Category: Weblogging

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Diversity Weblogging Writing

Measuring Success

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Before I started the new weblog(s), I told a friend that I was going to avoid saying anything even remotely critical about BlogHer. It does no good to do so, I told him.

I’m sure he knew that I could not follow this vow. I don’t know if being critical of Blogher will do any ‘good’ or not. I do know that fighting for women to be heard–inside blogging or not– has been a part of me for too many years to see it co-opted into a new business model; or used as an excuse to disregard women (even the flirty, sexy, beautiful ones) the other 360 ought days when BlogHer is not running.

I wanted to point you to Jeneane and Stowe Boyd’s response to Dave Winer’s Blogher recap. I particularly want to empathize Boyd’s reaction to the conference, which I found honest and direct. Tara Hunt also came out with a post related to some of the ‘bloghim’ responses. In addition, she provided her reasons why Blogger is not for her–most of which parallel other’s thoughts.

I’d already mentioned my concerns about the marketing aspects of BlogHer. These were, in a way, enforced by Lisa Stone’s only mention of the conference at the BlogHer site. In it she discusses the ’success’ of the women in the keynote panel of the conference; their success, and how, it would seem, the new BlogHer measures such:

If success is the best revenge, revenge must be sweet indeed for this quartet. For today, each of these women todays enjoys kudos from their readers/users (even critics), while at the same time being able to point to cold, hard facts such as Web traffic and revenue that demonstrate their ideas were worth pursuing.

Is that the true mark of a good idea within weblogging? Web traffic and revenue? Not writing or worth of the thought or the person…web traffic and revenue?

Women make up 50% of weblogging. That used to be a rallying cry, demanding that we be heard. Now it’s been reduced to facts and figures to place in front of the likes of Johnson & Johnson, GM, or some condom maker. This is influencing, heavily, the direction BlogHer seems to be taking.

Barbara Ganley wrote on some of this, in reference to the fact that DOPA passed–a law that has dangerous implications to the freedom of the Net in our country. Not a word was mentioned at BlogHer:

…rumbling through the two days was, as Laura points out, a strong whiff of the almighty dollar. People were looking for hints on increasing traffic to their blogs, making money blogging, encouraging advertisers. In sessions I attended, and in the buzz around the pool, there was a whole lot of attention paid to getting people to your blogs. Fascinating.

Okay, so I learned that my world is indeed what I expected to find out–a bit out of touch. But I expected there to be a huge outcry against DOPA–after all, Danah Boyd spoke on Day Two. But no–NOTHING within my earshot. And in fact, as I went around talking about it, I found out that many, many bloggers, including those in academic circles, hadn’t even heard of it. How can that be? I was shocked and not a little bothered–we were surrounded by the sponsors giving us everything from zipdrives to condoms, fake flowers to souped up water; but no talk about legislation that will deepen the digital divide by making blogs and other social networking sites out of reach for kids without computers in the home, and force those who do use the sites underground to form their communities. Read Danah Boyd’s inspired research on MySpace and adolescents if you don’t believe me.

If DOPA did not generate interest, where was the emphasis at BlogHer? From what many of the attendees stated: Mommyblogging.

I salute parents (and grandparents, and uncles, and aunts, and close family friends) who write about their children but that term is offensive–to women and to men. It forms a clique, a ring that keeps women without children on the outside, as if we’re freaks of the natural order. However, it has a catchy sound, doesn’t it?

Not all think so, though. One blogger, after a night at the conference seated next to a table of mommybloggers, wrote her opinion of it in no uncertain terms. The backlash was immediate, and not unexpected. I didn’t agree with much of what she said, but I can understand why at 2 in the morning she felt the need to say it.

What was unexpected, though, was that at so many of the sites that condemned her, there was a strong element of their being right, with much murmuring that there will always be women who turn against their own kind; women who aren’t warm and nurturing because they use such harsh terms. Wait until she has a child, they would say, then she’ll see. I must have read that dozens of times. Wait until she has a child. All the while, of course, not being able to link to her because it might shock the sensibilities of their audience. Or worse: give her attention.

(I thought the comment, I hope one of their kids barfs on your shoes was rather funny, though.)

