Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Family Reality Blog
Then you come to realize that seemingly ALL of her numerous family members are joining in the blog reindeer games with their often contradictory and hilarious comments on every post she takes. Everyone from a grandmother, Mamoo, to a teenager daughter's latest boyfriend. You'll get to know them all if you're a regular to The Stone's Colossal Dream. Seemingly everyone she's responsible for, or who's responsible for her, or whom she knows intimately chimes in daily with their personal POV about Tania's World -- and exactly how they fit into the acknowledged zoo of it all.
Coming from a family that takes interest in, let alone something as ghastly as personal involvement in, one another's lives to disconnected heights of avoidance and contact akin to contagion units at the CDC, I marvel at Tania's blog's participatory, familial nature via new media.
With frequent visits, it's easy to find yourself feeling that you're a part of Tania's wacky suburban mayhem, where reflection and chatter and banter and argument and the spiritual and the mundane and seriousness and loopy camping trip behavior all reign and vie for more more more attention throughout any given day.
Tania's passed on her participatory, literate and literary tendencies to her oldest daughter, Sadie, who's now blogging from Costa Rica, where she's happily exploring the landscape, the populace, and herself.
Enjoy! It'll make you feel good, trust me.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Ma AT&T Says Shut-Up And Sing
AT&T’s culture of control has taken a frightening new turn. Some may remember when the company’s black rotary phone was the only device allowed on its telephone network.Today, the communications giant is banking that a world without Net Neutrality will allow them to exert similar control over another network — the free flowing Internet. Look no further than AT&T’s recent censorship of a Pearl Jam concert webcast, just as lead singer Eddie Vedder launched into a critique of President Bush.
AT&T’s slippery response to the resulting outcry is instructive. The moment the Pearl Jam news hit the Web, AT&T’s public relations division scrambled their spokespeople and shills. In a frenzy of damage control, they fired off a series of statements. One called the move “totally against our policy — of never, ever censoring political speech.” Another declared the Pearl Jam censorship “an isolated incident” — an “unfortunate” mistake by a rogue subcontractor.
Full story here. Wait ’til AT&T discovers what folks say on the blogs! Jeez. What a bunch of corrupted creeps they are. They’d sell-out their mommas for the ability to monopolize the way we pick our own noses over our own webcams.
That said, I gotta say I live-webcasted a big ‘ole rally for a bunch of Georgia Dems once, over what was surely AT&T owned and operated Internets “air.” No one batted an eyelash. Then again, we had about, oh say, 2 million or so fewer folks tuning-in for that one. No rock stars bothered to show to rock the North Georgia Dem vote, sad to say.
And maybe that’s a good thing, because if there’s one thing that annoys the crap outta me is perfectly great music interrupted by some ego-crazed musician with a brain the size of a pea wanting to shove his/her juvenile political pontifications down our throats when all we wanted to do was hear good music and get wasted. I want a political argument, I come to Peach Pundit! (Actually, PR shills and hacks for giant telco beasts annoy me even more, but that’s another post.)
Shut-up and sing, eh?
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Blog It Long Time Baby
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
MSM Visitation
Anyways, don't feel like going down the same 'ole same 'ole garden path about blogging vs. MSM. There's a time and place and platform for whatever you need to say nowadays, and that's the good part. Let's focus on that. Here's today's AJC editorial, which is really nothing more than a blog entry cleaned-up for public consumption.
Another Atlanta blogger who excels at this blog-to-MSM process, although his typical blog posts aren't exactly written to inflame the senses, just sensibilities, is Leonard Witt, the go-to guy on citizen journalism issues in his blog, PJNet. Check it out when you can.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
SGR Turned Two
Monday, April 09, 2007
"You're Running A Blog Not A Democracy"
Jeez, I go off the grid for four days and the conversation changes... not one iota. Might just stay off longer next time.
I agree that ATs are the worst of the worst slime who live under rocks. They annoy me to no end too, but I can't say I've had a terrible problem with ATs. Only once were they an issue anyways, when I foolishly left Anonymous Commenting up on the SGR right after Neal Boortz had blabbed (and blogged) about this very blog while on-air. Even then, I just deleted the stream of really vile comments. Didn't have any kinda ethical or moral dilemma about doing so, either. As the great Rusty T says, "You're running a blog, not a democracy."
