I read BoingBoing because, frankly, it is like geek crack. Every time I crack open my laptop, there's five or so tantalizing new goodies for me to enjoy on the kind of geeky topics that readers like me love. You get to know the editors as if they were sitting in your own living room, cranking out new pointers to "wonderful things" every couple of minutes.

What I don't like about BoingBoing is that it has no structure. Newspapers have a good degree of organization: articles appear on pages within sections and actual human editors have made rules and put things in their places. Furthermore, in newspapers, articles only get to be about one thing, you don't get to have a column that has 10 stories in it unless you relate them all somehow. BoingBoing has none of this, it's just a chronological list of new bits of information. While it's a fun way to entertain yourself, it isn't particularly satisfying or intellectually fulfilling fulfilling.

I'm currently reading Slate's weeklong "College Symposium." This seems like an interesting model to follow. Slate invited tons of folks to submit an article on higher education. The articles all appear on the site, authors write new articles to respond to other authors, and everyone gets to comment in The Fray, Slate's online discussion forum.

Perhaps a similar model could work here: a topic is announced (with reader input of course), authors blog on the topic and submit their entries as trackback pings to the original topic post, and the highlights of the discussion appear as column you edit and publish in the deadtree version of the paper. Interested readers could go to the website and read some of the original blog posts, and if the discussion was interesting, it could go on for a couple of days in the column.

Best of luck on this project. I've always been an IHT fan (there's something so refreshingly wonderful about sitting on a train in a completely foreign country where no one speaks your language and unfolding the familiar sight of the IHT) and I hope that this can work.

"Why do you read Boing Boing?"

I don't. Boing Boing is somewhat late in the chains of events, the three or four times I tried to read it, I had always this déjà vu feeling, mixed with the "no time to read" feeling when they don't manage to post at a frequency convenient for the reader. Plus there is this amount of advertising which clutters the space and reduce the readability. Maybe the readers are going to have a more useful input than mine.

I think a lot of what makes Boingboing works is the frequency of posting (as Zach says above, "Every time I crack open my laptop, there's five or so tantalizing new goodies for me to enjoy.") I think this helps drive relevance by bringing people back. Because people come back, their hits go up, and it makes boingboing more important. It's a virtuous circle, although if you miss a week, you're never going to catch up on everything. That's ok, because the important (to you) bits will get picked up on the lower volume sites you follow. It's a tricky volume balance that they manage pretty well.

Oh, my blog is better than Boingboing because I'm more topic-focused. ;)

I get news from varied topics - many of them that I wouldn't find in a "regular" news source. That's cool.

every chaning Factiods !!!

Why don't I read boingboing?

a) every interesting thing was posted or will be posted on /. and almost every geek blog in the world. If I want to waste time at work, I read /. comments, at least are they funny.

b) there is more advertisement on boingboing than on a free porn site

c) my company's proxy blocks boingboing just like it blocks your blog Joi (and that point damn sucks)

Boing Boing, for me, is all about the content. In fact, I wish the postings were a bit less frequent.

Yes, it's true, they are rarely the first. But by reading BB I don't have to read a dozen blogs the precede it, or the hundred that follow it. My life is not readings blogs, and so it does a great job for me of cutting and concentrating the stuff that is really cool.

I find Slashdot's comments, even reading at the highest cutoffs to be less than interesting. Even though there is overlap, Slashdot seems to miss much of the cultural. BB for being forward focused, is not all that geeky.

And while there is advertising in the RSS as well, it doesn't get much in the way for me.

I think Boing Boing could grow their editorial board. I like who is posting now, but it would be nice to have more diversity. I'd love to see a combination (without duplication) of Smart Mobs, World Changing, and Boing Boing.

Boing Boing has become oddities of the internet + political commentary by Doctorow, and I don't agree with Cory's ideology. It seemed everytime I read one of his posts, my blood pressure rose 5%, so I unsubscribed.

His ideology is as abrasive as those he opposes, so I have a difficult time listening to either side. If Boing Boing dumped Doctorow, I might consider re-subscribing.

