Monday, July 25, 2005

N&R coverage sparks homefront help for service families. 6:32:05 PM   permalink   comment []

OPML Editor, new software from weblog and podcast pioneer Dave Winer. "If this works, people with great ideas should arrive shortly. Maybe you're one of them? If so -- I've been waiting for you!" 2:37:32 PM   permalink   comment []

I'd love to see an N&R blog that linked to stories like this one. It makes sense for the paper to focus on local news, that's its big value-add and its most defensible turf, but the web makes it easy to digest large quantities of info that falls between the cracks of AP headlines and regional reporting. As shown by the reader feedback on dropping Friedman's column, a lot of people still look to the local paper as a portal to the larger world. A news editor's blog might fill a really useful niche for N&R readers -- just a sentence and a link on several stories a day, and maybe a digest page with links in the next print edition. 12:49:21 PM   permalink   comment []

A comment at the Truth and Reconciliation blog: "yall need to realize that this town is ripe for violent actions. Maybe you should just cut your ties now and end this communist agenda before somebody gets hurt. The time is getting near. We will not allow terrorists to continue to brain wash people. End the commission." Serious? A prank? What would you do if you got that message? 9:31:13 AM   permalink   comment []

Dave Winer recommends JR's blog guidelines, but objects to "the bit about representing the newspaper. I think it should be the other way around, the newspaper represents them. A blog is the unedited voice of an individual. Robinson seems to agree with that, so how can a blogger represent an organization? What does that mean? What's the practical side of that?" As a practical matter, this one seems easy to me: the blog you write as a newspaper reporter is your personal voice -- but the person you are is not You Out With Friends, it's You At Work. Honest and personal, yes. Unfiltered, no -- and the filters we use at work are specific, different from the filters we use in social or other situations. You get to use the platform of the company, you have to respect certain rules set by the company. As a philosophical matter, the question becomes, is it then still a blog? Is a "blog" anything created with blogging software? Are we talking about a generic publishing medium that is not defined by content, just as a pad and pen remain a pad and pen whether used to compose a sonnet or a grocery list? I think so. A blog used by ten people within a company to manage a project is still a blog to me. That's part of the power of the tool. 9:24:54 AM   permalink   comment []

A blogger get-together tonight at The CoffeeXchange in Asheboro, for all interested Randolph County bloggers. (Am I anal for not calling it a "Meetup" just because it's organized with Google Groups instead of Meetup? Are there reasons that one service is better than the other for this kind of thing?) 9:04:22 AM   permalink   comment []

People love to hate Jim Melvin. He's a powerful guy with a long track record in public life, and his style can be bulldozerish. Me, I hate the game not the playa, but I have to admit that this is one of the most ill-conceived marketing ideas ever, um, conceived. 8:59:22 AM   permalink   comment []

Chris Lydon's PRI blog/radio venture, Open Source, gets a nice plug in the NYT... ...while Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom (soon to be in Greensboro for Converge) gets a little love from Sarah Boxer. 8:49:33 AM   permalink   comment []