Saturday, July 05, 2003
Jeff Jarvis on AOL blogs
Carroll Gardens evening
Dinner with good friends at Whim on DeGraw Street:
Grilled Georgia peach and Vidalia onion salad, heirloom tomato salad, belon oysters, fried dragon fish with mashed potatoes, mussels with garlic and red pepper, sangria.
Dessert at Sweet Melissa's, a truly impressive little gem: almond cookies, linzer tarts, ginger fig custard tart, chocolate graham crackers-this shop carried about 20 things I would like to be able top bake. Melissa Murphy Hagenbart is quite the baker!
At the end of the evening, walking back to the car, ran into an old friend I hadn't seen for 10 years. I'd been looking for her on the web (would normal people check the white pages, first?) and couldn't get any current data. Turns out she's quit writing and gotten a masters in divinity!
We will reunite next week.
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Grilled Georgia peach and Vidalia onion salad, heirloom tomato salad, belon oysters, fried dragon fish with mashed potatoes, mussels with garlic and red pepper, sangria.
Dessert at Sweet Melissa's, a truly impressive little gem: almond cookies, linzer tarts, ginger fig custard tart, chocolate graham crackers-this shop carried about 20 things I would like to be able top bake. Melissa Murphy Hagenbart is quite the baker!
At the end of the evening, walking back to the car, ran into an old friend I hadn't seen for 10 years. I'd been looking for her on the web (would normal people check the white pages, first?) and couldn't get any current data. Turns out she's quit writing and gotten a masters in divinity!
We will reunite next week.
Comment
Book Club that Blogs
Saw Zuly's Reading Room blog via Move the Crowd:
"Zuly's Reading Room is a place to talk about books that you're reading. We don't all read the same book at the same time. Instead, we just talk about the book we're reading at the present time. If other people have read it, they can chime in on the discussion. Or not. It's up to you. By sharing what we're reading, you get ideas for new books to read. We're bookworms. We like to read. What can we say? There are two ways to participate. You can TrackBack posts about the books you're reading to this blog or by participating in our forum for more detailed discussions about the books that have been mentioned on the blog
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"Zuly's Reading Room is a place to talk about books that you're reading. We don't all read the same book at the same time. Instead, we just talk about the book we're reading at the present time. If other people have read it, they can chime in on the discussion. Or not. It's up to you. By sharing what we're reading, you get ideas for new books to read. We're bookworms. We like to read. What can we say? There are two ways to participate. You can TrackBack posts about the books you're reading to this blog or by participating in our forum for more detailed discussions about the books that have been mentioned on the blog
Comment
AOL Blogging: VA Product team shows goods to NY power bloggers
The AOL Community Products team showed the new AOL blogging tools--aka Journals-- to some expert bloggers in New York earlier this week. "Sonic" Rick Robinson, and Andrea Spiegel, two super AOLers, led the delegation up to New York to show AOL's new blogs to power bloggers Meg Hourihan, Anil Dash, Nick Denton, Jeff Jarvis and Clay Shirky.
Reaction was enthusiastic.
Jarvis says: "If we are eager for Iraqis and Iranians to blog, we certainly should be eager for AOLers to blog. The more the better.
and
:AOL has an interesting internal challenge positioning this next to its homepage tool and even its member profiles (which some people use as a quasiblog).
They've decided to call the product AOL Journals and thus, position it as a community tool (read: LiveJournal) more than a publishing tool (read: Movable Type). The word "blog" is only part of the subtitle.
That's wise. Community is what built the AOL empire.
(Really smart, Jeff, and so right.)
AOL team member Kevin wrote:
"We're trying to play nice with the larger blogging community by supporting open standards like RSS feeds for blogs. We're trying to talk to folks in the community to see where we should work with them. It?s unique in my involvement in AOL products, which is a great step in the right direction as far as I?m concerned.
[When the product does come out later this year, bear in mind that it's a 1.0, there are other new features on the way, and it?s built for the AOL user in mind. That said, I?m not one who shies away from speaking my mind. There are some really cool features in the product at launch. RSS support will be in 1.0, along with a bunch of other stuff that I?m not going to tell you about. Ok, I?I'll tell you one? You can send an IM to a bot and have it post to your blog with rich text support and other cool stuff (like add titles, etc).
Anil comments here.
More on AOL sneak-peeking the Journal at John Robb,
Side note: About 30 bloggers have pointed to Jeff's item and are commenting on it. Results more comprehensive on Feedsterthan technorati right now.
Note: When I was at AOL, I spent some time pushing the value of blogging on Ric Robinson and Michael Sherrod, the two execs who own the new product. They were both extremely interested and receptive to my ideas.