All of their contributors write from a consistent point of view.

Dare I say it.... Boing Boing is one of the few great internet brands, up there with eBay and Amazon?

It's light hearted fun (most of the time)

because i read the happy mutant handbook at just the right age and it completely changed my life. so i guess there's some brand loyalty there.

...also 'cause i like a little distraction from media consumption habits almost entirely focused on becoming a more productive human being. it is, as promised, largely a directory of wonderful things, at a time when wonder is in fairly short supply and going out & finding it would be, y'know, inefficient.

I mostly read Boing Boing for the fun stuff it points towards, but I must agree with Christopher that Cory Doctorow's commentary tends to grate on me as of late. It often strikes me as reactionary and, on occasion, uninformed.

I'ts like news of the wierd and wired together, and most of the other people's blogs I go to (warrenelliscom, glider.bmezine.com...) either read BoingBoing or sometimes are featured on it.

I read it because I used to read the 'zine incarnation towards the end of its life (and still find the odd copy in the oddest of places).

That and there's some great stuff. Yeah, I disagree with Cory a lot of the time, I'm not always as into the sex posts as Xeni, I'm often confoodled by half of David's posts and Mark only seems to throw in a gem occasionally...

...but you blend all of those together and it's balanced, it's fun, there's always something I can like and if there isn't I go hit MetaFilter. Every bOING bOING editor is great to read and, as I've said, they mesh well together. I'm not expecting Umberto Eco.

I read BB through RSS a dozen times a day: the multifarious topics of interest are "crack for geeks" indeed. I scan the headlines, follow interesting links for a few minutes, then get back to work. BB shares wonderful things (/. snickers and has a "geekier than thou" attitude).

i read boingboing to keep me uptodate with weird things on the net. I've been following it for about 3+ years or so.

boingboing (-xeni) finds things I usually don't knwo about...

I have say Xeni sucks, most of her posts are NYTimes or about some silly show she is doing (more of the look at me mom vareity). If i want to read the nytimes i'll read it, Xeni find some interesting content, your making boingboing banal...

Two main reasons:

1: 98% of everything that is posted there is interesting and never boring. (often I see things on BB before any of the other major blogs/portals)

2: As others have mentioned, every few hours there will be consistently something new on the site.

If some of the contributors to BB (you know who you are) would stop the relentless self-promotion and instead focus on more interesting topics than yourselves, you'd get the other 2%.

I'm also tried of it being Cory Doctorow's PR vehicle. It's all about some new book thing he's working on.

Self-promoting crap. Get over yourself Cory.

because http://boingboing.suprglu.com only carries 98% of the stories and I need the other 2%

I read it because it's NOT focused. It's like buying those "loot bags" at the corner store, wrapped in terrible 1950's paper and containing random goodies. Sometimes you get a toy and some good candy, other times, it's garbage...just like bOING bOING.

It's nice to have a non-niche blog once in a while, and while the self-promoting is tiring, hey, it's their site! Y'all mofo's on blogger do it too. Don't hate!

PS: Xeni is boring.

Yeah, Cory is lame. Almost everything he writes about is 1) Whine about some product / company he doesn't like 2) Over-the-top "my friend wrote me an email about this" rant that ignores the facts any google search would turn up 3) Stupid Slashdot-style advocacy of something with no new information.

I actually like Xeni the most. Her stuff is consistently interesting, and the childish political opinions are kept to a minimum.

I basically read it because for every 20 whiffs there's a good link I've never seen before. And please - saying the ads are offensive is ludicrous. 90% of their ads are for small, bootstrap-internet-style businesses. It's not like they're running Pepsi ads up there.

I'll tell you why I hate boing boing,

1. CAN'T COMMENT.
2. Impossible to make submissions (unless you're xeni's friend)
3. Xeni looks like she was dipped in bleach.
4. The snobbery.

