Disqus - Latest Comments for Tish Grier

Re: Comments Can Be Blog Posts

Tish Grier — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:53:38 -0000

Hi Fred,

When I recently went thru a long spate of writer's block, and could only comment, my friend Amy Gahran suggested I try coComment to keep track of it all those comments and to post them back on my blog. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems to be a viable option to letting all those long comments slip away. For compulsive commenters, this is probably a good thing. Another friend of mine just copies the urls of the blog links he leaves comments on, then at the end of his commenting run, creates a post. This gives his audience a way to go back to the blogs he's been to (that may also happen with coComments--I still have to try it out.), so that system spreads a bit of linklove along with creating a post he can use to go back and see if there are follow-up comments.

As for long comments from other people on my blog, sometimes I bring them out of the comments and into a post with a bit of commentary from me. Usually when someone leaves in the comments a great link to one of their blog posts or an article they may have written, I'll pull that out of the comments and put it on the front page as an update to the post. Or even use it in a follow-up post. This then sends some traffic back to the commenter.

Personally, I'm going to give the coComment thing a try this week. I've broke the block for the moment, but it's a nasty elusive critter, and who knows when it will come back and squash my blogging!

Re: A back fence around a ghost town

Tish Grier — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:11:36 -0000

Hi Matt...

thing is, the community could be vibrant and the citizen reporting could be great, but it doesn't make up for the fact that many cit j sites are looking to create revenu *only* from advertising. At first blush it looks like there's less overhead for online, and the ads can be less costly than for print. But the thing is, most ads generate only pennies per click (that is, unless you find a great way to commit click fraud).

Many free small-town print pubs have other revenue streams from other services to support their ad revenue. This makes complete sense for any small, independent venture (most freelance writers, too, are encouraged to have more than one revenue stream.)

I hate to see Backfence fold, but I think its problems only highlight basic problems of trying to create sufficient sustainable revenue from a free, hyperlocal product with only one revenue source.

Re: A back fence around a ghost town

Tish Grier — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:11:42 -0000

Matt...

One of the local newspapers out here in Western Mass, the Daily Hampshire Gazette has put all its content behind a pay wall. I'm not sure how its effecting their bottom line, but I do know that some friends have converted print subscriptions to online.

So, that can work--but right now is working only for converting a print product to online...

But I think that hyperlocal c.j. sites have to be thought of in the same way that many "personal" blogs are thought. They will have readership, but because they're very niche, the readership will be limited. Not every hyperlocal site can be TechCrunch the way every "personal" blogger can't be Dooce. :-)

(btw, I just posted on the issue at my blog)

Re: Yahoo buys MyBlogLog — but why?

Tish Grier — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:56:31 -0000

I was puzzled by this myself--since Eric Marcoullier, one of the guys who developed MyBlogLog's a friend, and I was using it when it was just a different kind of stats package. I'm not social on the 'net in the way MBL would like me to be, and I've had some sploggers "add" me as a friend (which quite frankly, has bugged me--told Eric)

I'd bet it has something to do with MBL interfacing with Yahoo 360 and becoming a MySpace-type thingie for grownup bloggers (who just aren't happy with comments and checking their stats pages)

Re: Technorati foot-shooting again: WTF?

Tish Grier — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:44:49 -0000

hi Matt...whether or not Technorati "fixes" anything (or makes it so magic middle bloggers and the a-list are aggregated on parity) and their launching of new popularity measuring sticks are, I think, two different issues. One is customer serivce--the other is to drive traffic to the site by giving people something they think will be fun. I thought there was a problem when they launched the "Technorati Favorites" thing myself--even though Kevin Marks and I talked about how it might not have any affect on non-a-listers (and I was pretty right about that--although I don't think Kevin will admit it ;-) I gave him the benefit of the doubt and stopped calling them the Evil Empire though...) I sometimes think Technorati's just trying to put as many things out there to see what works--and then they'll sort the effectivensess of each app out much later.

Re: Technorati foot-shooting again: WTF?

Tish Grier — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:25:53 -0000

totally agree, Matt. but think, too, that it's the competition thing that makes many companies try weird things.

Although I must say they've been aggregating my links much better these days--esp. since 2000 Bloggers started...

Re: You are your own code of conduct

Tish Grier — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:55:20 -0000

Matt...

Last year at SXSW Interactive, myself and fellow blogges Jimmy Bice, Grace Davis, Nancy White and Bill Anderson were part of a panel on civility in the blogosphere.....

The only people who showed up were some folks who ran message boards who wanted to share what happened to them and how they dealt with it or if we could help them....

Where was Tim O'Reilly then??

O'Reilly's efforts smack of a certain amount of hypocracy. Now that something's happened to someone he knows, the incivility's a big deal. Before, he couldn't even give it the time of day.

I was sickened by some of the things that were said about Kathy. Yet even she admits in the comments to O'Reilly's post that any kind of policy isn't going to change things....

And, you're right. It's about policing your own space, creating your own community. It's also part of the rest of the blogosphere to point out when other communities have stepped over the line. But it is NOT the provice of Tim O'Reilly to start setting policies for the entire blogosphere.

Re: You are your own code of conduct

Tish Grier — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:03:44 -0000

I'm loving Joey's badge too--I've got to install that one :-)

Re: Interviews: phone, email — which is best?

Tish Grier — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 08:53:53 -0000

The real story here is, perhaps, isn't about which interview technique is better, but what's the difference between "kerfuffle" and "brouhaha"--and does the difference have to do with the size of the teapot in which the tempest occurs?

oh, and congrats on your promotion to the A-list . ;-)

Re: Do blog comments still matter?

Tish Grier — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:38:36 -0000

Great post, Matt....

I've been bopping around conferences again (most notably and recently Supernova2007) but I'm noticing a fundamental shift from blogging as a social thing, where we leave comments and make friends, to more of a platform or money-making venture.

Which I personally find awfully disturbing.

At Supernova, there was so much talk about video, widgets, and widgets to syndicate video, and Jaiku, and the need to Twitter, the glorious saftey of Facebook that I couldn't help but to agree with Denise Caruso's assertion that it's all kind of turning into anti-social media...

Take a look at all those things I mentioned, and ask youself whether or not you can actually have two-way dialogue. In fact, it seems that the Facebook model--where you have to be "invited"--is what the CEOs really love.

Blogs open to comments seem, in all this social media morass, to be the one way that we could actually have something that resembled a two-way dialogue with the person posting. But if I go by all the hype and hoopla I've been encountering lately, most folks on the inside believe better off being a one-way old media style content blaster serving content to folks we already know....

Yet I did get to offer up a unique idea: innovate not just in business but innovate in social structures ....which Clay Shirky agreed with. We're not innovating on this level, not teaching people how to handle the social milieu out here, and because of that, people are slowly turning away from actually being social and turning back to old broadcast style models.

We don't need more video, we don't need podcasts and we don't need to shut off comments. We need to grow thicker skins and learn just how to communicate out here.

Re: Paint peeling, weeds growing at Backfence

Tish Grier — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:15:19 -0000

Askan is *so* wrong about newspapers taking a stab at citizen journalism--that's what Masslive.com did out here in W. Mass, with hand-picked, low-paid "citizen" bloggers. Masslive. com is a product of Advance.net, which is part of the Newhouse newspaper chain (its software division)....while I can't say Masslive's been a dismal failure, it does very little to get the community involved in what it's doing--other than thru its forums and its blogroll. Community memebers can't sign up to blog *for* it...no matter what one's level of commitment to community or blogger status...

Now, some journalists who follow hyperlocal have been rather happy-happy-joy-joy over the YourHub.com model. But I've also heard some not-so-cool stuff about that too....

Mostly in the combined newspaper/citizen deals there is the *possibility* that the citizens will be used as underpaid or non-paid stringers for the paper. This isn't good for the people and isn't good for the paper. Sure, these sites stay up and running, even if they don't have the pageviews, but are they really doing anything for the community? are they doing anything for the people involved? Will the people writing the newspaper hosted citizen sites have to conform to the editorial policies of the newspaper, thus creating meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss?

oh, and I think Craig's said a number of places that he doesn't want to get into the citizen journalism thing. I think that's why he's contributing to some projects (like Assignment Zero...)

Backfence never had the je ne sais quois that many of the fairly successful cit j sites have--namely, an emotional investment from the community. if that's not there, any community's bound to fail, no matter how much v.c. captial it may have.

Re: A "citizen journalism" trifecta of failure

Tish Grier — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:04:42 -0000

Rod...one of the reasons I wrote my post, (and perhaps one of the reasons Jeff Howe posted this followup was in part because of the sense that participation issues weren't sufficiently discussed--when they were a significant and important part of the project.

and thanks David--"the hardest working young man in journalism"--Cohn for posting the link to my participation post :-)

Re: K. Paul Mallasch on local journalism

Tish Grier — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:58:24 -0000

Mathew,

you may want to check out something that my friend Jeff Potter is doing in W. Mass with the Shelburne Falls Independent:

http://www.sfindependent.net/site/site07/home.p...

We have lots of connectivity problems out in W. Mass--lots of people still stuck on dial-up. So, Jeff puts out a weekly print paper as well as a website. He's an amazing guy and I think really understands the people of his hyper-local area.

Re: Troll alert: The two Johns — Elton and Dvorak

Tish Grier — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:13:11 -0000

Well, John D. does make a couple of good points....personally, I'm getting inundated with social networking site invites, and it's beginning to get to be way too much. I'd like to have an offline life, too, thankyouverymuch. The second thing he may be right on are the widgets and toolbars. If you've ever had duelling toolbars, you'll know what I mean. And there are way too many widgets out there...so many widgets, not enough time (IMO.)

As we said at BlogHer, just because someone builds it, doesn't mean you have to use it....

So, some things may (probably will) bust, but others will keep on keeping on. I don't think the bust will be as bad as the .com bust, though. Too many people aren't quitting their day jobs.

Re: Google wants newsmakers to write the news

Tish Grier — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:51:49 -0000

Matt...I'm not so sure this is "crowdsourcing" of any kind, but more of a ploy on the part of Google to get some free content for a news product that nobody can seem to find (Gabe Rivera noted that Google News does some original content--but who can find it?)

Crowdsourcing,though, assumes that people are going to work on stories because they want to, not because they're compelled to correct something they believe is wrong with a story. And, if you think about it, are people going to have all the time necessary to write in to Google News...

