While everyone on the web seems to have been captivated by BalloonBoy and the story’s love affair with cable news there has been another potential story waiting in the wings that could send BalloonBoy and family back to the minor leagues while they wait to be charged.

You see back on October 16 a woman and her young son were in line at an airport waiting to go through security when the TSA decided to separate the two of them – even though they are not suppose to. Now as usual in this era of  The Web the woman was a blogger and everything that transpired that day was recounted every tearful word by every heart-wrenching word  in a post on her blog.

Of course in the uproar that followed everyone came rushing to her side and cursing that big ol’ mean TSA in such a way that memories of the Motrin Affair all came flooding back. In addition of course this it the Twitter Age so the whole thing began to play out there as well. The only thing that was missing was the CNN truck in the front yard but apparently there is a writing deal in the works.

Sufficiently worked up?

Well, take a big chill pill folks because there is a very good chance that this is all bullshit. In other words it never happened. In fact in an unprecedented move the TSA got out in front of this right away by releasing  a video disproving the woman’s story. The TSA Blog followed that up by posting the nine additional videos of what happened but from different camera angles. Nine videos … damn folks talk about making sure that the truth is out there if you can get up off your ass long enough to actually watch them.

Now just as interesting as this story may have been on the surface it really is just another case of blogger sexism and we’re better than old media so we don’t have to play by the same rules game that I talked about last week at various places, including here. In this case we have a woman blogger who writes what could have been an incredibly incendiary post about something that the already hated TSA had done. It was guaranteed to get people inflamed and rushing to their keyboards to publish their god-given right opinion on the matter.

Which it did for a short while sending her blog pageviews from a reported normal of 200 per day to over 40,000 but then people started to question her version of the truth – especially in light of the TSA videos.

Now this is where we begin to see the wagons begin to circle in the blogging world as people who were calling the whole story into question began to be attacked by other bloggers. From outright stupidity of suggesting the TSA had doctored the videos through to bloggers suggesting the woman might have other problems and that we should take it easy on her.

The woman lied folks.

Yet bloggers are suggesting that she be given a pass on the whole thing. While some of the comments and posts about this whole story have condemned the woman even more of them are suggesting that we are getting all worked up over nothing and that we should just let it all blow over.

Excuse me but No. Bloggers are having a hard enough time trying to get and keep any kind of respect for what we do without someone lying about what could have been an extremely disastrous action by a Federal agency. As Paul O’Flaherty noted in a post

We are, for the most part, a pack of attention seeking wannabes. We have proven ourselves time and again to be willing to post information that is unresearched and uncorroborated. We’ve proven that we are willing to be shills for as little as $5. We’ve proven that we act as mob with knee jerk reactions. As of today we’ve also proven, not for the first or sadly the last time, that we are willing to lie just to get a bit of attention.

We can’t be trusted! Until we prove that we can be then we have no business claiming we should be taken seriously and treated the same.

If it had been a man who had pulled this stunt we’d all be handing him his balls on a platter by now. However it was a woman so this makes it different but really the only difference between the hoax this woman tried to pull over on us all and the one that will see BalloonBoy’s family in court is that CNN isn’t here – yet.

Related posts:

1. Muzzle those damn bloggers will ya – they’re dangerous
2. Bloggers’ Protection Being Put to the Test
3. Is the FTC being used to marginalize independent bloggers?

As I delve further into this whole FTC mess and their new guidelines, which you can download and read all 81 pages yourself, one thing is clear – celebrities are screwed. Now whether or not the FTC guides were this blunt before I can’t speak to all I can do is point to what the document refers to as being new.

From the FTC document (page 19 and page 20)

The Commission is not persuaded that a celebrity endorser’s contractual obligation to
read the script he or she is given should confer immunity from liability for misrepresentations made in the course of that endorsement. The celebrity has decided to earn money by providing an endorsement. With that opportunity comes the responsibility for the celebrity or his or her legal representative to ensure in advance that the celebrity does not say something that does not “reflect [his or her] honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience.” See 16 CFR 255.1(a).

Furthermore, because celebrity endorsers are liable for what they say, not for the rest of the
advertisement, their lack of control over the final version of a commercial does not warrant the
immunity sought by the commenters. Nor are they required to become experts on the product or the industry, although they may have an obligation to make reasonable inquiries of the advertiser that there is an adequate basis for assertions that the script has them making.

So in other words all those celebrity endorsers of products or services can’t hide behind “they were just reading a script” as a protection from any potential lawsuits or fines from the FTC.

I wonder how many celeb lawyers are going over all those million dollar contracts right now hoping that they comply with the new guidelines?

Related posts:

1. FTC guidelines take aim at guerilla marketing as well
2. Report: Stephen Hawking Hospitalized
3. Forbes Names Top 25 Web Celebs

See that line in the sand?

The one that was drawn yesterday by the FTC and their new <gag> guidelines </gag> about bloggers having to disclose any and all interactions with advertisers, book publishers, movie companies that might result in a review being written about a product, a movie or a book. The result of failing to do this could result in a fine of up to $11,000 for the blogger and or provider of the item to be reviewed.

