Carnival Buzz

We ran across an old post in if:book ... well, it was a post from October 2005, which is practically the ice age for blog carnivals. In retrospect, the post was quite insightful:

It's worth paying attention to how these carnivals work because they provide at least part of the answer to a larger concern about the web: how to maintain quality and authority in a flood of amateur self-publishing. In the cycle of the carnival, blogging becomes a kind of open application process where your best work is dangled in the path of roving editors. You might say all bloggers are roving editors, but these ones represent an authoritative collective, one with a self-sustaining focus.

We certainly see increasing quality in carnivals as they mature. And, as we close in on the 250th published blog carnival, it's exciting to see the evolving buzz about blog carnivals, too.

You can see a recent chart of the growth of the blog carnival tag by pressing here. This chart provides good market feedback that blog carnivals are providing a useful service and, as quoted above, helping to maintain quality and authority in a flood of amateur self-publishing.

Some helpful reminders for the reader. If you have an idea for a blog carnival, you can start it by registering here and adding a carnival. If you started a carnival recently, please submit a recent edition to the New Carnival Showcase.

Now, back to some history.

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Read more from this blogger: if:book: October 2005 Archives

We don't often stray beyond the realm of blog carnivals here at Carnival Buzz. Please indulge us while we stray into the topic of global warming in this post. Don't worry, though, we'll bring it home by the end of the post.

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, spoke at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books last night. We highly recommend her book, which originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine, because it reports on global warming from many perspectives. It tells the story of the Indian village in Alaska that has to move its entire population due to shrinking ice fields. It tells the story of scientists measuring increasing glacial melting and movement. It tells the stories of how different governments around the world are reacting to developments in climate change. (If you live below sea-level in Holland, you think about rising sea levels a lot these days).

Kolbert spoke two days after the 60 Minutes report about the U.S. government's censorship of James Hansen, a leading climatologist who works at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Who censored Hansen? Phil Cooney, the chief-of-staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made edits to Hansen's work that changed the meaning of the Hansen's report from global warming is happening to something like the jury is out on global warming. Cooney was a former oil industry lobbyist.

So, we got to thinking, if the U.S. government doesn't want to do anything about climate change, well, what can we do? It's an incomprehensible problem in some ways. Climate change is taking place and it's measurable. Carbon dioxide levels have increased from 316 parts per million to 377 parts per million from 1959 to 2004, well above levels measured over the past 400,000 years. The physics of CO2 and the Sun's radiation have been well understood for over 100 years (see this FAQ for lots of the science behind carbon dioxide and warming). The only questions are really 1) how bad will it get? and 2) what can we do?

No one knows the answer to the first question. As Kolbert pointed out last night, there is a tough dynamic between figuring out how to avert a climate catastrophe and planning for a climate catastrophe at the same time. The worst case is oceans rising 300 feet (100 meters) over the coming 100-200 years with substantial human dislocation and political collapse. The best case is something better than that, but believing things won't change is simply wishful thinking.

So, what can we do. We're doing a few things. Besides trying to consume less energy (more walking and bicycling, checking tire pressure, turning off lights, etc.), we added a new Climate Change category to our Hurricane! blog. And, of course, since we think blogs and blog carnivals are a great way to promote good thinking and change, we're hoping that some kind blogger will start a Carnival of Climate Change. Any takers?

One thing we love about the blogosphere is that you can reach out and email someone when you see a blog you really like. So we decided to email N.Z. Bear at The Truth Laid Bear. He's been doing a lot of great work at TTLB to make it easy to find the blog content you want.

Email led to phone conversations led to an actual face-to-face meeting last week. Then, as N.Z. posted earlier today:

I'm pleased to announce that TTLB is now partnering with BlogCarnival.com to bring the very latest & greatest blog carnivals to the TTLB ÜberCarnival page.

We're super-pleased to be supporting TTLB, too!

What we can't believe is that N.Z. has time to work on TTLB and Pork Busters. We're hoping that providing support to the TTLB ÜberCarnival will give N.Z. a little time now to sleep.

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Read more from this blogger: The Truth Laid Bear: ttlb and blogcarnival.com

We ran across a blog carnival related post on the SNOG! bulletin board. A bulletin board member is discussing the idea of starting a SNOG! carnival (which, of course, we think it a terrific idea).