Mothers, and empowerment. Leaving aside their disbelief that a woman would actually choose not to have children, these women, these mothers who feel so empowered, have forgotten their history. The earliest advertisements on TV were geared towards mothers. Much of the ads in early print were geared towards mothers. Yet mothers still send their children off to war. Mothers still worry over their sick babies, because they can’t afford a doctor and health insurance costs too much. If mothers have power, where are the changes we must assume every mother wants?

If we, women and men both, follow a path where the only measure of success is the number of ads at our site, the links we have, the money we make, then the only power we’re exercising is that of consumer–catered to, perhaps; but essentially meaningless.

Melinda Casino, who is both a contributing editor and was a panel presenter at BlogHer, wrote a long and thoughtful response about her impressions of Blogher tonight. It was titled, appropriately enough, Goodby Grassroots BlogHer. In it she lists out her disappointments of the conference, including the marketing and, ironically, the lack of diversity.

She talked about one incident:

…I was sitting in the audience waiting for a presentation to start, when a woman came up and knelt down by my side. She seemed friendly and I thought perhaps she’d seen my presentation on Day One, and wanted to chat about it. Or maybe she was familiar with my BlogHer posts…

I realized with a sinking feeling, as she handed me her card and a book, that she was making a one-to-one sales pitch. I politely accepted her “gifts”, sensing she’d then move on to the next customer, and she did.

I read in the liveblogging of the session on sex how the representative of the company that supplied the condoms for the goodie bag participated in the discussion. From this, I gather we can rest assured that the constuction of their condoms is of the highest quality.

I will freely admit that it is Melinda’s post that spurred me to write this one last post on BlogHer. When she mentioned this event, it reminded of all the concerns that have been expressed the last few years about the growing ’selling’ of weblogging–that one day we would be sitting there, in pleasant expectation of a conversation, only to be given a sales pitch. When the lines start blurring, we don’t know what’s real anymore. That will kill this environment faster than any law like DOPA.

Melinda also mentioned about the married, heterosexual, mother focus of the event:

Lisa WilliamsAn audience member got up and contributed a comment during the closing discussion on Day Two. She said something like, “There are a lot of married women with children here…” I thought she was going to segue into making a point about how we’re not all heterosexual married mothers. But to my surprise her statement—and it was just a statement at that point—was interrupted with a big round of applause.

I’d like to point out, sans applause, that:

woman ≠ mother

woman ≠ heterosexual

I don’t do Melinda’s writing justice. I suggest that you read the rest of what she wrote. It took a lot of guts to write it, and I admire her greatly for doing so. I wish now that I still had Burningbird, so I could send her and the others I mention in this post more traffic. Barring this, I hope a heartfelt “Well done”, will do.

I won’t write on BlogHer again. No truly, this time I won’t. I would ask that the company remove the tagline “Where the Women are”, because it really isn’t all that true anymore. Is it? Still, if they don’t, such is life.

I also wish, and I mean it, much success for the organization. I have no illusions that I will change anyone’s viewpoint with this writing. Perhaps the emphasis on women’s purchasing power can, this time, be used as a weapon for social change. In this, I hope they succeed.

I’m going a different path, though. One that doesn’t measure success based on ads, links, and revenue. And I’m not going to look back.

Update

An excellent somewhat alternative perspective of the conference, via a metaphor of shoes, by Maria of alembic. These boots are made for walking, indeed.

Kevin Marks also posted another thoughtful viewpoint of the event and some of the responses.

Less than impressed with Jory Des Jardin’s defense against accusations of ’selling out’, which was not a part of the criticism.

Update

According to Phil in my comments, and this post the blogger who stood up may have said she was unmarried and didn’t have kids.

Regardless, this shouldn’t be an issue at an all inclusive women’s weblogging conference.

Categories
Weblogging Writing

What is real journalism?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I had to read Jay Rosen’s idea over a couple of times to try to understand what it is he’s proposing for New Assignment. If I read him correctly, what he’s proposing is that someone suggests a story, others in the ’smart mob’ then dig up additional information (”How”, we have to ask) and when things ‘gel’ whatever ‘gel’ is, then an editor somehow scrunches it up and moves it to the New Assignment front page. At that point, the ’smart mob’ is supposed to blow it up, make it big, gather money, something. The end result is that money is gathered, a journalist contracted, and a story is born.

