BuzzMachine

Shark ahead

Shark ahead

: There's already a business conference on podcasting. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The real John Roberts

The real John Roberts

: Rex Hammock has all the dirt.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogging smoke

Blogging smoke

: Jim Treacher, one of my favorite interacters hereabouts, is manning a blog for the movie Blowing Smoke, said blog created by another fave, Jackie Danicki. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Carnival of the walkers

Carnival of the walkers

: As you may know, I'm working with good folks at About.com on such things as blogs and one of the enthusiastic, blog-smart guides there, Wendy Bumgardner, has just started a Carnival of the walkers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The challenge, of course, is that there aren't a lot of blogs devoted just to walking. But we all do it. And I know there are good stories about good vacation walks with good photos and Flickr sagas memorializing these walks. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So do me a favor: Post about your favorite walks and walk photos and walk stuff (cameras, whatever) and send the links to Wendy: walking.guide@about.com.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'm inspired by going on gorgeous strolls at Skytop last week and now that I'm back in miserably muggy Gotham, I want to smell the fresh air of freedom again. Beside, walking is the perfect topic for bloggers, isn't it: Left-right-left-right....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Gawker 1, Page 6 0

Gawker 1, Page 6 0

: Yesterday, Page 6 popped a vein over Gawker's snarking. Today, Jessica Coen gives Page 6 some advice:

Thesaurus.com is my top bookmark, and I suggest you make it the same on your browser. Then you needn't use words like "snarky" over and over again. Say I'm contemptous, irritable, cranky, cocky, insolent, sneering. Call me a dimwitted bitch, for all I care. Just don't use "snark" twice in the same item.

Made for the distributed world

Made for the distributed world

: I just came across Dinnerbuzz (catching up on my RSS after vacation; saw it via You're It). Though the execution is iffy at best, the concept is close to what I'm talking about in creating new information services for the distributed world. Here's the deal:frozen throne nocd 1.5

When you post a review of a restaurant on your own blog, you tag it and Dinnerbuzz picks up the link and aggregates it with other links to posts about that restaurant, other posts with those tags, and other posts in those cities. So when it comes time to eat, you can come in and find what locals are saying about a restaurant or you can search for "outdoor" "Mexican" joints in "New York." Further, you'll be able to get RSS feeds so you can get an alert whenever someone writes about a great new vindaloo in your neighborhood. frozen throne nocd 1.5

In old-centralized-marketplace-think, you'd try to get all those people to write restaurant reviews on your big-media site. And the question is: Why the hell should they? What do they get out of it? And in the old world, you tried to get people to read the reviews on your site when they knew there were reviews on tons of other sites out there as well and it's a pain to find them all.frozen throne nocd 1.5

In new-decentralized-distributed-think, you recognize that people will write about what they want to write about where they want to write about it and if you're smart, you'll find ways to take advantage of all that great information and aggregate it and and aggregate audience around it, sending traffic out to all those writers on the edge because readers know they can come to you find find it all. frozen throne nocd 1.5

To make this work, you need to get people to tag their posts and you need a critical mass of them so that people can start to agree (e.g., "byob" instead of "dry") on the right tags as happens on Flickr and Del.icio.us. But people will do that if they see that people are finding what they right because they tag and also if they start using the service themselves to find restaurants and so, in this gift economy, they realize that you need to give to get. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The example I've often used about how tags will work best in a distributed world is jobs: You tag your resume anywhere on the internet and a specialized successor to Google (who may, indeed, use Google's API to get raw data) finds jobs and matches them with job seekers without forcing anyone to pick one centralized marketplace or another. I've also said this will work in hyperlocal: I don't want to write an entire blog about my town, but I would tag the occasional post to be aggregated into a community of them -- because I'd want to read that collection myself. frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is a model for the future of media. There is tons of great stuff to be had out there; it's impossible to find and keep up with it all; search won't do the trick; tags and feeds will help. The key is not to collect the content and traffic -- the old, centralized media way -- but instead to collect enough information about that good stuff to help people find it when they want and to help support the people who create it all.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: OOPS: Well, it appears I was projecting what I wanted Dinnerbuzz to be. I misread one description of it. As I see the service now, I have to go there to add tags to it with a link to my post. frozen throne nocd 1.5

It would be better if I could just put the tags on my post (Technorati tags) or on Del.icio.us (with a for:dinnerbuzz tag) or simply add the posts and ping them and that would travel to Dinnerbuzz automatically. Those would be the better, more distributed ways to accomplish this. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I also find it terribly frustrating that I can't find the way to get from a Dinnerbuzz listing to the actual posts!frozen throne nocd 1.5

Or I'm wrong again....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, at least in my imagination, I see potential here....frozen throne nocd 1.5

More snark

More snark

: Dave Winer on professional reporters: "They take longer to get it wronger."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Live by the snark, die by the snark

Live by the snark, die by the snark

: Somebody stuck a sharp stick up somebody's rear.

Unknown outside the dork-infested waters of the Blogosphere, her name is Jessica Coen, and she's the co-editor of Gawker.com, where she regurgitates newspaper and magazine stories and slathers them in supposedly witty sarcasm. Every time we bump into Coen, 25, who likes to accessorize with a stuffed dog poking out of her handbag, she smiles and showers us with sycophantic praise. But her every mention of PAGE SIX on her Web site is snide and snarky. Word to Coen: Next time you see us at a party, keep walking. Or slithering. You can't be a boot-licker and a back-stabber at the same time.

What a Goofy idea

What a Goofy idea

: Here's the dumbest idea for a podcast I've heard yet: Listen to Disney extolling the wonders of Disneyworld. What's next: The Ron Popiel knife podcast? The hold-music podcast? The subway announcements podcast? The annoying car alarm podcast? The Dell excuses in a foreign accent podcast? The Rush Limbaugh podcast?frozen throne nocd 1.5

A birthday in the family

A birthday in the family

: My son's blog just turned 1. There I also just learned that Digg has redesigned and it looks good and now even I can understand it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Neither Blog Son nor Blog Daddy will be posting much today. We're going golfing with PopPop (who'd be Blog GrandPa, if he blogged). And yes, in my case, golf is a comical adventure of lost balls, muffled curses, murdered grass, creative arithmetic, and knobby knees. There will be no photos. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Snoblog

Snoblog

: As an emailer said, Sarah Boxer is at it again. The NY Times culture writer assigned to the internet -- lucky us -- now takes it upon herself to formulate a strange Marxist (or is it Maoist?) analysis of We'reNotAfraid.com, the wonderful weblog of Photoshopped images of solidarity, stiff-upper-lippedness, and defiance to terrorists.

The site displays a range of defiant postures. Some people hold up their middle fingers, presumably for the terrorists to see. Some people posted pictures of American soldiers, presumably for Londoners and Americans to see.frozen throne nocd 1.5

But more and more, there's a brutish flaunting of wealth and leisure. Yesterday there were lots of pictures posted of smiling families at the beach and of people showing off their cars and vans. A picture from Italy shows a white sports car and comes with the caption: "Afraid? Why should we be afraid?"frozen throne nocd 1.5

A few days ago, We're Not Afraid might have been a comfort. Today, there's a hint of "What, me worry?" from Mad magazine days, but without the humor or the sarcasm. We're Not Afraid, set up to show solidarity with London, seems to be turning into a place where the haves of the world can show that they're not afraid of the have-nots.

And so what if we do want to flaunt our prosperity in defiance of those who would kill us for it? We should damn well flaunt exactly what the terrorists hate and fear most: freedom, sex, commerce, speech, women's rights, openness, success, prosperity, tolerance. I proposed (in a suggestion the NY Times editorialists today would have really hated -- see the post below about the 9/11 memorial) that we should use the now-disputed space at the World Trade Center to build not an International Freedom Center but instead a mall and a theater that shows R-rated movies. Now I say we should have Donald Trump send in a picture of himself wearing a "We're Not Afraid" button. And pictures of women and Jews, too. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The worst of Boxer's analysis is that it feeds right into the why-they-hate-us culture: It's as if she's offended on behalf of the terrorists for showing them what we have and they do not: freedom. Well, damn it, we are successful and that is what they hate most and so we should brutishly flaunt it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Further, to hide the essence of our culture and our era -- our ability to be prosperous and leisurely -- is some strange signal of defeat. Should we hide our westerness, our modernity, our openness, our success, and our freedom as, say Jews had to hide their Jewishness in '30s Germany? If we do, then it's time to get out the burkas, ladies. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But, of course, that's absurd. frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is the same Boxer I complained about when she wrote about Iraqi bloggers (which led to this exchange [and see my parenthetical full disclosure in the post below]). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Quacks like a blogger...

Quacks like a blogger....

: Romenesko insists he's not a blogger. But he sure sounds like one in this post as he points to a San Fran Chron story complaining about Wired magazine sending "'scary letters' to readers who refuse to renew." And then he adds:

(Business 2.0 pulled that with me, too; I never agreed to an automatic renewal plan, although the mag's rep claimed I did.)

Search me

Search me

: Jason Calacanis prays for Yahoo or Google to launch blog search. Yahoo appears answers his prayers via angel Steve Rubel. [Via Steve Baker. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Marching against terrorism

Marching against terrorism

: Here's a nascent effort to organize a march against terrorism and terrorists in London. I found it via this London blogger, whom I found via this London blogger, whom I found via Technorati's London bombing page. Wish I could join them. frozen throne nocd 1.5

New news

New news : Fred Wilson says "this [my post below about witnesses to news reporting it on their blogs] is what its all about and why CNN with its 24x7 news channel is hopelessly out of date."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Not if CNN et al are smart enough to take advantage of the millions of new reporters who can keep them on top of the news.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Ironically, I was supposed to have lunch yesterday with the president of such a news network to talk about just this. But, of course, we had to cancel because of the big news. But we did reschedule. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I also think this is ironic: The blog segment on MSNBC, which I was to do last night, was preempted by the London news. But, of course, there was news -- at least Londoners' stories about that news -- on the blogs. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: As I also noted yesterday, it is now reflex for the BBC and the venerable Times of London to solicit stories from the public and to publish them. Of course, they didn't have to ask. All they had to do was go reading their local bloggers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I'm also struck by the new definition of news. As I wandered through the London blogs listed by subway station, I found, again and again, bloggers using their new tool just to tell their family and friends, "I'm fine." That is the news that matters most, isn't it?frozen throne nocd 1.5

: ALSO: I found Technorati -- its search and its tags -- useful in finding London bombing news and reaction yesterday. They put together a special page aggregating the tags. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Joe's Dartblog as a montage of front pages. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Later

Later

: More bomb links as the evening goes on.....frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Here is a very good roundup of London blogs and moblogs from the Wall Street Journal (free link). frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Tony Blair gives an eloquent statement, of course. It is about values.

It is through terrorism that the people that have committed this terrible act express their values, and it is right at this moment that we demonstrate ours. I think we all know what they are trying to do - they are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cower us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, of trying to stop us going about our business as normal, as we are entitled to do, and they should not, and they must not, succeed.frozen throne nocd 1.5

When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated. When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people or weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm. We will show, by our spirit and dignity, and by our quiet but true strength that there is in the British people, that our values will long outlast theirs. The purpose of terrorism is just that, it is to terrorise people, and we will not be terrorised.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I would like once again to express my sympathy and my sorrow to those families who will be grieving, so unexpectedly and tragically, tonight. This is a very sad day for the British people, but we will hold true to the British way of life.

• Bush falls off bike again
• Dozens killed in London serial blasts
• Car bombs kill many in Iraq
• Study shows hookah health risks
• Will US keep letting Israel sell arms?

: UPDATE: Sam Richardson emails that I'm being unfair (well, Tom is) with the Al Jazeera snipe. He sends a list of NY Times emailed articles and the bombing comes out much lower there. The reason, he argues reasonably, is that big stories are the least likely to be emailed since everyone knows them (or because there are so many versions, perhaps). frozen throne nocd 1.5

: ProjectNothing has lots of links. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: See Tim Porter on his unread newspapers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

News everywhere

News everywhere

: We have now reached the point where we could be assured that when a big news event happened, witnesses would be online with accounts of it in a matter of minutes. News was never like that. But now, that's the way it is. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Here is a moblog photo from the London subway after the attack, uploaded vy Adam Stacey here (via the Guardian newsblog).

Instanet

Instanet

: Austin Bay creates video in the war zone and Glenn Reynolds produces it. We should start thinking of all this as a network. frozen throne nocd 1.5

How Kos is like a Suburu bumpersticker

How Kos is like a Subaru bumpersticker

: In the spirit of peace, love, and kindness, Kos likens the American right to al Qaeda and shows how the American left has no loonies of its own. Just a few of his deft notes:

Self-image
Al Qaida/Taliban: Belief in their own infallibility
American Taliban: Belief in their own infallibility
Liberals: Willingness to consider other viewpoints...frozen throne nocd 1.5

Free Speech
Al Qaida/Taliban: Anyone who disagrees with us is an infidel and must be silenced
American Taliban: Anyone who disagrees with us is a traitor and must be silenced
Liberals: Anyone who disagrees with us is in for a spirited discussion

: Not wanting to be accused of subtlety or restraint, here's more.
frozen throne nocd 1.5

Beware the blogs!

Beware the blogs!

: Now it's the Washington Post's turn to write a silly, paranoid, and ignorant story smashing blogs. Telling a story about someone who speculated on a blog that someone was running for a seat in Virginia politics -- someone who said he tried to listen in on a conversation on a politician's front yard -- the Post moans:

"It's creepy. That somebody would spread rumors on Jim Moran's seat, that's not all that surprising. The fact that somebody is keeping tabs on who we have over to dinner, that's more problematic," she said. "The whole thing about being anonymous is that there's no accountability. They can literally post anything."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Such is the new and emerging realm of Internet blogs. Since the 2005 Virginia election cycle kicked off, the number of blogs talking about Virginia politics has swelled to at least 20. Many are run anonymously, allowing people to express their views freely -- and giving them an easy way to spread rumors and half-truths.

Really Simple Sales

Really Simple Sales

: The NY Times discovers advertisers discovering RSS. The is no doubt that RSS -- whether people know what the initials mean or even know they're using it -- will become a major transport of content. But I've said before that it needs to deliver user stats via cookies before it really takes off (and before publishers will be willing to deliver full content and not just links on it). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Variety, spice, and all that

Variety, spice, and all that

: I should add to the points below that I'm looking to try out Word Press not out of any problems with Movable Type. In due course, I want to try various of the tools; I started on Blogger and moved to MT (but did not upgrade to the latest version because it was likely beyond my own IQ) and now want to try WP. There are lots of great tools enabling this new medium and I don't mean to slight any of them. Besides, my son is my webmaster and he says he'll support WP. Gotta do what the boss says. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Conversation stoppers

Conversation stoppers

: Continuing the theme of technological dependence and addiction... Since I have given tough love to Technorati over time for not being able to constantly update its counts, I should in the spirit of equal opportunity lament PubSub these days: I haven't seen updated links there in days. Wazzup? I depend on these services to find out what people are saying. When they don't work, it's like losing my cell phone. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Broken type

Broken type

: This weekend's burp in Movable Type installations -- which came because of a conflict in an update of the Control Panel that controls many web servers -- reveals an odd vulnerability of citizens' media. No medium before could be so handicapped by a single bug or glitch (or virus or spam attack). Of course, in blogs, we're used to it; Blogger used to go down all the time and with it half the Blogosphere then . But what's oddly unnerving in this case is that an external change could have such an impact. Then again, because this is a community, people shared symptoms and then solutions with dispatch. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Slippery devil

Slippery devil

: David Carr in today's NY Times on podcasting (full disclosure: he quotes me with a full disclosure):

For the time being, podcasting is a cipher, a technology that seems to further threaten established media's stranglehold on public consciousness, but offers little opportunity in the way of a real actual business. Big media are aggressively attempting to get their arms around the next big thing. But it remains elusive, a medium that is viral and uncontrollable by nature, and that does not threaten to become a business any time soon.

MagMan

MagMan

: To evade the long arm of the FEC, Bill Hobbs is, as you probably know, closing his blog and opening instead an online magazine. I congratulated him in is comments with these observations:

Well, as a magazine publisher, you now get:
- A table at Michael's.
- An expense account.
- A clothing allowance.
- A car service.
- An assistant who will go get you Starbucks coffee whenever you ring your bell.
- A minimally but expensively designed office with a view.
- A large ego.
- A reputation not as big as your ego thinks it is.
- The opportunity to go to too damned many conferences in Florida.
- A new hostility to those things called blogs.
Enjoy.

Just what the world needs: drunken bloggers

Just what the world needs: tipsy bloggers

: Hugh McLeod, marketing genius, has convinced a wine maker to create a brand image via bloggers: We're smart, we're tasteful, we drink. frozen throne nocd 1.5

As Groucho used to say...

As Groucho used to say...

: There has been a rousing discussion on the Media Bloggers Association's listserv about whether the MBA should have a code of ethics and standards and such. Well, actually, the discussion started with what kind of code it should be to get a committee going on the task. I entered the word "whether" into the discussion. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I said I didn't think we should have a code, echoing what I'd said in reaction to Bayosphere's pledge here and here. I believe codes are for institutions that have lost their humanity while blogs are human and trust here is measured every day by everyone with whom we interact. And I don't want to see blogs turn into institutions and closed societies. I also agree with Fred Wilson that lists of the Top N this or Top N that are silly in a medium where the meat's in the middle, where everyone determines their own Top N lists and where the top for everybody becomes merely a least common denominator. (I will confess to coveting Technoratijuice but rationalize faw egotism in that case because that it's about links rather than lists and it enables the conversation; this is also why I enjoyed blogebrity skewering the lists and those on them by creating one with no rationale except random ego tweaking; and this is why I didn't link to another Top list that just came out). frozen throne nocd 1.5

I also want to say that I wasn't crazy about the discussion occurring on a listserv rather than on the open web. Ditto some great discussions that have occurred out of a few Harvard confabs. Listservs (let alone ones from Harvard...) are closed conversations themselves and I think we get the wisdom of the crowds (and the lack thereof in isolated cases) when discussions are held in public.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, today Corante's Dana Blankenhorn took the MBA discussion public with a bang -- a bang on my head.

I figure a group like the MBA could at least enforce simple rules by creating valuable member benefits and kicking out those who refuse to conform, following some objective process.frozen throne nocd 1.5

But that’s not how it’s going down, mainly due to one person, Jeff Jarvis (right).frozen throne nocd 1.5

Jarvis wants no standards, and certainly no policing. Might as well disband the committee.frozen throne nocd 1.5

“Why pledge to be honest? Only if you're assumed to be dishonest.
Used car salesmen should take the pledge. My blog friends do not need to.”frozen throne nocd 1.5

No objective measures of ethics, thus anything goes. Want to lie, misrepresent, ignore facts, engage in personal destruction for the sheer fun-raising hell of it? Heck, there’s no such thing as truth. We define what’s truth based on who yells the loudest.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, pardon my language but bullshit. There’s a fine line between libertarian and anarchist, and Jeff Jarvis just crossed it.

Since this is in public, where it should be, I'll quote (obnoxiously) from my own emails that said why I think we need to look at the world differently. (I'll leave it to others to quote their on views on their own blogs.)

It may be contrarian of me, but I will argue that we should not adopt a code of ethics and standards. That is for institutions to declare because they lose touch with their publics. Weblogs are, in the end, people and, as in our everyday lives, we exhibit our ethics and standards without swearing to codes.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I have my pesonal code of ethics. You have yours. They probably all boil down to this: Be honest. But we shouldn't have to pledge to be honest; that should be assumed. Or to put it another way: If you have to pledge to be honest, then you have a problem.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I do not think we should mimic the trade groups of media; we are something new and different and need to explore new ways....frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is also about educating the world -- particularly the world of big media -- about weblogs: that a parody NYTimes correction site from Bob Cox is news/commentary/journalism just as is an interview on Pressthink just as is an editing of the best of big media on Winds of Change... and that the voice of one citizen speaking -- which is what a weblog is -- is just as valuable in the public discourse as the voice of the guy who owns the printing press. In the end, it is up to the person on the other end of conversation, formerly known as the reader, to judge the credibility and ethics of any of us: Trust is in the eye of the beholder. It always has been, only journalists forgot that as they thought they could control this aspect of the relationship with the public as they controlled others: They wrote codes of ethics and decided what's ethical and what's trustworthy. Or they thought they did. I hope we can start to show how we have a new relationship with our publics....frozen throne nocd 1.5

[In response to an email about how bloggers and journalists do different things:] I disagree that "the rules and expectations are different for each." We are all bloggers and there is not blanket rule about what a blogger -- or a journalist -- is and isn't and I wouldn't like to see one. Bloggers do journalism. Journalists do blogging. To make a sharp line is to start excluding people and their activities and voices. That is antithetical to blogging, in my view....frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is also about educating the world -- particularly the world of big media -- about weblogs: that a parody NYTimes correction site from Bob Cox is news/commentary/journalism just as is an interview on Pressthink just as is an editing of the best of big media on Winds of Change... and that the voice of one citizen speaking -- which is what a weblog is -- is just as valuable in the public discourse as the voice of the guy who owns the printing press. In the end, it is up to the person on the other end of conversation, formerly known as the reader, to judge the credibility and ethics of any of us: Trust is in the eye of the beholder. It always has been, only journalists forgot that as they thought they could control this aspect of the relationship with the public as they controlled others: They wrote codes of ethics and decided what's ethical and what's trustworthy. Or they thought they did. I hope we can start to show how we have a new relationship with our publics.

