The Inquisitr » blogging

Watch your internet mouth: anonymous comments could get you sacked

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:56:44 +0000

If you leave a crude comment on Kurt Greenbaum’s St. Louis Dispatch articles, he’d like a word. With your boss.

Greenbaum penned an admittedly (by the author) lame piece Friday for the Dispatch, a “nice, soft edition of (Talk of the Day),” asking readers to post in the comments:

How about you? Have you gone out on a limb for a meal? What’d you try? Did you like it? Have you had friends or family who have tried stuff on a dare?

Predictably, one commenter replied with one word- the p-word, used to describe a woman’s nether regions. So Greenbaum, the site’s director of social media, did what any logical person posting articles on the web would do- he tracked down the dude who commented and got him fired. Greenbaum smugly details his sleuthing in a later post bragging about the incident:

A few minutes later, the same guy posted the same single-word comment again. I deleted it, but noticed in the WordPress e-mail alert that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it included.

About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot.

Greenbaum gets even more villainous in the comments himself, reminding commenters that he “didn’t say (the unidentified, now-jobless man) got fired” and only that he “resigned.” Although the commenter was stupid and Greenbaum’s actions were distasteful and excessive, this incident serves as a caution that nothing you say on the web is truly anonymous, and that goes double for at work. While fear of reprisal is never a really great reason to STFU, if you’re going to go out on a limb (or be pushed onto one) at least hope it’s for something better than a tired joke.

If you’d like to comment personally to Kurt Greenbaum (I’d recommend waiting until you get home) his personal blog is here and he obviously really loves moderating.

[ReadWriteWeb]

Sensible Ways To Use Twitter To Help Promote Your Blog

Duncan Riley — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:16:54 +0000

Twitter is very much this years number one get rich quick and buy my ebook topic, but there are some very sensible ways you can use Twitter to help promote your blog.

Let me say upfront though that if you believe you can get rich using Twitter (with or without a blog,) turn the computer off, walk out the door, and don’t return. If however you’re simply looking for better ways to use Twitter in promotion, here’s a few things we’ve tried and are using.

Dedicated Twitter account for your site

Lets start at the obvious one, although it’s still fairly common to see sites that don’t have a Twitter account attached to them. Some say that Twitter is killing RSS (a point of which I humbly disagree) but no matter where you stand on that argument, there’s no doubt that Twitter has become a distribution tool for your links.

There’s two schools of thought on using a dedicated Twitter account: simply links, or links and Twitter specific commentary. The latter will do more in engaging with your readers, but likewise if you already have a personal account, the simple links might be an easier way to go.

The easiest way to put links to your latest posts up on your Twitter account is with an RSS to Twitter service. Twitterfeed is the most popular service and offers a range of neat features, although the recommendation is with the proviso that in my experiences with them, they can suffer from downtime on occasion.

If you’ve got a self hosted WordPress blog, try any number of plugins available from WordPress.org.

Retweet Buttons

Retweet buttons are this years most popular alternative to the social voting buttons from the likes of Digg and Reddit, and for a reason: they most definately work. We love our retweet buttons so much we’ve mostly done away with other buttons.

Tweetmeme offers the most popular and commonly used retweet button. There are a number of other services that offer retweet buttons (or you can host them yourself) however in our testing we found that the Tweetmeme buttons get the most retweets; perhaps because they are common and people are use to seeing that design.

To maximize the chances of getting a retweet, put the button somewhere prominent towards the beginning of a post, vs following the text. We currently have our button to the left of each post header, other sites often have the button as a left indent at the beginning of the text.

Twitter comments

Using Twitter to make comments on a post is a new feature that you don’t see on many sites, although using Twitter to sign into services like Disqus or JS-Kit has been common for over a year.

The advantage of using Twitter comments is that the comment left (depending of the implementation) is tweeted back to the account of the person making it, exposing your post to others.

