Blog Reviewers: Where are you guys?

Last week, I posted the first half of my new Global Neighborhoods overview.  I broke it into five parts, because last time around, folk told me it was too long to read as a blog post. This time, I received even fewer comments than I did on the previous free overviews.

Here are the links to Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5. Please go there and take a quick read.  Then either post about it, leave a comment or email me.  Help me write a better book.

I cannot understand why almost no one has commented.  If you think the book concept and how I'm handling it needs great improvement, let me know.  If you think that it sounds like a candidate for the Nobel Literature Prize let me know as well. That's what collaboration is supposed to be about.

The deal is this: I work my ass of to write this book and you folks tell me how I can improve it.  You tell me when I ring true and when I don't. You tell me when my facts are a bit off. You give me leads and tell me what parts are boring.

Before I continue along the track I'm on I need to know if this is the right track. I'm kicking back on this topic for a while. I'll be sitting here alone in the dark waiting to hear from you.

Comments

[Ken Camp]

Shel - I've tagged them and waded through three times. I'm on overload and there's so much there I felt I wasn't ready to comment. I'm working on it, but you triggered me off into so many tangential thoughts that, to be honest, the ADD in me took hold and I've been like a hummingbird ever since I started reading what you posted.

[Max Christian Hansen]

Shel - I'm going to give you some feedback on the book summary, but I'm doing that by email. Right here I'm going to comment just on this post.

There is something about blogging, its tools and its norms, that doesn't conduce to going deep, reading long things, grappling with complex ideas. That's what has led to the frustration you express in your post.

You proved you know what I'm talking about when you provided the summary in five parts, because the whole is too long for a blog post. Even if you got the kind of feedback you're now requesting back when you and R.S. were in the process of writing Naked, I'm afraid the blogosphere is only moving farther away from being a place where people are going to grapple seriously with each other's book-length ideas.

I ran into the same frustration a couple of weeks ago. After Dee Rambeau bade blogging farewell, I started to post about his reasons on my own blog. I found that I had an awful lot to say, and when my post ran past 7000 words, it suddenly dawned on me that of all the things blogging might be incompatible with, one of them might be (gasp!) writing. So I decided I was going to write, and blogging would have to wait. I spent my spare hours over the next two days finishing the post. Of course, it couldn't possibly be a post (at over 11K words when finished), and I saw no point in making it a series of posts, since it was in fact a single document. So I added pretty pictures, some nice formatting, and packaged it into a PDF e-book called Unfashionably Late.
There was considerable sacrifice in doing this. An e-book has no place to put comments. Furthermore, the conversation I was entering wasn't happening on the blogosphere, but mostly on the For Immediate Release podcast. There I mentioned it, and Hobson and Holtz gave me two nice mentions. And lots of people read it, but again, the podcast provides no quick and easy place to leave a comment, even if commenting on a 32-page book were easy.

I've been busy the last week, so I didn't read your 5 parts as they came. Even if I had, though, I wouldn't have provided any feedback until I had read them all. And only by great good luck am I able to read the posts, think them over, and reply all in the same day.

I counsel patience. I also counsel being aware of blogging's norms and limitations.

I notice another reader has left a comment on your post today concerning The Economist. That comment's import is similar to mine: The Economist goes deep. Blogging doesn't, or at least it doesn't tend to. Blogging and book-writing are already diverging, and will probably continue to diverge.

[Shelley]

The above are very valid points, and what I was going to make myself. Weblogging really has pushed the limits of ADD--creating it where it didn't exist before. The medium doesn't translate well into longer efforts requiring more work or analysis.

I would think you'd be better off inviting a group of people to be formal reviewers. Even then, don't expect people to jump in with any enthusiasm. I think people are getting tired. You can sense it in the comments and posts of even the most popular webloggers. About the only ones still feeling frisky are the political bloggers.

Anyway, I'm just finishing a book, myself, and it took me a bit to come to grip with the fact that my 'audience' isn't going to feel the same level of anticipation about it that I do.

Good luck.

[Robert Scoble]

I agree with Shelley. I find this to be too difficult to bite into in this format.

Your formatting needs to be dramatically improved too. There isn't any line space between paragraphs on the first part that I looked at. Makes it VERY difficult to read.

If you're going to put long text on the Internet, gotta make it easier to read than this.

[shel israel]

Thanks, Robert. But this is precisely the same format as we used for Naked Conversations. What difference do you see?