I have to constantly kick myself to stop thinking of blogging in big-media terms, to stop judging it by the top of the power law and in silly lists, to stop assuming that bloggers want to do what media does, to stop thinking that blogging has to be media, to stop thinking of blogs as publications and remember that they are people. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I keep trying to hear Doc Searls and David Weinberger in my ear as they insist that this isn't a medium and it's not content. It's new. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I don't want to see blogging turn into just another old media institution. But I don't think it can. It is that new. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So perhaps I'm the odd one out. Scratch the perhaps. I am an odd one out, but just one of many. That's why I blog. frozen throne nocd 1.5

As I said in an earlier post on all this, perhaps the real lesson for me is that I'm not a joiner: Let those who want to start their societies start them and I should stay out of the way and drift from this conversation to that one, the social nomad. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Is the blogosphere a society of joiners or a vast plain of nomads? That's the real question, isn't it? frozen throne nocd 1.5

The pity in not joining would be that there is strength in numbers when it comes to support, education, defense, lobbying, selling and, besides, blog confabs are a lot of fun. So I still ask: Do we need codes and standards to have that?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Guten tag

Guten tag

: Sean Bonner's Metblogs just added one of my favorite cities: Berlin.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Living in the past

Living in the past

: Marshall Loeb just wrote a blog-belittling column at Marketwatch. I have some personal history on this with Marshall, who's a very nice guy, and so let me start there. We worked together years ago at Time Inc. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Didn't hear from Marshall for years upon years. But a few weeks ago, he found himself on a panel about blogging at some press association or another and so he called me to find out what this blogging this is all about. He said he didn't know a thing. I filled him in as best I could in 20 minutes as I dashed from meeting to meeting in New York. Apparently, I was bad salesman now Marsh delivers his blog broadside, a bit late to the party:

Blogging can be both a cost-effective and time-efficient way of connecting with people, providing many benefits that can enrich your life.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Some of the benefits are:frozen throne nocd 1.5

* Creating a family network of blogs to keep yourselves updated on the goings-on of your far-away relatives.
* Turning blogs into scrapbooks where you can upload and post digital photos. This saves you the cost of getting film processed, and sharing your blog with others is free.
* Encouraging your young children to create a blog that keeps track of their daily activities and chores. Also, your new college-bound kids can keep blogs so that you won't feel like they're so far away.

But not everything is perfect, and here are some warnings about blogs:frozen throne nocd 1.5

* Don't trust everything you read in blogs. While more and more news organizations and companies are creating blogs of their own, many blogs are filled with false information.
* Never keep a blog in which you trash the company you work for or your boss. Also, never put your company's sensitive or inside information in your blog. There have already been cases in which people have been fired for blogging about their employers. It might be tempting to use a blog to vent your work-related frustrations, but it could come back to haunt you.
* Don't give out too much personal information in your blog. Even using your real name, rather than a pseudonym, puts you at risk. We live in an age of identity theft and you don't want to unwittingly give thieves a road map to your personal records or financial information.

Marshall was, by the way, the executive at Time Inc. who first rejected my proposal for Entertainment Weekly -- six years before it ended up launching. As the head of magazine development, he parrotted the words of Henry Grunwald, then editor-in-chief of Time Inc., saying that such a magazine about the full range of entertainment could not possibly succeed because people who watch TV do not read. Ahem. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Googlewood

Googlewood

: Google put up its new video service but I'm not on it. As soon as they announced they were taking submissions weeks ago, I put up a vlog just to see how it worked. Now Google's video service and player are up but I can't find it. No idea why: Not up to Google's high standards ("Love ya, babe, but your dialogue needs some work")... pissed off Google... need a new agent. Doing the latest new ego search, it did find two videos that mentioned me... but those videos, from PBS, are not available, only searchable. Drat. And I was so ready for my close-up.frozen throne nocd 1.5

***cialis***

***cialis***

: I had to put "cialis" in my comment-spam filter to stay ahead of the swine. But, of course, this is stopping people from putting up legitimate words. I should fix that. But I'm kind of enjoying the discovery. First, they couldn't say "socialism" and thought I was trying to turn that into a dirty word. Now it's "specialist." Can we ask the makers of performance-enhancing drugs to please come up with names whose order of letters does not appear elsewhere in the English language?frozen throne nocd 1.5

A pixel is worth...

A pixel is worth...

: A pretty blogroll. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogging pays

Blogging pays

: Romenesko makes $152,163. And yes, it is a blog, albeit a self-loathing blog. [via Reynolds]frozen throne nocd 1.5

By the way

By the way

: I'm enjoying the Blogebrity blog, which isn't a hoax, just a blog. I'm not saying that get get more links and stay on the A list. Really, I'm not. Trust me. frozen throne nocd 1.5

BlogPulse need caffeine?

BlogPulse need caffeine?

: Matt Galloway wonders wazzup with BlogPulse. I suggest we ask them. I shot them an email. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: UPDATE: See Blogpulse's Pete Blackshaw's response in the comments.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Lost in translation

Lost in translation

: Yesterday, I did my blogboy dance for a bunch of French print and wire-service editors on an IFRA tour (ironic, when Loic -- whose reputation they all knew -- could tell them more on their homefront than I could). Anyway, I asked how many of them read blogs; most but not all. I asked how many of their journalists read blogs. They all put their thumbs and forefingers a millimeter apart. Un petit peu frozen throne nocd 1.5

Vs. the U.S. in ClickZ:

Journalists mostly used blogs for finding story ideas (53 percent), researching and referencing facts (43 percent) and finding sources (36 percent). And 33 percent said they used blogs to uncover breaking news or scandals. Still, despite their reliance on blogs for reporting, only 1 percent of journalists found blogs credible, the study found.

Tim Porter talks to some smart journalists who use blogs.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Covering Hoder covering the election in Iran

Covering Hoder covering the election in Iran

: The LA Times writes today about Hossein Derakhshan, "the godfather of the Iranian blogosphere," returning from exile to cover the election in his homeland. Hoder has left Tehran for London but his coverage continues. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Network blog wars

Network blog wars

: Brian Williams blogs the news meeting and makes rundown decisions transparent... beating CBS News to the transparent blogging punch. frozen throne nocd 1.5

It's not a medium, it's a focus group

It's not a medium, it's a focus group

: The Wall Street Journal (free link) sums up companies who are monitoring blogs to get the pulse of the market. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I pledge not to pledge

I pledge not to pledge

: Yesterday, I suggested that Dan Gillmor should have wikied his pledge and Sean Bonner has done it. Dan has some links. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Thinking about it last night, I liked the idea of a pledge even less but thought I should explain that more. frozen throne nocd 1.5

A pledge assumes ill will and mistrust, requiring that we promise we won't do something bad. If we're decent and you trust us, we shouldn't have to do that. I don't have to take a pledge not to torture little puppies for you to trust that I won't do it. I shouldn't have to pledge to be honest to be honest. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The whole point of this new medium is that it is human and not institutional. In a human relationship, apart from wedding vows and oaths in court, we don't take pledges. When you meet a neighbor, you don't feel the need to say, I pledge not to dump my garbage in your backyard. The compact of civility and trust is assumed until it is broken. That's the way I think this new medium operates. A blog is a person. Buzzmachine is me. You either like and trust me or don't (and there are plenty who don't; just read the comments). Or to put it another way: Like me, like my blog; dislike my blog, dislike me. I keep coming back to the conclusion of my blog chat with NY Times exec editor Bill Keller: Though blogs can do journalism and do media they are still essentially human. Journalism is institutional, impersonal, and dispassionate; blogs are human, personal, and passionate. Institutions takes pledges because they have become separated from the people they serve and they need to. Humans -- bloggers -- shouldn't need to. Doesn't mean you have to trust a blogger. But saying "trust me" doesn't mean anybody should trust you more. frozen throne nocd 1.5

At the end of the day, I don't want to see blogs turn into an institution, or try to, for then they wouldn't be blogs anymore. They are human and operate on a personal and social scale and it's a mistake to see them through institutional eyes. When I sat at an Annenberg confab on journalism a few weeks ago, I flashed on the frightening notion that in 50 years, there could be such confabs among bloggers fretting over trust, ethics, professional standards, educational needs, government relationships.... But then I snapped out of it. I was looking at blog through institutional eyes. No, blogs are just people speaking. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Taking the pledge?

Taking the pledge

: Dan Gillmor asks contributors to his Bayosphere to take a pledge. I respect Dan more than anyone I know in journalism. I know what he's aiming for, to establish a paragon of citizen journalism, and I respect that as well. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I don't know about taking his pledge. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Anybody can nitpick any such pledge or code of ethics. In fact, that's what I say the public should do in this case. Dan suggests discussing the pledge in a forum. Better yet, Dan, why not put your pledge up as a wiki and see what the people think it should be? Let your public create it. The days of the guys with the power and the presses and the initials -- ASNE, APME, NAA, etc. -- setting the standards are over. Now the public sets the standards, right? Well, they always did set the standards but we didn't listen. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Among my nitpiks with this pledge: frozen throne nocd 1.5

He requires us to promise to "work in the community interest." What community? What interest? Who's to say what the community interest is? I can only guarantee that I will post in my interest; whether I post in the community's interest, the community will have to decide. frozen throne nocd 1.5

He requires that I be "fair: I'm always listening to and taking account of other viewpoints." No, there are some viewpoints I will not take into account and not listen to. I won't listen to trolls I've put on my ignore list. I won't listen to terrorist sympathizers. I know that's not what Dan and company are asking with this, but others would. This is the issue with such a pledge: It's open to such varying interpretation: Someone will say gotcha, you didn't listen to people who hate America. And I will say: Damned straight, I won't. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Most of the pledge is very mom-and-Apple pie: I will be open and transparent and correct errors and such. I can't argue with most of this. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I would sum the pledge in two words:frozen throne nocd 1.5

Be honest.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Doesn't that pretty much cover it? frozen throne nocd 1.5

Still, I'm not sure I want to go signing any pledges. Signing a pledge doesn't make me more trustworthy or more accurate or more decent or more ethical. Either you trust me or you don't. That's up to you and it's based either on my abilities or your fairness. Pledges are not the measure of honesty. Codes are not the measure of ethics. Actions are.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'm just not a pledge kind of guy. I'm not a joiner. Guess that's why I am a blogger. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Rah Rah

Rah Rah

: Well, the new AOL on the web can't be totally without redeeming value. It's there that I found a professional cheerleaders' blog. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And I shouldn't be surprised they'd find that for under the search box on the new page, they list most popular searches and no. 3 is "bikinis."frozen throne nocd 1.5

: The AOL public site is now up at aol.com. I'm aggressively underwhelmed. As someone said this morning (and I got permission to steal his line): "It's so 1998. It's so Excite."frozen throne nocd 1.5

: UPDATE: I am now told that I didn't link to the new-new public AOL.com. Click on the beta link on the left column. I remain underwhelmed; it's prettier but not revolutionary. But I'll play with it. I showed it to the same guy I showed it to this morning and he ruled, "It's so MSN."frozen throne nocd 1.5

The rumor is true: They are following Yahoo into having an RSS reader. This is a screenshot of the page.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Wiki cooties and the death of editorials

Wiki cooties and the death of editorials

: Well now the LA Times has given wikis cooties. The New York Times and other media outlets have covered the collapse of its wikitorial project and I've heard more than one old-media person say, well, I see LA tried wikis and it's dangerous. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But no. This is like hearing Kathie Lee Gifford try to rap and then, upon hearing the results, declaring hip hop dead. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The LA Times didn't understand what it was doing and made three criticial mistakes:frozen throne nocd 1.5

1. Collaboration vs. argument -- I said this from the start: They didn't get that wikis are a collaborative medium where, even when people disagree, they try to find common ground, knowing there can be only one outcome, or else the wiki will, by its very nature, fail. This is why I suggested having two wikis, instead -- one pro, one con and let the best wiki win -- and Jimbo Wales was starting to do that... but the trolls took over the forest first. frozen throne nocd 1.5

2. Care and feeding -- All communities need attention. The Times should have gone to Jimbo and, he said today, he would have had a few good Wikipedians watch over their foray. You don't build a town without cops. You don't build a community site -- a town online -- without a clean-up crew, either. He also would have explained how to use wikis, since he knows. But the paper thought they knew best and this leads to be biggest mistake:frozen throne nocd 1.5

3. Newspaper ego -- Here is the Times' worst mistake and its most predictable: They think everything is about them. I've sat in meetings with newspaper editors who earnestly think that the best use of internet interactivity is to let the people talk about what they have written, to discuss them, to keep them in the spotlight they built for themselves. There is no bigger institutional ego than a newspaper's. Presidents and popes get humbled more often than editors. Well, at least they used to.frozen throne nocd 1.5

No, guys, the best use of a wiki would have been to have the public create wikis to share their knowledge and viewpoints with you. I don't know what the big issues are in LA, but here in New York, it might work better just to open the gates to watch people create pro and con wikis on the Olympics and a new Manhattan stadium and 10 ways to improve the schools....frozen throne nocd 1.5

But even that is an exhibition of media ego. For the truth is, if people wanted to do that, they could go to any number of places and do it on their own. They don't need newspapers to give them technology. And they certainly do not need newspapers to tell them what to talk about. frozen throne nocd 1.5

If newspapers would just listen -- and use this techology to do that -- they'd find that the people don't want to talk about what the editors talk about. And they certainly don't want to talk about the editors. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Let's take it up a notch:frozen throne nocd 1.5

What this really points toward is the death of the editorial page. Why the hell do we need editorials anymore? In their day, they were the voice -- the bully pulpit, as Rupert Murdoch says -- of one person: the publisher, the guy who had the ultimate conch, the printing press. We, the people, never said we gave a damn what he thought, but we had no choice but to listen. And so over the years, he convinced himself that we cared. What if we don't?frozen throne nocd 1.5

The truth is that an editorial is just another blog post written by one person witih one viewpoint. Here's a case where you can't argue that it makes a difference having a journalism degree and a newsroom. Editorialists and columnists get to read the same stuff we do and they put on their pants and opinions just the way we do. So why should they have rights to the mountaintop? Who died and made them Moses? Let the people speak. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Look at this vision for a newspaper of the future and how opinions work from the blogger at Reasons Unbeknownst:

A successful newspaper of the future is going to have a bigger op-ed section filled with the latest, highest ranked opinions found on Blogdex.net. Maybe the entire paper version of the paper goes op-ed. Why print real news if it’s just going to be outdated and lack animations and videos compared to the web? Internet aggregation on paper. Mmmm, just had a business idea.

And so, in the end, the newspaper becomes a wiki. And it's not wikis that have cooties. It's newspaper editorials. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: See also Ernie Miller:

Reporting that the wiki has been shut down is the easy part. Letting people know whether the experiment was otherwise successful is the hard part, and no one in the traditional press seems eager to confront it....frozen throne nocd 1.5

It is bad enough that many in the traditional media don't understand how wikis can succeed - they can be exceedingly useful and productive. It'll be worse if they don't understand how wikis can fail.

: I didn't see the LA Time story today on my first search. They say they might restart it:

But managers of the newspaper's editorial and Internet operations, which have undergone a number of changes in recent months, said they might attempt to resurrect online editorials written collectively by readers.frozen throne nocd 1.5

"As long as we can hit a high standard and have no risk of vandalism, then it is worth having a try at it again," said Rob Barrett, general manager of Los Angeles Times Interactive....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Although marred by some profanity by contributors, the experiment got off to a fairly high-minded start, said Michael Newman, deputy editor of the editorial page, who proposed the wikitorial idea. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Voluntarily overseeing part of the discussion was Wikipedia founder Jim Wales, who soon encouraged "forking" the editorial into two pieces — one taking a pointed anti-war stance and the other arguing for the ongoing U.S. presence in Iraq.frozen throne nocd 1.5

After midnight Saturday, Newman said, he stopped monitoring the site for the night, and later the pornographic images began to pour in.

: And here's Joe Gandelman's take.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I, reporter

I, reporter

: Amy Gahran says she's starting a site on citizen journalism called I, Reporter. frozen throne nocd 1.5

All this to kill a tree

All this to kill a tree

: David Weinberger tells you about the agonizing process of selling a book. Happy ending: It's sold (to Jay Rosen's editor, by the way). Can't wait to read it. So get writing, Weinberger. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog anything

Blog anything

: The irrepressible Marc Canter proposes a universal blog-this button at reblg.com. If I'm getting this right, he will create a routing system that will send any post's permalink to any blogging tool (and, I assume, the same could work for subscribing to any RSS feed via any RSS reader... something we need). Marc's email announcement:

With ReBlog.com end-users will be able to click on a ‘ReBlog’ button and send a piece of micro-content or microformat to their favorite tool for editing, annotating or just plain prettying up. End-users would specify what is their favorite tool at a simple web service or in a MIME handler that they downloaded and run on their own machine.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Even though it’s been possible for years, most of today’s aggregators and tools do not support the notion of displaying a button to easily allow end-users to “Blog This” particular post or article. Sure some aggregators enable plug-ins to kludge this option, but in general most bloggers are forced to ‘cut’ the source of a post and ‘paste’ it into their favorite tool. With each tool or environment comes a different kludge or hack, with its own rules and gotchas to contend with....frozen throne nocd 1.5

ReBlg.org would enable end-users to register their favorite tool of choice so that wherever they traveled on the web, by simply clicking on the ‘ReBlg’ button – they could easily send that post to their favorite tool. If the end-user doesn’t want to rely upon our web service, then they can simply download a MIME handler to do that routing for them.

Something new

Something new

: Dave Winer is working on an OPML editor. Frankly, I'm not smart enough to figure out exactly what it is or what it means. But when Dave is digging in like this, you can bet there's a truffle to be found. His explanation:

So you can use the OPML Editor to open and edit subscription
lists for all the major feed readers and aggregators, tune them up, merge
them and split them, publish and share them. Finally, there's a rational way
to edit the subscription lists.frozen throne nocd 1.5

OPML has also become the standard format for the podcasting directories. All
the nodes in the community directory are edited in OPML, many of them by
hand. Now there's a tool that's designed for exactly this purpose.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The OPML Editor is good for all kinds of lists, directories, project
planning, designs. The tool can be used by professionals and managers,
doctors, professors, lawyers, accountants, writers -- basically anyone who
thinks for a living.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Another way of looking at it -- RSS is great for news, but not everything is
news, some things, like the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or the
elements of the periodic table, don't change. Or change slowly, like the
teams in major league baseball, or the top home run hitters. For information
like that, knowledge, representing the relationships between nuggets is
what's important, and that's where outliners like the OPML Editor, that's
now in beta, excel.

Wikitorial redux

Wikitorial redux

: The LA Times wikitorial says it is "closed" now and I see no way to get in to see the latest version or the history. No explanation: Just closed. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Hope I didn't help break it. I said that having both sides of an issue fight it out over the same text just wouldn't work in a wiki. Wikis are about collaboration; you may disagree with your fellows but the mutual goal is clear. A wikitorial is bound to turn into a tug-of-war.frozen throne nocd 1.5

So I suggested in a listserv discussion of it that there should be two wiki versions of the editorial: one for proponents of the editorial's stand, one for opponents; let them put their best stuff forward and may the best side win. It seemed to be that this would be like an Oxford debate, brought to software. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Wikigod Jimbo Wales replied in the listserv on Friday: "I changed it to this earlier today. I'm not sure the LA Times wants me setting policy for their site, but it is a wiki after all, and what was there made no sense."frozen throne nocd 1.5

I went today to see what was happening and find it closed. Drat. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: See Tim Windsor's link in the comments explaining what happened. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: See Chris Anderson's reassessment of the experiment.
frozen throne nocd 1.5

Tag optimization

Tag optimization

: Today there is an industry devoted not just to search engines but also to search-engine optimization. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Jenny the librarian points to a post that makes me believe that tag optimization will be the next big thing in distribution and marketing of content: Googlejuice meets Del.icio.usjuice. Kevin Hale at Particletree writes in an article that extols the data virtues of RSS because it's free of spam and design and other distractions for search engines:

I don’t think Google really feels threatened (or has ever felt threatened) by portal strategy. I think what they’re afraid of is the rise of applications that seem to be tracking importance and trends better than search. In the race to find what deserves face-time, services like Del.icio.us, Technorati and Digg.com in combination with the rapid adoption of web apps like bloglines, newsgator, feedster and kinja are making Google’s search seem very, very slow. And it’s all being accomplished with RSS technology.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Google vs. Del.icio.us
Let me give a concrete example based on our experiences here at Particletree. When we launched this site, we knew that the tutorials and information we were gathering and creating were good—that they would be somewhat valuable to the web development community. The problem was that we didn’t want this useful, time-sensitive information to sit around for days (or even weeks) waiting to be picked up by search bots and then found by people accidentally or when they were desperate for a solution.frozen throne nocd 1.5

So I proposed that we turned to Del.icio.us to expand our readership. Every time something went up on the site that I felt would be good enough for a wider audience, I added it to my Del.icio.us account with the appropriate tags and descriptions. Our goal was to try and get a feature on del.icio.us/popular by the end of July and to our surprise, we accomplished it in less than a week. After two weeks of diligent posting and tagging, Google gave us a little over 50 referrals while Del.icio.us gave us over 700.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I think the reason Del.icio.us is so successful at bringing the appropriate audience to good material is because they track the changing web by using people to calculate what is essentially “page rank.” They get access to decent fuzzy logic for a fraction of the cost and the democracy of the system allows anyone to get their idea of what deserves face-time into the system almost immediately.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Basically, tagging systems are wonderful breeding grounds for the principles contained in Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. They do a great job of gathering Salesmen, Mavens and Connectors all in one place. Mavens stalk the new entries on the front page and certain tag pages to filter through the chaos and find the latest treasures. The RSS feeds act as a sort of technological bridge/pseudo-connector to get the information to the real Connectors and Salesman. From what I’ve noticed, a good idea can make it into del.icio.us/popular in about 5 days, a good Salesman/Connector/Maven like Dave Shea or Jeffrey Veen can get a good idea into del.icio.us/popular in less than two hours.

Full circle

Full circle

: Steve Silver informs me that Entertainment Weekly now has a blog. Jeesh, for creating the mag, you'd think I could at least get on the blogroll....frozen throne nocd 1.5

A cause

A cause

: Tom Watson has been leading the cause for Mukhtaran Bibi, victim of a tribal council gang rape in Pakistan. He has all the background and the latest. The news that she is free to travel is misleading; she has no passport. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog biz

Blog biz

: Congrats to John Battelle for closing his first round of financing for blogco FM Publishing. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Bloggers at the bar

Bloggers at the bar

: Heather Green at Business Week says that if the Times/Time source case goes before the Supreme Court, it could affect bloggers because attorney Floyd Abrams, representing the reporters, said on TV recently:

I think a blogger ought to be protected also. It seems to me that the purpose of this privilege is to protect the people who play a function in American life. It's not to protect reporters as such. It's to protect people who gather information and disseminate it on a widespread basis to the public.

Iran

Iran

: Iran's "election" day is upon us and I'd like to point you to two blogs:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Hoder continues to report from Tehran with his savvy perspective.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And go read Blue Bird Escape. This is a blog by a remarkable young Iranian-American woman whom I first came across a few years ago, when she returned to Iran after moving to America. She returned to her homeland filled with hope and memories but discovered once she got there that she could not see the country the same way, once she knew freedom. Her blog told that with eloquent but unvarnished honesty. Today, on the eve of the election, she writes:

Iran was always a great country in my childhood eyes. I left Iran at the age of 11. It was not until I went back to Iran at 15 that I saw with my own eyes what Iran didn’t have. There was no democracy. Walking on the streets of Tehran brought back so many memories, but I couldn’t imagine myself walking those streets for the rest of my life. It was nothing compared to walking outside on a street in Virginia or anywhere else in the U.S. I felt guilty as I watched people because I knew I was free and they were not.
Another election has arrived for Iran and I am thinking…are they really going to get what they deserve? Are they really going to get their freedom, their democracy? What can I do for them? The only thing I can do, as I am sitting here, on my comfortable bed, reading a magazine on Hollywood gossip, while Iranian women are protesting for equal rights, is to vote....

