Citizen-Generated Media (CGM)

Those Who Forget The Past…

Does a dead rocker have anything to say about the current efforts to censor video games?  In the 1980s, Tipper Gore was on the warpath about obscenity in music, and she was challenged with unusual eloquence by the one and only Frank Zappa.  His testimony survives, and has caused one more recent blog to ask, “Where’s the Frank Zappa of today?”

Making a Living as a Blogger?

The panel I attended the other night led me to some conclusions that this market is beginning to establish itself on an economically-viable scale. This brings up the question of just how do bloggers make money? Journalists and other writers make a living in both freelance and more traditional, company environments. Bloggers have been accorded the same opportunities and therefore should have the same responsibilities.

Advertising often plays a major role as the driver of compensation in the blogosphere. Advertisers can reward bloggers who inspire large or passionate audiences. Advertisements establish a clear space and format on the site. They also enable blog readers to buy goods and services from companies or individuals who appreciate blogs that support their beliefs. Moreover, ads are expected.

In considering the likes of Nick Denton, Arianna Huffington, and Jason Calacanis, it is important to understand they represent the small minority in the blogosphere who are actually making a living. Mark Cuban does not need to blog for his living; he just likes it and is good at it, and his blogged opinions often reflect upon his overall business strategy, whether that be HDTV, search engines, or the simultaneous release of theatrical films and their DVDs. These people have developed their reputation and following, often within the very same MSM with which they are now competing. Writing in general has long been driven by a starving-artist factor. In its early form, blogging is certainly no exception to this rule.

Writer’s Panel Featuring Gawker’s Jesse Oxfeld

I attended a Learning Annex Panel on tips for writers.  The Learning Annex is a continuing education for niche topics juggernaut run by William Zanker.  A juggernaut this panel was not.  While the speakers included Oxfeld, who was knowledgeable enough along with the other two speakers from People Magazine and the New York Post, the format was disheveled and the group unprepared to meet the audience expectation.  It did get a little better as time went on, but most people left disappointed I felt.

Tracking Everything

Google has just announced the acquisition of MeasureMap, software that allows bloggers to track their viewership through the use of sophisticated web analytics.  Pretty soon, one will have to renounce the use of electricity and move to the South Pole if remaining off the surveillance grid is top priority.  But for tracking your blog’s visitors and lurkers and determining what pattern of use they forged, tools like this are invaluable.

Blogging Goes Mainstream!

New York is a small limited circulation magazine sold mostly to locals who value the restaurant tips and entertainment reviews.  What makes it stand out from similar magazines in Houston or Denver is the waterfront it covers – the down-and-dirty trenches and foxholes of Manhattan, where new trends come to breed.  The cover article on this week’s New York is entitled “The Blog Establishment; The Emerging Hierarchy of the New Media” by Clive Thompson, and it explains how blogging, like every other human endeavor, has created a hierarchy and an aristocracy.  This article and Dave Sifry’s State of the Blogosphere constitute a good introduction to this ever-changing media target.

Dave Sifry’s Technorati Charts State of the Blog Union

By periodically re-visiting his State of the Blogosphere report and by continually revising it, Dave Sifry has begun a series of portraits in blogospherical time, that will comprise, when all added together, a history of the rapid growth and helter skelter expansion of this most personal of the new Internet modalities.  We are now at 28 million weblogs and counting. About ten per cent of them add new posts weekly. How far can this grow before it hits its natural glass ceiling?  What to do about “splogs,” the inevitable moniker for spam blogs?  Why have tags taken over as the primary blog naming convention?  How are blogs affecting the mainstream media? Why is the Magic Middle more important to the fate of blogging than the Long Tail?  Sifry’s metrics are going to go a long ways toward defining the lightning in a bottle that the blogosphere has become.

Ugh, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow…

OK, I deplore this holiday?  Although it origins are from a medieval development of a Catholic Church feast day, I really know it is a Hallmark and Cosmopolitan conspiracy designed for the increased stress of all men.

WSJ Bites Back

It was inevitable that the mainstream media would begin to turn their flashlight on their newest set of perceived competitors, the blogging world.  The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Buckman wrote an article in today’s edition: “Blog Buzz on High-Tech Start-Ups Causes Some Static” suggests that those who are financially interested in a new technology get some free commentary on same in the wild and woolly blogosphere.  One of those “outed” individuals, David Weinberger, reluctantly comments on this article on Joho the Blog, his blogsite.

Web 2.0 Basharama

I thought I might beat a dead horse a bit more in reviewing some excellent comments made by Fred Wilson. I touched upon some of these ideas back in an October post, but Fred’s descriptor of Web 2.0 as an oxymoron is quite a compelling read as a follow on and I am writing a more thorough article along these lines as well.  Look for more on this topic in the coming weeks.