NZ Bear has a piece on TechCentral Station explaining how tired the blogger vs. journalist thing is (also known these days as pajamas vs. suits.)
Bear sez "If you were an editor looking for a new hire these days, what would your first moveafter checking your candidate's resume and clips?To check their blog, of course," and IMHO he is completely right.
After all, 5 years from now publishing is not going to look much like what we see today-- Amazon and eBay will be publishing magalogs, 50% of so-called online newspapers will be written by non-staff people, most media will be distributed via RSS and onto mobiles, and comments will be considered as entertaining as posts.
So what's there to fight about (if you're not an ostrich or a dinosaur, I mean)?

Note: This is another post Blogger chewed up. I'm gonna quit whining, and just quit this system for something that works--consistently.

Robert Scoble, Microsoft blogger extraordinaire, has some useful comments on corporate blogging:
"...what's the challenge for Microsoft and Sun over the next year? Ship great products. Over and over and over. Hints on how to do that are here on the blogs.
This is where blogs will really prove their worth. I'm already seeing it. Teams are now planning on how they'll take feedback on their blogs to improve their products quickly.
I interviewed a team who'll announce a product later this week. They already have a plan so that users can talk back and tell them what needs to be improved. And they have a plan for how they'll take that feedback and put it into action.
(snip)
...That's really where blogs will turn into a competitive weapon over the next 18 months. It's the companies (and groups) who can react to customers that'll really succeed (and be profitable.)"

Scoble is dead right--one of the effective reasons for corporate blogs is to cut the distance between the company and your customers.
Oh and a parting Scoble shot: "The way to learn how to blog is to read 50 blogs in your field for at least two weeks. If that doesn't incite you to blog, nothing will."

Came across a link to Anil's post on a set of amazing photos that are--reportedly--pix of a Japanese storm drain system sewer/public works project. What beautiful photos, especially if you like post-industrial engineering on a grand scale.

Steve Rubel sent me a link to a post he just did about PegasusNews, a "hyperlocal" stealth project that reportedly is going to launch a local news site in Dallas, then launch 25 more sites around the country.
While I applaud the ideas, the hyperbole --and their anonymity--put me off--and their blog message seems pretty unchanged from August to now.
Being from the show-me state of New York, I need to see something before I buy into the hype--so guys, where's the goods?

Asia Times (via editors weblog) reports that OhmyNews is generating almost US$500,000 a month in advertising revenue. Ranked in the top 15 in South Korea, only 20% of the site's copy each day is written by staff journalists.
According to Asia Times columnist James Borton, " By 2005, eMarketer, a New York-based online research corporation, estimates that South Korea will have more than 34 million Internet users, accounting for more than two-thirds of the population. "

I think of Nick Denton as someone relatively publicity-shy, so it's interesting to see where he makes appearances and gives interviews. This piece for Brit newspaper site The Independent doesn't spill any trade secrets (surprise), but it's worth a read.
The writer sez: "Yet the nine internet sites that comprise Denton's Gawker Media company are among the most original and influential of their kind..."
Denton sez: "The one common theme is to take an obsession, say a gadget obsession, and feed it - produce more content than the people could ever dream of having or consuming. Everybody likes to read about themselves, about their worlds. As with addicts, the more you give them, the more they want."
And(my favorite bit): "Even so, Denton doesn't think there is a need for Gawker in Britain, claiming that there is already enough criticism, competition and sarcasm. American media, he thinks, is different. "Journalists tend to defer to official sources and people who invite them to parties. In Britain, that's counter-balanced by ferocious competition; in the US it's not counter-balanced by anything," he says. "

Update: Ellen at Standard Deviance has more to say about this interview, and pretty much deconstructs the wobbly bits--like the omission of Liz Spiers from Gawker's launch, what the revenue picture really looks like, etc. Always fun when bloggers go at one another, in't it?

In super-wired Korea, high school and college students are reportedly moving away from email toward SMS and IM. According to a story in SmartMobs) a poll conducted by Chungbuk University computer education professor Lee Ok-hwa with over 2,000 middle, high school and college students respondents revealed that more than two-thirds of the respondents said, "I rarely use or don't use e-mail at all."

How does your company's web site do in addressing a global market? How many languages does your site support--and how localized is your international content?
If these are relevant questions, a look at bytelevel research's 2005 Web Globalization Report Card might be interesting.
According to a story in WebProNews, bytelevel ranks Google as the top in globalized sites, with HP, Amex, Phillips and Skype taking the next 4 slots.
Who got the low marks? Disney, Monsanto, Nike and Wal-Mart were among those singled out as (global) losers.

