Blog vacation here, but blogging away about our trip on my (and maybe Amy's) other (new) blog.

Off to San Francisco for vacation until next Sunday. And a blog vacation too...

Bulg? Bowleg? Blob? Bloop?

These are some of the options one gets when he or she searches for "blog" on Merriam-Webster online. The Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary is out, and it doesn't appear to have "blog" in it, at least according to it's free online site. There's probably no connection to m-w, but it's starting to drive me crazy that online spell checkers don't have "blog" in their dictionaries.

Pop Ups Annoy -- Really?

"A recent PlanetFeedback survey that found pop-ups lead all ad forms in levels of annoyance and distrust-even more so than spam." Too bad the same study shows publishers get more $$$ for the ad unit and it generates more $$$ for advertisers. What about long term focus?? What are publishers and advertisers doing to their brands who use these tactics??

San Fran or Bust

Amy and I are heading to San Francisco on Saturday. It's the first time I've been there since I was 4. And being that I was 4, I don't remember much about it.

We snagged a terrific deal on Hotwire at the Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental on Nob Hill. Don't have much of a plan except that we get in Sat. night and leave for Sonoma Thursday morning for a client convention. Looking through Fodor's, I definitely want to hit North Beach and Chinatown. And I'm sure we'll end up in the Wharf. But if anyone has suggestions on what to see, I'd love to hear them.

Sweet 16 for Success

John Audette's (who moderated Adventive's I-Sales group), top 16 for Building A Successful Business and Using the Internet to Further Your Organization ObjectivesAdventive - Communities For Internet Professionals - Tools:

1. Maintain Absolute Integrity


2. Niche With Passion


3. Put the Power of Inertia on Your Side


4. Build In Scalability


5. Keep It Lean


6. Remarket


7. Stay Humble: Maintain a Vertical Learning Curve


8. Honor the Customer's Intelligence


9. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate


10. Yoda Says, "Give, Then Take"


11. Ideas Are Only Sparks


12. Tangibilize


13. Build a Three Legged Stool


14. Build Community


15. Respect the Power of the Index Finger


16. Convert Liabilities Into Assets

Just sent this email to Google's Toolbar team. So if you start seeing it you know who to thank! ;)

Love the new toolbar! Especially the Blog This and Pop-up blocker. Anyway, could you provide a script users could put on their blogs that would keep track of the number of pop-ups the toolbar has blocked? Something like: "My Google Toolbar has blocked 103 pop ads since June 27, 2003!)

Not that anyone cares. But that's how much I'm digging this new tool. BTW, I'm at 38 on my work computer. Not sure what's at home....

Buh Bye

The FTC's No Call list officially got started today. Although I will miss playing games with telemarketers, I think the reward of not getting any calls is greater. I'm registering now.

oops, it 404'd. Didn't they know the volume they would get on day 1?

Cool! I just dowloaded my new Google Toolbar 2.0. I like the Blog This feature. (head's up from MarketingFix)

New blog by a copywriter, John Kuraoka. The profession I always wanted to enter.

MarketingFix Sells Out

jheez, that didn't take too long. Going by the tag line, "Independent eMarketing News (Until We Sell Out)" MarketingFix sold out to Andy Bourland (if you're going to sell out to anyone, it might as well be this guy ... founder of ClickZ, when it was really good). But in all seriousness, congratulations to the guys, I hope the site's style keeps up.

Andy formed a new company, Up2Speed, also acquired Adventive, an online discussion group. According to Rafat Ali's scoop, Andy hopes to use"the mix of vertical-focused weblogs and e-mail newsletters/discussion group ... [to] cross promote the sites through the discussion lists and vice-versa, with ad revenues coming in from both ends."

hmmm.... this is the first time I know of that a blog has been bought.

Looking forward to how it plays out.

[later] -- Marketing Fix has more here.

[later later] so does Andy.

Wall Street Journal Media & Marketing Edition

WSJ has started a special edition covering Media & Marketing. [later] not really new and seperate, but still a good place for info...

