Category: Weblogging

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.

Categories
Just Shelley Weblogging

Shadow of the Megalith

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

There’s a cicadia shell hanging off my neighbor’s door. It’s been there over a week. He (my neighbor) comes and goes daily, and I keep expecting him to flick it off. But each day when I go outside–to the store, the laundry, a walk–I look over and it’s still there.

I thought about flicking it off myself, but it is his door; it is his cicadia shell.

Speaking of shells, Sour Duck made an interesting comment in the post “Shiny, Happy, …”. She wrote, To my mind, this blog is still currently living in the shadow of that megalith, Burningbird..

Not a truer phrase spoken: my old site casts a big shadow. Not as creepy looking as the cicadia shell, maybe, but still noticeable. It was, after all, my identity for a time. No, that’s wrong. It was my ‘brand’.

Brand. I’ve been reading that term with increasing frequency; people are worried about their ‘brand’ now. Not their sites, or their identity, or their writing. No, the focus, now, is on ‘brand’.

Recently, when the PodShow site re-published several podcaster syndication feeds, it replaced the copyright information with the site’s own. The developers associated with the site said it was a mistake, and it could have been. Until it was fixed, though, there was a minor uproar among those so recursively syndicated. In particular, more than one podcaster mentioned about the ‘threat to their brand’ in having the syndication feed republished without proper copyright and attribution.

Brand. Huh. I grew up in farming country, where the only brand was the one made of twisted metal and burnt into the butts of cows to mark ownership. When I hear ‘brand’ among webloggers, I still see that big furry butt with the squiggle inside a circle with a bar across the top.

I walked away from a site that might be considered a popular site. Or more popular than some. The popularity, though, stayed with the site; the momentum of links and syndication is such that it stops for the will of no woman or man. All that’s left now is this simple site with it’s plain name and odd colors, and my other sites, which I’ll probably start and drop and change on a whim. This site, this writing, these pictures, the code, me, and you, of course; you, silent or otherwise who weren’t so caught up in the ‘brand’ that you forget it is little more than a facade. Or, perhaps, like me grew up around cows and recognize burned bovine butt when you see it.

As for the ‘megalith’ as SD called it, I walk the Ozark ‘mountains’ and they’re small and quaint compared to the those where I grew up in the Northwest. Hardly more than green rolling hills. Yet in the past, the Ozarks were an imposing mountain chain that reached high above the plains–tall and jagged and snow covered. Time wore them down. Time wears everything down. Nothing is meant to be immutable.

I was thinking that the old subscriptions to the Burningbird syndication feed also remind me of the cicada shell. It is humbling to see them. They, too, had meaning once; a use. Now, like the bug’s old body, like Burningbird, they’re just a remnant.

Now that that’s out of the way…

Categories
Weblogging Writing

What it is

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

My philosophy as I begin this new journal can be found in the movie, “Six Days and Seven Nights”.

In the movie, the main character, Quinn (played by Harrison Ford), is a rough edged island society drop out who flies a beat up old plane between Tahiti and a tropical island getaway. He’s sitting at the bar when the requisite female lead, Robin (played by Anne Heche), walks up to get a drink. They end up talking about people who vacation in tropical islands, leading Quinn to scoff about those who, “…come here looking for the magic, hoping to find romance, when they can’t find it anywhere else.” Robin replies maybe people do find romance. Quinn then replies:

It’s an island, babe. If you didn’t bring it here, you won’t find it here.

There you go. What it is.

In the sidebar to your right are screenshots of various sites I’m in the process of putting together. I had planned on waiting until all were finished, and then doing a “Ta Da!” moment, but that just puts pressure on to finish and adds to stress. Must finish, must finish. Instead, I figured I’d just toss things out in various stages, and eventually something tangible will coalesce out of the mess. Or not.

Most of the sites are for general writing and/or photography. The only ‘weblog’ format sites will be this, the Bb Gun, and ScriptTeaser. Everything I publish will have an introductory entry here, at Just Shelley; the post then forming a discussion forum. The Bb Gun is for general web commentary and expressions of opinion of which I’ve never had a shortage. The ScriptTeaser site is pure tech, and includes sub-sites for book support.

I had planned on having comments at all three, but why create multiple points of vulnerability?

This site is my starting point to all things Shelley, and hence the name. This is my point of contact with those others who make up the ‘community’ in which we connect to each other. My warm appreciation for those who missed me. *PHPPTT!* to those who didn’t.

Categories
Technology Weblogging

Tipping the Apple cart

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

There are some high profile folk in the technology and weblgging communities who are quitting Apple products: Mark Pilgrim, Cory Doctorow, and even Tim Bray is giving it a thought. Jason Kottke asks whether Apple should be worried. He wonders whether these acts could be a foretaste of what is to come:

Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.

Is Kottke right? Are these men the canaries in the mine: harbingers of deep and serious times ahead for Jobs and company?