What I did not realize at the time was how many other conversations AOL had going with folks about blogging (shows what a huge company it is, and how there were communications problems internally). Apparently, in addition to the talks with potential vendors, acquisitions, and partners that I was aware of, there were other conversations with folks now involved in the blogging space.
Seems like many people can imagine that they helped motivate the get AOL up this new product hill toward AOL Journals.
Of course, now the AOL challenge will be to seed the journals, educate users on how to work with them, and promote them appropriately...Those RSS feeds have huge potential to help AOL "elevate the member", as we used to say.
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Reaction was enthusiastic.
Jarvis says: "If we are eager for Iraqis and Iranians to blog, we certainly should be eager for AOLers to blog. The more the better.
and
:AOL has an interesting internal challenge positioning this next to its homepage tool and even its member profiles (which some people use as a quasiblog).
They've decided to call the product AOL Journals and thus, position it as a community tool (read: LiveJournal) more than a publishing tool (read: Movable Type). The word "blog" is only part of the subtitle.
That's wise. Community is what built the AOL empire.
(Really smart, Jeff, and so right.)
AOL team member Kevin wrote:
"We're trying to play nice with the larger blogging community by supporting open standards like RSS feeds for blogs. We're trying to talk to folks in the community to see where we should work with them. It?s unique in my involvement in AOL products, which is a great step in the right direction as far as I?m concerned.
[When the product does come out later this year, bear in mind that it's a 1.0, there are other new features on the way, and it?s built for the AOL user in mind. That said, I?m not one who shies away from speaking my mind. There are some really cool features in the product at launch. RSS support will be in 1.0, along with a bunch of other stuff that I?m not going to tell you about. Ok, I?I'll tell you one? You can send an IM to a bot and have it post to your blog with rich text support and other cool stuff (like add titles, etc).
Anil comments here.
More on AOL sneak-peeking the Journal at John Robb,
Side note: About 30 bloggers have pointed to Jeff's item and are commenting on it. Results more comprehensive on Feedsterthan technorati right now.
Note: When I was at AOL, I spent some time pushing the value of blogging on Ric Robinson and Michael Sherrod, the two execs who own the new product. They were both extremely interested and receptive to my ideas.
What I did not realize at the time was how many other conversations AOL had going with folks about blogging (shows what a huge company it is, and how there were communications problems internally). Apparently, in addition to the talks with potential vendors, acquisitions, and partners that I was aware of, there were other conversations with folks now involved in the blogging space.
Seems like many people can imagine that they helped motivate the get AOL up this new product hill toward AOL Journals.
Of course, now the AOL challenge will be to seed the journals, educate users on how to work with them, and promote them appropriately...Those RSS feeds have huge potential to help AOL "elevate the member", as we used to say.
Comment
Department of weekend woes: Teenager goes AWOL
When my son was born, my mother said, "Some day you're going to know what it's like," a reference to all the hell I put her through during my teen years.
I thought of that many times on Friday night as I repeatedly tried to call my teen-age son on his cell phone and got no response--hours after he was supposed to be home.--and hours after he'd left for the city with some NJ friends.
Not only did we not know where he was, he was supposed to get on a plane early this morning and head to California for music camp!
Around 3 am, before I called the police, I called a friend of his and got the cell phone number of the kid driving the car. They were on their way back from the city, but son was asleep next to him--he said.
What is the short version of "I'm not going to kill you right now because we have 40 minutes get you packed before we have to leave for the airport?
Whatever it is, that's the tune my husband and I were humming as we helped son pack clothes, select sheet music, pull tickets and itinerary together and head to airport at 4:30 am in order to put him on 6 am plane. Son, meanwhile kept saying, I just have to lie down for a few minutes, I am really tired," and we kept going, no, no, sleep when you get on the plane.
The miracle is that we did get him on the plane.
The reality is that I am going to beat the $%^#@ out of him when he gets back, or at least find some way to make sure he doesn't disappear without warning again. And needless to say, no more leaving the house before a trip, in fact, I think he shouldn't leave the house again until he turns 21.
Argghh.
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I thought of that many times on Friday night as I repeatedly tried to call my teen-age son on his cell phone and got no response--hours after he was supposed to be home.--and hours after he'd left for the city with some NJ friends.
Not only did we not know where he was, he was supposed to get on a plane early this morning and head to California for music camp!
Around 3 am, before I called the police, I called a friend of his and got the cell phone number of the kid driving the car. They were on their way back from the city, but son was asleep next to him--he said.
What is the short version of "I'm not going to kill you right now because we have 40 minutes get you packed before we have to leave for the airport?
Whatever it is, that's the tune my husband and I were humming as we helped son pack clothes, select sheet music, pull tickets and itinerary together and head to airport at 4:30 am in order to put him on 6 am plane. Son, meanwhile kept saying, I just have to lie down for a few minutes, I am really tired," and we kept going, no, no, sleep when you get on the plane.
