Since you're reading this, you occasionally must stumble through the multiple nodes of the interwebs wherein dwells the "Church Blog World." And as you wander through the mysterious tales and imaginations of this pushed-pixel, Western Christian universe, you've probably asked yourself, "Gee, I wonder who the Top 100 Church Bloggers are?"
Kent Shaffer has heard your thoughts (which is kind of scary and we should probably do some serious witch-hunting investigating) and through the use of statistical analysis and a little eye of the newt, has come up with that very list. *
My friend, Ed Stetzer, one of the company of 100, whose blog has rocketed up the charts (he's #23 with a bullet - up from #39 in January) made this observation on the list,
...it is fascinating to see how dominant the "Reformed camp" is in blog town. Some see the Emerging Church conversation in decline, so that may be reflected in the rankings. But there are many others who consider the Emerging Church as the leading voice calling for change in the church. However, clearly it is the Reformed who are getting traction in the blogosphere. (Now, of course, that could be because those Reformed people are not at all those great contemporary church conference and are, instead, home blogging!)
Second, it is interesting to me how these worlds generally do not mix. If there are three major spheres in blog town today, they might be the Reformed, the emerging, and the contemporary.
Andrew Jones, the towering, South-Pacifican thinman, who once dominated the church blog charts (he fell to #15 in January and now sits at #25) responded to Ed. TSK offered five points of his own as to why the Reformed Camp dominates, citing the impact of RSS feeds on the emerging conversation (as an example, I read blogs in Google Reader rather than visiting the actual websites), the move to Twitter & Facebook and the reduction in linking. (There are some good additional thoughts in the comments on Andrew's post, plus I should note that Andrew does not blog as consistently as he once did - thus the drop in his top blog position.)
Andrew's final point notes the power of heat to draw a crowd,
The emerging controversies and conversations were huge a number of years ago but are now a more accepted part of the church and mission landscape. The new reformed movement, on the other hand, has generated some fresh controversy in certain denominations that will not be named [ . . . OK . . . Southern Baptist!] and controversy generates buzz which generates LINKS and links lead to rankings.
My take would be that the Reformed section of the blog pool, along with their close cousins the Truly Reformed, are more willing to take categorical positions on primary, secondary and tertiary issues. They aren't afraid to call out people they believe have abandoned a Reformed understanding of the Gospel. (N.T.Wright is often in their cross hairs. See this, if you have an hour to spare.) To these folk, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are certainly not Christians.
It would seem that the lenses in their theological frames were hand-crafted by John Calvin, and those who can't or won't see through those glasses are probably 'not part of the elect anyway'. The brethren and sistren in that camp are quite willing to state that - generating lots of heat... and traffic.
I found Ed's and TSK's posts interesting in light of two other items that appeared in my browser in the past 24 hours. One was an article from Cardus - Joe Carter on NeoCalvinism or Kuyperianism. As I've said elsewhere, a number of my friends are Kuyperian in their reformational philosophy - and practice a kinder, gentler, more inclusive - to other Christians - form of their faith.
Note that Carter writes and is web editor for First Things, the magazine founded by the late Father Richard John Neuhaus. As well, a number of my Kuyperian friends are signatories to the Evangelical Call for Response to Pope Benedict's Caritas in Veritate. (I should mention that the blog Joe started years ago, Evangelical Outpost, would have once been in the single digits of any top christian blogger list.)
The other item was a post from Fuller's Richard Mouw writing on Abraham Kuyper's younger colleague, Herman Bavinck. According to Mouw, also a NeoCalvinist, Bavinck's
"...tone was more moderate, and he treated views with which he disagreed with much charity—unlike Kuyper, who often came across as a polemicist. Bavinck’s kinder and gentler orthodoxy holds out much promise for us in North America, especially since his works are being assigned these days to students in a variety of seminaries on the more conservative end of the Reformed and Presbyterian communities."
Mouw quotes Bavinck,
We must remind ourselves that the Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbor, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride. Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to the tremendous faith, genuine repentence, complete surrender and the fervent love for God and neighbor evident in the lives and work of many Catholic Christians. The Christian life is so rich that it develops its full glory not just in a single form or within the walls of one church.(Emphasis added)
Mouw adds:
Quite a friendly tone, for a Calvinist writing six decades before the reforms of Vatican II.