In effect the grassroots of blogging just got weed whacked all to hell. Not to mention that there is a shitload of FUD being spread around and some important questions being left either unanswered or obfuscated by enough legalese to choke a horse.

Yesterday I asked some of those questions in a post here as well as making a few comments on blogs that were talking about the subject. One in particular was a post by Daniel Tunkelang, a blogger who I hold in high regard, were he was comparing the points raised by posts made by Jeff Jarvis and Google’s own Matt Cutts. Now to be clear here – Matt Cutts has come out solidly on the side of the FTC rulings which he made clear in a comment on Jeff Jarvis’ post:

As a Google engineer who has seen the damage done by fake blogs, sock puppets, and endless scams on the internet, I’m happy to take the opposite position: I think the FTC guidelines will make the web more useful and more trustworthy for consumers. Consumers don’t want to be shilled and they don’t want payola; they want a web that they can trust. The FTC guidelines just say that material connections should be disclosed. From having dealt with these issues over several years, I believe that will be a good thing for the web.

You can read the complete comment stream at Daniel’s blog but when I posted my comment I also pointed to the inequity over the fact that bloggers are being held to FTC guidelines for exactly the same thing that newspapers (traditional media) has been doing for years but without any FTC oversight.

And thus began the FUD courtesy of Matt Cutts in his reply to me:

“If the FTC thinks that this is a problem then why are not those in traditional media having to play by the same rules”

The same rules do apply to traditional media, and that’s how traditional media interpreted the updated guidelines. For example, the WSJ said “The [FTC] move is an effort to apply the same rules that already cover broadcast stations, newspapers and magazines to the Wild West marketplace of the World Wide Web.”

As for David Pogue on neither his private page full of links to his books and other assorted stuff – not a disclosure to be found and the same goes for his posts on The New York Times. Walter Mossberg has a single blanket “Statement of Ethics” which seems to work for traditional news journalists/reviewers but from what the FTC says this wouldn’t fly for independent bloggers. Kara Swisher also sports almost the exact same “Ethics Statement” as Walter but again this wouldn’t fly for indie bloggers who are expected to have a disclosure with every post that the FTC deems needs to have one.

The problem is that there is no FTC guidelines like the ones that have been enforced on bloggers and there has never been any. I have spent the last three hours scouring the web for even the slightest proof that the FTC has any purview over traditional media in the same way that they now have over independent bloggers (this will become an important distinction shortly).

In fact these are some of the quotes I have found that suggest otherwise Mr. Cutts

Never mind that TV, radio, and print publications have never had any such disclosure requirement (and still won’t).

Source: Business Insider – FTC Issues Ludicrous Blogger Disclosure Policy

The problem here is that mainstream media journalists receive goods for free on a regular basis, and only rarely is any relationship disclosed. There may be a line (mostly) between directly paid content and editorial in newspapers, but there is a wealth of other ways companies court attention from the mainstream media. It also doesn’t have to be goods: how regularly are journalists offered free trips to conferences and events, and at such events they might receive free goods, accommodation, food and even entertainment? It doesn’t even have to be that extreme: a free lunch or drinks could all be counted as indirect compensation by this criteria.

Source:  Duncan Riley – The Inquisitr – FTC targets bloggers, ignores newspapers

These new guidelines have nothing to do at all with established traditional media, and to a certain extent with the new media conglomerates e.g.: TechCrunch, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat. This was made abundantly clear in a quote from Michael Cleland, assistant director for the FTC’s division of advertising practices in a post by Robert Wenzel of the Economic Policy Journal blog where a telephone interview between Edward Champion and Cleland.

Cleland informed me that the FTC’s main criteria is the degree of relationship between the advertiser and the blogger.
“The primary situation is where there’s a link to the sponsoring seller and the blogger,” said Cleland. And if a blogger repeatedly reviewed similar products (say, books or smartphones), then the FTC would raise an eyebrow if the blogger either held onto the product or there was any link to an advertisement.

As to why newspapers don’t need to be regulated the same way that scummy bloggers do comes out in this quote

But why shouldn’t a newspaper have to disclose about the many free books that it receives? According to Cleland, it was because a newspaper, as an institution, retains the ownership of a book. The newspaper then decides to assign the book to somebody on staff and therefore maintains the “ownership” of the book until the reviewer dispenses with it….

To which Robert Wenzel quite rightly points out the following

Note: Cleland is completely clueless if he thinks reviewers’ copies from mainstream media don’t end up with reviewers and then sold. All he has to do is walk into Strand’s bookstore in NYC. They have half their basement devoted to current books that have been sold to them by reviewers.

Another good point that was brought up by Jane over at Dear Author – what are the trigger points that will spark the FTC to come down on you like a ton of bricks?

As it is the FTC is making Twitter a prime example of where disclosure is going to be watched for but what about affiliate links. After all how many people who have reviewed books add a link to Amazon or Barnes and Noble that include affiliate links so that they can make a few bucks. Are we going to have to disclose those and any other affiliate links we might use – say for advertisings?

