January 21, 2006
January 20, 2006
IT'S FREE GUM FRIDAY AT ELMITASTE
Get over to ElmiTaste and claim your pack of FREE gum before 12 a.m. Pacific time.
Note: the little fill-in box doesn't show so well in Firefox, so use IE or another browser. Matt's webmaster's working on that. If you click on and off the window, you can get it to come to the top. Worst comes to worst, email me by midnight with your particuars and I'll forward it on to OUR BLOG FRIENDS AT ELIMITASTE.
You don't believe me, see Shakespierce.
January 19, 2006
January 15, 2007
The Internet grinds to a complete halt, stopping life as we know it in its tracks. Schools close. Banks padlock the doors. Store registers shut down. Air travel and mass transit stops.
The cause? One dumb blonde joke started on the blogs.
Knock Knock, We're Here.
Hill & Knowlton Used the "C" Word
In almost every presentation about blogging, you will hear experts telling you to join the conversation. That is the same ‘conversation’ made famous by The Cluetrain Manifesto, the bible of the blogging generation. This seminal work introduced the concept of markets as conversations; conversations that enable powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge. These new, networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.
Seminal what?
You can call me Madame Secretary
From misunderstood to healed in six easy steps. Do the recovery boogie.
one more minute to go before i sleep
oh i thought of one thing, besides that you should be reading shakespierce, and that is that I wish someone -- not Google or Blogger as they don't care -- could tell me how to get my profile info and picture back into my sidebar. It was disappeared when I logged in after a three-hour Blogger routine maintenance, um, outage. It's there in my actual Blogger profile, but gone from my template.
Okay, really, I'd like all of us to go to sleep now. Ready? Meds taken? TV off? Clean laundry on the bed piled on top of you? (That's one of my favorite things: sleeping burried in clean laundry. There must be a forum for this. Now that I've outed myself, I guess I should go check.)
okay, sleep well.
January 18, 2006
RSSing --> It's all good, or is it?
The whole copyright debate is very confusing to me, as I think it is to anyone who throws original content into an open marketplace. Recently the debate's been spinning around Top Ten Sources, for which I proudly serve as a source at Halley's right hand. I was honored to be recognized alongside the others Halley chose.
My only issue would be if suddenly my content was being used in conjunction with a revenue generating doodad - like google ads or something similar - and I wasn't sharing in the revenue in a mutually-agreed-upon way.
Then we'd have a problem.
Top Ten Sources founder John Palfry suggests adding copyright statements to our feeds. I have no idea if this was what he had in mind, but this is what I added to mine (see red below). Tell me how it looks. I don't know if I can make it tiny. I don't really know what the hell this will do. Except I guess it states the mantra of this content owner/sharer pretty well:
(C) Jeneane Sessum / Copyright 2001-2006
Content may not be redistributed or repurposed in any manner that generates revenue for any entity other than the content owner -- for example through advertising, aggregation, redistribution, or any other means -- without the consent of the author.
UPDATE: Try number 2 in consideration of Denise's take:Bare Statement: You can link to it; you can quote it; you can read it any way it comes to you. But if you're gaining revenue from it, I better be sharing in the revenue in a way that I've agreed to.
P.S., edit: never mind -- the little Blogger RSS footer doesn't seem to work--> the bare statement notice isn't showing up. grrr.
Must Reads:
Shelley
Om
DENISE
Locke
Dave
John
Adam
Google, Donate Blogger to Someone Who Gives a Shit
Open Letter to Google
Re: Blogger and Blogspot
Dear Google,
I know you did a really smart thing when you bought Blogger, and I'm the last person in the world who would come to you and tell you how to run your business or criticize you. I'm way too afraid of your highly-honed super powers to try that.
Besides I covet everything you have and give you mad kudos for getting what Evhead did way back when, and for not totally screwing up Blogger once you bought it. That's something. I mean, not exactly a best practice, but something.
