tepid feeling woosy gross

Tonight is a lukewarm, my-stomach-feels-all-sicky kind of evening, and I get these waves of whoa where I'm pretty sure I'm going to hurl but then I'm okay. No not pregnant shut up frank. Last procedure took that opportunity away, so, and never mind, but I knew you'd ask. Of course I'm working down on the couch (I've relocated to a spacious window office with valuted ceilings called the living room) and that means I'm two feet from our three hamster cages with shavings that need changing. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the fact that estimated tax day is right around the corner, my bank screwed up a direct deposit, I can't seem to find the passport I was going to renew, my lovely daughter's itchy from her zithromax, or the fact that you can't get anyone to take a dead Christmas Tree away from your front yard if you miss the Cub Scouts when they come to calling.

 

No, I'm pretty sure it's hamster urine.

 

Technorati Tags : stomach+bug, hamsters // Powered By Qumana

2.0 or CGM or PPM or PMS?

Larry Borsato is reflecting on my reflections on the new-to-me CGM, um, misnomer. He nominates PPM as an acronym for Clueless Consultant Types (CCTs) to use when trying to decide how to disect us and get us to consume their stuff.

 

Larry says PPM would stand for Personally Produced Media. That's a hell of a lot better than Consumer Generated Media. I like the personal and I like the produce, as much as I like any of this naming thing. 

 

How about Me to You - M2Y? In fact, I like m2y.us so much, I just bought it. me to you dot us. Has a nice ring. ;-) I'm thinking we should drop the media thing completely. I don't want to be a medium, I want to be a message.

 

As an aside, Larry notes that when he first saw CGM he thought it stood for Computer Graphics Metafile. That's sort of like when I saw MSM the first time and thought it was Microsoft Media not mainstream media. Or.. well... maybe I wasn't so wrong. Cuz everyone loves Scobes.

 

Anyway, what I do on this blog I guess is part PPM and part PMS, which means I don't know what I'm producing, but I take it personally and get pissed off about it at least once a month.  badabing!

 

Technorati Tags : Personally+Produced+Media, CGM, m2y // Powered By Qumana

What only LittlePR Can Do

I love it too--the call for amateurs emerges from the recent trend of weblog professionalization..

 

Krugle's launching without a PR firm, with some strange dude named clocke with wild-side ideas at the blog steering wheel; BubbleShare just out of stealth mode ended up hosting a cool "Unconference" at CES, which started by helping folks with no place to stay due to the hotel situation hookup via the CES wiki (ask Albert how all that went down - a case study in bottom up private relations).

 

Suddenly it's not cool to have a BigPR firm launching you with screwy staged events and junior media relations folks pitching the press release. Instead Techcrunch notices that a cool product is catching on, people start talking about it, and the next thing you know Chris Pirillo is running around in public with your company t-shirt.

 

Someone once said:

 

Where once Big PR boasted about best practices and a global network of communications professionals, they don't have that anymore. Instead, we are the ones creating nimble networks among one another, which are growing larger and more valuable. We are nimble enough (most of us working out of our homes) and lean enough to charge much less and deliver much more. A network of one-off specialists, experts in their areas, linked through the power of the Web and personal contacts. Voice to voice, we are changing the face of PR and marketing. You heard it here first.

 

Call me prophetic. ;-)

 

I'm not going to tell you the secret so that you can crash this party all of my friends still in BigPR. Okay. Alright I'll tell you.

 

You have to love being here.

 

And you have to know what I mean by that.

 

Technorati Tags : horsepigcow, web2.0, CGM, blogging // Powered By Qumana

BONUS: Scoble's Birthday's coming up.

While we're busy calling this web 2.0 they're calling it CGM

While the debate over what to call or not call this fine time online continues, you might know that a new term has emerged -- one I hadn't seen until the other day: consumer-generated media (CGM). Seriously. While we're linking to one another in a discussion over the validity of a term like web 2.0 and telling smart dumb blonde jokes, they're busy setting up practice areas around CGM.