Can anyone recommend any books or reading on web usability and/or information architecture? If so, could you be so kind as to use my nifty comments below...

Here are a few blogs I found on Google:
Croc o' Lyle
Designing Usability
Usability and Suman kumar
Elegant Hack

Good business blog piece as a follow up to the Jupiter/ClickZ Blog Conference by Rebecca Lieb in ClickZ.

As I write this on Thursday, the event, and blogs about the event, still dominate Popdex's Web site popularity index (starting at number three) -- even though the conference ended Tuesday....That's reach, frequency, and targeting....

If your organization has staff with the vision, thought leadership, and evangelistic qualities that could make for a good marketing blog, make certain that person checks strategy at the door before posting the first entry. Blogs are good for supporting an agenda or idea, but they aren't a strategy or an end in themselves when used in a business context. Blogs must be personal, an open loop, and, above all, honest.

Actual Business Blogs

Rick brings up a good point ..... lots of talk, but no walk when it comes to business blogs. While I think we're still in the pioneering stages (heck still in the ideas stages), there has been a lot of talk on business blogs. I've been as guilty as anyone ... talking about applications but not having any clients to show for it (although I haven't been seeking any).

But Rick is walking the talk. He posted clients he has set up weblogs for: BizNetTravel and Roundtable Communications. Of course Marcromedia was one of the first, and so was Dr. Pepper and who can forget Barbie. I'd also say that Dave Winer and the whole Radio Userland group is a prime example of business blogs .... although they've never been billed as such. Fellow DC area blogger, James Robertson, blogs for his company Cincom SmallTalk. You might be saying, so what's the big deal, sounds like there're lots of companies out there. Dr. Pepper didn't get it. Barbie is purely fictional. And most other business blogs are from software/tech companies. Rick's are some of the first to break outside of the tech arena.

Comments

I've added a comments section to my posts using Enetation. Seems simple enough although their site is a bit sluggish -- I'm just hoping the comments aren't. I'm testing it below.

I call a Re-do

Devine, a company who went on an acquisition spree at the end of the bubble, buying up Internet and technology companies went bankrupt last year. The ironic part, those companies they bought for millions in stock are now being bought back by their original founders. For example, David Suess "regained the search-engine company he had founded in 1985 and sold to Divine last year, Northern Light, for a mere $81,000, about half a penny on the dollar of what Divine paid for it." I like the fact that these people are getting a second chance because there were some truly great ideas that went bust because many of the companies that went acquiring everything with a .com at the end of it didn't have a business plan or understanding of the capacity of the internet to save their lives.

Follow Up on ClickZ/Jupiter Blog Conference

Rex Hammock has a truley thoughtful look back on the Blog Conference and the past, present and future of blogging and "push-botton knowledge management." His tenth thought is my favorite:

Weblogs and personal journalism are never going to be a threat to Adweek or Advertising Age like several people implied (as an example) today. This is one of the few times where I have been up close and personal to a decade-long series of such predictions regarding the demise of century-old B2B media companies and have, at the same time, known personally the people who run and own those companies. I only need to mention the company Vertical Net to remind folks that at one time, there was a company with the mythical stock-market value of several billions of dollars that was going to be a threat to all Business to Business media by moving it all to the web. I think it’s great that people are blogging about media and marketing. I am happy to note that I’ve been blogging about magazines for the past two years. But friends, I am never going to be a threat to Folio: with just a weblog. (Not to imply they don’t have threats.) I’m apples, they’re oranges. The world is big enough for me to do what I do for whatever reasons drive me to do it and for them to do likewise. VNU and Crain have nothing to worry about from bloggers threatening their established media properties. That is especially true about Crain Communications (Ad Age, Automotive News, etc.), as Keith and Rance Crain are two of the most unique media executives left in America: They both have voices (very human voices) of authority, integrity and truth and near-radical independence. They mince no words and back down from no one. I doubt they will ever blog, but their decades of commentary about automobiles and advertising are the purest examples of human-voice insight those two industries will ever hear. Come to think of it, however, I think they would blog if they didn't have all those other ways to tell the world what they believe.