There are also some ethical questions here...along with many, many other questions...

Re: Google wants newsmakers to write the news

Tish Grier — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:32:32 -0000

Very true, Mat, very true :-)

Re: Days of Our Lives, the blogosphere edition

Tish Grier — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:24:43 -0000

LOL! I'm kind of sorry I missed Gnomedex....it's always fun to see the various parties stomp off in fits of pique...but, your accout was great! and yes, just another "episode"...

Re: Days of Our Lives, the blogosphere edition

Tish Grier — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:39:22 -0000

Amy....there may not have been a lot of heckling at BlogHer because many of the women there aren't building things (thus, don't have a stake in aruguing about them) nor do many of them blog on issues outside of a very small niche. You and I are pretty known for shooting our mouths off in male-dominated circles, but many of the others who were there don't even know about these circles....so to compare BlogHer with other conferences is a bit of an apples/oranges thing (not to mention that I've never had corporatos try to pick my brain so aggressively as I did this year at BlogHer...for shame!)

Re: Days of Our Lives, the blogosphere edition

Tish Grier — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:46:19 -0000

Steven...well, I wouldn't necessarily characterize women as more nurturing in all instances. Women have a different way of criticizing--kind of passive aggressively shutting one another out if they disagree. I think that's why I tend to like men's circles more--they'er more in your face about it. BlogHer may have seemed more nurturing because, as I mentioned, there weren't any topics or discussions similar to the one at Gnomedex that would have bothered anyone in particular. Heck, I mentioned the A-list at the panel I was on (yes, I was on a panel at BlogHer) and I'm not sure how many in the audience knew who I was talking about.

Which lead me to think: one woman's A-list is another woman's knitting circle (no offense to knitting circles...)

Re: Sifry out, layoffs galore at Technorati

Tish Grier — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:19:01 -0000

Google may, as you say, be eating Technorati's lunch, but Google absolutely stinks for finding out who's linking to your blog--that is, unless you're a high-ranked blog. Plus, Google put NOFOLLOW tags in the metadata of blogs that didn't convert their templates to the simple-stupid, non HTML templates in the Google/Blogger merger--thus making those of us who love tinkering with our HTML out of search for about 4-8 weeks....

Technorati may have its quirks, but Google is hardly the best for blog search. Their excessive automation and lousy customer service make them less than admirable

Re: Newspapers ignore Google at their peril

Tish Grier — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 18:28:46 -0000

neither kerfuffle, nor brouhaha....more like tempest-in-a-teapot...it must've been a slow news day for so many folks to get their knickers in a bunch over this.

What the LATimes said was pretty much what went around the blogosphere about the whole GoogleNews comments thing anyway...except maybe for the Bin Laden thing. That sounded more like an inside joke that originated at some conference, got published on somebody's blog, and then everybody said "well, it was funny at the time..."

Re: Want some Quechup on your Rapleaf?

Tish Grier — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:46:37 -0000

While the social networking bill of rights might not make that much of an impact, it's an important thing for people to read. It may also lead to something much more important in the future--we don't really know. Statements sometimes bring issues to the attention of folks who don't really know there's an issue--and can get us to re-think our positions on related issues. So, we are once again in a wait-and-see phase in social networking....

but the whole "lifestream" thing made me itchy when I first heard about it. and it still does. esp. when there is so much hype encouraging so many of us to put up so much of our lives online in an effort at "transaprency." Perhaps transparency will be, ultimately, a form of transluncency that will echo the way many of our parents and grandparents lived in the offline world.

Re: Tuesday? Time for a new Technorati strategy

Tish Grier — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:35:40 -0000

I don't quite know what the whole Technorati Topics thing is about (maybe a re-working of Favorites combined with WTF?...I don't know...) but one thing I do know, and remember, is that rank was, at one time, a very important and hotly-debated topic among bloggers. The theory went that advertisers and marketers *might* want to advertise on blogs, and that they would want the top ranking blogs--the ones with them most links, not nec. readers--to be the places to put premium, high paying advertising.

it was thought that links and readers(page views) went hand in hand--that is, until some enterprising folks found ways to rig pageviews...

To get rank, one had to have a combination of permalinks and post links. Permalinks being those in people's blogrolls. Post links being those links in posts. Those are all crunched in some calculation to give you rank/authority/your position in the "--list" in the blogosphere.

There was also some other "popularity" thing brought in...but I have no idea where that measure came from...

But nowadays, blog success isn't necessarily predicated solely on rank. It can be a combination of traffic (as in page views, another disputed measurement), comments, links (both perma and post--that is, if perma still exist) or other criteria. In a world of RSS readers, trackbacks, Google Page rank, and other means of measuring influence, the notion of influence and authority being measured strictly by links isn't what it used to be.

I'll be posting more on this later at my blog.

Re: News flash: Digg headlines not "real" news

Tish Grier — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:54:33 -0000

The whole thing just made my head ache...and what was with PEJ coining the term "user news"? Is it really so gauche to use the term "social news" to identify Digg, Reddit, etc. ? It's a heck of a lot more accurate.

Re: Will MSFT push Yahoo to buy Facebook?

Tish Grier — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:49:02 -0000

Yahoo's had a bit of a habit of buying up stuff and then not really knowing what to do with it (MyBlogLog comes to mind first--but the list's pretty long.) So, I have to agree with a number of Kara's points, wile adding that there is still much, much discussion going on re the use of Facebook for business networking. Now, if YahooMash takes on for social (and if you look at it, it does seem to mimic the social aspect of FB), it *might* cause Facebook to tip as a business networking tool. Then again, if FB's not managed well once it's in Yahoo's stable, who knows--the sport du jour , though, is definitley the dollars discussion. Let's see how high it will go before it pops.

Re: CNET to buy TechCrunch — why not?

Tish Grier — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:30:10 -0000

A sale *might* happen if, perhaps, Arrington, Malik, and others got tired of running their new media empires. The reasons they started those ventures was, I think, to be un-msm. And they've done quite well..

Looking at folks who've sold new-media ventures, the ventures were sold, in part, because they weren't making a lot of money with them (I'm thinking of Pegasus News, for one.) But, if the new media enterprise is making money, and everybody's happy, esp. at this point, what would be the reason to sell?

And, from reading Arrington regularly, I think he really enjoys the community he's got over there, and interacting with them--something if sold to CNET he might have to give up. CNET's blogs might have great content, but they're a bit low on community involvement and interaction. Certainly nothing like TechCrunch.

Re: Will the real Dave Winer please stand up?

Tish Grier — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:52:56 -0000

I don't know...I find it all so very interesting.

Yes, there are ways of "gaming" Techmeme--as there are ways of "gaming" pretty much everything (and, apparently, of denying folks "link juice".) Do you recall, M., when a whole bunch of people got *very* upset at the 2000 Bloggers meme, saying it was "gaming" Technorati and "inflating" everyone's linkage? Yet there are tons of splogs created daily that add to the link counts of high-traffic blogs (yes, I've checked this out.)

Even Digg gets "gamed" by folks from various places that "digg" their own stuff. repeatedly.

We probably should look at the Leaderboard as *just* a barometer of a *particular* communiy (and not the entire blogosphere) at a particular point in time. Case in point: The Feedster 500.

Re: It’s not the eyeballs, it’s the brains

Tish Grier — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:47:43 -0000

I find the traffic I get from Techmeme is often not much higher than a link from someone's blog, but the Techmeme readers definitely stick around and read the posts. And, for someone of extremely low traffic (and a girl, and not in the v.c., development, or certified/licensed journalist end of the tech industry) it's nice to see those readers. Some, I think, have even subscribed--although I wouldn't know. I don't keep the little vanity buttons that tell me any of that stuff;-) But I think it's brought a bit more influence. And for some of us, influence is *far* more important than huge traffic numbers.

Re: Is email dead? No, but it’s not well

Tish Grier — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:26:59 -0000

just love the way you called email a "massive time-sucking drain on productivity."

But, quite frankly, I (and lots of other people) have found social networking sites like Facebook to also be massive time-sucking drains on creativity...

So, perhaps which time-sucking drain we choose to use the most might have to do with whether or not we have to have that "audit trail." The "audit trail" is often what differentiates business communications from adolescent, friend-to-friend or message from mom-and-dad communications. We can ignore Mom and Dad, but we can't necessarily ignore the hostile co-worker or peevish, control-freak boss...

And the idea of my email becoming a social networking site is pretty horrific--no refuge, no work done for sure!

Re: Beacon: Zuckerberg brings the mea culpa

Tish Grier — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:19:40 -0000

Matt...this is the second time that Zuckerberg's had to issue a mea culpa for violating our privacy. Remember Sept '06 when he had to apologize (and retract) putting RSS feeds on Facebook users' profiles? Seems that Zuckerberg may be trying to find just the right way to leverage all that user-generated content on his site, and the users keep telling him to knock it off. (check my post here)

Re: Deadpool claims another victim: Edgeio

Tish Grier — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:39:16 -0000

It really seems like, for the "millions" of people that are online, the "millions" choose what is easy, most efficient, and, at this point, proven (like Craigslist) over things that seem complicated and ask too much of us (putting up an ad and *then* having the responsibility of tagging it in the *right* way.)

It all may come down to what I'm learning about web 2.0: we come here to find things, to interact with each other, and to be entertained--in different proportions at different times and often in our spare time. If we don't have time to figure something out, we just go away. Edgeio took too much time to figure out--so, we went away. And, without us, even the best idea won't fly.

Re: LinkedIn and Facebook: Collision course?

Tish Grier — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:25:45 -0000

Matt...one thing I often find is that the worlds of tech and business journalism (as well as certain sectors of marketing) are a lot different in their sense of "friend" than other professions and in people's perceptions. Hence, it makes a great deal for folks to have a the option of keeping a nice separation between church and state, as you say.

There are times when letting your employer know your political affiliations or what you did over the weekend is inappropriate (esp. for young people just entering the job market.) So, I worry a bit about some of LinkedIn's new features and if it's not getting a tad too Facebook-y contingent on what the business journos and Silicon Valley techies are saying about it rather than in what its customers need. Frankly, we should be able to pick our friends *and* pick our business associates and keep them separate until the time is right. Working with like-minded friends who know all your comings and goings (via social networking) can be a real double-edged sword when the business end of the friendship doesn't go according to the "rules" of either business or friendship.

