April 2006 Archives

Jeff Jarvis, media consultant and blogger, wrote a column for this London Guardian this week about the political nature of the Internet.  

Here is an excerpt:  

The internet is only doing to politics what it has done to other industries: it disaggregates elements and then enables these free atoms to reaggregate into new molecules; it fragments the old and unifies the new. So in the end, the internet gives us the opportunity to make more nuanced expressions of our political worldview, which makes obsolete old orthodoxies and old definitions of left and right.

and another:

The surest sign of this new world order will come if a blogger without party favours wins an election with the support of his online tribe (one blogger has just launched a campaign against a controversial US congresswoman). If that happens, it will show that the internet lowers the barrier to entry not only in media and commerce but also in politics. So the internet doesn't favour right, left or libertarian. The internet is revolutionary.

You can read the whole column here.

Jeff is right, the Internet isn't partisan and does lower the barrier for entry to the political process.   However, easy access  is not an invitation to  lower the standards of the debate.   If you are going to run for office you should have something to say.   You should be able to present a coherent argument for why you should be elected.   You should have ideas, or solutions, or in some way be able to contribute to the effort to address critical issues.   I welcome dissent - its a key ingredient in our Democracy.   But dissent alone is not enough to sustain a candidacy and it is not a qualification for election.   You can't just be against something;  You have to be for something as well.

Politics is not governing.   A vocal blogger with support from his/her 'tribe' is absolutely qualified and welcome to enter the political arena.   But voters - online or offline - should be smarter than to elect that person because they like how they write, or rant, or whatever.   I won't claim that all of the people elected to office today, or seeking office this November, have the qualifications to govern either.   In fact, I would argue that it is  the lack of a clear position on issues, a failure to make a substantive contribution to the policy making process, that is keeping  the Democrats from seizing power (or at least momentum) right now (John Halpin and Ruy Texera take that very subject up this week in The American Prospect).

Jeff is right - a blogger getting elected to office solely on the merits of what they write online will signal a major shift in the way our society is managed.   I'm just not sure that is the direction we should want to shift.

Rolling Stone says onilne video bloggers are redefining the world of news and entertainment.   Here's a quote:

And with technology getting cheaper, and the mainstream media jumping in, the proliferation of vlogs could transform the Net into a kind of limitless cable system. "The Web is this great democratizing force, so that everyone can be a publisher and a television producer," says [Jonathan Landman, the New York Times editor who oversaw the revamping of the paper's Web site with a slate of vlogs].  "Name it, and you can be it. That's the world we live in."

From Today's Boston Globe:

Om Malik blogs about one of my favorite topics: simplicity. I wager that almost all of your gadgets have too many features. Researchers at the University of Maryland just finished a study on what they call feature fatigue — the frustration that occurs when consumers are overwhelmed and confused by the number of features on their electronic devices. €˜ €˜Companies can actually make more money in the long run by making products that are simpler than what customers think they want.'' The smarter strategy? Design simple, dedicated devices like the iPod that do one thing very well. The hardest decisions in product development? What NOT to do.

The latest numbers on the size of the blogosphere are out.   From Today's Boston Globe:

David Sifry, founder and chief executive of Technorati, the place to go to track the blogosphere, says that Technorati is now tracking 35.3 million blogs, and that number has been doubling every six months for the last 42 months. On average, a new blog is created every second of every day and 55 percent are still posting three months after their blogs are created. Technorati tracks about 1.2 million new blog posts each day. With blogs moving toward mainstream territory, 12-step programs for compulsive bloggers can't be far behind.

David Sifry's complete State of the Blogosphere for April 2006 is here.

According to The Wall Street Journal, even softball can't escape the partisan tension that has consumed  our nation's capital.

Starting this week, hundreds of young Capitol Hill aides will indulge in an annual rite of spring here by changing out of their business suits and heading over to the National Mall to play in the Congressional Softball League.

Amid all the partisan rancor of congressional politics, the softball league has for 37 years been a rare case of bipartisan civility, an opportunity for Democratic and Republican aides to sneak out of work a bit early and take the field in the name of the lawmaker, committee or federal agency they work for.

This year, the league will be missing something: a lot of the Republicans.

During the off-season, a group of Republican teams seceded from the league after accusing its Democratic commissioner, Gary Caruso, of running a socialist year-end playoff system that gives below-average teams an unfair chance to win the championship.