 

What they mean by CGM is what we mean by social media. The difference? Theirs is an outside-in, top-down perspective. Ours is an inside-out, bottom up view. CGM is marketing-as-usual's attempt to put the "consumer" under a microscope, to analyze instead of talk; to target instead of listen.

 

Where Consumer-Generated Media misses the boat -- okay the entire bay -- is with the word "consumer." Never mind that they're trying to talk to people on the NET most of whom laugh at the word CONSUMER and can now tell from Google just what their job is supposed to be in the eyes of these organizations (YOU CONSUME; WE TRY TO UNDERSTAND YOU), but also add in the fact that no one has noticed that we are increasingly becoming producers as well; we are their potential business partners as much as their target markets.

 

There is an odd mythology among business consultants that you can only be one thing online, that bloggers are just consumers who have blogs. I'm not sure what ELSE they think we do. But I know that they don't understand that some of the world's most influential business people blog and even more get their entertainment and business new from blogs, some of the top influencers they think still only write in print are here, some of the authors whose books they read and bring quotes from into new business pitches are here, kids are here, moms are here, the VCs with the cash are here, their wives and husbands are secretly in love with bloggers here, and if there's one thing we don't want to be called, it's your consumers. We're here as one another's friends, business associates, idea sparkers, challengers, joke tellers, bunthorns, tear wipers, champions, story tellers, and like that.

 

And let me just reiterate: we're producing too. Not just "generating media," but producing products and services. I'm not going to give you the answer on that one. You can think about it.

 

I don't know how they've missed the call to ENGAGE rather than "create buzz."

 

I don't know exactly why they still look at buzz as a to-do-list item rather than the natural result of good ideas.

 

I don't know where they've been. But they haven't been here. Or they'd know better. Consumer-Generated Media? I'll take Web 2.0 if I have to take anything.

 

I might just take a Tylenol PM.

 

 

Technorati Tags : CGM, Web2.0, Consumer, Buzz, Consulting, Blogging, Just+Wrong // Powered By Qumana

Gonzo Engaged

For the many of us who jumped on the free tagwagon last night at 1000tags, it looks like the free tags are up. Who knows where it goes from here. My fellow brethren and sistren over at Gonzo Engaged will be happy to learn that I have taken the liberty set us out for hire. Hey, it's the least I can do after 5 years. I mean really.

 

So I guess you should start posting over there in your offtime. When you come back from teaching those Web 2.0 seminars in Jamaica. Kay?

 

Technorati Tags : cluetrain, rageboy, doc, david+weinberger, gonzo+marketing, consulting, blog+consulting, social+media, frank+paynter, kevin+marks, denise+howell, ken+camp, marek, more, hee+hee  // Powered By Qumana

Oh my word they're messin' with Blogger again

So they're messing with Blogger again tonight. i saw the little notification that there was a 20 minute planned outage at 3:30 Pacific time. Which means 6:30 where the important people live. (DOH!) It's 9:15, now, about three hours or 180 minutes past the 20 minute planned outage and: 1) Blogger has slowed down to half it's normal speed. 2.) My profile picture's gone. 3.) my username/password login is long forgotten, and 4.) sluggishness makes the interface unusable. And I was one of the fortunate one who noticed the teensy little note about the outage someplace or other. Ah well. Yes, you can tell me it's free. I'll ask you where's the $180 I paid for the maximum blogspot hosting the second year and the upgrade to blogger pro money I paid that folks now get for free. But I'm not complaining about the $. I'm not even dissing the service. I still like Blogger. Even now. What is my gripe then? I'm asking you to COMMUNICATE and for once try to hit the nail on the head with your estimate of when things will be working--> and you could drop an email once in a blue moon to let us know WTF it is you're actually d-o-i-n-g. That way we know if those new little quirks are bugs or features. Kay? (And a t-shirt or a brand new pair of shoes for everyone whose been on blogspot since 2001 wouldn't be a bad move to stem the flow to wordpress either). Jeesh.

 

Technorati Tags : blogger, google, UI, users, customer+support, stinks  // Powered By Qumana

NOW I'm sure it's Web 2.Oh.

If you come to the net for one reason and one reason only, make it to discover the best blonde joke EVER.