Re: Digg: A social media Petri dish

Tish Grier — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:47:38 -0000

Great post, Matt! I was watching this from the sidelines between working on three different projects--and a lot of what I saw and read echoed what I saw happen on newsgroups back about 10 years ago. There are ways in which social groups de-volve from the good intentions of the original builders has been documented in many places (notably some great essays by Clay Shirky--which echo many of my experiences in the things...)

Think about it: newsgroups were always *open* to whomever wanted to join. But they only became "social" to you if you were accepted by the group. The groups always had overlords--moderators who were involved with the group depending on the level of love for the topic--and would sometimes outright ban others or "douche" various members from the system for "infractions" that were sometimes never explained.

Now, these things are automated. Rather than a human hand sending a popular person into the Internet ether, we have bots. And algorithms. Don't blame the site administrators for maybe having big egos--it's just the impartial algorithm that's making things happen ;-)

Digg always seemed to me to be more of a community than a news source--and perhaps that's also a huge error on the part of those observing the phenomenon, who may know very little about older forms of social media and have no reference points to understand communities like Digg, who saw Digg as a news service rather than a community. As for the idea of "collaborative news filtering"--well, that used to go on in newsgroups, too. And it's going on in other places than Digg. Only just not with the same hipster cachet as Digg. And while you're right about Digg being a big social media petri dish, we shouldn't forget about the petri dishes that came before....

Re: TED: These sour grapes taste terrible

Tish Grier — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:43:15 -0000

I've been catching up on all the TED scuttlebutt--including your post--and what I found most odd and out of touch was the panel with Queen Noor and Sergy Brin, where "court jester" Robin Williams came out and made the joke about bad connectivity at Web 2.0 cons....

oh how amusing! (and a really *old* joke among web2.0 peeps...)

One of that panel's concerns was that "the masses" are "confused" by the new media landscape. But, since working with both NewsTrust and Placeblogger, where I'm seeing and hearing lots of the voices of the masses, I'm thinking more that it's the elites that are confused. Maybe that's really what's going on at TED and why lots of folks aren't getting invited.

Re: Ryerson fails, not Facebook student

Tish Grier — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:30:29 -0000

oh, academia's *definitely* struggling when it comes to understanding social networking--not to mention most of what's happening online. When I read this story this a.m., I wasn't just horrified--I thought about a prof I met last week at We Media Miami, who is from Ryerson, who was talking about how she teaches media literacy in her class. ...and what I've discovered is that there are pockets of professors in many universities who are teaching about the ups and downs of Facebook in their classes. But that the universities, overall, have no understanding of life online. So, we get really bad stuff like this happening. I sure hope Ryerson sees their way to not expelling this kid.

Re: New York Times: blog trolling 101

Tish Grier — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:30:13 -0000

Hi Matt...
Actually, I found some grains of truth in the Times article. Sure, it had its link-baiting hype potential, but then again so have all those other articles over the past 2-3 years in pubs like BusinessWeek and New York Magazine that shrieked "you too can make big bucks from blogging!" (and then went on to profile Arianna Huffington and Mike Arrington and Josh Marshall and the scant few others that make big blog money....)

Thing is, when you *are* doing blogging as a career or career path (as I have for the past two years--with a modicum of success) it *is* a lot of stress. It's sometimes a lot of long hours for not a lot of pay. It's having no boundaries in your life because you have to get a project completed, or a client's in need of something ,by an insanely short deadline. It's trying to come up with the right "conversational tone" for a marketing campaign. It's trying to write in a way that's going to get the eyeballs of the 18-34s while getting the jobs and respect from the 34-54s.

It only gets easier when you've put together a decent reputation and people are willing to take a chance with you (but it's still pretty tough.) Even then, the standards are high because you are working in a field that is brand new, that has no hard stats to back it up, and that many are looking to be the savior for industries with failing business models.

It won't kill you, but the stress will get to you if you're looking to be Arrington or Marshall or to go viral like Coke and Mentos or Lenovo. If you keep perspective, though, and not measure your success by the successes of others, then you'll be ok. Easier said, however, than done.

Re: New York Times: blog trolling 101

Tish Grier — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:43:28 -0000

Matt,

Agreed. making it in blogging probably does indeed have the same or at least a similar amount of stress as making it in any high-volume, hyperactive business (I'm reminded of friends who used to own a gaming company.... or any start-up....)

and I too liked Doc's response. You should check out dana boyd's and Renee Blodgett's as well.

Now that it's midnight, I can write mine ;-)

Re: Loren Feldman vs. Shel Israel

Tish Grier — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:08:17 -0000

I found out about this one yesterday--perhaps a lot of people don't want to get involved in this particular slugfest because, either way you land, the fall-out won't be pretty.

I've met Feldman. He got pissy with me, I walked away, he apologized (he probably doesn't remember--I'm small potatoes and not some hot chick that would be all that memorable.) I was surprised and said "that's ok."

I've met Shel too--several times. He's been cordial in that older-generation p.r. guy kinda way.

O.K. folks to know, but, well....they are who they are...sorry to see things blow up this way. Whenever something escalates like this, no one looks good.

The only thing we should be taking away from this is to make sure you've picked up all the domains that could be a variant of your name. Esp. if you're kinda up there and could get parodied.

Re: Jason’s long goodbye: Give me a break

Tish Grier — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:55:28 -0000

There are so many bloggers out there who've never heard of Jason, and who really don't care whether he "retires" and goes back to email or not. They're too busy trying to keep their small businesses going, and blogging works for them on a lot of different levels.--and yes, sounds like a whole bunch of drama for sure.

Re: Umair: It’s user-generated “context”

Tish Grier — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:41:53 -0000

Umair is right-on with "user generated context"--it's something marketing has acknowledged in its support of word-of-mouth marketing. W.O.M. extends out to messages on boards, blog posts, and other postings on social networks. When it is positive, it becomes a value-add for the product: someone's giving you an endorsement and situating your product in their community. That person is giving your product a context. In marketing, more "context" (which translates to w.o.m.) then becomes more product loyalty and product sales. It's letting users create the context, not the advertisers, and by doing so, the users let other users know the value.

Now, if newspapers could realize what they produce is product, and that blog posts don't "steal" their content, but, rather, add context and then link back to it, then we can all sing kumbaya. But it's probably not that simple.

Re: Is the link economy really broken?

Tish Grier — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:31:28 -0000

ah, this "strategy" of internal linking has grown in part from the rise of business blogs. Yes, there's a propensity to do this kind of linking on newspaper blogs, for what I think are obvious reasons. However, when advising a business on how to blog (something I've had a lot of experience doing in the past year or so) there's a lot of resistance to linking to "competitors," and a desire to keep eyeballs on one's own blog, which may or may not be a page within a business's website. As a consultant, I can present all sorts of information about how linking out to others helps to stimulate traffic and adds value to your reader's experience, but the desire to be *the* expert and *only* source is far stronger.

For a publication like CNet though, there may be another reason for linking internally that has nothing to do with maintaining their authority. As Keith Fox, president of Business Week, revealed when he discussed their new social network, linking internally has a lot to do with keeping people on a site to prove engagement and to sell more ads (see NYT article on Business Exchange) If they can keep you clicking around their content, there's a better than even chance that you'll click out on an ad at some point (probably out of frustration.)

Ultimately, IMO, it's about translating that "authority" they assume they have (like BusinessWeek) into money. Monetization, more than influence (which is what one gets from links), remains the bugaboo for most online pubs.

Re: Blogs are so over, Wired magazine says

Tish Grier — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:44:12 -0000

yeah, I'll admit...I'm a sucker for some good linkbait, and this was a big, fat juicy one! besides, I needed a little typing practice this morning ;-)

Re: GateHouse: O hai, internetz — we r fail

Tish Grier — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:01:25 -0000

Mat--

you should take a look at Dan Kennedy's post on this--he knows the Boston media scene better than anyone and has good insights (and PDFs) I also spoke with Dan, who got me thinking that Gatehouse *may* have a point if the only content Boston.com is aggregating on one of their hyperlocal pages is only Gatehouse's content, and they're selling ads against it. Plus, we'd have to look at Boston.com's logs to see if they are indeed sending traffic over to Gatehouse's site. We can't just automatically assume that...

Now, from a reader's perspective, if I go to a page on a newspaper site--like the Boston.com pages-- that is supposed to be showing me hyperlocal content, and the only hyperlocal content it's showing me is from another msm outlet (be it newspaper or TV), I'm going to think one of three things: that there's no independent hyperlocal content (blogs)in the region; that the paper is lazy/greedy and doesn't want to link to independent hyperlocal content; that they can't find independent hyperlocal content because google sucks for geotagged content. The page is going to have no value to me because it is only another msm outlet.

and yes, I work for a hyperlocal aggregation site--Placeblogger.com. We do NOT have ads next to our aggregated content because we do not want to get into an issue of making money off of other people's content. We are, though, still trying to figure out our revenue model beyond getting grants to continue our work.

Re: Tech Bloggers: Leave Your Agenda at the Door

Tish Grier — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:10:38 -0000

Karoli,

a couple of points:

t is as dishonest to dump on a product because you don’t like its creator as it is to write sponsored content and not disclose that the content is sponsored.

Not "dishonest"--not even unethical. This is the kind of "pissing contests" that go on in the tech world.

Also, don't confuse what has gone on with PayPerPost and what goes on in tech blogs. Two different worlds, two different sets of rules govering them. The FTC came out with the following recommendation last year contingent on the evolving nature of word-of-mouth marketing and complaints against PPP:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

This is when disclosure became required for word of mouth marketing--and, in part because of complaints against PPP. That came out at last year's WOMMA conference as there were several ethical breeches last year in the word-of-mouth-marketing world.

Further tech writers don't have any particular obligation to leave their personal opinions out of their blogs. Their blogs are their own "homes" on the Internet--and there are differences between someone's personal blog and someone's business blog. You will find differences in these when you explore them. Furhter, there are folks out there who could argue that you shouldn't be telling the world about your personal life on you blog (yes, I've heard that a time or two.) What we should/shouldn't do on our blogs is, really, contingent on the use of our blogs. It's fine, even "ethical" if someone wants to dis someone else--who knows? by dissing smoeone, someone just might be pointing out an ethical breech somewhere (this is not in reference to Mahalo--just in general.) And if there's some belief that saying something negative is "unethical" will further civility, well, that's rather naieve and a form of censorship (which many of the "civility" arguments boil down to.)