(link via Doc)

Matrix Re-Loaded (527 times, and counting)

I checked out this thread last week and it was around 300. Jason Kottke's thread on his Matrix posting has everything you need to know and then makes you forget.

Wish I was There ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies - LIVE

Here's the agenda for the business blogging conference in Boston (offically titled, ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies). Hoping there'll be much blogging about the blog conference.

The blogroll for the event: (blogging live in bold)
Doc
Dave Winer and here (pics here)
Denise Howell
David Weinberger
Jason Shellen
Windley (Pics!)
Anil
Heath Row
Michael Gartenburg
John Robb
Dan Bricklin
Timothy Appnel(day 2 here)
Bob Frankston
Rick Bruner and here and here, not to mention here
Michael O'Connor Clarke
Beth Goza
Jimmy Gutterman
Biz Stone
Halley Suitt
Mathew Berk
John Robb
Anil Ash
Jeff Jarvis
Timmy Ireland
Paul Perry
Martin Röll
Topic Exchange
Bill Seitz
Debbie Weil I didn't know you had a blog!
Adina Levin
Rex Hammock
Phil Wolff
Vince Mease

Wikis

I love learning new stuff like this. In my pursuit to suck up knowledge on social networks I came across something new to me. A Wiki. Okay, we have Blogs. That name is goofy. My parents roll there eyes when I say the word. "Bllloggg?" Wait til I bring home "Wiki." But besides the name, it's sounds like a neat application with practical uses within organizations and companies. I feel like everyone knows about Wikis except me. But in case you're in the dark like me, Ross Mayfield explains:

Wikis let the group voice emerge.  Many people participate within a given wiki, each with an equal voice in a shared space that anyone can edit.  Its a different act of sharing to contribute your words to a page that others can build upon.  Our instinct is to at first believe this would create conflict and distrust, but it actually builds trust.    Each wiki page reflects the current consensual understanding of a given concept.  A page isn't a complete or perfect understanding, information and conditions change too quickly for it to be possible  Instead, a little wabi-sabi  and trusting others allows something powerful to emerge and stay current -- a simply powerful tool for collaboration.

We aren't the only one to think of the differences between weblogs and wikis as individual and group voices.  Elwin Jenkins describes it as weblogs turn individuals into webpages while wikis turn communities into webpages.

There are lots of similarities between the two tools.  Both are web native, are easy to use, are link-intensive and encourage sharing. 

Both are being widely adopted, wikis less visibly because of private group use and at different paces in different areas.  A customer once explained to me how he thought wikis were more popular than weblogs in Asia because group voice is valued greater than individual voice.  Regardless of popularity, different cultures and organizations will have different values that is reflected in their tool selection.

Its not a choice between one or another.  The temporal structure of weblogs and logical structure of wikis are a complement for lasting effects.  One of the more powerful patterns in an organization is how an opportunity is published in blog, possibilities are swarmed upon in blog conversation and then driven to consensus and outcome in a wikified document.  After the outcome, the knowledge and its social context remains. 

Jim McGee has more here and here. Thanks Dina for the great Wiki links! (she has even more if you visit her blog).

Social Networks Reading

Liz Lawley lists some recommended reading for Social Software. I'm calling it Social Networks reading because I think it bests describes it.

• Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, by Steven Johnson.


• Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, by Duncan Watts.


• Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, by Howard Rheingold.


• Linked: The New Science of Networks, by Albert-László Barabási.


• Small Pieces Loosely Joined, by David Weinberger.


• “The Strength of Weak Ties,” by Mark Granovetter [from the American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 6. (May, 1973), pp. 1360-1380.] RIT faculty can retrieve a PDF of this article by going to the JSTOR database via the RIT library, and searching for author=Granovetter and title=weak ties in the Sociology journals.