The league "is all about Softball Welfare — aiding the weak by punishing the strong," the pitcher of one Republican team told Mr. Caruso in an email. "The commissioner has a long-standing policy of punishing success and rewarding failure. He's a Democrat. Waddya' expect?" read another email, from Gary Mahmoud, the coach of BoehnerLand, a team from the office of Republican Majority Leader John Boehner.

The softball coup is a "reflection of how partisan and Republican this town has really become since Republicans took control," responds Mr. Caruso, a longtime Democratic aide who worked for congressmen in the 1980s and '90s. "Republicans come here and want to bash your head in. And if they don't get their way, they pick up the ball and go home."

This makes me sad.   I played softball as a part of this league when I was an intern at the Democratic Governors' Association almost ten years ago.   It is  a great summer ritual.   Cut the childish behavior folks and just play ball.  

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has launched a blog — The Lobby.

The Wall Street Journal says that the company's  "initial approach to the genre has as much in common with advertising as it does with the wide-open world of blogging."

The effort is a professionally written and frequently updated Web log open to the public but aimed specifically at members of the "Starwood Preferred Guest" loyalty program. Many of the blog's posts advertise happenings at specific hotels in the company's portfolio of brands that include Westin, Sheraton, St. Regis and W. It also promotes ways that travelers can earn loyalty points through special promotions, for example.

Mixed in are posts meant to be informative for the frequent traveler. Recent items include links to blogs like Gizmodo.com and articles in mainstream publications. TheLobby.com currently links to items about self-weighing luggage; boxer shorts that have tiny pockets for iPods; and an item on National Public Radio about the use of Segway devices at the golf course of a Westin resort in Arizona.

I say it all the time, blogging is both a tool (a piece of technology that allows people with little/no technological skills to post information to the internet) and a world view (in my mind, if you blog, you make a commitment to talking openly and honestly about a subject - transparency is key).   Beyond that, there are many different forms of blogging that are appropriate.   What does that mean in practice?  

Comments: You don't need to have open, unmoderated comments to qualify as a blog.   I think you should  welcome comments and that its important to have a feedback loop, but  its not a deal breaker.   But you moderate your comments,  require people to submit verifiable contact information before posting a comment, or even just use the blog to promote your view.   Whatever you choose though, post your rules in advance so that its clear what your policy is.

On a side note, the WSJ claims that TheLobby.com blog doesn't allow feedback from users.   They do.   There is a comments option in every post (complete with a lengthy disclaimer outlining Starwood's policies and procedures).

Personality: Authentic voices can come from all over.   I don't see a problem with hiring a professional writer - or in the case of TheLobby, a PR firm -  to post and promote content on your blog as long  as you are transparent about it.   The Starwood blog identifies their editors and writers (Philip, thomas, and Nick L.) but does little to introduce them.   I'd like to see a bit more detail, even if they have to admit that the three are PR flaks.

Subject Matter:    Let me get this straight.   The Lobby blog is linking to information that helps people interested in traveling to Starwoods brand hotels to get information that improves their travel?   No political commentary?   No objective commentary about the hotel industry as a whole?   Call the blogging police!   Don't be silly - blogs have long been used to promote certain products or personalities (isn't that what every blog really is deep down, a mini PR machine for something or something?).   I think Starwood has set the expectation that you aren't likely to find negative information about their hotels on this blog, and that's fine.   Readers, adjust your filters accordingly.

Welcome to the blogosphere Starwood.    I'll be reading.

The Center for Media Research reports new data about the readership of newspapers and online news  (taken from a study released by the Newspaper Association of America).   The topilines:

• 116 million adults are reading the newspaper over the course of a week and 55 million Internet users visit a newspaper Web site over the course of a month.
• Unique visitors to newspaper Web sites jumped 21 percent in 2005 and page views increased by 43 percent over that same period.  
• Newspaper web sites attracted 14 percent more 25- to 34-year-olds and 9 percent more 18- to 24-year-olds.
• 78 percent of the 149 million adults who live in the top 50 markets read a newspaper over the course of five weekdays and one Sunday.  
• 69 percent of 18- to 24-year olds in the these markets are reading a newspaper during the course of a week.
• 65.7 percent of consumers with household incomes of $150,000 or more read the newspaper on an average weekday, and more than 71.7 percent on an average Sunday.

And in the least surprising, yet likely to attract the most attention TAGS:

• Newspapers own 11 of the top 25 national news and information Web sites, and locally, newspapers provide the dominant information site in most of the top 75 markets.