Civility is not censorship. and dissing someone isn't "unethical" how it's done may be childish, but it isn't "unethical."

Re: Tech Bloggers: Leave Your Agenda at the Door

Tish Grier — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:48:55 -0000

Karoli...

I don't think Andrew made Mahalo out to be "evil"--that's stretching it into a level of unnecessary hyperbole. He sees problems with it, and he gave Jason ample space to disagree, defend his product, even post links to stories about Mahalo. If Andrew thought it so evil, do you think he would have allowed it? and do you think Jason would have even bothered to take the time it took to leave those comments if that were the case?

Trashing someone also isn't intellectually dishonest--we all have our opinions on things and sometimes those opinions aren't necessarily all nice and sweet. There is nothing in any books on intellectual discourse that says we always have to play nice--in fact, sometimes being nice is inherently dishonest. The old saw of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say it at all" leads to a whole host of repressed anger and emotional dishonesty that eventually comes out in other ways....

Not to mention that saying something nice when you don't believe it, or omitting saying anything when everyone praises something to high heaven is also intellectually dishonest as well as two-faced, emotionally dishonest, misleads people to think something is great when it may be very flawed and a very bad practice overall.

Besides if we all only post nice things, then there would be no discourse. and one part of this whole medium of blogging is about opening up discourse that does not happen in the press-- not about always being nice to your buddies or if someone pays you to say nice things...

Which goes on out here, just as much as it goes on in p.r. circles....

As for PPP, please--it's got its problems, and has from the beginning. And I don't thing the FTC was unnecessarily "trashing" PPP. When the FTC has something to say about what you're doing, it's pretty serious.

Re: Tech Bloggers: Leave Your Agenda at the Door

Tish Grier — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:15:12 -0000

Karoli...

Andrew's piece wasn't meant to be a review of Mahalo. It was a blog entry--and as such not in the business of not being personal.

please--not everyone who writes a blog or blogs about something's writing a product review. And "people," i.e. readers of blogs--esp. tech blogs--usually know the difference.

Re: Tech Bloggers: Leave Your Agenda at the Door

Tish Grier — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:41:23 -0000

Karoli,

I think you are confusing blogging with a kind of marketing that blogs can be used for--which has happened in spades in the past year (I know--I'm involved in some of it). Blogs can be used for product reviews, but that was never their original intention (which predates the "Web 2.0 conversation notion) and that is not what many people use them for. Your perspective may be colored by when you came into the blogosphere and the emphasis, esp. for many mommybloggers, on making money from product reviews.

Blogs weren't meant to replace publications like PC world, and the whole idea that they can, or will, is fairly new. Even the idea of using blogs for word of mouth marketing is fairly new in the grander scheme of blogging.

Take a look at Rebecca Blood's great book "The Weblog Handbook" to understand the genesis of blogging. There's also a very good chapter in there on ethics in blogging.

And don't try to draft the new notions and ideas of word of mouth marketing onto all of blogging. Not all blogging is marketing. That notion is the same mistake that's made when some folks in journalism insist that all blogging is a form of journalism or citizen journalism, which it isn't. (and that's a debate that's gone on for years--and will continue.)

If your blogging is a form of marketing conversation, then that's fine. But other's blogs aren't forms of marketing conversation any more than they are forms of citizen journalism. So don't expect them to conform to your worldview.

Re: Tech Bloggers: Leave Your Agenda at the Door

Tish Grier — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:24:09 -0000

Hey...all conversations are worth having...and nothing wrong when people agree to disagree :-)

Re: Retraining Journalists vrs Other Frustrating Tasks

Tish Grier — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:26:24 -0000

lol! well, I've noticed similar head-dents in friends of mine over here. you're apparently in good company :-)

Re: The Online Conversational Onion

Tish Grier — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:53:13 -0000

Hi Adam,

I noticed the different levels of "conversation" out on the web, now distributed among a variety of social media/networking services. Yet all these different services don't seem to make for better conversation, but rather a fracturing of conversation. There's so much fracturing that a reporter at CNet didn't know that the idea of "open source journalism" wasn't a novel concept (see my post on it here)

So, it does make me wonder about the significance of online conversation--and it certainly changes the value of things like links and how traffic is achieved.

Re: Why Media Gets Community Wrong

Tish Grier — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:36:32 -0000

Great post, Adam! and I have to agree with Anthony above--when endeavors are highly innovative, there will be inevitable and desirable failures. We learn from those failures. (and believe me, in the social marketing world, there are more failures than there are successes. That's why everyone goes berserk when someone gets it right.)

Re: Twitter: Tipping Point for Journalists

Tish Grier — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:52:06 -0000

I've noticed an increase in journalists using Twitter on this side of the pond as well. Most are using it for conversation, which is nice. And they are differentiating their tweets from those of their newspapers--which usually end up being only headlines. I think this is a good balance.

However, there's also been an uptick in bad, tactless marketers and p.r. people as well. Many seem to be playing a numbers game re followers (as if having lots of followers makes you important in twitter.) Most are just trying to get their message on as many twitter streams as possible. I'm fine with them following me (although I do keep my eye on them indirectly) but I do not follow them back. My twitter stream is not there to give them free advertising.

Re: 1992: Beards, Politics & Graduate Unemployment

Tish Grier — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:35:00 -0000

ah, yes, the waining days of "big hair".....

but, have your feelings changed since then? do you still feel your education was something of a waste?

I think that's a very common feeling among young people, esp. if they've majored in something more liberal arts-ish than "practical." I was attending a community college at the time, and had friends who were going into specific fields, like engineering and pharmacy, because of the job prospects. For them, college was like a glorified trade school--not about critical thinking at all. IMO it takes a bit of flailing around before one finds out where to use all that critical thinking.

Me...I was a biblical lit major. Could've gone to Div school, but figured it was way too costly. Ended up on the Internet consulting on a bunch of estoteric stuff that might as well be forming a new canon. who knew?

Re: Grumpy Old People Want To Shut Down The Net

Tish Grier — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:52:02 -0000

you hit it right on the nose about where the money's coming from to support all these ventures...and that's why, if the bubble bursts, it won't have that mustard-gas effect. Plus, not everything Web 2.0's all that bad. Some things are a tad hare-brained, but others will probably make it out of the mess and turn into decent little ventures. It's now a time of sorting hype from reality--of what works and what doesn't....as well as waiting for some geographic areas to get sufficient broadband.

Re: Scoble Taking A Break

Tish Grier — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:21:16 -0000

"Techmaiming" lol! yep--guilty as charged!

I've taken blogging breaks from time to time--because I'm busy with a project or something else. Breaks on the weekends are important for me too. It's nice to feel the sunshine on my face, go for a walk, remember what people look like ;-)

Re: Movie Notes: Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls

Tish Grier — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:00:56 -0000

just catching up on my RSS reader and saw this post....believe it or not, I was given the delux edition of this movie to review about a year ago. The interviews and the commentary add to the cheezy goodness....

I would also bet that Josie and the Pussycats was indeed modeled on this (but would have to check the date--could even be that BVoD was modeled on JatP?) Given the time frame, it's not that unusual. Often adult ideas were scaled down for kids TV--or subtle adult humor was grafted into cartoons (think of Bulwinkle or Beanie and Cecil.) Sixties and 70's cartoons existed in a different world--one that got not only sanitized, but then turned into nothing more than slick marketing campaigns (hence, I love The Skelator Show on YouTube...a fitting mashup of mass marketing.)

But listening to Roger Ebert talk about the film's ending (I think it was Ebert on the delux ed) he explained the ending as a reflection of what was going on in L.A. at the time with the Manson killings. Those of us who were kids--and not living in L.A.--don't really understand the impact of those killings on that particular world. As, I think, Ebert said, the killings signified the end of innocence (or presumed innocence) of the hippie days--and that there was, after all, a very dark side to hippieness. I think that's what Meyer and Ebert were trying to capture at the end--although Meyer's own confused sexualtity and love of girl-girl action consitiutes a very odd backdrop for that message. And the weird end of tale narration might have been a way to cull some sort of psychological resolution to a larger issue. Then again, maybe Meyer just had some leftover film and wanted a montage.

Re: Movie Notes: Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls

Tish Grier — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:53:49 -0000

oh, have fun with Valley of the Dolls! a truly strange "chick flick." BTW, when you watch it, you may wonder why Barbara Parkinson was the star. She was quite big at the time, having played on the TV soap opera Peyton Place. She didn't do much after VoD (well, a couple of cheezy horror flicks, one with Allen Alda (?!?!?!)) VoD was also Patty Duke's first grown-up movie. At the time, there were many rumors that she wouldn't have much of a career after the Patty Duke Show, even though she won an Oscar for playing Helen Keller in the Miracle Worker. She really showed them! Also, note the references to "art films." quite humorous! I'm going to have to watch it myself and refresh my memory. :-)

Re: Technorati Redesigns… Again

Tish Grier — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:23:34 -0000

you may still get indexed if you remove the technorati tags--one suggestion though: if you don't already have one, start an index of topics. That will act something like a tag system and Technorati will find those, too (trust me, I've had some friends experiment with this and it worked.)

Re: Technorati Redesigns… Again

Tish Grier — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:24:13 -0000

oh, if you need some clarification on how that works, email me. it's a little long to put in comments.

Re: The New Digg: Meh

Tish Grier — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:44:15 -0000

Interesting comparison between Digg and Yahoo! Mash. I got a Mash invite sitting in my Inbox that I still have to respond to (well, at least it wasn't another Quechup "invite." ) And, yeah--another social networking thingamabob to keep up with. yikes!

(BTW, I owe you a comment on your Valley of the Dolls post...just been a bit busy :-) )

Re: Movie Notes: The Usual Suspects

Tish Grier — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:04:37 -0000

Hi Jason! wow! I haven't been by to comment in awhile! --first, congrats on all your new ventures with Webomatica....

now, to the movie....

Yes, this is a great little "noir" film. One of Spacey's best performances. But where's Palmintieri these days? He had a good short run playing the tough guy in the '90's, but haven't seen him in a long time. And I remember laughing my butt off as this one unfolded. A similar laugh to the one I got from Fight Club, but it didn't cause the queasy feeling that happened with Fight Club.