Now this is very cool--and super customer-focused.
Want audio, video, bittorrent, talk radio/podcast feeds?
And/or RSS lists of feeds?

Blogdigger has also been doing this--and it is great.(They have jpegs, gifs and Shockwave feeds as well as other data.)_
(Via Momentshowing--who says: " I believe that we need to create a tool to bring all these videos together. Like an RSS reader for video...and I think it's got to be for video only.")

Update: Complementary story at CNET on Google, Microsoft and Yahoo's efforts to create video searches. (Via Paid Content)

Steve Rubel: Target, watch out.
Rebecca McKinnon: What's the best way to credit blog quotes? This ain't it.
Low Culture: Ham and Turkey in a Mosque?
Michael Monture: Hack Yourself (this is good.) (Via 43Folders)
DMEurope: Feedburner processing RSS ads for Overture. It's getting hot in herre.

Google's gone into the list biz with the launch of Froogle lists and wish lists, the public and private way to keep track of--and share data on--things that you want.
To create a list you need a log in to Gmail or Google Groups or sign in here to create an account; once you make a list you can create a public Wish List by publishing it.
This is not only a shove back at Amazon, it's another smart integration play by Google as they get ready to launch more mobile features (just think about it.)
(Via Andy Beal and Anil Dash)

PS The Achilles heel here is that the results suck. It is IMPOSSIBLE to search for a woman's black t shirt for example--unless your dream is to purchase one from MidWest Choppers. So, like Microsoft, Google still has a way to go in the consumer packaging department of executing well on what is a very good idea.

PS Wishlists for GlitchNYC, Jason Shellen and me --anyone else have one to add?
PPS Seth Godin's good idea--Sales & bargain news.

Doc Searls is joining Mary Hodder and assorted blog folk for dinner in Berkeley on December 2nd.
Maybe you?
Invite's here. (RSVP to mary at hodder dot org. )

Pismo was a blast--I have a new appreciation for camping on the beach, drinking around a campfire, and staying offline. Of course, after 3 days, it's great to be back--I've just take a shower and eaten a Vietnamese vegetarian dinner...and am back online...

Happy holiday to everyone. We're off to Pismo to ride ATV's with our teen and a bunch of his friends. The tent, coolers, heater, boots etc are all packed, and we're going here:
with folks who like to do this

Back in the day, there was this smart guy in New York named Seth Goldstein, who started a web company called Site Specific that was bought (weren't they all) by CKS for $6 million bucks. Seth eventually ended up with a low-key investment company called Majestic Partners, but last spring that morphed into Majestic Research, a new kind of investment research company that provides third-party research to investors.
I checked out their site and was amazed to see a full company and intrigued to see they've already been written up in the Wall Street Journal and blogged by Fred Wilson and others.
Their new CEO, Doug Atkins, joined just a few weeks ago and they're getting press today for just released data on the Google desktop.
What's interesting to me here is:
A) Someone smart is back in the game with a visible new company.
B) They've got an untraditional business model.
C) Their data is intriguing--as is the list of companies they say they cover in a PDF on their web site-- areas of focus include online retail(eBay and Amazon), auto retail (AutoByTel, CarMax), online travel, paid search, casinos and gaming.

It's also a great looking web site, highly usable--with great data I hope they keep releasing.
(Via John Battelle)

Unrelated side note and rant: It took 36 hours to get this post up because first Blogger ate it, and then the Blogger site died for night. Arrggh. Software from big rich tech companies is supposed to work(not that it always does.).

Jonathan Klein, CEO and founder of The Feedroom, which has grown into a well-distributed platform company serving video feeds for over 70 news sites, joined CNN today as President and CEO of the News Group, replacing Princell Hair, who moves to a corporate role. A former CBS News executive producer, Klein worked on "60 Minutes" and is expected to develop more dynamic, integrated news programming for primetime.
Hopefully, Klein will also provide leadership in integrating web and broadcast program development--CNN has huge potential there that has largely been unmet.
Bart Feder steps up to run Feedroom.

News today that Steve Case has poured more money into vacation home company Exclusive Resorts, enough to become Chairman and have his former AOL aide-de-camp, Donn Davis, become CEO.
According to the press release "Exclusive Resorts eliminates the burdens of owning a second home, the limitations of fractional real estate and the uncertainties of renting a villa. Members of Exclusive Resorts pay a one-time membership fee of $375,000, which is 80 percent refundable upon resignation, as well as Annual Dues of $15,000 to $25,000, depending on the Usage Plan the member elects each year. "
Case is quoted: "What attracted me me a little over a year ago to acquire a controlling interest in the Company is that Exclusive Resorts makes vacation homes more accessible and more affordable to more people, much as mortgages made home ownership possible for the public-at-large
And Davis: "I am thrilled to be CEO of the Company as I believe Exclusive Resorts is positioned to revolutionize the luxury travel and vacation real estate industries for the benefit of consumers."
Is there something scary about rich guys going from selling everyone ISP access to selling time shares to the top 2% or am I being too sensitive?