The miracle is that we did get him on the plane.
The reality is that I am going to beat the $%^#@ out of him when he gets back, or at least find some way to make sure he doesn't disappear without warning again. And needless to say, no more leaving the house before a trip, in fact, I think he shouldn't leave the house again until he turns 21.
Argghh.
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Friday, July 04, 2003
Edublogging at its finest: NECC group blog
See the NECC blog for a great example of what collaborative blogging can accomplish and also great conference information. For those of you are not not educational technology folks(like, almost everyone), NECC is the big annual conference for educational technology where new products are traditionally rolled out. It's in Seattle this year.
This blog is loaded with information, ideas, and personality--way to go!
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This blog is loaded with information, ideas, and personality--way to go!
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How to get RSS feeds from About.com
Saturday, 7/5 update: To get RSS feeds from About.com, go to the guide site you are interested in and click on the XML button--couldn't be simpler.
EDxample right here.
There's no list of About.com RSS feeds yet, but here's how to get the feeds into your news aggregator, should you wish to do so:
From Doug Ransom posting on a syndication list at Yahoo Groups, via Serious Instructional Technology:
The format for a Guide site is http://z.about.com/6/g/name of guide site/b/index.rdf
So, for Baking it is http://z.about.com/6/g/baking/b/index.rdf
For Manhattan it is http://z.about.com/6/g/manhattan/b/index.rdf
For http://womensissues.about.com/mbody.htm its http://z.about.com/6/g/womensissues/b/index.rdf
I signed up for Baking, and it works.
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EDxample right here.
There's no list of About.com RSS feeds yet, but here's how to get the feeds into your news aggregator, should you wish to do so:
From Doug Ransom posting on a syndication list at Yahoo Groups, via Serious Instructional Technology:
The format for a Guide site is http://z.about.com/6/g/name of guide site/b/index.rdf
So, for Baking it is http://z.about.com/6/g/baking/b/index.rdf
For Manhattan it is http://z.about.com/6/g/manhattan/b/index.rdf
For http://womensissues.about.com/mbody.htm its http://z.about.com/6/g/womensissues/b/index.rdf
I signed up for Baking, and it works.
Comment
Do big media companies stifle creativity?
8 years ago, when I was a non-corporate media person whose great creative idea spawned a $6MM division, I'd say no, good big media companies don't stifle creativity.
3 years ago, as a VP at Netscape/AOL, I would have said, "Well, it depends who's backing your ideas and what level you're at--I was paid great money to be creative."
Now, out on my own and glad about it, my response to the question is "Of course big media companies stifle creativity--and they know it--and that fact scares them silly."
Cory Berman of Lost Remote asked this question after reading this article in the LA Times.
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3 years ago, as a VP at Netscape/AOL, I would have said, "Well, it depends who's backing your ideas and what level you're at--I was paid great money to be creative."
Now, out on my own and glad about it, my response to the question is "Of course big media companies stifle creativity--and they know it--and that fact scares them silly."
Cory Berman of Lost Remote asked this question after reading this article in the LA Times.
Comment
Feedster Indexes About.com blogs as RSS feeds
The first widespread commercialization of blogging is moving to the next level as Feedster announces they are indexing the About.com blogs as RSS feeds.
This is interesting because it shows About.com is willing to potentially forgo readers going to those pages (because they are seeing the RSS feeds as digests in newsreaders), for the greater ease in search and indexing that Feedster will offer.
** So where can I get the RSS feeds from About.com?
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This is interesting because it shows About.com is willing to potentially forgo readers going to those pages (because they are seeing the RSS feeds as digests in newsreaders), for the greater ease in search and indexing that Feedster will offer.
** So where can I get the RSS feeds from About.com?
Comment
4th of July and didn't make any plans--Web links worth noting
New Museum Show, The American Affect:
Lawrence Rinder-curated show, The American Affect, at the Whitney in NYC.
Rinder: This show carries on the Whitney?s longtime commitment to illuminating the times in which we live. America has a profound influence on the daily lives of the world?s citizens? and the image of the United States has come to bear almost mythological weight. The American Effect is about the ways in which America?s real and imagined effects intertwine to become a compelling source of themes, images, and ideas for artists around the world.
New SFMOMA show: Illegal Art, Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age
New "Fish-out'of Water' Narrative, The Island Chronicles:
Mark Fraufelder and family arrive in Rarotonga, an island in the South Pacific.
Who is Joi Ito and how did he get that way?: Joit Ito is an investor/VC who is extremely involved in the blogging world and who has made investments in a number of new blogging start-ups. He's just posted a wonderful self portrait in his blog. One of my goals in the world, post leaving AOL, is to have a more transparent relationship between my work self and my non0work self--Joi dones an amazing jon of achieving this in his account of who he is and how he became that way. Bravo!
