when they passed the statute, there wasn’t even the internet … what it really shows is that the way to fix this is to pass legislation to update the Matching Payment Act .”

While Slatecard is more elegant, interactive and transparent than its counterparts, it seems that All’s sometimes controversial self-promotion has made the lion’s share of difference, especially as he has succeeded in persuading local congressional campaigns to use his site, sometimes making it their exclusive online fundraising platform.

RedState, former backer of Big Red Tent, now supports SlatecardBut if you need further evidence that Slatecard is the take-all (no pun intended) winner of the online GOP fundraising tool primary, consider the image at right, taken from the sidebar of leading Republican activist site RedState. It’s a Slatecard widget encouraging contributions to the McCain camapign.

It’s noteworthy not just for being there but for what it replaces: Nearly a year ago, RedState announced it was backing one of the future also-rans, Big Red Tent:

Patrick Ruffini has said more than once that the right needs to stop building what the left already has and instead build the next big thing. As part of heading in that direction, please let me introduce you to the Big Red Tent. We didn’t build it, but we’re actively supporting it.

There is more irony here: Ruffini is chiefly responsible for the other runner-up, Rightroots, and RedState’s Erick Erickson was party to a minor internecine fight with All during the Republican primary season. To back All’s Slatecard over Big Red Tent may have been a difficult choice, but considering how the other two have languished, it may have been no choice at all.

Update: David writes to say that 48 candidates now have used Slatecard exclusively for online fundraising, though some have already lost their primary or special elections. That’s impressive, especially for a site not yet nine months old.

Our 500 Beats Your 250

Published by William Beutler on March 18, 2008 in Gawker Media, Seriously, Technology, Web 2.0 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

Yesterday at the Gawker-owned Valleywag blog, contributor Paul Boutin reported on, then expanded upon, a phrase he says is going around the Silicon Valley: “the 250.” According to Boutin, the term is

a cruelly sarcastic euphemism used in real-life conversations for the small, cliquey group of self-appointed Web 2.0 insiders who seem to spend their days blogging and Twittering about one another. The gist is that The 250 are the 250 people who matter to The 250.

I don’t know about you, but that sure sounds to me like the “Gang of 500,” coined by Mark Halperin for ABC’s once-influential The Note. Its usage has fallen off in the past year; the phrase doesn’t appear in The Note’s archives since Halperin left to create Time’s The Page. I can’t be sure Halperin isn’t still using it, at least until Time introduces The Search.

In any case, these insidery nicknames are innocuous enough if a little annoying. As if the Beltway and Valley cultures aren’t insular enough, apparently we also have to give the elites of this elite an arbitrary fixed number to serve as a nickname.

As we’re all well aware, it’s said that DC is Hollywood for ugly people. But maybe this is wrong. Equating the District with LA is a bit presumptuous on our part. It might be more accurate to say that New York City is Hollywood for busy people. Or that Hollywood is New York for flaky people.

We shouldn’t pretend the Beltway is in their league. No, the Valley is our proper analogue. Heck, even Northern Virginia has its share of high tech companies. But then, they’ve got an Apple and a Google and a Cisco and we’ve got… AOL, which is relocating to NYC in hopes of turning itself around. I guess that means the Valley is DC for people who are good at math. Which I suppose means DC is the Valley for poor people. So, maybe our 500 doesn’t beat your 250 after all.

