Everyone knows about author bloggers like Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin. But outside of the Technorati Top 100, there are a lot of authors that have used blogs to create fantastic communities of users. Here are my five favorite, slightly lower profile author blogs:

(5) Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell, the author of The Tipping Point and Blink, started his blog in March 2006. Most of his posts expand on his New Yorker articles or comment on interesting stories he comes across. He has a very engaged community that posts hundreds of comments to every entry. He’d be hire if he posted consistently (nothing new since January).

• Sample Post: Defining a Racist

(4) Tim Ferriss

Ferriss is the author of the book the Four Hour Workweek and just started his blog a month or so ago. His writings, which focus on how to streamline your life and increase your own efficiency, have really struck a chord with folks. The blog has been really entertaining so far although it is possible that Ferriss is a bit of a one trick pony. Plus he doesn’t work much so we’ll see if he sticks with it after the promotional aspect wears off.

• Sample Post: How to Check E-mail Twice a Day… or Once Every 10 Days

(3) Scott Adams

Dilbert author Scott Adams writes daily posts about whatever is on his mind to his surprisingly fantastic blog. I’m a much bigger fan of the blog than I am of the Dilbert cartoon. Adams just has an interesting take on life that really comes across in his blogging.

• Sample Post: What’s Your Permanent Age?

(2) Freakonomics

I’m a big fan of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s book Freakonomics. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a year ago that not only were they blogging, but were doing so quite well on a daily basis. On their blog, they provide theirs takes on whatever topic strikes their fancy.

• Sample Post: Poker: Skill vs. Chance

(1) Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a bit of a jack of all trades - he has written books, comics and films, among other things. He is also one of the first author bloggers, having started blogging in February 2001 in an effort to promote his book, American Gods. These days Gaiman blogs about his work, his life and spends a great deal of time answering reader mail through the site’s Ask Neil feature. Gaiman was born for the blog format.

• Sample Post: Tabs, writing and why writers should not carry portfolios

This post is part of ProBlogger’s most recent group writing project, with the theme of “top five”. Be sure to check out other entries!

We’ve had a bumpy history with blog statistics programs here at The Bivings Report. Services we like keep getting shut down.

Here is a quick summary:

1. Industry leader Measure Map got bought by Google a year ago and since then has closed registrations for new users. I’ve been on the waiting list for over a year now with no luck.
2. The excellent (though buggy) Blogbeat was bought by Feedburner around six months ago and was simplified to the point where it is no longer useful except for the most basic analytics.
3. The excellent Performancing blog stats programs shut down in December for some unknown reason.
4. I’m not a fan of SiteMeter, MyBlogLog or Google Analytics for blog tracking.

So I was shocked and happy to come across a new service called Clicky the other day. It is the best blog stats program I’ve used. Clicky has all the basics like site visitors, page views, incoming/outgoing links, and search keywords.

It also has a bunch of goodies like RSS feeds of your stats, a Spy section that lets you watch your users come in real time and a Google Map that show the location of your fifty most recent visitors (screenshot above right).

You can check out a demo on the Clicky website. If you are a blogger, I’d give it a whirl.

After the fifth book of the Harry Potter series was published, Francisca Solar decided JK Rowling's version of the story wasn't good enough.  She was so dissatisfied with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that the then 21 year-old Chilean journalism student decided to write her own "fanfiction" sequel.  Entitled Harry Potter y el Ocaso de los Altos Elfos (Harry Potter and the Decline of the High Elves), Solar published her 756 page novel on FanFiction.net.  According to the BBC, Solar's story was viewed over 80,000 times and received positive reviews from all over the world:

"When I read the fifth book, I was so disappointed - I'm a very critical reader, and I'm a huge fan, so the expectation of this fifth book was great," Solar said. "I took the principal characters and I did a story that is more rich than Rowling's story, because you can have access to the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters…Many people from all around the world have written to me, from the US, from the UK, from Asia," she said. "All these people wrote to me about the fanfic and said they liked it more than the official sixth book (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)."

(more…)

Chris Anderson, author of the Long Tail and the editor-in-chief at Wired Magazine, has written two (1, 2) though provoking posts outlining how online media might work in the future. In his second post, he outlines his vision for "radical transparency" by the media. There is some great thinking here. Describing the posts simplistically, Anderson wants to not only show readers what’s behind the curtain at Wired, but let them help control the wizard. Following are the main elements of this "radical transparency" (presented in quotes) and my quick thoughts on each:

(1) "Show who we are. All staff edit their own personal ‘about’ pages, giving bios, contact details and job functions."

Absolutely. I think another key here is to have the reporters actually interact with users via comments, posting clarifications and engaging in friendly bickering. Do this in real time, not through some delayed mailbag type of feature.

(2) "Show what we’re working on. We already have internal wikis that are common scratch pads for teams working on projects. And most writers have their own thread-gathering processes, often online. Why no open them to all? Who knows, perhaps other people will have good ideas, too."

