I've been reading David Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined and I can't stop thinking about the concept of space and how it applies to the web. Generally, when Weinberger speaks of space he's referring to the relative distance between two sites. In the terrestrial world the distance is determined by geography; the physical proximity of one thing in relation to another. For example, here in State College there are primarily two places to do your shopping, College Ave. and the Nittany Valley Mall. Each is comprised of a mixed bag of stores. On College Ave. there is a frame shop located next to a Chinese restaurant, located next to a bar, located next to a card shop, located next to a sandwich place, located next to a jewelry store. What binds these individual stores together is not what they have in common, rather it's their the locale. They are located in desirable space.
As Weinberger points out space on the web doesn't work that way. Distance is measured in hyperlinks and proximity is created by interest. In other words, each of us gets to create own own space on the web. Your own neighborhood, if you will, filled with the places you find interesting. And unlike your physical neighborhood where you can't just make your loud neighbors disappear, that's exactly what you can do on the web. Get tired of a blog? Delete the link. If it gets interesting six months from now? Add it back. As Weinberger says, links are the geography of the web (italics mine).
So this got me to thinking, What does my digital neighborhood look like? What seemingly disparate places are loosely joined (pun intended) just because I happen to be interested in them? Let's see, if I start with my personal blog, Running on the Learn, I immediately jump to my running partner's blog, Parked Thoughts, where we do our weekly endorphin high podcast, Running with the Pack. The podcast has drawn interest from all over and we've now connected with an opera singer from New York who is training to run his first marathon (and blogging about it). And then there's Kris, the self-described "Hoosier chick now living in Australia". If you jump over to her blog you also see she's recently married and really into knitting. And Mike, an ultra-marathoner whose goal is to run a marathon in all fifty states.
Tweeting about my running experiences introduced me to IrafromSoyasset. Now IrafromSoyasset is a friend on Facebook and a professional contact on Linkedin. Ira introduced me to SteveRunner whose training for the Boston Marathon ad has a blog site called Phedippidations as well as a group on Facebook that joined. Phedippidations is also linked from Parked Thoughts completing a loop there.
If we walk up the street of my neighborhood we come to another interest of mine, gentlemanly pursuits. There I have a link to a man-on-the-street fashion blog, The Sartorialist. From there I bounce to LagunaBeachTrad's site, amongst other claims LagunaBeachTrad claims to be a failed mercenary. From Trad's site I came across WASP 101 a primer on the old Brooks Brothers Boston Brahmin lifestyle. From the GQ podcast I discovered Ask Andy a Q&A type discussion forum where you can get all your fashion questions answered as well as a blog site hosted by a custom bespoke tailor from Saville Row. Not to mention the email updates I get from places such as The Gap and Neiman-Marcus.
Sometimes an old neighbor will look you up. Today I got an email from a message board dedicated to the Philadelphia Phillies that I hadn't contributed to since last September. Apparently someone was comparing the Phils start this season to their start last season and rehashed an old comment of mine. Now, my interest rekindled I moved the Philaphans message board back into my neighborhood.
If I go 'round the corner I meet my book friends redjen, nfh, and MaryMary. We post what we're reading and make recommendations and write reviews for each other from a nugget in Facebook, complete with links to retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
When I go out to my garden I find my friends Jamie and Brett. Jamie put Brett and me on to a gardening writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who'll mail you potato top tomato seeds if you send him a self-addressed envelope. If I want to discover the latest and greatest social networking applications out there I'll drop by Cole Camplese's blog or his neighbor The Blog of Brad.
There's my news aggregator, NetNewswire. It's like getting a global newspaper dropped on my doorstep. I get headlines from the BBC, Wired, the Philadelphia news stations, the blogs I follow, etc. And I get to clip and save articles fir future reference. Because of NetNewswire I actually spend less time cruising the large 'corporate' sites. Does anyone actually still go to CNN to see what's new?
Then there's all the connections I've made through Twitter and Flickr. How would I get through the day without Robin2go, stevier, or kevinoshea not dropping by for avisit? I could go on but I think you get the picture of what my digital neighborhood looks like (for the moment). Chances you'll find a lot of turnover if you come back for a visit a year from now. Maybe 25%?
