MIT Weblog Survey: Resulted in...

Last summer when it was hot outside bloggers sat at the comfort of their cubes happily blogging away. Many, both local and national favorites, took a break from their musings to answer some questions for a study being conducted under the supervision of the local technocrats at MIT’s Media Lab. Cameron, founder of blogdex.net, was working on his PhD thesis, he needed data so he asked the blogosphere to help. They did. In return he gave them a badge and a promise. Site badges were adorned with cute sayings like “I Made Some Science,” “I’m a Statistic,” and, as pictured, “Free Cameron.” The promise was availability to interested bloggers about the results.

The survey closed before summer was officially over, the survey homepage was updated to indicate survey results would be made available by September 1, 2005. Via The Blog Herald we were alerted to Xian’s monthly question to the MIT Weblog Survey admins: where are the results? A valid question. Instead of making a monthly plea to the blogosphere we turned efforts across the river and asked. Cameron told us, rather quickly, that he’s busy with his new Yahoo! job - working too much, adjusting to life outside of Cambridge in the “real world.” He admits “I need to write something up to explain the situation. I'm working on it, but it's something I do in the free time I have after working” Bostonist, like Xian, thinks the August 19, 2005 update is overdue for a change, we don’t need the whole shebang, just something other than more outdated information on the Internets. He mentioned he would just post the thesis, which contains all of the results, but he fears people will misread many portions. ProQuest might index the dissertation before he gets the site up to date. (I guess we could just ask for the thesis, he might provide.) Since September we think a successful city-focused website could have been founded and launched. Ok, now we’re just getting mean. But, no fear, he promises the update “it will get done.” We’re waiting.