Emily Nussbaum on teen blogging

“…a generation of compulsive self-chroniclers, a fleet of juvenile Marcel Prousts gone wild. When he meets new friends in real life, M. offers them access to his online world. ”That’s how you introduce yourself,” he said. ”It’s like, here’s my cellphone number, my e-mail, my screen name, oh, and — here’s my LiveJournal. Personally, I’d go to that person’s LJ before I’d call them or e-mail them or contact them on AIM” — AOL Instant Messenger — ”because I would know them better that way.”

— Emily Nussbaum[via Dave Winer]

What the Internet Is

“World of Ends: What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else”

There are mistakes and there are mistakes.

Some mistakes we learn from. For example: Thinking that selling toys for pets on the Web is a great way to get rich. We’re not going to do that again.

Other mistakes we insist on making over and over. For example, thinking that:

…the Web, like television, is a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages.

…the Net is something that telcos and cable companies should filter, control and otherwise “improve.”

… it’s a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.

…the Net suffers from a lack of regulation to protect industries that feel threatened by it.

–Doc Searls and David Weinberger