- 2006.12.14
Everyone knows that the latest buzzword in the blogosphere is,
of course, blogosphere.
Just what exactly is the blogosphere?
Well, in the interests of exploiting what little we know about
spherical trigonometry and trendsetting in the Web Ex-Post 1.0
world, the Lite Side presents
Mathematical and Astronomical Underpinnings of
the Blogosphere
Radius of the Blogosphere: This is the distance between
your blog and the mainstream media. The more likely you are to be
described as a "right-wing wingnut" (see "clockwise") or a "liberal nutjob" (see "counterclockwise"), the greater your Blogospheric
Radius.
Surface Area of the Blogosphere: A superficial skimming
of the blogosphere, only looking at the blogs that have enough hits
to make money. This, of course, misses the depths to which the
blogosphere can sink. Proportional to the Blogospheric Radius
squared.
Volume of the Blogosphere: The total amount of cubic
meters required to hold the hot air generated by bloggers reading
their blogs silently to themselves while mouthing the words. Grows
exponentially with time. And gets hotter with time, defying the law
of entropy. Proportional to the Blogospheric Radius cubed.
Stereagian: The so-called Solidarity Angle, or the
fraction of the blogosphere aligned in your direction, but not
necessarily at the same Blogospheric Radius.
Inverse-Square Law of the Blogosphere: The importance
that readers will assign your blog writing is inversely
proportional to your Blogospheric Radius squared. That means if you
are twice the wingnut of the next guy, people will only take you
1/4 as seriously.
Clockwise Rotation of the
Blogosphere: When the majority of blogs tend to spin things to
the right, the blogosphere is said to undergo a Right Wing
Rotational Transformation.
Counterclockwise Rotation of the
Blogosphere: When the majority of blogs tend to spin things to
the left, the blogosphere is said to undergo a Left Wing Rotational
Transformation.
Oblateness: During fast breaking news or a national
crisis, the blogosphere can expand in the middle at expense of the
outer rim. This creates oblateness as blogs endlessly spin in
circles around the same talking points.
Flash Blogged: When it seems like every blog has to
comment on the issue of the day, even when the site isn't even
directly related to the topic being discussed (Do you see the irony
here? Do you? I hope you do!), then all the little blogs merge
their little spheres into the Big Blogosphere and, eventually, the
blogosphere emits a signal which can be picked up by the Mainstream
Media.
Deflating the Blogosphere: This occurs when a widely
reported news story turns out to be, how shall we say, totally
bogus.
Expansion Theory of the Blogosphere: The blogosphere will
expand until every person on the planet has a blog. Then the
blogosphere will either keep expanding, with everyone adopting
multiple blogs, or the number of blogs will contract, each being
absorbed into others, until nothing is left but the Huffington.
Experts are divided as to which outcome is more likely. Some
experts are advocates of the steady-state theory, in which
attrition from dying bloggers is precisely offset by growth by
noobs. Recent research shows that the blogosphere is growing at an
accelerating rate, in which eventually everyone will do nothing
except create blogs with no posts.
Illusion of the Central Blog: This is the commonly held
misconception that your blog is the center of the blogosphere.
However, the view is the same from everyone else's blog, making
your blog no more or no less (well, maybe less) important than the
next guy's. Or gal's.