So regardless of the FUD that people like Matt Cutts like to put forth the fact is that traditional news organizations are not being regulated by the FTC. In fact it would also seem that major blog networks like the ones mentioned about may even be exempt from this type of watchdog behavior.

In all that I have read so far everything to do with the new FTC guidelines have to do with independent bloggers, much like when I write over at Shooting at Bubbles or at WinExtra but maybe not so much for here at The Inquisitr since it seems there is a dividing line between being a paid writer and being a writer sucking up for freebies.

Other than the FUD being thrown around I still haven’t seen any solid answers to my original questions from yesterday

1. Will these same ‘guidelines’ be applied against “traditional media” and if not – why not?

2. What exact form do these disclosure need to take? Per post? Per page? Per comment?

3. Is this retroactive? Does this mean that sites like Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Mashable, – well every single blog past and present will have to go through all their archives and add a disclaimer. Because we all know that posts that are even months or years old can resurface.

4.Will book publishers make signing a disclosure form a part of bloggers doing book reviews and is it really worth the effort at that point?

5. Does the country of origin of the writer matter as to whether a disclosure is included?

6. Does it matter the country of origin of where the blog served from come into play?

7 Does the country of origin of the product, service or book come into play at all?

No, all we are being left with is a threat to play nice by a totally different set of rules that either traditional media and possibly big blog networks or face the threat of being fined into oblivion.

Talk about stacking the deck.

Related posts:

1. FTC targets bloggers, ignores newspapers
2. Fines Coming For Bloggers, Celebrities Who Don’t Disclose Endorsements
3. The FTC brings out the nut crackers and centers out bloggers.

While the tech blogosphere likes to think of itself as the center of the blogging world it is really just another player in the much larger world of blogs. As a way to share information and encourage people to become involved there really isn’t much at this point that can surpass what blogs can bring to the table.

Involvement is a key part of what makes blogs ideal for letting people know what is going on and this is something that colleges and universities are beginning to understand. Dozens of colleges like Amherst, Bates, Carlton, Colby, Vassar, Wellesley, Yale, and M.I.T. are embracing student blogs to the point that many of them are prominently displayed on the college, or university’s main page.

Of them all the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been a real front-runner where the blogs are posted predominately on the admissions homepage, as well as including hundreds of responses from prospective applicants – with no editing.

Not all colleges are willing to go to the extent that MIT has as they are still weight the benefits against any possible downsides. A lot of them are taking it slowly with plans to add student bloggers to pass along what student life is like on the campus.

“Blogs can certainly help humanize the process,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “The flip side is that a few anxious high school students may think and worry too much about what someone wrote on their blog, and present themselves in a slightly different way than who they really are. And there’s always the concern about the political ramifications, that bloggers may open up an issue or topic that starts something negative.”

But Mr. Lord of Haverford said prospective students’ interest in the summer bloggers calmed his worries.

“High school students read the blogs, and they come in and say ‘I can’t believe Haverford students get to do such interesting things with their summers,’ ” he said. “There’s no better way for students to learn about a college than from other students.”

Source: New York Times – M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree

This year M.I.T had four open spots for student bloggers which saw 25 freshman applying for them and according to Mr. McOwen, director of communications at M.I.T.’s admissions office it was a hard choice to select the final four. While many might think that the writing will be more about the upside of university life it is not always such the case but surprisingly those in charge don’t shirk from those types of posts.

And not all posts are positive. Ms. Kim once wrote about how the resident advising system was making it impossible for her to move out of her housing — expressing enough irritation that the housing office requested that the admissions office take her post down. Officials refused, instead having the housing office post a rebuttal of her accusations; eventually, the system was changed.

A lot of the early adopters in technology and social media might like to say that blogging is old and passe in light of our current love affair with a 140 characters but the fact is that blogging is really coming into its own. When universities and colleges are able to see the upside from this kind of involvement I believe it only speaks to a long life for things like blogs.

image: Mark Wilson for The New York Times

Related posts:

1. Sarah Lawrence College now most expensive
2. Emma Watson to attend Brown University in the fall
3. Media Bloggers Association launches blogging insurance program

With the launch of their Sidewiki toolbar addition Google’s “do no evil” mantra gets yet another slap upside the head. Even though it was only announced mid-morning the news of Google’s attempt to take over the conversations that are an integral; and important, part of our blogs Sidewiki is getting a lot of press from that self-same blogosphere.

The majority of the posts I have read have been centered mainly around the announcement itself and many are making note that this isn’t really anything new

The base idea of Sidewiki is old and has been tried before in different forms – like a decade ago by the name of Third Voice – but I’m curious if Google will give it a new push. – Google Blogoscoped

Over the years, numerous companies have offered services that allowed users to annotate web pages. Now, with a new project called SideWiki, Google is going to join the fray as well. – ReadWriteWeb

This is indeed an old idea that wasn’t a good one when it was first tried and still isn’t regardless of the fact – or especially because of the fact that it carries the Google brand name. On the surface the first thing to be concerned about this idea is how bad it will end up being yet another spam garden because trust me it will. The other problem comes in the basic acceptance of the service which as Philipp Lenssen suggests is more of a social one.