.

Blogspot and Alexa Tune Your Engines?

Never mind the traffic and link details are horribly lacking, but why does alexa say that Ev Williams who doesn't work at a company called Pyra Labs that I thought Google bought but many not is the sole contact for my blog. And how come I can't change that unless I put some .txt file in the root directory on blogspot, which, well, probably isn't going to happen?

OH and look, Odeo's Ev, who hasn't been at Pyra for how long, is the contact for Halley's blog and Denise's blog and every other blogspot blog.

That's kind of confusing, isn't it?

Technorati Tags : Blogspot, Blogger, Alexa, Evhead, Halley, Denise+Howell, Google

This Is Even Better

...watching Dave watch Rex watching people watching Guy.

Mom 2.0

If we go with the trend of calling what's going on online "Web 2.0" then surely I am in some kind of motherhood 2.0 too. It feels a lot like being an e-mom (with the hyphen) back in the late 90s early 00s. Except now my daughter's 8 not an almost-two-year-old. And now I work for myself, not for an omniconglomerate.

 

If this is your first Internet motherhood -- for those women who weren't in the workforce last time around or weren't mothers last time around -- here's what's new:

 

---

 

This time: Laptops with built in wireless so mom's can cook, drive, change diapers, and go to softball games with one hand tied behind their backs (or tied to their laptops)

 

Last time: Kids tripping over cat-5 cables if you were lucky enough to have DSL. Many moms stuck on dial-up and a stationary PC while children roamed the neighborhood looking for NON-working stay-at-home moms to feed them something other than cheese puffs.

 

---

 

This time: Conferences, conferences, conferences.

 

Last time: Conference calls, conference calls, conference calls.

 

---

 

This time: Family members brag to others that you're a "Famous Blogger."

 

Last time: Family members wrote you out of their wills for telling those dirty little secrets in public.

 

---

 

This time: You work 15-hour days with companies all over the world in your sweats, connected by the net, skype, wikis, jotspot, and the like.

 

Last time: You worked 15-hour days chained in a cubicle using your company LAN and surfed the net when no one was looking, pumping breast milk in the ladies room -- or you job-shared.

 

---

 

This time: You and your kids build amazon wishlists together to put on their blogs.

 

Last time: You and your kids bought other people's used junk on ebay.

 

---

 

This time: You upload and share dozens pictures of your children in two clicks with a $100 digital camera and a web-based program.

 

Last time: You were the first person on the block to have a $600 digital camera that held 8 pictures and all of them were of the floor.

 

---

 

This time: Tatoo Fruit Rollups

 

Last time: Oreos

 

---

 

  Technorati Tags : parenting, internet, work  // Powered By Qumana

Web 2.0 - Not Just for Bathtubs Anymore

Halley has a slammin post about Web 2.0, where she quotes her dad, a former Ad Guy, who always said he wished he had a hypewriter -- a version of a typewriter with only the keys needed to spout hyperbole like NEW! IMPROVED! etc. -- to make his job easier. Of course you know me, Web 2.0er that I am, I ran off to check the domain hypewriter.com, knowing it would be gone but just in case. What a fascinating image to have greeted me there. Funny isn't it. And perfect.

 

Halley (like a lot of folks) is down on using the term Web 2.0, seeing it as a repackage of dot-com mania, echoes of her Dad's keen sense that all that glitters is not gold. During the first Web, which we fancied as the wave of "e-commerce" (and we still used the hyphen), I was part of a swanky global PR agency and had the privilege to help launch, hype, spin, then watch the demise of, some very good companies with amazing technology and some very smart people involved. And yah, there were a few really bad ones too.

 

What I wondered after the bust, when it became trendy to dis the whole Internet boom as nothing but hot air, was: who would end up with all the technology lying in the dumpsters AND in the heads of unemployed wizkids. Where would all of those innovations go? Would everyone end up either part of IBM or one of the big consultancies like Arthur Andersen? (Remember, this was before THAT shit hit the fan). Because many of the unscathed ran UP the food chain.