I don't think it'd really take a lot of effort. I'm not counting on a huge mass of people contributing, this is sort of a test run, if you will. And I'm not asking for a 5000-word post; just a post on your blog about the topic o' the week, with something hopefully related to this message board tossed in for good measure.

If this takes off this could be really cool since it'd not only generate more publicity for SNOG! but it'd also give us to chance to get to know one another through our blogs.

Two things struck us. One is that even a community bulletin board can benefit from the community building that happens with blog carnivals. The other is that blog carnivals need to be easy for contributors and hosts.

Speaking of easy, we're alpha testing some new tools to make carnivals really easy to write. One of the tedious things about writing carnival editions is simply cutting and pasting all the submissions information into the edition text.

The Blog Carnival engineering staff is hunkering down, and we're excited by the first glimpses of the new InstaCarnival demos we've seen. Carnival hosts still will have to do a little writing, of course, but we've been able to generate a new carnival edition with the push of a button! With another 15-30 minutes or so additional effort in Blog Carnival's lab testing facilities, we've generated really well edited carnival editions.

So, now you have two things to look forward to. The new SNOG! carnival and the new InstaCarnival feature here at Blog Carnival. Stay tuned!

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Read more from this blogger: SNOG! - Powered by XMB 1.9.1 Nexus

Below the Beltway wrote:

Another Monday, and you know what that means......another set of blog carnivals ready for your reading.

We love all the carnivals that come out on Mondays, too!

However, here's a little marketing tip for blog carnival organizers and hosts. With so many great carnivals showing up on Mondays, it's hard to get the attention of your loyal carnival readers, not to mention new readers.

Also, with the Blog Carnival sidebar in places like here, here, and here, you can drive more traffic to your new blog carnival edition if you stay near the top of the sidebar list for a while (the sidebar displays the most recent carnival editions). You also might ask other bloggers to display the sidbar for your carnival to help drive traffic.

So, we're not saying to delay your new carnival edition or anything, but carnivals may want to consider timing new edition releases when they can get the most attention.

.

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Read more from this blogger: Below The Beltway: Carnival Monday

From a list of 10 Helpful Weblog Tips, number 4:

Now I have to admit, Blog Carnival, is a foreign subject to me. So it's better to post a direct quote from Yaro's article; A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers. Do a Google search on Blog Carnivals and fine one that is relevant to your site.

Google is a great resource for finding blog carnivals, but we humbly submit that Blog Carnival might be an even better resource. Especially if you're looking for a page where you can submit your post.

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Read more from this blogger: theladderproject : Gaining More Blog Readers Using 10 Helpful Weblog Tips

Welcome to the third edition of New Carnival Showcase. Many stimulating new carnivals were launched in the past month and many of those carnivals submitted to New Carnival Showcase. In honor of tonight's Academy Awards, I'm calling this the gold statue edition. We'll inform today's featured carnivals at which fabu Oscar party they can pick up their statue as soon as we find out which party we're going to. And make the statues.

In no particular order, the envelopes, please.

Ars Gratia Artis

Two new carnivals are reporting on the creative world. First up, Carnival of the Creators organized by Derek Andrews at Seafoam Woodturning. Canadian Andrews writes:

I first came across blog carnivals over a year ago, but it was only recently that I saw the benefits (see post). As a craftsperson who likes to explore new ways to promote both my own work and that of others, I realised that a carnival aboot creative people would be a great idea.

Great idea, indeed. The first edition features, among other creative endeavors, the Storyblogging Carnival. Carnivals covering carnivals is a concept we understand! Andrews has linked to posts on many other creative activities including jewelry and clothing, as well as the business of art.

Speaking of Storyblogging, the other new carnival in the creative category is the Carnival of Children's Literature. Melissa Wiley, at Here in the Bonny Glen, presents the First Carnival of Children's Literature:

This is the first Carnival of Children's Literature, a collection of posts by authors, book reviewers, librarians, and parents about all sorts of children's books.

Of all the carnivals we review in this third edition of New Carnival Showcase, this carnival wins the award for most comprehensive. There really are links to almost anything you can think of, even a link to someone who (horrible dictu!) doesn't like Harry Potter.

Entres Nous

Kelby Carr, at About France for Visitors, has started the Carnival of France, Travel and Francophiles, a romantic carnival to be sure. The debut edition includes many links Français. With Oscars only hours away, the link Français that caught our eye was about the new Bond girl Français (okay, it wasn't just the Oscar thing that made this link such a stand out). The foodies in the audience will enjoy the food and wine links Français, too.

