Sunday, October 28, 2007

The iconography of Boing Boing

With over 7.5 million page views a month, not to mention over 3 million RSS subscribers, Boing Boing is one of the most popular and influential blogs in the world. Its formula is simple: Co-editors Cory Doctorow, Mark Frauenfelder, Xeni Jardin, and David Pescovitz are enthusiastic about high technology, lowbrow culture, and everything in between. A Boing Boing item on a particularly outré graphic artist might be followed by instructions on how to make your own steampunk computer keyboard, followed by a clip of an obscure science-fiction movie.

Earlier this month saw the launch of Boing Boing TV, a five-day a week online program consisting of a video report three to five minutes long, hosted by one of the editors. "Boing Boing fans can expect the same curious and irreverent exploration of the world they find on the blog, but now through video," Jardin said in a press release. "Internet culture, DIY technology, geeky curiosities -- they're all in the mix." They sure are: At the beginning of each episode, some three dozen 8-bit images flash past, forming a kind of subliminal iconography.

At my request, Mark Frauenfelder decoded a few of these images. Click here to hear him do so in an audio slideshow that I produced for today's Ideas section.

MORE BOING BOING ON BRAINIAC: item on Mark Frauenfelder's "Rule the Web" | Frauenfelder digs Cape Cod trash car | I go to Maker Fair SF07 |

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 05:10 PM

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