San Francisco Chronicle sent a reporter to BlogHer on Saturday. The reporter took note of the growing corporate influence on writers and their blogs. If the word "bloggers" conjures a romantic image -- of fiercely independent writers, untouched by corporate influence -- this may be the convention where that image begins to die. It also may be the convention where the divide between writers who want to pay rent …
A Good Picture Of Lee Clow
photo by Stephanie Diani According to Ad Age, Lee Clow will be 63 on Thursday. The article mentions the possibility of retirement, but I find the fact that Clow stands at a large workbench all day, much more intriguing. Hemingway did that. The stand at a desk and work thing. …
Women Like Gadgets. Who Knew?
There is no digital divide between the sexes, according to this USA Today article: An Oxygen Network survey released Tuesday found that more than three out of four women said they'd choose the TV over a diamond solitaire necklace. Women preferred a top-of-the-line cellphone to designer shoes by a similar margin. And a little white iPod narrowly trumped a little black dress. These are among the results of the Girls …
“Sticky Eyeballs” Is So Not The Point
New York Times is reporting on a consortium of newspapers working with an online news aggregator, Inform.com, to scan hundreds of news and blog sites and deliver content related to articles appearing on their Web sites, regardless of who published those articles. In other words, they will begin linking to the competition. “Five years ago, everybody said you have to keep readers on your site, with no links out to …
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Bogusky Blends In
Crispin Porter + Bogusky's new Boulder, Colorado office is bandwidth-rich, to put it mildly. In the middle of a long article about the agency's move to Mork and Mindy's hood, Adweek reveals how the two offices plan to use technology to stay in touch. Off to the side of the lobby, parked outside a corner office, a double-screen monitor projects the party under way. With a camera mounted on top, the unit serves to keep …
Name Names Already
Do you chafe when confronted by vacuous langauge, like "according to sources"? Henry Abbott does. On his blog True Hoop, the sportswriter says: Journlists at mainstream news outlets have a whole series of trouble they go to to avoid crediting other news organizations. They essentially won't do it unless they absolutely have to. You'll almost never see a CNN anchor say "ABC news is reporting..." But bloggers do …
Tech Titans Park Where They Damn Well Please
You know how to tell if a company is making money? You look at their parking lot. No, not just for the German engineering, for a decided lack of parking spaces. Lack of parking spaces means there's alot of action going on inside the buildings. Yahoo is one company with inadequate parking spaces, according to the civic-minded photo documentation of Flickr user, ycantpark. I wonder what Google's parking lot looks …
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Do You Copy?
Why Advertising Sucks is running a piece on the various words we use to define ourselves in this business. It seems that being a writer is just not good enough, let alone being just a copywriter. Heaven forbid. Nope. We are now Copy Strategists and Verbal Identity Specialists. Just as a web programmer who does nothing needs to call himself a "Total Experience Director," this latest industry evolution just goes to …