What forms the basis of that story? The questions the smart mob asks. Who does the research for the story? The smart mob. In other words, the audience takes over the tasks of the professional journalist (who is, we presume, trained in both knowing what questions to ask and how to do the research necessary to find the answers), and the professional than provides the ‘polish’ to make it into a quality story. Keep the smart, lose the mob.

Rosen’s idea brings up all sorts of utopian sounding concepts, but rather than play to the strengths of the new information infrastructure, it plays to the weakness–the mob is encouraged to be a mob, but thankfully the end result is refined under the civilizing influence of an editor and other professionals.

Why, on earth, would we do such a thing? Because we can’t stop sacrificing on the altar of journalism worship.

Recently I was able to participate as part of a media tour of the Johnson Shut-Ins area, to see the cleanup efforts associated with the flooding that happened last year. I was the only ‘amateur’. It was a fascinating experience, because it showed me how different I was from a professional journalist. Since I was mainly interesting in recording my impressions of the state of the park, I could disregard the facts and figures the park personnel were providing the media members and wander around taking photos; knowing that this important information would be reported by others and would not be my responsibility. I had that luxury, and because I did, I was able to provide a look at the park—unrefined and unedited—that differed from what the professionals provided.

This is where I’ve always felt we not-journalists—we people who love to write, to publish our viewpoints and interests—fit into the whole reporting/information cycle. We provide our personal impressions of an event while the professionals report the ‘facts’. It is incredibly liberating.

Much has been uncovered about Ameren since the flooding incident–including the fact that an engineer warned the dam was at risk. Plus we’ve found out there are hundreds of dams endangering people in this state, many of them not monitored by the government like the Ameren dam was. This sounds, to me, like a good story for the New Assignment.

It’s also one that I know would never make it to the front page. Why? It’s a regional story. It doesn’t take place in Massachusetts, New York, California, or Washington. There’s no famous people involved. It has nothing to do against Bush. It has nothing to do for Bush. Jon Stewart’s not interested. Not enough people have died. Even a couple of little kids almost drowning wouldn’t be enough to push this to the front of the sheets.

Luckily, we have local journalists who didn’t have to wait for the smart mob in order to work this story. Also, luckily, neither did I.

How about another story. Recently Mike Golby wrote on an incident that happened in his country, South Africa. It would seem an insurance agent, a Neil Watson, started up a web site to ‘expose’ to the world, and more importantly, to those who would travel to the country, how crime ridden his country is. Watson’s focus seems to be how people should not visit South Africa. Why he did so, I don’t know. Embarrass the government. Perhaps out of nostalgia for the good old days when whites ruled, and blacks knew their place.

One of the country’s politicians said to Watson that if he hated the country so much, why doesn’t he leave? The politician even offered to buy him and his family a one-way ticket, to New York. Of this, Mike wrote:

‘…’If you were wondering who Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula was addressing when he told the whingers and whiners to get the hell out of South Africa as they don’t belong here, Neil Watson’s your man. While I know nothing of this obvious jerk, any salesman able to afford a Camps Bay lifestyle is not earning his money; he’s taking it from the overwhelming number of South Africans either unemployed or paid a sub-standard wage by fat cats who grind their employees into the dirt with their sense of self-importance, self-entitlement, and over-priced SUV.

Interestingly enough, South Africa is actually on my top five list of countries I’d like to visit, primarily because of what Mike and another South African weblogger, Farrago, have written, and more importantly, shared in their pictures and stories. They’ve never hidden the problems facing South Africa, but they also write on the hopes, the lives of the average people, and show the exquisite beauty of the country.

As for safe places to live, I could suggest South Africa send Mr. Watson here, to East St. Louis. It might give him some perspective.

Mike wrote a follow-up post on Watson, and this one having to do with the local media.

The Independent story, under a headline showing the MSM to be more clueless than usual, carries today’s date. Megan Herselman was killed a month ago.

 

Do we have a crime problem in South Africa? Of course we do. Do we need bullshit like that published by The Independent, which reports her death as though it occurred on the weekend? No ways. Like a hole in the head, so to speak. Shoddy journalism does perhaps more damage than inept police work.

 

My advice to the editor of the Africa news desk? Fire your reporter, Basildon Peta.