The competition here is with the implementation of Facebook, such as currently being used by The Huffington Post. We do neither so far (although users can opt to send messages out) but it is something you should look at.

Twitter Visitors Widget

One surprise packet for me was the popularity of a Twitter visitors widget. Think MyBlogLog or Google Friend Connect, but based on Twitter. People love leaving their details in the sidebar and promoting their accounts to other readers, and we love giving them that opportunity.

Our favorite is provided by Twitter Counter, and the widget also encourages visitors to sign up to your Twitter account as well.

I’d recommend using something like this vs a standard Twitter badge/ sidebar widget that just republishes your tweets because you get the benefit of promoting your site with an added a layer of engagement for your readers.

Use you personal account sparingly

If you’ve got a Twitter account set up for your site, use your personal account for site promotion sparingly. Maybe if you’ve got 100,000+ users that’s not the best idea, but for everyone else you run the risk of losing followers by basically spamming links, particularly if they followed you before you started using Twitter that way.

This is not to say you can’t promote your own links, but I’ve found that promoting my own links only when I really want to get the word out on a great post works a treat, because my personal Twitter followers know that I’m not wasting time with all and sundry.

Autofollow new followers

I’ve previously been cold on autofollowing new followers, but after a chat with Kate Carruthers recently I decided to give autofollow and auto unfollow a shot on my personal account and something strange happened: despite having roughly the same number of Twitter followers for nearly two years, my follower account started to increase.

It turns out that at least some out there really don’t like it that you don’t follow them back, so although I’ve been getting a steady stream of new Twitter followers for years, I was losing just as many. With automation, I’m not losing as many followers, and in the event that they unfollow my Twitter account, they are unfollowed back.

There are a variety of tools out there to automate these aspects of your Twitter account. I’m happy to recommend SocialToo, they do charge for catchups ($5 a pop for both autofollowing existing followers and unfollowing people who aren’t following you) but the rest of the service is free.

We’ve only just implemented SocialToo on The Inquisitr Twitter account, but I have every faith that we will soon be seeing strong numbers there as well.

Conclusion

The hints and techniques above aren’t difficult to implement, but they can and do work. Since reconsidering our Twitter strategy across the board around 6-8 weeks ago our number of retweets, and our traffic from Twitter (and by extension Facebook as many share Tweets into FB) have increased significantly. It hasn’t made us rich in traffic (or money) but it means a quiet day isn’t as quiet as it once was, and a good day pumps harder and longer than they did before because the viral spreading of posts is stronger.

South Africa Arrests Bloggers Critical of Government

Duncan Riley — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:08:31 +0000

South African police have arrested at least one blogger (possibly three) in an apparent crackdown on Government dissent.

According to local media, Albert Oosthuizen who runs zasucks.com – was arrested allegedly on the basis of an outstanding warrant from 1993. Two bloggers from the Boerevryheid blog are also believed to have been arrested, although those arrests have not been confirmed.

Zasucks.com has as its mission to “bring news to the outside world of the crap that has become of South Africa”

Confirming that the arrest of Oosthuizen may have been politically motivated, Oosthuizen was released from custody after the state prosecutor refused to place the case on the roll. The same report also notes that despite facing a fraud charge, police confiscated Oosthuizen’s computers and seized mobile phones in the house, including those belonging to his daughters.

Oosthuizen said in a post to Zasucks.com that he had been told by police that his equipment would be studied by the Organised Crime, Cybercrimes units “after which they may or may not bring indictments against me.”

Epic Win: US Reporter Protections Legislation Extends To New Media

Duncan Riley — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:39:58 +0000

Legislation that will protect reporters from being forced to disclose their confidential sources in the US Federal Court will recognize new media alongside heritage media.

The legislation, a compromise between the US Senate, media representatives and the White House, protects reporters while giving the government authority to override those rights in certain national security cases, reports The Huffington Post.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press were strongly recommending that the larger media coalition backing reporter protections endorse the agreement, saying that “it is a compromise we can live with and it seems to be a compromise the White House can live with. It’s certainly better than the status quo.”