>
Wonderful photos, via SandHill Tech: Photog Aicha Hockx
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Lawrence Rinder-curated show, The American Affect, at the Whitney in NYC.
Rinder: This show carries on the Whitney?s longtime commitment to illuminating the times in which we live. America has a profound influence on the daily lives of the world?s citizens? and the image of the United States has come to bear almost mythological weight. The American Effect is about the ways in which America?s real and imagined effects intertwine to become a compelling source of themes, images, and ideas for artists around the world.
New SFMOMA show: Illegal Art, Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age
New "Fish-out'of Water' Narrative, The Island Chronicles:
Mark Fraufelder and family arrive in Rarotonga, an island in the South Pacific.
Who is Joi Ito and how did he get that way?: Joit Ito is an investor/VC who is extremely involved in the blogging world and who has made investments in a number of new blogging start-ups. He's just posted a wonderful self portrait in his blog. One of my goals in the world, post leaving AOL, is to have a more transparent relationship between my work self and my non0work self--Joi dones an amazing jon of achieving this in his account of who he is and how he became that way. Bravo!
>
Wonderful photos, via SandHill Tech: Photog Aicha Hockx
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Did you shop eBay this week?
According to an Internet Retailer piece, Neilsen/Netratings announced that eBay.com was the top shopping destination for the week of June 22, beating number 2 by 52% in unique visitors. In addition, eBay won big in terms of time spent--visitors interacted with the site for an average of 41 minutes, 50 seconds compared to 2nd place Amazon's visitings staying for an average of 8 minutes, 13 seconds.
I was an eBay addict for about 18 months, then my interest tapered off. The day I decided to leave AOL, I stopped shopping on eBay (says alot about how buying vintage clothes online in hotel rooms while alone and bored at night is a symptom of poor quality of life), and I haven't gone back, not cause I woldn't, just haven't felt the urge.
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I was an eBay addict for about 18 months, then my interest tapered off. The day I decided to leave AOL, I stopped shopping on eBay (says alot about how buying vintage clothes online in hotel rooms while alone and bored at night is a symptom of poor quality of life), and I haven't gone back, not cause I woldn't, just haven't felt the urge.
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The Blog: Giant Sea Creature mystifies scientists
Via Adam Curry's weblog and sea blog: A CNN story about a giant sea creature found off the coast of Chile. Is it a piece of an old rotting whale, or a giant octopus known as Octopus Giganteus, last seen in 1896 off the Florida coast? DNA testing is underway.
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Thursday, July 03, 2003
About.com moves to Blogs
Howard Sherman, former SVP of Content for About.com, notes that the company has moved its Guides to blogs:
About.com, a network of more than 400 sites and one of the largest producers of original content on the Web, just relaunched those sites as Weblogs. ..This development is significant for a few reasons:
*It's probably the single largest addition of content to the blogosphere to date.
*All of these sites are advertiser supported so it should help give credence to blogs as a viable business model.
*The sites are using Moveable Type software which is a vote of confidence in Moveable Type's technology.
I too know the About.com folks (though clearly not as well as Howard), and have been hearing about these plans for some time.
Here's the big question: When do they add contextual search links to the pages using their Sprinks network?
And will they launch a blogging community? And resell Moveable Type blogs to their audience?
It will be great to see this effort evolve.
Comment
About.com, a network of more than 400 sites and one of the largest producers of original content on the Web, just relaunched those sites as Weblogs. ..This development is significant for a few reasons:
*It's probably the single largest addition of content to the blogosphere to date.
*All of these sites are advertiser supported so it should help give credence to blogs as a viable business model.
*The sites are using Moveable Type software which is a vote of confidence in Moveable Type's technology.
I too know the About.com folks (though clearly not as well as Howard), and have been hearing about these plans for some time.
Here's the big question: When do they add contextual search links to the pages using their Sprinks network?
And will they launch a blogging community? And resell Moveable Type blogs to their audience?
It will be great to see this effort evolve.
Comment
Animal Planet: Cataloging the world around us
I don't write much about ecology here, though it is a topic I am very interested in, but two sites are worth noting--the All Species Foundation, a project that was going great guns for a while and then had to slow down because of funding issues, and the ARKIVE, an Archive for Endangered Species created by The WildScreen Trust in Bristol, England http://www.arkive.org/ .
(Thanks to Research Buzz for the second link)
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(Thanks to Research Buzz for the second link)
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Bestselling Literary Classics--What sells every year?
More from Publisher's Lunch:
Book Magazine has compiled a list of Top 50 Classic Bestsellers, drawn from Bookscan data.
(The list excludes titles that had strong movie tie-ins (like Lord of the
Rings) and doesn’t incorporate high school and college bookstore sales.)
