connecting*the*dots

We’ve all had those 20 minutes pillow conversations with our significant other about naming our first born. No matter how serious the relationship is at the time, we’ll argue to the point of breaking up over the sanctity of an unborn baby’s name. For some reason, it seems that celebrities don’t have the same problems.

Earlier this year, Gweneth Paltrow and that Coldplay dude had a baby and named her Apple. How sweet (and so very chic). Not to be outdone, Nick Cage and his other half named their newborn Kal-El; the Krypton name of Superman. The funny thing is that the first thing my mind raced to wasn’t an image of Kal-El’s future lunchroom fist fights (oh, there will be fights), but that Nick Cage always wanted to be the father of Superman.

Who doesn’t?

Well now the celebrity name machine has taken a backseat to a regular Joe (actually, a regular Walid). Walid Elias Kai, a big time fan of the products and services that Google produces, has named his newborn son, yep you guessed it, Google. For some reason his wife Carol, the one who suffered 9 months and God knows how many hours to deliver this kid, didn’t object. Now Google Kai has his very own website, one that has already been spidered by Google. I’m sorry, but that list sentence kinda creeped me out.

But there is a downside to Google’s incarnation as a child:

• What happens if Google (the company) turns out like Lycos?
• You just know the other kids aren’t going to let him play Hide and Seek.
• His mom will probably pimp him out on the gameshow circuit (can you imagine the results on Jeopardy!?)
• Future intimate relationships are bound to result as a bunch of clusterfucks.

Okay, that last one was too geeky and cruel. I mean, one day the kid is bound to Google himself… Google himself? Eh.

I wish Google all the best. He doesn’t realize it right now, but his name has raised the hopes and dreams of men all around this nation and the world. I mean, there’s now an actual chance that some guy in Ohio will be able to
name his kid Tivo, while a lad in Ireland is now hopped up on naming his kid Guinness. They’re not alone. I’m praying that Google raised my chances to name my firstborn
after my biggest role model from my childhood: Freeman McNeil.

C’mon, don’t even try to tell me that Freeman Coon doesn’t have a sweet ring to it!

UPDATE: Since I posted this, it has been brought to my attention that "Freeman Coon" might be a bit messed up due to the slanderous connotations of my last name in the deep south. My response? Well, I guess that depends on your perspective.

HearUsNow.org just released a fantastic cartoon/music video to raise awareness about media deregulation and consolidation, which reminded me of a post I dropped inn 2003, a few months after the Iraqi War began, entitled, “Art Prophesying Reality?”

Back then, society (people at parties, the media, popular culture, etc.) seemed more than willing to pigeonhole bloggers as everything from self-indulgent to narcissistic to mindless to geeks. That didn’t slow down the revolution, as many early adopters knew that there was a huge opportunity for blogging to change the way humans communicated between, and learned from one another. There was just no way we could’ve possibly imagined how this ecosystem would come together.

Recently, services such as Technorati, Bloglines, and IceRocket began to make blogs more accessible, with Google Blog Search adding eyeballs and Yahoo! News topping that by presenting blogs at the same level as the MSM as a result of a news query. The blogging ecosystem has finally become more mainstream, extending the reach of blogs beyond the world of early adopters, and providing useful and usable transparency into the mechanics of the inter-connectivity of the muck and mire of human knowledge.

The MSM “Tower of Consolidation” really does have something to worry about, as their ivory tower world is beginning to crumble down around them — whther they want to recognize it or not.

(via Joho the Blog)

UPDATE: It looks like Fox is now trying to force bogus opinion into their local news broadcasts.

The improv of jazz blows me away, especially the type that occurs across a large group of musicians as with Mingus Big Band. Factor in the unique, layered compositions of a Charles Mingus, with his political lyrics of the 50’s and 60’s, and you have a textured mix of jazz structure and improv with the undeniable taste of blues soul.

Great stuff, indeed.