While reporter protections should be welcomed, the original proposal unfairly excluded new media writers by defining reporters by the outlets they worked for. The revised bill extends “protections for freelance or citizen journalists by defining a journalist by the nature of activity engaged in.”

While the bill primarily deals with Federal law, and does not necessarily extend to US States, the recognition of new media is an important step forward in Government recognition of the changing media landscape. The inclusion of new media may also help drive efforts at the State level in the United States, and further encourage other Western countries to recognize new media in similar local laws.

How Twitter has changed the Blogosphere, but not in the way you think

Duncan Riley — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:33:03 +0000

At some stage in the last two years we should have been writing posts noting that blogging has died. “Twitter will kill blogging” we were told by self-appointed “social media” experts, and yet today blogging is still very much alive and kicking.

Twitter hasn’t killed the blogosphere. It has changed it, but not in the way you think. Most will automatically point to the use of Twitter as a tool for blog promotion, and while that is an aspect that is notably different in the blogosphere of 2009 vs the blogosphere of 2007, it isn’t the key change.

Twitter has changed the blogosphere by fundamentally shifting the appeal of casual sharing from blogs to Twitter itself. Where as once upon a time everyone wanted or eventually had a blog to share their thoughts, today much of that has shifted to Twitter.

Link sharing, a key feature of the earliest blogs from the likes of Dave Winer is now conducted primarily on Twitter, or at the extension of that, Facebook, which managed to clone much of what Twitter offered to retain relevancy. Short notes and mussings on the days events use to be the domain of blogs, and now it its the domain of Twitter, and again by extension Facebook.

The pessimist notes that this is reflected in a “decline” of blogging as the number of active and new blogs does in fact decline numerically. That’s a glass half empty approach to the numbers that I don’t share, because the glass half full in this case has switched from a $3 bottle of Pasion Pop to a mid range bottle of Chandon. Sure, it’s not Moet Chandon Vintage yet, but what’s there tastes a hell of a lot better than it did before.

You see, the blogosphere has shrunk for the better, and those left standing have never been better poised to take advantage of a space that is notable for the dying corpses of the heritage media around it.

There’s still plenty of competition, as there is still numerous survivors who meet the criteria of old, but the mix is becoming more polished, more appealing, and stronger as a whole. Some dinosaurs in heritage media might still like to talk about bloggers in their pajamas, but the reality is very different. We are now at the dawn of a golden era of blogs, and Twitter has much to be thanked for delivering it.

Mashable signs a deal with CNN

Duncan Riley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:08:01 +0000

In a decent than syndicating your posts deal, Mashable announced yesterday that they’ve signed a deal with CNN to link to their posts from the CNN Tech page.

In a serious bout of new speak, Mashable’s founder (and good guy) Pete Cashmore said in a post that “We’re in the middle of an exciting transition as social media and the mainstream begin to overlap in all sorts of interesting ways: this underlines our belief that social media isn’t some marketing fad, but rather a fundamental change to the way we consume and interact with content. We’ve been covering this transition for four years, from the rise of social networking to the birth of the “social media” movement as people began to use these tools of personal connection to pass content around the web.”

If I didn’t make it clear already, as much as I love Pete, that quote is pure waffle.

The deal with CNN positions Mashable to pull massively clear of their main rival TechCrunch on a page view basis, having overtaken the old Michael Arrington guard in April this year.

NYT subtly frowns on Deadspin’s ESPN horndog dossier shenanigans

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:16:53 +0000

A new media campaign retaliating against ESPN for scandal related subterfuge got some old media attention today.

Deadspin, a Gawker media blog, gets oodles of sports and sportscaster news related tips and rumors in their inbox. Back at the beginning of September, Deadspin’s editor AJ Daulerio contacted ESPN for confirmation of the rumors swirling around Steve Philips regarding the unhinged intern (Brooke Hundley) that Philips totally turned out to be tapping. ESPN spokespeople were less than forthcoming about the brewing scandal, and Daulerio got scooped and got mad- so he decided to devote a day to posting all the tips he’d gotten regarding sexual impropriety at ESPN.

