Got an iPhone? Check out CHPN or River District News.

Style Weekly’s 5th Annual Power List has deemed Ross Catrow & me to be the 75th most powerful people in Richmond. This is obviously laughable, but the honor is a nice nod to the strength of the collaboration of all of the folks that write, read, and comment upon blogs (and other stuff) that source from Richmond. We’re getting props as stand-ins for all of this loosie goosie internet stuff that is just so interesting, and taken in that light it seems to be ok.

The way that I understand this is that, while I run a website that is of some interest to some folks and Ross has a site or two, the really powerful shift is that we’re all writing and reading without hierarchy, that there is a very open ad hoc community, that there really isn’t anybody in charge suggesting what should be written or photographed and yet still a thing of real interest and value is created. The power here, as recognized by Style, is in the collaboration.

I’ve embedded a video of a 2005 presentation by Clay Shirky that has something to say about what is going here. He gets really relevant when he’s tying it all together in the last 2 minutes or so: “Loosely coordinated groups are going to be given increasingly high leverage. The more these groups forgo traditional institutional imperatives, like deciding in advance what is going to happen or the profit motive, the more leverage they’ll get.”

This is a photo of a chicken and a turkey.