WELCOME TO YEAR 2005!
And wish you All,
A VERY, VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.
And, as promised, here is my
NEW YEAR MYSTERY PRESENT-
The First Cyber Quiz of Year 2005.
Read it. Enjoy it. And be HAPPY.
Dr D.C.Misra
January 1, 2005 _____________________________________________________________________ CYBER QUIZ – 6: Check the Blog: A Tribute to the Word of Year 2004
by Dr D.C.Misra*
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With Blog having been declared as the word of year 2004 by Merriam Webster,* this cyber quiz is a tribute to the year gone by for recognizing this unique phenomenon in cyberspace. The blogs played a unique role from the U. S. Presidential election to tackling the Asian Tsunami tragedy. With some of the blogs becoming more popular than some of the big media portals, blogs truly arrived in 2004. Let us check.
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1.What are
(a) blog,
(b) alpha bloggers or A-listers,
(c) blogrolls,
(d) permalinks,
(e) comments, and
(f) trackbacks?
2.(a) When did the present-day format of "weblog" first appear, and
(b) When was the term "weblog" first applied to it?
3.Who coined the word "blog" and when?
4.Which are top ten independent tech blogs 2004?
5.Which are top ten blogs by average daily traffic?
6.(a) How many new blogs are created every day, and
(b) What is the number of posts every day?
7.(a) If the book "We the Media" has been described as the`blogging manifesto," who wrote it? and
(b) It claims to be the most comprehensive blog monitoring service, tracking over 6.5 million blogs. Name it.
8.About 63 percent of American adults, that is, 128 million American adults, go online. What percentage of those with Internet access
(a) Read some one else's blog, and
(b) Create a blog?
9.(a) This blog, described by a media observer as the "GrandCentral Station of the cyberset,"and launched by Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor in August 2001, drew an estimated 50,000 people on a weekday. What was it called? and
(b) If it has something to do with law, what is blawg?10.What is the number of blogs with monthly traffic of (a) 1 million, and (b) 10 million pageviews per month?
11.(a) What percentage of bloggers is (i) ) Female, (ii) Male,
(b) How many of them are in the age group (in years) (i) Below 20, (ii) 21-30, and (iii) 31-40,
(c) How many of them had been to college/university,
(d) How many of them live in the United States, and
(e) How many of them had been blogging for over (i) one year, (ii) two years?
12.(a) What is a "filter weblog" or "filter,"
(b) How many currently active weblogs are filters, and
(c) How many of the currently active weblogs contain no links to other weblogs at all?
13.Which are top ten languages in weblogs?
14.Which are top five popular weblog authoring tools?
15.The most gripping account of the Iraq conflict came from a web diarist known as the Baghdad Blogger, says The Guardian, London. But no one knew his identity - or even if he existed. Who was he?
16.(a) A London-based think tank, named after a well known 18th century Scottish philosopher and economist, which researches "practical ways to inject choice and competition into public services, extend personal freedom, reduce taxes, prune back regulation, and cut government waste," runs a blog. Name the institute, and
(b) In which country and when did bloggers go to Parliament to convince politicians that they should take up their blogging tools to forge closer links with their electorate?
17. If at all proof were needed that blogs have arrived, many blogs have more links now than big media portals. Which of these then has more links:
(a) Slashdot: News for Nerds or guardian.co.uk,
(b) Plastic: Act Like Nothing's Wrong or wired.com,
(c) Davenetics or salon.com
(d) Boing Boing or slate.com, and
(e) Instapundit or slate.com?
18. SEA-EAT is the name of the blog set up by three bloggers in Mumbai as a clearinghouse for disaster relief in the wake of Asian Tsunami disaster on Sunday, December 26, 2004 which, days later, had 50 contributors and 100,000 visitors. Name the bloggers.
19. This post titled "61st minute," claimed to be probablythe "most famous post in the young history of blogosphere,"led tochallenging a network news legend and won. What is the name of the blog on which it was posted?
