Untitled - witz cultural

HYPERTEXT 3.0 on July 22,2004,I find Pepys's diary entry for July 2L,I66L, which has beenup at least since the 19th, since a comment on the place name "Sturtloe" byMark Ynys-Mon points out that it has changed to "Stirtloe," and a second submittedthe next day by Vincente points out that "sam on his nag could havehad a nice ride down by the Ouse" and provides a link to a map of the area.Gyford has tried to ensure that most of the annotations are helpful by advisingcontributors: "Before posting an annotation please read the annotationguidelines. If your comment isnt directly relevant to this page, or is moreconversational, try the discussion group." This blog, which contains approximately two hundred words, has thirteen in-text links, one by Gyford himself(a cross-reference to another Diary entry\ and others leading to one or morereaders'comments. The entryfor 1uIy21.,1661, dominates the screen, thoughif one scrolls down one can find entries back to the 13th. At the top of the windowGyford has provided links to an introduction to the Diary,backgroundinformation, archives, and a summary ("Read the Story So Far") for first-timereaders. At the top right a search window appears and below it a column oflinks to seventeen categories of background information starting with art andliterature, including food and drink, and ending with work and education. Asthis brief description makes clear, Gyford has not only made an appropriateWeb translation of a classic text but he has also contributed importantly to thecreation ofa new form ofpublic, collaborative online scholarship. Two interestingpoints: (1) Gyford's name does not appear on the main lexias of theblog, though if one explores 'About this site," one can find it, and following alink to his personal site, one can learn about his fascinating career as an artstudent, professional model maker, system administrator, and web designer.(2) This elaborate scholarly proiect, which one expects that any Web-sawyundergraduate and graduate student will use, exists complelely outside theAcademy. Pause for a moment and think about the implications of that.Many special-interest blogs, like some famous ones by AIDS and cancervictims, exemplify the Intemet version of the personal joumal or diary. LaurieMcNeill's excellent article on the blog as personal diary (about which I learnedfrom Adrian Miles's blog) points to "an unparalleled explosion of public lifewriting by private citizens. By March 2002, more than 800,000 blogs were registeredon the Net; in lvly 2002 an average of 1.5 'Blogger blogs' were createdper minute (blogger.com 6 Aug. 2002)" (32). When I checked two years later,some hosts of blogs boasted millions of users, estimates of the total rangingbetween two and eight million, though one commentator pointed out thatonly a quarter of people who begin blogs keep them going.Googling the phrase "how many bloggers," I received the URLs for several