Know your rights and responsibilities

Know your rights and responsibilities

: Bravo to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for creating a resource for bloggers on their legal rights and responsibilities. Long needed. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Input meets output

Input meets output

: Martin Tobias finds a neat little application that tracks the links people click on on your blog. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Sticki wiki

Sticki wiki

: Via Dan Gillmor at Bayosphere, I see that the LA Time is planning to start wikitorials -- wikified editorials that can be rewritten by readers, one of many interesting changes in the paper's opinion pages. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Sounds like a cool idea... but I think it goes up against the essential nature of wikis and probably won't work. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Wikipedia brags about its NPOV (neutral point of view) enforced by the wisdom of the crowd and the desire to get the facts right and maintain a valuable resource. frozen throne nocd 1.5

An editorial is, of course, not neutral. And so what you'll likely find is a never-ending wikiwar: yes he did, no he didn't, he did, no he didn't, yes he did, no he didn't, nya, nya, nya...frozen throne nocd 1.5

Besides, I think this does what papers do too much: It tries to make the paper the center of the discussion. Turn around, guys, and look outside the newsroom and see what everybody else is saying. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Here's editorial page editor Michael Kinsley on the changes, quoted in the NY Times:

"It may be a complete mess but it's going to be interesting to try," he said. "Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard. It's the ultimate in reader participation."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Mr. Kinsley also started an experimental feature, "Thinking Out Loud," where readers, op-ed and editorial writers hash out tough issues like immigration and traffic. "We hope within a year that we will have a solid, consistent, intelligent and correct position on these two issues and it will result from a process that is not only transparent but readers will participate," Mr. Kinsley said.

: Ernie Miller is also dubious. frozen throne nocd 1.5

You know, the best, most open, most bloggy and webby way to do this might have been to post a note saying, "I'm thinking about doing this... what do you think?" And then the best minds online -- Ross and Ernie among them -- would have been happy to share their reaction and wisdom. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Defending their own

Defending their own

: The debut NY Times business column on blogs takes the opportunity to defend newspapers against blogs:

A reporter for The New York Times, she writes, "is just a blogger who happened to attend college; impress some bosses with his or her talent; get some training through experience - and possibly (though certainly not always) journalism school; and receive a podium for his or her pains."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Which is a little like saying a lawyer is just someone who likes to argue who happened to go to law school, pass the bar, and get a job at a law firm. There is little doubt that blogs are transforming the news media, mostly in positive ways. But what the "blogs will destroy the media business" argument misses is that there are fundamental economic reasons that it can never happen.

It's not necessarily that blogs become a new force to challenge newspapers and bring them to their knees. It's that newspapers' business models -- the very thing the columnist thinks is their salvation, without explaining how -- are vulnerable. Sing along: plummeting classified revenue, falling retail ad revenue, declining audience, new competition. This creates a competitive void into which blogs and the internet can march... unless newspapers stop trying to keep them at bay, and instead finds the ways to embrace and take advantage of this great new source of news, information, and diverse viewpoints. See a new newsroom. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Helping Hoder

Helping Hoder

: As I mentioned below, Hossein Derakhshan is headed back to Iran, were he started the blog revolution, because he believes the election will cause the regime to behave and not jail and torture him. He's asking for our help: Donate to help pay for his trip and if he does get detained, Hoder has a list of our responsibilities. frozen throne nocd 1.5

My relationship with Hoder and the Iranian weblog society -- and following that, the Iraqi blogging scene and a new world opened up by this medium -- began the day before another Iranian blogger and friend of Hoder's, Sina Motallebi, was arrested in Tehran. Sina credits the attention bloggers brought to his case to his release. So take Hoder's request seriously. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Hoder promises to report and take videos and pictures... " if I can find a wi-fi hotspot in jail."frozen throne nocd 1.5

A long trip to the polls

A long trip to the polls

: Hossein Derakhshan is returning to Iran for the first time since he started the blog revolution there to witness the election. It's a brave move, considering the things that have been said about him in regime papers, but with the whole world watching, let's hope he is safe. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Tough love

Tough love

: I love Technorati like a brother. But my reaction to the new design is that I'd put less effort into design and more into performance. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The distributed newsroom

The distributed newsroom

: The Guardian has a good roundup of what it calls independent media hubs -- places where people can share and remix media. We used to call that a newsroom, only now it's freed of the room. See also the New Newsroom post below. frozen throne nocd 1.5

What is truth?

What is truth?

: Vin Crosbie quotes Slate's Jacob Weisberg at the Editor & Publisher echo chamber: "Newspaper editors publish a story once they think it is true. Bloggers publish a story to see if it is true." I don't think that's true. For the implication is that bloggers don't care about the truth. No, the real difference is that bloggers are more open to the notion that a story can be corrected and improved after it is published. But that doesn't make for such a neat quote. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Once a snob...

Once a snob...

: Kurt Andersen, the original snarkmeister, gets snotty about blogs. frozen throne nocd 1.5

As Mom used to say, 'I don't care who started it'

As Mom used to say, 'I don't care who started it'

: A little more than two weeks ago, I got to thinking that small is the new big and I started making notes for a post about that (yes, I sometimes actually do think before I type). And then I saw two great posts about bad, big companies and good, small ones by Seth Godin that backed up that notion. I linked to them and said I was working on a post called "small is the new big." Then, before you know it, there was Seth writing a post under that very headline. My fault for waiting too long to write mine. But I linked to his and wrote my small is big post. He wrote another post on the topic; I linked to that and found more legs in the notion here and here. . I linked to others who carried on the riff. And lots of others riffed as well. Yesterday, Fred Wilson said he doesn't know who started it. I say it doesn't much matter. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I just got a most gracious email from Seth saying it's cool that we had the same thought the same way at the same time. He nicely joked that I could grab the book title. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I wrote back and said, great minds and all that: "If there's one lesson old-media guys learn in this new medium it's that we can no longer publish/broadcast/converse/share on our schedule, for somebody's sure to be ahead of us. But in the end, that's what so fun and wonderful about this medium, isn't it: We feel as if we're sharing brains. And that's better than hiding them."frozen throne nocd 1.5

And that is what is so nice about that moment in our very open medium: We were seeing the world the same way and sharing similar thoughts and didn't worry -- as we would have in the old media world -- about who was first or who "owned" the idea but only about adding to it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Seth and I are finally having lunch next week. And that is the best part: Goood ideas make good friends. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Agree/disagree

Agree/disagree

: Gallup has put up a bunch of handy RSS feeds of polls. The only problem is that some of it goes to pay pages ($95/year). But it's good for pulse-checking. I also subscribe to Polling Report, which aggregates many results in ongoing topics. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Are you a thyroid patient?

Are you a thyroid patient?

: Mary Shoman, who writes the excellent thyroid guide at About.com (where, remember, I'm consulting: full disclosure) is looking for a thyroid patient in the New York area to appear on a big national TV show to talk about treatment. Go to her post to see the requirements. It so happens that I am a thyroid patient myself (having waved goodbye to half of mine... that's how I know Mary's site) but I don't meet any of those requirements, save for living in Jersey. Pass the word, please. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Aw, shucks

Aw, shucks

: Australian blogger Paul Edwards writes a post sure to warm the hearts of and get links from many a Yank blogger today: Thanks, America. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Bloguspat

Bloguspat

: I can't imagine anyone get mad at Chuck Olsen. But someone did in a rather spectacular overreaction. Auteurs, you know. frozen throne nocd 1.5

FM unwrapped

FM unwrapped

: John Battelle is finally taking the veil off the worst kept secret in blogdom and medialand: His FM blog ad network. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Jason Calacanis live-blogged it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

After my own heart(burn)

After my own heart(burn)

: How could I have missed it? A blog devoted to burgers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

New-fangled ads

New-fangled ads

: Via John Battelle, a survey of advertisers says: "64% would advertise in blogs, 57% would place RSS ads." OK, easier said than sold. But still, don't think that blogs and RSS have ad cooties; they have ad heat and the real question is how to capture that and make it happen....frozen throne nocd 1.5

The Los Alamos whistleblower

The Los Alamos whistleblower

: The Los Alamos blog that has been dogging management there is covering the brutal beating of a fellow whistleblower. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Apple's enemies

Apple's enemies

: Ernie Miller asks when and whether Apple will sue CNet for revealing company secrets the way it sued some humble bloggers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I don't

But I don't

: Craig Newmark reacts to a nice New York Times feature on Craig's List and the observation that he is hubris-free with this plea: "I need you to tell me when I'm full of shit."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Video Skype

Video Skype

: I'm putting this here just so I can find it when I need it: There's a video plug-in for Skype, at last. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Join the iParty

Join the iParty

: The CBC is developing a show about bloggers using the voices of podcasters. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Half-baked

Half-baked

: Fred Wilson (second link today) talks about fully baked vs. half-baked blog posts. I prefer half-baked.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Fully baked is a lecture or a book or a show. It says, "I'm done. Eat what I tell you."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Half-baked is a conversation. It says, "Join in. Add some pepperoni before it's done, make it better, make it right for you. Enjoy."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Old media necessitated fully baked thought and expression: You had to "finish" it and get it "right" before you used precious paper, production, and distribution and you couldn't go back and do it over again; you couldn't rethink. frozen throne nocd 1.5

New media allows half-baked notions to be distributed and shared and improved upon and rethought. frozen throne nocd 1.5

At the end of the day, I believe, the half-baked approach will end up with better thought, thanks to the conversation.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Of course, quality is still a factor. A stupid notion, whether fully or half-baked, is still a stupid notion and no amount of remixing or baking can fix it. Bad sauce makes bad pizzas. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And, of course, as a writer myself, I don't mean to say that everything should be a committee product (in fact, what I like best about blogging is that there isn't an editor standing between me and you, my real editors). I don't want to read a novel written by committee. I've seen many a movie and TV show and magazine story wrecked by too much collaboration. Yes, the individual's voice and viewpoint and talent still has value and too many chefs can ruin the broth. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But what's interesting about this notion of fully v. half-baked is that it addresses an assumption behind all media, an essential snobbery that, by necessity, got cooked into old media: The limitations of old production and distribution -- the fact that someone owned the printing press and paid for the paper and would not allow anything to get onto that paper until it fit his definition of baked -- meant that we all thought something wasn't good or right until it was declared done by someone with the power to do so: The tyranny of the chef. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But when you think about it, that attitude reveals such hubris: believing that a thought can ever be done, that one author or one editor can know more than all their readers is so egotistical. frozen throne nocd 1.5

That is the essential attitude shift that must happen in media, especially news media: Discussion is often more intelligent than content. Paraphrasing Dan Gillmor, the audience knows more than the author. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Once we in big media stop acting as if we can fully bake anything, as if we know best, as if we are the only authorities, as if we're finished and the story is done when it's printed, then the public we serve should stop shooting at us when we screw up. If we provide valuable reporting and experience and resources but admit we're human and are not the final authority, if we join in the conversation that's already going on around us -- the remixing of our news, the baking of it -- then both we and the public we serve can learn the real value of collaboration.frozen throne nocd 1.5

In the end, itreally is just a simple attitude shift: It says that when we publish something, we know it's not fully baked; we expect it to be debated and challenged and remixed and improved; we welcome that. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Half-baked is better. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Hey, commenters, don't get too literal about "half-baked," as if it means numbskulled. It's Fred's creative wording and I like it and it's not to say that one puts out numbskulled ideas. It says that any idea we put out is likely to be unfinished and the key is admitting that. frozen throne nocd 1.5

RSS for life

RSS for life

: From the comments below, the Misanthropyst has a fine suggestion for the killer RSS ap:

Wanna make a million dollars? Help supermarkets and local merchants provide rss feeds for items they are having specials and sales on. Ask your wife if she'd subscribe -- I bet the answer would be, "In a heartbeat."

Bad Google

Bad Google

: Jason finds a site that blocks Google's Web Accelerator and enumerates its evils. I didn't like it either. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Two kinds of content

Two kinds of content

: Fred Wilson says that blogging software is the future of websites. I agree but added this:frozen throne nocd 1.5

I think it's half the platform. The other is RSS. In the job I left yesterday, one of my undone projects was to convert the architecture of local news sites entirely to RSS: Everything is a feed. So a home page is a feed of latest and biggest stories. A town page is a feed of newspaper headlines, blog headlines, classified ads with the latest listings in the town, forum thread headlines, weather, and so on. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Looked at that way, there are two kinds of content in the world: reference (fed by wiki so it can be updated) and feed (rss, fed by blog software). frozen throne nocd 1.5

The former is lasting but needs to be updated; the latter -- news, conversation -- is timely and flows. Both need to be found. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So the next layer you need is how to get to the content. That has been navigation and taxonomy. It may -- emphasis on may -- shift to search and folksonomy. We'll see. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Oh, and, of course, it's not just content. It's conversation. Links are, obviously, the other means of finding the stuff we want: linksonomy.frozen throne nocd 1.5

birdie told us

A birdie told us

: Henry Copeland has the scoop on Arianna Huffington and anonymous. sources. frozen throne nocd 1.5

A simple request

A simple request

: Hey, Washington Post, now that you own Slate, can you do something simple for me: Get Kaus an RSS feed. You can put the rest on RSS but, believe me, I know how hard it can be to get these things done. So a step at a time: Start with Mickey. These days, if it's not on RSS, I miss it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Trust the remix, trust the remixers

Trust the remix, trust the remixers

: I find it ironic that Lawrence Lessig is fretting about people doing bad things in blogs. Lessig is the man who wants to free up content from the control of copyright so people can do with it what they want. Well, take the good with the bad. And -- most importantly -- if you have faith in the people, you should assume that we can tell the good from the bad. Says Lessig:

But the more I've talked about this with observers and friends, the more I think the real fear is not bloggers tempted by ad revenues. It is instead the emergence of the equivalent of tabloids in blog-space: commercial entities whose sole purpose is to generate ad revenue, who do that by being as ridiculous and extreme as possible. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The danger here is that the conflict has returned. Just as the British tabloids care little about the truth in their path to selling papers, commercial blog-loids care little about the truth in trying to attract eyeballs. And it is here that the cycle turn vicious: for the amateur space feeds the professional troll by careful and repeated efforts to show that claims made are false or outrageous. If you're paid by the click, who cares why people click.

Edwards' vlog

Edwards' vlog

: John Edwards is going to start vlogging this week, with the help of the Rocketboom crew. Amanda Congden interviewed him for the first and from then on, anyone can send in a video question that he'll answer on video. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The world is a city desk and all the people merely correspondents

The world is a city desk and all the people merely correspondents

: Finally got some couch time and read Glenn Reynolds' good Wall Street Journal piece about how anyone can and will report. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Podcast open the doors

Podcast open the doors

: Ernie Miller asks a great question: Why isn't Congress podcasting itself? Every committee and debate should be available for us to hear. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'll take it down a few levels and suggest that every town board and school board should be podcast. I've long wanted to see local services enable citizens to video these meetings because, ironically, the very reason I care most about what happens in them -- I have kids -- is the reason I can't attend them. But I'd watch them, I used to say. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, who needs to watch them? They just sit and drone. Listening would work well -- especially when podcasts can be searched and indexed. frozen throne nocd 1.5

We should all storm our town halls and demand podcasts (and then politely explain what podcasts and iPods and the internet are). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Vive les blogs

Vive les blogs

: Stephen Baker reports, thanks to Loic Le Meur, that blogs were a factor in the French non to the EU constitution.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I"m listening to the BBC's Up All Night now, before going on, and they're talking about just this. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Hoder, Wired

Hoder, Wired

: Wired magazine's piece about our friend Hossein Derakhshan, by Jeff Howe, is now online. frozen throne nocd 1.5

How to share

How to share

: The BBC is offering discounts to freelancers for courses on how to do TV. The Beeb has been, perhaps, the most generous big-media operation -- with its expertise -- when it comes to training people how to do what they do. As has been reported previously, they are also looking at starting a journalism school. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Distributed reporting assignment desk: The transparency test

Distributed reporting assignment desk: The transparency test

: This would be a great assignment for a distributed army of citizen reporters: frozen throne nocd 1.5

The Toronto Star sent reporters from across Canada into government offices to try to get documents to which citizens are entitled. frozen throne nocd 1.5

If somebody would organize it, that would be a good idea for bloggers to swarm the government across the country to see just how transparent it is: What if we all went to our own town halls, county offices, and/or state governments to request, say:
: Expense accounts of elected officials.
: Spending records on any given program (e.g., what cars government buys... when it should be buying Hyundais).
: School class size or testing performance.
: Crime statistics. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Then we could all post our reports with a standard tag -- e.g., transparency test -- that could be aggregated via Technorati and PubSub. frozen throne nocd 1.5

A news organization could be good at organizing such a distributed effort, because they could publicize the effort and set the standards and edit the results into a good story. But you don't need a news organization to handle this; anyone could. It's just that newspapers and TV news operations would be smart to try projects such as this as a way to expand their newsgathering. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Here's what the Star found:

Canadians seeking basic government information about class sizes, restaurant safety or police complaints are up against a culture of secrecy, a national audit of openness shows.frozen throne nocd 1.5

In the country's first-ever practical test of transparency, reporters visited city halls, police forces, school boards and federal government offices across Canada to test how bureaucrats administer laws protecting the public's right to government information. They found a confusing patchwork of policies across the country.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Officials handed over records to just one in every three requesters who came in person. The rest remained locked tight in government filing cabinets as applicants were told they had to file time-consuming — and often expensive — formal requests under provincial or federal access laws.

: In the comments, Larry Borsato corrects me to say this was a project across many papers in Canada. Could have just as easily have been across many citizens. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Posted

Posted

: Not sure why, but Howard Kurtz devotes part of his Washington Post column today to this very blog. I'm flattered and too egotistical to be too embarrassed. frozen throne nocd 1.5

(Just to clarify one thing about About, not that anyone should care: I'll be working as a consultant, part-time, and not on staff and that's how I can continue to blog. And, yes, I tweaked the deal at first but obviously signed onto the vision of it as a platform for distributed media, because that's why I'm there and, having met the staff, I'm happy as a clam in cocktail sauce.)frozen throne nocd 1.5

And here's my son's blog.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: OH, AND... If anybody's in D.C. and can save a copy of the Style section, I'd be grateful to see it in print. As I said: I'm an egotist and I may be blogboy now but I'm not so jaded I don't like seeing my name in print.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The moderate revolution?

The moderate revolution?

: Howard Kurtz writes that blog coverage of the moderate revolution was filled with anger from the right and left while mainstream media celebrated the moderation (as did I... apparently because I am either strange or mainstream, take your pick). He's onto something:

It was the perfect storm for the blogosphere, an issue on which both right-wingers and left-wingers could rise up in rare unison and smite the craven offenders.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Both sides hated, castigated and otherwise took a dim view of the last-minute deal this week that averted a nuclear showdown over Senate filibusters.

Let the mainstream media praise as bipartisan statesmen the mushy moderates who cobbled together the compromise. Many bloggers were infuriated, castigating the so-called Gang of 14 (and especially John McCain) as knaves and turncoats.frozen throne nocd 1.5

It was another reminder, as if one were needed, of the yawning gap between the establishment press, which loves moderates and moderation, and the cyberworld, which tends to be driven by partisan passions.

I do believe (because I want to) that the people prefer Congress to shut up and do its work and not fight from the fringes and that the people are inherently moderate -- or at least the wisdom of the crowd is -- and that's why no party takes over the country for too long (yet). frozen throne nocd 1.5

In that sense, I think, neither the blogs nor mainstream press reflect the people, who talk, think, fret, and argue about Congress a helluva lot less than either reporters or bloggers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

What this split in coverage really indicates, as Kurtz says, is the essential difference between big and citizens' media (and I'm repeating myself): because newspapers are institutional and blogs are personal, newspapers try to be dispassionate while blogs are passionate. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And that's what we see in the coverage of what I hope to call the moderate revolution: Blogs speak up when they have cause to be pissed about or to celebrate over but rarely to be moderate and thus dull. The big press has to cover the story and thinks it has to see both sides; it likes to show both sides yelling but, of course, it doesn't want to be caught yelling itself. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And, in the end, it's hard to get a red-faced rant in defense of moderation, compromise, and the middleground, though I'd like to try to figure out how. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blooks

Blooks

: Steve Rubel has a good roundup of the smart ways Freakonomics was marketed via blogs. This will be one of the exhibits in my talk to Book Expo about blogs. Please continue to feed me more (and thanks for the comments here). frozen throne nocd 1.5

: LATER: Rex says: Don't be so sure. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Security blog

Security blog

: Rick Francona, a security analyst at MSNBC I've shared desk space with at the network, has a new blog on the Middle East and security. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogs and books

Blogs and books

: I'm giving a talk at Book Expo, the big publishing convention, this week on how all the constituencies of the word biz can use citizens' media. I want to brainstorm about the ways that blogs can help authors, agents, publishers/editors, marketers, and retailers -- from finding new talent to writing books online with your audience to building a direct relationship with your readers to creating communities.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'm eager to get any of your ideas for how blogs and books should interact. Please comment away. Thanks. frozen throne nocd 1.5

How many is many?

How many is many?