20. When did the Webby awards, popularly known as the Oscars of the Internet, include blog as a specific category for the awards for the first time?_____________________________________________________________________
ANSWERS TO CYBER QUIZ – 6: Check the Blog: A Tribute to the Wordof Year 2004 by Dr D.C.Misra
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1. (a) A Web log, or blog, is a personal website where somebody self-publishes an electronic journal, often linking it to other things on the Web that strike the author's fancy,
(b) The feisty elite of super-bloggers who set the tech agenda. They show how the power can shift in the age of Internet. (Source: Levy, Steven (2004-2005): The Alpha Bloggers, Newsweek, Special Edition, Issues 2005, December 2004-February 2005, p- 76),
(c) A list of other weblogs that the author (of a weblog) reads regularly,
(d) reference to specific posts instead of an entire weblog,
(e) reader-contributed reply to a specific post within the site (Dash, Anil (2003): Interview with Paul Bausch, http://www.sixapart.com/log/2003/09/interview_with_.shtml), and
(f) an automatic communication that occurs when one weblog references another. (Source: Marlow, Cameron (2004): Audience, structure and authority in the weblog community, MIT Media Laboratory, http://web.media.mit.edu/~cameron/cv/pubs/04-01.pdf, Presented at the International Communication Association Conference, May, 2004, New Orleans, LA.
2. (a) 1996, in a site created by Dave Winer as part of the 24 Hours of Democracy Project (Source: Festa, P. (2003, February 25): Blogging comes to Harvard., CNET News.com, http://news.com.com/2008-1082-985714.html?tag=fd_nc_1], and
(b) 1997, by Jorn Barger. The clipping 'blog' came into use after Peter Merholz started pronouncing 'weblog' as 'wee-blog' in early 1999 (Source: Blood, R. (2002): The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Cambridge, MA, Perseus Publishing], as cited in Susan C. Herring, Lois Ann Scheidt, Elijah Wright, and Sabrina Bonus (2005): Weblogs as a Bridging Genre, http://www.blogninja.com/it&p.final.pdf (accessed: December 15, 2004).
3.Peter Merholz in 1999. In his post "Play With Your Words,"posted on May 17, 2002, he, among other things, writes: "SometimeinApril or May of 1999 (I can't say for sure when I exactly did it), I posted, in the sidebar of my homepage:"For What It's Worth I've decided to pronounce the word "weblog" as wee'- blog. Or "blog" for short."He also notes: `Blog' would have likely died a forgotten deathhad it not been for one thing: In August of 1999, Pyra Labs released Blogger. And with that, the use of "blog" grew with the tool's success (Source: http://www.peterme.com/archives/00000205.html).Check also http://www.tbtf.com/jargon-scout.html#blog (accessed: December 18, 2004).
4. 1.Groklaw (Pamela Jones) (Legal issues of open source technology), http://www.groklaw.net,
2.AliceandBill.com (Alice Hill and Bill O'Brien)(tech topics),http://www.aliceandbill.com,
3.CrackTalk (Terry Blount) (Update and links concerning tech issues), http://cracktalk.blogspot.com/,
4.Slashdot ("News for Nerds"), http://slashdot.org,
5.Daily Dose of Excel (Dick Kusleika) (tips-n-tricks for Excelenthusiasts), http://www.dicks-blog.com,
6.jkOnTheRun (James Kendrik) (mobile technologies), http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun,
7.Longhorn Blogs (Next version of Windows), http://longhorns.com,
8.The Enterprise System Spectator (Frank Scavo) (Observations on enterprise systems), http://fscavo.blogspot.com,
9.Smallbiztechnology.com (Ramon Ray) (Technology for small businesses), http://smallbiztechnology.com, and
10.VarLinux (Open source), http://www.varlinux.org (Source: http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/cyberquiz/message/186, originally from http://www.techweb.com/blogawards/winners.html, accessed: November 30, 2004).
5.1. Daily Kos: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation. (288,400),
2.Gizmodo (152,986),
3.Instapundit.com (140,794),
4.Gawker (108,260),
5.Eschaton (84,168),
6.lgf: skiing through the revolving door of life (77,022),
7.www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish (57,578),
8.Wonkette (54,630),
9.Power Line (49,938), and
10.Defamer (47,174)(Figures in parentheses indicate number of visits per day) (Source: The Truth Laid Bear (TTLB), volume 1310, Southern California, December 13, 2004, 11:28 pm, http://www.truthlaidbear.com/TrafficRanking.php, accessed: December 14, 2004).