I think it is a great idea to encourage users to submit story ideas and tips or even to ask for input in certain instances. But, frankly, as a magazine reader I don’t think I’d be that interested in knowing everything a magazine is researching. It is just sort of too much. I’d worry this would be used and abused more by interested parties (PR firms, companies, etc.) trying to impact stories before they are written than real people.

(3) "Process as Content. Why not share the reporting as it happens, uploading the text of each interview as soon as you can get it processed by your flat-world transcription service in India?"

I’m a big proponent of publications including the source documents when they publish a piece. And this may make sense for some big cover story type of thing. But in most cases I’m just not going to care. I want to read the short and sweet version and then dive into the source materials if my interest is piqued. Not the other way around. And once again, in most cases the only ones who will care are interested parties trying to slant the story.

(4) "Privilege the crowd. Why not give comments equal status to the story they’re commenting on? Why not publish all letters to the editor as they’re submitted (we did that here), and let the readers vote on which are the best?"

On the comments, no thanks. I think allowing comments on every story is enough. I’m comfortable with the comments being below the story. Of course, Anderson may have some way of doing this design wise that I can’t envision. On the letters to the editor, absolutely. This is something that came up in a follow up to our 9 Ways to Improve Newspaper Websites post. I would love to see this process opened up.

(5) "Let readers decide what’s best. We own Reddit, which (among other things) is a terrific way of measuring popularity. Why should we guess at which stories will be most popular and give those preferential treatment?"

Absolutely. This is exactly what I was hoping for when they bought Reddit. I would just say that there is a sweet spot between a popularity-based news view and an editor-controlled view that hasn’t really been hit on yet (I know Netscape is trying). How about giving the user the ability to switch between the popular and editor views of the site? This was what we tried in our redesign of USA Today.

(6) "Wikifiy everything. The realities of publishing is that at some point you push the publish button. In the traditional world, that’s the end of the story. It is a snapshot in time, as good as we could make it but inevitably imperfect. The errors (and all articles have them) are a mix of commission and omission–we hope for the best yet brace ourselves for the worst. But what if we published every story on a wiki platform, so they could evolve over time, just like Wikipedia itself? The original story would be the foundation of what could eventually become a version expanded and updated by readers."

Great idea. The web isn’t print. Let the story be a living breathing thing and not something disposable.

You can read his full post here. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Update: Netly News has a good piece exploring another problem with this approach: giving away scoops to competitors.

Update 2: Jeff Jarvis weighs in.

You might have a large collection of thick classics sitting on your bookshelf at home right now. You bought them years ago but have yet to touch them. A fine layer of dust seems to have permanently attached itself to the cover. You were waiting for that rainy Saturday where you could curl up on the sofa with Wuthering Heights or The Art of War, or perhaps Alexander Hamilton's The Federalist Papers.

But come that rainy day and you don't feel hardy enough to take on that ominous layer of dust. Your allergies are pretty dreadful and you're pretty sure that it would take you three years of rainy Saturdays to get through Crime and Punishment. You have to go to work and you have things to do, and frankly, it's pretty silly to start something you know you can't finish. Plus, Crime and Punishment makes an excellent doorstop so why change what's already just fine? (more…)

Way back when, I wrote a post about the undoing of James Frey and his memoir, "A Million Little Pieces."

We all know the memoir was a lie, a total fabrication.  I wondered at the time what might happen, whether the publisher would fess up and give readers a refund.  Well they are going to it seems, but of course, only after being sued.  In fact, it's basically a total recall — for a defective and falsely advertised product.

You can find more details of the refund at this blog here .

The Washington Post published an interesting article on Sunday about Google's Book Search function.  With the University of California recently adding its massive library to the book-scanning process, this idea of creating a comprehensive digitized library of all the world's books seems like a reachable goal.  This move, which opened the University of California's network of 100 libraries and some 34 million books to Google's scan-and-search framework is a landmark event in Google's quest of digitizing every book ever written.

The Issue

Google Book Search, originally dubbed Google Print,  was the basic idea on which Google creators built their franchise in 1996.  After getting distracted by indexing the entire World Wide Web and earning massive amounts of money, the Googlers returned to their original goal of digitizing books in 2004.

The search function was originally developed as a marketing tool for publishers and authors.  Under this structure, the Google team gained permission from publishers to scan books into a Google database.  Users can now conduct a search online, and their results consist of various books that include the search term within the text of the book.  Citations are provided, along with snippets of text with the search terms highlighted.  Links are provided to publishing companies and bookstores so that users can buy the books online.  In many cases where permission was obtained from publishers, books are shown in their entirety on the Web.  Publishers can track their stats on Google to see how many people are reading their books online, are given the opportunity to "opt out" of the service at any point, and can even make some extra money from Google ads.

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So now that we’ve all agreed that The World is Flat and also that we’re a nation of people drowning in debt, Boston Consulting Group senior consultant Michael Silverstein has a new theory for us: Middle class consumers are on an eternal treasure hunt, looking for an emotional connection to our purchases, from mac and cheese to the kinds of pens we write with. So how does all of this effect the way marketers, advertisers and PR people communicate to consumers? Silverstein says this, “If your offering isn’t exciting enough to inspire trading up, but not enough of a bargain to satisfy the treasure hunters, you’ll have no emotional connection with your target audience.” (Keep in mind, this book focuses strictly on the consumer goods category.)