I used to read BoingBoing (the zine) back in its pulp incarnation and I've probably been reading the blog since early 2000 (though it seems like it was around in the late '90s despite the lack of archives predating Jan 2000) I generally prefer the stuff that Mark and David link to, but I also appreciate having Cory and Xeni around on occasion (when they aren't hyping themselves). Actually, they could both probably take a self-promotion hint from Mark, who also promotes his work on occasion, but manages to do so on a more appropriate level/frequency for the most part.

In general, the number and variety of posts on any given day ensures that there is at least something of interest to read and investigate further. The addition of adverts was rather annoying until the Firefox extension came along to block them (though I do not wish them any financial ill will).

The overall quality of posts seems to fluctuate wildly on any given day, but they are just consistent enough that I can't help but check on a daily basis. At its best it can be a sort of zeitgeist snapshot, a glimpse into the nether regions of the internet, but at its worst (which seems to be more often as of late) it devolves into a personal platform for bitching, complaining and posturing, not to mention self-promoting [not that they ever declared it would not include these things...].

boing boing is educational, fun, and serious all at once. a good mix. i don't mind the proselytizing so long as its brief, and I can always skip over it. for those averse to ads and diatribes - get over it - start your own factoid blog, and let the ne'er-do-wells post stupid comments on it...
thanks to BB.

I'm pro-BoingBoing. The posts are frequent, varied, and usually worth of a CTRL+click in Firefox for later reading. Although there is what might be considered "a lot" of advertising, it's relegated to the sides of the page, so you can scan straight down the middle and scan for nifty content. I do have one beef, however, which is that some editors grab a topic by the horns and won't stop posting about it until I wish I knew them personally so I could punch them. I appreciate that editors have favorite topics, and, as such, what they choose to post might have a certain bias, but do we really need twenty or thirty posts on Sony's rootkit? Or SARS folk art exhibits? I think not.

If you read boing boing, you know what kind of posting you are getting - consistently. And you know what kind of topic range you are getting.

Additionally, you get a nice collection of funny things.

Third: If you read sites like bb and are not able to skim through the posts in your feedreader, you should probably unsubscribe.

Why do I read it? It has a nice collection of absurde things from all over the net which you don't need to follow, because you have bb.

I can't stand slashdot and I am not such an avid follower of comments - so I do not really mind not to have a way to comment. Because in the end, if I want to, I can do so on my blog. :)

I love it as long as it lives up to its slogan... "A Directory of Wonderful Things." Unfortunately that seems to only be about half of the space. The other half is Cory ranting about DRM or Xeni or him self-promoting. Also, do we really need links to every single reference to Katamari Damacy ever posted to the web? We get it, you like the game. We don't need to be told again how OMG mind-blowingly brilliant the greatest achievement in the history of human civilization it is.

Also, how about allowing comments?

I read boing boing because I am an information junkie and I'm gathering enough useless facts to take on Ken Jennings. I mainly read it in CSS format and I like that way it flows. It's quick and fast. It also has all the componets that I'm interest in: Technology, Hipster stuff, Weird stuff and from time-to-time you can find sex stuff.

Thank's boing boing for being who you are and all that you do.

I love boingboing: it's fast, funny, and nicely varied. I've lost count of the number of times I've searched back through the archives for a posting that was relevant to something I'm doing - and I don't do anything directly linked to what the editors do. The posting blurbs are masterpieces of brief, informative, clear writing. It's clearly not like a commercial print magazine - it's the unpaid lovechild of its creators/editors - so the odd bit of self-promotion is just fine by me. I find I agree with much (not all) of Cory's politics, which for me is a bonus, not a requirement, and I find his honest, lucid presentation of them suits me just fine. It's a blog, where you can say what you think (especially if you're self-employed). If he was on TV maybe it'd come across differently, but I suspect he'd still be more likeable than any current US political pundit I can think of right now.

If I hadn't been on boing boing I would never have found Strindberg and Helium. That alone is reason enough.