One of the bigger issues facing this type of app may not be technological, but social (and perhaps even legal): What happens if people loudly rant about examplestore.com, and the examplestore.com owner doesn’t feel like it’s fair that this is all written “on top of their homepage"? And what if some of the ranting people happen to be competitors of examplestore.com?

As with most Google products though the response has been mostly one of what this new service will bring to the web. The only one with any balls at the moment to come right out and say that this is a bad idea comes, surprisingly, from Jeff Jarvis.

Google just introduced Sidewiki, which enables anyone to comment on a page using Google’s toolbar.

I see danger.

Google is trying to take interactivity away from the source and centralize it. This isn’t like Disqus, which enables me to add comment functionality on my blog. It takes comments away from my blog and puts them on Google. That sets up Google in channel conflict vs me. It robs my site of much of its value (if the real conversation about WWGD? had occurred on Google instead of at Buzzmachine, how does that help me?). On a practical level, only people who use the Google Toolbar will see the comments left using it and so it bifurcates the conversation and puts some of it behind a hedge. Ethically, this is like other services that tried to frame a source’s content or that tried to add advertising to a site via a browser

I agree whole-heartily with Jeff one this one. Sidewiki is nothing short of an attempt by Google to take control of the conversations that happen on blogs. Additionally they are forcing bloggers to either install their toolbar or move to the Chrome browser that will have Sidewiki support built into it.

Sorry but using products is a choice and no company has the right to force me to use their products just so I can keep in contact with what my readers are saying. In effect Google is inserting themselves between the reader and the blogger. In the process, as noted by Martin Bryant at The Next Web, they are giving themselves yet another potential advertising revenue stream. Sure they are saying that there is no plan to monetize the service “right now” but that isn’t the same thing as saying emphatically that they won’t be.

In an interview with Joseph Tartakoff at paidContent Caesar Sengupta and Aseem Sood, Google product managers, said a couple of things that I disagree with. The first is this little gem

Sengupta tells us [paidContent that Sidewiki is “complimentary” since it provides additional features

This is bullshit plain and simple. Sidewiki might have some interesting features but the service doesn’t add anything to blogs that benefit the blogger. In fact it takes away one of the most important parts of a blog – the conversation – and locks it on the Google servers. As problematic as blog commenting systems might be, even with 3rd party options like Disqus, JS-Kit, and Intense Debate, the conversation content remains where it is suppose to – on our blogs.

The second point I have a big problem with is from Aseem Sood where he says:

“Right now, our goal honestly is to increase the engagement of users on the web,”

Sure as long as that engagement benefits Google because Sidewiki does nothing to benefit bloggers except add more overhead to their blogs and time.

Sorry but this idea stinks to high heaven and like Jeff Jarvis says: “This is wrong for the internet and, I’ll predict, bad PR for Google”.

hat tip to Frederic Lardinois at ReadWriteWeb for the YouTube link

Related posts:

1. How many ways can I tell you this is a f#@*ing bad idea
2. Who’s Amung Us: great idea, poorly supported
3. Wikia Evolution: add to Wikia Search by using Google…WTF?

And reminds us all know that the internet is here to stay, as soon as we stop buffering.

[Via Mashable]

Related posts:

1. The end of standard blog design [Mashable rocks]
2. White is the new black in blog design
3. Word of advice: get your blog content off Facebook ASAP

Just in case you missed this one the background is the following:

– an anonymous blogger running a blog on Google’s Blogger.com called “Skanks of NYC” posts a picture of model Liskula Cohen partying at a bar in a sexually suggestive pose with a caption “psychotic, lying, whoring … skank”

- Cohen gets her panties in a bunch and demands that Google release the name of the blogger.

- Google refuses

- Cohen sues Google and …. wins.

- Google hands over the user information.

- Cohen plans on suing the blogger for defamation.

Now granted you can have your anonymity ripped from you if you truly defame someone but come on – since when is calling anyone a skank considered to be defamatory by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that some judge thinks calling a partying woman a skank is somehow defamatory makes me really hope that they are responsible for making really life and death decisions.

Calling a woman a skank might be rude and heartless and say more about the person doing the name calling but it is nowhere near being defamatory. Not to mention the fact that if the person being called a skank is so easily offended by a pretty lame insult then they need some professional help.

Unfortunately though the stupidity of the story doesn’t stop there.

In light of her victory in getting Google to turn over the anonymous blogger’s information David Coursey over at PC World decides that Cohen is a “hero” and that all those spineless anonymous bloggers now need to think twice before spewing their vile opinion upon the Internet.

Hero?

Are you serious?

She might be beautiful and she might be a rich model but nothing she has done in this matter comes anywhere near the level that would deserve her being called a hero. If anything Coursey continues the current trend of cheapening the ideals that “being a hero” stands for and insult every person out there who deserves to be call a hero.

This whole thing is stupid on many levels not to mention a little frightening that it has reached a point where the First Amendment can be tossed aside so easily – because someone suffered detrimental harm over being called a … skank.