Indeed, wise thoughts all. If that way of being “orthodox Reformed” were to take hold here in North America, we might have a real revival on our hands! (Emphasis added)
Last evening after reading Mouw's post, I tweeted the Bavinck line,
It's a powerful line. Actually following Bavinck's generosity might cause one NOT to climb the charts of the Top 100 Church Blogs. But. What might it do for the Kingdom?
I wonder.
PS - I should note that this humble nanonode of Church Blogdom had a more precipitous fall on said charts than did my dear friend, Andrew - from #50 to #85. By next January, I would expect to be off the charts.
*Sorry for the out of focus shot of the metal Top 100 logo - dang squirrel jumped in front of my camera.
Microsoft invested 240 million in Facebook last week. A quarter of a billion dollars. For a 1.6% share of the company. Which means that a company, hardly out of the toddler stage (3.5 years old) has an apparent market value of $15 Billion. But that's not why I think Facebook may be Evil.
Why did the Great Satan MSFT spend so much for such a small portion of the Book of Faces? They want access to you. And when I say you, I mean all of you poking, super poking, candy corn sending, tickling, cuddling, wall writing, Facebookians.
Here's what Microsoft says on one of their innumerable interweb pages;
With more than 41 million registered users in over 55,000 regional, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks, Facebook, the Internet’s leading social networking site, helps people meet and share information online the same way they do in the real world. In fact, Facebook ranks as the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States.
I've highlighted the relevant bits. While you are busy "sharing information online", Facebook is tracking you, your information and your habits. The Book of Faces is becoming one gigantic database of likes, dislikes, wants, hopes and dreams. All with easy electronic access to 41 million registered users. In 55,000 mini-networks, that cluster around particular likes, dislikes...you get the drill.
This is how my friend, Terry Heaton puts it, in his post Facebook's gamble is, to be kind, sinister,
As a student of life, culture and media, little surprises me anymore and especially when it involves humankind’s propensity to greed. Much of the reaction to the Microsoft/Facebook announcement yesterday is making my caution flags ripple unfurled in the wind, because it has “greed” written all over it.
Terry quotes an Advertising Age article,
Facebook is keeping mum about exactly what it is unveiling at the Nov. 6 event, but ad-industry executives familiar with the company’s plans said the social network is looking to better use the data its users voluntarily offer up on their profiles. Of course, that much seems like a no-brainer (although it’s actually not easy to implement). But less obviously, a couple of industry executives familiar with the company’s plans suggest Facebook could use some of what it knows about people — and their relationships with others on the site, what is known as the “social graph” — to target them off Facebook (emphasis Terry's) as well.
Facebook's users are not its customers. They're the targets to which Facebook's customers aim advertising. In old media this was no big deal. But Facebook isn't just a "medium". It's a vast walled garden where the social activity of members and visitors constantly improves the ability of advertisers to "target" both. (emphasis added)
The Facebook $15 Billion valuation is based on what you Facebookians are worth to marketers desperate to target consumers they can no longer easily access by traditional media exploits. Those of you who self-identify as Christians on Facebook can expect to be receiving targeted email from Zondervan, Christianity Today, EMI Music et al. Using information you may have thought was only viewable by people within your mini-network.
Here's what Facebook has to say about the data you provide them with in your content sharing, interactions and other Facebookian habits,
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. (emphasis added)
Oh. I should add. I'm a casual, occasional Facebookian myself. But I'm considering deleting my account. Though "The Company" will still have "archived copies" of my "User Content."
Addendum: Please make a point of reading all of Doc's and Terry's Facebook posts - and the other posts they link to. If you are going to use Facebook, you need to be aware of who and what you are dealing with.
UPDATE: John Santic points to this site in the comments, Does What Happens in the Facebook, stay in the Facebook?
Warning: This is a Voice of the Inner Curmudgeon (VIC) post - that was updated later on Saturday evening.
I'm a fan of the TED conference - having linked to it a couple of times. TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design - brings together some of the worlds finest thought leaders from all disciplines. After watching a number of the TED Talks from last year's conference, I commented to Imbi that "wouldn't it be great to do something similar with a more intentionally Christian focus." 'Twould seem others had a similar thought.