: Carl Bialik, the Wall Street Journal's number's guy, attacks the question of how many blogs there are. As Rex says, the bottom line is pretty much "a lot." frozen throne nocd 1.5

The estimates of the number of blogs worldwide ranges from 10 to 60 million. But the definition of blog varies, as well it should, since blogging tools are merely publishing tools and can be used to say and do most anything. The percentage of active blogs varies, as well it should, since some people have no lives and post all the time (and it's really hard to post when you do get a life, by the way) and others use it to update when updates are warranted and others try it out and move on. The estimates of the audience vary, as well they should, because there is no way to accurately count that today. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Bialik leaves out one important factor that must not be ignored: RSS. My Sitemeter stats say I had 340k pageviews in March but my server stats said I had 996k and the difference is mostly RSS (and things such as the page views I generate when I publish posts). But, of course, RSS is complicated because just because a feed is downloaded doesn't mean it's read (and what does it mean to read a feed vs. reading a post?). frozen throne nocd 1.5

If all this is only about bragging rights, it doesn't matter. Brag away. Debate at will. Who cares? The power of blogs is not about the total or the biggest (that so old-media-think, so mass) but instead about the rising volume of individual conversations. frozen throne nocd 1.5

BUT... if this is about advertising, then we do need to establish real numbers:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: We need to count those blogs who want to be counted -- those who say they are publishing. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: We need to put cookies up to get unique user counts and behavior (frequency) and demographics. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: We need to find the means, technical and definitional, to count RSS (probably at the post level). frozen throne nocd 1.5

: We need to measure the unique value of citizens' media, finding measures of influence and conversation-starting and such. (See the discussion Ross Mayfield and I had with others over, in Ross' words, the need to move past measuring impressions to measuring the impressed.) This is the unique value of citizens media -- it's about relationships, conversations, influence, not just about the coincidence of a word on a page (see: Google). frozen throne nocd 1.5

: We need to create the means to aggregate, share, and analyze this data so ad hoc networks of blogs can be found. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: We need an open-source ad call (I'll keep beating this drum) so that advertisers can serve and analyze ads on those networks. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And then, so we can brag in Ad Age and get Carl Bialik to poke at the bragging, we will want to have some sense of the ad revenue and audience volume to this subset of blogs: namely, those that have a reason to be counted. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The fruits of fame

The fruits of fame

: I change my career and get publicity and blog but what really impressed a (soon-to-be-former) coworker of mine is that I got a shout-out from Amanda Congdon. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Nonblogger snarks

Nonblogger snarks

: Romenesko keeps trying to insist he's not a blogger but he sure sounds like one -- a snarky one at that -- with this link to the post below that mentions a Museum of Television and Radio Media Center event:

Don't you hate it when journalists get together and refuse to share their brilliant ideas?

Big radio on small radio

Big radio on small radio

: NPR's Morning Edition did a segment on podcasting this morning and they interviewed me (sitting under William Paley's bookshelf at the Museum of Television and Radio, by ironic chance). They edited out plugs for podcast pioneers Dave Winer and Adam Curry (I swear it, Dave, on a stack of RSS manuals!). Take a listen here. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Snarkers

Snarkers

: Thanks for all the very nice comments, below, regarding my career move. Since I'm a lifelong wage slave and a chicken, it's especially appreciated. But blog will still be blogs and so there are snarky comments even on this topic (I can imagine some of these commenters snarking about pictures of a bloggers' new baby: "Ewwww, looks like Michael Moore!"). The snark:

So now you're a full-time hypester eh?frozen throne nocd 1.5

A classic case of jumping on a bandwagon without knowing what's really going on. But we live in an age of dilettantes and lightweights. 15-second attention spans demand 15-second pundits and prognosticators. I can just see Gladwell writing a retrospective on this craze in a year or two...

Onward

Onward

: I just quit my job at Advance.net to do lots of new things -- a damned career smorgasbord -- all related to changing news and to citizens' media:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I'm going to work on content development About.com, on a consulting basis, working with Martin Nisenholtz at The New York Times Company, whom I've known and respected for more than 10 years now. What excites me today is the meeting of mainstream media and citizens' media and About at The New York Times Company is just that. But this is more than an old-media property buying into new-media (as I first saw it); it's more than smart diversification (which the news business needs). About.com can be a platform for distributed media and I'm eager to explore all the great things that will come of that. But first, I'm looking forward to working with the amazing army of About guides, who have created a great resource of content and service online. I'm doing this part-time, as a consultant, so I'll be free to continue blogging and doing other things, including:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I will act as editor in chief of a new news start-up founded by Upendra Shardanand (ex Firefly, Microsoft Passport, AOL, and Time Warner) and a sterling team. More than a year ago, when Upendra first described his idea to me, I lurched at it. I was so determined to work on this that I gave up plans to start my own blog company. The start-up remains in stealth mode -- this is the first public mention of it -- but you'll hear more about it soon. (And we are, of course, hiring engineers.)frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I got a chance to write the new media curriculum for the new City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, collaborating on it with Dean Stephen Shepard (former editor-in-chief of Business Week), Merrill Brown, Judy Watson of CUNY, and more faculty there. I will continue to work with CUNY as the school launches and I can't wait until fall 2006, when the school welcomes the generation of students who will shape the future of news. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I am hanging out my consulting shingle to take on a few good projects. The first: I'll continue to work with Advance.net on a magazine/online assigment. I've joined a few advisory boards. And maybe I can even get paid for the occasional speech. I am now Buzzmachine LLC.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I have a book I'm finally ready to start writing and I'm thinking about writing some of it here on this blog. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And, of course, I will blog -- blog more, I hope. Blogging has changed my career and opened all these doors. I've learned a tremendous amount (or think I have) about the future of the press thanks to the conversation I've had here with you all. So thank you. I will continue the conversation and continue learning and changing my old ideas about media until somebody pries my laptop off my cold, dead lap. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Because I'll be working with the Times Company, I'll usually refrain from blogging about their business and policies, just as I did when it came to Advance's business at Conde Nast and its newspapers (apart from the occasional plug for hyperlocal... and I swear, I never fed Gawker any Conde elevator reports). In the interest of full disclosure, this is why I did not blog about (or answer a few interview requests regarding) The Times' new TimesSelect premium service. So have I sold out to The Man? Of course, I have. I did that more than 30 years ago, when I went to work for my first newspaper. You should always judge what I say about big media in the context of fact that big media bought the suit I wear (and a damned nice suit it is, thank you). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Now allow me to say a few things about Advance.net and my boss, Steve Newhouse, who is a real visionary and strategic thinker in the press and new media. It's because of Steve's enthusiasm for community that we opened our newspaper-related services to interactivity more aggressively than any other publisher I know. I'm proud that a great staff at Advance -- led by my friend and colleague from Entertainment Weekly, Peter Hauck -- built the top news sites in every one of the company's markets. I'm also glad that I got to work on the start of CondeNet's Epicurious, Concierge, and Style with Rochelle Udell, Joan Feeney, and other creative editors. I have the highest respect for the Newhouse family and their company and I'm delighted that I'll continue to work with them. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Thanks for indulging me my little bit of personal news. Now back to blogging....frozen throne nocd 1.5

The new imperialism

The new imperialism

: Blogs continue to spread across big media. A few German blogging friends email to report that NetZeitung, the pioneering net-only newspaper, is taking up blogging. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Calling all cars

Calling all cars

: Wow. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Go look at the amazing ChicagoCrime.org, which takes feeds of data on crimes throughout the city and plots them on GoogleMaps by neighborhood and type and even provides RSS feeds for crimes reported on every police beat and block. frozen throne nocd 1.5

When I started in this online biz, lo, more than a decade ago, this was one of the blue-sky ideas we always heard would be so cool. Well, once data is in a data base and somebody can get a feed of it and parse it, the cool is possible. frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is the hyperlocalest of hyperlocal news. [via Lost Remote]frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And I shouldn't be surprised that the genius -- and I mean genius -- behind this is Adrian Holovaty, who's changing media and the world from Kansas. frozen throne nocd 1.5

When editors and politicians are customer-service representatives

When editors and politicians are customer-service representatives

: I spent the afternoon yesterday with Craig Newmark, always a delightful trip. And during various conversations, he unfailingly makes reference to customer service. People usually react as to a punchline when the founder of the incredibly successful Craigslist says he is founder and customer service representative. But for Craig, it's not a joke. It's a creed. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Rory O'Connor does a great job capturing that view from Craig's Q&A at the Personal Democracy Forum:

What’s behind its amazing, word-of-mouth success? “We provide a simple and effective community service,” explains Newmark. “We are persistent about basic values, and establishing a culture, systems and structures of trust and goodwill.”frozen throne nocd 1.5

Sounds simple enough. So why isn’t there a “Craigslist for Politics” yet? According to Newmark, it’s because there’s a lack of trust in our political system. “At Craigslist, we view customer service as a high expression of moral values,” he noted. “People are looking for institutions that reflect their values. Our political parties are not service organizations.”frozen throne nocd 1.5

Of late, Newmark added, he has been looking into media rather than politics. “News operations must also deal with issues of morals and trust,” he said. “We need better, more moral and trustworthy information.”

Fight! Fight!

Fight! Fight!

: Denton v. Roshan.
: UPDATE: The full Denton report.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Free pays

Free pays

: The Wall Street Journal has appointed Carl Bialik -- aka the Numbers Guy who does a great job tearing down funny math in media -- to a new post as the free-content editor. For months now, WSJ.com, under nice-guy Bill Grueskin, has been sending links to freed-up content to bloggers and it has worked so well they've now instituted it as a job. frozen throne nocd 1.5

You vill do vhat I say

You vill do vhat I say

: That's the punchline; see the joke here. frozen throne nocd 1.5

More = merrier

More = merrier

: Antonia Zerbisias, a leading columnist for the Toronto Star, is now a blogger. [via Doskoch]frozen throne nocd 1.5

Live, from New York, it's next fall!

Live, from New York, it's next fall!

: NY Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan liveblogs the NBC upfronts. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The joyous chicken

The joyous chicken

: Amanda Bennett, editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, welcomes Dan Rubin to his new post as official blogger with this:

Reader Carey O'Donnell of Haddonfield urged me to plunge the paper more heavily into that online fray.frozen throne nocd 1.5

"Bloggers are your readers," he said over drinks at the Happy Rooster. More important, he said, they are the readers of the future. Don't shun them, he said, and don't ignore them. Embrace them. Both sides will benefit.

But she can't resist a little snipe at the bloggers:

For all the hand-wringing about breaches in journalistic ethics, we have high standards of verification, truth-telling, testing and triangulating information that the freewheeling blogosphere could benefit from.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The world of bloggers, which often rests on opinion, assertion, untested assumptions and unwarranted conclusions, is developing its own system of checks and balances, based in large part on diverse audiences, near-instant response times, and the ability to quickly incorporate new evidence.

But she adds:

Soon, I'll be telling you more about how we will be entering into community conversations with our readers through new Neighbors publications and local home pages. Many more of us - including me - will be blogging. Reporters, artists, photographers, columnists will be appearing more online as well as in print. Come watch it happen.

Oh, and by the way, what heartens me most in this is that the grand tradition of journalism -- hanging out for drinks at places with names like the Happy Rooster -- is not dead. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The family that podcasts together...

The family that podcasts together...

: The Wilson family podcasts. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Fight! Fight!

Fight! Fight!

: Wolcott vs. Podhoretz vs. Wolcott. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Winer vs. Curry. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Big city blogger

Big city blogger

: The Philadelphia Inquirer has assigned reporter Daniel Rubin to the blog beat but he's going to do far more than write about blogs: He has started a new blog at the paper as a gathering place for local blogs and blog news; he will bring the voice of bloggers into the paper every way he can imagine; he will try to turn the newspaper into a conversation; and he will cover news via blog (he's making the Personal Democracy Forum Monday his maiden voyage). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Dan's a good guy. I've spent long conversations with him on various media and blog stories. He is a topnotch reporter and in the process of covering these worlds he was bitten by the blog bug, bad. I expect great things from him. In his intro post, Dan says:

For those fretting about the death of serious journalism, know that we at the Brontosaurus on Broad Street care, and are working hard for those who share our values.

Blogging the election... Iran's, that is

Blogging the election... Iran's, that is

: Hossein Derkhshan and others have started a very impressive blog to cover the upcoming Iranian election at Iranscan.net, in cooperation with Open Democracy. Hoder is also working on a new and attractive Persian news site called Rooz. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Gillmor's world

Gillmor's world

: The first sprout of Dan Gillmor's Citizen's Media is peeking above the ground with Bayosphere. It's not fully evident what it's going to be yet but it will be. frozen throne nocd 1.5

To a crispy, golden brown

To a crispy, golden brown

: Parody is hard but Huffington Toast pulls it off. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Schmodcast

Schmodcast

: I wanted to hear the debut of Adam Curry's new PodShow on Sirius but my damned satellite service (I am both a customer and stockholder) has apparently broken its internet streaming tonight (great timing) and Curry's ownsite is also broken (great timing II). frozen throne nocd 1.5

So I'm making a damned fool of myself sitting in the car in the driveway with my laptop (ain't wi-fi amazing; can we say that enough?) listening to Adam's choices of podcasts and blogging about it. The good news: Some are musical, with neat mashups; that's the best part by far. The bad news: I just heard a really boring Canadian podcaster (no, that is not redundant and shame on you for thinking so) and Madge Weinstein, who is about as entertaining as and sounds like Mark Harris (of Martha Ray and Howard Stern fame). It's not a fair sample, since I have to run in and out of the house and turn the car on and off, but it is a mixed bag. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Oh, and I wish they had links to all the podcasts played to both give credit and to let me listen to more if I want. Metadata, man, metadata. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Curry ends by playing his own Daily Source Code podcast... apparently all 40 minutes of it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Close enough for Current

Close enough for Current

: Current.TV blogger Robin Sloan reacts to my post on tolerance for lower-quality video opening up new content possibilities:

You know, I remember asking Current broadcast facility manager Brett Kotheimer what video quality we'd consider a minimum threshold for VC2. His answer surprised me: I expected him to say, "Oh, standard DV with good lighting" or something. Instead he said (and I paraphrase): "Hey, as long as there's a recognizable image, it's potentially useful."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Brett is serious about running a facility that uses professional expertise to make sure Current's signal is rock-solid and broadcast-quality -- and puts it to work in service of all kinds and qualities of video, from the sharpest in-house field reports to the roughest (but, perhaps, most compelling) VC2 submissions.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Again: Bring on the webcams, baby.

The tofu demographic

The tofu demographic

: Blogads adds to its helpful clumpings of citizens' media with the liberal blog network. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogvision

Blogvision

: Jon Stewart lampoons the blog segments on cable news (Crooks & Liars has the video) and, as always, he's right. There's plenty to make fun of:

Wow. By reading the blogs on TV, the 24-hour cable channels have combined the visual pizzazz of a text file with the deep insight of a 90-second cable segment.

Wow. That's the same cutting-edge technology that powers VoyeurDorm.com.

Kudos to MSNBC for finally using blogs to give voice to the already-voiced.

So why are the cable news networks embracing the blogs? Rob Corddry says it's because of terror of this new animal in the jungle.... and besides, those CNN blog chicks are hot. (Well, he thinks they are.)frozen throne nocd 1.5

But seriously, folks... If you're going to try to jump on the -- Stewart wink -- blogwagon, how should you do it? Should you do it?frozen throne nocd 1.5

CNN has the chicks reading the geeks. MSNBC started by having bloggers actually on the air and I thought that was good (being one of them). Last week, they switched format, it seems, to have producer and nice guy Tony Maciulis do the reports: He's good at it. Everybody's reading text off a screen and, yes, it does make for a straight line. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So what's the point? Well, sure, TV wants to get the geek-cool ruboff of this blog thing. But I think it's good that they're also promoting these new voices: The more the better. Have they found the right way to do it? Not yet. frozen throne nocd 1.5

MSNBC has talked about having a blog reporter and then having bloggers on to have actual opinions. I think may end up being a good way to go. frozen throne nocd 1.5

This week, MSNBC's Connected had me on not do the blog report -- I'll miss that question: 'What's happening in the blogosphere, BlogDaddy?' -- but instead to have actual opinions about the news media and the internet. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I think we'll end up with a hybrid: Blog reports do give a fresh breeze of vox pop on the air. Bloggers as guests get to bring new perspectives and voices to TV (and radio and print). And what I still want to see is citizens creating their own reports and commentary -- vlogs, podcasts, whatever -- and getting those on the air. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Ed Cone comments here... without the cam. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Who's the teacher?

Who's the teacher?

: Amy Gahran lists what journalists can learn from bloggers and bloggers from journalists and both together. A very good list. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The fame parade

The fame parade

: Arianna certainly knows the famous and they keep coming. Today has posts from former blogger Bill Maher, former blogger Gary Hart, Larry David (supporting Bolton), Tina Brown (nicely done on her fade out from TV), Rob Reiner, Jerry Brown, Joe Scarborough, Larry Gelbart, Rob Reiner, Hiam Saban, Jon Corzine, Walter Cronkite.... Now if she can just get Letterman to blog....frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And in a smart business movie, Arianna is syndicating the fame blog via Tribune. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And a good thing it is

And a good thing it is

: Andrew Sullivan confesses.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Video help

Video help

: Trey Jackson is the videographer of blogs. He records and makes available all kinds of blogworthy bits from TV -- because the networks don't do it (and they should). Not surprisingly, his bandwidth bill is a killer. He needs help. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog biz

Blog biz

: The NY Times announced changes to its business sections, including:

A Palestinian blogger

A Palestinian blogger

: Just starting. [Thanks, Paul Edwards]frozen throne nocd 1.5

Arianna launches

Arianna launches

: Arianna Huffington's blog -- half Drudge/Sploid, half celebrity bon mot catcher -- is live. Star bloggers on the home page include Mike Nichols, Ellen DeGeneres (on horseback), John Cusack, Harry Shearer (who'll eat the press), Michael Isikoff, David Frum, Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Brad Hall (together), and David Mamet (being most Mametty); more bloggers of lesser names appear on the blog within the blog (which has a lengthy blogroll upon which I'm pleased to appear). frozen throne nocd 1.5

A definition of blogs

A definition of blogs

: I've been thinking about Adam Cohen's fretting over blog ethics and how he and many others try to see blogs in their context as an institution, as media, as journalism. I said below that journalism is institutional and blogs are personal, journalism has become dispassionate and blogs are passionate. I've tried to refine that into a simpler, clearer definition of blogs. Try this one for size:

Blogs are the voices of citizens in conversation.

Tale wags

Tale wags

: Chris Anderson reacts to the post below, agreeing that it's mistaken to try to turn blogs into an institution:

You can find responsible and irresponsible blogs, journalistic and non-journalistic ones, male-dominated clusters and female-dominated clusters, snarky blogs and serious blogs, and superficial, derivative, navel-gazing ones alongside ones of such depth and scholarship that they put even the serious press to shame.frozen throne nocd 1.5

In short, blogs are a Long Tail, and it is always a mistake to generalize about the quality or nature of content in the Long Tail--it is, by definition, variable and diverse.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The presumption that things that are less popular are less good is a classic fallacy; indeed,tail content is often of higher quality than head content, simply because it is uncompromising. Content that is perfectly targeted for some people will be, by definition, wrong for other people--and that's okay.

Rosen speaks

Rosen speaks

: Jay Rosen is off to Australia for a big-deal speech; he has posted the first part here. And in his absence, Len Witt will be pressthinking for him.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Gawking

Gawking

: The NY Times Sunday biz section has a wet kiss for my friend Nick Denton and Gawker Media. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogging before journalism

Blogging before journalism

: Business Week's Stephen Baker has a great moment in journalism and blogging today: He asks the audience for questions before he interviews Arianna Huffington on her new blog venture. That's the way to do it: involving the public in your journalism, asking them what they want asked. frozen throne nocd 1.5

My suggestions, posted there (eventually):

Thanks for asking!...frozen throne nocd 1.5

* I'd ask whether she will include only the famous or whether she'll make some people famous. frozen throne nocd 1.5

* Did I read correctly that she has a relationship with Tribune? (Couldn't believe my eyes and perhaps I shouldn't.)frozen throne nocd 1.5

* Is she going to pay her contributors? Or is having rich people who don't need the money the smartest business model going?frozen throne nocd 1.5

* Will she share the wealth with other bloggers in other ways: Will she have a blogroll to link out and give traffic love to the bloggers she loves?frozen throne nocd 1.5

* Will she insist that the contributors link (as any blogger must) or will they merely -- as I blogged the announcement -- throw bon mots that she catches? frozen throne nocd 1.5

* Will her bloggers end up in conversations (as they must to be bloggers)?frozen throne nocd 1.5

* What's the essence of her blog -- the bon mots of the famous? the Huffington party line? the first-person People?

World development

World development

: To my own surprise, on Tuesday I'm speaking to a World Bank session for web developers from lots of organizations, including the UN and others. I'll be talking from the viewpoint of a spectator to this wonderful world of citizens' media and will recommend that if they want to talk to people who really know how to do this they should see Hossein Derakhshan, Rebecca McKinnon, Ethan Zuckerman, Joi Ito, et al. The session is supposed to be webcast but I think that may be only for members of their Web for Development community. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Open Media 100

Open Media 100

: Dave Sifry and Always On are asking for your nominations for the Open Media 100. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Open Source radio

Open Source radio

: Chris Lydon's new Open Source radio show is coming on the air May 30: "A lively, hour-long, on-air conversation designed to capture "the sound of the Web" with the popular Christopher Lydon engaging callers, e-mailers, and bloggers from around the world." Bravo. I'm hoping I get to hear it on podcast and Sirius. [via Dave]frozen throne nocd 1.5

Imported

Imported

: I'm sorry, but I don't understand why the Guardian imported Kos to blog the British election -- and write lines like this: "Exit polls numbers have dominated the coverage of the election up until now, and it's no wonder. It satiates our desire to get some metric of progress, and it helps fill the dead airtime between the polls closing and actual results." [let's all use "satiate" in a sentence] -- when there are plenty of great Brit bloggers. No offense to Kos, but I'd rather hear another British voice. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Pot calls kettle hot

Pot calls kettle hot

: NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin writes a most befuddling column today calling blogs "amoral." frozen throne nocd 1.5

His excuse: An NPR reporter put up the redacted report on the shooting of the car carrying an Italian communist journalist/hostage in Iraq and bloggers discovered when they downloaded it that they could read and reported the redacted pieces, including some that affect security. Thus, Dvorkin concludes:

...the blogosphere has proven once again to be an amoral place with few rules. The consequences for misbehavior are still vague. The possibility of civic responsibility remains remote. It is a place where the philosophy of "who posts first, wins" predominates.

Because a blogger does something you say is wrong, Mr. Dvorkin, all bloggers are now amoral? By that logic, then, when someone at NPR says something liberal, then all of NPR is liberal. (Hmmm.) And if a reporter lies then all reporters lie?frozen throne nocd 1.5

NPR screwed up but when that's discovered it's the bloggers who are amoral?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Few rules? Actually, there are many rules -- but they're not necessarily your rules, they are the rules of the public you serve. They sometimes have different rules and often, sir, you and your network and our profession fail their rules. Who made Dan Rather honest? Journalists or bloggers?frozen throne nocd 1.5

You dismiss bloggers and their rules and thus your audience and the public in one broad slap. You separate yourself from the public you want to serve. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And you do so with attitude: "Once again," you say without links or citations, "once again" blogs prove to be amoral. Give us your evidence, please. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Civic responsibility? I'd say that blogs are a living expression of civic responsibility -- they are the citizens holding the powerful responsible. What could be a better expression?frozen throne nocd 1.5

As for the attitude that he who posts first wins: Well, isn't that how all news media -- yes, even NPR -- act? Do you really want to be 10th with the big story?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Now get aloada this NPR hubris:

At the same time, readership for newspapers and viewers of network television news continue to fall.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Public radio -- for the moment -- seems exempt from that trend. Public radio's listenership continues to rise. But NPR needs to know what it is doing right to attract these new listeners. Is there a downside to this growth?