Unfortunately for me, my age precluded me from catching live shows of the legendary jazz musicians and quintets, but thankfully, I’ve been lucky enough to catch a few of the legendary blues acts over the years. So as much as Son Seals and Robert Cray gave amazing performances — each man rocking the stage with a unique six-string sound, pouring their scarred, shaped souls into their sets — I’ve got to tell you, experiencing Buddy Guy live at the Greensboro War Memorial Auditorium last night… well, he took my appreciation of the blues to an entirely new level.

The man is pushing 70, yet he rocked the stage as if he were 30, applying an undeniable pace to his presentation to the audience. Buddy started off with his guitar singing at a murmur, which slowly quieted the warmed up, rambunctious crowd over a a ten minute period. Never changing strategy and displaying the utmost confidence in his approach, once he had the ears and souls of the crowd in tune with him, he moved right into a heavy jam to lift the spirit of the audience beyond where we were to begin the set. The temper of the packed house became something akin to a Sunday sermon when a testify! was shouted out to my left.

The preacher preached on…

The rapport he displayed with his band — jamming back and forth with the back-up guitarist, pianist and saxophonist — brought my appreciation of improv to the forefront of my attention. By the time Buddy and the band hit, I’ve Got Dreams to Remember, from his latest album, I was already kicked back in my seat with my arm locked around Angela, breathing in the gift of this legend as he crept into my psyche with his janitor’s key in hand, unlocking the guarded door to my soul.

Words can’t do him justice.

Roger Waters has moved his profound, progressive, creative juxtapositions into the expansive realm of opera. From NPR’s World Cafe:

"Roger Waters, a founding member of Pink Floyd, has released an opera about the French Revolution, titled ça Ira. The album is based on Etienne Roda-Gil’s original French libretto.

The two-disc album, which entered the Billboard classical chart at Number 1, features work by opera stars like Bryn Terfel, Paul Groves, and Ying Huang."

Waters provides an amazing interview. Well, for any true fan of Floyd, any interview with Rogers is an amazing interview.

(via fixeight)

Every week or so, I plan on dropping a new illustrative diagram. This week the subject is greed.

While everyone is “preparing” for that Aryan bird flu Panda thingy and that new soon-to-be-discovered fault line in their neighborhood, I’ve got to tell you, I’m taking a bit more of a practical route. If I had a bullhorn, this is what I’d shout into it (followed by that annoying ass siren):

Get out of the stock market now, sell your homes, pay off your credit cards and hide your cash under your bed!

This is the “sell high” period of the “buy low, sell high” cliche. Here’s why:

1. I have a top credit rating, and I can’t get a card with an APR lower than 12%. Plus they’re all adjustable rate cards now (their rate plus the prime). Some people are paying 29% interest. The only thing fixed anymore is the friggin’ corporate game. By the way, bankruptcy doesn’t cover credit card debt anymore. Are you listening?
2. Interest rates on mortgages are going up. I’ve heard of 8% and higher for people with pretty solid credit ratings. That’s ridiculous.
3. President Bush’s tax advisory commission wants to limit the mortgage tax deduction. It wouldn’t affect most of the country (that has rational housing costs), but in New York, San Francisco, etc. where the prices has gone through the roof? The young couples and struggling families who are scraping together the cash for a $90,000 deposit on a 2 Bedroom, $450,000 condo in a decent to nice section of Jersey City, would miss the proposed ~$390,000 limit. Do you have any idea what a 4 bedroom house in a decent neighborhood costs in NJ? The whole state just sounded a collective moan. Can you say, “Blue state *pop*” boys and girls? I knew you could.
4. Adjustable rate loans on pre-existing, first family type mortgages? Man, people are going to be living in the street. The prime isn’t slowing down with its inflation.
5. Health insurance (if you have it) will probably lose its unlimited tax deduction status. Small businesses are already behind the eight ball in trying to provide health care for their employees. That equals greater consolidation. These tax limitations will only keep health insurance away from more people, which in the end, equates with a death count.
6. People are going to be saving their money for the essentials (like food and shelter) and the retail economy will hit the shitter. We’re already in the midst of a service-based economy, making *nothing* tangible anymore as a country. Are you ready for the service-based economy to shut down as well?

