At Christmas, a good friend gave me a day calendar that has somewhat offbeat sites for each day. Some are long gone - such is the web - some are truly odd. This one is interesting - it’s based on artificial intelligence (I must like it because I have none of my own). Pick a movie, an author or a book, or music and enter it in this site. It will map other works or artists that are similar and you can follow the trail of authors or music, learning of new groups or new books to try. The music one is like a visual verion of Pandora without the music. The books & authors one was fascinating - I put in an author I liked and wham! there was a whole cloud of names, many familiar favorites, and many new ones.

Former Nashvillian and Hootervillian, ariedana is starting something rather cool on Twitter.

So, through a series of very interesting series of Twitter discussions about it, I’ve formulated this rough sort of plan.

1. If you’re on Twitter, and if you or someone else on Twitter or someone close to you is going through illness, death, painful life changes or any of the sort of things that make you feel really alone sometimes, post about it to Twitter and hashtag it #spreadthelove.
2. If you see the Tweet, take the name into your heart somehow. Some of us would want to say a quick prayer for the person, others might have their own prayer rituals or circles to participate in, or just simply thinking some good thoughts and “sending” energy through your own means.

Some of you are completely atheistic and may think any of this sort of thing is complete hogwash. That’s your right to believe, and this is not intended to turn Twitter into some huge religious prayer gathering. It’s just a chance for us all to care for each other as the family that some of us have become a part of. All I ask myself is for you to not mock our faith and beliefs and not turn it into something that’s met with expressions of annoyance or mistrust.

Because this is intended to be a positive community effort to do one thing — care. No money is involved at all. This is not intended to be a means for anyone to ask for money or help. Any attempts to do so would invite abuse, and that would ruin the action.

Ariedana used to work at WKRN and is now in Huntsville.

It is of the good.

The Nashvillest is pretty darned groovy if you ask me.

Ceeelcee pontificates about life in the new age.

I was listening to “This American Life” last weekend, (yeah I’ve got a yellow-dog liberal streak down my back, screw you, righties!) and David Rakoff told the story about Vinny Ricardo, who was found dead in his New York apartment after mummifying for over a year. Tragically, with the television on.

It got me to thinking, I pay all my bills via electronic transfer. My doctor and my dentist know that I’m responsible enough to make my own appointments on a regular schedule. The folks where I work know that I’d just as soon disappear to my cabin in Sewanee some day forever anyway and catch up on forty years worth of reading and bird watching.

He goes on to say, if you don’t hear from him on Twitter or on his blog, check up on him in case he’s deceased.

Lovely thoughts this a.m.

Jim at the FBI Memos talks twitter.

Now, email is old school. Adults send three emails for every text. With teens, it is the other way around. Young consumers play by their own set of multi-tasking, micro-messaging rules. And most marketers are failing at getting any message through to them. In a world they completely don’t understand, marketers just assume more is better, and they increase the frequency of their old school messages. This is a generation that can do homework, chat on Facebook, keep up with Twitter and text messaging, all at the same time. According to a 2007 study by MTV and Microsoft, 14-24 year olds have an average of 53 people they consider friends. Multi-tasking is all they’ve ever known. They can filter the noise out.

From former Nashvillian Brittney Gilbert.

Then: “Blogging will be the death of legitimate, long-form journalism.”

Now: “Twitter will be the death of legitimate, long-form blogging.”

Then: “I would never have a blog.”

Now: “I would never have a Twitter.”

She’s right.

Twitter is interesting to me. I’ve seen more news broken on Twitter that sometimes takes up to an hour to make it to mainstream news sites.

The Uncle also weighs in.

Smiley isn’t smiling too much about the new way that the City Paper is distributing their news.

I thought I would keep reading it online, especially since they claimed they would have their comics on the website. Nope. It’s two new crappy comics and a link to a site where you can pay to view old B.C. strips.

What I really miss is the copy that would invariably be folded up and stuffed between the wall and the bathroom stall door.  The articles were edited to be exactly one dump long.  I’m not gonna carry a laptop into the sh**ter with me.

Chalk me up as a reader who apparently wasn’t ready to make the leap away from the print edition.

A way with words CeeElCee has there about bathroom reading but also sage advice to news outlets?

Do you guys like it? Hate it? Think it’s good cat box filler? Think it’s inspired? Opening doors to new media? Not enough comics?

What say you?

A couple of days ago Internet users who have AT&T (formerly BellSouth) as their ISP found themselves without Internet access. For some, like myself, it lasted roughly an hour. For others, the outage went on for several hours interrupting business and personal communications. And I will admit, I was a bit “freaked out” when I discovered that my Internet connection was gone. What will I do? How will I communicate with the outside world? I panicked, ever so slightly, then proceeded to make sausage cheese balls since my primary way of coping with stress is through eating. And when my Internet access was restored? All was once again “right” with the world.