The newspaper industry still has a lot of work to do before it completely transforms itself from a print-only news medium to the propriters of highly interactive information centers.   I'm still not entirely sure they will succeed in their transformation  – it is  entirely possible that when we look at similar data in five or ten years that the newspaper industry will barely be represented in these studies and that the new information providers will be individual citizens, full-time information aggregators, or some new category we haven't thought of yet.   I hope newspaper companies do find success online because the history and knowledge of how good journalism must be conducted is wrapped up in them and it would be a loss for us all if that wasn't carried over to new and developing mediums.

The Center for Media Research reported this week that spending on user-generated media has is growing — and fast!

The first installment in PQ Media's Alternative Media Research Series, the Blog, Podcast and RSS Advertising Outlook, reports that advertising spending on user-generated online media - blogs, podcasts and RSS - did not begin until 2002, but this combined spending has grown to $20.4 million by the end or 2005, a 198.4% increase over the 2004 level. Spending on blog, podcast and RSS advertising is projected to climb another 144.9% in 2006 to $49.8 million.

Jeff Jarvis has some thoughts on this over at BuzzMachine.

A Web Site Born in U.S. Finds Fans in Brazil (New York Times)
"Orkut, the invention of a Turkish-born software engineer named Orkut Buyukkokten, never really caught on in the United States, where MySpace rules teenage cyberspace. But it is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon in Brazil."

Online sites are the new line of political attacks (Boston Globe)
Old News, but another country heard from — "Once a boon to candidates who wanted to market their positions to a wide, online audience, the Internet has increasingly become a forum to establish a line of attack and create a potentially devastating caricature of an opponent."

A Home Where Bloggers Can Plumb Those Obscure Passions (New York Times)
Late last month, Squidoo.com, began offering Internet authors the chance to earn money on their obscure expertise, be it on taxidermy, vegetarianism or, yes, beef jerky (www.squidoo.com/jerky/).   "The idea is to harness the knowledge that bloggers typically offer the world, but which average readers might struggle to find on their own. And while the site is not old enough to judge as a success or failure, it helps point to the enormous opportunity Internet entrepreneurs see in Web sites that are built on the postings of average people, as MySpace was, and the continuing zeal among users to publish their ideas online."

Social Networking Is Your Friend (ClickZ)

"If you haven't yet approached social networking, now is the time to formulate your strategy."  

Today is Opening Day for the Washington Nationals.   Woo hoo!

In honor of Opening Day, here is a list of The Top 10 Worst Baseball Promos (from Brandweek):

1. Disco Sucks Night, July 12, 1979: Chicago DJ Steve Dahl had White Sox fans bring disco records, which were blown up between games of a doubleheder.   The explosion triggered a riot.
 

2. 10-Cent Beer Night, June 4, 1974: The Cleveland Indians offered fans unlimited beer for a dime a pop.   Drunks soon pelted umpires and players with cheap brew, followed by chairs, batteries, rocks, and golf balls.
 

3. Free Baseballs, August 19, 1995: Many teams give away balls.   Few have them throw back at them.   LA Dodgers fans did it en masse 11 years ago, ending the game.
 

4. Hidden Diamond, August 22, 2002: The minor league Orlando Rays had 250 women race across the field to dig for a hidden diamond.   In the frenzy, one had a seizure and died.
 

5. Whack the Sausage, July 9, 2003: A race among sausage mascots at a Milwaukee Brewers game ended when a Pittsburgh Pirates player hit one with a bat.   The weiner fell and was run over by a hot dog.
 

6. Stress Relief Night, August 18, 2003: The minor leage Las Vegas 51s handed out stress relief balls, but one distressed fan threw his at a Portland Beavers player.   Teammates rushed into the stands, leading to a free-for-all.
 

7. Ted Williams Popsicle Night, June 3, 2003: Ted Williams' body was cryogenically frozen in 2002, and at the one-year anniversary Arizona's minor leage Copper Kings handed out Popsicles to "honor" him.
 

8. Baseball's All-Star Tie, July 9, 2002: When Commissioner Bud Selig declared the 2002 MLB All-Start Game end in a tie after both teams "ran out" of players, fans threw bottles, plastic cups and promotional seat cushions.
 

9. Tonya Harding Bat Night: Several minor league teams have "celebrated" the 1994 baton attack on Nancy Kerrigan, at which Harding signs minibats and recalls her career "highs."
 

10.   Awful Night, July 14, 2003: The minor league Altoona, PA Curve blasted music by William Shatner and Milli Vanilli while fans popped sheets of bubble wrap.