Re: Bridging the Blogging 1.0 and Blogging 2.0 divide

Tish Grier — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:25:27 -0000

Hi Eric,

Well, in the time I've been blogging (somewhat longer that Lous, although not as long as, say, Mary Hodder) there have been some serious changes, esp. in linking strategies and "link love." Technorait (which is very broken these days) used to give more weight to permalinks (as in blogroll links) over post links. People used to hound A-listers for links so much so that the term "link whoring" was born. Links were everything to bloggers. But now, chances are that in order to find who's linking to you, you have to consult a number of sources as well as a crystal ball....

So, you are quite correct about the subjective nature of the term "serious blogger." Folks that you mention, such as Andrew Sullivan, might be great "bloggers" if they started today because they bring their previous print journalism and scholarly reputations to the table. There are women who stake a blogging claim with nothing more than the term "mommyblogger" and have instant community--something that wasn't there 4 years ago. We've also seen innovations like Twitter drive traffic while adding nothing to countable links leading to rise in rank. Same thing with RSS subscriptions--great to have readers but those readers don't necessarily count towards links and rank, nor do they generate new traffic (that is, unless someone twitters a link to your blog.)

So, I'd have to agree with Duncan: nowadays, blogging's more about the user--or, shall we say "lurker" or "reader" vs. the blogger who will provide linklove to you. Hence, it can be said that it's about the reputation you build via an aggregate of blogging, tweeting, having your comments searched via Disqus, and your social networking profiles. Maybe that's 2.0--then again, maybe that's just the diffusion of the blogger identity into that of "social networker." Just a thought.

Re: Scoble completely missed the point on Rapleaf | A View from Judi Sohn

Tish Grier — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:04:48 -0000

Hi Judy...I've been following the Rapleaf stuff for the past couple of days....

Rapleaf's only part of the problem--there's also the idea of "lifestreams" (as Steve Rubel wrote about)

and there have been other marketing related services that have been gathering info and selling it for awhile. Back in December I wrote about Umbria's "Umbria Connect" program, which was/is filtering blogs, gathering up the urls, and then selling the urls (in lots of 25) to marketers. You can check it out here: http://www.umbrialistens.com/products/connect.php

So, what we're seeing with Rapleaf and others is addressing the needs and desires of marketers--which then, in many ways, impacts our privacy. Because the competition for customers is fierce, and because there's massive fear of life online (connected to loss of brand control) marketers want to go deeper into our online lives...the rhetoric being to serve us better....

but is that really what's going on? or is there something else to all of it?

maybe there is.

Yet perhaps we should think more about the "lifestreams" children might be creating online, just as much as we are concerned about our adult "lifestreams". They're more vulnerable than us in so many ways.

Marketers will get our information from loads and loads of places--some companies are going to make it easier for them to get it.

Re: rizzn's personal blog: Hearst, Scripps, and Meta-Meta-Analysis

Tish Grier — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:12:46 -0000

Hi Mark,

Hmm....I think you could have read a bit past my headline to see the bigger picture of what I was saying. Google doesn't do a very good job of linking ads to text on a geographic level. So, many folks with hyperlocal businesses do not see the value of advertising on the Internet. This has a big effect on local news organizations, whether it be broadcast or newspapers. We also do not truly know click through rates on stories perused on aggregation sites. Noone--not google, not any other aggregators either--have revealed whether or not they are indeed sending traffic to other sites. We pretty much assume this. So, there is a chance that readers are perusing Google's aggregated pages and then just clicking the ads (where google makes the money) and not actually clicking through to the stories and then clicking ads on those pages. This was part of Gatehouse's objection to Boston.com linking to their stories--that they weren't getting the traffic--and we never saw any traffic logs to prove the case either way (whether or not Boston.com did or didn't send traffic to Gatehouse, or if, as Gatehouse contended, that the eyeballs were staying on Boston.com)

So, if we can't see any traffic figures to demonstrate that aggregation sites send traffic, and if the amount of traffic translates to real dollars to the sites, then how can we say that the aggregators with ads aren't making money off the aggregated content and therefore not increasing the earnings of the site of origin.

This isn't like search, where many people do indeed click through--although there are high bounce rates lots of times (and then that goes to the "value of page views" discussion). Aggregation functions a bit different than search, so we really need to see some stats to know what's what. And we aren't seeing stats. (disclosure: I work for an aggregator that does not put ads against content.)

Re: rizzn's personal blog: Hearst, Scripps, and Meta-Meta-Analysis

Tish Grier — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:27:26 -0000

and one more thing: a lot of times I throw out ideas to think about--use a lot of "could" and "probably" and "might' and "may. My views are just something to think about in the face of all the happy-happy-joy-joy-lets-all-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya stuff that goes on in the tech community. IMO, dissenting opinions aren't a bad thing--they just give us more to think about. And I like to throw ideas around and think about them. Maybe you think that's a *bad* thing and we should be all marching lockstep together. I don't.

Re: The Great Unknown Blogs - Day 4: Snarkaholic

Tish Grier — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:16:43 -0000

Hi Aaron...

thanks for reviewing Snarkaholic! There's going to be some interesting things coming out of this blog in the next couple of months, so stay tuned..

As for what I am...well, I'm kind of past girlhood by a couple of decades...but there is absolutely no doubt that I'm a woman. Just ask the trail of broken hearts and the two ex-husbands ;-)

Re: Clarence and Lori : Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, and Suicide

Tish Grier — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:04:51 -0000

Hi Aldon,

It's very sad to hear what happened to Lori. Sometimes its not that the angel doesn't touch us, but that our own hurt, self-directed anger, shame, and fear keeps us from realizing that touch is there. It's a terrible place to be. Glad that you can understand and know what is around you, supporting you. The ability to understand is a gift in and of itself.

Re: Bowling Again; Rebuilding Our Civic Infrastructure

Tish Grier — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:03:48 -0000

Aldon....

you make a very good point about parental involvement and having discussions with parents about the positive aspects of the Internet. Far too often I hear from community folks and from parents about needing to protect their children from "online predators" but no corresponding discussion about how online communities can facilitate civic engagement. Even though there was much made of Obama's positive use of technology, when it comes to parents and their kids, the emphasis still seems to be on the predator thing. IMO, it's mostly because the parents themselves have never delved into online social communities, even for professional networking (which was mentioned last night on MSNBC's "On the Money") So, the thing may be to get the parents to start using the most simple and relevant tools so that they can actually experience how life online works. Then they may become not only open to the possibilities of online civic engagement, but better protectors of their children in online environments.

Re: Newspapers’ decline is a sign of democracy, not a symptom of its death

Tish Grier — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:51:10 -0000

Thanks for this wonderful post! The whole moaning and wailing that's been going on among the journalism community about democracy dying with newspapers has been bugging me for some time, and I couldn't put my finger on just why. You've summed it up quite beautifully.

Re: The Social Network Sky is Falling Run For the Hills!

Tish Grier — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:44:23 -0000

Interesting thoughts, Nick....

A few years ago, at my first blog conference, I noticed all these people standing around talking to one another...and I thought it was so great that so many met each other thru their blogs! Turns out most of them knew one another from other places (like f2f places), and reading their blogs was just a way of keeping in touch with each other...

Then things changed over in blogging, and we started meeting other people through our blogs. But that's only for the adventurous...

Funny thing about soc. networking, though...I don't see many of us meeting new people through the social network--unless it's through another person (kinda like in blogging.) Sure, we can keep in touch better with people we've met once or twice. But how do we know if they really *are* reading our status updates, or comparing likes and dislikes among our various and sundry apps? We don't. And we don't really meet new people because all the strangers in social networking sites are either preditors or identity thieves or some other kind of person who will hurt us (or at least spam us.)

Frankly, I'll never get bored of the Internet--there's plenty of things to do and lots of cool people to meet one way or another. But soc. networking sites? I'll probably get bored with them quicker than I ever will with blogging. At least on my blog, I've got my own really huge soapbox ;-) (and a great google page rank to boot.)

Re: Full vs. partial Freakonomics

Tish Grier — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:05:25 -0000

Dubner's explaination makes lots of sense--but there's really not a lot of data on whether or not full RSS feeds cause a drop in blog traffic. What we do know is that ads on feeds don't always generate income--and it's hard to tell a blog's traffic success from full feeds, too. There are so many variables regarding RSS and traffic. Much research to be done!

Re: 2007/08/08/google-news-comments/

Tish Grier — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:01:11 -0000

When most big newspapers can't hire significant numbers of experienced people to moderate *their* comments, can we really expect Google, the leader in automated everything, to hire *people* to moderate/edit? highly unlikely.

Re: 2008/04/05/opining-about-blogging/

Tish Grier — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:33:58 -0000

Bravo, Paul! Yours is one of the few commentaries from the trenches! and good to point out that, if you've got to a point where you've managed to, as you say, "net" some "legitimate self-employment" you can say you've got some success. I've done that, and while I'm not living high on the hog and couldn't live in the Silicon Valley or NYC on what I make, for having built *something* from this blogging thing in the first place is pretty darned good.

Heck, I could have really disappointed my folks and pursued an acting career ;-)

Re: Message to LinkedIN- Start Rolling Heads

Tish Grier — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:00:59 -0000

ah, the double-edged sword of LinkedIn! it's social, yet it's employment-related. Like one giant Chamber of Commerce meeting (and, believe me, some of *those* are meat markets too...of the worst kind!oh, the stories I could tell...)

If we think about it, if we are now supposed to get our jobs through "networking" (vs. sending out a resume, going for copious interviews with every level of middle-manager, etc), doesn't that mean we are already meeting one another f2f and know race, gender, approximate age, sense of humor, lack thereof, etc?

At this point, I'd prefer to have a "head shot" on LinkedIn, just so people would recognize me when I ask them to connect--as I've usually met them f2f already, but, given the nature of the executive food chain, I'm still a small fish in comparison to most of them. Just as long as the "head shot" doesn't have to be one of those cheezy "executive" photos that look kinda like something from a high school yearbook.

Re: Slicing Time in a Face to Face Environment

Tish Grier — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 18:00:53 -0000

Hi Chris...one of the thing that worries me is that when I approach people I've connected with online that they *won't* be interested in knowing me f2f. I sometimes think that we'er developing (or have already developed) a kind of us-them thinking about who we meet online vs. who we know f2f, and place people in value categories perhaps because it's just too darned hard to really "know" everyone we meet online...