• The Social Construction of Technological Systems, an excellent collection of essays discussing (among other things) the recursive interrelationships between social contexts and technological tools.

Social Networks

A while ago, someone linked to an article in Strategy & Business by Art Kleiner on Karen Stephenson, the social network theorist (okay if you've never heard of this before you're probably getting cold chills because it sounds sooo boring. But stay with me). I had heard of social networks before, mostly in the context of politics and references in some blogs. Of course there is the Tipping Point, but that is only part of the puzzle. It started my curiosity in the implications of social networks in marketing and communications. But since I've read that article I've been a vacuum trying to suck in everything I can on the subject from blogs to articles to books. I believe this is the model that smart communicators will realize in the future (starting now). Everything from marketers to advertisers to publishers to corporate communicators. It even goes beyond communication, and allows us to realize how all the elements connect and work together in any group ... intracompany, customer base, potential customer base, readership, etc. By understanding these connections we can be better marketers, advertisers, publishers, communicators.

So, this is my long-winded way of saying I've started a new section on my blogroll for Social Networks. There are only three now. I really want to focus only on blogs/sites that fully dedicate themselves to social networks and/or social software. So please take a look at:
iWire
Socialtext
SmartMobs (was already on the roll but got relocated)

Online Divorce?

Apparently so, reports CNN.

For fees ranging from $50 to $300 -- a small fraction of what most lawyers charge even for an uncontested divorce -- couples are being provided with the appropriate forms and varying degrees of help completing them.

The phenomenon is spreading. Rival firms CompleteCase.com and LegalZoom.com each say they have served 20,000 clients nationwide in less than three years of operation. Hits on the divorce section of the California court system's do-it-yourself Web site soared from 6,800 in May 2002 to about 15,000 last month.

Thankfully I'm not worried about this. I'm happily engaged to Amy. Who is, by the way, living it up in Ireland right now on an MBA trip. She says I'd love it because it's all about the Guinness and the pubs. I think she's right.

I wonder how long it will be before Rageboy and Locke call it quits? I wonder how they would decide who kept what on their wedding registry (I guess it's kinda obvious).

Corporate Adaptation to Blog Technologies

Hurray. Applause. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to Todd Brehe who might be the first in a marketing publication to give practical, real world, easy-to-use advice corporations can understand in how to adapt to blogging as a form of communications.

"Adapt." That concept has been missing from the lexicon of others writing about integrating blogging into corporate marketing and communication strategies. Todd calls blogs a disruptive technology ... and they really are in terms of the corporate world because as a means of communicating they are far different from the "attractive, expensive, stale, diluted ... corporatespeak" corporations are accustomed to providing. Blogs on the other hand "offer the human voice, which can be loud, controversial, and even wacky. But the realness of the blog inspires trust and piques people’s curiosity. A blog can create a community and a dynamic discussion."

Todd gives us four main benefits of blogs to business:

Blogs Are the “Real Voice" - which "inspires trust and piques people’s curiosity"
Blogs Are Simple - not to mention low cost
Blogs Empower the Individual - a "single person [can] capitalize on the reach and ubiquity of the Web"
Blogs Empower the Enterprise - "knowledge can be organized, distributed, and leveraged to increase the value of product and service offerings to the customer" through knowledgeable and passionate people in the company.

Todd tells us companies

should understand that controlling the content of the discussion is difficult. If you want an authentic exchange, you have to be willing to accept the stone-throwing and critical comments that often occur in a blog.

This requires extending trust and giving up some of the control a company would normally have when it publishes a press release or hosts its own online forum, for example. The upside is that people will listen to a real voice.

Hence, how and why companies should adapt and start using blogs a means of communicating.

For future reading. Dave Pollard has some good stuff (at first glance) on blogs in business.

This is a problem I have frequently. Find something with depth or length that I really want to sink my teeth into, but don't have time. Someone with more technical prowess than myself should create a tool that would allow one to quickly store links they want to reference later. Sort of a short-term Bookmark. Or a Blog Task, similar to Outlook's Tasks.

