It would be useful to know if the entire LBO mailing list got this letter.
Flattering, although I thought it unlikely that the obscure marxist definitions in my last post were really likely to win a $500 prize.
It is possible that the editors have as an immediate objective merely a high score of hits on their URL so that they can raise further capital.
But it is a straw in the wind that an e-mail list of intelligent contributions has a use value for which at some stage people might pay money. It is a sort of collective publishing effort and the next step is a commercial publication on the web.
I suppose Doug is more in the role of a clever beekeeper who knows where to hang a perch and how to attract a hive to swarm around it, supplementing its diet with occasional bowls of sugar water, or more stimulating fare.
How to keep out the killer bees but ensure just enough friction for the hive to be productive. Is this merely the technology of hunter gatherers applied to the electronic age?
Perhaps the editors of im-ur will now compete more effectively in terms of finance. But at the moment it seems to me Doug has the human capital.
Chris Burford
London