Dave Winer on blogging
Henry forwarded a link to a Slate piece that suggests blogs –as businesses– have peaked. If you’re a regular, you aleady know my thoughts on blogging. Companies with a clue, confidence and a good blogger… can/will make valuable use of blogs. As to the Slate article, I refer you to Dave Winer who sees blogging as “part of life”:
Blogs are where new businesses will spring from. Think of blogs as being like dorm rooms, and remember that’s where Dell Computer came from. Blogging communities are incubators. Some communities incubate negative stuff, plenty of those, but occasionally a blogging community serves as the launching pad for something good. There will be a steady stream of those, and they will be on the cover of magazines, and will belong there.
Scott Adams: Advice for new graduates
- Teamwork is what you call it when you trick other people into ignoring their priorities in favor of yours.
- Leadership is a form of evil. No one needs to lead you to do something that is obviously good for you.
- Business success is mostly about waiting for something lucky to happen and then taking credit.
- Preparing a Powerpoint presentation will give you the sweet, sweet illusion of productivity.
I also kind of liked one of the commnets: “Unprofessional” and “passionate” is the same thing.
2006 Commodity Classic in your pocket
This is such a good idea. First time I’ve seen it but I predict it will be routine in the not-to-distant future. AgWired’s Chuck Zimmerman will be blogging the 2006 Commodity Classic:
All the pictures I take and video and audio I record will be pre-loaded onto a video iPod. One of those things will be country music star Michael Peterson’s performance that’s being sponsored by New Holland. Once we know who the winner is Michael will record a personal message which we’ll also load onto the iPod. And, there’s more. We’ll also load Michael’s newest CD, “Down on the Farm,” which you can currently only purchase from your local New Holland dealer. It won’t be out in stores until later this spring.
Or you could hand out some key-chains.
The Multimedia Reporter
The News-Press in Florida has dedicated two reporters called mobile journalists, or mojos who are equipped with digital cameras, MP3 recorders and wireless laptops. Their job is to find hyper-local stories that don’t get into the newspaper and to train members of the community to file directly to the Web site. [Blogspotting]
Does that sound like a fun job, or what? I wonder what kind of stories we might get if we accepted audio reports from people throughout the states we serve? (That sound you heard was the people in our newsrooms, screaming.) I can’t beleive someone isn’t already doing this. Think Flickr but “news” audio instead of images. Upload MP3 files to a big database, tagging each one (politics, St. Louis, sports, etc). Sure, you’d get a lot of crap but people would sort that out with some kind of “trust” rating system. The better stuff would float to the top…the crap would sink to the bottom.
As a statewide radio network, we sometimes struggle to get news from areas where we have no affiliate. Would it make sense for us to be recruiting and training “citizen reporters?” We have about 60 radio station affiliates in each of the states we serve. And not all of them have full-time reporters. What if we had digital stringers in 600 cities and towns throughout the state? What if we weren’t limited to 4 minute newscasts and 10 second sound bites?
Local radio stations could building this kind of news gathering effort. I remember when newspapers featured “community highlight” columns written by people in the small towns they served. It’s probably still being done.
Okay. I’m tired of thinking about this.
Got milk?
Sounds like SC and LA have lifted the black-out on the breakup: Lance used his satellite radio program to talk about the breakup, saying lots of nice things about his former love. And Sheryl was talking with Ellen DeGeneres. The 44-year-old rocker thanked fans for their support and noted that — despite the heartache — she is free and single again. “‘All my friends say I have to get right back on the bike,” Crow quipped, “‘and I keep saying, ‘Maybe not a bike.'”
Living Healthy (15) – Menopause
Recorded February 14, 2006
Altman films “A Prairie Home Companion”
“It is an imagined last show and so it’s in the context of being taken over by a radio conglomerate, which is happening to a lot of radio shows at home.” Written by Garrison Keillor and starring Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and Lily Tomlin. [Reuters story]
I always liked the Wolfman Jack scenes from American Graffiti. Something about being on the air, alone in a radio station at night. Something we’ll never experience with podcasting. That real-time connection with listeners in the middle of the night. Sigh.