Boing Boing is nothing short of a vain, self-promotional, running commercial for Xeni Jarden, and Cory Doctorow. I finally had enough when Jardin asked the Boing-boing users to complain that a radio program she ocassionally freelances for; (Day to Day with Slate Magazine), was dropped by NPR station KCRW. Of course she supplies the name and address of the appropiate person to complain to so all of her Boing-Boing faithful can write so as to shore up her income.

And what about her pimping anything that refugee from the Star Trek TV show from the early '90s says or does? Do we care? No!

The site is over rated and most of the links they "find" are either given to them by their sycophants first on are listed from other blogs that posted them well in advance.

I read it an enjoy it. I have to skip over all of the self-promotion they do though. I guess you should expect that, but I don't think that "links to FOO talking about BAR on the radio" are helpful... I mean, if you're already reading boingboing, you're not likely to learn more for an introductory radio piece... but I guess some people dig that stuff

There's room for many great blogs, isn't there? Boingboing is usually at least moderately cool. There's that sense that, if it's up on Boingboing and I've never heard of it, there must be *something* interesting about it, and usually, if I check into it, that turns out to be true. To talk about what the blog would have to do to gain you as a reader, in terms of content, this doesn't make sense, does it? A blog is what it is. If you change the composition then what you get is a different blog, even if it shares the same name.

There is a lot of ideology there, true, but that's blogging for you. If you like the ideology then that's good, it helps you keep up on issues of interest to you. And I, for one, like the type of ideology there. Indeed, I can't think of any thinking person who could disagree with it -- but that's always the case with ideology you agree with, isn't it? If you disagree with it, it's StupidHatefulWrong, if you agree with it, ir's preaching to the choir. Well in Boingboing defense, it helped me work through a few ideological issues, so it is definitely useful that way.

On Cory Doctorow's posts, well they're not as frequent as they used to be. When I first started reading Boingboing, I was under the impression that it was actually his blog, with so few posts from the others. Now it's a fair bit more balanced between the members. Sometimes I do get the PR-spiel sense from his electronic rights posts, but again, I do tend to agree with him on these issues.

Cory and Mark's topics are actually somewhat similar in a way; Cory tends to blog on all the science fiction authors he thinks are reallyreally cool, and Mark does the same for artists.

The biggest problem I can see, besides the loss of the guestblog (sniff), is that occaisionally something will break concerning some big piece of news, usually involving some big company with some nefarious feature in their software/cellphone/computer/etc., a post will pop up outraged at their termerity, then a day or two later the little red UPDATED word will appear attached to it, along with info explaining how the post was wrong. That's happening less often now, though. And I think they should be applauded (although I'm unsure if I'm comfortable with using that verb) for correcting their posts like this when news comes to light.

On the ads, it's funny how once upon a time it seemed like Boingboing [w|c|sh]ould never run ads, but now they're all over the place? Ad creep. Two points about that: most of the ads are, in fact, for the blogger's own projects, which I tend to be more cool with that the little Absolut Apeach "Win $10,000!" box that's up there at the moment. But the thing I hate about them most is how they narrow the main text flow so much, although it's more than just that; on my wide-screen laptop, there's still a large amount of plain white space to the left and right of the body, which seems wasteful.

Is anyone else as sick of Boing Boing's use of the phrase "jaw-dropping" as I am? Also, ditto on the complaints of self-promotion and repetitive posts. One of them is OBSESSED with Disney(land).

I don't read boingboing - I read boingboing through RSS.

I like the breadth of content. The combo of geek + art + odd = good stuff. I also like the flavor each editor has. It's a lot more interesting and has more of a huamn touch than something like Slashdot.

It's a geeky fun time - especially for people who have a sense of humor. There is deffinitely alot to read and I can't stand looking at the actual page - I just read it in my rss client. But, any site that uses words like "congresscritters" and deals out so many relevant news items as well as fun useless tidbits has my vote.

Used to. Now it's a turd that I rake every few weeks to see if there's something I missed. But I read it thru an Ad-Ripper that kills their horrid redesign.