In an Interstellar Burst…

Published by William Beutler on January 19, 2008 in Advertising, Entertainment, Fred Thompson, MSNBC, Metapost, Technology, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

…I am back to save the universe. Or at least begin posting again, following just about the worst case of the flu I’ve had in years. I’ve got a few not-quite-ready-for-full-post ideas, so let’s clear them from the docket before getting back to blogging as usual:

  • First and most importantly, Blog P.I. would like to thank our advertisers. In related news, Blog P.I. has advertisers! Yes, the Blogads box at right has lain barren since I first signed up over a year ago. But now there are three — one from the left, one from the right, and one that I created to promote a friend’s website. Your support is greatly valued, even as I remain officially neutral on the merits of your particular issue and/or cause.
  • I yield to no critic in my undying devotion to HBO’s “The Wire,” but I must concur with Slate’s TV Club that this fifth and final season is off to a rocky start. The newsroom stuff is too didactic, some of the older characters are speechifying a bit, and the pacing seems weird. I know, it’s a tall order to wrap up a series of this scope in ten episodes while introducing yet another new plot strand. If this was any other TV show, I wouldn’t be complaining. But about that newsroom — does anyone else think the show’s explicit “dead where it doesn’t count” message is somewhat undercut by the ongoing investigation into the death of four girls in Southeast DC? Unlike some fictional deaths depicted this season, these real ones made the front page of the Washington Post again and again, making national (even international) news upon first discovery. I’m not discounting the trend — but current events at least prove it’s not fait accompli.
  • In a recent post, I pointed out that LinkedIn offered no option to turn off the acquaintance-recommending feature that automatically alerts you to people you may want to be networked with. As it so happened for my colleague, one such recommendation was an ex-girlfriend, whom he most certainly did not want to network with. Well, I still think LinkedIn should offer the option to disable (or enable) this feature, but he informs me that it is no longer appearing on his account. So, uh, Blog P.I. gets results?
  • Here’s something totally useless, but as an admirer of Douglas Hofstader, amuses me greatly: What’s the TinyURL for TinyURL.com? Well, if you plug the URL into its self-same website, it turns out to be:

         http://tinyurl.com/u

    So what’s the TinyURL for that?

         http://tinyurl.com/7uw

    And that?

         http://tinyurl.com/8ee

    I could go on, but I’ll spare you. The website remembers every TinyURL generated for each page previously entered, so I assume that http://tinyurl.com was in fact the 21st URL entered into the website. Nice to know others are just as interested in the concept of reflexivity. (Hat tip: NM3.)
  • Today is a day I’ve been counting down to for nearly a year, even though I didn’t always know it: Fred Thompson needs a big showing in South Carolina’s primary this evening, and via Captain Ed, it looks like he just might get it. It’s been a great last few weeks for the campaign, maybe even the best few weeks of the campaign so far. Here’s hoping it’s not, in fact, the last few weeks of the campaign. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

I guess that’s all for the moment. Regular blogging about matters of politics and technology to resume shortly.

Iowa Caucus 2008: The View From My Laptop

Published by William Beutler on January 3, 2008 in Barack Obama, Democrats, Election Night, Fred Thompson, Iowa Caucuses, Joe Biden, Metapost, Mike Huckabee, National Politics, Republicans, Technology and White House '08. 5 Comments

For the record, besides cable television (MSNBC and FNC), here’s how I’m keeping up on events tonight:

Feel free to recommend something in the comments; I’ll add anything that I end up following.

For the record, I’m hoping for a strong third-place finish for Fred Thompson, and a Huckabee win to keep Romney from getting one. For the Democrats, I’m hoping for a persuasive Obama (not Edwards) victory to keep things interesting. One thing I am definitely rooting against: respectable wins by Romney and Hillary; that is to say, I’m rooting against Iowa.

8:58 update: It’s not even 9:00 Eastern and Fox News is calling it for Huckabee, with Thompson third: 36-23-14. Haha, only if she’s 5'3".

9:28 update: Half an hour later, MSNBC calls Iowa for Obama first, Fox follows close behind. Things will get more interesting.

9:32 update: The Google Maps Iowa caucus page still says:

Come back tonight for live results!

9:45 update: You know, the Dem results came back a lot faster than expected. So much for Edwards’ momentum, though it seems to be playing as a Hillary loss. Meanwhile, Jim Geraghty guessed correctly this morning in a piece that should get a second look.

