1. Aug 20th, 2006

    How many gatekeepers does it take to build a gate?

    Jon Garfunkel on The New Gatekeepers:

    I will argue here that gatekeepers are inherently needed by the architecture of the blogosphere– as it has evolved, since 2001, into a public consciousness. This architecture has been developed out of certain values, and those values are the ones espoused by those same thought leaders.

    I learned that there are few simple rules to protect a perimeter.

    • Fence it.
    • Minimize entry points (ideally one).
    • Staff all entry points.
    • Everybody knows and follows the rules.

    But if you have too many entry points, if the people manning those entry points are not coordinated … you can’t gate if the gatekeepers are too many and uncoordinated.

    It works for the military, big events and computer security. The blogosphere works differently. It’s the only place that can have thousands of uncoordinated gatekeepers, and still keep the core impermeable.

    The mechanics of this I still don’t understand, but if the authorities say so, who am I to argue.

    And Doc, thanks for the link, but that’s no way to build a fence.

    Update: To clear any confusion, the last sentence, like the rest of the post is laced with sarcasm. I don’t believe in gatekeepers, or that Doc or anyone else is one of them. Those who find issue with him or any other high ranking blogger should first start looking at their own motives and expectations.

    Picture by rizzotheaxeman.

    Printable PDF | Posted by Assaf Filed in general 11 Comments »

    1. Aug 20th, 2006

      Doc Searls

      What do you want me to do?

      For what it’s worth, I don’t want to build fences. Or gates. Or serve a role as either.

    2. Aug 20th, 2006

      Assaf

      Doc,

      I’m being sarcastic in the last statement. I don’t believe the gatekeepers exist.

      I think it’s all in the imagination of people who don’t get the inbound links they want.

      You are who you are, you blog what you like, and I read your blog because I think you have interesting things to say. I don’t think it’s your responsiblity to link to other people.

    3. Aug 21st, 2006

      Jon Garfunkel

      Assaf–

      I’m not sure if you read my essay series or not, I see you quoted it above. If you think my arguments are weak or hollow or ideologically-driven, say so.

      The sort of gatekeepers I was looking at was this– who sets the agenda of what is being discussed?

      So, it’s pretty simple. Why did the discussion of Gatekeepers and A-Listers come up above?

      Because one of them– Nick Carr– brought it up. If Seth or I were to bring this up on our own, it would not catch fire through the blogosphere.

      I introduced myself to Doc several weeks ago at the MIT Media Lab when I was here. I didn’t remind him that I was the author of The New Gatekeepers series– he had linked to it during the WSJ-Tristan Louis “new gatekeepers” flareup of February (yes, these are like weather patterns). I suppose the essay series didn’t make an impression on him either.

    4. Aug 21st, 2006

      Assaf

      Jon,

      “The sort of gatekeepers I was looking at was this– who sets the agenda of what is being discussed?”

      Gatekeepers don’t just let people in, they keep people out. Gatekeepers could prevent you, me or any other blogger from starting a conversation.

      I don’t know of any blogger with the power to do that.

      Gatekeepers are the sole authority. A gatekeeper will have the power to turn the conversation of the day to pictures of their cat, or their trip to Costco.

      I don’t know of any blogger with the power to do that.

      Attention is not equally divided. It falls more on bloggers who are very prolific, who happen to be interesting to read — logic aside, it’s all about emoting the reader to respond — and who happen to talk about issues that, by their nature, appeal to a lot of readers and are easy to grasp.

      Gatekeepers can determine which memes spread and how far they spread. I’m not seeing any evidence of that.

      As of now, Technorati has 165 results for “the great unread”, all from one week. And 164 results for “JSONP”, stretching over 10 months.

      One meme spread fast and wide, and died just as quickly. The other spread slow and wide, and is still spreading. And no A-List blogger can stop it from spreading.

      All we have are people who, for specific subjects, can turn the flame on faster then, and more frequently than, others. But they do not hold the keys to the gate.

      They are influencers and sneezers, but without the power to stop those who will come to replace them.

    5. Aug 21st, 2006

      Jon Garfunkel

      Yes, there is the troubling matter of the name. I considered naming my essay “The New Mediators” and I still use that term. But I did pick it up from a BL Ochman article (since taken down from the web) where she used that term to help advertisers find which bloggers to use to get their message across.

      Ok, so we have some definitions of what a gatekeeper could do:
      1. Determine how much a meme can spread
      2. Can stop memes from being initiated
      3. Can stop a meme once spread

      No one has the power of #3.
      I don’t think I argued that the new gatekeepers have power #2 in my series, though obviously that’s the image most people associated with “gatekeepers.” But I did also argue that American media is free enough that there aren’t many messages held under lock-and-key as it is. It’s a tough debate, and I think in the end I wouldn’t defend #2. There’s a lot more esoteric thing I have found out b/c of blogging, but I’m an awfully curious person.

      But as for #1, I do believe one can determine a formula for how well memes can spread.

      Mostly I was trying to illustrate a problem with the New Gatekeepers series. Call it a theoretical problem, or a potential problem. I felt that there weren’t enough people of influence in the blogosphere who genuinely understood it and wanted to fix it. I’m a process engineer. I try to analyze how systems, as designed, cause behavioral responses.

      One valid criticism of TNG was that it was mostly hypothetical and anecdotal, and didn’t offer anything in the way of solid data to look at. I’ve been compiling that over the last 8 months… and will have some ready tonight.

      Also, I only looked at the subject of social media itself, where the A-List bloggers are more familiar with being journalists/marketers than being curious about the underlying architecture. I think I mentioned at some point that other fields may not behave as similarly. The BPM blogosphere is much flatter today, and most of the participants want to work on improving the standards. There’s an occasional oblique jab from another CTO in the industry, but the punches don’t fall, for now. There’s a neat balance of civility in this particular niche. It will be interesting how it evolves.