P.S. I'm glad you made Ev rich because he was sort of like a hero of mine a few years back and you could email Ev and he'd answer you about a problem with Blogger sometimes at 1 in the morning, and when a blogger would do something really dumb, like blow away their blog, we actually had a contact, you know, to contact.
Ev would say no prob and recreate the heavens and earths with the snap of his fingers or magic wand. I think a cat was involved or some incantation--I never asked questions.
I say all of this even though his new template's font size is like 204 points.
But I digress.
My point is that a lot has happened since you bought Blogger and Blogspot; for instance your IPO and becoming the legendary Corporate Superpower Of All Time, and you've been really busy with all of those cool tools you invented. God knows I couldn't live another day without Google Desktop (actually I uninstalled it, which you already know because you've got President Bush beat on that spying thing tenfold dontcha. ;-) )
So, times being different now, and me still caring a great deal about This Old House known as Blogger and Blogspot where my blog has lived for over 4 years now, I'd like to ask you to reconsider your purchase of Blogger and Blogspot / pyra. Yes that's right I'm asking you to sell it -- better yet give it -- to someone who actually gives a shit about the service.
I know that would be way heretical and all, but really, Ev's name is still the contact on EVERY blogspot blog on Alexa, and you're going to have to update that information anyway now that it was Reported Here First, so maybe Ev could take Blogger back from you and merge us with his podcasting venture. We could be the "pixel" arm of odeo or something. I'm just thinking outloud here. Looking for a win-win.
You could give us to Henry Copeland at blogads. He's really smart. He'd figure out something to do with us.
What I'm trying to say is that you did that update thing the other day, with the servers or something, and once again you were down for hours longer than you said, and you wrecked stuff--for instance WHERE did my profile info and picture go that was in my template and on my sidebar before you did this recent update?
I mean, HOW do you time and time again hammer our templates while we're eating pizza with the family? When you cut us, do we not bleed?
And while we're on the subject: the template situation--can we just say, things are out of control? It's been like TWO YEARS and you haven't had time to toss a few new templates up there just for yucks? Pay some of your own to develop some kickass new looks? Start a business model around the ability to flexibly change looks for those who don't want to bother with the CSS or HTML?
HELLO ADVERTISERS, here's an idea: YOU GIVE US TEMPLATES with your product/service elegantly and NOT obnoxiously displayed -- templates that work flawlessly with Blogger -- and then pay us to use them. If they are really cool, we'll say yes and take your money.
Could we be any more agreeable? Smarter? More loyal? I dare say no.
So for old times sake, if you can't pay attention to your users in the blogworld, I ask that you please, PLEASE make it so we can stop dissing you. Just hand us over to someone who cares about Blogger and Blogspot and all of us who've stuck with it over this long, long, LONG haul.
Could ya? Would ya?
January 17, 2006
Sing It, Henry
From Blogads' Henry Copeland. (Watch Henry . I don't know if you know how brilliant he is. You should know these things. We at allied try to keep you informed. That's why our hamster cages never get cleaned.)
The umbrella is turning inside out -- the old edges are the new hubs and vice versa. No amount of glue or good will or philosophical gloss will save the old hubs, the newspaper businesses whose economics and infrastructure are premised on exploiting the now-useless monopolies on printing presses and distribution channels.
Well I like the umbrella metaphor better than the highly-touted long tail, because of the wind it takes to bend the frame. It's that context thing.
This and the 8,500 other reasons I miss smoking. Yes still.
Smoking Helps Me Think -- from Doctor Ernest Dichter’s The Psychology of Everyday Living (1947)
The mind can concentrate best when all outside stimuli have been excluded. Smoking literally provides a sort of “smoke screen” that helps to shut out distractions. This explains why many people who were interviewed reported that they cannot think or write without a cigarette. They argued that moderate smoking may even stimulate mental alertness. It gives us a focal point for our attention. It also gives our hands something to do; otherwise they might make us self-conscious and interfere with mental activity. On the other hand, our respondents admit that smoking too much may reduce their efficiency.
Depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
I think if you're in austin, you ought to go get your war on
Hey, I didn't know that ("we're still not worthy you are so awesome") Get Your War On is now a theatrical production in Austin, but hey, it makes sense to me. With a sliding scale for ticket prices, you really don't have an excuse not to go if you're in Austin in January 19 - February 4, 2006 on any given Thursday through Saturday. I hope that you'll blog it if you go.
A play about a comic about a war? Smarter than a war about WMDs that didn't exist.
I'm so glad
I'm so glad that Jennifer is still blogging, has always been blogging it seems, and she delights me. Smart, beautiful, and a Web 2.0 last name to boot.
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Overdone
I swam today. I can't TELL you how cool that was. I haven't taken the time to go to the Y and swim in like 6 months, and considering th 932 pounds I've gained since quitting smoking a year and a half ago (REMEMBER? It was THAT long ago!!), today's aqua boot camp was not only a good idea, but entirely ass kicking. I was there with a couple of ladies my age and the rest 60ish plus. I loved them. They were so happy to be there, bouncing around the pool with their dumbbells, me included, and no that's not a misplaced modifier. They all welcomed me and we said our first names and I think it was the most social interaction I've had in a month, not counting IMing and Skyping with Albert and the BubbleShare team, and my secret in-town clients that I'd have to kill you if I told you about.
The class was just under an hour, so I was home and on the computer by 10 or so. Make me go tomorrow or the next day. You are completely allowed to say GO SWIM, YOU ARE BEING BITCHY. Or GO SWIM, the next 330 pounds are right around the corner! Or, GO SWIM, the ladies miss you! Or, GO SWIM, you'll feel better. Or you can also just ignore me, because as you know, the blogosphere is a free country, unless your an anonymous troll who annoys, which means you go to jail now. Let's hear it for the NeoCon Civility Force!
No really, I'm for that law.
No against it.
No for it.
No against it.
Really it depends on if I'm doing the annoying, which I never do anonymously or the anoyee, which is really a state of mind, isn't it?
Okay, links coming soon, and in the mean time, I am so busy my head is swimming. On an article deadline. There's nothing worse than that, except for NOT being on an article deadline.
Thank You for Agreeing
Yah, it's just plain odd (and old) that Ev at Pyra (not) is the head contact of my blog. Who is in charge of google these days?
when time was relative and sheep were nervous
Before I had Jenna, back in my late twenties and early thirties, while I was working at the Big Yellow Box in Rochester, I used to say -- and actually believe -- that there was NO job we couldn't finish in 24 hours if we all just stayed there and worked for one day (and night) straight. There were several occasions when I proved myself correct.
Back then I was convinced that project milestones and deadlines were way to liberal, that if you had a job then by God you should be there doing it whenever you weren't doing something else critically important, and that if the whole company hustled, we could get every thing done faster than the next guy.
That was before I knew anything about kids or layoffs or cashing in pensions or maternity leave or dot-coms or even business process re-engineering. In fact, those were the days when BPM actually meant business process management not Business Performance Management.
I came out of entrepreneurial roots, and all nighters were a common way to bond like family and get work done in a hyper-joyous, creative state, with pasta dinners in the conference room and two packs of smokes by my side.
I used to say that lack-of-sleep was our competitive advantage. And it was.
We literally worked while the competition took the moonlit hours off. Forget competing on product or price. Competing on insomnia is a lot cheaper.
That was then, and this is now. And I think back to that pre-parent, pre-40s, pre-disillusioned worker-bee and I wish for two things. I wish that I could 1.) Re-harness her energy, faith, and enthusiasm, and 2.) Tell her to cut that shit out.
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January 16, 2006
Where'd Stowe Go?
