Writing about RSS/RDF wrestling, Anil Dash comments: “Blogger wasn’t named RPT: Recursive Publishing Tool. That’s part of why it caught on with normal people.”

On a day when Glenn gives a bodaciously illustrated link to topless UK hunting enthusiasts, I’m inspired to dredge up this article from a couple months back.

E&P: “It’s a newspaper advertising category that for decades has been owned lock, stock, and fur-lined handcuffs by alternative papers. But now increasing numbers of daily newspapers are coyly succumbing to the many seductions of sex ads.”

“‘I worry about the slippery slope of pursuing these ads,’ Hartford (Conn.) Advocate Advertising Manager Greg Shimer said. ‘I want our people to go after auto, hospitals, fashion — the ads alternatives don’t traditionally get.'” Nevertheless, in July “the Advocate began a two-month experiment of slightly relaxed standards — including bigger ad sizes and photographs (although only head shots are allowed) — to attract more business to its small adult-advertising section.”

Tony Pierce has mastered IM fiction chatting with people like Lenny Kravitz and Anna Kournikova.

Now, Dawn Olsen perfects the straight IMterview with writer Neal Pollack. He likens bloggers to “a prison full of lunatics shouting to see the warden.” He notes later that “you probably have as many loyal readers as the average midlist fiction writer.”

E-mail interviews often secrete preachy, overboiled prose; good IMterviews spurt globules of memorable text and, for those who care, record context and spelling.

I’d love to read articles woven from IMterviews. The writer would build her case, but the source documents would be linked for anyone’s perusal.

Tribune Company, owner of the LATimes and the Chicago Tribune, says that online revenues in August grew 29% to $6.4 million, up from $4.9 million in August 2001. The growth is attributed to the company’s CareerBuilder web site, says this article.

Meanwhile print classified sales declined 1%, with the biggest decline coming in the “help wanted” category, which was down 17 percent.

Cannibalization? Nawww.

Reviewing the newest Matt Welch and Tony Pierce note that no LA bloggers are quoted, although more than 200 are now listed at LAblogs.

This omission may be because quoting an LA blogger would have meant publicizing the neonetwork of Kaus, Volokh, Johnson, Havrilesky, Roderick, Simberg, Moxie, Pierce, Salisbury, Layne, Welch and the LAEXAMINER — all of whom comprise a Cabel of LAT Critics.

But I don’t think the exclusion of LA Bloggers was (just) cynical self-protection. A more subtle rule also applied. The article only quoted people who write for a newspaper (Safire), teach graduate students (Halavais, Grabowicz, Pryor), publish a book (Weinberger), or attend J-School (Milios).

Here’s what the LAT was thinking: “The rest of you aren’t worth quoting. You aren’t authorities. We can’t rely on you because nobody ‘official’ says you are OK. You haven’t been vetted. And if we quoted people who aren’t authorities, we’d lose our status as an authority.”

Of course, it is self-evident that nobody is better qualified to talk about blogging than members of the LA blogging community. They are authorities by right of their own experience posting millions of words and creating 100s of thousands of links. And they are authorities because they have, by daily inspection and ongoing dialog, vetted each other.

So, by clinging to its outmoded definition of authority, the LATimes abdicates its own claim to authority. The LA Times, like a plastic surgeon with a giant wart on the end of his nose, convinces us, but not in the way intended. The real story: bloggers can create powerful networks of mutually validated authorities, networks that exceed the vision and authority of traditional media.

Blind to its own blindness, the LAT is slouching towards irrelevance. (To paraphrase Tony.)

PS: Don’t miss Matt’s closing paragraph, which recounts his previous bad experiences as a “subject” of the LAT. And don’t miss Tony’s point-by-point deconstruction of the article.

Greg Beato writes: “Tools like Bloggingnetwork.com, which makes it easier to support independent content, and blogads.com, which actually gives you something in return for supporting independent content, are a valuable addition to the blogosphere. Will they survive? Who knows? But I think it’s great that they’re here, and hope to see an increasing number of similar efforts.” And Neil Dodds writes: Blogads “represent a form of micro-targeting similar to classified ads in a local newspaper or fan ads in a zine. In many cases, but by no means all, audiences will be smaller than those of big media, but this is offset by the ads’ reach and low costs.”

Wired News reports: “Gartner, Neilsen//NetRatings, Forrester Research and International Data Corporation don’t have a single analyst involved in gathering blogging data. ‘The area of weblogs isn’t covered by our analysts because there is such a limited amount of data,’ said Grace Kim of Neilsen//NetRatings. ‘Right now it’s not that popular, and there is no data.'”

The first blogging TV personality is an 800-year-old Brazilian vampire who wears armor and a horned helmet. According to today’s NYTimes, the Internet division of the Brazilian media conglomerate Organizações Globo has done a deal with Pyra to provide blogs for several fictional characters from its new soap opera “O Beijo do Vampiro” (“Kiss of the Vampire”).

I had been betting on Homer Simpson as the first TVirtual blogger.

Pyra boss Evan Williams says he thinks 13% of 750,000 bloggers are Brazilian.

Two flaks hyperventilate about blogs. “It is not surprising to see a single hit on one key blog turn into mentions on several others.” Welcome to the viral vortex, folks. Your lives will never be the same. (Via Scripting News.)

Newsweek has returned to cover blogs for the second time in three months. The sharp shift in tone, from skepticism to evangelism, sums up blogging’s trajectory.

In the May 20 story, blogs were interesting only as newspaper competitors. Journalist Steven Levy concluded, “Blogs are a terrific addition to the media universe. But they pose no threat to the established order.”

Now, on August 26, Newsweek decides “the fun has just begun.” Mr. Levy portrays blogs as friend-finders, PR-boosters, brainstorms, and potential life-proxies. “Real-life… sometimes intrudes on the Blogosphere. One day there may not be a difference.”

Mr. Levy even writes a pseudo-blog. (My bet is that Mr. Levy started anonyblogging in the last three months, inspiring his conversion to the Church of Blog.)

There’s even a hint of Newsweek‘s next story as his blog closes with a reminder to “call Glenn Reynolds and ask him if he’s made any money.” Yes, Mr. Levy, we’re working on it.

(Via Instapundit.)