And I totally get that disconnect thing/feeling. Where am I today? What world do I *really* live in? Is online just as important as f2f or are they, in many ways, two different worlds? and how do I mediate all that? somedays I just have to walk away and feel the grass under my feet :-)

Re: The Effects Of Digg on My Blog

Tish Grier — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 09:59:35 -0000

Hi Chirs...

before Digg got big (pardon the pun!) you could get the same effect if you were "Instalanched" (as in linked on Instapundit) or Slashdotted (I heard that one at a confernece two years ago)--basically, it's being linked on any really huge big traffic site.

In '06 I got both Instalanched and then, six months later, Kos'd. Both were great spikes, but really didn't send over any long-term readers--probably because I'm not a political blogger.

For me, most readers that subscribe come thru Techmeme (not big traffic hits, but quality ones) and thru Google search (oddly enough.) I also find that subscriptions go up when I end up linked on blogs of very influential people. These folks might not have huge traffic, but they have influence. And, for me, at the stage where I'm at in my career, getting those links are like gold.

Re: New Media- STAND UP

Tish Grier — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:14:34 -0000

Chris....

we seem to have come into blogging in the same year--and I don't know about you, but in all the conferences I've been going to in the past, oh, two years now, I've noticed a real shift in the mindset of who's blogging, why they blog, etc...

My first conference, BlogHer '05, was about friendship and community--there was very little mention of monetization, and lots of mention of getting women on panels, as speakers, and how women were going to get into those important conversations about how the medium would evolve.

But I'm not hearing these messages--the messages of community, cammeraderie, and influencing the the way This World will evolve--all that much any more in blogging conferences. Now it's "how do I make money from this blogging thing."

I hear no desire to know what came before, of "paying dues," or linklove, or why the A-list is the A-list, or of knowing that this blogging thing is bigger than just how much one can get for oneself in ad revenue.

I hear a lot of entitlement. and among people who haven't even launched their first blog post.

We need more serious thought and serious discussion on how new media-all of it, from blogging to social networks--is changing our world and our culture (has anyone notice the Amanda Knox thing going on? and how she was booted off Facebook and her MySpace writings may be used as incriminating evidence in a murder investigation?)
We need far less emphasis on making money and becoming blogging superstars. Otherwise, all we're creating is some strange funhouse reflection of mass media all over again. and perhaps with some very bad side effects.

Re: Blog Comments Need to Be Simple

Tish Grier — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:43:13 -0000

Hi Chris...

one of the reasons that many people now require registration is that there was, for awhile, some hysteria over "incivil" and anonymous comments,and there was a general feeling that registration would help this. It was thought that moderation was slowing down conversation, and that instant registration would make it so that comments wouldn't need moderation...

Lots of hyperlocal journalism bloggers, as well as some big-namers like Kara Swisher use registration vs. moderation. And, for what they do, it does keep down trolls and keep conversation moving better.

As for Mashable--personally, I didn't appreciate being dumped into Mashable's social network just because I left a comment. I don't mind registering for a blog--mostly because those registrations don't end up in search. My Mashable profile, which I didn't find out until I did a search on myself, was something that I had to fill out and keep up to date with my other profiles. Now, it's just another search result I have to manage.

If the blogger feels that in order to control civility (and comment quality) that they need registration, I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with being enrolled in a social network just because I left a comment.

Re: Making a Business From Social Media

Tish Grier — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:07:44 -0000

Hi Chris...

Well, being someone who does "social media consulting" I'd have to agree with you on some of your points...

For awhile now, I've seen how the folks grounded in what might be called "legacy media" (advertising, journalism, p.r. and the like) seem to do pretty well when they add social media to their skill sets. I find the "legacy" folks coming to me for advice when they hit bumps in the social media road. But, they never actually want to pay me for my knowledge. In fact, some have even treated me like it's my responsibility to just hand over everything I've learned to them....

So, I'm careful about how I speak of what I actually *do*.

Now, since I don't have a "legacy" media background, I'm something of a maverick. Subsequently, I end up working with a number of maverick thinkers who are like me, and who I've met through networking. For some of them, I do jobs that could be classified as "community management" (like Connie Bensen suggested)--for others it's stuff related to the various aspects of social media.

So, while being a social media consultant is, in some ways, like being, say, an email consultant, there are ways in which you can display your skills that can lead to all sorts of interesting jobs. But it's not easy, it takes time and f2f connections to build a reputation. Then there's maintaining the reputation, lots of what could be called "old-fashioned sales," and constantly keeping up on new things. Oh, and living where the cost of living's not too high. That helps too :-) Still, I'd agree that I'd never advise anyone to go into *just* social media consulting. It has to be part of a bigger picture.

Re: 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice

Tish Grier — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:53:38 -0000

Hi Chris,

I've really enjoyed reading all your posts in this series--super valuable info....

One thing though about upper management. Upper management may have unrealistic goals for their social media. They may be expecting tons of comments and lots of "readers" (interpreted from page views) pretty early in a social media campaign. They may not understand the amount of time it may take to build traffic and interest. So, it's important to help upper management understand the time it takes to develop soc. media and to set realistic goals. Don't allow upper management (or p.r. firms or marketing firms with no soc. media experience) to set numbers-oriented goals.

And always ask them if they've seen a change in their business! If they've seen a change in their business (more inquiries with a few converting to sales) then they have made their impact. Doesn't matter if they have 1,000 readers/commenters a day or 100 or even 10. It's more a matter of the overall effectiveness, not numbers.

Re: Do What Works for You

Tish Grier — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:02:11 -0000

I'm another of those who totally agrees, Chris! And it's one thing for those of us who work in social media to try everything...and weed it out. It's another for small business people to be trying everything and finding they're spending more time on social media than they are on their businesses. In my consulting, I've found this to be common, and also for many to just throw up their hands and walk away from *everything.* So, one of the best, and most important thing for some of us is to try things, weed them out, and then have the knowledge of the community to recommend various apps to clients. It's good for us to know both the pros and cons of a service as well as its community. Only then can we do the right thing for ourselves and our harried clients!

Re: When Not to Sell Me Something

Tish Grier — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:16:50 -0000

lol! I was just thinking something similar today when I was reading about a networking seminar (that I decided not to attend.) Seems like the same ham-handed techniques of f2f networking have mutated to fit social media. Stilted networking, where it's all about trying to sell you something vs. getting to know the person, is, I discovered, why I hate so many "business networking" events. And why I'm also bugged by people who "follow" me on twitter just to use my twitter stream as a billboard or leave a link to their blog in a comment on mine. yuck!

Re: Popular bloggers delete comments?

Tish Grier — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:44:52 -0000

"outing" people who delete comments?? wow! that's harsh! Never thought of you as a storm-trooper kinda guy, Scoble.

Besides, sometime ya gotta delete. How many "comments" for male enhancement products and on-line poker should we really allow on our blogs? I kind of like Jim Turner's idea--add them to look more popular! now if we could only come up with a scheme to add links and game the Technorati 100 ;-)

Re: What I learned from BlogHer

Tish Grier — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:31:53 -0000

Hi Robert...

well, I think this is the third conference that you and I were in the same place and neither of us introduced ourselves (but, that's probably beholding to me, as you're far more known and visible than myself...yet, at times I suffer from my own geeky-fear thing...)

On MSN Spaces: the registration thing isn't the problem. That's actually a good feature (as Maryam pointed out). The biggest problem, and where they definitely shot themselves in the foot at BlogHer, was how the two women talking about it represented the product and themselves--like two valleychicks. I was sitting with a group of experienced women bloggers, and we were horrified not only by the way the two "girls" were talking about the product (in a very sales-pitch tone) but how insulting they were. The way they talked about home improvement stuff was just downright awful and actually made them sound like they were simply reading from a script--not genuine at all...

but, when you're a woman, you kind of get used to being patronized and develop a nice little kill-switch in your head that makes it all sound like a bunch of yadda-yadda-yadda.

aside from that, it was good to see you not on the podium for a change ;-) and doing guy-stuff, like shooting video. and, eventually, we'll meet...

Re: Taking the week off

Tish Grier — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:55:09 -0000

Robert,

Attacking women for their blogging doesn't just happen in the tech community. Peggy Phillip, one of the few tv executive bloggers (who lived in Memphis, TN) closed down her blog last year due to similar attacks. It was on Terry Heaton's blog:

http://www.thepomoblog.com/archive/the-tactics-...

Often, the tech community's a little myopic to what happens to women outside the tech community--but similar things to what happened to Kathy *do* happen. And when they happen to any woman, no matter what topic she blogs on, no matter what profession (because, let's face it, most professions are still male-dominated) we all need to know about it.

Re: TechMeme list heralds death of blogging?

Tish Grier — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:12:36 -0000

hi Robert...no, *everybody* isn't moving to Twitter. Only a select few are taking on Twitter--probably the same select few who obsessively monitor Techmeme. There's huge swaths of the blogosphere that don't really care about either (check Roni Bennett's blog for some commentary on that.) What *has* changed are the 'sphere's within the 'sphere--the multiplicity of blogs and blog communities. And the multiplicity of blogs out there tell us how we can make money from our blogs. Both of those aspects are new. I'd say Techmeme's Leaderboard is just one community's way of showing who the movers and shakers are. And who's talking about them. No death just yet.

Re: “What’s your audience size?” is wrong question

Tish Grier — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:12:55 -0000

Hi Robert!

about 2 years ago, Susan Mernit and I were discussing audience and blog traffic, as I was very worried that my traffic was too low for my blog to ever make a difference...

Susan said something to me to the effect of that it wasn't how many people who were reading me, but *who* those people are...

So, honestly, I may *still* have traffic numbers that make me appear far less than A-list, but, but I know that I've got some *fairly* influential readers. The proof has been some really interesting freelance work over the past two years (not to mention my short presentation at Supernova and a few other conferences.) For someone with no formal journalism nor marketing background (unless you count 5 years in retail), I can usually generate one link per post and end up on Techmeme. Not too bad for a low-traffic "nobody" :-)

Re: What to do if you’re laid off in 2008 recession

Tish Grier — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:28:30 -0000

Can't say enough for meeting people! yes, they call it "networking," but I found that "networking" works best when you're relaxed and genuine and not thinking "I'm here to network!" Nothing worse than meeting someone who's only meeting you to pitch you about a business or themselves. So, don't *think* of it as networking, but think of it as as going to a party or something (just don't drink as much...) And you're there to meet people, because people are cool to meet..