Related posts:

1. Waah: Liskula Cohen goes after blogging because someone called her a skank
2. Model Liskula Cohen Sues Google Over “Skanks In NYC” Blog
3. Poison pen wielder of Skanks in NYC revealed as… Rosemary Port?

Kind of scary looking blogger Marcy Wheeler raised a few eyebrows by using a common euphemism for oral sex on a MSNBC segment.

Marcy’s expressing frustration at lack of investigation into the recent news that Dick Cheney supressed a whole frickload of information from the POTUS and Congress, and she invokes the whole “Clinton got impeached for a BJ” argument. The anchors quickly begin tripping over themselves to apologize on Marcy’s behalf but the damage has already been done. Won’t someone please think of the children?!?

Girl, you’re making us all look like we don’t have home-training or manners!

No related posts.

John Hartigan, the Chief Executive of News Ltd, the Australian arm of News Corp has joined in with his colleagues in the United States today in bashing Google and bloggers.

In a wide ranging lecture about how News Ltd was better than the rest and how original content has a future, Hatigan’s attack on Google nearly copied the exact same wording as that used by his company colleagues in the Unites States. “The most profitable sites, in fact the only ones making serious money are the sites that aggregate news, like Google and Yahoo” said Hartigan. “They pay nothing for content produced by newspaper journalists but make money by supplying it in easily searchable forms online.” At least he didn’t use the word parasite.

Of course the fact that News Ltd can easily remove their content from Google tomorrow, and that they encourage linking via social sharing buttons on each story may have been missed by Hartigan, but facts should never get in the way of a good story…well, if you’re the head of Australia’s largest tabloid newspaper publisher at least.

Then he went after blogs and independent sites, despite News Ltd itself running a sizable number of blogs (indeed I’m reading the speech notes from Andrew Bolt’s blog)

Almost anyone can start one of these sites, with very little capital, no training or qualifications. Then there are the bloggers. In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for – something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance.

And just to be clear: News Ltd doesn’t publish blogs…oh wait, not only do they publish blogs, they’ve actually signed up bloggers to write for them.

You know though that the bash is going to be serious when someone starts quoting king luddite Andrew Keen, and Hartigan managed to offer a range of quotes from Keen…oh wait, I thought only bloggers didn’t provide original thought and quoted others extensively.

“Citizen journalists, he says, simply don’t have the resources to bring us reliable news. They lack not only expertise and training but access to decision makers and reliable sources” Hartigan says of Keen, while in the same speech noting on their coverage of the Victorian bushfires was:

Who can forget the images of the fireman sharing his water bottle with the Sam the Koala, perhaps the iconic image of the tragedy? The images that appeared on television around the world carried the water mark not of Seven, Nine or Ten but of heraldsun.com.au.

Except that the image was published online until The Herald Sun picked it up. Double bonus: the picture was taken by a firefighter, not a professional journalist. Citizen journalism at work? Lets ask Hartigan:

The fires were an example of how journalism should directly touch readers and not always remain detached on the sidelines. Alongside traditional reporting from the scene, we had incredible eyewitness accounts from readers, including amazing pics and video.

Hang on, now I’m confused. Hartigan says citizen journalism isn’t worth shit, but then he boasts how The Herald Sun used citizen journalists to supplement its coverage.

I think though the best line was when Hartigan tried to claim that the problem with newspapers in the United States and the UK was circulation, or as Andrew Bolt said, Hartigan noted “that the crashes in circulation seen in the US and Britain have not been seen here.” That may be true in the UK, but it’s not true in the US. Yes, some papers have declined, but the overall trend hasn’t been that great. The real reason newspapers are in trouble in the US and UK is a crash in ADVERTISING, figures easily confirmed by the relevant industry bodies in both countries. The trend started before the recession, and was driven in a large part by online alternatives. But hey, why let facts get in the way.

I’ll repeat what I wrote on June 16: if Hartigan really believes that Google and others are stealing from News Ltd, then take the News Ltd out of Google. It’s one line in a Robots.txt file. If Hartigan refuses to, then he has ZERO credibility on the subject of Google.

Related posts:

1. Murdoch targets Google over Google News, lawsuit to follow?
2. Media buyer claims News Corp preparing to sue Google, Yahoo over news services
3. Epic Win: News Corp Likely To Remove Content From Google

If there is one thing you can say about the US military it is that while they may be conflicted about soldiers using social media the military as a whole are more than willing to reach out to it in a big way. Everything from blogging Generals to flying Guy Kawasaki out to the USS Stennis for a 26 hour tour.

It turns out that the Navy has decided to expand on that trip by inviting 15 bloggers out to the USS Nimitz and these aren’t just military oriented bloggers either. Given the list of names those partaking of the trip are the who’s who across a wide spectrum of blogging niches

The other participants are:

• Charlene Li
• Beth Blecherman
• Jennifer Leo
• Jenny Lawson
• Pamela Slim
• Penelope Trunk
• Jennifer Van Grove
• Jennifer Jones
• Guy Kawasaki
• Bill Reichert
• Jefferson Wagner
• Robert Scoble
• Mike Arrington
• and Steve Wozniak.