Are You David Nelson?

If so, you're on "the list." From Boing Boing (full article here):

David Nelson of Gresham says he was searched and screened three times at the Portland airport, then again at the gates of Dallas and Atlanta airports before arriving in Savannah, Ga., last month. "It's as if they think you've been transformed into a terrorist en route. You'd think one screening was enough, when you haven't left a secure area the entire trip."
"What really concerned me," says David Nelson of Northwest Portland, who recently was delayed trying to fly to Juneau, Alaska, to take care of his mother, "was even when they determined I wasn't the one on the list, it's like I had a label on my forehead that says, 'One must frisk this person at every opportunity and go through his luggage.' It's as if I were a pariah." David had no idea why he was being singled out; no one mentioned a list. "My son is a pilot for Continental; I thought maybe that had something to do with it."

Oregon state Sen. David Nelson, from Pendleton, also had no idea why he was being delayed at airports. "Then we flew into the Medford airport on Horizon, and one of the agents said, 'Your name is on the list. You're going to be checked every place you go.' That was a shock."

Remember Ozzie and Harriet's son, David Nelson? "I got stopped at the John Wayne Airport" in Orange County, Calif., he said by phone from Los Angeles this week. "Two police officers knew who I was and tried to explain to the guy behind the security desk. It didn't faze him at all." Even as another officer was saying he had once met David's mother, Harriet, David was being instructed to remove his shoes, he says. "I asked, 'Does the guy on the list have a middle name of Ozzie?' He said, 'It just says David Nelson.' "

There are approx. 37,900 search results for "David Nelson" on Google.

Adding 2 new blogs to the blogroll:
Conversations with Dina by Dina Mehta
For the Sake of Clarity: The Digital Tavern by Allan Karl.
Both of which have insightful pieces on corporate blogging (aka business blogging): Dina's and Allan's.

Who Owns Your Brand?

"Give customers ownership in your brand." So heard Kristine Kirby Webster, who wrote "Who Owns Your Brand" on MarketingProfs. Sounds similar to what David Weinberger said in a Fast Company article a while back: "The biggest mistake that most companies make is to think that a Web site belongs to them. Companies just don't get it. Individuals believe that the Web belongs to us." I commented then too.
From Kristina:

And in an increasingly automated society, brands that create an emotional relationship with customers stand to gain a great deal: loyalty, profits, brand ambassadors, and even growth.

Fundementals of Managing Business Innovation by Mohanbir Sawhney (thanks IdeaFlow)

– Radical innovation in value created , not in technology
–Often disruptive to core business, though not necessarily so
–More substantial than product innovation
–More dimensions than technological innovation
– Requires thinking holistically about the business system

Introduction to Blogs

Yahoo has enhanced their directory of weblogs. A pretty good starting point for blog beginners trying to get connected.

After exploring a little bit further I found this decent size list of baseball blogs. I was wondering when sports blogs were going to take off. I've registered one of my own on Blogger, "Blog to the Redskins," but haven't done anything with it yet.

The New Advertising Business

Doc's latest in Linux Journal.

The whole time I was in that business, I noticed how many problems derived from a single ironic fact: our customers and our consumers were different populations. This also was true for the media in which we placed our advertising. The people who paid for the advertising were not the same as the people who received it. Because readers, viewers and listeners paid nothing for the advertising they consumed, their direct influence on the advertising they consumed was about the same. Between advertisers and consumers, advertising was not a way for the twain to meet--that's what sales and promotion was for.

Doc Quoting Richard Holding of Google's Adwords program:

The premise behind the ads on the right side, Adwords, is an auction model. People bid on placement based on keywords. They set the maximum cost per click (CPC) they're willing to pay. In effect, they set their true reservation price: the maximum they're willing to pay. They pay no more than slightly above the next lowest competitor, so there's no winner's curse where you outbid everybody by an extreme margin. This creates a competitive marketplace where advertisers bid on leads generated for them by search results.
We take a relevancy factor into account. We rank the ad, based on the click-through rate. So a lower-bid ad with a higher click-through rate will be ranked, placed, higher in the list of results.