Yep, we've got both of them.
The backyard navel orange tree is going into full fruiting and we will shortly have more oranges than we can eat. Unfortunately this is true of half of the population of San Jose, CA. so, if you are a local (like in SF or Oakland) and you have a craving for a bag of really great free (organic) oranges and you actually know and see me, hey, get in touch and I will pack you up a bag of juicy oranges and bring them over next time I am round your way. Or you can pick some up at my place.
On a similar note, the Gmail invites are also blooming.
Anyone want one of those? E as well.

The Kelsey Group conference on Local Media was last week in Jersey City. For those (like me) who missed it, they've kindly put many of the presos on the web.
Some useful ones:
Mary Meeker's Trends and Opportunities keynote--a strong preso that extends her recent white paper.
Mark Pincus' Tribe preso. A very crisp and attractive telling of the Tribe story with a push toward adding more affiliate partners.
Session on classifieds and directory merging: An all too short preso for what looks like a good panel and a timely topic.
More on the sessions here, including pointers from Ahorre, Paid Content and Tony Gentile, who first posted these links.
UPDATE, 11/24: Got a note (thanks!) that all the links don't work--and the server seems to be down. So if you want the Meeker preso or the others, email me--Miz Packrat here saved them.

Bakerina is one of the reasons I love blogs.
On staff at a marketing corp in NYC during the day, after hours, Bakerina turns into a damn fine cook, whose adventures veer between MFK Fisher, Little Lulu and Carole Lombard.
Last week, she brought her dinner to the office, raw, all the better to marinate...
"...I took the damn steaks to work, along with the adobo seasoning and salt, as well as a freezer bag to hold everything... At the first allowable break in la Marche Futile, I sneaked into the cafeteria, squeezed the lime juice into the bag, crushed a few cloves of garlic and threw them in, shook in a little salt and a lot of adobo, and dropped in the steaks, which looked nice and tiny in the meat case at Whole Foods but turned out to be eighteen inches long each. (Note to self:... I decided that if I kept it in my shoulder bag, it should stay pretty cool (and it did), so I carried back to my desk, half-wedged in the crook of my elbow, hoping all the way that nobody would catch me carrying my bag of raw meat...."
More here. And it's like this all the time!

Bloomberg News and other sources report that 74% of all holiday shoppers will buy a gift card for someone on their list--bringing the projections for gift card spending to$17.3 billion. According to a recent Deloitte & Touche USA survey of 16,000 consumers, gift cards are the top holiday gift among shoppers this year--a 4% increase from last year. Interestingly enough, one effect of this (newish) behavior is that a higher percentage of holiday sales get pushed into January when the cards are (usually) redeemed.
Is anyone tracking what percentage of gift cards will be purchased online? Or redeemed online?

I am obsessed with lists, with how lists should work on the web, and so on...so I am eager to see Erik Benson/ Robot Coop's 43 Things/ Twinkler, which is supposed to be here--but isn't right now.
Erik sez:
"The basic idea of 43 Things is this: it?s a well known fact that by writing down your goals you greatly increase the chances of actually completing them. Part of it is just knowing what your goals are. Another is being able to hold yourself accountable. Here?s a place to write down some things you want to do with this life, look at what other people want to do, and generally think about what makes life exciting for you."
Also:
"The sites that were in the forefront of our mind were Flickr?s Tags ( http://flickr.com/photos/tags ), and Marumushi?s Newsmap ( http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm)..."

Update: Steve Rubel also posted on this, as did Shakermaker and others...

Related and interesting: Jeff Veen's post--and image-on "My whole life in happy little folders"--not about 43 Things, but relevant.

Bloggercorps: Rebecca McKinnon's created a blog space for nonprofit and activist groups that want help with blogging, RSS, syndication, etc. can post--and those who want to volunteer can link up to assist.
This is good--a low-fuss, hopefully no muss way to aid nonprofits etc in using new tools.
Very cool! A Givingspace for tools.

Oh--and Rebecca has an informational handout about blogging here.