 

As for the local media and their dim-witted readers, they’re milking Neil Watson’s little embarrassment for all it’s worth. One of his top stories? Non-whites Complain About Crime As Well. Glad to hear it Neil, you racist little shit. Black South Africans have always and will continue to bear the brunt of crime.

Are you surprised they respond like ‘us’? Christ. Enough. You make me puke.

Again, this would seem like a perfect story for the New Assignment. And just like the Ameren/Johnson Shut-Ins, it also would have no chance of making the front page.

The story isn’t in the United States or the UK. Not enough people have died, at once. It’s about continuing poverty and inequality, and lord knows, these are stories that don’t sell. There are no ‘web personalities’ involved. There are no ‘web personalities’ who even care.

The same people who would push the stories at New Assignment, are the same people who push the top stories the New York Times and the Washington Post; at the BBC and the Guardian; at techmeme.com and its cousin. Stories that allow people to have an opinion, to pick a side, to hold a placard, to experience the rush, and then go on to the next story. Hell, they’d probably be the ones promoting Watson–he sells better, you know.

Amanda left Rocketboom. Scoble left Microsoft. Some PR company files a libel suit against a weblogger. Someone is peeved at Dell. Some American politician said something stupid and scandalous. Some journalist wrote something about webloggers. You can repeat that last one a few times. Look at the front page at Memeorandum–there’s your smart mob. Here’s their story.

Now look at the photos of the South Africans Mike posted. Crap like that doesn’t sell newspapers, why would it be different because you shuffled the players about? Not enough bloody bodies. Not enough crying children. Not enough despair. The people Mike showed may be poor, but they had too much dignity, too much sense of humor, to make it past an editor. Besides, everyone knows the black people in Africa are poor. That’s no ’story’.

Luckily, there was Mike. There’s Adam Barnes. And now there’s me. And that’s the true power of all of this. Why the people–the ones who promote the new ‘citizen journalism’; who say they believe in all of this; who speak the ‘words’–continue to discount this, I don’t know.

Categories
Weblogging

The Barrel shooting report

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

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Blogspot, Typepad, and other hosted weblogs began to be blocked by various ISPs in India, all based on a directive from the Indian government. Luckily, it would seem that the wholesale blocking was a mistake, but until it was sorted out, Amit Agarwal provided a how-to-bypass the censors weblog post, with plenty of useful information.

(Wow. Useful writing related to technology appearing on tech.meme. This is a day to mark in your calendars.)

 

A collection was taken earlier this week among the A listers for links for Jason Calcanais. The man, desperate for attention and to avert AOL displeasure and thus avoid the the dreaded Death by Being Buried by AOL CDs, first tries to hire Unboomed Amanda with promises of stardom on AOL’s new Netscape portal.

(AOL!? That’s like being cast as Mary Ann in the remake of Gilligan’s Island.)

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Rebuffed, he then tried to hire a dozen people whose only claim to fame is they spend hours a day just linking to other stories. When it was revealed that the ‘people’ he tried to hire were, in fact, monkeys typing randomly into a computer keyboard, Calcanais suffered a breakdown, and was last seen holed up in a hotel room, surrounded by plastic cutting sheers, muttering, “Earthlink. Earthlink. Earthlink.”

The illuminati knew that an intervention was necessary, and stepped up to provide such links: even arch nemises, Mike “core values” Arrington–after first informing AOL of Calcanais’ location, of course, because it was ‘the right thing to do.’

Speaking of our favorite Good Boy, Mike Arrington is throwing a party for 500 or so of his bestest friends (and other useful people), using a wiki to manage the sign up list.

This is an open party and at least the first 500 people to sign up on the wiki will be admitted. Identification will be checked and your name must be on the list.

A wiki to manage the sign up list.

A wiki.

Think about it.

But that’s not all…in an accidental emailing sent to Valleywag’s Nick rather than Techcrunch’s Nick, Arrington also talks about getting his staff to put Important People at the top of that ’silly list’. (Because the head of TECHCrunch can’t do it himself, we presume). Valleywag Nick, that reticent, noble, though charmingly naughty boy, published the email even though it hurt him to do so, thereby ensuring that no matter what, he’ll always be Mr. 501 to Arrington.

