Tech Blogosphere has peaked

Squash details the decline in hits in the tech blogosphere as well as in the quality of posts. He could be talking about the political blogosphere too. As reported here, AmericaBlog reported a large drop in ad income from Dec. 2005-Feb 2006 while DailyKos show a steep decline in hits starting in October 2005.

Back to Squash talking about the general dullness in tech blogging of late.

Here’s a question: When was the last time you found a really, great new voice. Who’s the hot new blogger? Late last year/earlier this year, there was a pretty significant influx of new bloggers into the game and personally I think we’ll look back and say that was the tech blogosphere’s golden age.

Ditto for political blogs. There’s been too much of the echo chamber syndrome, blogs blogging about what other blogs are blogging. Hopefully that doesn’t happen Polizeros. You may or may not agree with the politics here, but few other blogs cover the antiwar and immigrant rights movement like Polizeros. Or have an organizer who blogs.

However, something else might be causing this blog slowdown too, an outside process.

Simultaneous with the slowdown has been astromonical growth in another part of the Net, and it’s no doubt drawn millions (yes, millions) of blog readers away.

That would be MySpace.com.

I noticed this a few weeks back on a website I manage. They were getting more hits from MySpace than from Google, which seemed completely bizarre at the time but may just have been a precursor.

Concurrent with echo chamber blogs and declining new content, a new paradigm pops up, and away goes hordes of potential readers.

The good blogs will continue of course, the ones with something to say.

And, oh yeah, Polizeros is on MySpace now too, seems a good way to draw people here.
[tags] blogging, blogs, myspace[/tags]

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Paris: Huge crowds have joined a new wave of protests across France to kill off a contested youth jobs reform, despite concessions from President Jacques Chirac and the prospect of imminent talks to end the month-long crisis.

The unions have given the government 10 days to repeal the jobs laws.

Unless the conservative government revokes the law by April 15, unions will organise “a new, strong period of mobilisation, not ruling out any means of action,” they said in a joint statement.

The Libcom blog has continuing coverage in English from protestors.

[tags] French protests[/tags]

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It’s not satire, either…

Yet another example of the deep cluelessness of those who are supposed to protect the citizenry.

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Here’s the first ANSWER Coalition initiative on immigration rights, AmnestyYes.org

It’s an online petition. Sign it! Let’s get as many signatures as possible. Petitions generally don’t do much on their own, but when coupled with real life boycotts and walkouts, and the possibility of hundreds of thousands of signatures, then the impact will be substantial.

I demand full rights and equality for all immigrants living in the United States. Neoliberal economic policies targeting Latin America, like NAFTA and CAFTA, have pushed millions of people into abject poverty. Immigrants are forced to come to the U.S. to look for work. Nobody should be criminalized for attempting to survive. No human being is illegal. Racism against immigrants emanates from the same forces behind the U.S. war to conquer and control the wealth of Iraq.

This movement’s next major action will be “The Great American Boycott 2006″ on May 1. It will be a nationwide day without an immigrant when immigrants and their supporters stay home from work and school and businesses are closed. We will demand amnesty and full rights for all immigrants.

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Immigrant advocates called Tuesday for a nationwide boycott of jobs and schools on May 1, even as senators appeared stymied in their efforts to finish the immigration bill that’s provoking controversy.

Good. No bill is better than a bad bill. The Senate version is bad while the House version is evil. I hope they deadlock completely. Then maybe a fair bil can then be passed.

The proposed “Great American Boycott of 2006″ is being organized by some of the same activists who rallied an estimated half a million demonstrators in Los Angeles on March 25. Now, in a bid to show nationwide clout, they want immigrants and supporters to avoid work, school, buying and selling on May 1.

“We realize that we have been absent from the political debate in Washington, although we are the voices of those most affected by the legislation,” Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of Latino Movement USA, said at a Washington news conference.

The nationwide boycott is also being organized through the ANSWER Coalition.

The first ANSWER initiative  is detailed in the post preceding this, AmnestyYes.org. More coming.

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From Starbucks Workers Union

A settlement between Starbucks Coffee Co. and the National Labor Relations Board over labor practices opens the way for a union to organize coffee shop employees, a union representative said on Wednesday

The Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW, was not part of the settlement, although its charges of unfairness led to an NLRB investigation.

The IWW, AKA the Wobblies, and were one of the legendary unions of the early 20th century. I’m glad they’re active and organizing.

Read on. Do hot coffee and ‘Wobblies’ go together?

PS They were at the Costa Mesa Immigrant Rights demo last Saturday too, Flickr photo.

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The US has consistently used civilian front companies to conceal secret prisoner transports taking off from European airports, human rights watchdog Amnesty International has said.

In the report “USA - Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and ‘disappearance’” published on Wednesday (5 April), Amnesty claims to have registered over a thousand flights that can be linked to the US intelligence organisation, the CIA.

Amnesty’s sources are the  prisoners who were transported. More from Amnesty.

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