Blog On

The bloggers in the audience will appreciate Carnival of Blog Coverage. Organizer and writer Danny Glover explains:

I started writing the Carnival of Blog Coverage because I love blogs and want to read everything about them. I figured there are plenty of other folks like me, and my aim is to give them their blog fixes, too. I will periodically post carnival entries on the latest blog stories. Most of the time, I'll probably just link to the stories; other times, I'll summarize them or add my commentary on the substance of the stories.

We hope the first edition — The Fall Of Blogs? — has many future editions following. Besides links to a veritable who's who of the blogerati, you'll find this link about blargon.

Old Enough to Vote?

The youngest carnival organizer that we know if is Kevin W at The Liberal Wrong - Wing. We don't know whether Kevin is old enough to vote, but he's certainly old enough to have a political voice. Kevin has started Carnival of Liberal's Wrongs, which he explains to us:

This is a political blog, with an author who lives in liberal Massachusetts and seeks to undermine liberal arguments in almost anything political. The Carnival hosts the posts of other blogs which feel similarly as does The Liberal Wrong Wing - that liberals are almost always and consistently wrong.

The Carnival of Liberal's Wrongs #4 has a terse, straight-ahead style. 25% of the links in this edition are about Jimmy Carter. We don't know if that's significant.

What Kind of Genes Are Those?

We're hoping for a lot more blog carnivals like the Carnival of Biotechnology. Yali Friedman writes to us that:

I've been blogging on biotech for six years now. When I started, there was only one biotech blog - now there's a variety of sites doing a great job of covering a whole bunch of specialties. I started the Carnival of Biotechnology to collect all the insight that's being generated on all these sites.

While we like all the political, arts, food, history, and education carnivals, we think scientists and technologists may be somewhat carnival-challenged. The Inaugural Carnival of Biotechnology is short, but shows promise. Please, please keep new editions coming!

Coming to a Carnival Near You Soon

Thanks for checking out the third edition of New Carnival Showcase! Derek Andrews has graciously volunteered host the 4th edition of New Carnival Showcase at Creators Carnival next month. Submissions through Blog Carnival will be emailed to Derek.

If you've started a new carnival in the past three months, please submit the permalink to your best edition to date to the New Carnival Showcase submission page. Of course, what the New Carnival Showcase really wants is the behind-the-scenes dirt! So, include a few words about what inspired the carnival, who's involved, and the vision of the carnival.

We're looking for hosts for future editions, too. If you're interested, go to the New Carnival Showcase page, click on "Steven" (next to "Maintained by:"), and leave your contact information there.

Submission Guidelines

• The new blog carnival should be no older than three months.
• Submit a permalink to one edition of the new blog carnival.
• Give the name of the new blog carnival.
• Include information about what inspired the carnival, who's participating, and the vision of the carnival.

Will Sun Microsystems start a blog carnival?

Sun employees are prolific bloggers, with Sun President Jonathan Schwartz leading the pack.

If you look around the Sun blogosphere, you'll find a few blog carnivals, too. The first Sun blog carnival, which covered the new ZFS files system, showed up in November last year.

Then two more blog carnivals showed up last month. The Mustang Beta Blog Carnival discusses the beta release of the Java 2 Standard Edition platform. One of the links will take you to Brian Doherty's examination of the term beta in the context of community software development.

The other carnival that showed up last month has the catchy title NetBeans IDE 5.5 Preview Blog Carnival. According to the carnival host, the NetBeans IDE 5.5 Preview will foster "Java EE development for human beings". That is a very hopeful development for the software world in general and the Java world in particular.

What's the big deal? You can see other kinds of blog post aggregations on pages like the Mustang Project Home Page. But we think blog carnivals, while not as timely as, say, the Mustang Home Page, provide more useful and readable blog post aggregation than pages like the Mustang Home Page. You might think of the Mustang Home Page as a sort of Mustang Newspaper, while the Mustang Blog Carnival is more of a Mustang Magazine.

But you'd expect us to think that.

Our real point is this: companies and communities that make products and use blogs may want to consider the benefits of forming blog carnivals for new products. As with other carnivals, product carnivals can not only organize relevant links in a single post, but also help build a community of developers and users around the product.

Ditto for technologies.

And, of course, if you want to make it easy to manage and find all those great new product (and technology) carnivals, feel free to list them at Blog Carnival.