 

And many of the scathed got kicked down the foodchain. And they're here. Now. With what they learned before (older. smarter from a business model perspective). With the lessons of their hypewriters behind them. A lot more tired. Greeted by a whole NEW crop of twenty-somethings who either weren't part of the business landscape the last time around, OR were just out of college when things went haywire. SO you've got older folks who know the business model matters; you've got older-still folks on the tech and business side whose experience literally spans life before the net, life during the amazing 99-01 timeframe, AND who are still here, who (tee hee) never left.

 

Right. So. That's what makes Web 2.0 different. Yes it's the technology. And I've read all the specs on what "IT" has to include to be Web 2.0 (AJAX: it's not just for bathtubs anymore). But the tech side alone isn't what makes these times, right now, right here, whatever you want to call them, special. It is the collective experience, okay wisdom, of Internet pioneers who have been through one full cycle of innovation MEETING UP with the new pioneers who have the kind of passion and faith in the net and web-based technology that I haven't seen in seven years, AND the best and worst practices of successful and failed business models to navigate through in bringing their new products and services to market.

 

It's not just hype. It's a 'something.' And it's not "e-commerce" like it was the first time: A CHANNEL from businesses to "consumers."  It's just not like that this time.

 

Right. So. More --> If anything kills this wave of innovation, it's what Halley touched on, i.e., where the money's coming from, what strings are attached, where the foodchain leads, and who else is wielding the term Web 2.0 in boardrooms where no one really understands or cares what "it" is. Of course, then you have the global economy, okay, could we be in a more unstable time? And yet LOOK at what is happening here. It's like the net is the only solid ground left.

 

I say get out of the way, let it happen, it's going to happen, and whether it's boom and bust, or something more steady or grid-like, we are ALL the better for the quality and speed of innovation that is driving whatever this Web 2.0 thing is.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags : web2.0, dot-com, money, halley+suitt, IBM // Powered By Qumana

1000tags what IS up?

I love a secretive wierd thing that comes out of nowhere. Sometimes these side-street jaunts I take full of passion and enthusiasm come back and bite me: you goober, that was dumb to associate yourself with.

 

Mostly, though, I'm glad I checked out the 'newest odd idea'. So it is with mixed pleasure and puzzlement I introduce 1000tags. And a mighty WTF shout out to whoever-whatever thought this up. It's a new revenue model -- new to me anyway, with dollars paid for tag (or tag cloud) association. Which makes too much sense to not be scary.

 

1000tags.com is - that we know - the very first project that offers booking and buying tags from a "tag cloud". Or in other words, it is the first commercial tag cloud. That means that it could be the proof of concept demonstrating that folksonomies can be an effective way to advertise.

 

Whenever I experience one of those, uh, rare "I didn't think of that" moments, I give fair pounds of respect to the idea originator.

 

Don't get me wrong, I have had ideas since jumping into this whole tagging thing a several days ago, which is 67 years in Web 2.0 time. That's when I found myself wondering why more people (read businesses) aren't tagging based on who they want to position against. So, if I'm, say, the corporate version of Adam Curry, I'm tagging ALL my shit Dave Winer, right? That way, when someone's grandma searches Technorati tags on Dave Winer, she's bombarded with Adam, is wooed by his blond doo, and jets off to the Netherlands to be the family's nanny.

 

Thing is, that sort of corrupts the folksonomy thing, except that, well, inherently, folks can be assholes too.

 

 Technorati Tags : 1000tags, tagging, folksonomies // Powered By Qumana

The Top Ten Lies of Blogging Consultants

-inspired by guy kawasaki and hugh of gaping void

1. We're connected to the who's who in blogging.
Doc linked to me once. I have a friend who got slash-dotted.

2. We have a three-pronged blogger relations approach.
Me and my buddy made up some cool "module" names over Skype.

3. We have a specialized tool for blog monitoring.
We do what everyone else does--search Technorati. Sometimes Ice Rocket.

4. We can do for you with blogging what jib-jab did for animation
We don't have a clue what we're talking about but we sound hip.