Daulerio tagged the entries “ESPN horndog dossier,” and posted rumors about Erik Kuselias, Stephania Bell, Jed Drake, Katie Lacey and David Berson. There was even a “glossary“ posted that gave a bit of background info on some alleged less savory seduction practices common at ESPN. The intended effect was swift and painful for ESPN- the names named by Deadspin showed up in the top results of Google searches frequently late last week and even prompted ESPN President George Bodenheimer to issue a memo asking staff to quit blabbing about the constant in-house boning to media.

The New York Times kind of chided the Deadspin for their “ESPN horndog dossier” today, and ESPN only commented in a statement, saying:

“Deadspin’s self-admitted rumormongering is despicable behavior by any standard and shows callous disregard for its impact on people’s lives. It is not worthy of response and those responsible should be called to account.”

Although the Times piece seems to imply that the posts were all rumor and supposition posted purely out of spite, quotes at the end not only lend credence to Daulerio’s sources, but also the reasoning behind the decision to go after ESPN in the first place:

But in the interview (with the New York Times), (Daulerio) said he adhered to the same standard of proof as any traditional news organization, repeating only those things told to him by multiple sources with close knowledge of the subject.

He and Nick Denton, owner of Gawker Media, said the larger issue was sources being dishonest with journalists. “When an unnamed source misleads, as far as we’re concerned, they lose the right to remain in the shadows,” Mr. Denton said in an e-mail exchange.

Daulerio also contends that none of the tips posted were kept under wraps very well anyway:

“Do I bend the rules a little bit? Of course I do. We’re still a blog at the end of the day, a Gawker Media blog. The larger truth out of this, outside of my temper tantrum over getting scooped out of a story, is that this is the worst-kept secret in sports media.”

What do you think? Questionable judgment, or epic win?

A Very Wordpress World

Kyle Brady — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:05:52 +0000

Since 2003, an open source, Internet-oriented software package has done what is exceedingly rare within that community: becoming not only immensely popular and wildly loved, but also profitable. Matt Mullenweg has managed to turn what began as a fork of an aging content management system (CMS) into a worldwide empire that doesn’t even technically have a central office – Automattic’s Wordpress.

And there’s more coming.

Wordpress has evolved into one of the leading CMS packages in the world, in large part thanks to its many features and intense focus. Over the years it’s morphed from a rough-around-the-edges, but useful, software tool into a fully featured and easy-to-use content management endpoint with de facto deployment status. With built-in features like automatic upgrade, an increasingly intelligent editing interface, and an extensive plugin system, it’s easy to see why, and viewing the list of features in the upcoming 2.9 release is evidence enough that they’re moving toward a singular goal, given their prior history.

One of the complaints with Wordpress has always been relatively simple: while it’s easier to use than Drupal or Joomla for non-programmers, a basic familiarity with programming and advanced “Internet skills” are necessary to establish an enjoyable and highly functional site/blog. Themes use direct PHP references, plugins (until recently) had to be uploaded via FTP, and content was typically written externally – none of these facets of software lend themselves to attracting the proverbial Grandma as a user. Yes, the interface is more slick and friendly than their competitors’, but the Wordpress team still has far to go.

Wordpress 2.9 will supposedly see public access to easier rich-media embedding, inline image editing, and an operating system-like Trashcan – these are the most standout features of the impending upgrade, and they are definitively GUI- and Grandma-oriented. For some time now, Automattic has been playing both sides of the coin by enhancing the software backend and functionality while simultaneously smoothing over the user experience for the world-at-large, and this is admirable. It is, therefore, not a significant stretch to assume that Wordpress is intended to one day have rich functionality and extensibility, but with an interface that caters to the general public – the Gmail, Facebook, or Firefox of CMS packages.

