Week 10 is all but past. Then Finals and grading (all of my grade need to be finished and in by the end of next week). After that, the future is a bit unknown. But there will be more research and blogging.

In the meantime, I’m getting more interested in the production of Blog Spam bots. Or rather their logic. Or what they are trying to accomplish beyond traffic. Whats interesting is how they select old posts to "bomb" with messages. For some reason they keep spamming the Lessig Photo Post. I can’t figure out if there is something in that post that makes it attractive.

So far my favorite peice of spam is this one:

Polish… polish food, lot polish airline, car polish, green nail polish, nail polish…

It’s a great peice of lingustic play, though semantically speaking, I don’t think it was intentional. But there you have the switch from Polish aka Poland to polish as in waxy buildup.

Seems like I can’t get away from bots. My Lessig/Nader post keeps getting hit by comment-bots (programs that leave comments with links to commerce sites). While that’s not particularlly new, the last bot comment is a little novel:

Matthew Says:
May 1st, 2006 at 3:24 am e

Matthew…
Looks like your page was spammed…

Its another case of a bot commenting on other bots. From the syntax, I’m gussing it’s the same program that left the last few comments. I am curious if this bot script happened to be named "Matthew" or it pulled that off of some metadata (or good ‘ol fashioned published content) on this site.

I’ve seen this tactic of having a bot comment on bots occur with chatterbots. I mentioned it briefly in my thesis:

[Some chatterbots are scripted to] voice frustration at other bots within the chatroom, by posting things such as “I can’t believe there are so many bots in this room!” One notable script, perhaps in hopes of eliminating the competition, informs chatters that “If everyone complains to yahoo, we’ll get these bots kicked out. ” These adaptations highlight how authors continually, and reflexively, evolve their scripts based on observation of chatroom reaction to bots and on the results of data collected by the bots in one-to-one IM sessions.

This one’s long, but worth it. In one fell *swoop*, or rather *Wiki!*, Marvel Comics has dealt with a nagging editorial problem and created an amazing goodwill generator. Best of all, this was done at little-to-no editorial cost to Marvel, using resources who are not financially compensated (in fact, many whom have been writing about Marvel charaters for years, just elsewhere). All Marvel had to do is trust their fans. Allow me to explain:

Like any comic company, Marvel struggles with the daunting issue of continuity – the convoluted histories of its characters. While Peter Parker might not have aged much since his introduction in 1962, he’s had a heck of a lot of adventures. Since his story is told as an ongoing epic, each episode building on the past one, that means there’s a lot of history, filled with villains, allies, clones, and costumes, all of which have come and gone, died and come back from the dead (yes, even the costumes). Now, take all of those continuity issues and multiply them across the countless characters in Marvel’s comic “universe.”^[1] What you get, at least according to industry pundits, is a daunting barrier to entry that intimidates new comics readers.

Marvel’s original solution was annotation and cross referencing. When the Sandman lamented a previous defeat at the hands of Spider-man, it would be accompanied by a plucky editor’s note like, “* See ASM #140, True Believer!”^[2] Later, in the 1980’s, Marvel came up with the brilliant idea of doing an encyclopedia in comic form –  a 32 issue series called The Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe. Based on the style (genre) of Baseball cards, each issue was made up entries featuring an image of the character accompanied by their stats (Name, Age, Height, Group Affiliations, etc…) and a biographical sketch. The handbooks sold like gangbusters and were incredibly popular while I was in Junior Highschool. But, they were only a “snapshot” in time and continuity. As soon as they were published, they were out of date.

Today, the problem is just as bad, if not worse (as there is another decade plus of continuity to deal with). Trying to keep up with an ever expanding continuity is a full time task, let alone trying to come up with an easy method of keeping it all avaiable for new readers (epsecially given the fact that, according to recent stats, overall circulation numbers are down across the industry). And, most importantly, how could all of this happen with a minimal amount of time and investment?

The answer, turn to the people who would be doing it any way. In otherwords, *Wiki!* (note that *wiki!* has that nice Marvel sound like *snikt!* and *thwip!*) Some savvy person at Marvel realized that the folks who have the best handle on their continuity are their readers, who, like the Simpson’s Comic Book Guy,^[3] were already obsessively documenting and discussing it online. 

Now, using the base Wiki engine (and some great .css work), those folks can go to Marvel.com and compose and edit character profiles. Over 800 character profiles have already been added. And that’s not counting other fan created entries on various topics like Marvel places, things, and storyline summaries.

This plan is a win for everyone. Built into the structure of the system is validation for the fan qua contributor. If your work is approved by a Marvel editor you get “Hero Points:” accumulatable tokens of social capital. Acquire enough points and you can approve and edit other fan submissions. Also, points can be used to access yet to be specified “super-cool and exclusive stuff” on the website.

From Marvel’s perspective they get good will and, more importantly, free content creation. Instead of maintaining a writing staff, all they have to do is edit the work generated by these fan "freelancers.” Further, they being to establish more control of properties in the online space. For years, fans have undertaken similar projects on personal webpages. Google “Amazing-Spiderman” and what comes first is not Marvel.com but:

Amazing Spider-Man .Info
The Definitive Spider-Man Reference & Image Web Presence featuring News, Covers, Rogues Gallery of Villains, Heroes & Allies, History, Entertainment, …
www.samruby.com/ - 37k - Cached - Similar pages

While these fansite might have generated good will and some publicity, Marvel couldn’t capitalize (or rather monetize) on the content they contained. With the Wiki, Marvel owns everything. While I haven’t dug into the legal agreements, I’m sure that they’ve sewn up all of the distribution rights for anything that is created for Marvel.com. In otherwords, they’re building a vast database of information (at low cost) that can quickly and easily be converted for publishing in other media, including future print updates of  The Handbook to the Marvel Universe.