The Top 25 range from The Hobbit, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Red
Tent, all at 500,000 copies a year or greater, down to The House on
mango Street, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Price and Prejudice, all just
about the 100,000-copy a year level.
It's interesting to think about how many of these books I have read--and then how many made a profound impression on me. The Hobbit, Catcher in the Rye, 1984--these are rites of passage books that everyone should read and they're heavily represented on the list. Then there are other, newer titles such as The Red Tent and Memoirs of a Geisha which are good books, but less special.
Interesting question: What would you expect to be on this list that is missing?
Comment
Book Magazine has compiled a list of Top 50 Classic Bestsellers, drawn from Bookscan data.
(The list excludes titles that had strong movie tie-ins (like Lord of the
Rings) and doesn’t incorporate high school and college bookstore sales.)
The Top 25 range from The Hobbit, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Red
Tent, all at 500,000 copies a year or greater, down to The House on
mango Street, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Price and Prejudice, all just
about the 100,000-copy a year level.
It's interesting to think about how many of these books I have read--and then how many made a profound impression on me. The Hobbit, Catcher in the Rye, 1984--these are rites of passage books that everyone should read and they're heavily represented on the list. Then there are other, newer titles such as The Red Tent and Memoirs of a Geisha which are good books, but less special.
Interesting question: What would you expect to be on this list that is missing?
Comment
More bookstore chains offering wireless access
It's not just Starbucks. According to Michael Cader's Publisher's Lunch, Borders is now offering wi-fi Internet access through T-Mobile, and Barnes & Noble is planning to test wi-fi access in 24 Atlanta and Seattle-area stores this summer.
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Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Blog-flogged by Doc!
I was just blog-flogged by Doc Searls!
This makes me want to go out and get a T-shirt made that says "Blog-flogged by Doc!"
Doc, I am so thrilled you enjoy my blog--I read yours religiously--
Also, now this is going to give me a chance to see where I get more referrals, a NY Times story or your blog (okay, that sounded swarmy, but how many times will I get to say that?)
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This makes me want to go out and get a T-shirt made that says "Blog-flogged by Doc!"
Doc, I am so thrilled you enjoy my blog--I read yours religiously--
Also, now this is going to give me a chance to see where I get more referrals, a NY Times story or your blog (okay, that sounded swarmy, but how many times will I get to say that?)
Comment
Canal Street shut down
Gothamist says Canal Street has been shut down because of a suspicious package at the 1/9 station, and Gothamist is there on the spot.
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Atlanta-Journal: World's Shift to Broadband Hurts AOL
from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
"America Online became a profitable giant in the 1990s by introducing the masses to the Internet, only to see U.S. subscribers in recent years begin shifting to rival services as they moved to broadband.
Now the online division of AOL Time Warner Inc. must avoid a similar pattern overseas -- a market it says should provide 50 percent of its revenue within 10 years.
Studies show that European subscriptions to high-speed Internet service are on track to surpass those in the United States. By 2008, Jupiter Research predicts that 48 percent of all European households will have broadband, compared with 46 percent in the United States.
Broadband is booming in Latin America as well. Yankee Group predicts that 1.2 million subscribers in the region will be logging on through high-speed telephone digital subscriber lines by the end of 2003, a 60 percent jump in one year."
More here.
Comment
"America Online became a profitable giant in the 1990s by introducing the masses to the Internet, only to see U.S. subscribers in recent years begin shifting to rival services as they moved to broadband.
Now the online division of AOL Time Warner Inc. must avoid a similar pattern overseas -- a market it says should provide 50 percent of its revenue within 10 years.
Studies show that European subscriptions to high-speed Internet service are on track to surpass those in the United States. By 2008, Jupiter Research predicts that 48 percent of all European households will have broadband, compared with 46 percent in the United States.
Broadband is booming in Latin America as well. Yankee Group predicts that 1.2 million subscribers in the region will be logging on through high-speed telephone digital subscriber lines by the end of 2003, a 60 percent jump in one year."
More here.
Comment
Starbucks gains revenue on new services, including Wi-Fi
from retailwire:
STARBUCKS (SBUX) said today that same-store sales for their June
period gained 10 percent over year-ago, and that net revenues, which
climbed to $470 million, represent and increase of 27 percent
year-to-year.
Said chairman Howard Schultz, "With our market-defining
beverage innovations, popular programs such as the Starbucks Card
and Wi-Fi network, and the continuing growth in our international and
specialty operations, we are just beginning to realize our long-term
potential."
Starbucks currently operates 6,741 stores: 5,163 in
continental North America; 1,578 in the rest of the world.
Starbucks has always been about services as much as goods--that cup of coffee is okay, but the service you get having it custom-made and then being allowed to hang out in a pleasant place as long as you feel like it is what we all really pay for. This statement from Schultz suggests how much opportunity Starbucks may recognize for delivering additional services.