There is, however, a problem.

Unless a user chooses the watered-down, hosted version, a site/blog using Wordpress in any fashion still requires significant setup and configuration – hosting, databases, and the initial software setup are all required elements to achieving functionality, and they all require some technological knowledge. Even worse are those sites that use Wordpress and begin to see traffic, because there is still a significant memory/load issue at its very core. The Inquisitr uses Wordpress, and I’ve always used it for my own site, business, and clients, but it is almost always heavily modified for any popular or load-bearing use.

All of us use some sort of content caching option, but a step further is still required: in my case, all sites are hosted with MediaTemple’s (gridserver) plan, with extra database-only memory resources, but in the case of the Inquisitr, an extensive hosting solution, involving Amazon’s AWS products, was necessary for the site to remain functional. How is this still a problem for Wordpress installations?

For Wordpress to achieve its high-minded goals, it needs to begin work on the core immediately. Given that Automattic has been slowly acquiring plugins and other software that advances its ideals, it would make more sense for Wordpress to come prepackaged with certain features, not as plugins, in order to enhance its basic usability – page caching should be first on the list.

Matt Mullenweg, Automattic, and Wordpress, I salute you. You’ve done an admirable job and the world generally loves you – but it’s time to step up to what you’ve created, and do things right.

You don’t want to become the Microsoft of content management systems, do you?

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Demand Media – the Myspace of online content, or blogging by the numbers

Steven Hodson — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:11:40 +0000

Right from the top I have to own up to the fact that part of the post headline is a direct rip from Robert X Cringely’ post the other day about what has to be the scummiest practice I have seen yet when it comes to blogging.

Blogger’s are always getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the credibility game and the stuff we write about but companies like Demand Media are a blight on the profession.

Who is Demand Media you might ask and what is it that they are doing that is so bad?

Well man behind the company is none other than former eUniverse/Intermix CEO Richard Rosenblatt. Intermix besides being being famous as the company that owned Myspace before it was sold to Murdoch’s News Corp is also famous for having to pay $7.5 million in fines for distributing spyware.

However what Rosenblatt, through his new company, is up to these days could be consider equally scummy. The company is in effect nothing more than a factory that spits out 4,000 articles and videos each and everyday. The content is based entirely on ideas that are the results of a computer algorithm that analyzes the keyword frequency from search engines and the ad revenue that each of those keywords would return.

Those keywords are manipulated into carefully massaged headlines by two people at a cost of 8 cents per headline. Those headlines are then sent out to the company’s raft of freelance writers who then pull together a couple of hundred words around that headline which then nets them $20 per post. These posts are then distributed out through Demand Media’s pipeline of properties or customers.

As Cringely says in his post:

If Demand Media’s methods become the way most Web sites generate content (and ad revenue), professional writers will effectively disappear from the Net. It will be just like when that meteor hit the earth 65 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs and leaving nothing but rodents.

But when publications are unable or unwilling to pay professionals to write stories or generate videos, we’ll end up with two kinds of content: the dreck that Demand Media is producing, or higher-quality content that serves the aims of the people who can afford to pay for it — corporations, powerful individuals, governments, and so on. So it’s either amateur hour or propaganda. Take your pick — not a very pleasant choice.

Like I said … scummy.

Disgraced former NYC commish Bernard Kerik has bail revoked for blogging

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:20:24 +0000

You may remember former NYC Police Commissioner and Giuliani BFF Bernard Kerik for his national prominence after the attacks of September 11th.

Once a candidate to head the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, Kerik is now in hot water due to corruption charges, including an allegation of collusion with mafia construction outfits who allegedly renovated Kerik’s apartment for free. And today bought more bad news for NYC’s former top cop, as a judge revoked Kerik’s bail for attempted jury contamination via a blog post which has since been pulled from a site promoting Kerik’s defense. (An AP article posted on the site can still be viewed.)