When you're relaxed and genuine, and somebody says, "what can I do to help you out?" you can say "well, you could give me a job..." in a way that *doesn't* sound like you're desperate for a job (although I'd recommend that approach only in certain situations.) That's actually how I got my first job blogging for someone other than myself. After awhile, enough people will know who you are and you may find calls coming to *you* before you ever think of picking up the phone.

Re: Introducing Publish2: Networked News

Tish Grier — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 11:06:25 -0000

Hey Scott! thanks for including us lowly bloggers/freelancers ;-) in on this! I'm thinking that it has the potential to develop into a network that links those of us with online chops with those in journalism who might need us--and for those of us onliners to be able to get some input from journalists. Right now, some of us use Facebook--but as you've pointed out, it's not all that great for targeted networking (personally, I like to keep it more social) Good luck to y'all! I'll be signing up for the Beta.

Re: RSS Is a Glorified “Favorites” Feature

Tish Grier — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 08:34:49 -0000

Scott,

Like you, I question the use of RSS by the "average" person.

Now that I'm more involved in blogging (and as part of a job), RSS is better for me than my old "Favorites" bookmark system. "Favorites" kept me chained to my personal computer (sadly, not a laptop). With an RSS reader (I use Bloglines) if I happen to be travelling, I can keep up with what I need to do--although I'm still hunting out cybercafes because, well, no laptop.

Yet, my involvement in blogging is different from the involvement of most average people. There is indeed a kind of conceit that insists everyone out there will want to read blogs. That's not necessarily true. Even if they start blogging themselves, they might not read a great number of blogs--maybe only a few favorites. Letting people know RSS readers are there is great--insisting that *everyone* must use them, however, is a tad dogmatic...

Living where I do, I'm around "average" people all the time--there's no Silicon out here in the Pioneer Valley, that's for sure--I see, and understand, how technology is NOT touching their lives. It's great that the high-speed, techy tools are out there, but insisting that they are the only way to go kind of denies the fact that not everyone's going at the same speed, or that everyone is ready to go at that speed. Heck, out here, they're still debating the importance of Forums and Newsgroups--blogs and RSS readers are almost a foreign concept.

T.

Re: Conversation is NOT Enough

Tish Grier — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 07:51:38 -0000

Hi Scott,

you're very right that conversation is difficult out here--and for many reasons. When a blog is small, it's easy to see that the commenters are looking not just to comment but also to converse. When the comments begin to sprawl, or turn into anonymous invective, is it really conversation, or just a shouting match? Having experimented with many forms of social software over a seven year period, I have a sense when something is not worth my time. But, if the unbiquitous "they" of big media have never played around with forums, or chat rooms, or internet dating, "they" might have a difficult time understanding which coments are legit and which are simply random snarking.

And your right about BW being one of the few pubs to honestly delve into the realm of interaction--as is the Washington Post (regardless of the garbage they've taken lately.) There is an overwhelming amout of lip-service given to interaction, but few who honestly follow thru.

Re: Has the MySpace Downturn Begun?

Tish Grier — Tue, 30 May 2006 09:35:49 -0000

hi Scott! More telling than Alexa stats (which can always be called into question) is the "coolness factor." If MySpace continues to lose "coolness," then its popularity will wane (which seems to be what happened with Friendster.) Trying to say what will be successful by looking at teens, esp. young teens, is a short-sighted strategy. We all grow up, we all change. Are any of us still doing stuff we did when we were in our teens, 20's or (for some of us) our 30?. And teens of one "generation" rarely do what teens of another "generation" do. If MySpace isn't officially on the downturn yet, eventually it will be. That's the nature of fads.

It also doesn't help that the most prominent folks in many communities speaking to parents about MySpace, and blogging happens to be law enforcement officials. When you think about it, that's not only bad, but sad. Bloggers need to be educating others about this Web 2.0 space, not agenda-laden law enforcement folks.

Re: 3 Million Bloggers Looking to Make Money

Tish Grier — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:54:03 -0000

Hi Scott,

I think you missed a few key points of the survey--that 44% of bloggers have published before, and that bloggers *might* be, not are, looking to make money. There's nothing conclusive to say that they want to make a living from blogging...still mostly a pipe-dream except for the 8% of A-list bloggers (most of whom don't make a living from their blogs either.)

Further, have you ever taken a good look at the numbers of blogs thare chock full of ad sense? Many are splogs making money off of other people's content. I've had my content scraped and added to these splogs (and, oddly, I think they're using blogburst to help with this) and there's no way to stop it. The page screenshot you're showing is quite similar to a splog--even though it's from a legit outlet like SF Gate, the effect is still the same. They're making revenue off your content.

And that simply highlights another problem with making money from blogging--the blogging community has a particular gift-economy zeitgeist running thru it. Gift someone with your content and, eventually, the gift will come back. Eventually. On a wing and a prayer.

Blogging's not really about making money. Blogs can be used to leverage means of making money. Blogs can be entry points into journalism or other writing professions (that's what it's been for me) but Blogging is not a means to an economic end, and most bloggers know this.

Re: 3 Million Bloggers Looking to Make Money

Tish Grier — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:36:21 -0000

Scott...

yeah, your right about making *some* money off blogging vs. making a living from blogging....two separate things. I'd certainly like to make a little extra off of my blogging, as I don't like the sploggers making money off of it.

T.

Re: The Users Will Decided Who Gets Their Content

Tish Grier — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:46:13 -0000

This whole Digg-based journalism thing's had me peeved for awhile...for two reasons.

The First is that Digg is a service for a very small niche group of people who are really into the internet and into tech (see the Pew results for just how small this group is.) What made Netscape think the rest of the world is that much into the 'net as most Digg'ers are? Seriously....

Second, what demographic constitutes this "few"? Probably mostly young males--who, for some reason, seem to have more time for this sort of thing than young females (socializing/communicating patterns are different--may be just as many women as men blogging and social networking, but are they doing it about news or about their lives? Probably more of the latter than the former. Not to mention the paucity of women in tech anyway.)

So, what may end up happening is a group of young smarty-pants guys deciding what today's headlines.

Is that going to be any better than a bunch of old curmudgeonly guys deciding today's headlines?

The money may be an allure for a short while, but over the long haul the decision to keep the experiment going will reside with the Board more than the Users.

Guess it depends on who you ask.

Re: Blogging Is the New Novel/Screenplay Writing

Tish Grier — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:28:51 -0000

hmmm....once again, same group of male malcontents arguing the same old points and stoking the blogosphere in their favor by airkissing each other's flat behinds....

It would be *so* nice to see guys doing something about the problem, if there is one, rather than just posturing like a bunch of gorillas, and then link-grooming one another.

Re: Google Acquires YouTube, Becomes the Archetypal Media Company

Tish Grier — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 09:36:26 -0000

You supply the content â€” Google will take care of the rest

including make a boatload of money for themselves.

I'm getting very tired of the "gift economy." It's getting to be an awful lot like "trickel-down economics."

Re: Edelman Shows That Control Is Still More Important Than “Conversation”

Tish Grier — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:57:21 -0000

What everybody seems to be missing in this whole thing is that a photojournalist--with 25 years in the profession--was working for a special interest and sold some of the photos he took while working for the special interest to the newspaper he worked for--which had a policy against its freelancers working for competiors or special interests.

Can you say "conflict of interest?"

Control of the message? how about one guy--Jim Thresher--trying to play both ends against the middle and make money from both the press and a special interest. Nobody's latching on to this little tidbit and holding this guy responsible for a total breech of his ethics as a journalist...

or have we given up on the ideal that journalists have ethics??

As for companies learning to have conversation--first, throw all the very brilliant executives back into retail sales at a local mall for about a year. Make them wear the funny clothes that help the brand to market itself as a Lifestyle--then make them say the awkwardly worded little speeches that go along with new product launches. Let them make idiots out of themselves while they follow customers around trying to hawk the crap du jour while people brush them away like flies on a horse's behind...

Then, take away all that crap and make them actually rely on their own personalities and the quality of the product to make the sales. Make them use the product first though. Then they'll learn how to have conversation while marketing something they really like and use themselves.

You can't know how to have real conversation if you've ceased practicing the art of real conversation. You can't sell something well if you don't know anything about what you're selling. Let them master selling face to face in the real world--without charts, graphs, lifestyle clothing and packaged sales spiels--then let them go on the internet. If you can't communicate with people in real life, there's no way you're going to be able to communicate well in the whacky little subculture that exists in the blogosphere. None of this is as easy as it looks.

just my $.02 :-)

Re: Can I Please Blog Your Private Meeting?

Tish Grier — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:03:51 -0000

I thought it kind of odd that there was so much squawking--esp. after I learned that it was indeed a private meeting for BuzzMetrics clients. That smacks of a certain level of internet clubbiness, but then again, that's the perogative of the organization to do that...and, following suit, so is it the perogative of an organization to ask people not to blog about it.

It seems like the squawking is trying to say that there's people holding exclusive meetings about this stuff that don't want the people to know their secrets--oh, as if we didn't know that already! Most blogging conferences are exclusive simply by the cost--and they may allow blogging, but they're not necessarily putting all their info out either. So, what difference really does it make if the say "don't blog this"?

So many of the bloggerati have no idea how separated they are from the people. We know what's going on--and what we can't be part of for one reason or another. This really is a giant "so what?"

Re: YouTube, Google, and Rumors vs. Truth in the Blogosphere

Tish Grier — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:42:45 -0000

hmmm...this whole thing is pretty troubling. Cuban's become a "trusted source" in the blogosphere, and could be using that trust to manipulate people. Even more troubling are the sycophants who seem to want to repeat what he's blathering about because he's Mark Cuban...and not for any other good, rational reason

if anything, this should teach us to take a second look at some of the folks that we've come to see as "authorities" and investigate whatever it is for ourselves.

oh, just noticed your MyBlogLog community thing...yeah, know the guy who developed that. :-)

Re: Transparent Ads Are Better Than Fake “Conversations”

Tish Grier — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:20:52 -0000

Dave's made a great point--there are indeed a number of different kinds of market conversations. This year we've seen some seriously bad ones, but that comes from the marketers and corporations trying to spin or control the conversation in some manner. They're just not happy with knowing the types and kinds of water-cooler or diner-counter conversations that go on about their products.

and yes, People have very good B.S. detectors, but media pros don't seem to. I'd like to point out the sad and embarassing hoo-ha that was made by some very high level media critics over LonelyGirl15, and the ad execs who are still talking about how wonderful the whole thing was? Wonderful? It was a group of self-promoting young adults manipulating middle-aged media critics by pretending to be a single vulnerable adolescent--and if a company did that sort of thing, it would be considered "stealth marketing" and thus Very Bad. The best thing to come out of that was the Foremskis putting the time in and sniffing out what many of us knew but just didn't have the time (not nec. the lack of means) to investigate, even if we knew it was b.s.

