Thursday, June 30, 2005

What's buzz got to do with it? Apparently, alot....and esp. right now if it's Celebrety Buzz...

A new blog that's being touted as the new Wonkette is something out of NY titled Jolie in NYC purpotedly written by a young woman who's a mid-level beauty editor.

I checked it out and it seems that most of the aggregating she does is to stories that anyone who's celebrety obsessed can find--things like Tom Cruise on sex (as if I care, but MSNBC does), Brad and Angelina having a baby!, and Ben the-guy-with-the-last-name-that-sounds-like-an-insurance-company Affleck and Jen don't-cha-just-wanna-be-a-nerd-like-her Garner's supposed proposed upcoming any day now nuptuals.

Like I said, you can find this stuff anywhere....

And who really gives two you-know-whats about how many perks a lowly little mid-level editor in New York gets on any given day??

spare me the gories.

Maybe my shoes aren't as expensive but my life is surely alot more interesting.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Is this the future of journalism? The NYTimes seems to think that the way they are doing things in Lawrence, Kansas is the way the amalgam of newspapers and the 'net will coalesce in the not too distant future.

Very similar to what MassLive.com is attempting out here in Western Mass.

Here's the Weblogs page where I believe this humble little blog is linked.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Sweaty men read more!

Okay, this story in New Scientist has *nothing* to do with blogging...but it's pretty darned funny.

Oh, and if you go over to Businessweek's Blogspotting blog, you'll find a comment from me. Hey! I'm in Businessweek!

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

If you haven't already seen the spiffy new Technorati, go check it out!

The look is more user-friendly than the former austere Technorati....although I'm not sure if it's any easier to use--haven't tried it yet.

Go ahead, give it a shot....and, if you want to be searched, get yourself a profile!

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

BusinessWeek is amazingly blog-savvy! If you didn't see their coverstory on blogs and business, check it out here....

But they also have several blogs including one titled Blogspotting (yeah, rather peculiar for business-types to riff on Trainspotting--a real "go figure"). Blogspotting has a short piece on the wiki mess at the L.A. Times.

I am waiting for them to review and possibly post my comment, where I mention that it's rather foolish to think that something like a wiki feature will not get trolled. It's similar to a bbs at any major newspaper, and, if y'all ever posted on a bbs, well, there were always troll risks there just as much as flame risks on a usenet newsgroup.

Blogs are wonderfully flexible and organic, but, geeze people! let's not forget from whence they sprung!

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

A rather serious computer malfunction has kept me from posting to Spap-Oop recently, but here's a good one from my friend Jeff at Have Coffee Will Write on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Legal Guide for Bloggers.

Looks like a good thing!

Friday, June 10, 2005

From Editor & Publisher: an update on blogging and journalism from the Interactive Media Conference in New Orleans.

It's an interesting little discussion on journalism and blogging. I particularly like what Tom Regan of The Christian Science Monitor does with his blogs: one is personal and the other is for information. For bloggers who are concerned about their identity and about getting flamed for posting personal stuff, this is possibly the best option.

A blog is just a blog, a limited form of media. Thinking one can put oneself totally on one particular blog is like thinking you can judge a book by its cover.

Besides, if you think about it, you might want some people to know one aspect of you, while others know another....and their might be really good reasons besides Fear of Flaming to keep the personal separate from the professional.

Just my $.02 on that matter.

Monday, June 06, 2005

When blogs and music get together who knows what might happen...maybe even a record contract.


And if you're into the whole "citizen journalist" think, check this article on SFgate.com....

But I totally wonder about the over-estimation of the impact of blogs. Just my $.02 on the matter.

Friday, June 03, 2005

"Stand-alone Internet journalism and commentary is emerging as an alternative news source -- and thus preoccupying traditional media -- because the most popular such sites are anti-Establishment, whether coming at the Established from the left, the right, or some other direction. Bloggers write in this fashion because they know that their millions of fans find discord -- and, particularly, a discordant struggle against the abuses of the powerful -- interesting. In this light, the Internet has served as a detailed, nationwide market survey that has produced the following result: The framers of the U.S. Constitution who wished to nurture the press as a confrontational Fourth Estate check on governmental overreaching weren't mere philosopher-statesmen. They were psycho-savvy economic planners, launching one of the longest-lasting, most profitable industries in world history." -- Matt Smith in a San Fran Weekley article on how The Chronicle let down the residents of SF by egregiously inaccurate reporting of an SF budget crisis reminiscent of Mike Albano's nonsense in Springfield.

Blogs, though, aren't necessarily the answer to the problems of Establishment journalism, but being a burr in the Establishment's saddle is kind of a good thing.

Individual readers of blogs, though, shouldn't necessarily consider all bloggers who blog on politics or polemical issues to be any greater than mainstream journalists though. As with MSM, don't believe the hype and consider the source. Always remain skeptical, no matter what the source.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

What they're doing in Boston: Bill Ives reports on his blog about a Boston WiFi Summit meeting

They're way ahead of us out there...nothing worse than being stuck in The Middle of Nowhere..