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Robinson ruled that Kerik’s decision to post confidential documents on the website indicates that he has no intention of complying with a court order barring such disclosure. Robinson said:

“My fear is that he has a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance, and I fear that combination leads him to believe that his ends justify his means,” Robinson said. “The failure of Mr. Kerik to abide by the direct order of this court … must be appropriately addressed.

“He sees the court’s rulings as an inconvenience, something to be ignored, and an obstacle to be circumvented.”

Kerik was stripped of his belt, shoelaces and tie. He will likely be sent to the Metropolitan Corrections Center, just adjacent to One Police Plaza- the site of his former office as Police Commissioner.

[Image: Gothamist]

Bloggers can be such gutless wonders

Steven Hodson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:17:53 +0000

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.

IAB Labels FTC Blogger Rules Unconstitutional

Duncan Riley — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:17:07 +0000

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has gone into bat on the side of bloggers, calling for the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to withdraw its new rules forcing disclosure of financial relationships on blogs.

The IAB says that the rules “unfairly and unconstitutionally” impose penalties on online media for practices, while exempting traditional media. Randall Rothenberg, the IAB’s president and CEO, says the FTC’s distinction between offline media and online media is “constitutionally dubious” by invoking the First Amendment right to free speech. Release

“What concerns us the most in these revisions is that the Internet, the cheapest, most widely accessible communications medium ever invented, would have less freedom than other media,” said Mr. Rothenberg, “These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinguish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered. The practices have long been afforded strong First Amendment protections in traditional media outlets, but the Commission is saying that the same speech deserves fewer Constitutional protections online. I urge the Commission to retract the current set of Guides and to commence a fair and open process in order to develop a roadmap by which responsible online actors can engage with consumers and continue to provide the invaluable content and services that have so transformed people’s lives.”

On the subject of review copies, of which “there is a longstanding practice in traditional media of providing products and services to journalists including freelancers, for the purpose of reviews” he writes “They—and we—are not arguing that bloggers and social media be treated differently than incumbent media. After all, most newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television networks, in recognition that Americans are embracing new forms of social communications, have established their own blogs, boards, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and the like. Rather, we’re saying the new conversational media should be accorded the same rights and freedoms as other communications channels.”

Photoshopped Ralph Lauren model fired for being too fat

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:51:40 +0000

Did you see the badly photoshopped Ralph Lauren ad making the rounds on the internet last week?

If you missed it, the model in the ad had been clearly edited- so much so that her pelvis appeared smaller than her head. While Ralph Lauren (the company) attempted to strong arm the image off the blogosphere, BoingBoing held their ground to use the image under fair use.

…instead of responding to their legal threat by suppressing our criticism of their marketing images, we’re gonna mock them. Hence this post.

As Wendy Seltzer from the Chilling Effects project said, “Sounds like a pretty solid fair use case to me. If criticism diminishes its effectiveness, that’s different from the market substitution copyright protects against. And I’ve rarely seen a thinner DMCA form-letter.”

While the company claimed that the image was mistakenly released by a Japanese department store, Filippa Hamilton, the 23-year old French model, told press that Ralph Lauren had fired her for being overweight. At 23, 5′10″ and 120 lbs., Hamilton’s face is familiar to anyone who has seen Ralph Lauren print ads in recent years, but even at her abnormally low weight, the company claims she’s too fat to fit into their clothes. Ralph Lauren admits that Hamilton was fired, explaining the termination came “as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us.”

Hamilton didn’t mince words in her reaction to the termination of her contract:

Hamilton, who had modeled for the designer since 2002, said in response: “I think they owe American women an apology, a big apology; I’m very proud of what I look like, and I think a role model should look healthy.”

[Source: Radar Online]

Unemployed lawyer gets benefits yanked over $1 a day blogging

Steven Hodson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:39:05 +0000

Unless you happened to be a very popular blog network like I Can Has Cheezeburger the chances of making a living strictly from running Google AdSense is next to impossible. However the idea that earning a $1.30 a day from AdSense could cost you your unemployment benefits makes one wonder if being honest with the government is a wise idea.