5. We are plugged in with the women bloggers.
Dave Winer totally hates us.

6. We offer more than blogging--tools like podcasting and wikis.
We've never posted on a blog, but we read an article on podcasting

7. We're happy to ghost blog for you.
You tell anyone that and we'll hunt you down and kill you.

8. We can set you up with our proprietary RSS tool.
How stupid can you possibly be?

9. You'll need an aggregator.
We'll really aggravate you.

10. You can't afford not to blog.
You can't afford our hourly rates.

Technorati Tags : guy+kawasaki, gaping+void, ten+lies

shutting up online. or not.

When I started blogging in 2001, a lot of us, including this blogger rightcheer, were exercising our voices, trying out anything and everything, even though most of us were already someone someplace else, to see what sounded right on the mic, to figure out why we were talking and who else was talking with us. To listen and be listened to. To have a say. To make joke. To grab some joy where we could still find it.

quieter than podcasting. what we were doing was writing--except louder.

As with any trend-yet-to-be, the miniland of blogs was populated by many passionate, caring, and probably pretty stupid (considering google would, you know, rise to become sort of a famous entity and you know sort of keep a record of everything you ever said and stuff) clowns.

If I would have known that then, and a few did certainly, that everything said would become a prominent part of the net's searchable record, I wouldn't have written a single word differently.

I didn't know. I could barely figure out what an archive did.

Would you change anything?

I'm glad I have a record that stands the test of time for me. Even my less proud moments, when I was goaded into a fight here or there, or revealed things of a way-way personal nature, or met Joi Ito and earned his respect by using the phrase "emergent shit from your anus," well, I'm glad I did all of that. Every letter. Because that was our context.

And my blog--rather than being about this or that or this for sure or that for sure--is my context.

The people who see what we do here as distasteful now aren't changing the rules. No matter how badly they want the net to conform. Because there are no rules. There is no net. And they get so angry that the way it is is the way it is.

SO, if I need to prove that by channeling my early blogself every day or every week or every post, I will. I'll do my part to keep our values different from our offline proxies,

In fact, if I have to tell one or ten people to kiss my ass each month, then I will. And if I have to kiss an ass, I'm not beyond that, but you better believe I'll be transparent about it. And if I make a joke out of it, well, you'll forgive me. Or laugh Coke out of your nose. Either way is a win-win now, isn't it?

Would it be easier for my clients if I didn't piss anyone off? If I shut up a little more often?

It would be a lot easier to shut up. To not take any risks. To write byline articles here that matter about a whole lot less than the fact that I ate oven-baked chicken nuggets with my sick kid for dinner, just before I stuffed a crumble of phenegren down her gullet because she feels 'throw-upy.'

I don't think I'd have clients if I didn't piss anyone off. If I just shut up. If I was tasteful and elegant 24/7.

Take a stand. Write your stand.

Go to the place where you know who you are--and write that place. No not that sweet place where everyone likes you and grandma bakes you muffins, that OTHER place where you make yourself vulnerable and get swiped at and bullied and claw back like a cat. Not the place where you're oh-so-smart, but the place where you risk being wrong. Go there. Write from there. Not necessarily ABOUT it, but from that place. Once a week? Can you still? Can you still get back there? How often do you do it? Afraid you won't find your way back out? Chicken.

Don't close off that node, don't destroy that path back, keep that connection open. It's who you are, and it's how you have always related to the people you know online who HAPPEN to work in powerful positions in business and technology, or not, and who HAPPEN to be moms or grandfathers who HAPPEN to like dance or to take pictures and who HAPPEN to have cancer or love scrabble, and who HAPPEN to hike mountains or fly planes, and who HAPPEN to play cello or love sex, and who HAPPEN to be the brother you never knew you had or the sister you wish had lived past 10 years of age.

It's how we build meaning between and among one another.

If you close that connection, if you seal off that node, you might as well not be here at all.

Technorati Tags : voice, online, blogging // Powered By Qumana

kid sick sick kid

You know because I've said so: we don't have much school here in Georgia. Holidays abound. There is a holiday for every occasion, and it needs to be celebrated at the mall, at the grocery store, at the new aquarium -- anywhere you can take the kids, which certainly isn't to a client site, so hell's bells let's call school off altogether.

