Once upon a time there was email lists. Then came usenet. Then came the web and mailing lists, and so on and so forth. Then came the BLOG.
Once upon a time there was a place where you could post your thoughts. Your travails, your triumphs, and your travesties. It was your place…. Unless of course you succumbed to a large group of people telling you not to post such things.
Once upon a time the blog was a place where you went to exchange information…
Well, the internet has gone forth and done the proverbial IT yet again. It would seem the internet; not being happy merely trading movies, film deals, and celebrity bonds over at hsx, has opted to take things one step further.
Today, while scanning versiontracker for new OSX software, I came across a posting called BlogShares tracker 1.1.1 I love the numbering, because
- This is the first release
- It crashes on startup
Regardless, this led me to the inevitable next stop on the day’s web-surf…
Blogshares: a place to trade shares in valued blogs. As far as I can tell there are already thousands of blogs that the system is both valuing and trading. Both on and off of Livejournal. Imagine my further surprise today that not only did this beast exist… but in fact, someone had already added my journal into the hopper and in the latter half of August, my journal seems to have moved nearly 15,000 shares.
Now, I’ve begun looking at the site and of course have signed up. So far I know that tygermoonfoxx is on the site as I seem to have an outgoing link to her. Oh, yes, your valuation fluctuates on the basis of links in and out and readership. Though I think it’s just the links that push the value. I am guessing what this means is something along the lines of people posting references to my posts in their journals. I’m really not sure as the documentation… well in a word… well one word may not be too polite.
One of the things you can do is claim a valued journal if it is your own. Thus making you CEO of the property. You do this by adding a link and mini-badge graphic (or whatever those things are called) that the web spiders will see and then report back to blogshares that you’ve been a good and doting CEO and they grant you the right to your blog. 
This also increases its value. Mind you… this spidering of your journal could take “…hours or days…” and thus adds to the “…speculative unknowns of trading…” or bad software design. After a few hours my webshares account has notified me that I’ve not placed a badge on the ‘front page’ of my journal. Guess, I require days to gain the rights to my journal.
So… Is this the next internet sensation? Is my journal the speculative Yahoo of the internet journal world? Will there be Bears and Bulls (oh my)? Personally, I think we should use Tigers for high posting days and Sloths for low posting days. What will this do to the journal itself?
In all honesty, I don’t really think it’ll change most journals and more than they are already changing. The web created a medium that anyone could publish anything with effort. (Hey, how many people remember when the web was going to be the ultimate research library where you could find anything? How many of those people were amazed when all they could find was what they weren’t looking for?). Blogs, created a way for people to state their mind… and of course gave way to 14 year olds giving their impressions of what a celebrity might be thinking that day.
Maybe it’ll make me post more… *shrug*
Oh, by the way…this journal is currently trading at $14.74 a share with almost 4000 shares available for purchase. (I only bought 25 shares of my own journal) Of course it’s P/E is 73.68.. I guess this makes me a small capped journaller. I’ll work my way up through Fedora and eventually a 10 gallon hat. (Surprisingly, these look quite similar when viewed) I suppose this means you’re all supposed to link to this post…or… list your journals… or… something…. (I feel like Strongbad trying to reply to an email, but there is no printout coming at the end of this post)
Yes folks, this means I am back at work again 🙂