Doc argues that this model will change the face of advertising. I tend to disagree. While I applaud its effectiveness, it really is no different than a more sophisticated model of what the yellow pages industry terms "directional marketing." Directional marketing is simply a form of advertising where instead of the advertiser pushing a message out to the consumer, customers are seeking the advertiser. The auction and relevancy model at Google just makes this process easier and more customer-friendly.

There is still a need for businesses to generate brand recognition, awareness, preference and reinforcement. While there may be no customer demand for this messaging, that doesn't mean that good advertising is ineffective. The key to successful brand advertising and even direct response is to target an audience who will respond to, either the message or an offer, without being alienated or annoyed. It's just that we're in a world where this isn't being done effectively because frequency and intrusion is a primary strategy for many advertisers. The volume is being turned up, when really it's the composition that should be refined.

Blogging The Newshour

It's been some time since Newshour showed up at Dave & Busters to interview 4 of us bloggers in February. Samara Aberman, Media Reporter for the Newshour, said she had the idea for the story sometime ago. While no longer "new" news, Samara finally got her wish to do the story.

I remember the Meet Up occured shortly after the big snow storm. Only 2 of us, Samara, the camera guy and sound guy were there. We were rapping pretty well and about to get started. The other 2 showed up. While once the tape started rolling, I was the least dominent participant in the conversation (I was overcoming a bad cold, not to mention I rarely dominate a conversation -- just my style), we had a good round table.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Couldn’t do the live blogging. TV wasn’t meant to be blogged with all its sound bites. Even watching PBS. It’s a good thing for VCR’s. I know there are some awful spelling mistakes and no links. Sorry if I butchered anyone's name. I'll fix it up. I wanted to get this out as soon as possible.

Here’s what caught my eye:

“4 guys in a bar. In this case, 4 bloggers in a bar.” I like the start. Things that start in a bar couldn’t be all that bad ;)

James Robertson: “Weblogging is much the same thing as keeping a diary. It is a way of putting up your thoughts of what ever is going through your life that day. Sometimes I’m ranting, sometimes I’m saying this is kind of neat.”

Thomas Bascom: “So I look at blogging as a group of millions of people trying to share their message, writing passionately about what they’re interested in, telling stories.”

Cutting from the bar scene. Moving to the war in Iraq.

Newshour offers analysis:
-Weblogs offer alternative views.
-They are incredibly up-to-date (Command Post)
-Singular person perspectives: Salam Pax, Blogger in Iraq. Last entry the same day as when the power went out.
I think this gives first hand account of situation without the interference of editors and corporate interests.

Soapbox vs. New Interactive form of participatory journalism:
MSNBC Exec. Producer Joan Connell, selects and edits weblogs on MSNBC: Why people blog: “narcissism, creativity and a desire to connect with like-minded people.”

“That is what journalism is all about actually, in some ways. And it’s what creating communities is all about. That’s one of the great challenges to us as news gatherers and journalists. How do we discover information and share it in creative ways with people. Give them the information they need to make decisions in their lives as citizens.”

Newshour: Laced with edge and attitude. Hypertext is often included (and might I add imperative to interesting blogging). Subject matter as diverse as the internet itself. From classic cars to sex to knitting.

But it is the opinion journalism weblogs that can and have made a difference in the public policy arena … bringing down Trent Lott.

Joshua Marshall (Talking Points Memo): Mainstream media largely ignored the situation but bloggers kept the issue afloat. Talks about the status quo of journalism. Blogs kept the issue from dying.

News organization subsequently started covering the controversy. POWER of media.

Joan: The Lott issue gathered momentum – created a buzz through very grassroots movement.