 

Anyway, today (yes Tuesday--yesterday was a teacher work day, student holiday; yes I know it was the first day back after a holiday, but it was also another holiday. Kind of like a rest up from your time off...) would have been the first day back for Jenna. But she's sick. So we were off. Again.

 

I love the way she can take her temperature with the little ear thermometer and tell me what it says now that she's 8. I don't love how she doesn't get the decimal point. So a 100.5 fever become a 105 fever and I'm all: LET ME SEE THAT THING! and she's showing me and I'm all: "See the dot? It's important."

 

Anyway, we went to the doctor because I wanted a strep test, and we got meds but no strep (yay!) and she is hopefully on the mend. At the doctor's office we saw Jenna's art teacher and Jenna's lunch lady in the waiting room.

 

Guess lots of other people from her school took the second day off after the day off after the holiday off too.

 

 

Technorati Tags : family, children, work  // Powered By Qumana

I. Never. Got. Newsprint.

Stowe has another interesting post -- this time discussing the trend away from hard copy newsprint landing in our driveways (AKA: newspapers) to online news sources. Stowe refers to Michael Kinsley's article in the Washington Post (that I'm reading online... get it?) Black and White and Dead All Over.

We used to get one poor sales rep a month at our front door telling us about the savings we could reap by subscribing to the weekly Atlanta Journal Constitution and getting the weekend paper (with all those valuable Sunday coupons!) for free.

Since 1999 I have repeated a single phrase in response: "I get my news online."

They don't come anymore, but they did still call until about a year ago. When they did, I would utter my pat line: "I get my news online."

Their positioning then is what it is today--don't forget the valuable Sunday coupons!

How long will it take them to realize you can print those same coupons--and sometimes better deals--out on the retailer's-restaurant's-grocery-store's site for, uh, free. And that when you average the savings from the number of coupons I remember to bring to the grocery store with cost of having the paper delivered, I'm still ROIs ahead on my non-purchase of newsprint. And that the same companies they rely on for advertising dollars are getting at their customers with loyalty programs fed off databases fed by online interactions and participation.

And I don't mean to pick on the AJC. I'm just as tired of having those community dead-trees encased in plastic sleeves left on my rainy driveway to (attempt to) decay.

I was born in 1962. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I have never been a fan of newsprint. Growing up I would ask my mother, as I struggled to manage its unwieldily size and number of creases, "Why do they MAKE these papers so BIG." I thought when I grew up, I'd learn how to master folding them like origami, whittling them down to just the story I wanted to read, like the men who smoked pipes in their easy chairs on TV.

But I never mastered the physical art of reading a newspaper. So I didn't read them much. I just didn't get it.

There. I've said it. A summa cum laude, Journalism major (English double).

Never. Figured. It. Out.

Except for the fine art of lead writing demonstrated on the front page of the WSJ, I never caught on to the big love affair with newsprint in any shape or form. I guess I was genetically skewed toward the net from the get-go.

There's a comment on Stowe's post by Marshall Kirkpatrick pointing out that a computer can't replicate the tactile paper-in-hand sensation of newsprint. That's true. And I'm a paper lover (not a newsprint lover) from way back. But with all the frustration newsprint brings me, I can stand to give up the tactile part. As to the importance of the community/regional perspective, I'm not sure those are good enough reasons to pay them to bring the local paper to my doorstep. But I admit, I'm not everyman.

Marshall makes a good point that local newspapers bring a certain something that Google News and Yahoo! don't. But I disagree that what they bring is 'better than' what you can find online. For free. In fact, since newspapers are published by corporations, I inherently temper my view of what I read in them with what I read in blogs. As Kinsley jokes in the article:

You gotta trust something called the "Post-Intelligencer" more than something called "Yahoo" or "Google," don't you? No, seriously, don't you? Okay, how old did you say you are?

Do I want to read the AJC -- either in print or online -- not as often as I consult my own personal, vetted, trustworthy sources on the net. The ones I have relationships with. Even in the event of a natural disaster, online hubs of concerned citizens and citizen journalists seem to launch-and-tell faster and more thoroughly than any established newspaper.