1. No more comments. They got tired of people telling them things were starting to suck, and now they really suck.

2. Cory Doctorow really needs his own blog, but I guess Mark likes keeping the activity high.

3. Cory Doctorow really needs to mature past the emotional age of 13. I don't know who would be willing to help him do that, however.

4. Xeni needs to let Susannah get her own blog.

Mark and David post cool stuff usually.

It is addictive, with post-frequency a big draw. Odds are good at least one post will deliver the goods.

Lots of respect for Cory D's accomplishments, energy, and heart. But agree the stridency of the copyfighter rhetoric can be tiresome (and likely counterproductive). After awhile it all begins to sound like "in a career-ending act of moronic self-immolation, Steve Jobs today extended DRM to iPod video."

Modulate, dude! People don't like being oversold. Consider: http://tinyurl.com/cxb2w

Also, I think we've had enough papercraft Marios for one lifetime.

But, BB'ers, thanks in general for the roving, ADD-afflicted eye. Katamari Damacy in blog form!

Hi to Battelle.

- Ron

The best thing you can say about Boingboing is that it is mainly unboring. It's my second daily stop, after checking my mail and before visiting a media giant powered news source.

Without Boingboing the internet would be way less fun to use daily. It's less random than stumbleupon.com, it is better edited than fark.com and has better topics.

The internet still surprises me after 9 years of usage. And many of those surprises I've seen on Boingboing first.

I agree with the previous comments that there might be too many "Katamari Damacy"-related posts. Never having played it I can't really judge how good it is, though.

I read BoingBoing because I'm not geeky enough to enjoy /. and don't have enough time to track down a ton of blogs to read. I mean, I actually have a life to live. BB provides me with a constant stream of diverse and entertaining bits of information. I admit I am extremely tired of Cory Doctorow's domination of BB. The self-promotion and righteous indignation really turn me off. Really. In fact, I've quit reading BB for periods of time simply because I can't take any more Cory. I wish the others would post more, to restore a sense of balance to the blog. Better yet, give Cory the boot and replace him with someone less politically oriented.

Why do I read BoingBoing? Mark and David. Tech toys. Katamari Damacy. Mac advocacy. Geeky science links. Art & photography.

What do I dislike about BoingBoing? Xeni and 50% of Cory. Shameless plugs. DRM ranting. Pictures of sex toys not shielded behind NSFW hyperlinks. Self-aggrandizement. That Suicide Girls ad with the topless chick.

I read boingboing because of the funny stuff and the interesting and political stuff - the blogs and photos from New Orleans were poignant and wonderful. I've also learned a lot about computers, which is important since we got this one only last Dec.

But most importantly, I've found religion. Without FSM, I would be lost in the wilderness of non-belief, and I have the prophets Xeni, David, Cory and Mark to thank for spreading the word and gospel of FSM --------Allelujah!!! (Or should I say Ravioli!!!!)

It's interesting and funny. I don't have time to scour the net, so its nice to have someone do it for me. Sometimes it sucks, but sometimes it doesn't. O-yeah, I also occasionally click on the ad's so they can get paid for what they do.

lo/lmao factor...

it's like brain candy - in a world where trad delivery methods like tv and radio are kinda old fasshioned, it's nice to rock up and get my fill of weird videos and music followed by somethings to mentally chew on.

I'm hip to the Katamari posts though - I've never played, but two years ago it was Disneyland...who knows what will tickle them most in two years from now?

As for Xeni, well, she seems to have an interest in sex, which beats the other geeks! She's cool enough...

I feel like the critics of boingboing (above) have never learned to 'scan' a site/newspaper for the useful/important/relevant-to-me stuff - goddam, was that what greasemonkey was made for? I learnt about gm on bb because it stripped Xeni out of the feed.

Also, boingboing get's my girlf's approval. She call's it my baby sitter.

i read BB becuz i need more wonderfull things in my life

I read BB because David Pescovitz is the coolest man to ever grace the Web. Big sexy bald MF.