I doubt the average Mac user has heard of Mark Pilgrim, or Cory Doctorow, or even Tim Bray. Kottke’s point, reiterated by Tim O’Reilly, isn’t so much that, “Look here at these famous people, they’re leaving Apple” or even, “look, these are famous people”, as much as these were longtime fans of the Apple/Mac environment. If they, stalwart and heavily invested champions, are considering leaving, will Bob and Alice, Ted and Carol be far behind?

Yes, and no.

These gentlemen are also heavily invested in open source and open standards, which has and will continue to influence their decision. The average Apple customer, though, most likely doesn’t care about source or standards; no, not even when it impacts them. Lock-in? What is lock-in. Lock-in is having to make a choice and living with the consequences. Heck, the average consumer is used to having to make that crucial choice: VHS or BetaMax; iTunes or MP3; marry Paul or hold out for John; Macy’s or Gimble’s; Pepsi or Coke.

To the average consumer, lock-in is equivalent to competition and isn’t competition supposed to be a good thing? As for the average tech, he or she doesn’t know how to communicate the awfulness of lock-in—well, other than acts such as switching to Ubuntu.

But then, a geek switching to Linux isn’t necessarily a new thing.

“Hey, I’ve switched to Ubuntu.”

“I find I like the Brazilian coffee beans, myself.”

“No, Ubuntu is a form of Linux.”

“Linux? Weren’t you already using Linux? I thought all you geeks used Linux. What were you working with before?”

“A Mac.”

“Mac? As in Apple? With all the aqua stuff?”

“Yup.”

“Wow. Well, aren’t you precious. Little wittle command line scare the big bad geek?”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that the Mac operating system is built on BSD, a hipper version of Unix.”

“Yeah, but that’s like driving a Barracuda with an automatic transmission.”

Geeks leaving Apple for Ubuntu isn’t a Sign. Even famous geeks leaving Apple famously isn’t a Sign. Geeks leaving Mac for Linux is just another example of someone making a choice.

Now if Uncle—the man who can’t figure out how to use his toaster without burning PopTarts—leaves his Mac for a Linux box, well….next thing you know, Microsoft will replace Steve Ballmer with a black woman, and Sony will decide that art demands to be free.

In the meantime, my own Why Switch ad. Just tap the apple, wake up the worm.

Or, if you have time and bandwidth, the best version. Warning: Quicktime mov file, huge sucker. And one for your little iPod, too.

Quicktime 7 required

Categories
Weblogging

A bully is still a bully

Seth Finkelstein writes on the recent Maine weblogger being sued by an ad agency brouha. The ad agency dropped the lawsuit, in part because of the noise generated by webloggers. Contrary to belief, this was not the result of a ground swelling of support as much as a carefully orchestrated media event. In the post he points to, Media Blogger Association president Robert Cox writes:

The real story behind the “Maine Blogger” story is that this blogstorm did not just “happen”. I personally spent several weeks developing a media strategy which we launched last Thursday morning. The original goal was to get the story in front of 3-5 mm people by Friday night. We easily surpassed that figure and the number continues to grow.

Once we were ready to drop the story, I reached out to the membership of the Media Bloggers Association with an “MBA Legal Alert” and they responded in force. Hundreds of bloggers responded to the MBA’s request to post on this story and make their readership aware of what was happening in Maine. We also sent out a traditional press release to our “press list” and added in about 100 Maine/Travel media outlets – that’s how the Globe got the story. Once the ball was rolling lots of other folks got behind the effort and Lance was a full-fledged bloglebrity.

This kind of blog/MSM media strategy is part of the two-pronged approach we take as part of our Legal Defense Initiative. I think the real story is that this strategy can be – and has been – so effective.

Seth responds with:

And I agree – it can be, and has been, so effective. But … it’s important to realize just how old-school top-down this is structurally. In fact, scarily so. Work with people who have big megaphones, get them to echo the story, then go up the media pyramid. It’s extremely traditional. Now, the powers here were used for good instead of evil. But, still, what if it were the reverse?

I followed this story. My initial sympathy was with the weblogger, being sued by some big corporation. But then I read the Maine weblogger’s posts on his ‘investigation’ and found his effort to be flawed, and personally biased. The issue at stake was the Maine weblogger was angry at having to pay more for Pay-per-click ads, and blamed the Maine Department of Tourism because of their use of Pay-per-click. They’re driving up the prices, he cries. But then he takes his reader on a journey through implied charges of government corruption and malfeasance, hints of conspiracy, and out and out accusations of misuse of public funds and fraud.

He gave out assumptions as facts, when proven wrong he seldom retracted what he wrote without twisting it about into some new form of accusation, he brought in other organizations not even connected with the event–all because he had to pay more for Pay-Per-Click.

When, after many communications with both the state and the ad agency failed to resolve the issue and he was sued, bloggers cried out about free speech and censorship. I think on a young man standing in front of a tank in China, and I’m embarrassed.

Lots of webloggers patting themselves on the back, job well done, and bully defeated. But who was the bully?