So for my regional flavor, I'd rather read Atlanta Voic.us or Atlanta Metblog for a community perspective, or if it's something I'm looking to buy or sell, I might check the AJC's online classifieds, but most likely I'll go to cragslist atlanta to get the job done.

And with so many journalists now blogging and bloggers now considered journalists, the editorial/content part of journalism is merging with old-school media, whether the newspapers want it to or not.

And here's an odd twist: I'll buy books by bloggers who reprint parts of their blogs, because THAT takes online stories and packages them up in a way I can enjoy them while I'm relaxing OFFLINE. In the tub. In bed. Traveling. But I don't want to fight a gazillion-inch piece of newsprint to tell me something I already heard online two days ago--and take my $ for telling me.

And I didn't ask anyone to toss it in my driveway for free either.

Technorati Tags : journalism, newspaper, stowe+boyd, michael+kinsley, marshall+kirkpatrick // Powered By Qumana

Floating Bubble to MacWorld

BubbleShare's Albert Lai is on the road again, having treked from CES in Vegas to MacWorld. He's meeting like crazy, but if you're in the Bay Area or at MacWorld and want to chat or meet, email me so I can try to send him along. He'll be there til Midnight tomorrow (weds.) You know the drill: --> ewriter AT bellsouth DOT net. Or Albert on yahoo IM - alai2001.

THANK YA!

Technorati Tags : BubbleShare, Macworld, Albert+Lai, Meetup

Definitely NOT Bruce!

Feelings...nothing more than feelings....

Definitely NOT Bruce! Originally uploaded by Jennyfleur.

all the news that fits.

• George Parker has added knowmore media's AdHurl to his blogging duties. You may know george from AdScam. Obviously, he's no fan of advertising-as-per-usual. Sometimes he's downright cantankerous. Now we get double the jeers, double the fun!
  
  
• If anyone knows anyone who collects vintage china, please send them to this page I tossed online for Father Matt. Sometime back, a parishioner left Fr. Matt this China, and he's looking for someone who may want to purchase it so that he can enter the world of digital photography by bying a digital camera. He has been a photographer for many years. He's also been a blogger without knowing it. He is a very good friend to my favorite aunt Penny, which puts him on my all-time VIP list. (above photo is Fr. Matt's).
  
  
• How about LibriVox, which I would have not noticed without AKMA's pointer to it today. AKMA was part inspiration for the site/effort because of his good idea one day to record Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig, which Jenna and George participated in. Now it looks like AKMA will be called back into volunteer mode for recording some book chapters of his own!
  
  
• Josh Hallett of Hyku has an awesome new design, both site and blog, featuring beautiful changing scenery from FL. I can vouch for josh's talents--he did the new look for this site you're lookin at rightcheer!

Care Giving

Keep Mary Lu's family in your thoughts.
Keep Elaine and her mom in your thoughts.
So much care being given. Such strong women.

Duct Tape for Gadget Head

How do the engadget folks report on CES like this without their heads exploding? What gadget is currently holding their scalps in place? And where can I get one? I bet they're glad it's oooover...

An Intervention

If your computer usage -- or the computer usage of someone you love -- has gotten out of control, Gary has the answer. Don't let the PC destroy your family, or the Apple take a bite out of your life savings. Do something today.

Do you take Insurance, Gary?

From Kodak to Kodek?

My hometown paper announces that Kodak has rebranded , with a new logo you could have done at home with pixel art and your inkjet printer.

Maybe that's the point? As if.

They went from square to rectangular and turned the a into an upside-down e -- okay I guess I'm just seeing things.

I'm dying to know how much $. And I would have LOVED to be a fly on the wall during the presentations where they sold in the new creative.

Most importantly: is my old corporate style guide worth something now? Any takers?

There's a way to make your weakness your strength. I'm not seeing evidence of that "way" in this new branding, but it's probably not going to hurt them either. Especially given the new partnership with Batman -- err, I mean Motorola announcement; now that's using their Knogin'.

Can Kodak rush from industrial age to new age fast enough? We'll see.

hat tip Adrants.