Now, will there be background squabbles between hero editors? Of course. But, judging from the success of similiar projects like the Homestar Runner Wiki, what they’ll gain in content will be worth far more than any related headaches this creates (provided the legal side has been handled correctly). In fact, the argument can be made that this would be far more successful than any internally created project as they’ll get an “unbiased” (at least internally speaking) perspective on their own properties. Chances are that the fans will document things that Marvel never even considered.^[4]

Now, the next question is: what other media providers will get it and jump on this bandwagon? How soon until we see ABC hosting a Wiki for Lost? Or perhaps General Hospital is a better choice. After all, aren’t comic books and wrasslin’ just soap operas for boys^[5]?

For more information see:

• Marvel’s Press Release on the Wiki
• The Marvel Universe Wiki

Dre forwarded me this article from McSweeney’s: Scott McClellan’s Replacement: AOL Instant Messenger Bot SmarterChild. It’s a well done piece. SmarterChild is, in fact, an actually chatterbot available on the AOL IM network. Based on reading the article, it looks as if SmarterChild’s response script is based on the Eliza code with a number of tweaks.

I’d love to know if Michael Brady actually used SmarterChild to generate the final text for the article or if he’s simply writing using the style of the "bot genre." If that’s the case, then it’s a pretty nasty recursion: a person writing like a bot who, is in turn, is written to appear if it were a person.

If you tuned in for a few moments, you would have caught the old blog index up for a moment or two. I’m switching around my .RSS feed and have had a couple issues. It’s all resolved now… I think.

After a lot of frustration with Wordpress’s rather bare-bones WYSIWYG text editor, and even more frustration with copying and pasting from Word, I downloaded Editor Monkey. So far its running pretty smoothly.  I definitely recommend it for Wordpress users (at least until this functionality comes out in the next build of the Wordpress tool).

One thing that I???ve been thinking about recently is the space where digital distribution and publicly accessible sharing communities meet campus regulations in the age of the facebook and myspace. In particular I???m thinking about this in terms of party pictures.

During my time at RIT (back in the stone age of film) I was known to imbue the occasional adult beverage at printing social events. This was before RIT became a ???dry??? campus (though the ???wetness??? at the time didn???t really negate the fact that most of us were underage ??? sorry mom, it was bound to come out sooner or later). And there are definitely pictures of me doing so, along with other members of a certain professional group I was involved in. However, the circulation of those pictures (4×6 color glossies) was handled using quaint mano-to-mano technology. We???d pick them up from the developer and then pass them around at meetings, in labs, and, more often than not, at parties (while consuming more illicit adult beverages ??? oh the terrible cycle).

Fast forward a decade. Today???s students are more often than not equipped with digital cameras and sharing party pictures through various digital means. Among the possibilities for this circulation are social networking sites like afore mentioned facebook and myspace. Choosing these methods of distribution also means that those pictures are potentially available to a larger audience. And that audience may include not only peers but also administrators at the institutions that these students frequent.

So can students be busted for throwing a party after the fact if photographic evidence surfaces online? Existing precedent definitely suggest this is the case. There are currently investigations into LA nightclubs that allow underage stars to drink. And a star of the Harry Potter movies stirred up a bit of controversy when pictures of her apparently drinking a Corona surfaced online.

So while technology may facilitate rapid sharing of pictures from parties, social (or perhaps structural controls) enter into the equation.

My critique of A Manifesto for Networked Objects ??? Cohabiting with Pigeons, Arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things is going to be slightly delayed. I didn’t realize how much this thing is circulating. As such I don???t want to do this half assed. So it???s going to take a little longer than I expected.

In the meantime you can see the rather over-the-top praise the essay is getting here.

After careful consideration, and the fact I was able to find a discounted model, I opted for the Olympus VN-480PC. For the moment, my iPod envy will continue unabated. Actually my iPod desires have been superceeded by Microsoft’s Origami. If it delivers it may well be the tablet PC solution I’ve been looking for.

As for the Olympus, so far so good — I’ve figured out how to record and erase. One thing that does bug me is how flimsy it feels. From the pictures I assumed it would have a metal bodycasing. It’s just gray plastic. Oh well. Tomorrow I’ll attempt to record a test podcast to see how it goes. After that there will be no stopping me.

In other news, it’s less than a week till classes begin. RIT is quiet as this is an “off” week for them. It’s still odd to walk these halls. A very uncanny feeling, in the Freudian sense — the unfamiliar familiar.

Tomorrow’s entry should be interesting. I’m planning on critiquing an essay on Blogjects — objects that blog. While the concept put forward raises interesting questions, the essay itself is poorly conceived and is on really shaky social theoretical ground. So tune in tomorrow for a Chicago style beatdown. For those really interested, here’s a copy of the essay:

• Why Things Matter - Julian Bleecker

I’m in the market for a digital voice recorder. Not only is it helpful for the interviewing I’ll be doing in the near future, but I’m also considering podcasting my classes ??? or at least allowing for an archive. In part I want to be able to listen to certain ones later on.

So my dilemma is what technology to use. Or as important, how much do I want to spend. The Olympus model that I???m considering would run about $50 and would do everything I need it to do.

The only kink: the iPod. For 3x the amount I could get a 1GB Nano. And then pay the additional cost for the microphone. And I???d be using a square peg (not to suggest that the iPod is in any way square??? it???s more rectangular if anything???) for a round hole ??? the iPod really isn???t designed for recording and archiving. All of that said, it???s so damn cool. And ever since the ill fated MC3, I???ve been a sucker for convergence devices (all the while knowing full well that something that does everything doesn???t necessarily do everything well).