Signal/Noise

Noah Brier notes that there is still a long way to go when it comes to enlightened communication on the Internet:

Rob Walker is great at finding pithy ways to sum up problems. In this edition he ruminates on the state of “online dialogue” (which I copy in full because it’s such a short post, but go over and subscribe to Rob’s blog as it’s great):
Yesterday somebody using the Robwalker.net contact form sent a message, and all it said was: “Read my blog.” Followed by a link.

I found this depressing. Somehow it seemed to sum up the entire state of online “dialogue” these days — a blunt demand for attention. But points for honesty, I guess.

Now, I am thrilled when new people read my blog, but I didn’t start writing for the sole purpose of accumulating page views.  I wanted an outlet to kick around ideas and thoughts and, hopefully, meet some new people and hear their ideas in the process.  So far, so good.

…as Charles Cameron over at Smart Mobs reminds us:

Something very interesting is happening blogwise. An Australian intel analyst blogger, Leah Farrall, and an insurgent strategist blogger, Abu Walid, are now holding a debate in public across the blogs. It began a day or three ago. And they’re not the only ones.

[T]wo other somewhat similar events have been taking place. The UK-based Sunni Salafist supporters of the recent Baluch action against the Iranian IRGC who call themselves the Sons of Sunnah have begun to rewrite their blog posts in response to posts on his own blog from “Ibn Siqilli” of Views from the Occident — a graduate student at Indiana who monitors jihadist traffic with a keen eye for their graphics.

And John Robb, the author of Brave New War who blogs at Global Guerrillas, was astounded this week to receive email from Henry Okah, whom Robb considers “hands down the most innovative and successful guerrilla entrepreneur in the world today”.

I haven’t seen this before. And the recipients seem surprised — Leah said “to say that I am blown away by this would be a pretty massive understatement” and John wrote “This made my decade”. I’d be interested in any precedents.

This is fascinating on a number of levels.  We’ve all heard of instances where top journalists manage to snag a once-in-a-lifetime interviews with insurgents, terrorists, rebels, etc.  But the blogosphere has made it even easier to interact (passively or directly) with these types of actors.