Having seen various “strategy” forms (these are forms that make a PR person answer, in short form, what their goal or vision is regarding messaging and product positioning. For instance, a public relations team member might write something like, “We want consumers to think of Sprinter’s Flavored Beverage as a way to live a healthier lifestyle.” Unfortunately, that’s generally the bulk of it sometimes. They build their powerpoint slides around that pithy wish list.), there is a noticeable lack of actual, thought out market research or connection to the consumer in these hollow, easily replicated messages. Somehow, many PR firms without research arms, think that market research isn’t necessary, outside of skimming through a few articles here and there. (more…)

As yesterday was deemed Fake Writer Day by Gawker, it seemed appropriate for the Denton-ites to start the day off with a blurb involving a Harvard student whose literary dreams were coming true, only to be squashed by her school paper’s revelation that she might actually be a plagiarist. Metafilter and The New York Times, as well as a number of British, Australian and Indian publications, quickly picked up the Crimson story. Kaavya Viswanathan’s teen college admissions drama very recently made The New York Times bestseller list and has also been optioned by DreamWorks. All of that came to a standstill over the weekend when The Harvard Crimson determined that language and certain passages in Viswanathan’s book had been directly lifted from another book.

The Harvard Crimson broke the news on its website on Sunday and by now, there are more than 400 hits on Google search alone. The New York Times carried two stories about the news yesterday alone: the first being the Crimson story and the second being the apology/explanation Viswanathan issued through her publishing house later in the evening. After Viswanathan apologized, the news circuits (if there were such a thing) began lighting up again. By 8 p.m. ET yesterday, a number of major publications, including The New York Times and Washington Post had published the story.
(more…)

I haven’t gotten around to reading Crashing the Gate yet, which is the new book by prominent liberal bloggers Marko Moulitsas (Daily Kos) and Jerome Armstrong (MyDD). But I did check out an extended review in the New York Review of Books. It looks like a good read. However, this quote from the review really jumped out at me:

Now there is no denying the juggernaut that is the DailyKos - it is the most popular political blog on the Internet by a wide margin. But “fifty times the number of visits received by the entire right wing blogosphere?” That seems impossible. Below is a Alexa chart comparing DailyKos to Instapundit in terms of daily reach, which is the metric I would associate with “visits”:

Looks to me like DailyKos gets twice as many visits as one conservative blog, Instapundit. Impressive, but something less than fifty times the visits of the entire right wing blogosphere. I know Alexa data is far from perfect, but am I missing something here?

In a recent post, I breifly mention the notion of a smart crowd. I started to talk about this in the context of Web 2.0, the term coined in large part by Tim O’Reilly. He identifies a number of principles to help explain what this is. Omitting the more programming specific, he describes Web 2.0 as applications as platforms, continuously updated, centered around deep data, where participation is central and users call the shoots, which get better as more users take part, and harness the collective intelligence of the users. For example, eBay, Google Adsense and maps, Wikipedia, Flickr, BitTorrent, and blogs (especially with the advent of RSS, permalinks, and trackbacks.)

O’Reilly does make reference to the wisdom of crowds, in talking about “harnessing the collective intelligence” of the user community. So what doe this have to do with the media?

Well imagine starting with news feeds, such as Reuters, the AP, ESPN, etc. Enable users to add content to these stories, and allow the user base to vote on the top stories — sort of like a Web 2.0 attempt at USA Today.

NewsVine is trying to do this. The site is in private Beta currently. Send me an email or leave a comment if you want access - I have a few invitations left. Will be very interesting to watch over time.

This book by James Surowiecki shows how, under the right curcumstances, crowds can make better decisions than individuals, and individual experts. I want to spend the next few posts talking about his insights in the context of Web 2.0 and the media.

Talking about smart crowds, Surowiecki, means an assembly of people that meets four critieria: 1) it needs to be diverse, with different people bringing different info to the table; 2) It must be decentralized with no leader at the top; 3) there needs to be a way (the web, say) for aggregating everyone’s opinion into a result, like a vote; and 4) members of the crowd have to be independent, so that they care more for themselves than what other may think of them.

And as Surowiecki shows, you get some interesting results; from the simple, a group accurately estimating the number of jelly beans in a jar, to the more complex, scientists in groups around the world identifying te SARS virus, to the very complex, investors in the marketplace.

So what about Web 2.0 and the media?  Next posting.

The Blogosphere Strikes Again. This time taking down a best-selling author.

The non-fiction book “A Million Little Pieces,” by the memoirist James Frey is the latest victim — this time of The Smoking Gun website. Published in 2003, the book is a memoir chronicling Frey’s life: his plunge into alcoholism, drug addiction and crime, followed by his rehabilitation and final redemption. Subsequent to Frey’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in late October 2004, the book shot to the top of The New York Times nonfiction paperback best seller list. (more…)