Freyburg

Yes and no, according to Slate. While there’s a lot of overpaying and media frenzy surrounding social networks like Myspace and Facebook, not to mention a return to brainbending math by analysts to prove that these companies ae worth soemthing, even though they don’t actually bring in much in the way of cash….there are differenes from the stock mania of the late 90’s. For one, there’s a viable advertising market to fall back on, unlike the old days. The mad rush to build infrastructure and bandwidth also works to the advantage of these new sites, keeping their costs low annd giving them the ability to feed rich content.

But my money is on the ame thing happening as Boom 1.0, on a smaller scale…a few well-run companies will stick around, and the rest will fizzle into obscurity.

Turns out Wired is still good for something. While leafing through this month’s dead-tree edition, I spotted an article about Shooting War, an excellent webcomic that reminds me of the also-nifty “The Spiders,” a long defunct, similarly political webcomic from Electric Sheep. Shooting War doles out the sarcasm and satire in equal measure, and it’s a neat extrapolation of where the war in Iraq could lead mixed with near-future speculation and some canny cracks at both the left and right.

Michael Kinsley, ex of both print and Slate, thinks while the physical newspaper may be on the way out, the brand will remain and may even thrive. I’d agree with that; the NYT and the Guardian are my first stops on the web every morning. Still, I’d miss the newspaper; I still make a ritual out of picking up the Saturday Globe and Mail, and while you can sip coffee and enjoy the news on your laptop from the comfort of your couch…it ain’t the same thing.

The Nation has a deeply disturbing piece about how recent troop deployments in the Persian Gulf may signal a bombing run on Iran’s nuclear facilities, all part of an “October Surprise” by the villainous Karl Rove. Check it out.

The Vancouverite is a local blog that takes Vancouver newspapers, politicians and various others to task on a daily basis, for sins real or imagined. I’ve now been highlighted twice for Social Eyes, my column in Metro Vancouver. For those that don’t know, my job is to get pictures of the goings-on at the various parties and fashion shows and product launches around town. Apparently the Vancouverite disapproves of the lingerie shows and whathaveyou that gets into the column. Fair enough, but I just bring back what’s at the events, and what I get invited to, in the first place. If the general public didn’t want to see it, I wouldn’t be taking pictures of it. But…meh. I do the Metro thing on the side, and if the Vancouverite would like to check out this site, they’d see it’s pretty much all nerdery and politics, with not a hint of lingerie. Oh, except for that post about Bin Laden’s hot niece I did a while back. 🙂

I’m sure that comes as a complete surprise, given the left-leaning, socialist slant of the Wall Street Journal, but the opinion page of that esteemed rag says Chomsky should have stuck to linguistics. Not sure I agree, though I would say that some of Chomsky’s most fierce defenders often get caught up more in his image and less in what he’s actually saying.