Q is a conference from some of the folks behind Catalyst - rather obviously patterned after TED - although TED is open to anyone who can pay the cost to be there, and was able to get in on the registration (it's sold out for 2007 - registration for '08 opens shortly).
Q is a private gathering (VIC: If it's private, why have a website?) for leaders in the church to become informed and exposed to future-culture. It is a space where select leaders (VIC: Oooh, pick me, pick me) can create, dialogue, collaborate, innovate, serve and ideate (VIC: I've never ideated before, is it painful?) around the important topics shaping the church’s future role in culture. In an intense, fifty-hour experience (VIC: Golly, it's beginning to sound like a Forum Training session - will there be bathroom breaks?) designed to unveil the cultural context in which the Gospel must go forward, Q will expose participants to over twenty presenters on myriad topics. Church leaders will be inundated with information, perspective and expert thoughts that will drive conversation with their peers about the ramifications for the church. (VIC: Wowee, Christianity may never be the same. Or perhaps the writer's hyperbole filter was broken.)
To be one of Q's "select leaders", you need to submit an application.
...we look for several things when reviewing new applications: first, a desire to be informed and exposed to future-culture; second, the potential and hope for influence that will shape the church today and in the future; third, an eagerness to learn and gain knowledge from others with differing worldviews who share the same desire to shape our generation and culture.
Perhaps its just the Voice of my Inner Curmudgeon at work, but if you want to create a private conference then take the time to investigate who might benefit from it and invite them...privately.
And does it really need to be held in the* "premiere venue in Atlanta." "Location is everything" is such utter nonsense. Especially with the number of state of the art, barely religious, worship spaces in Atlanta that are probably sitting empty over the three days of the conference - unless, of course, a large part of the message is how cool you are.
There do appear to be some interesting speakers at Q, including the latest Christian king of kewl, Rob Bell. And I would love to hear Kevin Kelly (who I quote at length in A Networked Conspiracy) but I'm afraid I won't be applying. Perhaps I'm a little too much like Groucho Marx who is reported to have said, "I don't care to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."
Besides, I doubt I'm cool enough to be offered a place. (Memories of high school, anyone.)
Note: Groucho Q mashup is based on this design by Biratan - with the cigar "borrowed" from his cartoon.
*BTW, the Q site is a "totally awesome" Flash design - which means no inner links work. (I feel a Napolean Dynamite epithet comin' on. Gotta run.)
Technorati Tags: Catalyst, Fermi Project, Q, TED
I ended Part One with this line - Distribution has been in the hands of the powerful - the gatekeepers of creativity, as it were. They still man the gates, but the walls are no longer standing. Those two sentences of hyperbole would more accurately have ended with - "but the walls are beginning to crumble."
The bottom line in content production is the bottom line. It costs money to produce programming. And in spite of the democratization of content production tools, at the end of each day producers still need a roof over their heads. So, although I believe that better productions can be created for a lot less money, there still needs to be a way to monetize the production process.
As Gates showed last night in his CES presentation - the delivery of content is driving the Consumer Electronics Industry and content is still king. What are you going to want to watch on your Video iPod, PSP or 80" HD screen? It won't be hours of Rocketboom (as wonderful as Ms. Congdon may be).
It will be content that captivates.
For the last half century, most of the moving visual content we've consumed has been delivered to us by over-the-air broadcasters and their cable caster cousins. We've watched because the content has been of high enough "quality" to draw us in. (I'm not making a value judgement on the amount of garbage we've consumed - other than to say that the production values of that garbage have been high enough for us to be engaged by it.)
What began in the fifties as a few networks delivering content has grown into a plethora of content deliverers - all competing for the same ad dollars to produce their content. As I said yesterday, our "contract" with the broadcast content distributors was that we would watch the commercials that paid for the content - and they would provide that content at no charge to us. VCRs and DVRs have helped us more easily break that contract. Yet, we still want to watch the content that advertising has paid for. But advertisers are no longer willing to spend the kind of ad dollars they once did to reach a rapidly diminishing broadcast market - they are no longer willing to pay for our free content. (Read Terry Heaton's well-reasoned essay The Economy of Unbundled Advertising to get a handle on where ad dollars are going.)