So I can't really get all fired-up over masturbatory debates about should anonymous commenters be allowed or not, not to the degree of this NYT article today at least. Then again, I'm hardly as popular as BlogHer, so I don't attract their kinda attention, good or bad. (And if you do read this blog, you'd likely come to the conclusion that I tack to the "no such thing as bad press " end of the PR spectrum.)
For the record, I do not allow annonymous comments here. That's merely a coward's MO, and hardly worth protecting, in my book. Also, the registration process is so daunting on Blogspot, that most ATs lose interest at the thought of having to register and use a nom de plume just to cuss me out. (I laughed my butt-off though when someone was such an AT, and thus too cowardly to leave a post on my blog, that they instead left an anonymous post about me on someone else's blog! Now that's slime so low no microbe could even get under.)
Anyways... here's the NYT article again. It features gals from BlogHer.com, a site I once tried to post what I thought was a fairly reasonable (I didn't even use profanity!) comment, but of course I got slapped on the hand and lectured to about "rules" on personal attacks when I decided to speak my piece about the (dubious) professional choices of a certain BlogHer blogger. (She once worked for Edelman PR.) Women really are annoying with all their nicey-nice rules and such. And that was, naturally enough, the last time I visited BlogHer.
Then again, no one really likes being called a "stupid illiterate cunt" and things of that nature for too long. And women are often targeted for particularly vitriolic comments in the blogosphere. Still, I kinda like the creativity displayed by a certain Atlanta-based, male photographer who commented here (anonymously, of course, other than noting his profession 'cause I guess he felt it/he was special) that I wrote like a "drunken five-year old."
If I ever met-up with that dude, I'd let him buy me a drink just so I could toss it in his face. Just like a boozing kid, eh? But no, I didn't delete the "drunken five-year old" comment. It's on some post somewhere in here for all the world to judge -- both me and the commenteer.
Frankly, if some of these pro-guidelines folks had come of age before the blogosphere with, say, David T. Lindsay as one's snark guru, as I did, they'd know perfectly well how to wield and weed the vitriol -- in just the perfect places, for maximum impact. Or for at least some damn flavor. And Lordy Mercy how most blogs need not so much a lot of rules and regs, but instead just a whole lot more old-fashioned... style and flavor.
The plan is proceeding as, uh, planned... Mahhhh-ster. (My advice? Always do the accent.)
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
(If I Could Not Be A) Camera
But I reach a point of exhaustion and burnout, and yes, even for me, a point of informational overload. I wake up at 6am. By 8am I have a backlog of things I feel inspired and compelled to write about and respond to. I immediately start to prioritize, ranking what deserves my attention that day, in terms of blogging. And off I go. To nowhere, and for no apparent reason. Yet, should I not respond, for instance, to Mel's blog entry, then I won't rest easy until I've done so. And as we blog, war just rages on pointlessly, relentlessly over our heads. Born in domestic strife, and the national strife of the Vietnam War era, seems we've all been waging war since the day I first took a breath on this planet, stopping here and there only to catch our breath and build the machine back up in our momentary lapses of peace.
Lately, I've been late to appointments and meetings and such, due to my need to blog it out. Yet before blogging, I was an extremely punctual person. Old producer habits and organizational skills die hard, unless you're blogging every day. Something's been altered in me by blogging. Something has changed within my DNA almost. But I do not know yet if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I do wonder though, if I need to step back and try to figure out where to go next, or not, in terms of indie blogging?
This post put together with help from... my generation:
Monday, March 19, 2007
PodCamp Post-Mort
Ellie's Dad -- I love that a techno-biggy introduces himself at a conference as the author of the "Ellie's Dad" blog! That's soooo social media. Love his remarks here too.
Bernaisesource -- No one writes with the clarity and precision as that Dan Our New Media Man.
GriftDrift -- Always sticks a knife just where one is needed.
Radical Georgia Moderate -- Looks at things in a way you wish you had. Rusty can rearrange your thought process.
Peachtree Screed -- The Godfather.
Amber -- Goddess of social media cool. Damn fine PodCamp organizer too!