The concern, however, shouldn't be over whether or not companies are going to engage in fake conversations, but whether or not we are educating a new generation sufficiently so that they can better spot the b.s.

Re: The Underground Web Economy

Tish Grier — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:31:13 -0000

Scott: you might find this article on Kevin Ham to be quite interesting:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/busine...

He's built his empire on buying domains others might want, including misspelled ones. And even though it sucks, it's perfectly legal.

Re: Facebook Is NOT For Business

Tish Grier — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:51:15 -0000

Scott--I've been arguing against Facebook for business networking since I heard everyone go ballistic on the concept at Supernova...but for different reasons than the ones you suggest--

My reasons: because if you're using it to find potential employees, you may be opening yourself up to a discrimination suit. Remember, in the U.S. we're not allowed to ask marital status, religion, nor even ask them to send a pic with a resume, lest it prejudice us against them on race or gender.

Even if we don't know now if our employers are googl'ing us, you can bet there will be a way to find out in the future. So, if someone feels they were discriminated against because of something on their Facebook profile, there's some labor lawsuit potential...

That's probably why the Miss NJ/Miss America contestant wasn't fired because of the pics from her Facebook profile...avoiding a lawsuit.

Personally, I don't mind sharing info with the folks who've I've "friended" on Facebook, even if many of them are casual friends I've met at conferences. These are people I clicked with and would probably have a drink with. That may at some point lead to a job, perhaps, depending on the circumstances. And that would be great. That's "networking." And it's a lot less tacky than someone signing you up for his/her newsletter without even an "it was great meeting you" email.

Re: The Huffington Post Allows Top Commenters To Become Bloggers

Tish Grier — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:32:18 -0000

Two things you didn't ask, Scott, is if the commenters-turned-bloggers would be given any sort of compensation...and who gets to keep the rights...

Many high-profile companies have jumped on the idea that people are willing to give their opinions for free--and are jumping on the bandwagon to ask key bloggers to "contribute" to their projects. They promise "traffic"--which is like getting paid in copies...

But why should I write a post, have a wordcount, put up with the crap of having an editor kick it back to me for a re-write, re-write it and NOT receive any compensation...

You also didn't ask who will retain the rights to posts on Huffington. Another aspect of all this is that many of these publishing concerns that are actively soiciting for contributions are also asking that they hold the contributions exclsively and in perpetuity. No re-publishing on your own blog, nor taking that work, polishing it up better, and re-publishing it for money...

Comments are one thing--but being asked to "contribute" for no pay, and for the loss of rights over one's own words, which is what happens in lots of instances similar to Huffington's--isn't worth the promise of "traffic." I am curious to know if Huffington plans to piggyback on this now common policy of other companies.

(note: the three projects I've blogged for on a contract basis have compensated me and I've kept rights. The only one who didn'tcompensate, and kept rights, was Huffington, which I contributed to last summer. you can google and find the post.)

Re: Can Blogs Do Journalism?

Tish Grier — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:49:05 -0000

Well, Denton's just proved that the new bosses want to be just like the old bosses--and want to hire only those who've got the requisite "professional credentials" so to say. Experience, the ability to make contacts and the old-fashioned "nose for news" now have to have some sort of collegiate seal of approval.....

And the blogger/journalist debate may continue not because some don't see blogs as platforms to evolve journalism--rather that there are many journalists (and those who wax philosophically about journalism) who want every eek and sputter on a self-publishing cms to be called journalism. Thing is, a lot of it isn't.

Re: Email And Cellphone Contacts Are The Real Social Graph

Tish Grier — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 20:04:38 -0000

Scott! you sound like an absolute social networking luddite! ;-) But seriously, a very good breakdown that cuts through a lot of the hype around social networking sites, the "social graph" and anything else that's "social" online...

which reminds me of something one of my contractors said as we wound things down for the year: it was great working with me, but, ironically, it would have been better if I was in their offices regularly. Guess nothing, not even email and telephone, beats f2f for cementing a business or personal relationship.

Re: CEO Leaves Local News & Community Startup Backfence; Other Layoffs

Tish Grier — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:03:11 -0000

this is indeed an interesting development...

but let's think about small, hyperlocal newspapers that exist in many suburban communities. Most of those are free, and many don't make a huge profit. People read them for info on school lunches, what's going on at the Senior Center, and what's the latest program at the Y. Editors at those small papers often see what they're doing as a civic duty--more of a love for the community than for making a huge profit.

So, can we really expect anything different from online hyperlocal efforts? Perhaps that's where Backfence went wrong--thinking that a hyperlocal online effort could make more money than a hyperlocal print effort (when, in reality, they're pretty much the same.)

Whether a Web 2.0-ish stuff will change things is kind of a crapshoot. It helped Bluffton Today, but whether or not Web 2.0 stuff sticks with any community depends on the makeup of the people in the community and if they care about being interactive. When only 1 in 10 people who lurk on websites leave comments, there's really no way of knowing how any community's going to respond.

Re: McClatchy Buys Citizen Journalism Sites FresnoFamous & ModestoFamous

Tish Grier — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 04:36:05 -0000

Hi Rafat: broke this one on 12/15--but keep your eye on what's going on with this stuff...and where McClatchy begins to concentrate its holdings...could be seeing the resurgence of regionally focused corporate publishers perhaps?

Re: McClatchy Buys Citizen Journalism Sites FresnoFamous & ModestoFamous

Tish Grier — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 05:02:31 -0000

oops...should have said was one of the first to blog about it after Jara posted it herself on FF.

Re: Star Tribune Newspaper Sold by McClatchy To PE Firm For $530 Million

Tish Grier — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 01:09:56 -0000

but McClatchy also purchased citizen media sites FresnoFamous.com and ModestoFamous.com....maybe it's not what McClatchy's selling that we need to look at, but what McClatchy is *buying*....

Re: Star Tribune Newspaper Sold by McClatchy To PE Firm For $530 Million

Tish Grier — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 04:31:16 -0000

woah, AK! you're way off on FresnoFamous and ModestoFamous. What Jara Euston's done with those two sites is what the Strib's desiring to do with Vita.mn (which they launched in November).

She accomplished what the Strib is only trying, now.

And if you look at Vita.mn, many of its features reflect features on FF...

and why always assume it's a *male* who created the cit j site? Some of the best cit j' in this country are female (ever hear of Baristanet or H2oTown?) There are just as many women, of many ages, doing cit j and not so many male "kids" as you think.

BTW, I broke the FF story on Constant Observer back on 12/15.

Re: Welcome To Placeblogger –- Now Keep Going

Tish Grier — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:49:26 -0000

Frank Barnako's criticism, I hate to say it, is a bit mean-spirited and shows that he really doesn't get the landscape of placeblogs. If he's going to criticize the addition of alt newspapers, then he may also want to criticize sites like TVNewser, which really isn't all that bloggy (all due respect for what Laurel does at Mediabistro--but TVN's more like an ongoing gossip column--no interaction with other bloggers or with readers.)

Further, there's still the problem of blog abandonment (which also contributes to making Technorati's blogospheric figures a bit hinky) People love to start sites, have lots of ambition, but when there's no money and many real life demands, even the best-launched efforts can end up abandoned. Placeblog-type efforts launched by newspapers can end up on hiatus or completely cut when either the money runs out or the reporter/editor keeping the blog gets downsized--which happened to some friends of mine.

As for upkeep and reviews, at this point in time, Williams is probably doing most of the work on her own. As we all know,money out here is limited, and while there's money for development of the site, there many not be sufficient funding to hire staff that could track sites and write reviews. If Barnako has some spare change, he might want to ante up so Williams could hire staff and implement all the wonderful stuff he's carping about.

Re: Memo to Bill Keller: The Kids Love the Web (Also, Saul Hansell!)

Tish Grier — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:34:28 -0000

Ah, the old blogger vs. journalist debate...the meme that won't go away...

Odd how Keller doesn't even acknowledge the NYT bloggers. Yes, The NYT has some very expensively educated journo school bloggers. And that's all fine and dandy (doesn't make them better bloggers though...sorry Bill...)

But who said that all blogging has to be a form of journalism anyway? Or that all bloggers are just dying to take over for journalists--mostly by being "citizen journalists"? (no, it wasn't Jeff)

In my travels I've met bloggers who are citizen journalists, but also bloggers who are marketers and p/r people and code monkeys--and what they're doing really isn't a form of journalism for many reasons...

Journalists like to claim everything in any printed form is journalism--but isn't that really kind of hyperbolic and denies the intention of the person who is writing it? Doesn't intention count for something?

Still, what I often find most disconcerting that folks like Keller confuse bloggers like myself, who do pretty well forwarding conversations about NYT articles (thus driving traffic *to* him), with journalists who've decided to take their craft online by using blog tools. All bloggers may be created equal (via wordpress, blogger, typepad, etc) but some bloggers are more equal than others when it comes to the whole blogger/journalist thing. By that virtue, we do different things with this particular self-publishing tool. \

It would be very nice if guys like Keller would come down to where the people are and start talking with the diversity of us--rather than lumping us all under some kind of crazy rubric that fits his particular argument. If he listened, he might find out why so many of us blog in the first place; why so many of us really aren't out to "kill" journalism. He might find that some of us only want to bring in a different perspective to stale discussions that seem to be perpetuated by old windbags (read: columnists.)

He might also find out how so many of us just like having our own little soapboxes out here, to use for whatever purpose we'd like, and that our purpose often has nothing to do with undermining or destroying journalism. If he's got a bone to pick with Google, or Jimmy Wales--that's fine, pick it. But stop dragging the multitude of bloggers into it when he doesn't even know who we are.