Forbes has the story of Karin (she asked that her last name not be published) an unemployed lawyer who had recently graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law and decided to start up a blog in April to help keep her busy while she studied for the Missouri bar exam. She had moved there when New York got to be just too expensive. It is important to note as Forbes did that in the US it is common, and legal, for the unemployed to receive jobless benefits from the state where they last worked, even after moving to a new state as in the case of Karin.

Her blog, STL Meal Deals, was where she wrote about local restaurant promotions and like most bloggers figured it wouldn’t hurt to run some Google AdSense ads on it. The only problem is that it has cause Karin a very big problem. Knowing that when the check arrived that she was legally obligated to inform New York State of the income Karin did just that.

It was after Karin notified the Department of Labor of her AdSense income that the confusion started. New York cut her weekly benefits to $300 and sent her a form to fill out and send to her employer. Unsure whether Google was considered her employer, Karin called the DOL to get an answer. She says a state official told her she shouldn’t have claimed the AdSense payment as income because it was “residual,” meaning a payment made for services previously rendered. New York does not regard residual income as employment pay that could make someone ineligible for unemployment benefits.

The call prompted Karin to file another claim with the state and to attach a letter stating she was running a blog and that the Google AdSense revenue it generated was her only source of income. A few days later, she received a letter from the DOL informing her that it had launched an investigation of her “business” to determine whether she remained eligible for benefits.

So for now Karin remains without her jobless benefits and has pulled the AdSense ads from her blog.

“It’s frustrating that nobody seems to have a straightforward answer,” she says. “It’s even more frustrating that trying to work and generate additional income, while being straightforward and honest about that income, is treated with suspicion and punished.”

Oh, and her income from the AdSense ads: $238.75

Is the FTC being used to marginalize independent bloggers?

Steven Hodson — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:40:06 +0000

See that line in the sand?

The one that was drawn yesterday by the FTC and their new guidelines 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.

Fines Coming For Bloggers, Celebrities Who Don’t Disclose Endorsements

AHN — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:00:34 +0000

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will soon begin fining bloggers and celebrities who endorse products unless they disclose any and all “material connections,” such as payments or free products. The controversial new rules come as the FTC updates its advertising rules for the first time since 1980.

“Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect,” the FTC said in a statement. “The post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”

“The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media,” the FTC added.

The rules will likely come into effect across several platforms online, including Google’s popular blogging platform, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, and microblogging sites like Twitter.

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FTC Ruling is a Sad Day for Democracy in America

Duncan Riley — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:46:00 +0000

As we covered earlier, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to crack down on “blogger endorsements” through a new set of rules that requires bloggers to disclose any freebie or financial relationship with the topic being blogged about.

Unlike many in the blogosphere I actually support the idea that such interests should be disclosed (the nanny state implications aside), and think in part that the implementation of the rules is a positive one. Where my blood boils however is in the scope of the rules: specifically that it extends to blogs but not heritage media.

The ruling means that blogs are treated differently to newspapers or magazines, despite the important role new media is taking in picking up the slack as old media slowly dies off. The ruling essentially creates two classes of media: one that is beyond the standard set by the FTC, and one that is bound by it.

What I’ve yet to find is any good argument as to why old and new media should be treated differently. The rise of “payola” in blogging isn’t something that has miraculously emerged overnight, but is instead simply a sign of maturity in the sector in that it is following the lead of old media before it.

Don’t believe me? Buy a magazine on just about any topic. I recently read an American movie magazine while waiting for a Pizza (I don’t buy magazines, so it’s the only time I’d read one), and the paid relationship between advertisers and editorial was so blatant as to be scary. In this magazine there was 8 whole pages of editorial dedicated to positive spin for a movie that had been panned by critics. On three other pages were paid ads for the exact same movie (two for the movie, one for the computer game spinoff.) The same Hollywood movie company had a pile of other ads scattered throughout the magazine as well.