Update: Also see Progressivehelp.com

Nick Denton pitches making Jeff Jarvis (and Jason Calcanis) the founders of a Blogethics "permanent institution" that could start off by drafting guidelines for blogs.
(Note: Brian Alvey of Weblogs Inc registered the blogethics.org URL on Nov. 17. ) Jason says : "If Jeff Jarvis and Nick Denton are willing to start the Blog Ethics Committee I'll do it provided we have transparent open discussion spaces for people to participate in."
I have to say, while I agree that integrity, transparency and honesty are essential to write a credible blog (in most cases), the idea of forming another governing body, committee, or standards group turns me off.
Is anyone out there who reads blogs really stupid enough to think that not being credible will work for more than 5 seconds--I mean besides the ad folks who try to sell sugary cereal as a breakfast food and pretended ketchup might be a vegetable?

In other words, there's no need to preach to the converted.

Ellen at Standard Deviance has a smart post about all this--and some cautions about blogmedia cliques.

Is this tight-pants wearing, short-jacket zipping, knee-high boots flaunting guy really Steve Urkel (aka Jaleel White) ? G'wan!

(Via WOW)

Claria Corporation's Feedback Research reports that 52% of online shoppers plan to begin their holiday shopping over 30 days before Christmas, December 25. 28% say they plan to finish their holiday shopping between 8 and 14 days before December 25, compared to 16% of offline shoppers who say the same thing.
Start your engines, everyone. This is supposed to be a banner season for ecommerce shopping.
(Via eMarketer)

Kids 2 and 11 viewed 36 percent more Web pages in October 2004 than October 2003, according to data released today by Nielsen/NetRatings. The nugget I noticed is that girls in that age group are most drawn to instant messaging sites, which suggests the ways that pre-teens 8-11 copy teens go beyond dress and musical tastes right into online behavior.
(Source: Mediapost)

A hustler on the subway selling genuine DVDs of new movies-- Polar Express, Sideways and Bridget Jones 2, for example, for $5.00 each. "I've got my DVD player right here folks--and my business card and web site is on the back."
The guy next to me at a performance of Ain't Gonna Die a Natural Death, talking to his friend: "I've got two storage spaces filled with books and papers I plan to give to the Library of Congress. When you're well-known, they come after you for your stuff."
Two women at Mangia on 57th at lunch-salad and water--with one holding up a pair of 4-inch silver stiletto sandals, saying, "They're a little large--but the price was great."
10 20-somethings at Sushi Scuba, a favorite dinner spot, every one of them dressed in slacks and blue shirts, drinking and laughing. One says "Yeah, Keats, Bedford and Longsworth in da house!" (Okay, I made that last part up--or Spencer did. The guy really said "I LIKE sushi!!!"
--and I'm not sure he meant raw fish. )

Point being, there is a natural sense of drama to life in NY that is great fun, most of the time.

Just got through meeting some print editors who will start blogging in 2005--they're going to create a side blog to complement the core print and online products. Everyone seems excited, but nervous about doing this--they read blogs, but have never written anything like this--in fact, not all of them are writers. S0--what sites should they look at? Any great beginners' resources to pass along?

On the subway platform yesterday, I watched a tall, thin woman with dark blonde hair and stork-like legs stroll the platform, Scanning her jeans, clogs, and wool jacket, I thought about how tall and thin she was, unlike me. When the woman turned I realized she was the same girl I used to look at when I lived in South Orange--she was probably 19 then, with long, straight hair, and when I'd see her behind the counter at the bakery, or taking the train to the City, I'd think the same kinds of thoughts. Now here she was four years later--with cropped hair, mostly likely in a completely different life.
Since I didn't really know her, I said nothing, just got on the train.
It seems strange to meet someone I didn't know in the middle of the city--to see a stranger you recognize after so much time.
As I stepped into the car, a man's voice said Susan! I looked up and it was Gary Welz, who worked with me at New Jersey Online and helped build the site. I'd seen him once, at a mutual friend's event, in the ensuring 8 years. Now here he was again, on the train. Wow.
Between 42nd and Canal we caught up. He teaches math and is an actor, does some other things.
Later that night, I went to a reception and ended up having another unexpected conversation--with someone who now has a job very similar to one I once had at the same company. We talked about the company and the products and the culture and the business and it turned into this great conversation. Amazing.

Star Magazine gets the award for best use of a caption in this item.

Dan Gillmor wins ONA award--for consistently great writing and insights

Reuters: Evan Harrison, longtime AOL music guy, leaves to run Clear Channels's online group. Sezs"I'll be tapping into the local relationships and brands of Clear Channel's 1,200 stations to bring people into the online phase."

