Joi Ito's Web

Joi Ito's conversation with the living web.

TouchGraph GoogleBrowser V1.01 is a cool Java tool to let you see your Google neighbors. Uses Google API. Reminds me a bit of the Blogstreet visual neighborhood.

Via Werblog

Washington Post
We Begin Combing in Five Minutes
By Lloyd Grove
Friday, March 21, 2003; Page C03

The White House is vowing a strong retaliatory response after the BBC aired live video of President Bush getting his hair coiffed in the Oval Office as he squirmed in his chair and practiced on the teleprompter minutes before Wednesday night's speech announcing the launch of military operations against Saddam Hussein.

The footage available on The Smoking Gun.

My email notifications list is a combination of people who had subscribed to my blog, my old mailing list and random friends. I stopped sending blog entries via email when I started increasing my output. Some people have told me that they would rather receive email notifications. I just set up a Bloglet account and now you can get this blog via email. If you are receiving this via email, this will be the last time you get email from me. If you would like to subscribe by email, please go to my site and subscribe. The box to enter your email is towards the bottom of the bar on the left side of the page.

Very funny video of lipsynching Bush and Blair. 3.8mb .mpg file.

Via WombatNation

I've been trying to lose weight and set a target weight. I made a bet with Yuichi. Whoever hits their target first wins. The loser has to be a chauffer for the other one for a day. Well, that doesn't seem to be enough incentive. My weight's been hovering for the last week. So new rule. No more alcohol until I hit my target. I'll think about drinking again at that point. This should help in a variety of ways. I have stopped blogging when drunk. If I stop drinking, I will be able to blog at night and catch Dave Winer when he starts blogging in the morning on the East Coast. With the increase in email since I started blogging and all of the great new deals to look at in Silicon Valley, I am definitely reaching my limit on available time and not drinking should significantly increase my "uptime."

So, this is an official announcement. If anyone catches me drinking, you can smack me and blog that I'm a liar and a cheat. Come to think of it, I quit smoking since I started blogging. After my weight is under control and I stop drinking, maybe I'll take a crack quitting caffeine. Then I can announce that blogging is good for your health and that it saves lives. ;-)

Technorati's current events, a new feature on Technorati is a great source for news. Very up-to-date and interesting.

If you haven't seen it already, Lisa has video footage of police hitting protestors in San Francisco.

Kevin Sites
Pausing the warblog, for now. Dear readers: I've been asked to suspend my war blogging for awhile.
That sucks. I wonder if CNN thought he was getting too much attention. He was the only professional journalist on the inside blogging that I know of. Now we have to hope that Christopher of Back to Iraq 2.0 gets his stuff in order and actually makes it into Iraq and hope that Salam stays alive and keeps on blogging.

Via Instapundit

"Just like the Internet was 10 years ago, blogging is popular with an underground culture that is doing it for the love and passion," said Tony Perkins, who edited the recently folded Red Herring technology magazine and last month launched a business blog called Always On Network.

"Now there are people like me coming along and trying to figure out how to package it," Perkins said. "It's time to take it to the next level."

Interesting thought. What level are we on? I guess it might look "underground" when you first join, but blogging has already past the "underground culture" phase, I think. Having said that, I'd like to continue doing it for love and passion.

Nick Denton says this about the article.

One of the most clueless articles in a while, on the weblog phenomenon. Stars Tony Perkins, editor-in-chief of the defunct Red Herring, and his new venture, a super-blog about technology that I can't even find through Google.
Henry Copeland blogs some thoughts and an exchange with Tony Perkins where Tony gets a bit defensive. Elizabeth Spiers blogs:
The funniest thing is Tony's attitude toward Henry—the who-do-you-think-you-are indignation. This is how blogs work, Tony. You generate content. Other people comment on it. And you're not always going to like what they say.
Tony comments on Elizabeth's blog in humble lowercase:
Tony Perkins
to the lovely elizabeth spiers who runs this site, i promise to work harder. i must say that the fact that a person as obviously as smart and qualified as you are can't find a single thing of value on AO is certainly dissapointing to me. if you don't mind, i will let you know when i finally post something that you might find useful. btw, i appreciate the feedback so far.
So... Where am I on this? I've signed up for and played around with AlwaysOn. It looks sort of like a blog, but doesn't feel like a blog for a variety of reasons other people have blogged already, but the articles feel like magazine columns and it doesn't have the linked-in/real-time/community-participation element that real blogs have. For instance, I think Dan Gillmor does a great job of blogging and having a weekly column separating his interaction with the blogging "underground" and the readers of his column. Two different groups of people.

On the other hand, I think Tony is turning on a lot of people in Silicon Valley and getting bigshots to blog is a good thing. I do think it would be better to try to learn how to blog before evangelizing though. I am a venture capitalist trying to figure out how to make money. Blogging feels like 1992 to me. Lots of tool builders, lots of buzz, pre-Yahoo, pre-Amazon. I'm doing what I did in '92. I'm immersing myself in the technology and the community. I started my blog June last year and am finally figuring out the nuances, which makes blogging so cool. You really have to do it and immerse yourself in it before you really "get it." I think the risk that Tony faces is that "taking it to the next level" before you understand the current level is that you might not bring all of the good stuff with you to that level. I am also trying to "take it to the next level" but I'm part of a group effort.

Anyway, I thought the interview with Idei was great. I think Tony's helping everyone become more aware of blogging generally and I wish him the best. It reminds me a bit of how I alienated the Japanese diary community when I started ranting about blogs in Japan. They were upset because I had not given them credit for popularizing the form in Japan and acting like blogging was a new thing. Maybe a lot of the negative reaction to Tony is a similar feeling. I do think that there are a lot of smart people in the "blog underground" that Tony should probably interact with more and calling us an underground culture is not the best way to make friends.

You have probably seen this already, but just to close the loop on my March 16 post about this...

The good news is it looks like they figured out what it is. The bad news is that it will probably be years before they have a vaccine or a cure. The good news is it doesn't spread so easily.

I commend the WHO et al. Everyone did a great job coordinating by email, keeping everyone informed without causing a panic. Great execution. I felt more informed than any other such threat in the past. On the other hand, if the bug had gone into a full blown outbreak, there might have been a panic...

BBC
Scientists in Hong Kong have claimed a key breakthrough against a virulent form of pneumonia which is claiming more victims around the world.

The researchers have identified the mystery respiratory illness at the heart of a global health scare as a virus from the paramyxoviridae family, which are responsible for conditions such as mumps and measles.
[...]
"It is rather slow-moving, rather restricted to families and hospitals, not a rip-roaring affair, but still very nasty.

"There are no anti-viral drugs against this family of viruses, and there are no vaccines available. It will be a question of several years work.

"But it is not fantastically infectious, so I wouldn't expect there to be a massive outbreak in other parts of the world."