~250 corporations bring in more than 1 trillion dollars in pure profit, and ~85 don’t pay taxes due to Cayman Island type of tax loopholes (via the Randi Rhodes Show). Where are those tax reforms? They’re not coming, folks. Welcome to indentured servitude and slavery in the 21st century. Those are drastic words, but they’re necessary in drastic times. Drop your political affiliation for just one minute, and look at the facts and crunch the numbers.

I’m in awe of the power Mother Nature to wreck havoc, but I’m scared beyond belief of Mother Bush, a woman with the ability to marry into evil and produce this degree of a corrupt thug. W. received his war plans directly from God? Hitler heard voices as well. I don’t want to sound apocalyptic, but I’m preparing my finances before the "every man for himself" image of Katrina looks like a walk in the park. Welcome to the first stages of something much bigger than a bursting bubble.

Tomorrow, on a lighter note, we’ll review the bombing of the Smurfs.

I was introduced to David Kline as a public figure, per chance, by catching him the other day on The O’Reilly Factor. While I almost exclusively review O’Reilly segments by visiting Media Matters (O’Reilly’s favorite site, mind you), I tuned into this particular segment about slanderous websites. I admit it; I wanted to see O’Reilly spinning reality within a realm I know a thing or two about.

As the "balanced guest from the left" Klein was immediately blown away by the conversation topic. O’Reilly’s patented tactical approach to force feeding his guest the Billy Boy perspective overwhelmed Kline, as he was completely uninformed regarding the blogosphere. He actually admitted, on-air, to have never heard of Media Matters (the site that O’Reilly focused his vengeance upon for the entire segment).

Media Matters is one of the most popular media watchdog/misinformation sites on the web, so much so that many well-known political bloggers use them as a source for their posts. Intrigued by such a naive understanding of the media ecosystem, I proceeded to browse over to Kline’s blog and become involved in a few of his posts. The first is basically an open apology to the left and to bloggers for how he allowed himself to be used and abused by O’Reilly. Hundreds of people posted comments, with the majority slamming him for his lack of preparation when appearing on such an obvious ambush show.

My reaction? As uniformed as he seemed to be, I shrugged it off as a poor showing and gave the guy a break. Today, my perspective has changed. Go to his site—blogrevolt.com—and scroll down to the lower right side of the page. His site is being managed by Christian Sarkar, a marketing guy that has coined his own website marketing strategy called, "Double Loop Marketing."

Let me get this straight.

1. A guy with practically zero hours put in as a blogger (his archives go back two months at the time of this post) writes, authoritatively, about the future of blogging—"Blog! How The Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics,
   Business and Culture"
2. He has someone managing his site? A marketing guy? Apparently, creating a blog template is too much for this "blogger" so he hires a marketing guy to build his blog, along with providing a strategy to pitch his book on the future of blogs to a specific demographic, which includes bloggers that come to his blo… I mean… site?
3. He somehow is booked to appear on The O’Reilly Factor, completely unable to defend the position of free speech and media accountability via the means of blogging.

No wonder Billy Boy’s staff picked this guy; he was ripe to be "found." I wonder what part of the "Double Loop" we were experiencing during the O’Reilly segment, let alone the part this post plays in it’s cycle of awareness and sales. Bill O’Reilly didn’t "stoop" to anything…

I’m sorry, but how can you not call this spade a spade.

I’m not concerned with the debate over pedigree and process. Anyone too caught up in that discussion isn’t seeing the forest through the trees. What I’m asking is whether or not bloggers rights should be covered as journalists in the  Free Flow of Information Act of 2005.

The way I see it, once you strip away the editorial and advertising structure that relegates a journalist to either a story or the conviction found within, the only difference between a journalist and a blogger is that the former can lose his/her audience or be fired based on poor/erroneous reporting, where the latter can only lose his/her audience.

That one difference is huge in the conversation of controlling the “free flow of information.”