He goes on to say that media is edging close to bloggers -- even on NPR:

Even one of NPR's newest programs, Day To Day is collaborating with Slate.com, the online magazine. On NPR, these online journalists contribute their editorial perspectives and edgy insights -- with gasps of dismay from some listeners and occasionally from the ombudsman too.

He continues:

The appeal of the blogs? Humor seems to be the biggest attraction. Ironic detachment from the news, an ability to deflate egos and refreshing, undisguised opinion are also valued. All are antithetical to most news organizations.

Humor? Hey, we're human. When you don't laugh at the absurd in the news -- and there's plenty that absurd and funny -- you once again separate yourself from the public. You snot up the news. You make the news dull and pompous. And you wonder why people turn elsewhere?frozen throne nocd 1.5

"Undisguised opinion"? Beats the hell out of disguised opinion, which is what too much of the public sees in too much journalism.

American newspapers traditionally and scrupulously segregate fact-based reporting from opinion by designating pages for each. Radio and television try to ensure that opinion remains secondary to reporting. Conclusions should be drawn warily. Bloggers tend not to care if they, and their readers conflate opinion and fact. It's part of the appeal of the blogosphere.frozen throne nocd 1.5

As news organizations fight to regain their battered credibility and vanishing audiences, the blogs and the number of people who read them continue to grow. The blogs entertain, they provoke, and they are not constrained by journalistic standards of truth telling.

In an attempt to find allies -- fellow dinosaurs huddling against the cold of their ice age -- Dvorkin quotes the outgoing ombudsman of the Washington Post:

The ombudsman at The Washington Post, Michael Getler, has made similar complaints about his e-mail being clogged by the blogs.

And actually, Mr. Ombudsman, I think it would be wrong to reveal information from that report that could compromise security. I'll bet even some of the people who did it would think it is wrong if they realized what they were doing. And so perhaps the better thing in your role would be to try to educate them and teach them the values of journalism to improve the public discourse. Instead, you sneer at it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Or should I say you roar at it?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Biz blogs

Biz blogs

: By the way, Business Week's blogs are good and they're on my RSS list (except they keep crashing FeedDemon on me). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Next: ConCon

Next: ConCon

: Plans for the first PodcastCon -- at UNC over some weekend -- are underway. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The reaggregated news

The reaggregated news

: Matt McAlister takes Hypergene's great Del.icio.us links and turns them into a newsfeed on The Industry Standard. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Hyperlocal launch: Backfence.com

Hyperlocal launch: Backfence.com

: BackFence.com, the hyperlocal venture started by Mark Potts (ex WashingtonPost.com), is up and it looks very good. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I am days (I hope) away from launching town blogs in three day-job markets and they will look quite similar because Mark and I have lshared notes and have long been following the same good local efforts -- most notably, NorthwestVoice.com and GoSkokie -- and have long agreed about what a town web site can and should be. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The question remains for all of us what a town web site will be once it is handed over to the people. Will they write? Will they read? Will they talk? Will they advertise? I believe they will. Mark is betting a new company on the belief that they will. And so it is a brave move to be the guy to do that. frozen throne nocd 1.5

If Backfence succeeds a lot of good things come out of it for local news: We'll get more news, more conversation, more viewpoints, and a new medium for very local advertising to support all that. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog to Bill

Blog to Bill

: Engadget snags an interview with Bill Gates. The humility is a bit overpowering: The piece starts telling us what we won't read (somebody buy Pete a course in Calacanis hype!). But it covers lots of territory, starting with games, in two parts. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Pod(cast) people

Pod(cast) people

: It had to kill podcast pioneer Adam Curry and Sirius that Viacom and its YOURadio beat them to the punch with an announcement, but it's still big and good news that Curry is going to host four hours of podcast programming -- citizens' radio -- on Sirius. frozen throne nocd 1.5

No nuclear secrets

No nuclear secrets

: The NY Times reports today on a revolution-via-blog carried out at even the highly secret Los Alamos National Lab.

Several outside experts said that the director's quick departure was inevitable and that the blog's attacks were playing a significant role.frozen throne nocd 1.5

"Nanos is leaving," said Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a private organization in Albuquerque that monitors weapons laboratories. "The blog changed the climate, giving people an outlet they didn't have before."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogs seem to be everywhere. But this one is unusual, in that the Los Alamos National Laboratory, isolated in the mountains of New Mexico, has a long history of maintaining the highest level of federal secrecy. The lab's very existence was once classified. Today, barbed wire rings many of its buildings, federal agents monitor its communications, and its employees are constantly reminded that loose lips sink ships.

Consumer-controlled advertising

Consumer-controlled advertising

: Ross Mayfield (who just raised more money for SocialText... congratulations!) reports that consumer-controlled, sell-side, publisher-driven (whatever the hell we're going to call it) advertising is arriving in France with Les Influencers, which isn't about money changing hands (yet) but is about people recommending what they like. And the brain behind this leaves a comment explaining more and revealing that they're working on the flipside: Demandeurs.net.frozen throne nocd 1.5

What blogs are and are not

What blogs are and are not

: Go read Doc's PowerPoint to Les Blogs on why blogs are not content but are speech and why that matters. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Tagged

Tagged

: Clay Shirky leads off a new group blog on tagging, which I hope and assume will blossom into a salon on what comes after taxonomy. For example....frozen throne nocd 1.5

: We are tagging not just content but also people... and behaviors... and processes... frozen throne nocd 1.5

If I can be assured that I won't be the victim of spam, impersonation, or privacy violations (big if's), I want to be tagged so that as I go from site to site, I get what I want: Give me my local content, give me the ads I'm interested in, don't tell me what I already know, find me the job I want.... It's not a cookie but a tag I control. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: When I was at the Associated Press for a lunch recently -- among a group of smart execs who will have a big impact on the future of news not just from the wire service but also across the industry and the internet -- we speculated on the need for a content cookie: a tag that travels with content as it is syndicated. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So, for example, a wire story about, say, Apple could travel with meta data that allows the site that uses it to run contextual ads reliably targeted. And as people read and link to that story in a distributed world, it would be good to gather aggregated meta data, to find out how popular it is, who is reading it, and -- most important -- what other topics (and audience) are associated with it. This allows people to find the story more effectively in search engines and such and also educates the content provider to improve future stories. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: At Fred Wilson's Exploding TV lunch a few months ago, we also talked about the need for video (and audio) that is distributed openly (not streamed) via BitTorrent and other means to carry tags and other meta data -- content cookies -- with them so that sponsor who will kill to support this content -- they've wanted to turn the internet into TV from the start -- can measure audience and demographics and serve and target ads (cue the people tags). At the same time, like magnets, the content should attract tags and meta data from the audience and their behaviors (e.g., people filed it under a topic or people like this watched it).frozen throne nocd 1.5

When this happens, the old networks will truly explode, for this allows you to share content and recommend and distribute it more efficiently than any old network can (witness my favorite Jon Stewart example) and it allows creators to be supported. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: AND: I should have added this and in response to a few frightened comments, I will:frozen throne nocd 1.5

Transparency and control are essential to this. I should control my tags and use them at my will; that's part of the point of tagging, after all. So I can tell an online service where I am so I can get local news or weather or business listings; that would be convienient. I can tell Google I want results in English and German because I read both (sort of). I can tell employers about me and have them rush to my door because they need a me. That only works if I control the tagging and the use of it is transparent. The same is true of tagging content: It only works if you can see the tags and add them yourself and swarm around the best ones. Sorry. I should have added that. frozen throne nocd 1.5

New voices

New voices

: I've been remiss in not linking to the announcement of grants to 10 citizens' media projects from the J-Lab, led by Jan Schaffer. I was on the advisory board and for those 10 spots, we got well more than 200 applications! There are tons of great ideas and pent-up publishing (and broadcasting and blogging) energy and imagination. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Buy me

Buy me

: New stuff regarding a few ad efforts for blogs: frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Greg Lindsay writes about John Battelle's new venture -- which is revealing itself as slowly as a high-class stripper. It's about acting as an agent to star blogs. With a set of bloggers of a certain size and weight, I think this will work well. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Meanwhile, Roger L. Simon, Charles Johnson, Winds of Change, and Marc Danziger team up with Tim Oren to start their own ad network. I'm not sure what the ad pitch is for a network of primarily political blogs that tilts strongly starboard but I wish them luck; they'll be stronger together than apart. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And every blogger's friend, Henry Copeland, keeps adding new blog mininetworks, like this one for food. I can't find the full list; this post comes closest. I think this is the way to go. It's about gathering critical mass for advertisers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But we're not at critical mass yet. And we need to stop viewing this just from our end of the pipe -- blogs that like each other or want to work together, whether the lists above or Denton's or Calacanis' -- and instead, look at it from the advertisers' end: They want to put together ad hoc networks of blogs that meet their specific goals, which include both targeting and size. We don't have the means to give that to them. All of which leads me to my predictable pitch:frozen throne nocd 1.5

I believe advertising on citizens' media -- not just blogs but also other text, audio, and video content -- will truly explode only when there are more metrics about our medium, more attention to the needs of marketers (e.g., cookies in RSS readers), and an open-source ad call.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Podcasts are dead

Podcasts are dead

: Yes, Paris Hilton killed them. Un-like-bearable.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Local blogging goes primetime

Local blogging goes primetime

: Rex (see post below) tells us that a Nashville TV station has a very good local blog -- with spiffy local blog aggregation -- by a former waitress who also blogs here. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Nevermind

Nevermind

: Rex has an Emily Littela moment. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Bush podcasts

Bush podcasts... sort of

: Andrew Leyden of Penguin Radio created a podcast of Bush's weekly radio addresses. frozen throne nocd 1.5

KYOURADIO

KYOURADIO

: I'm way jazzed about Infinity's radio station by the people: KYOURADIO.com. Will talk about it on MSNBC's Connected at 5p ET. Will write about it later. Tipping point. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Ratings

Ratings

: Glenn Reynolds jokes that FoxNews' lead over CNN is declining now that CNN is paying attention to blogs. Well, actually, MSNBC President Rick Kaplan said at a Harvard confab weeks ago that he can track ratings growth in shows to blog diligence. He's not including blogs in his network's shows because he thinks we're cute. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: If that is true, then the CBS Evening News could use some bloggin'. (Last night, by the way, Bob Schieffer marveled at podcasting.)frozen throne nocd 1.5

Undervalued

Undervalued

: My friend Dave Morgan of Tacoda writes a column in ClickZ arguing that we're undervaluing online to advertisers (and I'd add that we haven't even begun to value citizens' media to advertisers):

Publishers must price valuable contextual inventory at what it's worth -- a lot! Great content, loyal audiences, and a strong media brand should command a premium rate. Publishers shouldn't be afraid to ask for it. They must point out to media buyers that online audience numbers and online ad views are real, unlike TV ratings or print circulation, which only measure distribution and have little connection to actual ad views. On that basis, online ad CPMs should be valued at least three times more than their offline counterparts.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Publishers should stop selling out-of-context inventory in ways that devalue their own brands and hurt consumers who are tired of cluttered Web pages with irrelevant ads. They should use the extraordinary array of audience analytics tools and targeting services and learn how to deliver relevant ads in these pages.

Spammer

Spammer

: I just got comment spam from this piece of monkeyshit. Why don't you go and tell him what you think of spammers?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Mainstreaming media (continued)

Mainstreaming media (continued)

: As is his habit, David Weinberger started a fascinating conversation out of his decision to wipe off his TV makeup and leave the set of mainstream media. Here's his original post. Pay special attention to the comments there, including Jay Rosen's nattering dialogue with David. Here's my response to David. And in the comnents here, David responded in turn and here's the juicy bit:

... - It'd be easy to pretend this is a simple situation: Bad MSM, good bloggers. And, frankly, at this point I do believe that the mainstream media's values have been corrupted. So, taken as generalizations, yeah, sure bad MSM, good bloggers. But specific real cases are always complex. We have producers who are terrific people, and who may wish they could do more news and less crap. We have bloggers out to promote the blogosphere but in an environment where we don't get to set the rules. We have the usual melange of human motivation, as Jeff so honestly declares. It's complex, and simple reactions such as "Fuck 'em, I quit" can be betrayals of the complex nature of the situation. I had the flu and was presented with an egregious case of media pandering -- the Jane Fonda spit fest -- so I blurted out that this wasn't for me. I reduced a complex situation to a binary choice. I'm not sorry, but I'm not proud either.

David:frozen throne nocd 1.5

I did not address the important issue you raised in your post -- really, at the start of Jay Rosen's socratic badgering of you in the comments there -- and again in your response here. And it's the real issue, of course:frozen throne nocd 1.5

Have "mainstream media's values been corrupted"?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, uh, duh, yeah. See Michael Jackson, OJ, cable-news yellfests, witchhunts, local TV pyromania... everybody has a catalogue. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And you are not of mainstream media.frozen throne nocd 1.5

So correct me if I'm wrong, but here's what happened: Touched by those MSM cooties and fearing contamination, you recoiled and shouted inside: "Let me out! Let me out! Before it's too late!"frozen throne nocd 1.5

I, on the other hand, corrupted and cootied since age 17, recognize and live with those issues but find small joy in small change: "Bloggers on TV. Cool!"frozen throne nocd 1.5

The danger for a few of the commenters on your post -- not you, and you specifically pushed this notion aside -- is that they would reject mainstream media out of hand and wholly, throwing out the value of journalism along with its present-day folly. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The danger for me is that I ignore and add to the corruption: I answer the question, "What's the blogosphere saying about Michael Jackson, Jeff?" and I take small -- but still too much -- pride in quoting you, as it so happens, asking: "How do the journalists there -- people who got into the business because they are committed to an informed democracy -- feel about this outlandish pandering?" Oh, I asked the question. I even told the folks in little boxes on the screen with me that you were talking about us. But I didn't answer your question. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So that's the danger: corruption and cooties extend into our new and virginal not-a-medium-and-we-still-don't-know-what-to-call-what-ever-it-is: Bloggers, too, end up exhibiting the values of Michael-Jacksoned mainstream media. Let us out! Before it's too late!frozen throne nocd 1.5

But, of course, as you well recognize, there is also an opportunity: Bridging the gap, the separation (Jay Rosen's word), that has grown between the press and the public it serves. I believe blogs are the agent of that change, the bridge that can bring the press back to its public. And I believe they can do that best when they are heard. And that's why I find small joy in the MSNBC segments and CNN segments and Business Week cover story: Citizens speak. For only 90 seconds, perhaps. On an often-odd list of topics that MSM still picks and agendas it still sets. With all the odd hoo-ha of TV and slick publishing. But in still small voices, they speak. And that's good. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But let me make clear who wins in that exchange:frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogs don't need mainstream media.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Mainstream media needs blogs.
frozen throne nocd 1.5

Mainstreaming media

Mainstreaming media

: David Weinberger -- one of the five smartest and most decent people I've met in blogs (go ahead and guess the other four) -- fired himself from the (unpaid) blog gig on MSNBC after they suggested he should find mainstream blog reaction to that rude and ridiculous phooey ptooey into Jane Fonda's face. Go read his tale here and then Ed Cone's reaction and return and I'll tell you mine: frozen throne nocd 1.5

I like working with MSNBC on the blog segments, but I do it under different circumstances: frozen throne nocd 1.5

First, I've done TV, back in the days when I was a TV critic and I was called on to give views from the mountaintop on such profound topics as whither Cosby or whether Leno. So I've already made a fool of myself and experienced the hoo-ha of it all and that strange wave of sweaty embarrassment that comes over you when the lights go off. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Second, I'm already mediaman (by day and blogboy by night). I sold out to the man at age 17 -- and became the man sometime in my 30s -- and so I'm all too accustomed to the means and modes of mainstream media. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Third, because I work only a few miles from, as they say, MSNBC World Headquarters in beautiful downtown Secaucus, New Jersey, I've been in the studio many times and I've gotten to know and like the producers on Connected, the show that does most of the blog segments. Sharon Newman, the exec producer, is great: a pro's pro who's decisive and supportive and fun (when she speaks into my ear after a segment and tells me I done good when I fear I just went over the top, it makes everything OK). Her team of hard-working producers is wonderful to work with. The daytime booking boss, Mike Tanaka, was a dorm neighbor in college. Our worldwide blog friend Joe Trippi is involved. Cohost Monica Crowley has been warm and welcoming. And Ron Reagan called me Blog Daddy. So I have a direct connection you just don't get when you only stare into a black eye. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I have not yet had a case where they tried to get me to say something with which I would be uncomfortable -- and if they had, I wouldn't have done it. I ask what stories they are working on for the show to see whether I can find related blog comment (and sometimes, that yields more than one blog segment), but I often go in a different direction. A few times, they asked me whether I could find blog comment on a story they were working on, I said I couldn't, and they were fine with it. Once, though, I pooh-poohed their suggestion and I was wrong: The second time they wanted me to find Terry Schiavo blog links, I rolled my eyes and sighed and said that I was sure I couldn't because the first time I'd tried, all I saw was blog prayers (an oxymoron, to be sure). But then I looked for Schaivo discussion and I found I was way off: There was a flood of comment from many perspectives. By the fourth or fifth time I did Schiavo links, though, I will also confess that we were well into OD territory. frozen throne nocd 1.5

David objects to being asked to find mainstream bloggers from column-A and column-B -- as is the cable news habit -- on a mainstream topic. I understand that. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I have found that I have been able to leave the mainstream often. In the midst of the pretty-much-endless fawnfest over Pope Benedict XVI, I was glad to be able to quote from Andrew Sullivan's fears and trepidations at length. I have said more than once that blogs do not give the attention to Michael Jackson that TV news does and in one case -- when MSNBC and other cable networks put up clocks waiting for Jackson to arrive in court -- I quoted none other than David Weinberger expressing disgust at this and said that the hosts and I were at fault in this OD. I've talked about Maylasian blog pioneer Jeff Ooi's and Bahraini bloggers' problems with authorities. I've had plenty of bloggers I've quoted, apparently out of nowhere, who've email me and asked where the hell I found them (that's my secret). I've quoted mainstream bloggers here and there but most of the time, I've tried to find new voices I hadn't read before. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So why do I do this? Well, so far, it ain't for the money (zilch). Instead, I do it for:frozen throne nocd 1.5

1. Ego. I'll admit it. I like being on TV. frozen throne nocd 1.5

2. New voices. I'm not sure I deserve credit for this -- even though she has given me some -- but I quoted LaShawn Barber -- even though she and I disagree about many or most topics -- and she has ended up on MSNBC often. I got Kathy Shaidle in on the pope segment the other night. It's good to see big media finally listen to the voices of new people. And I measure diversty not by gender or race but by the freshness of the perspective.frozen throne nocd 1.5

3. Promoting blogs. Triumphalist that I am, I'm glad to see big media include citizens' media. And on MSNBC, vs. CNN, they have bloggers quoting bloggers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

4. Learning. I am learning a helluva about TV. As anyone who has watched any of my segments can attest, I have a lot more to learn. But I've gotten more comfortable staring into that black eye and telling a story. And I'm still jazzed that I got to broadcast from my den on my blogcam. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Could the segments be better? Of course. Are there issues? Yes, there are: As I mentioned once, they had a blogger on during the Schaivo story who went off a deepend and started talking about how Terry talked when they took the tubes out (and they didn't have a means of either making sure the guy wouldn't go wacky or issuing a caveat when he did... welcome to open TV). Would I chose every topic I report on? No, but neither would I have chosen many of the stories I had to write for newspapers or magazines (but in blogs, I get to chose every story I mention -- and I'm spoiled now). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Having said all that, I absolutely understand David's discomfort and support his decision (as he supports mine to be on the segments). Everytime I drive to the MSNBC studio, I drive by the Channel 9 studios where, when I was a critic, I walked off a tacky talk show because I was uncomfortasble. frozen throne nocd 1.5

David's perspective is an important lesson for any mainstream media outlet trying to find ways to work with citizen journalists: One perspective, one mindset, one medium does not automatically and easily fit the other's mold. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I am disappointed with a few of the comments under David's post, thwapping a rubber hammer under the kneecap to kick big, bad mainstream media for being big and bad.frozen throne nocd 1.5

I give points to MSNBC for recognizing and listening to and promoting blogs -- and bloggers -- and I look forward to seeing more of this on other networks and channels and shows in other publications. Every first step will be imperfect, but it's a first step toward opening media to new voices. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Dinosaur roar

Dinosaur roar

: The frequently clueless Editor & Publisher, voice of the newspaper industry (:cough:), is without clue again today with a piece that advises:

Blogs are a horrible way to deliver journalism. Forget them.

