From today’s New York Times comes a story about China’s attempt to control the explosion of blogs in the country:

Although Mr. Anti — who is also an employee of the Beijing bureau of The New York Times — had his site closed, any Chinese Web surfer can choose from scores of other online commentators who are equally provocative, and more are coming online all the time.

Microsoft alone carries an estimated 3.3 million blogs in China. Add to that the estimated 10 million blogs on other Internet services, and it becomes clear what a censor’s nightmare China has become. What is more, not a single blog existed in China a little more than three years ago, and thousands upon thousands are being born every day — some run by people whose previous blogs had been banned and merely change their name or switch Internet providers. New technologies, like podcasts, are making things even harder to control.

“The Internet is open technology, based on packet switching and open systems, and it is totally different from traditional media, like radio or TV or newspapers,” said Guo Liang, an Internet specialist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “At first, people might have thought it would be as easy to control as traditional media, but now they realize that’s not the case.”

Hmmm. This story feels like it could be about some other entity trying to keep the hammer down on content. Can’t quite put my finger on it…

I’ll be travelling a bit the next week, heading to Savannah, Georgia for a Saturday blog building workshop and then on Sunday to Bolton, U.K., just outside of Manchester to work on a very cool wiki project with 50 area students. Wikiville is the brainchild of John Bidder, and the idea is that eventually the site will become a place where students from around the world will be able to add stories and essays about the places they live. (Nothing like a big idea.) We’re also thinking that they could add links to multimedia as well, creating a rich resource that would serve as a potential connecting point for all sorts of creative work.

The 50 students who we’ll be working with next week will be there to brainstorm ideas, learn how to add content, develop the ethical guidelines for use, figure out the logistics of editing and whatever else we can cram into the time. We’re hoping they can offer ideas on how to market it to other students and make it grow. I can’t wait to see what comes of it.

So I’d love to hear any ideas you might have about how this might work. And if you’d like to participate when we get it up and running let me know. The idea that there are some teachers and classes out there ready to add some content could be pretty motivational to the group we’re starting with.

Just a short note of thanks to everyone for the amazing outpouring of good wishes. Between the comments, the e-mails, the Skype calls and even a couple of regular old phone calls, I haven’t had much time to do anything of substance. (Hey wait a minute…that IS substance!) Right now, it feels like much is possible. I’ll fend reality off as long as I can.

Thanks.