6.(a) 12,000. A new weblog is created every 7.4 seconds, and
(b) 275,000 or about 10,800 blog updates an hour. (Source: http://www.technorati.com/about) (accessed: December 11, 2004).
7.(a) Veteran Silicon Valley journalist Dan Gillmor. As columnist with the San Jose Mercury News, Dan Gillmor has covered "thebubble, boom, bust and continuing evolution of the tech industry for over a decade." Check the book, Gillmor, Dan (2004): We theMedia: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People, O'Reilly,July,at the online catalog at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/index.html. Also check the author's blog at http://wethemedia.oreilly.com/] (accessed:December 10, 2004), and
(b) PubSub (http://www.pubsub.com).
8.(a) 17, and
(b) 5 (February 2004) (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking surveys (March 2000 - present) (Last updated: June 30, 2004), http://www.pewinternet.org/trends/Internet_Activities_4.23.04.htm (accessed: December 11, 2004).
9. (a) Instapundit.com (Source: Scott, Esther (2004):"BigMedia" Meets the "Bloggers": Coverage of Trent Lott's Remarks atStrom Thurmond's Birthday Party, Cambridge, MA, John F. KennedySchoolof Government, Harvard University, Case Program, http://69.20.62.53/dns.php?url=www.ksg.harvard.edu (accessed: December 12, 2004). Reynold's chief interest is "in theintersection between advanced technologies and individualliberty." Visit his blog at http://www.instapundit.com/ (accessed: December 12, 2004), and
(b) Blogs in the United States "in which law students across the country record their musings about their daily experiences in law schools." (Source: Rosen, Jeffrey (2004): Your Blog or Mine? New York Times, December 20, http://tinyurl.com/3m47t (accessed: December 31, 2004).
10. (a) 200, and
(b) 20, according to the former editor-in-chief of the "Silicon Alley Reporter." (Source: McGann, Rob (2004): The Blogosphere By the Numbers, November 22, ClickZStat, http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/traffic_patterns/article.php/3438891 (accessed: December 12, 2004).
11.(a) (i) 36, (ii) 63 (with undisclosed 1 per cent),
(b) (i) 10.5, (ii) 46.3, and (iii) 28.2,
(c) 59,
(d) 67, and
(e) (i) 67, (ii) 36.(Figures are percentages) (Note: Based on an online survey conducted for seven days between January 14-21, 2004; n=486). (Source:Viégas,Fernanda (2004): Blog Survey: Expectations of Privacy and Accountability, Summary of Findings, http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/survey/blog/results.htm(accessed: December 14, 2004).
12. (a) A weblog which links to ("filters") web content,
(b) 12.6 percent, and
(c) 48.8 percent (Source: Herring et al. (2005): Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up," http://www.blogninja.com/hicss05.blogconv.pdf (accessed: December 15, 2004).
13. 1. English (12,86,508),
2. French (87,506),
3. Portuguese (81,077),
4. Farsi (64,049),
5. Polish (42,754),
6. German (35,149),
7. Spanish (26,389),
8. Italian (10,402),
9. Dutch (9,826), and
10. Chinese-big5 (8,986) (Source:http://www.blogcensus.net/?page=lang, accessed: December 16, 2004).
14.1. Movable Type (44,000),
2. b2 (4,078),
3. PHP-Nuke (3,105),
4. Microsoft Visual Studio (2,067, and
5. Postnuke (1,013) (Source: http://www.blogcensus.net/?page=tools (accessed: December 16, 2004).
15. A 29-year-old architect in Baghdad. (Source: McCarthy, Rory (2003): Salam's Story, Guardian Unlimited, May 30, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,966819,00.html (accessed: December 19, 2004). Check also Maas, Peter (2003): Salam Pax is Real, Slate, June 2, Monday, http://slate.msn.com/id/2083847/#ContinueArticle (accessed December 19, 2004)Salam Pax's blog, "Where is Raed? v.2.0,"available athttp://dear_raed.blogspot.com/, has last entry on Wednesday, August 18, 2004.
