Let me note that “daiyami” is not a pseudonym, in my opinion. It’s google-proofed, sure, but it’s a phonetic variation on my legal name; the avatar I use for it is all over my personal university website; and anybody who knows me, including my students, would recognize me in a heartbeat. Any outsider who wanted to identify which historian in Eugene Oregon was daiyami would probably figure it out in about five minutes, quicker if they were regular followers on twitter. So that’s not a pseudonym. It’s actually not even much of a persona. However, I do strongly believe in the choice to use a pseudonym—there are many contexts in which I choose to use one—and I’m interested in how names and identities work, and how that’s changed in the age of the internet.

So, twelve paragraph blog post by Katrina Gulliver. All I’m trying to do here is explain what’s in there that would piss off pseudonymous bloggers.

A really good strong claim that blogging under your own name can lead to fame and fortune, supported with great examples of Sharon Howard, Lucy Inglis, etc. That’s paragraphs 5, 6, 10, 11. That’s excellent. No one contests that. This point could have been made without ever referring to pseudonymous blogging, incidentally.

But, there’s a lot of other stuff in the post as well.

Paragraph 1: just an intro, but sets up the notion that eponym versus pseudonym is the theme of the post.

Paragraph 2: suffused with the notion that the only reason to use a pseudonym is fear. Pseudonymous bloggers have debunked this over and over again.

Paragraph 3: interesting but undeveloped ideas about three different topics: googling candidates (really, the idea it’s unethical has faded away? If you can’t ask if people are married, how can you google them? I’m skeptical); the value of blogging as writing; the question of privacy.

Paragraph 4: “A blog is not a personal notebook.” Um, why not? Who says it can’t be? Where did that come from? What’s with this notion there’s only one definition of a blog?

“It is a form that exists for the purpose of broadcasting one’s thoughts (fully-formed or otherwise) to an audience.” Sure. But nothing says that broadcast has to be in the service of building a career, except this post.

Really really interesting but undeveloped and quite insulting metaphor that a pseudonymous blog is like a stripper pretending not to be a stripper. (I would have really liked to see this fleshed out more.) Total silence on the reality that there are multiple audiences for every blog, and that some are desired and some are not, and those dynamics have nothing to do with eponym vs. pseudonym. Ta-Nehesi Coates doesn’t want tea party members posting talking points about affirmative action on his thoughtful posts about race.

Paragraph 7: really interesting but undeveloped idea about gender imposture, but still trapped in the notion that the only reason people use pseudonyms is fear.

Paragraph 8: interesting and developed ideas about personas, that prove that people using their real names are no less personas than people using pseudonyms, thus undermining the notion that there is something more “real” or “honest” about eponymous blogging.

Paragraph 9: bizarre notion that people who have built pseudonyms and communities around them over years might nevertheless feel free to just delete their blog when under attack. No cited examples of ever having seen this happen. Again, shows ignorance of all the ways that pseudonymous bloggers have written about that choice and the reasons for it, all of which preclude just abruptly walking away.

Paragraph 12: call for “democratic levelling” of blogs. This is either a conclusion totally unrelated to the name issue, or, in the context of the overall post, might be read as claiming that bloggers need to use their real names to reach a non-academic audience, which makes no sense.

Lack of RTF less annoying than I expected—as long as I can use cmd-B for bold, etc, reading the html doesn’t really bother me (once I changed the font from Monaco 10, ugh). Though I didn’t type much in MarsEdit, because:

Deal-breaker: MarsEdit uploads original file to the blog. Actually, it failed with an error, but I’m assuming the file was too big.

MacJournal, which I’m typing this in, doesn’t seem to upload photos at all, but requires you to host them elsewhere. If would be nice if their knowledge base didn’t pretend this limitation was due to the blogging service instead of their failure to support uploading images.

Ecto really handles this nicely—resizes the photo, creates a thumbnail, etc.

Another lovely little touch from ecto—when you hit cmd-U to add a link, it automatically puts the clipboard contents in the URL field. Wish MacJournal did that.

Ecto says they’re still alive….

Okay, TUAW offered up a pattern, which I’ve copied below, but I think it needs revision, which I’ve added in italics. I didn’t agree with their predictions for 2010. The last two years Apple has tied the introduction of the new phone to the WWDC keynote—certainly they could put on their own media event to do it earlier, but will they? Looking at the patterns below, I think Apple is behind schedule, probably because they added a new product in the iPad. I won’t be surprised if it’s July before I can get a new phone, and late June before it’s announced at WWDC.

Original iPhone announced: January 2007
WWDC Keynote: June 11, 2007 (no big iPhone announcements, just “develop web apps”)
Original iPhone released: June 29, 2007
Original iPod touch: September 13, 2007

iPhone OS 2.0 announced and demoed: March 6, 2008
iPhone 3G and OS 2.0 release date announced: June 9, 2008
WWDC: June 9-13, 2008—above announcement at keynote
3G iPhone on sale & OS 2.0 released: July 11, 2008 (disastrous)
iPod touch update: September 9, 2008

iPhone OS 3.0 announced and demoed: March 17, 2009
WWDC: June 8-12, 2009—3GS announced at keynote
iPhone 3GS and OS 3.0 release date announced: June 9, 2009
iPhone 3.0 released June 17, 2009
iPhone 3GS on sale June 19, 2009
iPod touch update: September 9, 2009

iPhone OS 4.0 announced and demoed: April 8, 2010
iPhone update, OS 4.0 release date announced: June 2010 [??]
rumored WWDC: June 28–July 2, 2010
“summer”: 4.0 to be released for phones
iPod touch update: September 2010
“fall”: 4.0 to be released for the iPad

While I’m playing pundit—reviews of the iPad make it seem a bit unfinished, software-wise. I wouldn’t be surprised if it skips right to 4.1 in the fall, and that’s when it will really come into its own.

(Wow, just had to search in Help to find out how to add a link in MacJournal. It’s cmd-K, same as MS Word—unfortunately Ecto has me accustomed to cmd-U. The difference between a journaling app and a blogging app.)

I came off the summit right behind you, I saw those brake lights, steady, steady.

You let that seven mile six percent downgrade drive you.

1 active fire

2 choppers dropping water

3 burnt-out black spots

2 fire trucks heading south

Previous entry appears to have posted fine. Modal category dialog rather clunky.

Yay, Send Entry to Blog is a toolbar option! Doesn’t say much for current ecosystem/habits that I wasn’t sure it would be.

I don’t know why the setup wizard is asking me to verify the settings. Like I know.

If I don’t figure out how to change the default font by tonight, this application is going in the trash.