Stephanie -- Delightfully readable blogger.
Josh at Hyku -- Our blog guru. Everything we know trickled up from FL with Josh.
What A Concept! -- Sherry the idealist, sets our ATL new media moral compass.
PJNet -- Head counselor at all Media Camp. Leonard keeps us grounded in first aid, safety and media reality.
Mike Schinkel -- emerging on the Atlanta tech blogger scene. Good photos.
The Shelbinator -- the one to watch.
Jeff Haynie -- serial entrepreneur; serious techy.
And then there's the MSM dude's (AP) report.
As Greenfield suggests, you tell me what kind of report/reporting you like best about PodCamp Atlanta '07!
Technorati tag:
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Monday, March 05, 2007
Cherry Coke Zero
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Yeah PS, I too remember soda fountains, particularly the soda fountain at the Variety Store in Highlands, N.C. where you could get a real cherry coke, real being that they'd squirt the syrup in first and mix it with your Coke. And Coke floats too. I still love 'em all. Particularly with a shot of fine rum.
A real good, authentic soda fountain, kinda yupped-up though for today's rich people who are overrunning western North Carolina as we speak, exists on the main drag in Brevard, N.C.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Citizen Journalism
Anyways, back to the point here about Leonard Witt, he's blogging like a man on fire about citizen journalism, using the AJC time and time again as an example of what happens when you miss the boat and simply "don't get it." Get on over to his PJNet and learn something (all you'll get here is rant and attitude of course), particularly about this Open Source radio. I'm headed there now.
Journalists want to get paid to write about the community and the world they live in. But God forbid they have to sit down at the same table with it. Shame. It's a great raucous party really. They're the ones missing all the fun.
Reminds me of how so very often I'm asked if I get paid to blog. Or why would I bother if I don't. And I have to say that I get paid just fine, in full and often. It's not just necessarily with cold hard cash; fond as I am of that, I also love my fringe bennies. And sometimes, they turn out to be more valuable. Time will tell. Besides, this dude says he'd hire me to blog!
Keep hope alive.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Big Media Stops To Assist Stranded Blogger
Boy, do I feel like a total chump. So much for our editorial system of checks and balances here in the blogosphere. Gotta get bailed out by MSM. Hummmpppphhh.
Oh well. You get what you pay for around here. Or maybe they just read Leonard's open letter and decided to "open source" their copy editing skills! Whatever, I'm grateful that someone on the AJC payroll even took 30 seconds to e-mail a blogger. Of course, I'd prefer that he'd posted a comment, but I'll take what I can get.
One email at a time... (Email -- so last century.)
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
My Blogger Addiction
Gawd I wish I could, consensually of course, tape that little set-to. A wonk's idea of porn.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Bloggers Win!!! Again!!!
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Does this mean that bloggers can hop a ride on their Gulfstreams now? I've always wanted to learn to ski. Blog and ski at the same time. Lipflap too. Ahhh, so many talents we really do have here in the blogosphere.
I'm placing my order now.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
My Bedroom For An Original Thought
First there was Mr. Will in the Washington Post in full clueless prattle about the evil of blogging:
Time's issue includes an unenthralled essay by NBC's Brian Williams, who believes that raptures over the Web's egalitarianism arise from the same impulse that causes today's youth soccer programs to award trophies -- "entire bedrooms full" -- to any child who shows up: "The danger just might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we will fail to meet the next great challenge . . . because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart."
Then along comes Bobby who's at least not half as clueless as Will and a whole lot funnier if not any more original:
If you believe they are, sadly, you’re on a completely different page from me. This reminds me of the baby boomers’ kids, ALL of whom got trophies for playing in the soccer league, even if their team ended up in last place. I mean can’t we draw the line ANYWHERE anymore? Does EVERYBODY have to get in? Are we afraid of hurting every last person’s feelings?
Lordy hon, if Brian Williams is setting the intellectual tone, we are all soooo screwed.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Blog A New Voice
Blogging is a discovery process. Narcissistic, yes, but vital to becoming the person we are really meant to be. The strong, avid bloggers keep at it because they simply love to write, and in doing so some of them are becoming genuine writers, not just neo-journalists and opinionists. It's fascinating to watch this process evolve; the poet, the sentimentalist, the dreamer, the realist, the cynic, the naysayer, the prophet, the teacher, the champion, the truth all begin to emerge in the person who is driven to blog. A voice is sculpted and crafted and turned over to an audience. A life's story begins to emerge.