For more on how clearly Starbucks gets who they are--and built the model for new types of services--see Schultz's book Pour your heart into it: How Starbucks built a company one cup at a time, and the wondeful book by marketing exec Scott Bedbury , A New Brand World, which I found so compelling I could not put it down (I also worked for AOL at the time, a company that was trying to rebrand itself for subscribers).
Comment
STARBUCKS (SBUX) said today that same-store sales for their June
period gained 10 percent over year-ago, and that net revenues, which
climbed to $470 million, represent and increase of 27 percent
year-to-year.
Said chairman Howard Schultz, "With our market-defining
beverage innovations, popular programs such as the Starbucks Card
and Wi-Fi network, and the continuing growth in our international and
specialty operations, we are just beginning to realize our long-term
potential."
Starbucks currently operates 6,741 stores: 5,163 in
continental North America; 1,578 in the rest of the world.
Starbucks has always been about services as much as goods--that cup of coffee is okay, but the service you get having it custom-made and then being allowed to hang out in a pleasant place as long as you feel like it is what we all really pay for. This statement from Schultz suggests how much opportunity Starbucks may recognize for delivering additional services.
For more on how clearly Starbucks gets who they are--and built the model for new types of services--see Schultz's book Pour your heart into it: How Starbucks built a company one cup at a time, and the wondeful book by marketing exec Scott Bedbury , A New Brand World, which I found so compelling I could not put it down (I also worked for AOL at the time, a company that was trying to rebrand itself for subscribers).
Comment
Happy Birthday, California Authors.com
During the 2-3 months when I thought seriously about becoming a (fulltime) writer once more, as I had been before I became obsessed with interactivity, the Internet, and developing new businessesonline, I cruised many sites for writers to learn more about where the industry was now.
A few of my favorites were Media Bistro, where I paid to join (yeah, it was that good), Moby Lives, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and California Authors.
California Authors just celebrated its first year in operation, so here's to you, and hopes for many more.
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A few of my favorites were Media Bistro, where I paid to join (yeah, it was that good), Moby Lives, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and California Authors.
California Authors just celebrated its first year in operation, so here's to you, and hopes for many more.
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Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Posts from around the Blogosphere
Scott Rosenberg: Why California is broke and out of energy as well.
"There is an unfolding story in California that your newspaper will typically cover as two separate stories. One story is a tale of budgetary woe, in which the state, suffering under a tenacious recession and stymied by its own political logjams, struggles to figure out how to close a gap of many billions of dollars in its budget. If it can't, we Californians will discover very quickly that just as the federal government cuts our taxes (a little bit if we're middle class, a lot if we're rich), the state will either raise our taxes or cut our services and schools (or, if we're really lucky, both).
This is a big story. Meanwhile, in the other story, the state of California tries to persuade federal energy regulators that it should be able to abrogate exorbitant energy contracts it signed at the height of the energy crunch in 2001. It is now a matter of public record, established by those same federal energy regulators, that California's energy prices jumped through the ceiling because energy companies were illegally manipulating the deregulated market. (Though at the time the much-reviled Gov. Gray Davis was sneered at for suggesting as much, his claims were dead right.) But, strangely, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which thinks those prices were illegal enough to be bringing "enforcement actions" against 60 energy companies for gaming the California energy market, nonetheless thinks that they are still legal enough that the state -- and citizens -- of California should have to pay them."
John Haughton on his trip to Berlin and the pleasures of being a geek. Great pictures!
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"There is an unfolding story in California that your newspaper will typically cover as two separate stories. One story is a tale of budgetary woe, in which the state, suffering under a tenacious recession and stymied by its own political logjams, struggles to figure out how to close a gap of many billions of dollars in its budget. If it can't, we Californians will discover very quickly that just as the federal government cuts our taxes (a little bit if we're middle class, a lot if we're rich), the state will either raise our taxes or cut our services and schools (or, if we're really lucky, both).
This is a big story. Meanwhile, in the other story, the state of California tries to persuade federal energy regulators that it should be able to abrogate exorbitant energy contracts it signed at the height of the energy crunch in 2001. It is now a matter of public record, established by those same federal energy regulators, that California's energy prices jumped through the ceiling because energy companies were illegally manipulating the deregulated market. (Though at the time the much-reviled Gov. Gray Davis was sneered at for suggesting as much, his claims were dead right.) But, strangely, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which thinks those prices were illegal enough to be bringing "enforcement actions" against 60 energy companies for gaming the California energy market, nonetheless thinks that they are still legal enough that the state -- and citizens -- of California should have to pay them."
John Haughton on his trip to Berlin and the pleasures of being a geek. Great pictures!
