Web rings—in case you aren’t familiar with them—are symbiotic
groups of websites that link together, usually because they
share a common theme. Somewhere on each site is a
web ring button that enables visitors to jump to the next
site in the ring. If you keep clicking on each link
button in the ring, you’ll eventually travel full circle,
back to the original website. I first noticed this
phenomenon when I was searching for Dio lyrics for a
past Babblog article and I happened upon the Dio
Magic Web Ring—dedicated to “The Man With The Golden
Throat,” Ronnie James Dio.
Initially,
I feared that the Dio Magic Web Ring was a portal for an
online heavy metal druid eCult, or some similar iCCULT chicanery.
Nonetheless, like Pandora, I looked, and instead of sturm
und drang I found another Swede’s center-justified Dio site—and
then another and another.
As
is often the case with personal discoveries, I began to
notice web rings frequently. In fact, there are over
50,000 registered web rings out there, which you can explore
through an organization called WebRing.
Through their website, you can find web rings dedicated
to—among other things—tomatoes,
the
San Diego Padres, salt
& pepper shakers, and four-time
world champion figure skater Kurt Browning.
I
wondered how this would apply to Babblog, which doesn’t
have a core subject. Not surprisingly, there isn’t
a web ring devoted to babble, so I decided to search the
web for the other sites out there that use the term “Babble
blog.” Perhaps, I thought, there’s an innate solidarity
between these sites’ owners; I’ll let you be the judge of
that. Here are Babblog’s second cousins—the highlights
of a Yahoo! search on Babble blog (not including the German
Sex Cams in the search’s results):
ibbable
by heather – heather asks tough questions like, “What’s
the sexiest thing about a guy?” and “Don’t you think that
sometimes even if you try not to be involved, if you try
to keep your own little world, the drama just has a way
of finding you?” She hasn’t yet come to conclusive
answers, but she welcomes your opinions.
Strengths:
Youthful exuberance, lots of posts. I highly recommend
reading heather’s “10 steps to cleaning my part of
the bedroom.”
Weakness:
Needs to find an editor that objects to overused ellipses.
Notable
Quote: “Umm. I was going to say something
else...what was it...? Oh yeah, new link. Jade.
She’s 10 years old & posts lots! So there’s always
something new to read, which I like:)
Xu’s
Babblog - This site is notable because of the use of
the Babblog name, but Xu doesn’t post entries very often.
Strengths:
Simplicity
Weaknesses:
Very little content
Notable
Quote: “ok, i just finished the other half
of my lunch (had to go observe a class before i could finish
lunch)... life is crazy sometimes...”
Filmbabble
– A movie site that favors lists—“Top Five Movie Classics
That Roger Ebert Hated,” “10 Movies That End With The Protagonist
Writing Or Haven [sic] Written Or Made A Book Or Movie About
Everything That Happened In The Movie”—and the movies of
Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused,
Before Sunset).
Strengths:
List crazy; I’m a sucker for lists.
Weakness:
Font crazy
Notable
Quote: “5 worst movies of 2004: 1.
The Stepford Wives 2. Godsend 3. The
Butterfly Effect 4. Closer 5. The Terminal”
The
Citizens – Describes itself as “An informed discussion
about politics. Hosted by a mathematician, a lawyer,
a political scientist, another kind of political
scientist, and a military analyst.” This site is included
in the list because it contains a link to Babblog.
Strengths:
Lots of posts containing the site’s political opinions;
admits when a posting was ill-advised.
Weakness:
Has yet to develop a fool-proof solution to the troubles
in the Middle East.
Notable
Quote: “The lawyer defending one of the soldiers
charged in the abuses at Abu Ghraib says there's nothing
wrong with what was shown in the pictures. He likens
the scenes to cheerleading pyramids and the tethers some
people use to keep track of their children!”
Babblog!
parole, deliri, frasi e detti dei mitici Babbi! and
iobloggo
- Two Italian websites with lots of Italian words.
Strengths:
Italy is a nice country.
Weakness:
Babblog’s core readership is not proficient in Italian.
Notable
Quote: “Che ne direste di scambiarci delle
ricette?? Mi piace provare sempre cose nuove!!
Dal canto mio vi posso dire che oggi ho fatto un disastro
con il sugo alla carrettiera, ma me la cavo abbastanza bene,
di solito!! ;))”
babble-mode
– Frequent posting from a woman with an office job in Scottsdale,
Arizona. Uses the phrase, “sucking ass out loud.”
Strengths:
Has a nice picture of ferns on the website. Also,
produces notable dialogue, such as this overheard conversation:
“girl 1: ‘Do pigs have udders?’ girl 2:
‘Of course they do. Are you stupid?’”
Weakness:
The site’s proprietor is not feeling well, as of late.
Notable
Quote: “a conversation with my dad—him:
‘I’m glad your Honda was found.’ me: ‘Me, too.’
him: ‘because your stepmother was going to make me
buy you that Mini.’ me: *facepalm*”
Juniorbird.com
– Personal blog of one of Martell’s colleagues, who kindly
linked the site to Babblog.
Strengths:
Humor, business school anecdotes, many pictures of room
interiors and cars on the street.
Weaknesses:
Takes a lot of clicks to find the pictures of room interiors.
Notable
Quote: “Help me Amtrak, you’re my only hope!”
articulatebabble
- As describe by its proprietor, vince (small v), this site
is “random thoughts given shape and form.” vince is
a tech-savvy guitarist for the Chicago-based rock band Thermis,
who has a propensity for dropping f-bombs.
Strengths:
Enthusiastic advocate of Thermis. Explains why computer
science research papers generally suck.
Weakness:
Potty mouth.
Notable
Quote: “We offer no data to back up our conclusions,
only half-baked parody and lame sarcasm.”
The
Food Section - Very nice food-themed site, based in
NYC, that had the good sense to employ Kristin
Franklin as a guest editor during December.
Strengths:
Very professional looking, good content, nice pen and ink-style
images, innocuous ads.
Weakness:
Only one week of Kristin, although their loss is Babblog’s
gain.
Notable
Quote: “[Franklin] unwittingly waded into
one of the more important culinary debates of our times—can
one order fries "animal style" at In-N-Out, or
are they just an urban myth?”
Mr.
Lewis can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.
Copyright
© 2005 by Jeff Lewis |
