“We’re whittled down to aggregates, now.”

Eliza Gauger:

I can’t get it out of my head, a comment Warren Ellis made months ago about the blog being, effectively, dead. The blog as a medium unto itself, that is. He may have been paraphrasing Bruce Sterling in turn, but I find myself agreeing.

FTC Requiring Bloggers To Disclose Payments For Reviews

From a functional standpoint, I am fine (even happy) with this, provided it kills asshole astroturfers dead. From an ideological standpoint, I am pretty well against it. Either way, it’s an important moment in internet history. I wonder what effect this will have on Amazon reviews?

The first blog regulatory laws. Dang.

24 Hour Transformers Marathon & Me

I’m going to be covering the rest of the 24 Hour Transformers Marathon on TELETOON on this Tumblr and this Live-blog. You can join in, if you like. Watch my slow descent into madness.

Paid Conversations, Credibility & The FTC

TechCrunch’s Brian Solis on proposed FTC guidelines that would force bloggers to disclose corporate gifts. Part of me is very glad to see this. Force the shills to go public.

Sign Of The Times

You know things are changing when even Nick Denton, king of the reblogging Gawker network, says things like this:

If a good exclusive used to provide 10 times the traffic of a standard regurgitated blog post, now it garners a hundred times as much. (emphasis added) That should be reassuring to people. The content market is finding its new balance. Original reporting will be rewarded.

Even considering the source, I’m glad to hear it.