And that's the beauty of it. My neighborhood exists in this form because I created it to be that way. The connection between these disparate places is that there are all one click away for me. I am the geography of my Web. As you are yours. I'd love to see what your neighborhood looks like. Please share.
As Weinberger points out space on the web doesn't work that way. Distance is measured in hyperlinks and proximity is created by interest. In other words, each of us gets to create own own space on the web. Your own neighborhood, if you will, filled with the places you find interesting. And unlike your physical neighborhood where you can't just make your loud neighbors disappear, that's exactly what you can do on the web. Get tired of a blog? Delete the link. If it gets interesting six months from now? Add it back. As Weinberger says, links are the geography of the web (italics mine).
So this got me to thinking, What does my digital neighborhood look like? What seemingly disparate places are loosely joined (pun intended) just because I happen to be interested in them? Let's see, if I start with my personal blog, Running on the Learn, I immediately jump to my running partner's blog, Parked Thoughts, where we do our weekly endorphin high podcast, Running with the Pack. The podcast has drawn interest from all over and we've now connected with an opera singer from New York who is training to run his first marathon (and blogging about it). And then there's Kris, the self-described "Hoosier chick now living in Australia". If you jump over to her blog you also see she's recently married and really into knitting. And Mike, an ultra-marathoner whose goal is to run a marathon in all fifty states.
Tweeting about my running experiences introduced me to IrafromSoyasset. Now IrafromSoyasset is a friend on Facebook and a professional contact on Linkedin. Ira introduced me to SteveRunner whose training for the Boston Marathon ad has a blog site called Phedippidations as well as a group on Facebook that joined. Phedippidations is also linked from Parked Thoughts completing a loop there.
If we walk up the street of my neighborhood we come to another interest of mine, gentlemanly pursuits. There I have a link to a man-on-the-street fashion blog, The Sartorialist. From there I bounce to LagunaBeachTrad's site, amongst other claims LagunaBeachTrad claims to be a failed mercenary. From Trad's site I came across WASP 101 a primer on the old Brooks Brothers Boston Brahmin lifestyle. From the GQ podcast I discovered Ask Andy a Q&A type discussion forum where you can get all your fashion questions answered as well as a blog site hosted by a custom bespoke tailor from Saville Row. Not to mention the email updates I get from places such as The Gap and Neiman-Marcus.
Sometimes an old neighbor will look you up. Today I got an email from a message board dedicated to the Philadelphia Phillies that I hadn't contributed to since last September. Apparently someone was comparing the Phils start this season to their start last season and rehashed an old comment of mine. Now, my interest rekindled I moved the Philaphans message board back into my neighborhood.
If I go 'round the corner I meet my book friends redjen, nfh, and MaryMary. We post what we're reading and make recommendations and write reviews for each other from a nugget in Facebook, complete with links to retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
When I go out to my garden I find my friends Jamie and Brett. Jamie put Brett and me on to a gardening writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who'll mail you potato top tomato seeds if you send him a self-addressed envelope. If I want to discover the latest and greatest social networking applications out there I'll drop by Cole Camplese's blog or his neighbor The Blog of Brad.
There's my news aggregator, NetNewswire. It's like getting a global newspaper dropped on my doorstep. I get headlines from the BBC, Wired, the Philadelphia news stations, the blogs I follow, etc. And I get to clip and save articles fir future reference. Because of NetNewswire I actually spend less time cruising the large 'corporate' sites. Does anyone actually still go to CNN to see what's new?
Then there's all the connections I've made through Twitter and Flickr. How would I get through the day without Robin2go, stevier, or kevinoshea not dropping by for avisit? I could go on but I think you get the picture of what my digital neighborhood looks like (for the moment). Chances you'll find a lot of turnover if you come back for a visit a year from now. Maybe 25%?
And that's the beauty of it. My neighborhood exists in this form because I created it to be that way. The connection between these disparate places is that there are all one click away for me. I am the geography of my Web. As you are yours. I'd love to see what your neighborhood looks like. Please share.
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