10:28 update: Back and forth between the non-concession speeches [updated: and in 2OT, victory speeches] on CNN and the down-to-the-wire Blazer game on TNT. For once I need picture-in-picture. [Final update: "115-109, THE HOTTEST TEAM IN THE NBA GOES TO 20 AND 13!"]

11:58 update: Looks like Chris Dodd already had his throwing-in-the-towel banner ready to go:

Chris Dodd drops out

Whereas it appears that Joe Biden did not:

Joe Biden drops out

No great surprise, Mike Gravel’s website hasn’t been throwing rocks into the lake since December 31. [Update: Gravel is still in the race, eh? That'll teach me to believe what Keith Olbermann says.]

12:37 update: Not to pile on Dodd, who wasn’t the only sub-1% Democrat tonight, but the best headline of the night belongs to Eric Pfeiffer:

Chris Dodd .08!

12:52 update: While the most unlikely reportage is Isaac Chotiner’s:

TNR friend Charles Barkley writes to say that Obama winning Iowa is a “great start” and he hopes it leads to Obama “winning it all.” And who wants to argue with Sir Charles?

1:01 update: Calling it a night.

No, wait. One last update: If you’ll allow me to indulge, via Twitter:

Fred Thompson on Twitter

To Boldly GOP Where No… The Blog on the Edge of… Sorry, I Got Nothing

Published by William Beutler on January 3, 2008 in Blog Consultants, Blog Fights, Entertainment, Gawker Media, MSM, Online Campaigns, Publishing, RedState, Republicans, Seriously, Tech Blogosphere, Technology and William Beutler. 9 Comments

Via Buzz Brockway on Twitter and Peach Pundit, artwork from a new article in Campaigns and Elections:

Campaigns & Elections artwork featuring Erick Erickson, David All, Patrick Ruffini and Rob Bluey in Star Trek uniforms

A hearty congrats to all featured, and I think my colleague the Virginia delegate to QandO may be quoted in the piece. Yet the pay wall leaves me wondering. As a resister of all things Star Trek (and sympathizer with K-Lo at The Corner on this) I’m not sure if I should be envious; Matt Lewis’s Town Hall commenters are pretty harsh, and not just the Ronulans.

But the article isn’t public, so I can’t judge for myself, nor can bloggers or their commentariats. C&E publishes much of its content on the website, but right now there is a little C&E dollar icon symbol next to the one article that’s actually about bloggers. Who are the ad wizards at C&E who came up with this one?

I also wonder if the falling out between David and Erick (and others) from a few months back gets any inches. My guess is not, and even if I’m wrong, it makes me think it’s too bad Wonkette doesn’t report on its city’s industry in the same depth as Valleywag (retooled in early 2007) or even Gawker (retooling, but not pulled).

Certainly the Beltway and the District is as much a company town as the Silicon Valley/Palo Alto, so where’s the 100-word-version? Someone, please, quote the key grafs in a blog post. Make it so.

And to tell the truth, I probably watched ST:TNG on afternoon television for at least thee years in middle school.

Update: I have now read the article, and I am pleasantly surprised that the kerfuffle noted above is indeed covered, and that author Walter Alarkon even used the word “kerfuffle.” Aside from the annoying Star Trek motif and an embarrassingly lame pull quote, the article does a reasonably good job of explaining the current challenges Republican web strategists face. If the piece brings a wider awareness to these issues, it’ll have done all it needs to.

You can read the article here in the original layout; thanks to Theodora in the comments for bringing it to my attention. Still, the snazzy NXTbook software (which doesn’t even live on the C&E page) features no plain text, so it’s next to invisible to search engines. Likewise, it doesn’t let you copy and paste, so it’s next to useless for blogging.

Updated again: In the comments, it has been pointed out that there is an XML page running in the background, so it’s not a total SEO disaster. Meanwhile, Rob Bluey is weighing in…

I wasn’t going to post it, but I feel the need to set the record straight. For starters, I hate Star Trek.