THE BLOGGING JOURNALIST

Online Friends

Joe Windish, Technology Editor at The Moderate Voice, posted an item on January 4th, 2009, headlined “In Defense of Friendships Formed With People We Meet Online.” Writes Joe:

My transition from NYC to rural Georgia was made possible — bearable! — by the fact of the Internet. Geography has prevented me from porting many virtual friends over to “real, physically pokable ones”  but that has hardly lessened the impact of my online friends on the quality of my daily life.

I’m still in the dark ages when it comes to using Facebook, MySpace, IM and other social networking tools. I intend to take advantage of them this year, now that my health has improved somewhat.  

Technorati Tags: Online Friendships,Joe Windish,The Moderate Voice

If He's A Genius, Why Is He Living In A Truck?

As I read a Digg post headlined Mac Genius lives in truck for more than a year, I asked myself: "Why is this worthy of the attention it is getting, even from me?"

Numerous people sleep in their vehicles all across the nation. Is "Cal State Fullerton senior Andy Bussell" getting coverage because he works at Apple and is a so-called Apple Genius?

The comments generated by the post indicates that a lot readers are asking the same questions.

If you want to read more about Bussell, see the February 19, 2007 Los Angeles Times article headlined "Homeless by choice, O.C. student learns self-reliance."

PR, Blogging And Social Media

In a January 21, 2007, post headlined "Social Media is a Zombie," J. LeRoy at J. LeRoy's Evolving Web blog said "social media is a hungry beast.  It's like a zombie with an insatiable hunger for brains.  The conversation needs a constant influx of raw material (ideas) and a strong current of synthesis (unique interpretation), to remain vital."

He made the statement in the context of the conversation underway among some bloggers about the merits of public relations and whether the traditional approach is relevant with the advent of blogging and social media."

According to Wikipedia, "Social media describes the online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs."

MySpace.com Takes Steps To Appease Government Critics

The Wall Street Journal reported January 17, 2007, that, " In a bid to appease government critics, News Corp.'s popular Web site MySpace.com is planning to offer free parental notification software -- a move that risks alienating its young users."

  According to reporter Julia Angwin, "Parents who install the monitoring software on their home computers would be able to find out what name, age and location their children are using to represent themselves on MySpace."

Angwin said, "The software doesn't enable parents to read their child's e-mail or see the child's profile page and children would be alerted that their information was being shared The program would continue to send updates about changes in the child's name, age and location, even when the child logs on from other computers," she added.

To read more, please see "MySpace Moves to Give Parents More Information."

NBC's Social Networking Strategy

Michael Arrington, proprietor of TechCrunch asks in a January 14, 2007, post: What Does a Deleted Blog Post Tell Us About NBC’s Social Networking Strategy?"

His response to his own question is quite an informative. His readers also offering opinions.

Muhammad Saleem: 'Why Social Sites Needs Forum'

"One thing that socially driven news and content sites are sorely lacking, across the board, are forums," writes Muhammad Saleem in a January 5, 2006, post over at The MU Life "This is regrettable, because it is becoming more and more apparent that forums, that allow interaction between the community and the site owners, are what these sites need most."

To read more, please see "Why Social Sites Needs Forum."

'Social Media' Will Be Here For Awhile

On December 18th, 2006, Mitch Ratcliffe, who writes at ZDNet's tech and media blog Rational rants, posted an article headlined "When (and why) social media fails…"

He makes interesting points but they won't change the fact that social media will be here for awhile.

Is Vox Winning Back Bloggers For Six Apart?

Tech Digest's Stuart Dredge has December 20, 2006, interview on "blogosphere-baroness Mena Trott." It's primarily about Vox, Six Apart Ltd's social networking blogging service, which came out of beta on October 26, 2006.

To read it, see "Six Apart's Mena Trott on Vox: "We're winning back burned-out bloggers." It's quite revealing.

Technorati tags: Stuart Dredge, Tech Digest, Mena Trott, Vox, Six Apart Ltd.

The Concentration of The Economic Value of Content

Recommended: Rough Type proprietor Nicholas Carr's "Sharecropping the long tail." It's about the concentration of "the economic value of content" rather than content in the hands of a few players such as "MySpace, Facebook, and many other businesses" that "have realized that they can give away the tools of production but maintain ownership over the resulting products."

I think Six Apart's increasingly popular Vox social networking blogging service is a great example of what Carr wrote about. With Vox, users get free blogging software and hosting for their Six Apart designed blogs. In exchange, Six Apart gets to put small, content-related ads on users content pages. So far, Six Apart doesn't share the revenue with content creators. At least that's the impression I get.

The pressure to change this will likely increase if geeks start to use the service, which came out of beta on October 26, 2006, in great numbers. It's currently aimed at the masses.

Finally, I think Carr did a good job analyzing "Richard MacManus's new analysis of web traffic patterns" that helps "illustrate the point" referenced above.

NOTE: This post can also be found at The Technology Free Press, my technology blog.

Technorati tags: Nicholas Carr, Rough Type. Sharecropping the Long Tail, Richard McManus, MySpace, FaceBook, Six Apart, Vox, Social Networking

InfoWorld: 'Shimon Peres Stops By Blogging Event'

"The stars of the French blogging firmament attending a social media conference ( Le Web 3) on the edge of Paris were outshone on Tuesday [December 12, 2006] by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who stopped by for a surprise visit," according to a report at InfoWorld.

If you want to read more, see IDG News Service correspondent Peter Sayer's "Shimon Peres stops by blogging event.

Technorati tags: InfoWorld, Le Web 3, Social Media Conference, Shimon Peres, IDG News Service

Scripps' Guide to Social Web Sites

On November 7, 2006, ScrippsNews published "A guide to social web sites." You might want to bookmark it.

Are Older People Showing Interest in MySpace?

TheStreet.com Senior Writer Jonathan Barr reported July 10, 2006 that, "MySpace, the cyber home of countless teens and 20-somethings, is attracting more interest from an older crowd." See "MySpace Grows Up."

Reuters: 'Murdoch Meeting Raises Disclosure issues'

Reuters reported July 8, 2006 that, "News Corp. shareholders learned how much revenue a closely watched Internet division would generate -- if they were lucky enough to be invited to a meeting in Australia last week with Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch."

To read more, see "Murdoch meeting raises disclosure issues."

Thee More 'MySpace Officers' Suspended

Cassandra Kirby, staff writer at the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader, explains in a July 7, 2006 article why "The Urban County (Kentucky) Council approved a recommendation" July 6, 2006 "to suspend three more Lexington police officers without pay for comments and photos they posted on the popular Web site MySpace.com."

To read more, see "Council approves suspensions for 3 more MySpace officers."