16.(a) Adam Smith Institute (ASI), London. Check the blog at http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/ (accessed: December 18, 2004), and
(b) United Kingdom in July 2003. (Source: Ward, Mark (2003): A blog for everyone, BBC News, UK Edition, July 22, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3078541.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3078541.stm (accessed: December 15, 2004).
17.(a) Slashdot: News for Nerds. It has 9,244 links while guardian.co.uk has 8,505 links,
(b) Plastic: Act Like Nothing's Wrong. It has 8,324 links while wired.com has 7,197 links,
(c) Davenetics. It has 7,590 links while salon.com has 6,166 links,
(d) Boing Boing has 5,692 links while slate.com has 5,051 links, and
(e) Instapundit has 5,170 links while slate.com has 5,051 links. (Source: Levy, Steven (2004-2005): The Alpha Bloggers, Newsweek, Special Edition, Issues 2005, December 2004 - February 2005, Box: Bloggers Bite the Bigs, p- 76).
18. SEA-EAT (The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami) or http://www tsunamihelp.blogspot.com was set up by Peter Griffin, Rohit Gupta and Dina Mehta (Source: Wagner, Mitch (2004): SEA-EAT Blog Mobilizes Fast For Tsunami Relief, Security Pipeline, December 29, http://www.securitypipeline.com/56700192 (accessed: December 31, 2004).
19.Powerlineblog (http://www.powerlineblog.com). This blog was set up by three amateur journalists, John Hinderaker (Hindrocket), Paul Mirengoff (Deacon) and Scott Johnson (Big Trunk) in 2002. Scott Johnson posted the message on September 9, 2004 at 7-51 a.m. The thread included a posting of a 1973 document by a reader and is widely believed to have led to the announcement of resignation by Dan Rather of CBS. Powerline blog scored half a million hits on the Election Day. (Source: Grossman, Lev (2004): Person of the Year 2004: Blogs Have Their Day, Posted Sunday, December 19, TIME, http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/2004/poyblogger.html (accessed: December 19, 2004).
20. Only in 2004, the Year of the Blog! The category is defined as "Sites that serve as weblogs or online journals for anytopic." The Webby Awards recognize outstanding websites in morethan 60 categories. Established in 1996, the Webby Awards are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.The deadline for making nominations is January 28, 2004. Check for details the website http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/categories.php#webby_entry_blog.______________________________________________________________________
** http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/04words.htm, Blog, the short term for web log, is defined by Merriam-Webster Online as: "noun [short for Weblog] (1999): a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer." (ibid.).
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*Independent eGov and IT Consultant based in New Delhi, India. Dr Misra maintains a blog on Cyber Quiz at http://cyberquiz.blogspot.com/. Email: dcmisra[at]gmail.com. ______________________________________________________________________
Cyber Quiz Series: Dr Misra's five earlier quizzes in this mainCyber Quiz series are also available on this Cyber Quiz Forum. Check the archives:
1. Cyber Quiz 1: The Internet
2. Cyber Quiz 2: The World Wide Web
3. Cyber Quiz 3: Check your E-mail
4. Cyber Quiz 4: Browsing the Web
5. Cyber Quiz 5: Have Data? Will Search
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Disclaimer: While reasonable care has been taken to compile the quiz, neither the author nor the publisher is responsible for the accuracy, inclusion, exclusion or the interpretation of the contents. Readers are advised to consult authoritative sources before acting on the information contained here. The purpose of the quiz is educational and popularization of information and communication technologies (ICT). No responsibility for the content is, therefore, assumed. Use of Content: Use of content here for educational and non-commercial purposes is encouraged provided due credit is given to the author. Its use for commercial purposes is, however, prohibited. ______________________________________________________________________
© Dinesh Chandra Misra 2005 (Beta Version – January 1, 2005).
______________________________________________________________________Dr
D.C.Misra
January 1, 2005.
