Blogging On a Different Plane

You know I have come a ways as a blogger. With the help of our community here and people all over the Web, my blogging experience has been a charmed one really. I was reading some other blogs earlier and ran across a post at Mashable that was quite extraordinary.

The thing is, all writers and bloggers strive to present things that their readers will find interesting, and perhaps occasionally fascinating. I know the authors here at Profy feel that way. We do some really great stories and some that are not all that great too, but the intent is to give the readers something of value. Whether it is a breaking piece of news, some striking commentary, a well thought out analysis or just a few laughs, most writers from wherever just like sharing.

I have only run across a few articles in my time blogging that really were perfect. I may have had one or two out of 150 that came close to that, but this article by Pete Cashmore tonight was simply perfect. The piece deals with numbers and the general way that online entities operate and often thrive more or less out of twists of fate.

Digg is the particular target, if you will, of this insightful commentary. The article points out the relative strengths and weaknesses of some of the systems that are in place around Web 2.0. If I may quote Cashmore on a very valid, if not all popular observation: "To paraphrase the butterfly effect: one 13 year-old in Illinois can decide whether a news story becomes the most popular item of the day, or falls into obscurity."

I think we should applaud what we find excellent, not just sometimes like this commentary on a Cashmore piece, but every time we see something true and correct. We also need to acknowledge facts and theories that direct thought towards anything that will make our experiences better. We try to do that here at Profy, not always successfully but always trying.

It is ironic that the very point this article addressed has actually been a factor in my writing. Without a long history, I can simply make our readers aware that many excellent and often exclusive pieces of news we have offered have fallen prey to the 13 year old, or at best a bad algorithm. The real problem I find with these "lucky" entities is their lack of humanity in the face of so many people. The 13 year old seldom gives a reason why he tied the cat to the bumper of the car.

It is not my intention to over aggrandize Cashmore, though I have written a few pieces for him. It is an honor to work with excellent people both here and at Mashable, but the really rewarding things about these collaborations are the moments when people get real. After a little while a person gets to a point where "real" discourse becomes very apparent. The difficult thing for the 13 year old is reading more than one paragraph without needing a chocolate fix from elsewhere.

What is my "Boomer Generation" suggestion to anyone who gets lucky? Start figuring out how to be excellent before fortune favors someone else.

Note the comment about hiring more 15 year old executives. This is the technology story of the day?