Marek is doing a great job setting up a trial service with weblogger & manila. Way to go Marek.
Now that the initial frenzy has died down and there are around 50 blogtank consultants on board the conversation has turned to a discussion about how can we make this work. Once Marek has worked his wonders we'll be in a position to find out whether the architecture of the new building enables better, more manageable discussion and debate. I'm sure it will.
As for the concept itself, I'd wager that it will be here to stay, even if the blogtank project itself may fail. When he heard about blogtank Chris Pirillo mailed me to tell me about his latest brainwave and I was excited to discover that it was an idea not entirely dissimilar to blogtank. Chris wants to pool knowledge from his band of Gnomies and then the rest of the world to distill it into useful resources they can then sell.
The first one is based upon 50 Windows XP tips, tips not from the head of Mr Pirillo but from people he's come into contact with who have contributed them to the project. Yesteday he started a trial run selling the first of these community projects in the form of an inexpensive ebook containing those very tips. He's keen to encourage more people to get involved and want's to broaden to scope beyond Windows XP tips and possibly way beyond technology tips full stop.
The blogtank idea itself has been festering in a dusty corner of my brain for a couple of years. Only recently have I found a community and a technology that might make it work. The background is that during the first half of 2000 I registered the domain RESIDENTEXPERT.NET, now this was one of several weird ideas I had at the time, check out the DUMB IDEAS I'VE HAD section on the left sidebar for the others.
The Resident Expert thing was loosely based around taking the street or neighbourhood you live in and putting each household onto a closed web service. We hear endless commentary about how we don't know our neighbours as well as we used to back in the 50's & 60's etc., how people live secret lives behind closed doors and how our neighbourhood society has basically shut up shop.
As a result you don't know that the guy who lives three doors down the street is a lawyer who would be only too happy to give 30 minutes free advice to a neighbour, or how the family at number 44 would never buy a Ford Galaxy again ever since their last one went on fire. Or that the geeky teenager you see everyday builds PC's, for fun not for money, the woman at number 63 waits at a bus-stop every day for 30 minutes to travel the same journey as you, to the office two blocks from yours. There's so much information locked up in our neighbourhoods we don't know about.
So Resident Expert would become a community to pool those nuggets of experience, knowledge and ideas and to rebuild the real world community. Each household would be asked to list their professions and areas of experience, hobbies and general useful knowledge and would agree to speak to another neighbour to give advice on a free of charge basis. Not professional commercial services, just the kind of chat you'd have over your back fence. Each resident in your street would be seen an expert in their own field and would agree to share not only their information and knowledge but to come outside more and rebuild communities. So I registered the domain and having been unable to find a platform for the idea, I promptly forgot all about it.
Lately I've met some amazing people through my weblog. I 'know' so many people I'd never had previously known. They do intersting day jobs I don't always understand but the idea that one day I may get a chance to ask Shelley Powers, as a friend, about something that she's expertly positioned to answer, I find thrilling. Or Denise Howell, or David Weinberger, or Chris Pirillo, Sharon O, Tom Matrullo, hell the entire Blogroll-call and beyond. An otherwise completely miscellaneous list of people with one common thread, blogging. [note to self: Common Thread, maybe a useful name for something later]
Quick run down of thought process to save about 4 paragraphs.
Resident Expert....2 years pass by....Weblogs....Wide circle of friends....Friends have varied knowledge....Team blogs....Collaborative blogs....blogtank
So basically, weblogs not only provide a medium for the community to live in but weblogs also provide the community. That's something that couldn't have happened 2 years ago as neither component really existed. I don't feel so dumb now.
As for blogtank, I don't think it will be a buzzy place where lots happens everyday but it will hopefully become a meeting place where people can come together to apply their special knowledge and understanding to whatver they feel like. Where we can temporarily adopt a separate persona and become a virual blogtank team member for 5 minutes a day, week or month. The more aggregate knowledge we collect the better it becomes. Who knows where that will lead?