That’s just one example, but it is a common one in many different topic areas. Whether you agree that this should be allowed is academic and an argument I don’t particularly seek to have here, but likewise how is it fair in a democracy that different sets of rules are in play if you publish offline or online?

The conspiracy theorists may well suggest that the FTC ruling is an attempt to give old media an unfair advantage over new media, and while that’s pushing the line as these things go, you can’t help but think that there might be some truth in it.

It is a sad day for democracy in America where the voice of the people is imposed with rules that the voice of those with power and money are not. Change you can believe in has become bite the hand that got you to where you are because you want to curry favor with the big end of town.

Blogging – a new way to increase university admissions

Steven Hodson — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:09:37 +0000

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

NYT Motherlode blogger Anita Tedaldi returns adopted son, sparks controversy

Kim LaCapria — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:36:24 +0000

A post on New York Times blog Motherlode has divided readers with a controversial post about a failed adoption.

Anita Tedaldi, mother to five girls and wife to a deployed soldier, adopted a South American boy who’d been abandoned by the side of a road. His age remains unknown, and ostensibly due to the rough circumstances of his formative first few months, the boy failed to develop a familial bond with Tedaldi or her daughters. (Her husband was deployed at the time.) So Tedaldi “returned” her adopted son after eighteen months of being his mother.

Tedaldi’s story blew up on the internet today after an interview with Today’s Matt Lauer, sparking an equal outpouring of strong criticism and non-judgmental support. She told Lauer:

“I loved him and I cared deeply for him,” Tedaldi told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Thursday in New York. “I tried to do the same exact thing I did with my biological children, but over time it became clear that our family maybe wasn’t a good match for him, that we were unable to meet some of his needs.”

The original post is heart-wrenching, a candid look into a situation most parents will be lucky never to face. And the outcome is a foregone conclusion – you know going in it isn’t a happy ending and that Tedaldi ultimately relinquishes the boy to whom she does not feel a true parental bond. No follow up information is given on D’s fate- whether he was able to bond with his third mother, or if his failed adoption affected his development further.

You can read Tedaldi’s original post here, and watch the Today show clip below:

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Social Media: The military to go where the Washington Post fears to tread

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:57:57 +0000

It is interesting that during all the hoopla surrounding the memo the brass of the Washington post sent to their troops about the use of Twitter and other social media services the US military has a draft memo circulating that would free up US troops use of the medium. While there were rumors a while back that the military was looking to clamp down hard on service people using things like Twitter, blogs, and Facebook it turns out this may not be the case.

In two different posts on Wired: Danger Room blogger Noah Shachtman let’s us in on a new draft memo that had been obtained by Nextgov that outlines a policy meant to clear up previous confusion around overlapping policies for using sites like Twitter. The new policy according to the memo “addresses important changes in the way the Department of Defense communicates and shares information on the Internet,” writes Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn. “This policy recognizes that emerging Internet-based capabilities offer both opportunities and risks that need to be balanced in ways that provide an information advantage for our people and mission partners.”

This re-evaluation of policy came from Defense Secretary Robert Gates following the confusion during the summer that saw the Marine Corp totally banning access to social media services while at the same time the Army ordered all US bases to provide access to those same services.

The new policy still has to be okayed by the Pentagon leadership but if it does the new guidelines would allow service members to use the Defense Department’s unclassified networks to visit everything from social networking sites to personal or corporate or subject-specific blogs.

According to the memo, troops can Facebook or YouTube or Flickr all they want — it doesn’t have to be work-related. The servicemembers just can’t claim to be officially representing the military or “have an online presence that could be viewed as representing the Department of Defense (e.g., may not use official title, military rank, military identifiers (i.e., e-mail address), or post imagery with their military uniform).” Of course, the servicememebers would also have to comply with pre-existing regulations “regarding responsible and effective use of Internet-based capabilities,” too.

image: US Army