Stowe Boyd's over here now. He used to be over here. His new /Message is classic-Stowe-style, peppered, capped and smothered (Waffle House customers only), with a side of bacon. Cool.
He's re-building a brand from ground zero. Hard. But not as hard as before the net. ;-)
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always the last to hear the news...
It takes context to make meaning.
That's why content-based search tools -- like the ones that generate site ads and the ones that offer up "helpful" recommendations based on your online purchase (or previous search) information often fall short of giving customers truly meaningful suggestions. But falling short isn't as bad as, uh, making the wrong suggestions.
Enter the story I missed about Walmart's recent snafu when folks buying the Planet of the Apes DVD were urged to try the combo platter with a DVD about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What? I don't get it? Monkeys? MLK?
OH!
Well, we all know that today's the national holiday celebrating Dr. King's life, and we all know how helpful technology is in helping us "consumers" decide things, so of course Dr. King's going to be served up with a lil' bit of everything we might be looking for in January. Call this negro remembrance month. Call it permission marketing. Call it CRM. If you're Walmart, you just called it off.
Walmart has decided to throw the baby and the bathwater out rather than risking pissing anyone else off.
And the story got me thinking, what else did the now-defunct Walmart Customer Recommendation system suggest while we weren't looking... like... maybe...
...the Rock-a-bye Chou Chou Doll + the Uniflame 3600 BTU Gas Grill - ouch!
or the Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook + the Self-Cleaning Litterbox - calling Dr. King! (for dinner!)
I'm sure you can search up your own DEsuggestions. ;-)
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January 15, 2006
photographist
We talk a lot about the great thinkers who debate and philosophize on the net. And we talk a lot about the great writers here who move us, the great artists helping to bring context and meaning to this place, this time, whatever it is we're doing.
When you combine all of that wth the art and science of photography, you get Shelley Powers. These stunning photos and accompanying essay are the treat that is Shelley. They are marvelous works that show us so much about the psychology and quiet grace of deer in the woods. They are what we might have paid $70 each for two decades ago, to have the privilege of displaying them on our coffee tables in a four-color, hardbound book. Come to think of it, I still would.
But here they are. Right there. Where she put them. So we could see them.
Damn.
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Hey I Used This One in a Meeting
integrate rss-capable ecologies
It's a module. NO it's a methodology. NO it's a best practice. NO it's Stavros' new Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator. Looking for the best bullcrap to lay out to unsuspecting me-tooers?
Go. Do. Be. Do. (go doo-bee-doo).
Please know that Kombinat! has jumped the shark to Web 2.9. If you don't believe that, read the manifesto.
Tankya to Frankya for keeping us up to date on these and other developments
Aggregators Say the Funniest Things!
Funny thing happened on the way to my aggregator. Sometimes I'm clicking down the couple dozen feeds I subscribe to on the left hand sidbar in Bloglines, going through one bolded link after the other to see who's written what. And in my list of subscriptions Doc Searls comes right before Halley Suitt.
So yesterday I clicked on Doc and I was tired because I haven't felt that great, what with that hamster-cage-urine-smell going straight to my head (see below). Anyway, I started to read about how much Doc liked The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and how women's slips are hot and how he's been into slips for a long time, and I'm like--DOC?!--and then I realized to my amazement, since all feeds look alike in the Bloglines wndow, that I had clicked Halley's bold link, not Doc's.
I don't have a name for that phenomenon but it was unsettling.
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Grace Not Works
Seems like Sunday's a good day to say out loud that even some believers have trouble with the growing popularity of the "works and wealth" brand of "Christianity," which borrows a page (nay, a chapter?) from the New Age narcissism playbook in promising something REALLY $$ GREAT in the here and now if you do the Simon Says thing just right (buy my book now for more information on how you can win through Jesus....).
Just wanted to say that there's a whole bunch of folks who walk the Grace NOT Works path of Christianity. You might not notice them in the mainstream because they're not as loud, and they definitely don't do infomercials. I'm just saying....
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