I had the delight of discovering the beginnings of a couple of deeply original and inspired voices of genuine, contemporary southern culture over the last few days within a couple of key posts. One was from James. The other from Will Hinton. There's something critical and seminal in these two unpolished musings on the past King Day. Linking to such emerging voices is simply at the heart of why I started my own blog in the first place, why my own blog emerged from my history, and why I started the e-zine WaySouth in the nineties too. I know there is a strong, uniquely southern voice out there. And I for one sure don't want to miss a musing.
One note, I've disabled "comment moderation" here too to encourage more comments. Blogging without comments is the equivalent of drinking alone - why bother?
This post put together by Yo La Tengo, Beta Band and Cat Stevens.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges
The revolution is, once again, masked as ye 'olde power-grab. Now the Media Bloggers Association (yes, I'm a member so who really wants to be in that club?) wants to clean-up us bloggers real nice like so that we can be credentialed for big news coverage events, in this case the pending Scooter Libby trial in Washington. From today's MBA emailed (by Robert Cox) missive:
Dear MBA Member,
I was not quite ready to announce this but as this news is probably going to be mentioned in a major newspaper tomorrow I figure I had better go ahead and fill you all in tonight. As you know, I've been working on creating new opportunities for bloggers including "access" for bloggers.
Those efforts are now bearing fruit as we have our first high-profile opportunity. The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC has agreed to provide the MBA with two seats at the upcoming Scooter Libby Trial.
Those members interested to participate need to send me an email expressing their interest and some preferred dates. Our plan is to put together a schedule of 15-20 bloggers. Each blogger will be given one of our two press credentials for a few days (we can play with exact dates once I have expressions of interest from members).
The blogger can either be you or someone who blogs on a group blog you run (technically members of your group blog are already members, something we are sorting out with the new membership database but that is a different matter). I am hoping to create some overlap in the schedule so there is always one "veteran" and one "rookie" in our two seats. Bloggers who participate are expected to crank out a good deal of material and participate in the syndication of the content through the MBA web site.
Maybe this is a good thing, but as Leonard Witt at PJNet asks, do we really want Robert Cox of MBA bestowing privileges we can likely access on our own, thank you very much?
Without benefit of MBA and while MSM slept, we have quietly been committing journalism (and been credentialed as "real" media too in the case of my company, WaySouth Media, Inc.) without need of anointment by the Washington media power structure, old or otherwise.
Lemme give you a quick link list of independent Atlanta bloggers who have stumbled into genuine journalism, should you need a refresher...
Georgia Podcast Network (podcasts on new media you won't find elsewhere)
TrueGritz ( media "rights" to the Olympics)
Peachtree Screed (Mayor Franklin's racial tones)
Bernaisesource (overall excellent, original PR industry analysis)
Are there others? I'm sure there are. Send the Atlanta-based ones to me and I'll add to the list.
Is having an umbrella organization, a syndicate, act on our behalf and thus bestowing that group and its leader, Robert Cox, with the power of our compliance, at utter cross purposes with the very nature of independent blogging itself? I'd be all for getting a stinkin' badge, but under these rules?
Members also could seek credentialed status by undergoing training or demonstrating other work as professional journalists. They also must agree to the organization's ethical standards and adopt formal editorial and corrections policies.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
You'll Never Bullshit Alone
a.) become a moralist
b.) meditate, in silence, for six weeks
c.) get the fuck out of the ATL, Atlanta too
d.) denounce social media as the delusional mirror into nothingness that it is
e.) never blog again
I'm of course right back at it. What drew me back to hell? Jim Wooten's become a music critic!!!! How's a gal supposed to resist?!
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
America Ready For A White Male President?
Others point to the climbing rates of violence in the white community as a sign that a white leader might be a far reach, citing events like the PS3 shootouts at Best Buy and the Trail of Tears. Voters cited “bloodthirstiness”, “alcoholism”, “tendency to abusiveness”, and “Toby Keith” as central issues which concern them about white male candidates in the 2008 presidential election.