Tipping point (continued)

Tipping point (continued)

: Lost Remote find more evidence of big media embracing blogs at the RTNDA:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: "I think citizen journalism is a huge force that's going to get greater and greater. There's no stopping it," CNN President Klein said. "As long as we're clear what the audience created and what CNN created, there's room for both in this universe." frozen throne nocd 1.5

: "I don't know why Brian Williams isn't blogging right now," said NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker at a Yahoo conference. "We should be looking for a more interactive component... and be experimenting more." Zucker said he also envisioned a Katie Couric blog...frozen throne nocd 1.5

More on the tipping point here. frozen throne nocd 1.5

RTNDA links

RTNDA links on citizens' media

: I was virtually part of a panel on blogs and TV at the Radio-Television News Directors Association confab in Vegas (they were in Vegas and I was on the blogcast in New York but the sound was bad and I couldn't hear so I no doubt looked duh dumb and issued some non sequitors.... ah, technology). Anyway, I said I'd post some useful links for the crowd there. Here they are:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: A list of links to blogs of interest to media folks (done for the Aspen Institute last summer but not too out-of-date).frozen throne nocd 1.5

: My PowerPoint on citizens media and the newsroom for that Aspen gabfest. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: A few good directories of blogs. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I suggested having reporters to go Technorati.com and Pubsub as well as A9.com (as suggested by Steve Rubel here to have them find what bloggers are saying about the topics of their stories. I said I use these tools to find blogs for MSNBC blog reports. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I recommend reading Rupert Murdoch's speech on newspapers and online (the same holds for broadcast); Merrill Brown's Carnegie report on newspapers and youth (the same holds for broadcast); and Bob Garfield's report on the coming chaos in marketing and media. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: The demo vlog I made for the panel today. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: A few of my media posts: a Q&A on media's future at Corante... a new model for local citizens' journalism.... an email/blog exchange with NY Times Executive Editor Bill Keller... an argument that anyone can do journalism... two pieces on Dan Rather... two posts about challenges facing news media and ways to attack them... a post about blogcasting on MSNBC... too damned many posts about exploding TV, media, weblogs, and censorship and Howard Stern... frozen throne nocd 1.5

No, I don't expect anybody to read much from that last bullet; I've just been meaning to compile them in one place so I can find them (ah, if only Flickr had popularized tags when I started this blog). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Turning the other cheek and/or face

Turning the other cheek and/or face

: On the third of three "hits" -- as they say in TVland -- on MSNBC yesterday, I joined Kathy Shaidle of Relapsed Catholic (my suggestion) and Mark Shea of Catholic and Enjoying It, who were both very good on the tube. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I gave my what's-the-blogosphere-saying-on-this-Jeff spiel, starting with German reaction (Heiko Hebig says now the Germans will win the World Cub and "Wir sind wieder wer," which I hope I translated correctly as, we're somebody again). Next, I went to positive reaction like Kathy's, who had said she was glad this "will annoy all the right people." I quoted Curt Jester: "Of course besides having this wonderful man as Pope we get the added bonus of him really annoying the dissidents." And I quoted from Ratzinger Fan Club, which was hammered by traffic and down just then. I said they were triumphal.frozen throne nocd 1.5

But this was also a controversial election and to illustrate that I could find no better illustration than Andrew Sullivan, who said: "This was not an act of continuity. There is simply no other figure more extreme than the new Pope on the issues that divide the Church. No one.... And I expect the Church's immersion in the culture wars in the West - on every imaginable issue. For American Catholics, I foresee an accelerating exodus.... This was a statement as much as a selection. And the statement is that the church is circling the wagons."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Shea was then introduced and asked what he was seeing on the blogosphere and he said he was seeing what I saw. He then gave a very good interview and Kathy did likewise.frozen throne nocd 1.5

See the segment, thanks to Ian, here.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Then, this morning, I read Shea's blog. I see a very different picture there, about "a guy named Jeff Jarvis:"

After that, Jeff Jarvis came on to give the Polarization Report from the Blogosphere. It turns out that those who are happy about Ratzinger's election are "triumphalists" while those who are wetting themselves and losing control of basic bodily functions due to panic are freedom-loving custodians of the flickering flame of all that is good and decent in this world. In particular, Jarvis quoted Andrew Sullivan's magnificent shriek of hysteria with its absurd claim that this is some sort of radical discontinuity from the legacy of John Paul and the Council....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Kathy Shaidle, as possessor of the pair of XX chromosomes in the group, was anointed to speak on behalf of all Womankind, but failed her entire sex by not much caring whether women are ordained or not.

There are many viewpoints on this story. Blogs reflect that. I selected blogs that, in turn show that. Was I supposed to quote only the fawning posts? Oh, and yes, I would call the tone of many triumphal. And I don't think that's a bad word, being accused of blog triumphalism all the time. So what's wrong with a little Catholic triumphalism, eh?
frozen throne nocd 1.5

Duh

Duh

: On MSNBC's Connected last week, I quoted a blog about McDonald's 50th and I struggled over how to pronounce the name: EEE-ah-triss-dot-com, is what I settled on. And then I got email from the very nice blogger behind that blog. ieatrice is actually I... eat... rice. It's even next to a rice bowl. I'm such an idiot.frozen throne nocd 1.5

But this does remind me, bloggers: When I want to link to a blog (or plug it on TV), I'd love to say the name of the blogger. But it's amazing how many blogs don't bother to put their names on their home pages and not because they're trying to remain anonymous but just because they apparently assume that anyone reading already knows who they are.frozen throne nocd 1.5

As they say on NPR in letters time: Make sure to include your name and how to pronounce it.....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Freedom blogging

Freedom blogging

: Michael J. Totten, in Beirut, sends us to a Lebanese freedom blog from the tent city. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Around the world in 80 blogs

Around the world in 80 blogs

: Global Voices is maintaining a great list of worldwide blogs. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Meanwhile, back at this ranch, DeepBlog is a good list of good blogs. When people ask you for a starting point to read blogs, this looks like a decent suggestion. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And continuing this roundup of roundups, here's BlogHeaven from Beliefnet. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog catch-up day

Blog catch-up day

: There's something very wrong with your life when you start looking on Saturday as blog catch-up day. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Oggle

Oggle

: Google's video beta is up. I just uploaded a video to see how it works. You can charge for people to see your video. The program is only accepting videos now; displaying them comes later; they don't say when. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Verb form means 'to have psycho fit;' adjectival form means 'fast-talking'

Verb form means 'to have psycho fit;' adjectival form means 'fast-talking'

: David Weinberger joins the ever-expanding cast of bloggers on MSNBC and calls it doing a jarvis. See his good work here. frozen throne nocd 1.5

That's hot

That's hot

: Paris Hilton is going to podcast leading up to the release of her movie House of Wax. The fun starts April 29: "Join Paris and friends as she shops, parties, poses and publicizes..." Warner Brothers is even putting out a custom podcatcher (though I'm not sure why... these people are mad to brand anything). Anyway, if you didn't think podcasts were hot before, they're officially hot now. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Ad Age (NOT ONLINE, DAMN THEM, NOT EVEN FOR A LOYAL SUBSCRIBER LIKE ME) that Superman Returns will also have a podcast. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Anybody want to start the pool for the date of the first podcast-backlash story?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Speaking of scale

Speaking of scale

: The American Society of Newspaper Editors just reported that the number of newspaper journalists in America fell from 56,393 to 54,134 over the last four years. frozen throne nocd 1.5

In the last year, the number of bloggers roughly doubled to more than 8 million. OK, so say that only half of them are active. That's 4 million. Then say that only -- pick a number -- 10 percent of them even write about anything involving news. That would be 400,000. frozen throne nocd 1.5

If the news business can harnass the efforts of some of that number -- helping to support them with training, content, promotion, revenue -- imagine how news could grow. frozen throne nocd 1.5

yum.my

yum.my

: Del.icio.us gets funding from a great bunch, led by Union Square Ventures (Fred Wilson, Brad Burnham). [via Joi]frozen throne nocd 1.5

Paneled

Paneled

: Jay Rosen writes a great post suggesting that he, Wonkette, and I be fired from panels. He has some great nominees as replacements. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'll take it one step further: Stop the blogging panels. There's nothing more to say that hasn't been said (believe me). And the problem with these performances is that, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, they make us into monkeys. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Jay's quite right that what matters more is talking about ways this will (or won't) work as a business. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Actually the same can be said of the news business these days. In fact, it could be argued, that's a more urgent discussion since the big guys have lots to lose and the little guys have everything to gain. frozen throne nocd 1.5

There are real questions to answer but I'm not hearing folks ask them. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I sat at the last Harvard confab -- where we actually did, at last, get down to talking about new business models for news -- and thought this should be the topic for the forseeable future: Let's stop blathering and start building. frozen throne nocd 1.5

This weekend, I spoke with a guy who was helping someone with a presentation about the future of the news biz and we agreed it should include a clarion call to ask the tough questions. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And then, when it's time to look for answers, start with Jay's list of the people worth listening to. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: LATER: Rory O'Connor says in the LA Times:

Rather than fruitlessly debating whether bloggers are journalists, we should ponder how our newly transformed news environment can best function. Newspapers have a huge stake in this debate. Young people no longer get their news exclusively from the morning papers, evening network newscasts or other traditional outlets. Increasingly, they go online to find news — and read bloggers that professional journalists deem so dangerous.

Citizen photojournalists

Citizen photojournalists

: Two new efforts to get citizens to take and submit photos:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: The Guardian has an election-related Flickr gallery called the Blair Watch Project for Brit cits' pix. And meanwhile, in the stix...frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Augusta.com has golf fans sending in pix. [via Rex and Smartmobs]
frozen throne nocd 1.5

How many blogs?

How many blogs?

: We'd found some consistency in the number of blogs: Technorati, Pew, and PubSub are all around 8 million. But note in the post below that Perseus found 20 million. Doesn't much matter. The real answer is: Lots. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The death of /.?

The death of /.?

: No, of course, it's not the death of Slashdot, but in a good exploration of the Slashdot v. BoingBoing v. blog effect on traffic (which is to say, news), the WSJ's Jeremy Wagstaff says (in, regrettably, not a free link) that the /. effect is fizzling -- or more accurately, I think, is being overtaken:

When Jeff Henning, who runs an online survey service, Perseus Development, did a survey in late 2003 he found more than four million blogs. Earlier this year he found nearly 20 million. And while the vast majority don't survive, quite a few that do are becoming more and more popular. The daily traffic to just one blog hosting company, TypePad, overtook that of Slashdot last August. The point? Well, I believe the blogosphere -- and the Internet as a whole -- is maturing into a place where information finds its way from the fringes to the center. This is because the links between all these disparate sources of information are reaching critical mass.

A comment

A comment

: Ahmad from IraqiExpat leaves a wonderful comment in the Reporters Without Borders post below:

I was talking to an Iraqi anti-American once, and I asked him, do you want the Americans to leave, he said no that would be disasterous; then I said do you support their attacker, he said yes!!! He supported what he thought was resistance, yet at the same time he wanted Americans to stay!!! Can someone explain this?frozen throne nocd 1.5

True story.

A link

A link

: Bloggers often get email asking for a link. And the usual, proper, and logical bloggers' response is: Sorry, no, but I link to the things I want to talk about not the people who happen to email me. If we all put up the links of those who merely emailed us, we'd merely be a link exchange. And that business didn't go very far. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But today I got email I could resist berating and cajoling me for not noticing his blog and adding it to my blogroll. (I haven't added anybody to my blogroll in many months; I actually need to take a day off just to clean up the blogroll and the page and I can't afford to do that right now). He, of course, played to my ego, saying he reads me, even though we don't always agree, and saying that he leaves comments. OK, OK. So I read his blog and enjoyed it. So I'll break the rule and link to Egyptian Sand Monkey: "Be forewarned: The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Handshakes

Handshakes

: For MSNBC's Connected, I'm pointing to blogs commenting on Israeli President Mosche Katsav's historic -- we hope -- handshakes with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami at the pope's funeral. Katsav was born in Iran and he and Khatami spoke in Persian for an hour, some reports said. Links:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Jeff Perin at Opinionmeister says:

It does not mean that they are friendly, but it is a sign of progress, no matter how small. In the past, leaders of Arab states still at war with Israel and of Iran would not appear in the same room as a high Israeli official, much less extend a hand to be shaken. It is amazing that whoever arranged the seating allowed the presidents of Israel and Syria to be seated so close together. If nothing else, it shows that the heads of Syria and Iran are worried enough about the Bush Doctrine that they want good PR in the West.

: Spinbad says:

A non-event, but a huge non-event in the context of the history of Arab-Israel conflict, and a heart-warming tribute to the outreach and conciliation efforts of Pope John Paul II, may he rest in peace.

Its another in a long list of occurrances and happenings unthinkable 2 years ago which can't help but give the rest of the world hope that there will indeed be peace, stability and democracy in the Middle East's future.

: ANOTHER HANDSHAKE: Through an amusing big of miscommunication, I at first went looking for posts about another handshake -- between Prince Charles and Mugabe. Not nearly as earthshaking but, as all things Princely, amusing:frozen throne nocd 1.5

: SJHoward, a British blog says:

Considering his luck lately, the poor fellow was bound to make some diplomatic gaffe, and if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly....
So, for once, I’m going to stick up for Charles on this issue, since I think he probably did the only thing he could in the circumstances. Whether the circumstance should have been allowed to rise is another matter, but surely not one for the Prince.

: Ian Schwartz has the video.
frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogging behind bars

Blogging behind bars

: Well, this may be a first: An inmate blogger. PrisonPete doesn't reveal his real name or his crimes but says:

I am currently an inmate in a prison in New York State. I have spent the last eight years of my life living in various federally and state funded gated communities. I was a computer programmer before my career change to living off the taxpayers.

He talks about cooking spaghetti, his prison dorm, his appeals, his "hack" counselor....frozen throne nocd 1.5

The funniest thing about it is the ads Google puts on for the incarcerated demographic: Correctional furnishings and "Find Inmates for Dating."frozen throne nocd 1.5

: MORE: Well, he certainly isn't the first. There's a trend in prison blogging. Thanks to Aaron in the comments, we read "English Shaun" at the once-pseudonymous blog JonsJailJournal. He writes from the infamous Maricopa County prison in Arizona (the one where the warden dresses men in pink underwear and subjects them to cams and more). Here's a BBC story about him.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Jeralyn Merritt and TalkLeft just wrote about Meet Vernon, written (via mail) by a death-row inmate. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Any more?frozen throne nocd 1.5

What liberal media?

What liberal media?

: Reporters Without Borders nominates 60 blogs for freedom awards, among them many good bloggers and good friends. But I note that the only Iraqi blog they select is the anti-American Riverbend. Now if they want to nominate her, that's fine; I get it. But then for Reporters Without Borders to not nominate the many bloggers who have actually reported news in Iraq -- but aren't so anti-Ameerican -- is ridiculous... and revealing. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And from this side of the world, this would be my nominee. frozen throne nocd 1.5

We interrupt this feed with...

We interrupt this feed with...

: Dave Morgan is now a believer in RSS advertising. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The problem with life

The problem with life

: Dontja just hate it when life gets in the way of blogging? I've been too busy to blog much the last few days and because of the speed of this medium, it means that I miss stories: If you don't get on the bus right away, it just keeps driving. So I missed the CampusJ's correction of the NY Times and I missed Captain's Quarters rattling Canadian authorities (here's The Times' story). frozen throne nocd 1.5

: LATER: I also hadn't following the DeLay messes, but Slate kindly does a stink wrap-up.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogging freedom

Blogging freedom

: Michael J. Totten and Jim Hake are in Beirut, blogging the citizens' movement there and raising money to help support their vigil.

A sign taped to the elevator doors in my hotel lobby: "Due to the security situation we no longer allow food deliveries from outside the hotel. Thank you for understanding." And thanks for making me feel so much better.frozen throne nocd 1.5

But being here is not as scary as you might think....frozen throne nocd 1.5

On the contrary, the post-Hariri car bombs are more like those Europeans have come to expect from the Irish Republican Army and the Basque ETA. They seem deliberately planted so they won't kill anyone. What's happening here is an old school terrorist campaign, markedly unlike Al Qaeda's new mass-murdering terrorist onslaughts. The attacks seem cleverly calibrated to frighten people into submission without provoking yet another, stronger, anti-Syrian backlash.frozen throne nocd 1.5

"If the Syrians kill people with car bombs," one Lebanese told me, "they will be lynched in the streets."frozen throne nocd 1.5

The siege is, most likely, Syrian psychological warfare.

The impossible had happened

The impossible had happened

: I am blathered out. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I spent last night on a panel about -- of course -- journalism and blogging at Reuters (and it was fun). Today I met with mucketies at two news organizations about -- what else? -- blogging and journalism. Too many smart people saying smart things in too short a time. Blog OD. Blogs oozing from pores. Sweating blogs. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So how am I going to recover? I'll sit on the couch tonight -- warning: with cabernet -- and blog. frozen throne nocd 1.5

STOP THE PRESS(ES)! Denton v. Drudge!

STOP THE PRESS(ES)! Denton v. Drudge!

: Nick Denton launches his newest site today: News with attitude. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Sploid will go live at midday with BIG HEADLINES! and TOP NEWS! and WEIRD NEWS! and a TABLOID MENTALITY -- which is to say, honest news judgment that gets to the point of the story. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Its take on John Paul II: "POPE LEFT SECRET LETTER." On Peter Jennings: "JENNINGS FEARS LOSING ANCHOR HAIR." On politics: "DELAY'S FAMILY EARNED BIT $$$ FROM LOBBYISTS."frozen throne nocd 1.5

It delivers the headlines worth talking about, like Drudge. But it looks better -- like a cheesy German tabloid. And it puts the top news on top, where it should be. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And it won't spare Drudge's sacred cows. Denton says Sploid's politics are "anarcho-capitalist" -- think libertarian without the wacky shit. They'll go after the stupid and slothful on the left and the right and won't be afraid -- unlike Drudge -- to call media on its fawning over the pope.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Sploid is being written/edited/spat out by Choire Sicha, former Gawker... and by Ken Layne, everybody's favorite blogger and a founder of the lost and lamented online Tabloid who hasn't blogged in too f'ing long... and Henry Seltzer, a Gawker Media stalwart. This is an incredible team.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: See also Joe Hagan's story in the Observer about Drudge v. Sploid v. Huffington. Drudge is being very huffy about his new competitors. He sounds just like big media when he came along. Well, of course, he is big media now. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Tracking

Tracking

: Take a look at this neat new Blogrunner site tracking every story and writer in The Times. frozen throne nocd 1.5

A year ago at E-Tech, Jay Rosen told Technorati's Dave Sifry that he could guarantee getting blogs attention and respect by creating a cosmos page for every writer on every paper. Ego would drive them to see what people were saying about them and their stories. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The Blogrunner site -- sent to us by Steve Rubel -- tries to do that. It's a bit ungainly but still cool. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I just got email from Robert Scoble saying he still has a soft spot for Memeorandum because it tracks blog comment on multiple media outlets. frozen throne nocd 1.5

They're all headed in the right direction, but none has arrived yet. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogging for governor

Blogging for governor

: Now two leading candidates for NJ governor -- Corzine and Schundler -- have blogs and Joe Territo is asking both of them a question and suggesting more voters do the same. I think that's a good idea: So far, candidates' blogs have still been one way the wrong way: It's another stump for speeches. I'll be impressed when I see candidates use the medium to listen. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I messed up and forgot the Schundler link when I first put this up and GOP Bloggers is seeing vast-middle-wing conspiracies!!!! Sad. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Your correspondent

Your correspondent

: I continue to enjoy reading AfghanWarrior. Waheed reports on the trials of everyday life -- people simply cannot afford to buy meat, for example -- and in his latest post, he answers questions, including:

11. Waheed, if someone said to you five years ago that the Taliban would be out of power, Afghanistan would have democratic elections, Kabul would be being rebuilt and blossoming, women would be actually allowed to protest for their rights, new schools would be being built, you would be working for the U.S. Military and telling the world about Afghanistan through your Blog on the Internet, would you have believed them?frozen throne nocd 1.5

During the Taliban regime we wouldn't have believed that the US Army would come to Afghanistan, but we were hoping that one day Afghanistan will be free. But when the US attacked, everything changed very quickly. I wouldn't have believed that one day I would be working as an interpreter and we would have 4 TV channels and women would have their ministry and protest for their rights.

Go there now and give him some payment for being your corresponent in Afghanistan. I don't have a tip jar. SO give to Waheed instead, please. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Ouch

Ouch

: If I worked on his tech team, I think I'd pull out my feeding tube now. frozen throne nocd 1.5

With three billion pickles on that

With three billion pickles on that

: Technorati is about to pass 1 billion links served. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Pass the soap

Pass the soap

: A flack crows about something I wrote yesterday. I don't know why, but it makes me feel a little dirty. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Star blogging

Star blogging

: In one of the worst-kept secrets around, Arianna Huffington, blogger and blog lover, is starting an online thing -- group blog, zine, whatever -- that is supposed to be attracting big names to little media. Writes Greg Lindsay:

Based in New York and staffed with a full complement of editors, the Huffington Report appears to be a culture and politics webzine in the classic mold of Salon or Slate. It will have breaking news, a media commentary section called "Eat the Press," and its most interesting innovation, a group blog manned by the cultural and media elite: Sen. Jon Corzine, Larry David, Barry Diller, Tom Freston, David Geffen, Vernon Jordan, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Harry Evans and his wife, Tina Brown. That's just to name a few, and Huffington is still recruiting.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Her business partner is Ken Lerer, the head of AOL Time Warner corporate communications until Bob Pittman lost and Dick Parsons won.

Of course, the punchline here is that Tina Brown, who loves to dis blogs, could blog. But that assumes that these guys will be blogging. It's more likely they'll be dropping their political bon mots when they want. But it's a smart move to create the bon-mot-catcher to take advantage of that: Send an email to Arianna and have it published to the world. It's a lot easier than having to go into Air America or Bill Maher's show. frozen throne nocd 1.5

To the barricades, bloggers -- again

To the barricades, bloggers -- again

: No surprise: Add Syria to the list of countries jailing or intimidating -- or rather trying to intimidate -- bloggers for exercising their God-given right to free speech (that list so far includes Iran, Bahrain, Maylasia, China...).frozen throne nocd 1.5

Syrian author and blogger Ammar Abdulhamid was hauled in for questioning:

“So, you believe in American democracy eh, - the democracy of torture and fucking as we can clearly see from Abu Ghraib and Guatemala [sic]?” exclaimed the interrogator.frozen throne nocd 1.5

“Pardon me, but did you say Guatemala?” The heretic inquired ever so innocently. “I see. Can I be interrogated by someone higher up the fuck chain?” He pleaded.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The heretic got his wish, and he seems to have made the right call indeed. For the higher fuck was a bit more “sophisticated,” for the lack of a better word, and the interrogation went somewhat smoothly from then on.frozen throne nocd 1.5

This was the first round of investigation by this particular apparatus, Branch 235 as it is known, but it will not be the last, that’s for sure. I will have now to submit a report on my “dubious” activities and contacts during my fellowship at the Saban Center for Middle Eastern Study at the Brookings Institution, and then I will be interrogated again.frozen throne nocd 1.5

So be it. So be it.