I access AND read it every day 'cause it is really funny...

BoingBoing seems to be kind of a juggernaut now. All too often, it's up to a week behind other sites like www.metafilter.com. People who are preoccupied with geek-chic or otherwise techo-hip are generally irrelevant anyways. Live for something less ephermal, maybe?

The artists they link to mostly and the neato thingies and stuff. I like the technological/political/activist edge as well... without it, BB would die. Also, they seem to be trendsetters... I'll read things on BB (esp. from Xeni) and later the TV networks and other websites/blogs will start yapping about the same stuff a few years, months, days or weeks later. In addition, I like the strange zingers they throw in every now and then... like chicken rapists and stuff.

Funny you should ask... Over the last couple of weeks I've been getting fed up with the masturbatory Xeni posts (I think it was Xeni in infrared post that pushed me over the edge). Just today I told myself that if I saw another one of her horrible conceptions of the "Best of the Web" I was taking BB out of my bookmarks and relegating it to the abyss. Whaddya know? Sex machines.

Somehow BB's humor and intelligence have transformed into mere ego-stroking and fey attempts at promoting cyber-liberal fancies masquerading as journalistic integrity.

Adios, Boingboing, it was (mostly) fun while it lasted.

Sex, geekdom, creative artifacts, human rights all in one splat. Intellectual nutrition...

I read it...I guess I don't know why. Every few days I read some specific thing that irritates me to no end. Cheap hits at the current administration (as well as any opposition to EFF), a feeling of smug superiority, and slanted viewpoints have made me wonder why I read it.

christopher baus is right. Cory needs to get over himself. I've been considering for a while setting up an alternate Cory-less feed, but every once in a while he posts something interesting--usually when he's posting a submitted link. When it comes to rants and self-promotion, though, he's the worst.

(My favorite was when he ranted against the Times describing "wifi" as being short for "wireless fidelity." Not only did he refuse to apologize for busting their ass over it, but he persisted with a followup post about how dumb everyone who wrote in to tell him he was wrong is! Hey, he may be right about the etymology of the word, but that doesn't change its entry in the Oxford dictionary, or the fact that it's a silly thing to pick on the Times over. )

Not that, as a whole, BoingBoing isn't elitist yuppy self-absorbtion most of the time--but I'm an elitist self-absorbed yuppy, so I can't really complain. Most of the stuff is indeed kooky and fun. But sometimes the "I'm young and hip and we're changing the world" stuff wears a bit thin.

Oh, to answer the question more specifically, I don't think it's about focus (BoingBoing's is very broad) or frequency (though frequent updates mean frequent refreshing on my part). It's really about personality. The personality of the authors shines through with BoingBoing, and we read it because we like them (or not). Note the number of posts here about how Xeni is hot or Pesco is a genuis or Cory needs to shut up--it's like people standing around the water cooler chatting about Friends. Blogs aren't impersonal like news; they're like Op-Ed pieces (but even more infused with the author's voice).

BoingBoing just sucks, nearly as much as Maddox.

Without Boing Boing where would I be able to see 50 iPod parody posts a day or read Cory's autistic dedication to squawking about DRM yet gleefully posting about people pirating commercial PSP software.

Also WHAT IF I MISSED A KATAMARI PARODY??!?!

I read boing boing for two reasons: because I already knew that it was a top ranking blog and because of the duplex reason that the content does not have the appearance of being disciplined to be "market aimed" or "marketing savvy" and is also just plain interesting.

Reason #1: Because it is the chart topping blog, I find it interesting if something I've already known reaches Boing Boing. Its a meme yardstick to me. If I see it in Wired, though, then I feel the thought has been bought already and is getting syndicated. I liked Banksy but he got syndicated. I can't do anything about that way of feeling. Its a symptom of our marketing age.

