I just noticed AlwaysOn, a entrepreneurial blog community (aka Insider's Network) started by Tony Perkins, founder of now defunct Red Herring.  Beside its bright Gap Kids colors and difficult-to-even-focus gray text, something is really off at AlwaysOn.  No, I don't mind the top ad banner that much and I find their ad pop-up with no-more-popup-for-today button cute in a clueless way.

What is with their Grudge Match poll anyway?  Marc Benioff apparently has a more popular head than Thomas Siebel.  So what?  It's not even funny.  If you want funny, put up two famous headshots and give people a dart to throw at them.  Whoever gets more darts wins the Evil-Head award.

I think there is something wacky and tacky behind AlwaysOn that remind me of the Bubble era.  It has an annoying buzz that won't go away.  Celebrity Bloggers and Insider's Network sure doesn't help either.  I really enjoyed reading Red Herring from the very first issue, but I can't say the same for AlwaysOn.  Maybe Tony should go see the Wizard to find his way back home.

Update: A few more complaints:

• By-Invitations-Only community – If you are not important you don't get in.  This is so not Blogland.
• Registration Fetish – It's as silly as having to register to go to the restroom.

I think AlwaysOn is not beyond repair, but Tony has to more than just remodelling.

I got my second accupuncture treatment for my stuffy nose this morning.  They were overbooked so the doctor used much shorter needles which allowed me to go home right away.  Looking down my nose, I now got a rat's view of the world.  Driving home with eight short needles stuck to my nose was weird, but it was worth it.

Is accupuncture effective for stuffy nose?  Heck, yeah.  I can now keep my windows open and take deep satisfying breaths.  You have to find a good accupunturist though.  There are too many quacks out there.

If I had the time, I want to learn accupuncture.  Imagine being stranded in a paradise of an island, bursting with food, flower, beautiful girls, and a bad case of pollen allergy.  With accupuncture skill, I just need a few needles to treat most minor illnesses.

It is difficult to describe what blogs are.  I can describe how blogs generally look like: it looks like personal journal with a monthly calendar for navigation.  I can talk about how blogs are linked together for communities.  I can also talk about how ease of use and interactions with other bloggers make blogging an enjoyable and rewarding habit.  Still, most people don't understand how blogs differs from other websites.

Here is another effort to find the true nature of blogging.  First, I started with people's tendency to associate blogs with news.  News is, literally speaking, anything new.  People are attracted to all kinds of news.  Once we have news, we feel compelled to share it with others we meet.  Attraction to news and compulsion to disseminate news are so strong that I suspect that they are survival instincts common to pack animals.

Based on above line of thinking,

A blog is both a source of and a mean for dissemination of news.  A blogger is a pack animal foraging for and sharing news via his/her blog.  A blog community is a pack of bloggers who regularly share news.

This is not complete since same set of description can be applied to mailing lists and Wikis.  The missing ingredient that blogs have and others don't is this: promise of more.  Like your local baker, each blogger implicitly makes a promise to write more soon.  This promise of more is what draws others to the blogs like the way Cheese does in Who Moved My Cheese?

Hmm.  I am not sure if I got anywhere.  I am more likely to start a religion than find a simpler description of blogs if I continue this line of thinking.

Update: The head mongoose, standing at top of the mound, screamed "A bomb exploded Wednesday in a mail room at the Yale University law school."  Now pass it on, my fellow mongooses.

A friend of mine is looking for a good principal engineer.  You will be working for a medium size public company in the Bay Area.  Did I say you have to be good?  These are his words:

"Basically I am looking for a 15 on a scale of 1 – 10. Strong C++/OO, Java, J2EE and Middleware exper. They should have a strong enterprise software background."

I was asked fill the position, but I need to be in a position where I have power to initiate and define new products and technologies.  Right now, consulting and independent development fills that need.  Anyway, send me your resume and I'll forward it to the right person.

Update: With help from Ray, I was able to register and access the paper.  When you see the message "If you are an ACM or SIG Member, enter your member number before you click CONTINUE", just click CONTINUE.  While the message is logically correct, its confusing.  My stupidity did help either.  Yes, anyone can access the paper after free registeration.

Since I am not an ACM member and don't feel like joining it, I can only ponder about what might be in the "On the Bursty Evolution of Blogspace" paper mentioned by Ray Ozzie today.  Here is an excerpt from its abstract:

"We propose two new tools to address the evolution of hyperlinked corpora. First, we define time graphs to extend the traditional notion of an evolving directed graph, capturing link creation as a point phenomenon in time. Second, we develop definitions and algorithms for time-dense community tracking, to crystallize the notion of community evolution."

I propose that, while people appear intelligent and have complex behaviors individually, people get dumber and their behavior simpler as group gets larger.  If this is true, then given a large enough group of people, group behavior will be indistinguishable from the behavior of a buffalo herd.  True or not, its a curiously shaped wedge for prying open other interesting thoughts.

Do bursts of activity happen in a buffalo herd?  Most of the time, a herd of buffalo will just wander around a location or stroll in one direction forming small subgroups.  Once in a while the herd activity picks up, usually in response external threats but occasionally prompted by actions of the leading buffalo.  Does this behavior match that of bloggers?  I believe it does, not exactly since bloggers would make rather unruly buffalos, but similarity is there.

What about growth of the herd?  Here the buffalo analogy breaks down.  With buffalos, only female buffalos can reproduce and once a year.  With bloggers, every blogger can reproduce year round without any limits to the number of offsprings.  We are worse than rats or rabbits.  We are worse than SARS.  We are the Borgs.

"Dave"'s new weblog search demo is running into 1000 queries per day limit on Google API appkey.  I think the best short-term solution that offers benefits to everyone involved is to provide the weblog search service to other bloggers, maybe just Radio to begin with, and share everyone's Google appkeys.  Some blogs will use less than 1000 queries per day, others will need more.  Hopefully, everyone will be happy.

Last night, I bought some books on public speaking because, well, I simply suck in front of the crowd.  I got a long road ahead, starting with overcoming stage fright, going blank, and talking too fast.  Admitting that I suck is the first step.  Why do I go to all this trouble?  Because I think I got some great stuff hiding inside the shell that will knock people out.  No, I don't mean my gas problem.  Wish me luck.

Update: Since one of the goals I have for my blog is to be more informative, here is the list of books I am reading.

• Smart Speaking – nice collection of short pieces addressing individual problems.
• How to Say It: with Your Voice – strong in voice training.  I know that a good voice affects not only the listeners, but also the speaker, so this is good.
• You Public Best – this one is for media training (as in TV appearances) but it has some unique tips I found interesting.

If you have a book suggestion, let me know.