A hit TV show like the Kinnon family favorite, House, costs millions per episode to produce. Without getting into the realities that the show won't produce a profit for the producers until it enters syndication, the question remains - who is going to pay for it? Will there be a million of us willing to pay two bucks an episode to watch it - downloaded to iTunes? When you consider that the average TV show is just over forty minutes after commercials and credits, you're paying the same price or more for one TV show on a per minute basis, as you do for a movie rental. (Arguably House is better written than much of the movie dreck we consumed over the Christmas holidays.) And a million two dollar downloads is still not going to pay for House.
So what are we faced with?
I'll talk about that in Part Three.
Technorati Tags: Bill Gates, broadcasting, IPTV, iTunes, content production, Terry Heaton
I'm sitting here blogging (when I should be working - so sue me) and blasting Bruce Hornsby from the iPod on the Bose SoundDock. The first song, Gonna Be Some Changes Made, features three of my favorite artists; Sting, Eric Clapton and Bruce. The song is great and probably would have been a hit on Boomer radio - if that actually existed.
I've become my father when it comes to radio. When I listen to it, I listen to Talk Radio or All News Radio - but that's only when I'm in the car and even there I use my iPod for tunes or the occasional Twit podcast. I have to intentionally search for what my favorite artists are doing rather than the labels finding out how to communicate with me.
Boomers are still the largest demographic with the greatest amount of disposable income. We are a huge audience for music. The challenge is making us aware of the great still stuff coming from artists like The Eagles, Hornsby, Sting, Clapton, Peter Gabriel, Michael McDonald et al. If Apple was smarter, they'd have a Boomers section on the iTunes store. And they'd have someone producing a Boomer new music podcast that was supported by the labels.
We are a huge demographic waiting to be marketed to - what are you waiting for?
And as an aside, if you want a great Boomer album, check out Lunch at Allen's featuring Marc Jordan, Murray McLauchlan and Ian Thomas - available from the iTunes store (in Canada at least). It's a regular play on the iPod for Imbi and I.
UPDATE: Via TechCrunch - perhaps Pandora gets part way there. Create your own "radio station" based on your favorite artists - and hear material you've never heard before.
Technorati Tags: Apple, boomer, Bruce Hornsby, Clapton, Lunch at Allen's, Sting, TWIT
I'm a music lover. Have been for as long as I can remember. As a result, Apple's iTunes Store has become a favorite of mine. Yesterday I added two albums to my collection; Bruce Hornsby's Halcyon Days (which I love) and Santana's All That I Am (which has a few good moments, great guitar playing and more disappointing songs than not - I should have previewed all the songs). Could I have used a computer program to predict what material I would have liked?
The Globe and Mail has a story this morning of two MIT PhD grads who claim they've "cracked the code" on what makes a hit - creating a program that allows them to accurately predict chart successes. Forget great ears, it's all about data:
The goal is to pinpoint trends in pitch, rhythm and cadence that are driving consumer spending habits. However, the MIT researchers believe they've taken the science to another level.
"Some people really care about instrument sounds and complexity of the music," Mr. Whitman said. "But the 14-year-old teenage girl could care less, as long as her friends are listening to it."
The MIT method, developed at the school's renowned Media Laboratory, also takes into account social responses to hit music that are fed into the algorithms.
The researchers pull data from weblogs, chat rooms and music reviews -- anywhere a song is being discussed -- and feed it into the computer, which allows the software to gauge the popularity of a certain sound.
Brian Whitman and Tristan Jehan claim that what they are attempting to do is find "good songs" in the midst of millions of tunes being released. I don't buy it. They are searching for the Holy Grail of hit predicting - the formula for music business financial success. In a market filled with clones, they may well be able to predict what sound is presently popular and what other songs most closely fit that sound. But as for finding the "next sound", I have my doubts. I'll leave that to great ears who buck current trends looking for the sound that truly surprises Broca - the sound of the Third Gravitating Body, intriguing and captivating.