Pathetic. I know.

But what’s even more disturbing is this statement from an article on Yahoo! about Internet addiction:

Meanwhile, mind docs say the problem is growing, now possibly affecting up to 10 percent of Internet users. Recent studies are surprising, indicating the problem is worst not among game-obsessed teens, but rather among middle-aged women who stay at home, constantly on the computer as a way of connecting to the outside world. (emphasis mine)

No, I’m not middle-aged (yet) but I guess I’ll just have to come clean right here and now.

Hello. I’m Malia. And I’m a Internetaholic.

So to “get out” more and actually physically connect with the outside world, I’d like to propose a road trip.

Crossville anyone?

(h/t Suburban Turmoil)

Adobe has launched a new web-based service: Photoshop Express. It’s an online version of their design industry standard photography editing and image creation/editing software available for everyone (with a broadband connection). They give you 2GB of online storage free. The URL is https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

A. C. Kleinheider, formerly of Volunteer Voters (is there a need to link to a defunct site?) has been hired to blog by The Nashville Post. Congratulations, Adam.

H/T Newscoma

Remember a few months back, when I first showed up around here, and I posted a long rant about how iTunes should add a subscription service to its offerings?

At the time, I encountered a lot of resistance from people who felt it was imperative that they “own” their music and not run the risk of “losing it” if they can’t afford the monthly “rent.” All I ever advocated was that an “all your ears can eat” service be offered on iTunes in ADDITION to a “pay-per-download” model.

Now it seems that Mr. Jobs has finally heard my plea. There are all kinds of reports in the tech press today that negotiations are now afoot for just such an eventuality. Now, what I’m reading is that Apple wants to add some nominal fee — like $20 per — to the price of its iPods and iPhones; if that’s a one-time charge, it seems ludicrous to me — it should be that much per month, in perpetuity, for whoever wants to pay it. I for one would gladly shell out $20/month, if it means that for the cost of 2 CDs, I can listen to as many new releases as I want to. There are lots of things I’d like to hear, but not so much that I want to buy outright. This way, if I hear something and it knocks me out, I’ve always got the option of buying a copy for my own collection.

I sure hope the negotiations bear fruit. –PS

I heard about this new website on Good Morning America, this morning. It’s WOWOWOW.com and it was founded by some really amazing and frankly, powerful, women in our country. There are CEOs, writers, the co-founder of Sesame Street, news reporters, entrepreneurs, actors, and so on. It has a “blog” sort of feel in that there are posts that can be commented on. The posts are authored by the site’s founders and guests contributors. My favorite feature is the “Question of the Day” where a question is posed and many of the site’s founders submit their answers, then readers can answer the question as well or comment on what others have written.

It think it’s a very intriguing concept to have these well known women put their ideas and opinions out there in a very accessible way. My hope is that they will stay committed to this site and not let it get stale or overrun with the same people posting and commenting all the time. Go check it out and tell me what you think!

This is a perfect explanation of Twitter, and why so many of us enjoy it.


Special thanks to Sleepy Dad via Newscoma who got it from fishwreck! How’s that for hat tips all around?

I have read a lot of explanations before from bloggers who drop off on posting, but this made me laugh out loud this morning:

1. I have a job already, and in exchange for doing that job I get this stuff called “money.” I can tell you with a relative degree of certainty that money pretty much rocks. That’s what allows me to buy booze, and never underestimate the importance of that. When this website starts paying me in vodka you will see dedication the likes of which you’ve never witnessed before. Until then a girl’s got to prioritize.

2. I rather enjoy spending time with my spouse, which is pretty much why I married him. That and his enormous schlong.

There are more hilarious excuses over at Sparkles Plenty.

I wanted to let you know that I took Nashville is Talking off of the MCB aggregator this morning because with their shiny new format, their feed had become basically an aggregator into our aggregator.

We love our friends over at NiT, so it’s nothing personal whatsoever…

Go take a gander at their new format!

Then, y’all be sure and come back here now, ya hear?

Update: Christian has fixed the feed to where it now only features his “Noteworthy” posts, so I have added NiT back to the aggregator.

A Nashvillian, who doesn’t have a blog that I can find, was named reader of the day on Pop Candy this morning. Her name is Bryn C.

It got me wondering about the different kinds of way we communicate. Many newspapers are utilizing online media in different ways by, of course, including their own mini-blogs. The Tennessean does this as well. 