RSS and shopping(one of my favorite topics): Dulance says they extract prices and product availability from unstructured webpages in real time(Via Search Engine Journal)

New York Angels announces they gave Feedster (and others) investment $$. (Why is this a press release?)

Is that a force of nature in Dick Cheney's pants or a weapon of mass destruction?
This amusing photo's rocking the net because of the big bulge in da pants.

Tacoda Systems is launching Audience Match Network (AMN), a national behaviorally targeted ad network. There are 50-odd sites and 100 to 150 advertisers that will be running ads via this program in the initial phase.
Watching this with keen interest. Can it be a local AND national solution if it grows enough?
Investor/blogger Fred Wilson comments.

Red Herring/: 34% increase in online holiday shopping this year, according to ComScore stats.
Sloan School of Business and Babson College study: Entering the Mainstream: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2003 and 2004 --Online education is--no surprise--growing rapidly. (Via DocuTicker)
AOL: Send your favoritelinks to your phone via RSS--Part-time job oppty to make AOL $$ (via the tireless Rafat)

PubSub is 2 years old this week--congrats.
Sifry says: Technorati's been added to Tucows as a Technorati search box, and a post-by-post Cosmos (AKA Threadorati, or Other Blogs Commenting on This Post) in its Blogware platform.
See it at here for Ross's first post--this looks just like BoingBoing's usage.)

New brief this week from Center for Media research on how eBay reaches as many home & garden shoppers online as industry heavies (and major advertisers) Lowes, Home Depot and HGTV.
Demographics of this audience are over 45, household income of $50K or more, 59% female--in short, the subscriber base for many established women's magazines.
I'd like to see someone analyze the sellers' base on eBay and report on what kinds of vendors and categories are aggregating the biggest set of purchasers/volume of sales--does eBay have selling power as well as reach--or is this an eyeballs play?

Last year, bloggers were frustrated by attendance at ONA, the oneline news association annual meeting; this year, blogging seems like what the media wants to cover--viz this AP story and lots of other blather....more solid coverage of the whole conference here.

It's 50 in San Jose, sunny. Tomorrow we're flying back to New York for a week (email me if you want to get together). Halley posts this picture of snow in Boston:

Brr.

One of the great things about the web--and blogging--is how there's greater access to getting ideas and writing into the world. I was reminded of this when a friend pointed me to my new favorite blog, Manolo Shoes, one of the funniest blogs I have ever read (and with great shoe picks, too)--six weeks ago, this site didn't exist, and now I check it every day--and assume lots of other people do, too. No PR, no big media, just great writing as a means to gain an audience.

Julie Leung is another blogger who I've come to read regularly and a voice having some impact, I'd say. A full-time mom and household CEO, she lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, but is originally from Silicon Valley, where her husband, another blogger, is part of the Open Source Applications Foundation (he mostly works from home.)
Julie's posts are forcefully simple, sincere, direct--and warm--she's makes me think of a high-tech Quaker in some ways, and of another wonderful writer with strong values-- Kathleen Norris. (Oh, and of course she has a great sense of humor, strong values, and takes good pictures.)
Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying I didn't realize until this morning that the feature stories in my news aggregator about blogging in Kitsap County, WA featured Julie!
Julie was one of several local bloggers featured and she made the cover of the local weekly. Point here is that someone who writes very personally has the chance to be read by others who find her...and find value. Readers and writers can find one another in a fairly organic way.

Congrats, Julie...and keep having fun.

Bloggers talk about a culture of transparency and openess, but those values are given a new twist by Heather Hunter, creator of blog This Fish Needs a Bicycle and author of a charming new column, Modern Love, debuting in the Sunday NYTimes this am.
Heather's piece is about dating another blogger (and musician), being nonexclusive, and putting it all out there online--as in blogging the whole thing.
The NY Times made a smart choice in comissioning this piece--she's got a great voice.

Side note: Curbed/LES blogger Lockhart Steele is also writing for the Times.

The keynote by Tom Curley--Associated Press CEO--for the ONA conference is here and it's a good one.--Here's to the AP, the oldest journalism cooperative, helping to bring their members into a profitable new business model in which RSS, feeds, ad splicing, newreaders and blogging all play a role.
Quick snips:
"Content will be more important than its container in this next phase...At AP, for instance, we need to think about a story as the sum of many valuable parts -- an alert, a longer headline, a summary, a bunch of short updates and finally a newspaper workup.
(snip)
"And we're trying to harness the right technologies -- search and RSS in particular -- to plot a strategy for moving AP content where it needs to go in the new, free-flowing world of Web 2.0."