Now that the initial frenzy has died down and there are around 50 blogtank consultants on board the conversation has turned to a discussion about how can we make this work. Once Marek has worked his wonders we'll be in a position to find out whether the architecture of the new building enables better, more manageable discussion and debate. I'm sure it will.
As for the concept itself, I'd wager that it will be here to stay, even if the blogtank project itself may fail. When he heard about blogtank Chris Pirillo mailed me to tell me about his latest brainwave and I was excited to discover that it was an idea not entirely dissimilar to blogtank. Chris wants to pool knowledge from his band of Gnomies and then the rest of the world to distill it into useful resources they can then sell.
The first one is based upon 50 Windows XP tips, tips not from the head of Mr Pirillo but from people he's come into contact with who have contributed them to the project. Yesteday he started a trial run selling the first of these community projects in the form of an inexpensive ebook containing those very tips. He's keen to encourage more people to get involved and want's to broaden to scope beyond Windows XP tips and possibly way beyond technology tips full stop.
The blogtank idea itself has been festering in a dusty corner of my brain for a couple of years. Only recently have I found a community and a technology that might make it work. The background is that during the first half of 2000 I registered the domain RESIDENTEXPERT.NET, now this was one of several weird ideas I had at the time, check out the DUMB IDEAS I'VE HAD section on the left sidebar for the others.
The Resident Expert thing was loosely based around taking the street or neighbourhood you live in and putting each household onto a closed web service. We hear endless commentary about how we don't know our neighbours as well as we used to back in the 50's & 60's etc., how people live secret lives behind closed doors and how our neighbourhood society has basically shut up shop.
As a result you don't know that the guy who lives three doors down the street is a lawyer who would be only too happy to give 30 minutes free advice to a neighbour, or how the family at number 44 would never buy a Ford Galaxy again ever since their last one went on fire. Or that the geeky teenager you see everyday builds PC's, for fun not for money, the woman at number 63 waits at a bus-stop every day for 30 minutes to travel the same journey as you, to the office two blocks from yours. There's so much information locked up in our neighbourhoods we don't know about.
So Resident Expert would become a community to pool those nuggets of experience, knowledge and ideas and to rebuild the real world community. Each household would be asked to list their professions and areas of experience, hobbies and general useful knowledge and would agree to speak to another neighbour to give advice on a free of charge basis. Not professional commercial services, just the kind of chat you'd have over your back fence. Each resident in your street would be seen an expert in their own field and would agree to share not only their information and knowledge but to come outside more and rebuild communities. So I registered the domain and having been unable to find a platform for the idea, I promptly forgot all about it.
Lately I've met some amazing people through my weblog. I 'know' so many people I'd never had previously known. They do intersting day jobs I don't always understand but the idea that one day I may get a chance to ask Shelley Powers, as a friend, about something that she's expertly positioned to answer, I find thrilling. Or Denise Howell, or David Weinberger, or Chris Pirillo, Sharon O, Tom Matrullo, hell the entire Blogroll-call and beyond. An otherwise completely miscellaneous list of people with one common thread, blogging. [note to self: Common Thread, maybe a useful name for something later]
Quick run down of thought process to save about 4 paragraphs.
Resident Expert....2 years pass by....Weblogs....Wide circle of friends....Friends have varied knowledge....Team blogs....Collaborative blogs....blogtank
So basically, weblogs not only provide a medium for the community to live in but weblogs also provide the community. That's something that couldn't have happened 2 years ago as neither component really existed. I don't feel so dumb now.
As for blogtank, I don't think it will be a buzzy place where lots happens everyday but it will hopefully become a meeting place where people can come together to apply their special knowledge and understanding to whatver they feel like. Where we can temporarily adopt a separate persona and become a virual blogtank team member for 5 minutes a day, week or month. The more aggregate knowledge we collect the better it becomes. Who knows where that will lead?