Blogs are pretty commonplace, no? I mean, at this point, I think most people have heard of blogs whether they are of the MySpace variety or something more like Blog Herald. Though some media outlets tend to ignore blogs as if they lived in a vacuum of information dispersion, other media outlets seem to be fully embracing them.
The U.S. Air Force has figured that they had better start paying attention to what bloggers are talking about and are paying nearly half a million dollars to find out.
As Michael Hampton states:
What’s not mentioned is the tools along these lines already developed in the private sector. I wonder if they’ve ever heard of Technorati, or del.icio.us, or digg. If not, I can put together a link analysis system for them in one year for half the price.
For real!
Listen, folks. Blogs are not that difficult to grok. Bloggers are easy to discover. If something is being said, you can know pretty quickly. I don’t know why the Air Force has to pay out this kind of money to reinvent the wheel, and who knows that it will really be any better than what is already freely available.
I bet Technorati might even cut a deal with the Air Force and not include their searches in “Recent searches” if national security is the coin being paid.
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Come on Aaron - “”It can be challenging (for information analysts) to tell what’s important in blogs unless you analyze patterns” and certainly thats worth a half a mil.
Hell, it probably cost 100 thou to figure out the name of the project - “”Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.”
Almost as good as $25,000 screwdrivers and $100,000 toilet seats but hey, its our beloved government now dontchaknow…
Our tax dollars at work again
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I blogged this a few days ago… I’ll make them a deal for a few hundred thousand less: http://www.anotherblogger.com/2006/07/03/air-force-is-studying-blogs/
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Mark: I wonder if they’ve figure out that wrapping a search phrase in quotes performs an “exact match” search in Google? :p
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Ha! I doubt it. That would cost them another 50 thou… to figure out the “pattern.” lmao…
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This is unbelievable! They have tobe able to figure out Blogs without the half a million price tag…..Unreal!!!