Category Archives: Blogging

James Keown’s blog roll

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I arrived home this evening to find a message on our answering machine from a reporter for the Boston Herald. He said he was doing a story on James Keown who was arrested this morning (here in Jefferson City) for allegedly poisoning his wife with antifreeze in 2004. The reporter called me because smays.com was on James’ blog roll.

I met James eight or nine years ago when he was the assistant program director at KMBZ in Kansas City. I was still doing affiliate relations back then. James seemed like a bright, personable young man. I knew that he was back in Jefferson City but had had no contact with him in recent years. I was linked on his blog because he knew bloggers who knew me.

Once the story broke, it didn’t take reporters long to Google James and discover his blog. Others found it too and quickly began posting (anonymously) comments and some of were…harsh. The comments have been turned off but the blog is still up. The BostonHerald.com story included a link.

Most of today’s 600+ page views at smays.com have come from James’ blog. I suspect it will be a while before we see any new posts. If the charge against Mr. Keown is dismissed or he is tried and acquitted, will he blog his experiences?

Once again I am reminded of how connected we have become.

Quoted by Jeff Jarvis

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Back in March I posted –somewhat giddily– about being added to Halley Suitt’s blog roll (I’m still there). Ms. Suitt was kind enough to say she stopped by smays.com from time to time. I suspect she was being kind, but still a thrill.

While he’s far less sexy than Ms. Suitt, Jeff Jarvis orbits in that same blogosphere firmament. His BuzzMachine is #49 on Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs (if you go in for such rankings, and Mr. Jarvis is not the sort to do so).

Today, while reading his latest post, I came across a quote that sounded strangely familiar. Mr. Jarvis attributed the quote to “A media exec even older than I…”

Good news: Jeff Jarvis read something I wrote and thought it worth pointing to (or someone sent him a link). Bad news: I’m older than Jeff Jarvis.

As I emailed Jeff (He’s just a kid, I can call him Jeff), this is like being in the audience at a Bruce Springsteen concert and hearing the Boss shout out, “Steve Mays is somewhere in the house tonight!”

Hugh MacLeod business cards

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Bizcard

In this email/PDA/Blackberry/digital age, business cards seem kind of… quaint. Every few years I toss a couple of hundred when something changes.

Now, at long last, my (personal) business cards reflect who I am. I’m a regular reader of Hugh MacLeod’s blog and a fan of his art (cartoons drawn on the back of a business card). There’s a link on his blog where you can order your own.

Steve Rubel on corporate blogging

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“In an ideal situation –weekly or even daily– someone is pumping the weblog with fresh compelling content. But any old content won’t do. Corporations interested in blogging need to add value to people’s lives. That’s the biggest key to a successful corporate blog that keeps people coming back. So what do I mean by add value? I mean give us a reason to read your blog. Give us something we can’t find anywhere else. Provide information that your customers, partners and prospects care about, not necessarily what you care about. Be a resource and a connector.”

Three groups of journalistic awareness of weblogs

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Group 3, “growing smaller every day, is completely unaware of what has happened in the past few years. They don’t know what a blog is. They are still upset that the company started a website and they don’t believe they should have to write for it.”

From an article by Paul Conley (“Learning the basics of conversational editorial“) in which he describes three classes of journalistic awareness of weblogs. [via E-Meida Tidbits]