Reason #2(the duplex): Anyone with a consciousness can smell brainwash-marketing going on. Its everywhere. Manipulation only works if you don't know its happening. You don't know its happening if there isn't a better alternative in your reality. It used to be necessary to market, if you didn't do it with your idea someone else would do it with their idea and fill the slot your idea was to fit in. That was back in the day. Yet information can be valuable on its own, and in this information age it increasingly is, and therefore BB incarnates. The library is good too but BB is the low attention span version. Lord knows why we have low attention spans.

I find Boing Boing interesting, educational and freakily enjoyable. A rare combo on the internet, really.

I'm shocked at all the hate. I don't see anything wrong with the people running it promoting themselves, considering all the awesome content they bring on a daily basis. Some of links are a little dry, sure, but I read it for geek factoids, web zen and all the many fascinating links I'd never find elsewhere. If all of you are so determined to be pissy about Boing Boing, could you at least do something constructive - like dropping links to the web sources you prefer for fun and intelligent links? Honestly.

Anyways, I unreservedly "heart" Boing Boing. Plus, on a purely shallow note - Xeni? Wicked hot.

Why read BB? For that oh so good feeling of a classic unicorn moment after feeling like wretching up my lunch...

Boing boing is the only geek site I read unless fark is a geek site too. They sometimes repeat stuff I've seen elsewhere but for the most part they show me new things that I enjoy.

Cory's funny, I like that he keeps every one up to date on EFF stuff that I wouldn't know about otherwise. The daily Sony rootkit posts have been cracking me up lately too. Xeni's funny sometimes but I don't always mesh with what she thinks is cool, not going to hold it against her though it's her blog. Mark and the other guy whose name escapes me point infrequently but are generally interesting.

I understand the self promotion stuff though. It's their blog and where their fans go to hear about them. It's not like authors who aren't J.K. Rowling get many avenues to promote themselves, if Cory can do it on his blog then I say good on him. And hell, all of his books are free anyway so what is there to complain about?

And I don't know what people are talking about not being able to submit stuff. I submitted a comment a couple of days ago and they posted it, I got a real kick out of that, and I'm a nobody in the internet world (except for like 400 listeners of my podcast).

Boing boing kicks ass.

What I like about BB?

1. Ocassionally interesting links.

What I dislike?

1. No comments.
2. Submissions rarely get accepted.
3. Cory's writing is absolutely horrid. No wonder he has to give away his books.
4. Xeni and Cory's shameless self-promotion.
5. As already stated, the snobbery. I doubt they'll listen to any of the crits in these comments because they're "the most read blog" and they, of course, know best.

Fun and intelligent links as alternatives to Boing? Done.

http://www.digg.com/

http://www.thingsmagazine.net/

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/

Personally, I'm not into the kitch of it all but it does have some informative links once in a while.

Ooh. Turns out more than one person has already written a de-Cory-lizer for BoingBoing. Saves me the trouble.

For those of you wishing to filter a certain author (or keywords), try http://dialedin.us/boing/.

And KDBryan, sure, Cory can promote himself. It's a free country. And I don't have to read it. If Boing Boing weren't great, I wouldn't read it despite my loathing of Cory (actually, it's more of a mild distaste). But as I'm sure you all agree (especially Cory), the Web is about choices, and freedom, and me sending people I don't like into my killfile so I don't have to read their crap. Doesn't mean Boing Boing isn't good, though--a worse blog I wouldn't read when it's 1/4 idiot.

Geek dope!!

Cheers from Iceland :)

a) i love the fact that there is always a bunch of new stuff every time i open my laptop

b) good focus - ranging from oddball humor to art to tech....all things i know and love.

c) i don't think there's much room for improvement. maybe the only thing i'd do is...when there's an update to a story, i would find a way to post it at the top of the page again, since there's something new about the story.

d) i don't think i've come across any blog that's better than boing boing. that's why its so popular. it's solid. it's candid. it's informative and captivating. in other words, it owns.

I used to read the old boing-boing magazine. One day, I found an old copy in the pile next to my bed, and decided to cold search to see if it landed on the then relatively new internet. Bingo!

I follow boing-boing daily because I desperately crave information, but I am too lazy to search for it.