My POV is from a journalistic or op-ed perspective, disseminating topical information and perspective without peddling a product in my content on even the most subtlest of degrees. So after reading the first draft of the act, and especially the perspective of Senator Richard Lugar (R - Ind), it seems as though the conversation is being held within the parameters of a business conversation, focused on the issues of veiled product peddling. Here’s one quote from Lugar:

Are bloggers journalists or some of the commercial businesses that you here would probably not consider real journalists? Probably not, but how do you determine who will be included in this bill?

This is a healthy debate, but primarily focused on the “business side of blogging.” I’m sorry, but this quote rings of code words to me. The messy and potentially polarizing part of this issue would be debating the right of individuals to become a part of a revenue stream while not being controlled by an editorial presence.

Why is that messy?

Well, quite frankly, blogs represent a revolutionary change to the current forum of public debate, political discourse, and all types of commentary that the mainstream media provides, at cost, for sector, industry and entertainment products. Those “closed” arenas all have price tags and salaries attributed to them, blogs don’t. The longer the power structure doesn’t mention this explicitly in public, rest assured, the more you can be sure that it’s a disconcerting issue for them. Read this other quote from Lugar:

“I think, very frankly, you can make a case that this is a special boon for reporters, and certainly for their role in freedom of the press,” he said. “At the end of the day what we will come out with says there is something privileged about being a reporter, and being able to report on something without being thrown into jail.”

Call me paranoid, but I read that as “we’re going after those rumor spreading bloggers,” not as “we’re going to protect free speech.”

Politicians and/or corporate executives obviously feel more comfortable when an organization provides the over-the-shoulder breathing and editorial direction to ensure credibility. Apparently, letting people choose to believe what they want to believe only works when the words come from salaried reporters, pundits and entertainers.

So how is it that other types of independent voices, such as Rush Limbaugh (who, like bloggers, owns his own network and syndicates himself into the ether) seems to be able to produce whatever “facts” he damn well pleases.

What’s the difference between the two? That was a rhetorical question, but I’d be interested in your opinions.

The debate is well under way, with Ken Fisher asking some important questions over at Ars Technica, while Stephen Newton, a PR consultant, presents his perspective on marketing blogging.

What do you think about the future of blogging?

By simply enabling blog search results from a search query in the Yahoo! News interface, Yahoo! has moved leaps and bounds into the world of Web 2.0. And they didn’t even have to implement a "shiny" Ajax application.

Yahoo! exposed the common man’s opinion and perspective to the common man. How much more people-centric could this move be? First Technorati gets into the article level of closed environments like Newsweek and bubbles up the voice of bloggers. Now Yahoo! jumps up a level in a person’s mental model for searching and brings blog results back before getting to the article level.

I feel like I’m watching one of those amazing scenes in the Godfather, where a bunch of hits are carried out to a violin solo, while yet another Corleone is being baptized.

Chills down my spine good.

As an aside, I do think I need to call up my friends over in Sunnyvale. I got pretty righteous about the need for this feature while I was conversing with the Yahoo! design and product teams this past June… In any event, I just hope the community keeps this type of forward-thinking user experience design in motion, specifically as it relates to the needs of people (not users).

Man, online discourse is about to get really interesting.

Before I jump in, let me be clear about one thing in particular. I love Technorati for the service they are now, I love Technorati for the service they might become. They have helped shape the way we see and understand each other in ways that were never possible before.

They had me at hello.

Seriously though, where is Technorati going with their working relationship with PR firms such as Edelman? (not to mention corporate communications teams)

Do you consider it standard business practice for a company, which makes their money from the “free-speech” blogging community, to climb into bed with the one industry more creepy and propaganda driven than this current administration? I’m not inside Dave Sifry’s head, so I’m only left to wonder.

Thankfully, wondering while wandering is one of my favorite hobbies, so here’s what I’m thinking:

Rupert Murdock has drooled over the potential of blogs. That interest alone should be enough to represent the corporate perspective from within the mainstream media (they all golf together) and it has grown considerably since April (see the AOL purchase of Weblogs, Inc.).

Anyone else think that this particular relationship is symbolic of the calm before the storm of the battle to squash free speech through blogging?

Let me take that idea one step further.

