Anyone interested in the reasons why I started the blog tag game should read this. Anyone who has permanently judged me should skip it.
The game is a tried-and-true meme that’s been around for years. I didn’t invent it. Justin alluded to this in his response; his last go-round was in a tag from Jeff Pulver, who created the game in December 2006. My reasons for starting are as follows:
- To the best of my knowledge, the Oracle blogosphere had not played a game yet.
- I have met a lot of you virtually and some of you personally. We interact frequently through blogging, and I’m interested in learning more about you.
- I haven’t met the majority of you, and I’m interested in learning about you. I’ve worked on virtual teams for many years, and it’s refreshing to learn about the person behind the email/IM/blog/etc. It humanizes the modern world.
- Justin has rightfully argued in the past that Oracle has a big blogging community. This exercise intended to find new bloggers that might not be aggregated or widely known and reach out to the “corners” of the community.
- January represents a slow news time and seemed like a good time to get people back into blogging, including the other members of AppsLab.
- This was meant to be a lark.
That last bit is the key point for me to emphasize. Let’s clear the air:
I get nothing from this, nor did I expect anything other than what’s listed.
Not subscribers, not pageviews or traffic, not attention, nothing, nada, zero, zilch, zip, donut. No one else stands to gain either, as far as I know. You’ll notice this post has no trackbacks or links to content. I had planned to analyze the responses and the spread of the meme and collect some commonalities between bloggers, again to create ties that were previously hidden. That’s not happening now.
Now that I’ve explained my reasons, let me thank those of you who participated (and who will participate). I have enjoyed reading your nuggets of personal information and am glad you decided to play along in good fun.
Next, let me say that I did not consider the flood of posts that would overrun aggregators like Eddie’s OraNA. Calling me a spammer is unwarranted, since spam is by definition unsolicited. By reading an aggregator, you are subscribing to all its content, personal or otherwise; none of the blogs that make up OraNA must agree to provide only Oracle-related content. Subscription equals solicitation.
For those who are personally affronted by the flood of personal information in aggregators, I say again, this was unintentional.
For those who have “suffered” in silence, I hope we can have a laugh about this soon. For those who have called me names in this blog, other blogs and in forums, please stop being rude and contact me directly if you wish to continue name-calling.
At this moment, my blog-collector gets more hits on comments on this blog than on the other ‘I have been tagged’ blogs all together.
At this moment, my blog-collector gets more hits on comments on this blog than on the other ‘I have been tagged’ blogs all together.
@Marius: Good point, why don’t you have a blog?
@Chris: Thanks. I guess reports of the Interweb’s demise were exaggerated. I feel the same way about nuggets of information. We don’t gather much in person, so it’s nice to build some camaraderie virtually. I think the games are over for a while, at least for me 🙂
@Steven: I’m curious to see your hatemail now. Sounds interesting. I was taken aback by the vitriol, but what can you do? Thanks.
@Robbert: I hope this isn’t a bad thing for you.
@Marius: Good point, why don’t you have a blog?
@Chris: Thanks. I guess reports of the Interweb’s demise were exaggerated. I feel the same way about nuggets of information. We don’t gather much in person, so it’s nice to build some camaraderie virtually. I think the games are over for a while, at least for me 🙂
@Steven: I’m curious to see your hatemail now. Sounds interesting. I was taken aback by the vitriol, but what can you do? Thanks.
@Robbert: I hope this isn’t a bad thing for you.
Jake, my comment on 8 things post still holds. You rock.
– M
Jake, my comment on 8 things post still holds. You rock.
– M
Jake
When I was at College I lived with a guy who used to sit in the corner of the room while a particular TV show was on(I can’t even remember what the show was now) and literally yell abuse at the TV at the top of his voice. I suggested that maybe he shouldn’t watch it seeing as he clearly hated what he saw and a less stessfull activity might be better. ‘No way’ he said, ‘this is the favourite part of my week’.
On the web, we post comments or blog instead of yelling at the TV.
Jake
When I was at College I lived with a guy who used to sit in the corner of the room while a particular TV show was on(I can’t even remember what the show was now) and literally yell abuse at the TV at the top of his voice. I suggested that maybe he shouldn’t watch it seeing as he clearly hated what he saw and a less stessfull activity might be better. ‘No way’ he said, ‘this is the favourite part of my week’.
On the web, we post comments or blog instead of yelling at the TV.
@Meg: Thanks, again.
@David: My guess is you still yell at the TV, especially when “football” isn’t going well.
@Meg: Thanks, again.
@David: My guess is you still yell at the TV, especially when “football” isn’t going well.