Obviously, it allows people to get published on a mainstream media entity. But it also gives more ownership to readers. And I can’t help but think it’s perplexing for traditional media addressing the concerns of how new media actually operates with citizen participation.

I guess my question is are you a part of an online media community that hosts your blog? Pop Candy, which I think is extremely innovative and fun, spotlights their readers pretty regularly which is extremely clever. In watching media, it’s interesting to see how all of this is going to play out when mixing traditional media and the organic nature of some online communities such as Nashville is Talking, MCB, Volunteer Voters, No Silence Here, Tennessee Free, TennViews or KnoxvilleTalks (granted Volunteer Voters, Knoxville Talks and Nashville is Talking are owned and operated by television stations but have one primary author/administrator. And there are many more communities but these are just a few.)

On another note, I wonder if new media has anything to do with this?

Rex Hammock tries to explain Twitter which is virtually impossible to do, but he does a pretty good job of it.

Like the Internet itself, Twitter is hard to explain because it doesn’t really have a point. And it has too many points. Here’s what I mean: All it does is provide a common-place to relay short messages to a group of people who agree to receive your messages. Here’s the second part of what i mean: When you stop thinking those short messages aren’t limited to “I’m about to get on the elevator” but can be eye-witness accounts of breaking news stories or bursts of business-critical intelligence, or warnings that a gun-man is loose on campus, or shared conversations about political debates you and your friends are watching on TV, the possibilities of what can be done using Twitter becomes amazingly confusing — I think in a good way.

I find that Twitter is pretty effective in getting a message out fast (an example would be morning traffic or breaking news), it can be silly and it can be annoying at times as is life. It also can promote your blog.

How does one describe Twitter? Go read Rex’s post and it might give you some insight about it all.

“Come out, come out wherever you are!” could be the title of a lawsuit filed in Davidson County on Monday wherein a couple living in Old Hickory Village are suing an anonymous blogger(s) for libel and invasion of privacy.  According to The Tennessean,

The lawsuit would be difficult to win because of free speech protection under the First Amendment, according to Robert Cox, president of the New Rochelle, N.Y-based Media Bloggers Association.

The Swartzes would have to prove that the postings are malicious because the couple is in the *public eye, said Cox, who is not involved in the case. Don Swartz is a town engineer in Nolensville, and both Swartzes have been part of the Old Hickory Village Neighborhood Association.

I’ve often been concerned yet grateful for the anonymity of the Internet… very much a mixed reaction for sure.  I believe that Big Brother is watching our sites (scary enough), but there are also about a kazillion “little brothers” also watching who are ready to plunge a knife in your back.   To those trolls I can only say, “Bite me, you anonymous coward.” 

However there are times when anonymity is important.  Perhaps in a case where someone fears for his or her job if they were to become a whistleblower, and yet information has to get out in order to right a wrong.  For example, and this happened to a friend of mine, you work at a nursing home and know the head nutritionist/dietary technician is being forced to buy substandard food by the administrator.  If you go public, you get fired.   If you don’t, patients with no families to watch over them continue to eat food on the verge of rotting.  Anonymous can work in this situation

Going back to the * in the newspaper pull-quote, the next issue that begs to be addressed is whether we are “public figures.”  If someone started writing anonymous nasty posts about us, we may not have recourse because we’ve crossed over from private citizen to being in the public eye (therefore public figure) by virtue of writing here, commenting there, and writing on other sites that are easily accessible with one Google click.  For example, I’ve written about my hometown in Kentucky where extensive members of my family still live.  Bear with me on this… a good friend of mine called the other night to tell me a parent in another Girl Scout troop called her leader asking who I am because she’d done a Google search looking for a troop in this small town (my hometown) they are moving to.  Their search looped back to me - it was ironic we both live in middle Tennessee - and in an instant I became a spokesperson for the small town and that Girl Scout community.  If it’s something more nefarious than a Girl Scout parent - a troll for instance - we could be stuck.

Thre big issues, no easy answers:  Anonymity good?  Anonymity bad?  And are we bloggers public figures.  What do you think? And do we even have a choice?

I couldn’t make it and I’m quite sad about it. Rex Hammock and other Nashvillians did and there are pics up over at his blog and on his Flickr account.

Head over to the Podcamp blog or follow the conversation on Twitter.

Things are happening.

We linked to Terry Heaton’s announcement yesterday about the new feature on Google that would allow people to streamline their local news.

This morning, we look at a couple of things and once again I link to Jack Lail from Knoxville because he’s continues to have the scoop on these things.