[Ivan Chew]

Hi Shel -- like Max, I'm also going to comment about the chapters & book in a separate email.

To answer your question "But this is precisely the same format as we used for Naked Conversations. What difference do you see?" -- imho, the difference could be that the first time was a "novelty", whereas this time it's more like work. I mean, while the format and your need hasn't changed, other factors might have. Like, your readers' motivations, the time factor (more blogs to read now?), the affinity they might or might not have with the content of the book.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Wow you need a nap! :)

I downloaded your website to review on the plane, I simply didn't have enough time to wade through all the content.

Here's my review, excellent, I love all the ideas, the direction of the book. As I was reading your webpage saved to my local machine (that's dedication, mind you) I was sitting next to a practicing psychologist for kids that lives in Atherton. We had an interesting conversations about the psychology of children and how they feel the need to share as a way of therapy.

If your book is going to focus on this aspect of the next generation hitting the workforce, it would be interesting to cover (very briefly) some of the reasons why humans (kids) want to share online, and how that's going to change business.

And yes, the text is TOO much to digest in blog posts, maybe start a wiki?

[alan herrell - the head lemur]

Shel,
The lack of enthusiam over your opus is pretty simple to understand.
1. We already have our own Global Neighborhoods.
2. We just don't care, we are busy.

[shel israel]

Jeremiah,

Thanks for taking the time to do what you have done. Thanks also for advising me to interview a child psychiatrist. It happens that I know one. She hates blogging so it will be interesting. But you are among those who say the process is too difficult. It's the same process that worked so well with NC, and made me a fairly popular blogger. Is it now passe? Should I just write the book and not try to collaborate on the blogosphere? My feeling is I can save time, but I lose the wisdom. Last time the wisdom helped Robert and me write a better book. Maybe this time it will not.

[Davida Dalka]

I can't quickly check the story that I contributed to you (Andy McKee) because I don't see a search box on your blog to look for keywords?

[Ted Koterwas]

funny i was just reading about how Twitter is all the rage at SXSW, and is the next evolutionary step in blogging. twitter posts are texted, so they are very short, and the emphasis is on what you are doing at the moment, not on what you are thinking about larger issues.

so, if blog posts are getting shorter, fewer people are taking the time to read and comment thoughtfully on long meaty posts, and the twitter hype is true, it would seem that for many people, the ability to broadcast and be social is much more important than having anything meaningful to say.

[Charlie Rockwave]

Shel - you sound like you really need some feedback -- and quick! Sitting there in the dark by your PC waiting for some comments to start rolling in -- 可哀相じゃ!!
I literally just received delivery of your book here in Kyoto, Japan like 35 minutes ago. I paged through it while eating my bento lunch and it looks great!
I will definitely give you some feedback after I chomp through it.

[shel israel]

Wow. In Kyoto? I wish I could have hand delivered it, Jack.

[roland]

Give me some time to read. I've been away from the Borg Mind Hive for several months now and need some time to catch up.

Do you still wants more comments, even though it is one whole day after posting?

[shel israel]

I will want more comments for about the next year. Thanks for the note as well, Roland.

[Dennis McDonald]

I'll comment on yours if you'll comment on mine. Deal?

[shel israel]

Dennis,

I asked you first.

[Marco Palombi]

The apparent lack of interest could be explained because the online environment has changed completely since you wrote NC. At that time there was almost no online resource about conversations and their social and economic impact. Today everybody (who is online and has a blog) is talking about it, and we shifted from in depth analysis to looking for the latest news about new services.

I have the impression that books are now bought mostly by people who are not much online (unless the topic is very specific), and that this kind of book has now an appeal to people who are mostly not online. NC spread virally thanks to people that were online, the new one will have to find a different (more traditional) marketing channel.

I liked alot what I read, it is very insightful and made me think about the generation gap which is probably the widest ever. Good job!

[Charlie Rockwave]

Shel,

Dude yo book kicks!

Yeah, yeah, Shel. Hand deliver yo next book to me in Kyoto. I know all the best restaurants, etc. -- this is my town! Yur gonna luv it!

Seriously, I am still just reading it in schizo-mode on the train -- gotta invest in a bookmark!

Someday Shel, I am going to sit you down and tell you all about how yo book changed THE PLAN! How it put one helluva a ding in the RW universe.

Thanks!

Gotta go...

[shel israel]

Love to hear that story, Charlie. Love to hear it.