Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Ain’t It Great To Be A Blogger In The Dot-Blog Boom?

photo by Alcee

If you don’t already know, Tomorrow will be in the pages of The Straits Times on Thursday.

Wow, and we’ve only been around for like less then the month. Suddenly everybody wants to be our girlfriend - even the mean kid who won’t let the rest of us play with his toys unless we pay.

Yes, ain’t it great to be a blogger in the dot-blog boom?

You know I really like being an editor on Tomorrow. Unlike the rest of the editors, I am the only one who doesnt attend meetups because I’m protecting my identity like Bruce Wayne. So I make up for it by visting the Tomorrow moderation queue frequently and approving articles submitted by other bloggers. I also write and post articles that I had originally wanted to post on my own blog but decided not to because it just looked better on Tomorrow.

The stuff that people submit ranges from really fantastic to really bad. There was this kid who submitted some porn the other day that had some educational value, but hey c’mon - it sure wasn’t the kinda thing we would post on the front page right? But when I reject stuff, I try to visit the submitter’s blog and tell them why I’m rejecting their recommendation. So if your stuff has not been published yet, don’t give up!

The tools on the site are also fantastic. We actually have additional text fields that are visible to editors only, which are used to post comments for other editors to read. This usually escalates into a discussion thread revolving around “Should we publish this post?”. The beauty of Tomorrow is that there is no veto power invested in any one individual. Each of us have the same frightening powers. But we work using basic principles of trust, respect and integrity. What appeals to Cowboy Caleb may not appeal to Calm One. And we’re fine with that, because it takes diversity to create a vibrant and interesting community.

What really makes my day is when I discover how happy I’ve made a person just by linking to them. Without Tomorrow, the rest of the blogosphere would never have discovered the subtle art of Squarebrain, the pastries of The Baker nor the Movie Ticket Petition.

I’ve drawn some startling conclusions about the dot-blog boom and the awful dotcom era.

1. Like the dotcom’s that preceded us, we still haven’t a clue how to make money off blogging yet.
2. Everybody and anybody with a computer is scrambling to create a blog and start blogging.
3. Movabletype, Wordpress, Blogger.com are the new Cisco’s of the dot-blog boom.
4. The traditional companies still havent a clue on strategy. See this hopeless strategy to try and cash in on blogging

The dot-blog boom is just beginning. Nobody knows where it’s going to go and be at a year from now. Being Cowboy Caleb is fun, but it’s a lonely job. I think it’s better to be part of a collective like Tomorrow and I so sincerely hope that it will evolve into something socially beautiful one day.

Dude, read update. It won’t be run on Thursday.

Hmm…why is being cowboy caleb a lonely job? Maybe I’m still a small fuck (despite my blog’s title), but it seems to me, that running my blog is pretty damn fun. Must be because you’re such a mystery man, lah. Or maybe because of your staunch monogamy.

Either way, tomorrow or no tomorrow, there’s definitely a community forming, and it seems pretty cool to me. Got a lot of chiobus somemore.

Regards,
J.

someone was asking me whether Tomorrow will turn into a semi-government mouth piece. Whether it will be like the government, censoring what you shouldn’t read, and telling you what you should read.

Daily linklets 5th May

Today is 05/05/05. In case you miss it, you only need to wait until 06/06/06. Spirit fingers is documenting the after effects of kissing Tom Cruise. ESWN notes another Hong Kong mainstream media outlet trivialising blogs. Self-criticism in modern time…

miyagi > haha, oh well, who needs the old school media.

J Schnorng > yes it’s very lonely. I mean I would love to meet up with other bloggers, but it’s just no possible for me to come out of the Bat Cave.

mandrake > not possible, because if you look at the list of editors, it’s a diverse mix of radical to moderate to conservative bloggers. We cover the entire spectrum and nobody has veto power to determine what can or cannot be published.

but who approves/disapporves also depend on the person’s ideology.