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July 21, 2004

Technorati in the news

: Mary Hodder reports that Technorati and founder Dave Sifry will be going to the convention to provide commentary on the commentary of bloggers for CNN.

CNN just announced that Technorati will joining them at the Democratic National Convention next week (I'll have a CNN press release to link to soon). Dave Sifry and I will be on-site in CNN’s convention broadcast center, where Dave will provide regular on-air commentary on what bloggers are saying about politics and the convention (thousands of them, not just A-listers or convention credentialed bloggers). We are also going live with a politics site. Our new site will make it easier for people to see what political bloggers are saying about the convention and CNN.com will link to this site, and we’ll be updating the CNN site with the latest.

Great news for Technorati and blogs.

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How do you say 'pissed' in French?

: Stephanie Booth writes a comprehensive report (en Anglais) about French bloggers angry at the takeover of their native blogging platform Ublog by SixApart. (via Jean-luc Raymond)

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Microsoft manna from heaven

: Mark Cuban writes an interesting post (via his pal Jason Calacanis) praising Microsoft for its special dividend and calculating that at $300 per American household, it could have an impact on the economy (if the money doesn't mostly end up in funds).

Fred Wilson thinks it's a good move.

Hey, I'll take the money. But I actually find it depressing that Microsoft could not find aggressive ways to invest and grow that money. It says to me that the era of tech hypergrowth is over. Microsoft is now officially the next IBM. And Google is no Microsoft.

: UPDATE: Fred Wilson responds and reassures.

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A blog list for media guys

: At the Aspen Institute conference, I was asked to provide a starter list of suggested blogs. Here's what I sent them. Now don't get all hurt and pissy and angry and bloggy if I left you off; it's just a sampling.

MEDIA:
* PaidContent.org covers the business of online content. By an aggressive one-man band, Rafat Ali, who is making a go of it with advertising. He also has a job
blog that is good for business intelligence.
* I Want Media by Patrick Phillips is an alternative to Romenesko.
* Corante has a number of very good blogs about the social impact of technology as well as media and the law. Among them, The Importance by attorney Ernie Miller, Copyfight by Donna Wentworth and others, Loose Democracy by David Weinberger (coauthor of The Cluetrain Manifesto), and Many to Many by Clay Shirky and others.
* Lost Remote is a good blog about TV by two TV producers, Cory Bergman and Steve Safran.
* CableNewser follows cable news like a hound dog and it is written by an 18-year-old college student.
* Ad Rants by Steve Hall is beloved by trendwatchers, as it finds what's new in advertising.
* NYU's Jay Rosen writes a very well-respected (if long) blog about journalism here.
* The Media Drop is a new blog by Tom Biro.
* The World Editors Forum started a blog here.
* San Francisco journalist Tim Porter blogs about newspapering.
* Om Malik of Business 2.0 writes about broadband.
* Those of you who got my blogcard: It was by adman, cartoonist, blogger Hugh MacLeod.
* NewsDesigner has nice insights on newspaper design and news judgment.
* Rex Hammock, a custom publisher, writes often about magazine launches.
* Unmediated is by a bunch of visionary video hackers who will reinvent TV.
* VH1's Best Week Ever show hashes over story ideas on its blog.
* Reason Magazine has a most effective blog.
* Dave Barry blogs.
* Mercury News tech columnist Dan Gillmor is a pioneer blogger and he has a new book on the topic.

POLITICS AND MORE:
* Instapundit by law professor Glenn Reynolds is the king of blogs, getting as many
as 4 million page views a month.
* Andrew Sullivan is popular and controversial and he has managed to switch from a print to an online career. As he said at the Online News Association,"This happens once in a lifetime: You don't stumble across a new medium every day." Amen.
* Atrios is an anonymous liberal blogger.
* Josh Marshall is a leader on the left.
* Yale's Jack Balkin covers politics from a legal perspective.
* Stanford's Lawrence Lessig beats the copyright drum until it's black and blue.
* The Bush blog.
* The Kerry blog.
* Kevin Drum moved from his personal blog to creating the Washington
Monthly blog.
* Robert Cox fought The Times -- and he won.
* Australian journalist Tim Blair will be covering the election on his blog.
* See also Daniel Drezner, Begging to Differ, Matthew Yglesias, Oliver Willis, Outside the Beltway, Roger L. Simon (the mystery novelist and screenwriter, not the columnist), Winds of Change.

GENERAL INTEREST
* Of course, you need to read Nick Denton's blogs: Gawker about New York media and gossip, Wonkette on D.C., Defamer on L.A., Gizmodo on gadgets. See also competitor Jason Calacanis' and author Peter Rojas' gadget blog Engadget.
* BoingBoing, a wildly popular group blog by Corey Doctorow, Xeni Jardin and others,
is rich turf for story ideas and trends.
* Command Post started during the war as a group blog pointing to the latest headlines from everywhere; it continues to perform a valuable and timely service of finding the lastest and best news; this is editing by the mob.
* Anil Dash of Movable Type (SixApart) provides a half-dozen or more quick links each day.
* Curbed is a New York real estate blog.

BUSINESS
* VC Fred Wilson has led a score of other VCs into blogging.
* I only wish Esther Dyson updated her blog more frequently.
* VC Joi Ito blogs as a lifestyle.
* BlogAds founder Henry Copeland keeps a blog here.

TECHNOLOGY AND MORE
* Howard Rheingold et al write about mobile culture at SmartMobs.
* Doc Searls (another coauthor of The Cluetrain Manifesto and one of the most respected figures in blogging) writes about much more than technology (including media and Howard Stern).
* Pioneer Dave Winer.
* Robert Scoble (taking a break now) blogs from inside Microsoft... along with 800 other employee bloggers.

