March 7, 2001

  • Blogrings?  I’ve got blogrings?  I thought I scrubbed the sink and toilet bowl yesterday!  Maybe I need to mix a little ammonia in with my chlorine cleanser….Hmmm…The porcelain is a’sparkling, methinks…maybe I need glasses?…or black lights?…that’s it!  I need black lights to see the fluorescence of these blogrings!

     *black light on*


    Ah! That’s better!   What’s this?   Yahoo?   …*reads blogring faq*…  I see…ringy things…hmm…here’s my thoughts thereon:


    The Risk:  Practically no one joins the rings. Xanga looks barren from the “ring perspective” leading to increasing disinterest and apathy, new membership dissuasion, and old membership loss.  Xanga embarrassingly withdraws blogring concept or dies.


    The Expected Payoff: Blogrings become a fun and attractive feature drawing excited new membership and revitalizing the sense of belonging and participation for existing members.  Members love it so much they are willing to pay a fee for specially-provided private blogrings that offer even ringier features.


    The Current Fallacy:  (1) Blogring?  It is not a ring!  It doesn’t make a circle!   One cannot enter the "ring" at one place and one-click navigate from “ring site” to “ring site” without exiting and returning to the externalized membership list.  Hence, it is more along the lines of Yahoo’s search categorizations by supposed theme and content than a facile member-to-member navigation tool.  (2) And supposed content and theme focus means just that.  There is no line in the sand to constrain content or enforce a theme.  Suppose David would design a Born Again Christian Blogring using Xanga’s provisions.  And, thereafter, OURNIGHTMARE, e.g., joins it with dark intent.  Even though David is the ringleader, he could not exclude OURNIGHTMARE.  Membership in these blogrings is self-selecting meaning that there is no control over or assurance of relevant content—and there is no keeping out.  Hence, any seriously cohesive blogrings that arise can expect, sooner or later, to suffer from a There Goes the Neighborhood syndrome as purposeful miscreants join in.  But since there is no real ring or direct member-to-member linkage to begin with, the only real fallout is that the accuracy of these content categorizations is diminished with non-relevance. 


    The Xangan Intent:  To serve us, of course!  Free There-Goes-the-Neighborhood blogring pseudo-rings for everyone!   But fee-based private blogrings, perhaps with theme enforcement and niftier true ring-type navigation tools, for the serious cult-ivators!   (from the Blogring faq:  “Xanga does not allow Ringleaders to restrict membership of a Blogring. In the future, private Blogrings may become available for a fee.” ) 


    *black light…off?   Oh hell!  I’ll just leave this light on and do some drugs till it burns out*

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