John Clayton's Blog

For five months now I’ve been meaning to blog about Chris Anderson's discussion of social networking. Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, co-founder of booktour.com, is a man whose Internet instincts I trust. He believes that social networking – the polite term for “Facebook, MySpace, and all those sites” – is actually useful, and even beneficial to society (though maybe not in current form):

social networking to me means the tracking of individual preferences and behavior and giving users the ability to draw upon implicit or explicit connections between them and other users to do something useful

and

I think focused sites that serve niche communities will extract the best lessons from Facebook and MySpace and offer better social networking tools to the communities they already have.

Actually for the first few months I was just thinking about Anderson’s ideas. For the last couple of months, I’ve been playing with them.



The results are here at “Planet Red Lodge,” the MySpace of a tiny Montana town. Can the small town use social-networking sites to improve the existing bonds of community? (Does it need to?) If so, how? The questions are open for the network to debate.

One thing I’ve learned is that on a social network, constant new activity begets more new activity. So I’ll make the suggestion here: if you’re curious about the town or the site, go visit, sign up, post a photo, start a blog... maybe you, too, will be discovering a new planet.

I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com

Here we have yet another book proclaiming the alleged stupidity of Americans these days. As evidence, you might consider this quote:

The New York Times recently published the results of an American history test given to thousands of college freshmen throughout the United States. Among other amazing discoveries were these: that thirty percent of them did not know Woodrow Wilson was President during the first World War; that only six percent were able to name the first 13 colonies -- many even listed such states as Texas and Oregon; and a third of them did not know who was President during the Civil War.

Funny thing, though, the quote is from a memoir by Pearl S. Buck and was published in 1953.

So when exactly is the golden age when American were so smart?

I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com

One question I get a lot is why it takes so long for a publisher to come out with a book. Here's a great explanation. By the way, I especially love the way its conclusion equates the Harvard Business School with Mars.

I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com

I grew up reading the delightful sports columns of Leigh Montville, so normally I would be heartened to hear that he's writing a biography of Evel Knievel... except for the way the book is described at publishersmarketplace:

...examining how a boy from a dusty western town became a legend who embodied Americana in the 1970s and beyond

Ummm, anyone involved in the book know anything about Butte? Or is this just one of those laws, that "Western town" must be preceded by "dusty" the way a baseball pitcher's "stuff" must be preceded by "filthy"?

I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com

Tomorrow (Sunday, February 10, at 11:45 am), Montana Public Radio will be rebroadcasting Cherie Newman's slickly-produced interview with me on "The Write Question." To celebrate, the station has also made the show available online, for those outside the listening area. To hear the broadcast, click here. For additional show background, click here.

I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com