|
Tuesday, December 21, 2004 |
|
John Robinson: "I believe the newspaper's web presence should be open and inclusive, should include lots of voices and commentary and news, should feature so many blogs on so many topics that everyone wants to be a part of the community and, better yet, everyone wants to visit here, should generate revenue that we can plow into the site to make it better, should be dynamic so that it takes its lead from the market, and should engender the civic-oriented discussion of ideas that makes Greensboro such an interesting place. "I just haven't figured out how to do it." It's great to have these conversations in public. And it's nice that people worry that this conversation has been rough and tumble, or even a flame war -- that says something about the standards of discourse we can have here, and the good manners we ought to expect. I haven't felt at all flamed, and I certainly haven't meant to flame anyone -- just enjoying some straight talk between friends. We disagree, we miscommunicate, we figure stuff out, we move on. TheShu is a great blogger, does a ton for this online community, and hey, he was the first to volunteer to bring cold drinks to the blog conference in August. And he's talking about important stuff. Let's step back for a minute and think about where our local online media was at the beginning of 2004. A handful of blogs. No newspaper blogs. No real community. Now think of what we've built in a short time. It's incredible. And it's just starting. 6:26:21 PM  comment []
|
|
Anton Zuiker is planning a blog conference for Chapel Hill in late January or early Feb. I like it. Just choose a date, throw it on the web, and let it happen. Let me know what I can do to help... 6:08:54 PM comment []
|
|
Gray Weather, Grande Jatte, ca. 1888 Note to self: MoMA closed on Tuesdays. So we went to the Met instead. Sydney had a jones for some Seurat; satisfied. Many fine Van Gogh moments, a nice China exhibit, and lots of Egyptology. Then lunch at Les Halles, escargot a hit with the kids, a little Cotes du Rhone for me, and we're back in action... 4:31:18 PM comment []
|
|
EdCone.com 2004 financial report Revenue: about $1,000, almost all from BlogAds, with a couple of unsolicited donations to tip-jar. Expenses: about $1,000, mostly in donations to blog-related causes (Piedmont blog conference, BloggerCon III travel 'scholarship', tip jars), and also ads and equipment. Ad expense included: One month ad at WZTK radio website, $100. Felt it was a bait and switch, the ad didn't go in the spot marked "sponsor this page" at the top of the screen, but at the bottom of the page; they still haven't filled the top spot. Return: limited traffic. Did not renew. Four biz-card sized ads in Rhino classifeds, $200. Return: nil. Purchased one Zip drive to back up Radio software, about $100. Renewed Radio license, $40. Traffic for year: almost 300,000 page views. 9:30:34 AM comment []
|
|
Yesterday was about as cold a day in New York as I can remember. We warmed it up with dinner with old friends in the Village, then dessert at Caffe Reggio. Tonight, we are going to homegirl Kara Medoff's new play. 8:57:25 AM comment []
|
|
The conversation about a business of blogging in Greensboro continues. The Shu, to me: "If I'm understanding your position correctly, you are looking to build on an older internet model whereby the major online players retain control of their market and whatever the syndicate of smaller sites can gain for themselves is cream on top of the milk bucket." Me: "You do not understand my position. I am not looking to build a model. I'm not trying to build a business... "....What bothers me the most here is that you are turning this into an us vs them thing. You are making attendance at a pair of meetings a litmus test for being with one group or against it.
There is a gold rush, but there is gold for everyone, and it's not valued in monetary terms." 8:49:20 AM comment []
|
Last update: 3/26/2005; 7:58:33 AM .