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Cashing in on the fight against fat
Yeah we're all overweight. And its bad for us. And you know what, it's definitely a marketing opportunity to some folks. According to Reuters and other news sources, "...Kraft Foods Inc., the No. 1 U.S. maker of processed foods, on Tuesday said it would reformulate many of its products, cease marketing in schools and take other steps to counter a rise in obesity that could trigger a rash of lawsuits against the food industry.
The maker of Oreo cookies and Velveeta cheese spread said it will develop a range of standards this year to improve the overall nutritional content of its foods and the way it sells them. It will begin making the changes, which could take three years, in 2004.
The cost of the sweeping measures could not be estimated, according to a spokesman for the company, based in the Chicago suburb of Northfield, Illinois."
In addition, according to USA Today's Sam Hirsch:
McDonald's this summer will test a Happy Meal with an option to replace the wildly popular — but fat-filled — french fries with a bag of fresh, sliced fruit.
• Frito-Lay is within weeks of eliminating all artery-clogging trans fatty acids from its chips and snacks. And the CEO of its parent company, PepsiCo, has vowed that at least half of its new foods and beverages will be aimed at nutrition-conscious consumers.
• Kellogg recently bought Kashi, whose cereals have no highly refined sugars or preservatives.
In a related story, a NY congressman Felix Ortiz has proposed a 1% sales tax on all junk food as a means to stop us from stuffing our faces.
Sounds like the fight against fat is going to be the next big thing for marketers to cash in on.
Comment
The maker of Oreo cookies and Velveeta cheese spread said it will develop a range of standards this year to improve the overall nutritional content of its foods and the way it sells them. It will begin making the changes, which could take three years, in 2004.
The cost of the sweeping measures could not be estimated, according to a spokesman for the company, based in the Chicago suburb of Northfield, Illinois."
In addition, according to USA Today's Sam Hirsch:
McDonald's this summer will test a Happy Meal with an option to replace the wildly popular — but fat-filled — french fries with a bag of fresh, sliced fruit.
• Frito-Lay is within weeks of eliminating all artery-clogging trans fatty acids from its chips and snacks. And the CEO of its parent company, PepsiCo, has vowed that at least half of its new foods and beverages will be aimed at nutrition-conscious consumers.
• Kellogg recently bought Kashi, whose cereals have no highly refined sugars or preservatives.
In a related story, a NY congressman Felix Ortiz has proposed a 1% sales tax on all junk food as a means to stop us from stuffing our faces.
Sounds like the fight against fat is going to be the next big thing for marketers to cash in on.
Comment
Family ties" Ed Klein & Alec Klein both release new nonfiction books this month
Time to start the pool on whether sales for The Kennedy Curse: Why America's First Family Has Been Haunted by Tragedy for 150 Years,
father Ed Klein's book on John and Caroline Kennedy, will continue to top those of son Alec Klein's Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner,
the story of the AOL Time Warner merger .
Will there be a celebrity smack down?
As of July 1st, Klein Jr.'s AOL book currently has an Amazon sales rank of 283.
Klein Sr.'s book has an Amazon sales rank of 22.
Guess both of them are going to get to summer in the Hamptons.
Comment
father Ed Klein's book on John and Caroline Kennedy, will continue to top those of son Alec Klein's Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner,
the story of the AOL Time Warner merger .
Will there be a celebrity smack down?
As of July 1st, Klein Jr.'s AOL book currently has an Amazon sales rank of 283.
Klein Sr.'s book has an Amazon sales rank of 22.
Guess both of them are going to get to summer in the Hamptons.
Comment
Department of Lost Sound Bites
From Popbitch: "As cheesy and insignificant as it is to say
that you've found yourself in a new hair colour, it's the truth." --Mandy Moore
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that you've found yourself in a new hair colour, it's the truth." --Mandy Moore
Comment
Emerging market for broadband content?
6 months ago, there was lots of talk about the growth of broadband, but few indicators that there were viable business models and companies willing to pay for unique broadband product. Now, that may be changing--at least a little.
The Online Publisher's Association reports this week that
"...Disney's online properties are moving aggressively into video and getting results. ESPN.com's jitter-free motion video has been a hit with users, with about 800,000 watching clips daily. AdAge said ESPN has had success selling video ads to big clients (Gatorade, Lexus) as part of the TV upfront. News.com explains that the application streams video during off-peak hours to a user's desktop. Now, ABC.com will preview network TV shows and archival material using the same technology. Also, WSJ Online reports that AOL on Broadband has started embedding video into its top sports page -- but without a separate player. "
While none of this is unique, original video, it is the beginning of a more wide-spread recognition that digital video delivery has great promise and is a viable channel for the mainstream.
OPA bonus: New report on how site affinity is the greatest predictor for high user clickthrough on advertising (uh, dud!)