FOREIGN
* Hossein Derakhshan (aka Hoder) single-handedly started the Iranian weblog revolution.
* Zeyad, a 25-year-old dentist in Baghdad, was the first of a rash of Iraqi bloggers who emerged after the war and after Salam Pax. He has led to a score more, including Iraq the Model (quoted frequently in U.S. press), Iraq at a Glance, and Alaa.

TOOLS
* Technorati tracks all the links among blogs, causing conversation (here are the links to my blog).
* Blogdex is similar.
* So blog already. Try TypePad or Blogger ... and send me the link!

: Also... Here are links to previous Aspen-related posts: My notes on the conference.... my presentation on transparency, technology and the newsroom.... fisking Alex Jones on opaque journalism.... ditto Randall Rothenberg... and see this on Seth Godin and exploding channels.

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Nonstory with an agenda

: A ludicrous nonstory with a halon-obvious agenda tucked into today's New York Times entertainment section:

Because Linda Rondstadt "causeda revolt among some of her audience" in a Vegas casino after dedicating a song to Michael Moore, Jason Zinoman asks whether Broadway's Avenue Q will have trouble there when it opens its exclusive Vegas run.

If dedicating a song to Mr. Moore could send fans fleeing to the exit doors there, as was widely reported, imagine what might happen when a musical in which puppets have sex onstage, sing about masturbating to Internet porn and take potshots at President Bush comes to the city without clocks.

it is doubtful that [Avenue Q] would pass muster at the Aladdin Casino, where Ms. Ronstadt's political comments inspired angry crowds to tear down her posters and demand their money back.

First, it's a nonstory because no one except The Times suggested that there is any parallel between a sputtering propagandist and a bunch of funny puppets.

Second, this reeks of agenda as it makes it seem as if anyone who doesn't like Moore and his movie are obviously (a) homophobic, (b) puritanical, (c) right-wing.

What a crock o' crap.

Linda Ronstadt can say or sing whatever she wants. Michael Moore can film whatever he wants. But the audience can also sit and listen or watch or not and leave loudly if they please.

It is insulting to the rest of America [there is a world beyond Eighth Avenue, Timesman] to lump us all into your caveman demographic if we happen to disagree with your agenda.

And it's shameful journalism to make up such a story out of nothing and to play it in what is supposed to be a paragon of papers without the slightest excuse for news in it.

For shame, Times, for shame.

If you were a singer and this were Vegas, I'd storm out myself.

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The bastards don't stop

: Iraqi terrorists (the Times calls them merely militants) kidnap "six more hostages -- three Indians, two Kenyans and an Egyptian -- and would behead them if their countries did not immediately announce the withdrawal of their citizens from Iraq."

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Rave

: Jerry Colonna gives a rave review to Will Wheaton's new book.

Wheaton's a natural, unforced writer. He's got guts and writers' chops. I don't care if you're a Star Trek fan or not, you should read this book. You should read this book if you've ever had really tough times. You should read this book if you've ever struggled with your own place in the world, your own self-esteem. You should read this book if you've ever tried to separate who you are from what you do.

Moreover, every blogger who wonders why they do this should read this book.

Thanks, Wil, for reinforcing the good name of honesty and openness.

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Meek inherit Earth; slackers win game

: Sweden's Interactive Institute has created Mindball, a game in which players control a ball only with their brainwaves. Says Iconocast:

• The most relaxed player wins.
• Mindball turns the typical dynamic of competition on its head and gives a clue to a model of winning that isn’t all aggression and adrenaline....

But given how business fuels itself on sports metaphors, we think MBA programs and corporate training programs may want to put some future execs at the table. Mindball turns the typical dynamic of competition on its head and gives a clue to a model of winning that isn’t all aggression and adrenaline.

Or order up some for the girlie man California legislators.

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Epicurean S&M

: Tim Blair is collecting happy horror stories of hot sauces and food. Here's my contribution:

When I was a lowly rewriteman on the 4-to-mid shift at Chicago Today (a paper that had no tomorrow), we used to get subs from Danny Giampietro's Grandaddy Submarine Shop, off in a neighborhood where mobsters were occasionally rubbed out.

Danny marinated his fresh veggies and oil with incredible peppers, making them all volatile. It was as if innocent carrots had been sent to a tough prison and came out murderers. The oil could have fired a rocket to Mars.

I claimed a weak stomach. But my editor, doing his impression of the editors in Superman and Spiderman, growled at me and said he'd have no girlie man editors on his shift. He made me eat the subs.

The 4-midnight shift came to judge the heat of the pepper-and-veggie mix by the veins in my temples: The bigger the bulge, the hotter the heat. "Wow, look at that, you can see the kid's pulse. It's a good batch today," they'd say.

Lore has it that the peppers cured my delicate stomach problems by cauterizing it.

Once, my editor allowed me to go pick up the sandwiches at Danny's. This was an honor, for it required delicate diplomacy. Only friends were welcome there, if you know what I mean. As I walked up to the place on Grand Street, it was filled with guys in dark shirts, if you know what I mean, buzzing. As soon as I opened the door: complete silence. I walked up to the counter and said to Danny, "Milt sent me." Danny nodded to the room. The buzz resumed.

Danny died some years ago and his shop closed but his legend lives on.

And my stomach is still impervious to fire.

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MEN WALK ON MOON

: 35 years ago today.

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