I'm writing this to get some clarification on the scope of the Austin-Blogger's meta-blog. I do this because I found myself in a quandary on whether to ping the meta-blog on my previous blog entry from today. In the end I decided not to as there was no real Austin content-- even though in some ways I thought it fit in well within the context of some of the recent Austin blogs about Howard Dean's recent visit. After all, deciding our next president clearly affects all those living in Austin (and, of course, everywhere else).

Perhaps some convention like adding "NAC" (No Austin Content) to the title line might be fitting here. Though, this doesn't seem completely ideal as though it would help Austin-Blogger users, it would also come across as confusing to everyone else: e.g. "Wesley Clark Follow-up...googlewashed (NAC)". Thoughts? What is appropriate for pinging the meta-blog on related topics to original Austin-themed entries?

It's funny, but it seems people are responding today to this blog entry from Feb as its almost identical to the one I wrote today. Of course, the one above is from Feb, and Clark was on MTP again today (June)-- this appears an interesting side effect of being the 7th google returned result for the search "wesley clark president".

Dare I say an example of googlewashing? Though, must googlewashing be taken as negatively as its original vulture-coiner intended it to be? Certainly my viewpoint is biased as I'm only arguing in favor of a system which directs traffic to me. Attempting to put ego aside, though, is this such a bad thing? The whole context of the Clark debate on Meet the Press this morning was framed around the internet grass-roots effort which has already purchased radio ads in his behalf in New Hampshire. Thus, it's only fitting that those who took to the internet in search of more information are directed to examples of this and that logically certain results come first. Obviously the system will always continue to need refinement, but isn't this just an example of successes in enhancing web searches by adding context? ...unless I'm a bumbling idiot.

At least Clark has a good buzz going for him.

I just finished watching Wesley Clark on the Meet the Press this morning. Among other things, Tim Russert gave a plug for draftwesleyclark.com mentioning the grass-roots efforts to make him a candidate. Clark did not say he would, but he did say he would have to "seriously consider" it and went on to give his views on all sorts of matters. Bottom line, it truly sounded like he's running. My guess is that he'll announce at the end of the summer.