Comment
The Online Publisher's Association reports this week that
"...Disney's online properties are moving aggressively into video and getting results. ESPN.com's jitter-free motion video has been a hit with users, with about 800,000 watching clips daily. AdAge said ESPN has had success selling video ads to big clients (Gatorade, Lexus) as part of the TV upfront. News.com explains that the application streams video during off-peak hours to a user's desktop. Now, ABC.com will preview network TV shows and archival material using the same technology. Also, WSJ Online reports that AOL on Broadband has started embedding video into its top sports page -- but without a separate player. "
While none of this is unique, original video, it is the beginning of a more wide-spread recognition that digital video delivery has great promise and is a viable channel for the mainstream.
OPA bonus: New report on how site affinity is the greatest predictor for high user clickthrough on advertising (uh, dud!)
Comment
Monday, June 30, 2003
Department of Family Ties 1: We're all wired world
Down in Florida for the weekend for a family birthday. My mother-in-law, Lita Jarrett, turned 75 and the family convened in Sarasota for a 4-day party. We had a great time, hanging out, swimming. talking, and-of course--eating. My nephews, Phil Bloom and Dan Jarrett, were both there, as were my sister-in-law Ellen, her sweetie Arthur, and my husband Spencer, and son Zack. (I wrote that sentence so I could enjoy how many hyperlinks there were--more proof of how wired we all are.)
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Alec Klein: Like Father, Like Son
It's a little-known fact that investigative reporter Alec Klein's following in a family tradition by writing about the economy, news, and public affairs--with a healthy dollop of gossip. Klein's father is Ed Klein, the former editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine, who has been writing a gossip column for Parade Magazine as "Walter Scott" for the past ten years. Klein pere has written several books about the Kennedy's, including All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy (1996) and Just Jackie: Her Private Years (1998), both full of juicy--and well-researched tidbits.
Klein fils is a Brown graduate who worked as a newspaper reporter, at the Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk) the Baltimore Sun, and The Wall Street Journal, before moving onto the Washington Post.
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Klein fils is a Brown graduate who worked as a newspaper reporter, at the Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk) the Baltimore Sun, and The Wall Street Journal, before moving onto the Washington Post.
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On Alec Klein's AOL Book, "Stealing Time"
Alec Lein's book is gathering press. In the news recently--
Jennifer Files, in the San Jose Mercury News:
"From the naive vantage point of 2000, America Online's $112 billion deal to buy Time Warner -- the largest merger in U.S. history and the subject of Alec Klein's interesting new book, ``Stealing Time'' -- looked like the New Economy's coming of age.
The Internet upstart would buy the old-school entertainment behemoth and reshape it in its own image. The Web had won: America's up-and-comers need never again wear suits to work, or wait, like their parents did, until they grew gray to grow rich. Silicon Valley had believed this for years, of course, but AOL Time Warner hammered home the point for the rest of the nation.
Today's AOL Time Warner symbolizes the opposite. The New Economy was largely the Fake Economy; thousands of failed companies and hundreds of billions of dollars in accounting write-offs proved that. People don't sneer at corporate dinosaurs anymore. They call them survivors. And investors want regulators to protect them because by now they know too much about how the era's fastest-growing firms did business.
More here.
The Miami Herald also says Klein "does the best job yet" of explaining AOL.
"In July of last year, Washington Post writer Alec Klein broke the now well known story of AOL's accounting irregularities. He uses this scoop as the centerpiece for his new book, which also recounts the history of America Online (with a few surprises, as above), along with a pocket profile of Time Warner and events at both firms leading to their furtive mating dance and subsequent merger."
More here.
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Jennifer Files, in the San Jose Mercury News:
"From the naive vantage point of 2000, America Online's $112 billion deal to buy Time Warner -- the largest merger in U.S. history and the subject of Alec Klein's interesting new book, ``Stealing Time'' -- looked like the New Economy's coming of age.
The Internet upstart would buy the old-school entertainment behemoth and reshape it in its own image. The Web had won: America's up-and-comers need never again wear suits to work, or wait, like their parents did, until they grew gray to grow rich. Silicon Valley had believed this for years, of course, but AOL Time Warner hammered home the point for the rest of the nation.
Today's AOL Time Warner symbolizes the opposite. The New Economy was largely the Fake Economy; thousands of failed companies and hundreds of billions of dollars in accounting write-offs proved that. People don't sneer at corporate dinosaurs anymore. They call them survivors. And investors want regulators to protect them because by now they know too much about how the era's fastest-growing firms did business.
More here.
The Miami Herald also says Klein "does the best job yet" of explaining AOL.
"In July of last year, Washington Post writer Alec Klein broke the now well known story of AOL's accounting irregularities. He uses this scoop as the centerpiece for his new book, which also recounts the history of America Online (with a few surprises, as above), along with a pocket profile of Time Warner and events at both firms leading to their furtive mating dance and subsequent merger."
More here.
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