Journalism is a verb, not a noun

Journalism is a verb, not a noun

: Many knickers are twisting into knots over the questions ofwho is a journalist and how to save journalism. But those are the wrong questions.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Journalism is not defined by the person who does it or by the medium or the company that delivers it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Journalism is not a thing. It is an act: The act of informing is journalism. It's a verb, not a noun. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And no one owns journalism. It is not an official act, a certified act, an expert act, a proprietary act. Anyone can do journalism. Everyone does. Some do it better than others, of course. But everyone does it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Realizing that -- embracing that -- will be the key to saving journalism: its quality and its business.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Cut the act of journalism into its component pieces:frozen throne nocd 1.5

Witnessing: Seeing news happen is usually the beginning of the act of journalism. Used to be, witnessing news didn't matter, it wasn't heard, unless the witness was a reporter or was interviewed by one. Now, thanks to technology and connectivity, any witness can share the news. Within minutes of yesterday's Indonesian earthquake, I went online and found eyewitness accounts that beat any news organization by hours, even days. As we learned in the tsunami, photos and video will also come from witnesses. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Asking: Seeking information you don't have and want to know is also known as reporting. This was supposed to be the domain of the pros but more and more we see just people with sufficient knowledge or curiosity reporting. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Editing: Everyone edits. We select, we correct, we package, we present in the media we choose. (Some call this censorship but it's not, of course; it's just editing.)frozen throne nocd 1.5

Commenting: Giving news perspective is also part of journalism and everyone does that, too: We say what we think about a story or we criticize a movie. It's the journalism absolutely anyone can do. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Distributing: Until a decade ago, this was where journalism was held hostage: If you didn't own the press or the broadcast tower, you couldn't do journalism; it wasn't real, official, trusted (said those who owned those assets). It wasn't heard. But now, of course, even a guy in Afghanistan can broadcast to the world. frozen throne nocd 1.5

When you slice journalism into its atomic elements, and generously define the acquisition, distribution, and consumption of information as acts of journalism, it's apparent that, as Dave Winer says, either everyone is a journalist or no one is. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Now this analysis leaves out a few critical functions of the journalistic process up until now: Today, the journalistic organization invests in acquiring information, aggregates, selects, edits, vets, presents, and distributes. Can these functions be performed outside the journalistic organization? Yes. Do they have to be? No. Should they be? Well, you'll decide that. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Right now we have people fretting over just those questions: Can journalism be saved? I think that's the wrong question. Maybe we shouldn't save the old way. Maybe, now that we have new opportunities, we should find a better way. The right question is: Can journalism be improved? Can journalism be expanded? Can journalism be exploded?frozen throne nocd 1.5

I believe -- no surprise -- that a key to the future of journalism is embracing the idea that everyone does journalism. This doesn't mean that all journalism is equal or good or of interest. We still need to find ways to aggregate, select, edit, present, and distribute information in ways that are efficient, effective, and reliable for each of us. We still need to find ways to support these functions financially, whether they are performed by, as Chris Nolan says, stand-alone or corporate journalists. We especially need to find those ways in the face of declining -- no, disappearing -- revenue.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Old journalism is facing three crises: frozen throne nocd 1.5

1. Flat or declining audience. I am confident that the total time spent on news is actually increasing, but with more competitors, the time spent on big journalism is not. And I'm not talking just newspapers, of course; look at TV news as well.frozen throne nocd 1.5

2. Declining revenue. Classified is going pfffft. TV upfronts will no longer support ever greater prices for ever smaller audiences. Radio is a flat line. As Jay Rosen points out, it's still profitable. But that's not the same as growing or investing. frozen throne nocd 1.5

3. Declining trust. Enough said. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But turn this around and look at how exploded journalism faces new opportunities: By embracing all this new journalism people are doing, there is a no limit to the news that can be reported and there is tremendous efficiency to it. In this new world, the reporters are also the marketers. And once again, trust is something that is earned rather than protected. Here's a vision of the future of news where that happens. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Rather than looking at all that as a competitor to be stopped, old journalism needs to see how to embrace the new but the new will go on whether or not it is embraced because everyone will be doing it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So if old journalism were smart, it would find ways to support the new: Train the everybodies doing journalism; share financial support with them; share trust with them; find the best of them; aggregate them; share the spotlight with them; take advantage of the work they do; respect them. frozen throne nocd 1.5

We won't save journalism the way it was. We shouldn't if we could. The business must change. Some in newsrooms think they should not change, that change is sacrilegious. Of course, that's ridiculous. From a consumer perspective, if the habits, needs, and abilities of the audience change, then so must journalism. From a business perspective, if every other industry in this country has gone through restructuring as it finds new ways to do business, then why shouldn't journalism? From a journalistic perspective, well, wouldn't you hope that journalists would be the most curious, the most eager to explore the new? OK, that last one is a straight line. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But here's the news: I am starting to see executives in old, big media figure this out and seek out this change. Will it work? Who the hell knows?frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Sorry this has been so generalized, so basic. I was going to write a short post responding to all the links in the first paragraph above: a provocative essay by Jay Rosen arguing that journalism is starting to eat away at its own body; Dan Gillmor responding to Rosen; Jack Shafer giving David Shaw the slap he deserves; Phil Meyer as the ghost of journalism future; and Ken Auletta mourning the death of the cash cow that is advertising. But as I tried to tackle the beast, I kept coming back to the most elementary analysis: frozen throne nocd 1.5

This isn't about the old journalism of people and things. It's about the new journalism of acts. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Closed captioning -- and metadata! -- for vlogs

Closed captioning -- and metadata! -- for vlogs and online video

: Go take a look at this version of the vlog I put up the other day to demonstrate the form for TV and newspaper folks. (The link works only in IE with Microsoft Media Player). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Chicago Captioning Corp. added closed captioning to the video. frozen throne nocd 1.5

They did that in an effort to serve the 10 percent of Americans who are hard of hearing. And that's great. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I see another important use that is of value to 100 percent of Internet users:frozen throne nocd 1.5

By attaching a script to the video, we get metadata associated with it. That makes the video searchable via Google et al. That means that the content of the video can be analyzed. That means we can link to specific content. frozen throne nocd 1.5

That's big. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Now it so happens that because I was using Visual Communicator, I had a script in the teleprompter (aka my laptop) that is timed specifically to my reading of the script. To me, that means it'd be trivial to publish the script as a closed caption file timed to the video. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I even wonder whether URLs could be associated with the graphic files inserted into the video -- or simply with text -- so people could go to addresses. More metadata. More interactivity. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I got email with that link from Steven Knoerr at Chicago Captioning and emailed him back this bit of excited blathering. I have no idea what Chicago Captioning's business proposition is; I'm not trying to sell them. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I do think there's something important here for citizens' video (and TV news video brought online): If we can associate closed captions and scripts with video, we make that video far more accessible not only to the hard-of-hearing but also to Google searchers. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: UPDATE: Mark Randall of Serious Magic (the Visual Communicator and VlogIt folks) emails me to report that there is a free plug-in for the latest version of the software (which, regretably won't work on my machine) that automates the creation of closed captions from the teleprompter script. I hope they include this in VlogIt (hint) and encourage all vloggers to use it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Metadata, man, metadata.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Talk is cheap

Talk is cheap

: A few weeks ago, I was a chump. Well, I'm often a chump but in this particular case, it's about a call I got from a futurist marketing think tank -- read: bullshitshop -- that asked me attend a session with other smart people -- ah, but they flatter me -- to talk about trends we see in media and society. Somebody's actually asking me to blather? Well, sure, I said. But what I found when I got there was that I was merely part of a focus group and I was paid $200, plus cookies, for consulting. That is consulting for which I should have charged much more (doesn't mean they'd pay it but at last I'd have found myself in a transparent marketplace instead of talking with a nameless company's paid middlemen). It was my fault that I fell into their trap, so I played along. But I was the chump. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The irony is that I give opinions for free every day. Right here. Pity you. If somebody wanted to see what I said, they could have come here. They could have emailed me or even left a comment -- better yet -- to spark a conversation with all of you, where they'd find the real wisdom. They could have dealt with me and us directly. Instead, they paid a middleman and stayed behind the mirror. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, as President Bush says, once burned is... uh, what'd he say again?frozen throne nocd 1.5

So today I got email from another such organization wanting me to fly out of New York for a talk with three or four other smart people -- ah, now I see through your flattery -- for an unnamed client. When I said I wasn't interested in being part of such a focus group, they protested that "an Expert Panel is NOT a focus group. The tone is more that of a living room setting." So the chairs are stuffed. It's still a focus group. If this were a true living-room setting for me, I'd be on the couch with feet up on the coffee table and laptop on lap conversing via blog. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The email also said their firm "is in the newness business. We help our clients gain fresh thinking and insights. We are experts in the process of stimulating new thinking and in designing and facilitating engagements that result in exciting new strategies/plans/products that people are committed to implementing." frozen throne nocd 1.5

What a hock of hooey. "Newness business"? Sounds like they're in produce. frozen throne nocd 1.5

It's at moments like this that I find blogging has affected my worldview profoundly. Yes, it has made me grumpy and opinionated and disagreeable. But I don't mean that. I mean that it has made me expect transparency and direct conversation. frozen throne nocd 1.5

If this unnamed client were smart, they'd do the same thing. Oh, I'm not suggesting we'd all give them consulting for free. But we all would give them opinions for free if they'd just enter into an open conversation. You want people to reinvent your product in new ways, unnamed client? Well, why don't you try asking your customers to do it for you; they're the ones who'd know best. Start a blog. Start a conversation. Read others blogs. Join in the conversation. Ask people what they think. Surprise: They'll tell you. Then all you have to do is listen.frozen throne nocd 1.5

And you can save on the cookies and the newness gurus.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog campaigning

Blog campaigning

: Corzine's gubernatorial campaign is planning to do up blogs and Joe Territo has the exclu. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Hey, man

Hey, man

: Fred Wilson tells David Byrne to get with it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Google views

Google views

: Dana Blankenhorn says that the demonization of Google has begun. He says they need an editor and he applies. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'm not so sure that solves their problems. An editor chose the neonazi hate site they had. A business strategy has to deal with Agence France Presse. Customer relations have to deal with hiding basic business terms from ad partners. A corporate policy of transparency is needed. frozen throne nocd 1.5

It's really about attitude. I'm seeing in Google the same sort of aloof arrogance I saw in Yahoo and so many other online giants in their day. frozen throne nocd 1.5

What we're really seeing his the humbling of Google. And Google needs it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Wikicities

Wikicities

: The Wall Street Journal writes up Jimmy Wales' Wikicities business (another free link). It's just starting so it's hard to tell whether this will work as well as Wikipedia. I think that wikis work best when they try to gather the ongoing wisdom of the crowds on lasting topics; they work when they hit a critical mass of interest, people, contributions, and time. That's why I remain dubious that Wikinews will work; it's too transient: By the time enough people swarm around a topic to add their collective wisdom, the world has moved on. Wikipedia did, in fact, do a good job collecting news during the tsunami, but that had enough interest, people, and time to make it work. WikiCities is a third model: A portal where people can create free, ad-supported special-interest wikis. On the one hand, I wonder whether people won't just do that on their own sites, in their own communities. On the other hand, perhaps special-interest wikis need a portal to gather that critical mass of contributors. We'll see... frozen throne nocd 1.5

Command and control-key

Command and control-key

: Fascinating discussion of the military using blogs to get to what's really happening in command. This is about more than media. It's about new ways to communicate and inform and manage... and take over the world. See Sgt. Stryker here and Joe Katzman's follow here. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Vlogging again

Vlogging again

: I just put up a new vlog I made to demonstrate citizens' TV for the Radio Television News Directors Association. I was invited to be on a panel at their Vegas confab but had a conflict and suggested blogcasting and vlogging (it is a TV conference, after all). To any who've been subjected to my blatherings on ciitzens' media and exploding TV and all that, there's nothing new here but it's a brief demo. I hadn't used Visual Communicator since I made these Fred Flintstone attempts more than two years ago. I had problems getting the newest version to work on my Bedrock laptop but the prior version works well; it is a neat tool. Serious Magic, creator of the software, say they will have the lite VlogIt version out in a few weeks.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Will the first blogging president be... Iranian?

Will the first blogging president be... Iranian?

: Hoder reports that a candidate for president of Iran is blogging. If he wins, would he be the first blogging president in the world? Isn't that ironic? Well, actually not: It's a testament to the cultural change Hoder brought to Iran with citizens' media. It's also, as Hoder notes, a commentary on the Iranian leadership that the site is now down because Hoder sent them too much traffic. As we Americans say: Heh. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Paranoia springs eternal

Paranoia springs eternal

: James Miller at TCS tries to argue that mainstream media is behind the FEC's threats to regulate political blog links and every other fear befalling blogs. I think he's crafting a tin hat. In truth, every mainstream media executive I know -- and I do hang out in that crowd, in the daytime -- is trying to figure out how to embrace blogs. At worst, some are still ignoring them. Blame the FEC on the FEC. [via Glenn Reynolds]frozen throne nocd 1.5

A word from our sponsor

A word from our sponsor

: Here's a free link to a Jessica Mintz story in the Journal on ads and blogs. I'm running out now for a day with the family so I haven't had a chance to read it... but I thought you'd like to. See you later. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Good Google news

Good Google news

: GoogleNews has dropped the nazi site. Says InternetNews:

"Google News does not allow hate content," said Google spokesman Steve Langdon. "If we are made aware of articles that contain hate content, we will remove them."frozen throne nocd 1.5

Langdon said news media must apply to be included in Google News and that they are evaluated by editors before inclusion. He wouldn't provide a list of news media that Google News indexes, nor would he give details of the evaluation process or criteria for inclusion.

But it's gone now. Good for Google. frozen throne nocd 1.5

See also GoogleBlogoscoped.frozen throne nocd 1.5

: MORE: This is great... John at Private Radio put up a script that is scraping GoogleNews to discover its news sources. Great work! List is here.
frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog confessions

Blog confessions

: Steve Rubel wants Oprah to have bloggers on the show. That's a scary vision. frozen throne nocd 1.5

A Saudi blog... aka مدونة

A Saudi blog

: The country that may need blogging more than any other -- Saudi Arabia -- has a new blogger working in both English and Arabic. See SaudiJeans (Arabic blog here). He says that forums are still big in the Arab world but he bets that blogs will explode. We came across each other in links because he found Spirit of America's Arabic-language blogging tool. And he points to a story in the local paper about blogs. He says:

I think blogs could make a real difference, especially in the Arab World, where the lack of freedom of expression is a main barrier to progress and development. And to encourage more Arab users to start blogging, I'm glad to announce that I'm ready to give away the design of my Arabic blog...

She also said the word "blog" is not translated to Arabic yet, which is wrong because the word "مدونة" (Modawanna) is a perfect translation, coined and approved by Arab bloggers.

GoogleNews II: What's missing?

GoogleNews II: What's missing?
:
: Below, I ask you to list questionable/wacky/offensive sites included in GoogleNews. Here, I ask you to nominate sites that are not included but should be. Please leave comments on this post. frozen throne nocd 1.5

GoogleNews: Whose news?

GoogleNews: Whose news?

: Let's start reporting on GoogleNews. As you find questionable sites scraped by Google, please list them in the comments on this post. See post below on Google's nazi site. If Google isn't transparent, let's report on Google. Obviously, we won't all agree on what's questionable but let's use our collective effort and wisdom to judge GoogleNews' judgment. I'm not suggesting that there should be an orthodoxy of news or certification of news, but some of these sites are just ridiculous. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Case in point:

Geologists in the East and West coasts are busy understanding a new theory that shows possible underground UFO bases all around the world....frozen throne nocd 1.5

According to this theory, the UFO bases need to be deep under the ground because the UFO crafts need to be close to the mantle of the earth. Servicing of these crafts can be done in that electromagnetic environment only.

Demand Google News transparency

Demand Google News transparency

: We're demanding transparency of mainstream news. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, it's high time we get transparency from GoogleNews. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Instapundit and LGF point to a nazi site -- complete with "love your race" graphics -- that is part of Google News, while mainstream sane blogs are not. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Enough. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Google: Release a complete list of your news sources now. And institute a means for questioning those choices and for suggesting other choices now. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Google: It's bad enough that you won't share information about ad revenue sharing. But not to share information about your means of selecting news sources is inexecusable... in this case, evil. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: UPDATE: Roger L Simon killed Google ads for two reasons. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The scariest thing about this...

The scariest thing about this...

: ... is that instead of waking up to music or a buzzer like a normal person, Matthew Yglesias wakes up to politics. So he does, indeed, eat, sleep, and dream this stuff. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Meanwhile, David Weinberger needs more sleep. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogvision

Blogvision

: USA Today features the blog segment on CNN's Inside Politics and that's good. I'm delighted that CNN has given bloging a regular berth on the air. And let's also note that Jon Klein, the head of the network, does, indeed, like and respect blogs. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I think they also should have noted the constant blog segments on MSNBC since last year -- now aggressively presented on Connected -- plus blog-happy TV personalities such as CNBC's Larry Kudlow.frozen throne nocd 1.5

It's odd, by the way, that Fox is not a leader in blogs. They were early on -- online. Remember that Glenn Reynolds blogged for them until the internal booster left and he switched to MSNBC.com. You'd think that blogs would be perfect for Fox: independent (and, yes, often conservative) voices and inexpensive programming; a great fit. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: MORE: Andrew Tyndall adds in the comments:

Fox News Channel made news last year in all the publicity around Outfoxed about how disciplined its top-down message-of-the-day operation was at presenting a unified line across all dayparts. Although I personally was not as outraged as others about the instructions for framing stories that those memos contained, they were certainly no evidence of love for "independence" at FNC. A diverse panel of independent bloggers would be anathema to FNC's renowned message discipline.

Suncasts

Suncasts

: Joe Territo makes a very good suggestion: podcasts of congressional debate. frozen throne nocd 1.5

A soldier's tales

A soldier's tales

: Just got email sending me to a pretty amazing blog by a soldier in Baghdad. I now see that the email came from that soldier. Glad he sent it. Just to take one post as an example, the bloggers writes about helping a soldier under his command with an SAT question and the soldier comes back in later to ask an uncomfortable question:

What SPC Frances said as he sheepishly stood before my desk staring at the floor was “Sir, you’re like, ummmm, you know, really smart. And you’re doing this when you could ummmm, you know, so many other things. Don’t you wish you were, ummm doing something better?”. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The question is one I’ve heard from several well meaning individuals, but never, ever from a soldier.... The first deadly lie is that soldiers are stupid. The second is that the Army is a dumping ground for people with no other options....frozen throne nocd 1.5

...I told him about how part of my heart chipped off when I looked into a mass grave in Bosnia. How for days after my dreams were clouded with an image of the very earth opening a yawning pit to engulf the dead, only to choke on their numbers and leave them on the surface half swallowed.... And the story that did not need telling, the story of our ongoing struggle with insurgents who revel in the misery and deaths they cause our forces and the Iraqis.frozen throne nocd 1.5

...I told SPC Frances to close his eyes and I would tell him why. As he closed his eyes I told him to imagine his young wife, his beautiful infant daughter and the future he wanted for them. He paused a moment and a smile slowly creased his face. As he looked up I caught his eyes and told him a simple truth. I told him that the thin line that separates the two realities isn’t a line on a map or the signature block on a document filled with hollow proclamations. The dividing line between the two kingdoms is a long line of soldiers. And that is why I’m proud to call myself a soldier. Its not about a lack of options, or the size of my paycheck. Its about what kind of world I want to leave for my children if I am lucky enough to be a father.

Going tab

: The New York Times reports today on the switch to tabloid just announced for The Jersey Journal, the paper published out of the building where I work most days. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Apart from sometimes bragging about some bloggy things happening at my day job or asking questions of you all for a project, I try to make a point of not getting into discussions of company policy on this blog because it's a clear conflict; apart from the sport of watching me tie my tongue in knots, it wouldn't be of much value. That, by the way, is why I disagree with Debbie Weil and Rick Bruner when they ding Boeing and GM executive bloggers for not immediately gabbing about public controversies in their companies. Especially in public companies where their words could have an impact on stock prices, there is only so much they are allowed to say and they should not try to use their individual platforms to set company policy. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Neither is the tabbing of the Jersey Journal, which I'm delighted to see happen (the prototype is great and the format is perfect for that paper). frozen throne nocd 1.5

Now, at last, I'll start getting to the point: The Times story is written by Kit Seelye, a good reporter on the media beat whom I read all the time, and when she called there was a moment's awkwardness, for it was a story cowritten by her that set me off in my, shall we say, theatrical complaint about some Times' coverage of bloggers, which led to the email exchange with Times Executive Editor Bill Keller. So now she was calling on a story regarding my day job, which presented an interesting new conflict in the double life of MediaMan and BlogBoy. frozen throne nocd 1.5

She was extremely nice, saying that they tried to get the essence of my quote. I rather fell over myself to be cordial back just to get quickly past that awkwardness. (And, no being nice wasn't going to get me treated better in the story; that is the advantage of dealing with professional, dispassionate reporters; they will most likely fall over themselves to be fair in such circumstances.) And the truth is that I have no problem with the reporters who wrote that story and I frequently link to and quote their work; I did have a problem with that story and, Lord knows, I had my say. frozen throne nocd 1.5

It occurred to me that this is like being a critic: I absolutely love some shows by David Kelly and I don't like others and neither judgment has anything to do with Kelly himself but only with his work and my individual view of it. It's not personal. As a critic though, I never met Kelly and for all these reasons didn't want to; I wanted to maintain some separation and remain just a member of the audience, not a would be friend. But in this small world, we bloggers could very well run into folks we write or snark about (at one conference or another) and though that can cause a moment's awkwardness, we still should say what we think. Should I say it less theatrically sometimes? Sometimes, yes. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But that's still not the point. Here, at long, long last is the point: Blogging is also not like being a critic because most of our criticism tends to be negative, at least when it comes to the press. When I was a TV critic, I wrote about shows I liked and shows I didn't and I argued that the more valuable reviews for my readers were the positive ones (who wants to waste time on a piece of junk?). That's why I instituted the grades that became Entertainment Weekly's critical conceit, so readers woudn't have to waste their time figuring out what we thought of a "D" show. frozen throne nocd 1.5

In this new intersection of citizens' and professional media, I think it would be valuable to give positive reviews, too. Of course, we often do that simply by linking to a good story. But when we write about the press and how the job of the press is done, it's usually to find fault. That is valuable, I believe, and it should continue to give ballast to the hot-air balloon that the press has become. But it's also important to value good reporting, or many fear we'll start to lose it. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Will I do that? I have no idea. I'm not taking a pledge for I'll probably fall down on it. But as I thought about this analogy of blogger to critic, it made me think that it's also important to recognize good work and to say it more often.frozen throne nocd 1.5

There: That was my point. And I did a damned bad job of getting to it. I give myself a D. I'm going to go to a mirror and rant at me now. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Oh, and by the way, I think I should be very proud to have gotten the word "cooties" into the New York Times. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Citizens' media finds a home

: This is a big deal: OurMedia.org has launched as a home for citizens' media. This matters mostly because distributing audio and video you create can cost you a fortune in bandwidth. Now here's a place to put it. I don't think this is about being a portal to citizens' media; the entire point of this new world is that it's distributed. But it allows more people to serve more stuff. I've watched some videos; some are good and, of course, some are crap: nature of the beast. What will make this work, of course, will be the links to individual pieces from weblogs and news sites. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Congratulations to J.D. Lassica, Marc Canter, et al for making this happen. It is a very good thing. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: LATER: Mostly Muppet says:

“Our media” should be fully distributed using a leader and innovator in P2P software - BitTorrent. Hosting large multimedia files on a web server is so Web 1.0.