Source: Andy Sernovitz – one of the 15 bloggers

You got to admit that’s a list of some pretty big names in the blogging world.

Related posts:

1. Obama doing phone pow-wows with bloggers to sell health plan
2. Bloggers can be such gutless wonders
3. Fines Coming For Bloggers, Celebrities Who Don’t Disclose Endorsements

Talk about leaving your fate in the hands of angels. That is probably how Shellee Hale who as part of a defamation law suit against her is feeling right now. One of the parts of the lawsuit is that the plaintiff in the case, Too Much Media LLC, is demanding that Hale be forced to reveal who her source was for the information that was being used in posts about the company.

The posts are part of an investigation that Shellee Hale was working on about the security breaches experienced by online services using Too Much Media’s security software. The problem is that the judge deciding the case doesn’t have the first clue about blogs, forums or even instant messaging.

Locasio started off by seeing a primer on the basics. Inquiring about one blog that Hale frequented to glean information about internet security breaches, Locasio asked why the author would spend so much time writing on one.

"Why would a guy put all this stuff on a blog? Does he have nothing better to do?" Locasio asked. "Does he get paid?"

She tried to enlighten him about the goal she shares with thousands of other bloggers on the internet.

"To inform the public so they had one place to go," she replied. "It’s just a passion that many of us have to make the world a better place."

He stopped Hale or the attorneys every time they threw out another cyber term he didn’t understand. Words like cyberflashers, avatars, cams and exploits.

He directed Hale to explain the differences between blogs, message boards and forums. He asked for a quick tutorial on instant messaging.

Source: NJ.com

This would almost be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious matter. Here we have a judge set to retire in the next month or two who acknowledges his ignorance about one of the most integral parts of the case but could end up setting precedent.

Hale would probably have better luck with Judge Judy.

Related posts:

1. AP vs Bloggers: The Mainstream Media Declares War on Blogs
2. Yes, really: Judge orders GMail account closed because user received unsolicited e-mail
3. Judge: Fake Profile Not Defamation

Nick Cohen in The Guardian runs the very same line, but in defending journalists he actually manages to show a big slab of twisting the truth himself. His example of “serious reporters and broadcasters offering a guarantee that what they say is true” in the context that “If they stray, their editors impose journalistic standards and insist on objectivity” is the BBC.

The BBC offers the most comprehensive guarantee. Politicians and lobbyists want to influence it more than any other news organisation because, despite occasional lapses, its reporters have earned the right to be believed.

The emphasis is mine, but it’s the key line: Cohen notes that there are occasional lapses. But how occasional really are those “lapses,” and are they indeed lapses or representative of a far more serious problem? Lets take a look.

BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’

Times Online (2007)

THE BBC is institutionally biased, an official report will conclude this week. The year-long investigation, commissioned by the BBC, has found the corporation particularly partial in its treatment of single-issue politics such as climate change, poverty, race and religion.

It concludes that the bias has extended across drama, comedy and entertainment, with the corporation pandering to politically motivated celebrities and trendy causes.

BBC confesses bias on religion, politics

WorldNet Daily (2006)

An internal British Broadcasting Corporation memo reveals senior figures admitted the national news agency was guilty of promoting left-wing views and anti-Christian sentiment.

The BBC is a floundering giant with no moral sense

Daily Mail (Feb 2009)

drift and too vast to control, the BBC is a floundering giant that has lost its moral compass. Hardly a week goes by without another controversy engulfing it.

BBC Editorial Complaints Unit debags the Panorama WiFi scare

Bad Science 2007

You will remember Panorama’s WiFi program very clearly. Even the children in the school where they tried to film it spotted the problems with their methodology, and they were promptly booted out by a science teacher. …The BBC has upheld complaints against a controversial Panorama investigation into wi-fi health concerns, saying the programme had given a “misleading impression” of the state of scientific opinion on the issue.

‘Deceptive’ BBC fined over phone-in scam

Sydney Morning Herald (2007)

British media watchdog Ofcom imposed an unprecedented £50,000 ($118,000) fine on the BBC on Tuesday over a phone-in scam on Blue Peter, one of the public-service broadcasters most popular children’s shows.

The BBC was guilty of serious breaches of the broadcasting code, Ofcom ruled, by allowing a young studio guest to pose as a fake competition winner on the program.

BBC face investigation over show’s phone-in scam

Daily Mail (2007)

The BBC is facing an investigation after it emerged that viewers urged to call a ‘live’ cookery show had no chance of getting on air because it had been recorded a week earlier.

The BBC complaint of the day

Guardian 2009

I could actually go on and on and on with more examples, but I won’t. Internal BBC documents state that there is an institutional bias, they’ve been proven to subjectively edit stories, and on top of that they scam viewers.

Who would you rather trust – the BBC or a blogger? Given the evidence, bloggers would have to come out on top.

No related posts.