In full here. Thanks for the tip to this delightful entry, Amber. Good stuff fer sure.
Remora Fish Hate You
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Joseph Rago, assistant editorial features editor at the WSJ, has this nasty little shoutout for us bloggers. Hey, at least this is a fairly transparent flame of pure hatred, well written of course, rather than that patronizing joke of a TIME magazine cover, conceived by yet another suit. Wonder who's job is on the line? (Surely not mine!) Says Mr. Rago:
The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.
More success is met in purveying opinion and comment. Some critics reproach the blogs for the coarsening and increasing volatility of political life. Blogs, they say, tend to disinhibit. Maybe so. But politics weren't much rarefied when Andrew Jackson was president, either. The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful.
Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling. Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . . The way we write affects both style and substance.
The loquacious formulations of late Henry James, for instance, owe in part to his arthritis, which made longhand impossible, and instead he dictated his writing to a secretary. In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope -- though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog's being is: Here's my opinion, right now.
Full not-for-public-consumption babble here. And my opinion? Right now? What fish could even GET up an ass as tight as Mr. Rago's? Henry James would never have bothered, that boring little poofster. How about a nice, loquacious bitch-slap to the WSJ for Christmas? Oh dear... a full Python moment has suddenly overtaken me. Sing along:
I'm a Blogger-Journalist and I'm OK.
I work all night and I sleep all day.
I fan the flames, I blog some more,
I go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays I may take a shower,
and opinionate some more!
Monday, December 18, 2006
The Best Social Media Trend of 2006
Wow! Where do I begin? Web 2.0 about took over my life in 2006. I had to launch an entire company, WaySouth Media, Inc., just to keep up. (Site to be built-out when I can catch my social media breath.) It's all so astonishingly personal when I slow to ponder the question -- whether marketing my vlog TrueGritz, being caught up on the periphery of the Edelman/Wal-Mart fake blog scandal, getting serious about growing The Spacey Gracey Review, or seeing my friend Catherine wrangle with the roller coaster of success at Second Life, where she's Director of Marketing.
The biggest social media trend for me is seeing the Atlanta social media community begin to gel. We are establishing our own regionalized identity. We've read each other's blogs, we've come together at various meetings and seminars and social functions. We're starting to get an idea of who's who on the Atlanta social media scene, and we're casting our nets for bigger and better -- together.
And yes, we're still in the baby stages since we saw Creative Loafing's Best Of award for Best Blog go to a Big Media-sponsored blog, Rodney Ho's. Radio Talk is a good blog as Rodney's up on his beat in a big way; yet Radio Talk remains a non-organic blog in that it was created with a standard-issue, ready made audience, AJC.com. It thus had an assist of hugenormous, not easily overlooked, proportions, rather than put out there to grow and flourish and be marketed and build readership on its own creative merits. It didn't percolate to the top; rather, it was placed on the top by MSM, not the natural blogosphere.
Yet, we also saw Amber and Rusty recognized for their incredible hard work and devotion to creating, branding, marketing and sustaining the Georgia Podcast Network. They've been just amazingly supportive of the Atlanta social (and independent) media community, and I couldn't thank them enough, for instance, for coming out to the Punchline and podcasting Jeff Justice's Level II workshoppe graduation night performances. They are the future: energetic, smart, informed, open and community-minded, and incredibly techno-savvy. Yep, the sharpest knives in the drawer, as a good southerner would spin it for ya. (All I want for Christmas is a GAPN thong!)
All of a sudden there are plenty of social media conferences in the works for 2007: Podcamp Atlanta and SoCon (website coming soon) for starters. Who needs SXSW when we can roll our own!
Ultimately, my feelings about marketing and public relations for social media 2006 are entirely regionally focused: within the scope of the ATL, the Dirty South, the Old South, the New South, I see a sparkly, bubbly treasure trove of growth and possibility and fabulous new media creativity for 2007.
Here in Atlanta, we've given ourselves the gift of independent media. Talk about learning to love (and trust) yourself -- and one's own personal network! You built it, you've grown it, you own it. Let us go forth and use it wisely.
Happy New Media New Year!