As for all those freaks posting above who hate Cory Doctorow, I think that they all oughta stick their noses up their buttholes and snort.

Skimming. It's unusually easy to skip through and pick out the one post in eight that you actually want to read.

I read BB for its 'net fringe culture. The tech stuff I generally read elsewhere, but it's at its best when it's promoting some on or offline event populated by geeks, punks, and pirates. Or weird art and tech.

The key is keeping it fringe.

The bad? Cory and Xeni talk about themselves too much (but when they're not doing that, their perspectives are great: Cory's EFF stuff is pretty valuable, if frequent. I don't have a problem with Xeni's sex obsession). ...Picking up on things a week or so after the (lame) flash in the pan. And, heh, the writers know that it's brilliant. Don't take it for granted, guys.

I read boing boing via RSS because it's updated very frequently and because there's always something very interesting to me there. If they were missing either factor - low frequency but very interesting, or high frequency but boring - I'd unsubscribe. Cory's lunatic ravings are annoying and disagreeable, but they're also easy to skip past.

Because I find all the anti-DRM rants really really funny and unrealistic. Dear God Cory. Go get laid.

I'm one of the people who complained about BB above. Boingboing and Memepool are the only geek culture sites I read, and BB is by far the more active one. There's so much in there that the fraction of it that's clever and interesting or humorous is worth skimming through the rest of the stuff I don't like. So no, I don't have a better site to recommend. That's why I still read it despite all the stuff I find annoying.

And yes, of course it's a free country. They can write about what they want, and I can complain. It's the old "signal to noise ratio" problem from back in the old USENET days, except that all the content, good and bad, is coming from the same four people instead of the problem stemming from trolls.

Its like sex, drugs and Rock and Roll all "Boinged" into one!
There's always something new and if it looks like crap i wont read it.

Believe FSM

I'm not sure WHY I read BB. For every one interesting story, they post several that are garbage. Everything involving MP3's on BB that isn't music is a fucking podcast. If I could be bothered, I'd set up a filter to remove any BB story that used the word "podcast" anywhere in it. I am so tired of "podcast", "blogosphere" etc... And BB is by far one of the worst offenders on the net. Boing Boing: Home of crap buzzwords.

You know, now I think about it, the site as a whole annoys me. I think I'll remove it from my bookmarks.

Thanks for making me think about this. One less site to visit a day.

Boingboing covers a wide range of subjects in a manner that at first glance seems chaotic. What interested me is that like many other sites of this type certain focus patterns drive me to check daily for areas where politics and technology intermingle in unique ways.

Additionally I find that my sphere of awareness about obscure art, culture, and idiosyncracies of simply being have grown since being exposed to boingboing and others.

It's a simple idea: talk about what's interesting. So why do so many other sites struggle to make it work? Boing Boing's creative team, either by virtue of their respective careers or a knack for attracting ace contributions, have some literally wonderful source material. The crucial point is, when the news is old or weak or not even news at all, they have the ability to make it interesting in other ways. This is what makes a talented editor, and I believe that is what they usually are.

And when the subjects don't interest me, I'm glad they take their own advice on clear, concise headlines.

Boing Boing is the best.

Boingboing covers a wide range of subjects in a manner that at first glance seems chaotic. What interested me is that like many other sites of this type certain focus patterns drive me to check daily for areas where politics and technology intermingle in unique ways.

Additionally I find that my sphere of awareness about obscure art, culture, and idiosyncracies of simply being have grown since being exposed to boingboing and others.

As to the abcd's...

A: Brings me in more than once per day.

B: There is no real focus is there?

C: Give us a boingboing uportal!

D: Kuro5hin is better than boingboing because it is more engaging.

ITS LIKE A BLOG MASHUP...

hey guys my book got translated into puerto rican, this is kewl ~ 8-)

check this out, now this is cool,. apparently these g3eks hacked their nikes to play a podcast of my new book translated into spanish. color me /feliz/

check out this link guys ;- )