Wagner James Au has a great post over at Gigaom about the growing industry of people in China who play video games like World of Warcraft and then sell the items they acquire in-game to US and European game players on eBay. It’s a bizarre world we live in these days and this is a good picture of one of the stranger parts of it. If you haven’t seen Au’s blog on Second Life, New World Notes, it’s totally worth checking out too.

Can’t help but think of the latest episode of the podcast Technometria, a great show that amongst other things referenced this week a quote (I can’t remember who from) stating that in the future of computing “the world would become magical.” I thought that was shockingly sad, as the world is so magical already! In fact, I can’t help but think that properly tending the relationship between the magic being created on the web and the the magic that already exists in meat-space (as it’s called) is essential. Failure to do so seems very dangerous.

Not sure how to put the above two paragraphs together, but I think they are related. Just a few things I’m thinking about. I don’t think that Chinese gold farms are particularly magical, but there is something going on there. There is a lot of magic emerging online. Dealing with information overload alone may require some serious magic, for example.

Don’t look now but women are making more of an appearance on TechMeme, the automated tech blogosphere buzz tracker, than usual. It’s often derided as an insiders’ boys’ club but today you’ll find a discussion of CNet’s obnoxious story Top 10 Girl Geeks of All Time and a Mama Musings/Nancy White meme about a cute baby video. Highest on the page right now is some good Katie Fehrenbacher reporting, but that’s nothing new. The CNet story was the top story when I woke up. (I should have used another example perhaps – that story is totally going to end up having a bunch of dudes circled around it kicking it while it’s down and that’s not the point I’m trying to make – I swear!) Jeneane Sessum hypothesized that there was an algorithm adjustment but it’s more likely a slow news day, to be honest. If Techmeme is going to be worth reading in the long run, though, it’s going to have to include more womens’ blogs. That won’t happen by manual inclusion by Gabe Rivera (ok, fine Gabe) but the way it will happen is as every blog gets indexed there: linkage. Blogs already included in Meme can link to blogs not included and thus introduce Gabe’s robot to the new blogs.

So if my personal blog here is still included in Techmeme’s index, I’m going to shoot to get this post on it by linking to one of the top stories. (Update: Success! Within about 30 minutes I was on the list discussing that ridiculous CNet story.) Then I’ll link over to a couple of people who should be indexed there, just in case they aren’t. Marnie Webb wrote an interesting post this month about an activist camp in SecondLife, as did Ruby Sinreich, Beth Kanter wrote about Revver ads in nonprofit videos online. Those folks are already blogosphere heavyweights, but this is just a proof of concept and I need to get back to work. 😉

Maybe this is silly, but maybe it’s this simple to change who’s included in Techmeme. Those blogs I’m linking to may need to be linked to the same links on Meme that I linked to early in the post though – in other words, they may need to be participating in these particular conversations already. I don’t know, it’s a mystery. And of course getting on Techmeme presumes that those blogs link to the same URL as other people indexed within the same half day or so that conversation first emerges. That’s not something that everyone is interested in or in a position to do – but that’s the nature of Techmeme.

My blog was first included there when Barb Dybwad linked to me writing about something. I may have neglected this blog for long enough that it’s no longer indexed by Techmeme, I don’t know. I remember when I first made it onto the site, though. It was very exciting and a huge traffic spike for this humble little blog. Let’s see if we can get some of that Meme love spread around.

Two court cases worth watching in recent days: one court ruled that Craigslist isn’t responsible for discriminatory housing ads users post on its site and another kept SF videoblogger Josh Wolf in prison possibly for the duration of a grand jury regarding a protest. The Craigslist ruling is complicated in its implications and may not be 100% good news for the web. The company has said throughout, by the way, that they hope the “flag as offensive” option would help with situations like this. Good discussion of case complications at the Chicagoist.

On Josh Wolf the video blogger, if you consider a videoblogger a journalist (and I think you should), then it’s important that if Wolf is detained for the duration of the grand jury (until July) then the NYT says “Mr. Wolf, who has served 88 days, will be the longest-incarcerated journalist in recent American history, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.” Here’s Wolf’s site.

Ugh, another test. Are there any RSS subscribers anymore?
Tour button code:

Pageload was too slow, I cut it out.

See also Revver though too, there’s some very good stuff over there – including ZeFrank.

Just spent some time bopping around YouTube. Not the first time, but I can’t help but think that it’s just unstopable. I know there’s some amount of backlash, etc. and there are certainly no end of alternatives (see TC) but how many of them stand a chance? There is so much good content on YouTube, so many people participating. It’s so much fun. I’ve doubted it, but I’m convinced.