Is weblogging journalism?
Joan: “One of the values we place on our own weblogs is that we edit our webloggers. Out their in the blogosphere often it goes from the mind of the blogger to the mind of the reader. And there’s no back up. And I would submit that that editing factor really is the factor that makes it journalism. Are you making a mistake here? Do you really want to say that? Do you really want to use that word? Is that libelous? All those basic journalism questions that we always ask.”

This is interesting to me because it’s almost exactly what Henry Copeland and I briefly discussed after DC DOT COMM in January …. He said much of the same.

However, this is where I disagree with Joan. Those are the “basic journalism questions that news media always ask?” (paraphrased). I think instead of saying the editor/writer structure makes MSNBC’s blogs real journalism and others not is somewhat of a biased statement to the existing (or shall I say old) hierarchy in the news media.

There are different types of journalism. The journalism that blogging brings to the table is a singular person, gonzo style. In the flesh, without hierarchical control. And to the point of several in the story, blogging is participatory journalism. I would even call it conversational journalism. Conversations do not hold the same characteristics as broadcast communication. I would argue that there is a mutual understanding between reader and writer in much the same way that our real world debates and converses.

Where the news media has its shortcomings, conversational journalism can often times take up the slack. Pressure from advertisers and media monopoly self interests creates a bias in the news media.

John Irons: Blogging is about personal Expression: Try to become a better writer.

Me: Its really what the web is all about …. Each person having their own voice and the democrization of media.

Dick Riley, attorney, is a reader of weblogs. Emailed Joshua Marshal his thoughts on an entry he did on the naming of the department of Homeland Security. This is the participatory nature of blogging and the potential the internet holds. Readers and writers are much more intimately engaged.

Riley: “Sophisticated political commentary in bite-sized chunks….You get the opportunity to correspond in real time with the writers…. It’s an absolute conversation between political and cultural commentators and their readers.”

Weblogs are helping shape opinions and keeping the citizenry more engaged in political discourse.

NEWSHOUR Blogging Story to Air Tonight

The Jim Lehrer Newshour piece on blogs is airing tonight. I was interviewed along with 3 others at a recent DC Meet Up event a few months ago. From what I understand there are several other bloggers who were interviewed for the story.

I'll blog more after the show. A transcript will be posted here in the next couple of days.

The Artist, Stanley Kubrick

I was poking around Plastic this morning looking for something entirely different and came accross this interesting 1999 Harpers article on Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut which was linked off a Plastic discussion on Kubrick. I had originally thought the film was just okay. But I could there was something more than what I was picking up. This article gives me a new perspective on the film. The author Lee Spiegel gives an interesting commentary on how our culture has become one of "art-phobia."

No one has dwelled on the essential otherness of a work of art. There is, after all, that hackneyed but profound notion of a willing suspension of disbelief. Genuine art makes you stake your credulity on the patently counterfeit. It takes you by surprise. And for art to take you by surprise, you have to put yourself in the power of another world--the work of art--and in the power of another person--the artist.

Yet everything in our society, so saturated with economic imperatives, tells us not to surrender our interests even for a moment, tells us that the only forms of cultural expression we can trust are those that give us instant gratification, useful information, or a reflected image of ourselves. So we are flooded with the kind of art that deprecates attentiveness, tells us about the issues of the day, and corresponds to our own personalities. And if a genuine work of art appears that has none of these qualities, critics impose them anyway, for they fear that if they surrender themselves to the work's strangeness, they will seem vulnerable and naive and intellectually unreliable.

And how the marketing backfired:

Since the film's producers had mounted such an immensely noisy publicity campaign--Kubrick's last film; one of the world's greatest directors tackles the subject of sex, sex, sex by staging the most erotic orgy scene ever filmed; see Nicole Kidman nude; see Tom Cruise nude; see the couple married in real life make love on the screen--the critics had to show that they were not going to allow bullying commerce to determine their experience of the film. So they decided not to respond to the film. They decided to respond to the hype. And the result was that the hype totally determined their experience of the film.

Agh

What's worse than Al Gore trying to repeat?....Newt Gingrich, go back to your hole. (and I actually stood by a lot of what this guy did). Here too.

