The Diary of Putney Swope examines the lameness of the advertising trade press and ponders who might be positioned to give Adweek and Ad Age a run for their money. It will more than likely be done by an upstart, but it would have to be one that is well financed. MediaPost is interesting, but clearly trying to just pump out tons of stories, regardless of relevance or importance, to create more advertiser space. The …
Self-Promotion Indie Rock Style
Kyle Gustafson of DCist interviewed indie rocker John Vanderslice last Saturday night before his show at Iota. Vanderslice had some revealing things to say about promoting one's own band, or brand, as the case may be. Q. Are you familiar with blogs and their role on the internet? A. Oh absolutely. All I ever do is surf the internet. Q. How do you feel about blogs compared with the mainstream music media? A. When I …
Bloggers Are Active Offline, Too
Blogads surveyed more than 55,000 blog readers and found that there are four distinct blogospheres: mom blogs, music blogs, gossip blogs, and political blogs. (I gotta think there are many more than that.) Anyway, look at the numbers that confirm what we already know; namely, that bloggers are active--not only with their time, but with their money. Here's a cherry picked summary of the survey results, courtesy of …
Southwest Puts Its People Out Front
Southwest Airlines has entered the bloatosphere with a site called "Nuts About Southwest." The airline has recruited contributors from all parts of their organization to join in. Brian Lusk, Manager of Customer Communication and Corporate Editor, gets the ball rolling, albeit tentatively. For us, the experience is a lot like going on a blind date—will our readers like us? Can we find something to talk about? And …
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Not So Fast With That Anonymity, Fella
The Los Angeles Times code of conduct requires journalists to identify themselves as such when dealing with the public. Michael A. Hiltzik, 53, a business columnist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the paper, violated that ethics policy when using the names Mikekoshi and Nofanofcablecos, not only in posts to his own blog, but on other Web sites as well. According to the New York Times, Mr. Hiltzik has been …
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“Blog” Is Losing Its Meaning
Hugh MacLeod considers the difficult time some journalists have had coming to terms with blogs. As I'm fond of saying, blogs are good for making things happen indirectly etc. But journalists seem to have a problem getting their head around it. "Indirectly" is too foreign to them. They're too used to living in the "directly" universe: Wake up. Commute to office. Write stuff. Take abuse from Editor. Collect meagre …
Blogging The Buckeye State
Weblogs, Inc. has gone local with their first metro blog. The metro they chose to explore is the great state of Ohio—really an amalgamation of several metros. One of the better posts is from Hannah Blumenfeld. It's about Anabelle's, a dive bar in Akron, a.k.a. Aktucky. I discovered that the bar's cigarettes were housed in a converted vending machine! I'd seen machines with PBR instead of Pepsi and Coors instead of …
Referential V. Experiential
Greg Knauss picked up the Kottke.org slack for Jason Kottke, while Jason was off on honeymoon. The experience led Knauss to the following observations. There are two kinds of bloggers, referential and experiential. Kottke is one. I, now two weeks too late in realizing this, am another. The referential blogger uses the link as his fundamental unit of currency, building posts around ideas and experiences spawned …