He also links to LiveNewsCameras which shows video from locations around the world. Let’s break this down. Megan G. from The Ride Home recently went to Chicago. If she wanted to, she could have followed the video to see the weather on her destination (albeit it would have been hard driving) but you get my drift.  Some of these feeds would be helpful and once it’s fine-tuned, there are is a great deal of possibilities on watching news as it happens.

LiveNewsCameras thus far is spotty but the idea is revolutionary. Developed by FoxNewsChicago, there are dozens of screens for the viewer to choose from and a moderator video on the side of the page.

Lail uses the example of the storms from Tuesday night as an example. To quote Brittney Gilbert, this is HUGE and the thing is that it’s actually bigger than huge with these two new developments. Microsoft trying to obtain Yahoo makes a bit more sense as I’m sure insiders have known this information for some time. In the last 30 hours, the Internet just shifted although we might not see the results for some time.

I’m getting ready for a series of meetings, but I wanted to make a brief comment about news today that Google has launched a new “local news” application for its Google News page. This is pretty huge, folks, and it spotlights the need for everybody in the local news business to adopt best practices when it comes to unbundled distribution. Your content won’t show up in Google’s local news application (initiated by simply entering a zip code) unless it is available in unbundled form.

Let’s repeat an old theme. Your portal website doesn’t matter anymore, because people are hanging out where they want to hang out and expecting us to bring our products and services to them.

 From the PoMo Blog.

Paul Chenoweth pointed this blog out in regards to how some folks are communicating at Union University. He encouraged in the comments here to read the comments. And I encourage you as well.

Yesterday, Jack Lail sent me this Tennessee Red Cross blog set up by a citizen after the tornadoes.

These blogs were started within the last 48 hours which I believe is significant to see how the blogosphere immediately deals with a disaster.

Also, Memphis blogger Monkeyfister is also putting up information to help Tennesseans impacted by the storms.

Updated: Photos from Jackson 

More as I find them …

The former General Manager of WKRN writes:

I’m constantly asked if I miss being a GM.  My answer is I miss the people but not the job.  My last three years at the station were a time of tumultuous change. 

Michael Rosenblum introduced the VJ concept to the newsroom, we invited local bloggers into the station to peek behind the curtains and offered them classes on shooting and editing video.  We created

Nashville is Talking, and hired a local blogger to run it.  This was followed by the creation of a Volunteer Voters our political blog and another talented blogger hired. All in all there were some 23 station blogs at WKRN. 

My days are in the web now.  That sense of wonder, creativity and making it up as we go along that was once a staple of local broadcasting has departed for the internet and I decided to tag along.    

Read the rest here.

 H/T: Brittney Gilbert

Kate O’ went to the Nashville Geek Breakfast that Lesley spoke of yesterday and is opining about Twitter Etiquette.

We got talking about Twitter etiquette at the Geek Breakfast, and I decided I was going to do a post about the emerging dynamics of being polite while micro-blogging.

Jackson seemed to think that was pretty ironic, though, since I’m apparently violating the #1 rule of Twitter etiquette: don’t post daily recaps of your Twitter updates in your blog. Or at least don’t make it the only content you post for a week or more.

In my defense, I said, I’ve been modifying my Twitter updates since I started doing that so that they’d be somewhat more substantive. That got a mumble of support, but the message was clear: daily Twitter summary posts do not make up for real blog content.

OK, so there’s rule number one, and I’m public enemy number one, and now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move on to number two, shall we?

Head to The Bee Hive to find out what number two is and she also discusses things she has done to make a connection with Twitterers she might not know but finds interesting.

Microblogging is still new to me but I see great advantages of utilizing tools like Twitter. It keeps me connected with a great deal of people in an immediate fashion across the country and I’ve learned about national and local news due to the conversation that is occurring between real people who are just discussing what’s on their mind.

Do you Twitter?

Shaun Groves writes about the vulnerability that comes with blogging…

The thing that should scare the crap out of the establishment most about blogs (and the entire internet) is that here, there’s no controlling the message, no editing of other people’s thoughts made public, no dodging the truth.

Here, you’re just like everyone else. You’re not special. We’ll talk about you without your permission. And we don’t always tell the truth (the way you see it).

Here, you get to (have to) see yourself the way the non-experts and outsiders and consumers see you. Which is how you really are. There’s no more frightening thing.

When I first started blogging my self-esteem plummeted. I read blog posts about my blog posts - calling them “too long” and “self-absorbed” and “commercials.” I read non-professional reviews of my music - calling it “soccer mom friendly” and “contrived” and my career “over.”

The truth (as some people will define it) hurts. Actually, it’s worse than that sometimes. It rips your heart out and spits in the hole. Are you ready to hear it?