Corporate Blogs Make Personal Connection

There's been lots of chatter around Richard Karpinski's article on corporate blogging. With the ClickZ Blog Conference coming up in June, this area is going to start getting a lot of attention. I think it's about to tip ... (annoying how that's already become cliche). I think the article makes all the right points.

But something is incomplete. It's terrific that some companies are starting to use blogs as a means of marketing and/or communicating with their customers. These companies truly are pioneers. However I think there's even greater potential. Instead of blogging for customers, companies should be creating blog networks of customers. This is one of the things I give Dr. Pepper some credit for attempting. Call it jumping on the band wagon, but I think Richard's Interactive has got something right.

A hypothetical example: Take Lowe's, the home improvement store. Why not create an entire section of their website dedicated to stories their customers tell about home improvement? Mom at Home, Creating Home Decor, Jarrett House North and other blogs discussing home improvement projects could be integrated into the Lowe's site. Not only would Lowe's engage their customers but will help build their own network of blogs. It's not a closed system, but capitalizing on an existing one and helping to build upon it. Of course Lowe's should hop in the game with a couple blogs of their own from their experts.

The advantage to Lowe's: They not only become associated with their customers, but they become highly entrenched with them. The more they are honestly engaged, the better their brand equity... or brand value.

Peoople. Globe Alive is Google for finding people: The World Live Web

Not since I discovered blogging have I been as thrilled with a new idea on the internet as I am now with Globe Alive. Created by Doc Searl's son, Allen, Globe Alive realizes the next level of potential the internet processes. Interestingly, Doc didn't know about his son's venture until about a month ago.

The search site helps find people who can answer your questions. Instead of finding static pages, you are connected to people who are online and ready to respond. Once the site is packed with people it will be an incredible tool. The proud father has much more to say.

I do wonder if this would be better served on a p2p platform like Gnuetella?

Why did that chicken cross the road?

I know it's been slow here lately. Here's an email I got from a friend today that really cracked me up:

Why did that chicken cross the road?

GEORGE W. BUSH

We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to
know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is
either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.


COLIN POWELL

Now at the left of the screen, you clearly see the satellite image of
the chicken crossing the road.


HANZ BLIX

We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been
allowed access to the other side of the road.


MOHAMMED ALDOURI (Iraq ambassador)

The chicken did not cross the road. This is a compl ete fabrication. We
don't even have a chicken.


SADDAM HUSSEIN

This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in
dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it


RALPH NADER

The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been
polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the
unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed
by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.


PAT BUCHANAN

To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.


RUSH LIMBAUGH

I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was
getting a government grant to cross the road, and I 'll bet someone out
there is already forming a support group to help chickens with
crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of
this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by
their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your
money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens
to cross.


MARTHA STEWART

No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a
standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price
dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider
information.


JERRY FALWELL

Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the

plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the other
side. That's what they call it -- the other side. Yes, my friends, that
chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too.
I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that
the
liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like the
other side.


DR. SEUSS

Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes, The chicken crossed the road,
But why it crossed, I've not been told!


ERNEST HEMINGWAY

To die. In the rain. Alone.


MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads
without having their motives called into question.


GRANDPA

In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told
us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.


BARBARA WALTERS

Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the
chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it
experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its
life-long dream of crossing the road.


JOHN LENNON

Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.


ARISTOTLE

It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.


KARL MARX

It was an historical inevitability.


VOLTAIRE

I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the
death its right to do it.


RONALD REAGAN

What chicken?


CAPTAIN KIRK

To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.


FOX MULDER

You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens
have to cross before you believe it?


SIGMUND FREUD

The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road
reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.


BILL GATES

I have just released eChicken 20 03, which will not only cross roads,
but
will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook
- and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.


ALBERT EINSTEIN

Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath
the chicken?


BILL CLINTON

I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken?
Could you define chicken, please?


COLONEL SANDERS

I missed one?

Washington Post reports marketer trying to fight spam is being taken to court.