Earlier in the week, at a speech given by Tim Berners-Lee on the semantic web, lead algorithm wrangler at Google, Peter Norvig, debated the goodness of Tim B-Ls approach, especially when considering the ‘users’:

“What I get a lot is: ‘Why are you against the Semantic Web?’ I am not against the Semantic Web. But from Google’s point of view, there are a few things you need to overcome, incompetence being the first,” Norvig said. Norvig clarified that it was not Berners-Lee or his group that he was referring to as incompetent, but the general user.

Users are incompetent. Well, according to Techdirt, so are Google engineers.

Seriously, where would we be without the fine engineers like those at Google, making the world a better place for an incompetent thee and me? Probably sitting beside the Digg monkeys, hitting our logs with the shinbones of an antelope beating out words like vendorsphere.

(”Hey is that a series of short beats or one long *THUMP*? Damn! My bone just overheated!”)

Hey! Zune, Zune, Zune!

Yes, Microsoft is getting into the music business with a potential new iPod/iTunes killer coming out this fall. Two members of the team were so inspired that they each spontaneously created a weblog to talk about music and Independent Artists and community and creativity and other stuff.

In a tizzy of activity not seen since last week, tech.meme insiders speculate widely on the new iBob, urh, iPod killer.

What we know is that it doesn’t utilize Microsoft’s other media management technology, PlayForSure, because it (PlayForSure) was created in a different division of the company (it being OK to ‘borrow’ heavily from rivals but not Joe down the hall); it has a logo that looks like a Jacob’s Ladder created by one of the Digg monkeys; Zune pronounced just right in Hebrew sounds like screwed (for sure); and the device will have Wifi and both it and the service focus on ‘community’ and ‘connectivity’.

According to Billboard:

Zune users will be able to view each other’s playlists, recommend music and sample tracks in what Stephenson describes as a multifaceted music discovery experience. This capability will extend to the Xbox 360 game console, PCs running Windows Media Center and mobile phones using the Windows Mobile operating system.

“The ability to connect the different devices is a key part of the strategy,” Stephenson says. “Whether it’s a portable media device, or a phone, or the Xbox or Media Center PC, the idea is you can access your entertainment from anywhere.”

I find this last bit reassuring, coming from a company known for its openness, its interest in protecting the confidentiality of its client’s data, and the security of its products.

Update

Both Head Lemur and Charles at Disinfotainment have posted leaked photos of the new iPod killer from Microsoft.

Actually, I kinda like it.

Categories
Weblogging

One less than Scoble

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

According to data Randy Charles Morin collected from Dave Winer’s OPML, Dave has linked to my old Burningbird weblog only once less than he’s linked to Robert Scoble’s WordPress weblog.

Wow. I feel like I should do something…I don’t know…maybe lay a lily or a small stuffed animal at the base of my old weblog or something. Light a candle.

I know one thing for sure: this is a feat that will never be repeated.

Categories
Weblogging

The Chocolate Wars

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Robert Scoble wrote on addressing executives at Nestlè about weblogging. Frank Paynter responded with post listing out several concerns about Nestlè’s corporate behavior. An executive from the company responded in Frank’s comments–not about the concerns Frank raised, but what a nice guy he is, and how he’s only responding in the interests of supporting his ‘new friend’ Robert Scoble.

Scoble then writes how this is all good stuff: how a Nestlè executive is talking with a anti-Nestlè weblogger. All they, Nestlè, need do now is to start a blog.

They don’t need to actually follow through on their commitment to ensuring decent labor practices in regards to the cocoa they buy. A commitment the company made for July, 2005, and one which, once the initial uproar about these practices subsided in 2002, was somehow ‘forgotten’.

No, all they really need to do, is start a weblog and engage us, people to people.

Frank posted a follow up post responding to the executive; additional discussion arose that also focused on the importance of being ‘civil’ in these discussions, and how Frank should have been flattered this important executive actually wrote a comment in his post. Scoble asserted that Frank and I didn’t get it.

I will have more to say on this, over at the Bb Gun, as soon as I finish the book edits and can do justice to the topics introduced. I hope what I write will be thoughtful. I can’t promise, though, that it will be civil. In the meantime, I wanted to point you to the ongoing discussion.

update: Head Lemur: Think about the Shareholders, they Cry.

Perhaps we can get them into Cute Overload. You know, We b-a-a-d, b-a-a-d bunnies.