There are two programs; both of which are Windows only, that I would never want to be without as a full time blogger. The first of course is FeedDemon the best RSS client around and the second, not mention maybe even more essential, is the free blog editor from Microsoft called Windows Live Writer. I have been using this best of breed blog editor since it was first released as a beta many years ago.

Over the years Live Writer has gotten progressively better and better but as with all software there are times when for whatever reason we end up having to reinstall our programs. Whether it be after a hard drive crash or setting up a newer and better machine we all dread having to get all our old setting back in place. Well when it comes to Windows Live Writer is can be a lot less painful thanks to a backup utility program written by Scott Guthrie (ScottIsAFool).

Live Writer Backup first made an appearance some two years ago and for the most part remained untouched as far as upgrades or new code. However Scott started getting some emails about how this excellent tool was having problems working right on XP SP3 and Vista x64 so he decided that maybe the time was right for a new build

The latest version (now 3.0!) was fully rewritten from scratch. The only code still in the program from previous versions is the code that makes it backward compatible with the wlwbackup files from earlier versions. The UI whilst still looking similar is now done in WPF, which means it has some nice little touches to it. Having had a pretty successful [private] beta period and an even more successful Release Candidate, I am now happy to release the final version.

All I can say is Thanks Scott for making a good utility program even better and if any of you out there use Windows Live Writer then head over to the CodePlex and a grab your copy of a must have utility. Also while you are there maybe throw a donation Scott’s way as a way of saying thanks.

Related posts:

1. Finally, a Mac Blogging App to Rival Windows Live Writer
2. Boxee Beta Set For December 7th Private Trial Release
3. Windows 7 RC download now officially available

Yes folks it’s official – us bloggers – we’re dangerous.

At least that is the feeling of Belgium’s Minister of Defense Pieter De Crem after his escapades in New York City were mention on a Dutch American bartender blog (in Dutch). The only problem is Nathalie Lubbe Bakker who is the one out of a job now after De Crem’s office contacted Nathalie’s boss where she bar-tended and reportedly had her fired.

While no-one if the know has confirmed whether the reason she was fired was because of the blog post itself or because of the phone call the fact is that yet another blogger has lost their job because of writing on a blog. The story has caused quite the buzz in the Belgian blogosphere and has started to branch out from there. It doesn’t help though when De Crem mouths off against bloggers in general over the incident

I want to take this opportunity and use this non-event to signal a dangerous phenomenon in our society. We live in a time where everybody is free to publish whatever he or she wants on blogs at will without taking any responsibility. This exceeds mud-slinging. Together with you, other Parliament members and the government I find that it’s nearly impossible to defend yourself against this. Everyone of you is a potential victim. I would like to ask you to take a moment and think about this.

He also stated that he is going to be seeking legal counsel in order to defend his personal integrity. Well you do that buddy but I tell ya what – it might help if you stopped getting drunk in a public bar on your Belgian taxpayer dollars.

Related posts:

1. If you’re dangerous, it’s best to keep away
2. Watch out mommy-bloggers those daddy-bloggers are catching up
3. Bloggers headed to the sea

I’ve seen more than one blogger whining about this invasion of their sidebar with ads that offend their sensibilities and declaring that they are taking down their only source of income until after Tuesday. Wow, that’s gonna accomplish a lot isn’t it. Take about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Instead of getting all outrage why not employee a little bit of guerilla advertising to the situation. Here’s one suggestion for you to try

Step 1 – see that graphic up on the right of the post? Right click on it and select to save to your hard drive.

Step 2 – upload that graphic to your blogging server where you have all your other pictures for your blog

Step 3 – Head into your blogging platform Admin area and add a widget to the sidebar.

Step 4 – Add an image link to the graphic to your text widget – to make it look nice put it in a div with alignment set to center.

Step 5 – Add a nice little caption to the widget thanking Google for giving you this opportunity to raise some extra money but you are morally outrage that they do it by serving up ads like to one for prop8 (either side of the coin). You can probably vary the text but you get the idea – right?

Step 6 – title the widget and then activate it.

Step 7 – now write up a post about what the new sidebar widget for and how you are really pissed at Google but rather than ripping out the ads you will take any money raised through any of the displayed prop8 ads and donate it to the local aids clinic or some similar local organization that supports your side of the coin.

Step 8 – Post it

Step 9 – make your donation – take pictures – post about it again thanking Google.

You accomplish a lot more doing stuff this way because if you really think that Google is going to really give a shit about what a bunch of whining bloggers have to say about how ads are being served up yer nuts. The fact is that when it comes to advertising Google is all about money and it has no conscience in where that money is coming from. So rather than sitting around whining your moral outrage over this do something constructive and help out your side of the pointlessness.

But whining to Google is just pointless.

Related posts:

1. Google offering political video search based on speech recognition tech
2. Adsense context advertising fail
3. Watch out mommy-bloggers those daddy-bloggers are catching up

These blogs have built up strong brands that are worth a lot of money because they do one simple thing exceedingly well – they deliver news about their segment of the market and only that news. They might deliver it with varying styles or attitudes but the readers; and the advertisers, know that they aren’t going to get blindsided by some unrelated rant or tirade. In effect these types of blogs have become reliable media and in a sense have grown past the typical concept of what a blog was; or in most cases still is.