Technorati Tags: Broca, Globe and Mail, hit prediction, MIT, music, Wizard of Ads
Who found Halloween scarier this year – the kids, neighborhood dogs or network Television execs. I’d bet the execs quivered the most - frightened by Mr. Scary himself, Steve Jobs. Nineteen days earlier, Apple’s iTunes Store shocked the industry when it launched TV content sales. By All Hallows Eve, one million TV shows, animated shorts and music videos had been purchased for a penny short of two bucks each. And this with only the Disney/ABC/Pixar family trick or treating.
“Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods.” Jobs smiled as he said this, anticipating the communications avalanche of network and production execs contacting Apple on All Saints Day.
Already alarmed by ad revenue declines, broadcasters are scrambling for new ways to monetize production. CBS provides audio content to the podcast section of the iTunes store. How long until they join ABC with TV programming? And Microsoft dance partner, NBC whispers its desires to Apple. The two dollar eyeballs promised by iTunes won’t allow them to wait for Redmond’s media download competitor.
Focus on the reality distorting genius of Jobs, however, and you’ll miss the real change taking place. The iTunes video store is merely an example of pull replacing push. Broadcasters and cable companies have pushed content at us for years. We’ve watched some of that content at the pushers’ proscribed times. A few of us have even chosen to time shift that programming with VCRs and PVRs. But the visual portal has remained the TV.
Pull let’s us watch, what we want to watch, where we want to watch it with whatever pixel lighting device we have access to – from our cell phones and PDAs, through our laptops and desktops to the 53” HDTV flat panel screen in our media viewing room. We can pull content from any source – and choose which content display device to push it to. The traditional broadcast model does not work in this new pull controlled marketplace. IPTV does.
Internet Protocol Television - the net as a giant video library with content as small and simple as a local news story or as complex as an international hit movie. We pull the content to the appropriate player. Much of that content will be free, some will be supported by advertising and we will pay a small amount for the rest.
The short term bottleneck is bandwidth – but that is rapidly changing. Companies like Long Island’s Cablevision offer standard downstream bandwidth of 15 Mbs with premium tiers of 30 and 50Mbs. To put that in perspective, my present cable company provides about 1.5MBs. My system would take about four minutes to download a 50 MB file – but less than eight seconds on the fastest Cablevision service. But you won’t be feeding your 53” display with many 50 MB files. However, a DivX encoded HDTV movie could be downloaded to your media player in under thirty minutes – less time than it takes most of us to get to Blockbuster and back. Better encoding and even faster pipes will reduce that time significantly over the course of the next days, weeks and months.
And what will your media player be? Mr. Scary hopes it’ll be his new Intel-powered Mac mini – possibly arriving as soon as Macworld in January. Don’t be surprised if there's an HDMI connector on the back – so you can hook up 5.1 digital surround audio and high definition digital video to your new HDTV. iTunes will not deliver all the content to your media player - but Jobs will definitely be a major provider of content in the IPTV world - the small videos in his iTunes store are only the first steps.
And one of the stories that may be downloaded is what happened to the quivering broadcast execs from this past Halloween.
UPDATE: It seems the price for a TV show has been cut in half by NBC and CBS - but they won't be delivered via the web... yet.
Both services launch early next year, with NBC programs distributed through satellite broadcaster DirecTV Group and CBS via cable giant Comcast Corp.
UPDATE 2: It would seem that the fear factor is not helping NBC & CBS execs think clearly. What's being offered is a "downloan" to DVR (PVR) for one dollar, which for many shows will only be available until the next episode is released - or possibly only for a 24 hour period after the "downloan". From P2PNet:
"This isn't an acquisition model," USA Today has NBC's David Zaslav saying. "This is more of a rental model."
The USA Today article continues:
NBC Universal reached similar terms (to CBS's terms with Comcast) enabling DirecTV to offer new episodes of Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: CI, The Office, Monk, Surface and Battlestar Galactica.
Hours after they initially air, DirecTV will transmit them to the hard drive in homes that have receivers with the new DirecTV Plus DVR, which the company says will hit the shelves this week.
Viewers will be charged 99 cents to watch an episode as often as they wish for 24 hours. It will be wiped off the hard drive once the next episode of the show airs and cannot be saved on other devices.
Forget archiving the show, and the DRM (Digital Rights Management) stops you from recording it to tape or DVD. At least Apple's model treats the programs like a music download - you can watch them as often as you want while playing them back on your TV, iPod or computer.
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