Attack of the Splogs
I had a very interesting exchange with Ross who's interested in finding out whether we should sunset trackbacks due to all of the spam going on with no inherent dials built in to the standard to defend against it.
I personally felt that trackbacks provide a lot of value to the conversation and either blog providers themselves or new entrants to the market will develop the defenses to help us all fight this menace.
Just like with email, we didn't can the platform. New 
providers emerged with defenses to help us do what the standards couldn't. These providers were either fee based services since the problem was so systemic a market developed where we were willing to fork up a few dollars to help ease the pain, or there were open source initiatives like the RBL's such as Spamcop who although weren't perfect, came a long way in helping turn the tide to a somewhat stable stalemate of tit for tat the way the email spam issue has ended up today.
Then I read this article on Wired where I was introduced to Splog Reporter. Very cool stuff, and very similar to that pioneering feel of the early days of RBL's and open source initiatives.
Not sure how or if they are planning to build a business model around this peticular service, but a clear indication that new markets will emerge in this sector and we'll be able to either have volunteers or mercenaries for hire to help with the fight against these predators of thought.