    6. Aug 21st, 2006

      Assaf

      Jon,

      Mediators would be a better name. What about influencers?

      “But I did also argue that American media is free enough that there aren’t many messages held under lock-and-key as it is.”

      I don’t think it’s held under lock-and-key, but it suffers from a bandwidth problem. When you only have so many people feeding the news, you end up with de facto gatekeepers.

      I’ll pick three topics that are close to my heart: Ruby, REST and Microformats. Those went largely ignored by the trade press which has limited bandwidth and feeds on the press releases of big vendors with a different message to make.

      But over the last year we saw a lot of medium and low ranked blogs getting the message across, and one little influence after another, the tables have turned.

      It takes long without the influence of A-List bloggers, it’s hard to compete with the established presence of the trade press, but it can be done.

      The long tail of small influencers can collectively out rank the few key influencers.

      The gatekeepers that were the press are no longer effective, they lost to blogs. They still can influence for, but they can’t influence against.

      And I can argue it’s the same story with politics, entertainment and other subjects.

      “Mostly I was trying to illustrate a problem with the New Gatekeepers series. Call it a theoretical problem, or a potential problem. I felt that there weren’t enough people of influence in the blogosphere who genuinely understood it and wanted to fix it. I’m a process engineer. I try to analyze how systems, as designed, cause behavioral responses.”

      I don’t get what needs to be fixed.

      The problem with mainstream media is that the bandwidth is limited, so only few subjects make it out there. Good stories do die.

      The power of blogging is that all stories will get out there. Not all of them will make a difference, we don’t have time for that. But some will get the second chance they deserve that they wouldn’t get any other way.

      Without the power to control, there is no power structure.

      Do the top ranking YouTube videos get there because A-List bloggers talk about them? Or do they spread through e-mail and IM?

      The A-List bloggers I read only notice those high ranking videos long after they captured the imagination of the many.

      That’s decentralized.

      But I do agree that attention is not equally divided, nor is trust. Some people can reach a wider audience then others in a shorter period of time. Some people’s opinion weighs more in the eyes of others.

      I wouldn’t call that a flaw. In a theoretical world I would have all the time to sort through massive amount of information. In the real world, I like to be intelligently lazy and rely on a few select sources.

      What would be a better system?

    7. Aug 21st, 2006

      Don’t fence me in — Chip’s Quips

      [...] Freedom and equality are not the same thing. [...]

    8. Aug 21st, 2006

      Jon Garfunkel

      I suppose if I say that those are examples that my hypothesis doesn’t apply to, that dampens the discussion a bit. I believe that more technical discussions are more resistant to, shall we say, high-influentials (if I had unlimited time with my life I would write a history of technical standards bodies). With social media, we’re dealing with the intersection of technology and philosophy and social psychology, and its easier for people to preume knowledge.

      Also, there is a basic flatness of the Internet– consider the wealth of developments from the age of UseNet and mailing lists, which are flat technologies. I was looking particularly at blogging. There’s been Internet culture in the mainstream for over a decade now, but it was only with blogging that people were making various claims.

      IM is pretty flat to me because of its architecture. It’s not the same as blogging. Wiki isn’t the same as blogging. There is some bad information in wikipedia, but it doesn’t spread virally.

      My worry was misinformation– and disinformation. It still seems to me easier to propagate through the blogs. That doesn’t happen all the time. I considered that if it *were* a problem, there have to be better corrective systems than simply floating the slogan “blogs are self-correcting.”

      I also hadn’t considered Internet videos in my analysis. I see less of a problem with video because most of them have been verite– undoubtable truth.

    9. Aug 21st, 2006

      Assaf

      Jon,

      The recent controversy re: the great unread. Well, everyone I talked to this week hasn’t read the great unread, or cared much for it. It echoed well, but the echo chamber is quite small. We might attribute a bit too much “power” to bloggers.

      But I agree with you, blogs are not flat, influencers do exist and the trend is away from flat and towards bigger circles of influence. But the trend is also towards more voices, something other media don’t share. Wouldn’t the tail grow exponentially larger than the influence of any individual blogger?

      Some of the issues we have with media would transfer to blogs. But not exactly the same way. There’s one difference, with blogs any (not every) voice can be carried far. If your point is very strong, you only need one post.

      I don’t believe in blogs being self correcting. I know bloggers self correct,themselves or others. I have respect for them. But like any other medium, the corrections rarely get the same attention and retention as the fallacy. As with media, e-mail hoaxes and urban myths. Viruses spread faster than get well cards.

      BTW this is one of the best conversation I had on this subject, I like this exchange.

    10. Aug 22nd, 2006

      Jon Garfunkel

      My pleasure. I’d be glad to wrap things up. Yes, it is a bit obscure, as is studying the migratory patterns of butterflies in China, but Sorry I haven’t gotten the research up yet. So let me just address this que

      “Wouldn’t the tail grow exponentially larger than the influence of any individual blogger?”

      Hmm. The question I’d consider is, what conditions do we need in a system in order to promote values like egalitarianism or meritocracy in discussing various issues? I addressed that somewhat in the series.

    11. Aug 23rd, 2006

      Assaf

      I think the Web is a great equalizer, everyone gets to have a voice and the freedom to express their opinions.

      In a free society, I can move to any city I want and seek out a social circle, without barriers or class and without asking for permission.

      But I can’t expect a huge circle of close friends who listen to every word I say to happen over night. For some people, it’s easier, for some people harder. Some people really work at it, others don’t. And some choose friends out of people that are scarce.

      As we strive for more freedom and equality, we also need to consider the human nature.

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