Yahoo buys Flickr

: The news is on Flickr's blog. Discussion here, where honcho Caterina Fake explains:

So you're asking: why are you being acquired? Why Yahoo?frozen throne nocd 1.5

We thought about lots of ways to keep Flickr going, growing, and
getting better. We considered taking VC money, more angel
investment, bootstrapping it and selling.frozen throne nocd 1.5

When Yahoo first approached us eons ago, we were pretty
skeptical. But after meeting the people on the Yahoo team and
getting a picture of where they were going, we got religion.
Maybe that's too strong. We realized we were all eating at the
same church potluck.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The things that were important to us were: being open, building
innovative stuff and kicking ass. Were these people OUR people?
Yes. See the stuff Yahoo's announced recently (including, of
course,this)? They're evolving in really interesting ways --
and from our look inside, we know know that there's a lot more
coming.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Yahoo won't be the Yahoo you've come to take for granted.
Competition (with that other company with two O's in its name)
has done great things for Yahoo. Dude.

: More from Jeremy Zowodny and Jeff Clavier. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: LATER: Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Barry Diller is buying fifth-rank search-engine ASK for $2 billion. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: On Flickr and Yaho, Dave Winr says it should have been the other way around. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Help Jay Rosen

: If anybody out there is an Economist suscriber (do I hang in such a tony crowd), Jay Rosen needs to see the text from this story: The government's “news” broadcasts. Can you help him? (I let my subscription lapse, sadly.) His email is listed here.
Thanks. Mission accomplished. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Critical mass

Critical mass

: Rick Bruner discovers that Blogspot blogs alone get more traffic than NYTimes.com (according to the iffy Alexa). Makes the About.com purchase make more sense, eh?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Bloggers are journalists under FOIA

: Phil Yanov beat me to hearing this week's On The Media and heard this bit of good sense:

On The Media reported in an interview with GOP Senator John Cornyn that bloggers, just like mainstream journalists, would have fees waived under the new Faster FOIA (Freedom of Information Act.) The Senator says "It is not government's responsibility to try to decide who is and who is not [a qualified journalist.]" He continued "They, as citizen activists ... need to be able to get access to information as well."

Count us among the growing legions who embrace the notion that Web bloggers deserve the same shield-law protections accorded to other journalists. But a California case has reminded us just how vulnerable Colorado journalists are whose work appears on the Internet.

Help the Afghan blogger

Help the Afghan blogger

: The first Afghan blogger, Waheed, continues to post up a storm. The Australian coworker who convinced him to start the blog, Paul Edwards, inserts a post asking for help on behalf of Waheed:

Waheed really needs a laptop and a digital camera, but he's too shy to ask for it. Two people offered a digital camera, but they didn't provide an email contact. If you have either of these two items available, could you please send an email to Waheed. The items can be posted to a US address (which will be provided) which will get through to Waheed's US boss in the military. Also, PayPal has been added to the account, thanks to Tom Villars. It costs Waheed US$3/hour to access the internet...

News meets the people

News meets the people

: When I do those MSNBC what's-on-the-blogs gigs, I try to find new voices and new names because I think that's the point: This should be about finding the authentic voice of the people and in this medium, that means the voices of many people. (See a few of the links from Friday below.) frozen throne nocd 1.5

That is why I'm glad to see MSNBC and CNN quoting bloggers. That is my response to the quota counters. And that is my response, too, to Chris Nolan, who wonders why I bother to appear on big media when I am so triumphal about small media. One answer to her question is obvious: Ego -- raging, unquenchable ego. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But the other answer is that what fascinates me and encourages me about the future of news is seeing these media intersect: the reporting resources -- and, yes, megaphone voice -- of big media meets the many small but real voices of the people in blogs, and together I hope they can give us a better view of not only the news but also of news the public cares about. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But there are risks. In the short time available to get ready for a news segment, I find blogs commenting on the story du jour via Technorati and Pubsub and I try to find those that are articulate and seem to have some history and links. frozen throne nocd 1.5

On one of the segments Friday, they found and interviewed a blogger I hadn't seen who'd been writing about the Shiavo case and that seemed fine until, at the end of it, he said that people were saying on his blog that as Terri's feeding tube was taken out, she suddenly started talking and begging them to stop. Uh, well, that's hardly news and obviously not fact; it's downright nutty. But here it comes on a news show. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And that's the risk: You could argue that the reputations of both the news network and bloggers are now touched by this guy. But I think the risk is worthwhile. For I believe the public has the good sense to judge the voice of the occasional loopy blogger for what it is. It's no different, really, from going out for random man-on-the-street interviews, or picking up the phone on talk radio: Some people are worth listening to, others aren't. And if you quote blogs, you can quote that which makes sense; if you interview bloggers, you may hit the occasional one who doesn't make sense once he opens his mouth. That's life. It's worth the risk to hear new voices, new viewpoints. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So much for ayatollah.blogspot.com

So much for ayatollah.blogspot.com

: Blogs are not Islamic. [via Nick Denton]frozen throne nocd 1.5

Iraq: Two years on ... in a blog

Iraq: Two years on ... in a blog

: Some reflection on the two years since the war began from Democracy in Iraq (whose author had to take time off after his cousin was killed in the largest terrorist bombing):

It has been now two years since the United States, UK and other countries invaded our nation. It has been two years since Iraqis have had to live with daily violent attacks and rampant terrorism. It has been two years since our nation began being turned upside down. It has been two years since the road to democracy began.frozen throne nocd 1.5

It has been a very hard two years. So many people have died, so much has been destroyed, so many drops of tears and blood have been shed, so many have been robbed of loved ones, and so many words have been spoken about Iraq, it's future, and this war....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Two years is about 730 days. In those days what have I seen. My eyes have seen more than I had ever hoped, more blood, more death and more pain, then I ever imagined or hoped I would have seen.frozen throne nocd 1.5

In those days I have seen the worst of humanity, the animal that lives in all humanity, the ability of humanity to destroy at will others, and rob the life given to others by God almight himself. frozen throne nocd 1.5

So you ask me, Husayn, was it worth it. What have you gotten? What has Iraq acheived? These are questions I get a lot....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Now I answer you, I answer you on behalf of myself, and my countrymen. I dont care what your news tells you, what your television and newspapers say, this is how we feel. Despite all that has happened. Despite all the hurt, the pain, blood, sweat and tears. These two years have given us hope we never had....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Iraqis see the finish line, the finish line of freedom and democracy and a functioning nation. We can smell it, taste it, and like a sprinter, one who has broken his legs, but who has a heart full of passion, we will crawl there no matter what the cost. No matter what we must endure, we have realized what we can become, and that is the biggest result of the last two years....frozen throne nocd 1.5

Posted by jarvis at 12:05 AM | Comments (4)

Blog on stage

Blog on stage

: Riverbend, the Iraqi blog, is a play and The Times reviews it... lukewarmly. The problem isn't the opinions (of course). What the critic complains about is the staging:

While Riverbend has a fascinating voice, this production, adapted by Kimberly I. Kefgen and Loren Ingrid Noveck, never makes the case for her blog as a piece of drama. What is lost is the sense of one singular, idiosyncratic personality, which, of course, is exactly what emerges so vividly from the blog. Instead of building a character, the show includes readings of her words from three women and one man, which adds to the muddled feel.frozen throne nocd 1.5

When not speaking, the actors pace in a triangle or perform synchronized gestures that make them look like backup singers to a 1960's pop band.

: I also wonder whether the producers are paying Riverbend and, if so, whether they have contacted her and have confirmation that she is in Baghdad. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: See also Flickr photos here. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: And from the comments, I learn that she has a book coming from the Feminist Press. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Podcasts grow like dandelions

Podcasts grow like dandelions

: Newsweek has a podcast. So does Brian Lehrer's show.frozen throne nocd 1.5

One complaint -- nay, suggestion -- for Lehrer: Don't JUST put up podcasts; also put up MP3s so we can download any show without necessarily subscribing to a podcast feed. Please. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The public's right to know meets the public's right to inform

The public's right to know meets the public's right to inform

: Glenn Reynolds is right: This is a stirring defense of citizens' journalism:

Whether one has journalistic protections should depend less on job title and more on function. Anyone, like Mr. Ciarelli, who gathers news on a subject of public interest and disseminates it to a waiting audience is entitled to the protection of a journalist. ThinkSecret has 2.5 million to 5 million page views a month.frozen throne nocd 1.5

A few years ago, there was an absurd debate about whether online reporters should have the same status as print reporters. The argument about bloggers will seem as frivolous - and irrelevant - in a few years.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Already, bloggers have played a key role in a number of important news stories, including Sen. Trent Lott's racist remarks at Sen. Strom Thurmond's birthday, CBS's flawed report on the president's military record and Eason Jordan's resignation as a CNN vice president for briefly suggesting U.S. soldiers might have targeted journalists.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The democratization of the news media through the blogosphere is the inevitable product of technological development. The principle of the public's right to know doesn't depend on who is gathering the news. The American people are entitled to read and hear all of the information that enterprising newshounds, including bloggers, legally can pry from the clutches of corporate and government officials.

This principle must be reflected in the law:frozen throne nocd 1.5

The public's right to know meets the public's right to inform.frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogcast help

: What alternatives for videoconferencing from a PC can you all suggest? frozen throne nocd 1.5

To blogcast out on MSNBC, we have been using Microsoft's instant messenger: It's easy and works quite well... when it works. Yesterday, minutes before I was to go on air, we couldn't get the video connection to work. At first, I thought it was because I had the Logitech camera software up (that will cause conflict); but even after rebooting, the video connection kept dropping. They had to delay the segment while MSNBC's amazing production whiz, Anthony, and I switched to the antiquated Microsoft NetMeeting and it worked, though the quality isn't as good. I don't know what cause the IM problem; we suspect it was IM service itself. And we do have a backup in NetMeeting. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But I have to think there are better backups (besides buying Macs for everyone in the world). Any suggestions? Thanks. frozen throne nocd 1.5

It's an addiction

: I've been suffering from blogging withdrawl. The symptoms aren't pretty. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Avocation --> Vocation

: Steve Rubel cleverly puts in a search for jobs involving blogging. He finds lots. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Numbers

: What with all the heated talk about whether there are enough women on op-ed pages and in blogs -- and precisely how many is enough, by the way? -- Chris Geidner, the law dork, looks at the shelf and finds few books by women. This could go on all day -- every medium imaginable doesn't pass one test or another. frozen throne nocd 1.5

But why are race and sex the only tests? Once upon a time in America, wouldn't the test have been whether there are "enough" Irish or Italians or Germans or Poles or Catholics or Jews? These days, shouldn't other tests be whether there are "enough" gays or lesbians or rich or poor or suburbanites or urbanites or educated or uneducated or disabled or addicted or divorced or immigrant or Muslim or Hindu or Asian or Hispanic or homeless or fat or... frozen throne nocd 1.5

I am reminded of Soledad O'Brien interviewing Vin Diesel sometime ago on Today and how together they reveled in being multicultural. They defied us to label and pigeonhole and count them in one column or another: is Soledad black or Hispanic or Irish or what? They are the melting pot. They are America. No, actually, they simply are what they are. They are individuals. frozen throne nocd 1.5

That is the way I look upon this new medium: As much as old-media thinkers try to categorize and count us one way or another -- white/nonwhite, male/female, right/left -- we don't fit because, finally, here is the medium that does not lump us into masses. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Jay Rosen likes to quote Raymond Williams, sociologist and critic, who said: "There are no masses, there are only ways of seeing people as masses."frozen throne nocd 1.5

All this talk about quotas counts us as masses. That is not only inaccurate, it is esentially insulting. It refuses to recognize our individuality. frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is a medium of individuals. frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is a medium of individuals who choose to publish in it. To complain that not enough people of one sort or another do so is akin to complaining that not enough disabled people eat ketchup. Either you like ketchup or you don't; it's up to you. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The other complaint, of course, is that big media don't pay enough attention to this kind of blogger or that kind. But that's not the bloggers' fault, is it? Isn't it big media's?frozen throne nocd 1.5

But even that misses the point of the medium. It values this medium of individuals as if it were a medium of masses: the biggest voices are the only ones that are heard as if they speak for all the rest, the only ones that count. No, that's the way it was with old media, when only the few and the rich and the powerful could afford the printing press. Now, as I repeat (too damned) often, anyone can own a press. And this brings us many, many more voices, a far more diverse world of voices than ever could be heard before. We should not make the mistake of hearing those voices as a mass again. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The mass is dead. Actually, it never really lived outside of mass media.frozen throne nocd 1.5

The real test of diversity should not be the demographics of the author but the quality of the thought: Did we hear new thoughts, different views, worthwhile information, good ideas?frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Oh, and by the way... I have no idea whether Chris Geidner, who wrote the good post to which I link above, is a man or a woman. Chris is a law student. Chris is gay. Chris writes this on the about page (my emphasis): "A person doesn't become a better writer unless he is constantly sharpening the skill. Likewise, I thought, a student of the law -- it made sense -- would be most helped in fine-tuning that skill by opening up her mind to criticism of her logic and analysis."frozen throne nocd 1.5

So I don't know. And I don't care. Oh, I suppose it could be relevant on this topic. But even here, I don't care. I never would have bothered to look if it hadn't been for the topic. I still don't know Chris' gender or race or anything else about this person except that he or she writes well and said something worthwhile. That's what counts. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Can a Men's Studies Department be far behind?

: In reply to all the gender-defending going on lately, Dave Winer vows to post some positive male images. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Pot calls kettle hot

: Tina Brown -- who made her career on the foibles of celebrity -- now laments that everybody can find foibles; it is no longer the exclusive calling of the tony-cocktail-party-throwing editorial elite:

We are in the Eggshell Era, in which everyone has to tiptoe around because there's a world of busybodies out there who are being paid to catch you out -- and a public that is slowly being trained to accept a culture of finks.

We're always under surveillance; cameras watch us wherever we go; paparazzi make small fortunes snapping glamour goddesses picking their noses; everything is on tape, with transcripts available.

No matter who you are, someone is ready and willing to rat you out. Even the rats themselves have to look over their shoulders, because some smaller rat is always waiting in the wings. Bloggers are the new Stasi. All the timidity this engenders, all this watching your mouth has started to feel positively un-American.

Volksmedia

: How do you like that name for all this: Volksmedia?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Yesterday, I was reading a big story about citizens' media in Focus, the German newsmagazine -- about Flickr, blogs, and all that -- and they translated the phemon into the german as Volksmedien. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I like that. It has a funky, retro, populist, Volkswagen feel, of course, with that buggy attitude. NYTimes Executive Editor Bill Keller complained that "citizens' media" -- my moniker of choice, was a bit pretentious or at leas presumptuous. I don't disagree. He proposed "people's media," but that seemed all too Internationale to me. I once called it "populist media," but that brings too much baggage.frozen throne nocd 1.5

So how about volksmedia?frozen throne nocd 1.5

: LATER: Well, this one laid an egg, judging by the comments. frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'd be curious to hear German bloggers react to the reaction. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: NIGHTTIME UPDATE: Well, a couple of German bloggers don't like the idea. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Jim Treacher proposes "wedia." [I was lazy and didn't give him a link so here is a link, a very long link....]frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blog@work

: Cool number: "More than 1,000 of Sun’s 32,000 employees blog about their work (most at blogs.sun.com)."frozen throne nocd 1.5

White male blogger III

: Getaloadathis: Now Juan Cole, Prof. Eeyore (yes, I've changed his nickname... do you all like that one better?), has decided to depart from his usual role of spreading dark clouds of gloom over Iraq and the Middle East, to comment on Steven Levy's gross generalization about white males and the blogosphere and my entertainingly overwritten response. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Even I was suprised with Cole's take. I shouldn't have been. But get this:

Jeff Jarvis, the Republican in Democrat Clothing, replies that there is nothing wrong with being a white male. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Of course not. But white male Americans, at least, disproportionately voted for Bush, supported the Iraq war, favor racial profiling, favor tax cuts for the wealthy, favor capital punishment, oppose gay marriage, etc. Of course they are diverse, too, but their statistical center of gravity skews right in American terms, which means Pretty Far Right in the terms of the rest of the world. If they dominate a medium of news and information, it won't give a balanced view of the world.

This is the logic of an academic? frozen throne nocd 1.5

This is the respect for fact of an academic?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Well, professor, I'm not Republican, no matter what you and your pals say; I do not support racial profiling, tax cuts for the wealthy, or capital punishment and I favor gay marriage. Oh, yes, and I also supported the Iraq war. And, of course, that's the problem. Cole is a one-issue man. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And, professor, note that you are making gross generalizations based on gender and sex. Larry Summers got in some hot water for that, don't you know. You might want to be careful trafficking in racial and sexual stereotypes. frozen throne nocd 1.5

As much as I'd love to, I don't have time to dive into the rest; I may later after I go off to my secret meeting of the White Male Power Bloggers Association. So dive in yourself. Bring some popcorn. It's a good show. frozen throne nocd 1.5

White male blogger II

: There are tons of comments on the post below (naturally; isn't that why Steven Levy chose this topic)? This one really irked me:

And sorry but I don't agree with Jeff Jarvis' rant about "so what if I'm a white male blogger." That's akin to saying, "So what if Harvard president Larry Summers says something derogatory about women's innate abilities in math and science... he's just trying to be provocative." Summers' comments do matter. They reveal his prejudices and his point of view. And he's in a unique policy-making position. And, yes, I'm a Harvard grad of the female persuasion. Eegads, did I really say that on my blog? Well what the heck... it's true. Now link to me, dammit!

If that's not a case of white female bigotry, it is at least a case of hypocrisy and sloppy thinking. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Harvard, eh?frozen throne nocd 1.5

: Oh, and here's my report card from Halley. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Vloggers take over the world

: Here are amazing instructions on how to build your own teleprompter. frozen throne nocd 1.5

: I'm installing the latest version of Serious Magic this weekend (I used the earlier version for my now more-than two-year-old primitive vlogs.)frozen throne nocd 1.5

I'm crushed, I tell you, crushed

: You'd think she'd prefer shtick, being so shticky. Oh, well. I have to find a way to write more posts involving KY, it appears. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Here's my link to a woman's blog today

: How could I have missed Rosie O'Donnell blogging? frozen throne nocd 1.5

Train wreck time. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Here's her tagline for the endeavor: "*the unedited rantings of a fat 42 year old menopausal ex -talk show host * -married mother of four- read at your own risk - my spelling sux (add * ocd * adhd * lmnop * suv * dvd * y not me)"frozen throne nocd 1.5

Go to the about page (she's one of the rare bloggers who actually fills it in). Favorite music: "joni mitchell - eminem - kanye west - robert downey jr". What, no Boy George?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Go to her home-movies section and see her stitching together bathtub video of her 2-year-old daughter with bloody pictures of war wounded, exploiting her kid to make her point. It's like Kathie Lee: The Dark Side. frozen throne nocd 1.5

And the posts are half-uncapitalized free-form unverse things:

...michael jackson in his pj's made me cry
why has mario quit american idol?
the shick intuition razor is the best invention
since the tampon multi-pack frozen throne nocd 1.5

i went to sommerville this weekend - a suburb of boston
to raise money for the public elementary school
they need books - in a public school - in america
it does not make the newsfrozen throne nocd 1.5

stories of teachers buying chalk and paper
out of their un-imaginably small salary
students sharing desks - text books
here in america - democracyfrozen throne nocd 1.5

we are force feeding this ideal
to the world via violence
with a cooperating corporate mass media
as nixons crimes pale to white
in comparisonfrozen throne nocd 1.5

we impeached himfrozen throne nocd 1.5

i am waiting for my 20 something
woodward and bernstein
to make their way to the surface
and claim their place in historyfrozen throne nocd 1.5

in todays world dan rather gets fired
for his attack on g's character
his mistake - he thought the fax was real
out he goes - traitorfrozen throne nocd 1.5

we live in dangerous times
when our childrens childrens
will ask us
"what was it like then - when democracy almost died"frozen throne nocd 1.5

and i will tell them of the heros
who were smart and brave enough
how they worked together
how they saved our country
from itself

And some executive gave her a magazine to run? [via world o' crap]frozen throne nocd 1.5

To the barricades, bloggers: An update

: The jailed Bahraini bloggers have been freed, al Jazeera reports. No word on the fate of their online activities. [thanks, PJ Swenson]frozen throne nocd 1.5

Blogging white male

: Steven Levy has a column about blogs in Newsweek -- fallout from the last Harvard confab -- that I think is, well, not to put too fine a point on it, a crock. frozen throne nocd 1.5

The head: "Blogging Beyond the Men's Club: Since anyone can write a Weblog, why is the blogosphere dominated by white males?" And he asks: "Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem?"frozen throne nocd 1.5

A few responses:frozen throne nocd 1.5

First, what's wrong with being a white male? I'm white and male. Not much I can do about it. Not much I want to do about it. I'm sure as hell not going to apologize for it. I'm white. I'm male. I blog. You got a problem with that? Tough. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Second, I hate to break the news to you, Steven but... you're white and male, too! And you sit there in a Big Big-Media Job that is not held by someone unwhite and unmale. Should you ask why that is? Should you feel guilty? Should you quit? Should someone ask these questions of you?frozen throne nocd 1.5

Third, anyone can blog. Anyone. If you're not white or not male or not American or not powerful or not rich or not anything, you can still blog. This is not like Big Media, where there's a gate to keep and a ceiling to hit. This is a wide-open medium where anyone can blog. This old quota talk is outmoded and irrelevant. Hell, people in Iran can blog -- a heckuva lot of them women, by the way. People in Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and Bahrain can blog even though there are efforts in all those places to stop them. But nobody's stopping anybody here from blogging. So if you don't think there are enough unmale or unwhite or unanything people blogging, go convince some of them to go to Blogger and sign up! It's that easy. frozen throne nocd 1.5

Fourth, in the blogosphere, nobody knows you're a dog... or unmale... or unwhite. There are plenty of bloggers I read who are demographic mysteries to me. I honestly don't know the race or gender of many bloggers and commenters I read and -- listen carefully now -- I don't care. When I was raised in this country, we were taught that it was a goal of ou