Then we come to the world of the tech blogger which really has become nothing more than a catch all phrase for people who write; with varying degrees of professionalism, about technology as a whole. One day the subject du jour could be some hot new start up, the next day it could be how much of an asshole some particular blogger is. In most cases it seems more like a cut and paste pile on instead of any real reporting about what is going on. The lucky thing is that for most of the bloggers who have made it to the top of this tech blogging field they seem to be forgiven by their readers when they lash out at something or have a rant about someone – as long as it remains within the boundaries of technology.

But when supposed tech bloggers suddenly post something that has nothing to do with technology the readers become very uncomfortable. This has been seen lately to a very large degree with personal political opinions becoming standard fare on some of the leading tech blogs. It has been interesting to see the backlash against this as commenter’s are expressing their displeasure with this departure. The typical response from people like Dave Winer, Robert Scoble and others is that this is my personal blog and I can express what I want which I guess is all well and fine but they do it with the risk of damaging their brand.

I remember back in July of last year writing an open post on WinExtra to Chris Pirillo who at the time was posting quite a bit of controversial types of things that I felt could come back to bite him on the ass:

 

All that said and returning to your once wishful private blog much of what you have been writing about in the past little while is enough of a borderline controversial type of stuff that it can make advertisers very very nervous. Advertising by its very nature abhors controversy not to mention gets real pissy when you go attacking the status quo which is what you are doing. Yes you have pointed out that you have every right to post what you feel and that you think that showing everyone that you are more than just a tech blogger is important.

Unfortunately the people that you want to emulate have nice secure positions where as you Chris survive because of advertising dollars and with the rise of the Pirillo brand you are walking a very precarious tightrope. Can you really afford to keep making the hand that feed’s you and your any more nervous than some of them may already be?

 

I would say much the same thing to many of the tech bloggers who are using their personal tech oriented blogs as soapboxes for their strictly personal viewpoints. I’m not suggesting in the slightest that they should shut up or otherwise stifle their thoughts but come on guys domains and hosting is a dime a dozen don’t endanger your brand by being cheap – take it elsewhere.

People are coming to your blogs because they want to know what you are thinking about technology; and yes if that technology is being impacted by politics then fine talk about it but if it is a tirade against some political party or some apparent sense of racism take it elsewhere. As much as the leaders in the tech blogging field would deny it; some more vehemently than others, the fact is they are brands. Dave Winer is a brand, Robert Scoble is a brand. Just because a blogger doesn’t hide behind a company identity that can be brandable it doesn’t change the the fact that an individual can equally be a brand.

Just as a company brand can be damaged by the actions of its employees so can an individual blogger brand be damaged by the words and actions that their readers don’t associate with the reason they come to read.

Related posts:

1. Muzzle those damn bloggers will ya – they’re dangerous
2. Silicon Alley Insider relaunches under Business Insider brand
3. The FTC brings out the nut crackers and centers out bloggers.

Thanks to a tip from Gabe Rivera, the allied forces against the AP according to the latest headlines on Memeorandum are broad indeed (click the image to enlarge).

The only difference between the different parties so far has been tactics. Many have been supporting the call first made by TechCrunch to boycott all AP stories, yet Kos is calling for the exact opposite, telling bloggers they should be quoting more AP stories, and large chunks of AP text to force AP to test its threats in a court of law.

We now await the next move from big media. See our previous story on AP vs Bloggers here.

Related posts:

1. The Myth of Parasitic Bloggers, and other consequences
2. Obama doing phone pow-wows with bloggers to sell health plan
3. AP vs Bloggers: The Mainstream Media Declares War on Blogs

But lets look a little deeper here, because this isn’t a case of one small media company taking on blogs, this is nearly the entire print media, and for good measure television and radio as well. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which is the vast majority of all mainstream media outlets. Through AP the mainstream media has declared war on blogging, and established law isn’t going to stop them trying to milk every last cent they can from bloggers who may not know any better, and like the music and movie industry before them, they will attempt to pick off blogs one by one with legal threats. Internecine warfare perhaps?

Could it also be the last throws of an empire of news exclusivity that stands on the precipice of defeat? Perhaps not into oblivion in a Battle of the Bulge, but more along the lines of the The Second Battle of the Somme? I don’t subscribe to the mainstream media will die meme that is often a popular call in some blogging circles, but there’s little doubt, proven by evidence that the mainstream media has entered a period of contraction in the English speaking world, a contraction of which at the moment knows no end.

The real question going forward is whether the mainstream media, through its proxy the AP, ends up having a serious case of Third Reich delusion in these closing days of the news war and will only stop when it is finally killed, or whether they realize soon that the battle cannot be won and instead aim for a peaceful resolution. Make no mistake, the AP has about as much chance of winning this as New Zealand would have if it tried to invade the United States.

Related posts:

1. Newspapers Last Stand: AP declares war on fair use, blogs
2. Forget MSM or Old Media, Heritage Media is the term
3. The Myth of Parasitic Bloggers, and other consequences