If you don’t think that a “Director of Corporate Blogosphere” middle-man, with responsibilities for managing all network blogging relationships isn’t destined for an appearance in the dramatic arc of this two act play, you might as well try to catch a cab right now.

Within their realms, conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies get the final say over any one (wo)man — even a blogger.

That being said, I believe that if the Silicon Alley gang cared more about developing blogging as a self-supported, sustainable form of media rather than handing off a cash cow, they would’ve pursued developing a sustainable advertising model, one that both supports free speech and pays the bills.

Take the Blogads model as an example.

Blogads’ approach to advertising is communal by nature, establishing a model for a decentralized set of advertising communities, specifically catered to the needs of niche-driven content, products, services and companies.

• Are you a liberal blogger who has built your own reach? Join this network.
• A respected blog covering the interests of technology early adopters? Join that network.

A Blogads model can be extended across n number of categories of interest, expanding each time a new niche blows up with the power to reach a vested audience. There’s no reason to sell out.

Why do I have so much faith in this bottom-up form of advertising?

Think about how tagging data objects has taken off as we move into the world of Web 2.0. How has this drastically differed from the formal, structured, top-down categorization of a subjective taxonomy?

Doesn’t this shift serve as a potentially successful metaphor to the current advertising model?

Think about it.

What would happen if a Blogads model — or a barter system — became systemic? The top-down approach of traditional advertising and PR firms becomes less symbiotic with the perspective and needs of the people, because the people are now able to advertise their knowledge for themselves.

That type of evolution isn’t good for advertising… which isn’t good for big business… which isn’t good for the players in the biggest corporation out there: government.

The bottom line isn’t the client or the common man, the bottom line is the bottom line.

Enter the intelligent design of managing the explosion of blogging. Al Gore understands the importance of the upcoming battle, just as much as Rupert Murdock understands the potential cost of losing it.

But I digress; let’s get back to PR firms scrambling to find their place in the new choice of media “reach.” Here’s what Richard Edelman himself has to say about the situation:

“About a month ago, I was at a meeting with Peter Hirshberg, Executive Vice President and Board Member at Technorati. I was musing about my debate over lunch with David Weinberger about whether companies could or should interact regularly with bloggers and whether there was a proper role for public relations in the blogosphere. There was such a mythology that had grown up around corporations and their use of PR, to craft and control the message, to blast out information to a wide array of recipients without permission or adequate knowledge (spam), to tell one side of the story through limited release of facts (spin), and to withhold the true source of the funding or purpose of the initiative. The natural reaction of bloggers was assumed to be a rejection of information from the corporate sector and a ’shoot the messenger’ reaction to public relations people.”

Wait a second.

Richard Edleman, a PR leader, is claiming that society cries wolf about the intent of PR… on his own blog?

Remember Tom Delay’s recent media blitz after his indictment was announced? He used a tactic of trying to prove that he was innocent via conspiracy by explicitly listing the “false” charges from years past. Now, try to imagine the career choice of the person who coached Delay into approaching a handful of shows on the same day in similar fashion.

Exactly.

After disclosing the approach to the recent joint study with Technorati, Edleman continues:

“The survey shows a disconnect between the ways companies have traditionally communicated with the blogosphere and how these bloggers want and expect to be communicated with now. The top-down, one-way, press release culture has to be supplanted by an approach based on dialogue and co-creation of brands and corporate reputation. In fact, in many of our client programs we’re already seeing a fundamental re-ordering of the relationship between markets and marketers, with the blogosphere providing a channel for real input and dynamic discussion. Smart companies have also recognized the potential for inside-out communications, with empowered employees and informed consumers as the best sources of credible commentary.”

That emphasized quote is the most telling aspect of this post from Edleman. His recognition that employees armed with the go ahead by corporate executives (and PR firms) to blog and “represent” is taking off, is the first step in the dilution of a voice — inside and out of the corporate cubes.

How could this corporate backing of employee blogging affect the boundaries of open discourse?

What happens when the corporations Edleman speaks of aren’t just neat-o web firms in the Valley, but say, an automotive company with employee knowledge of safety violations?

Do you think said employees will be able to blog their knowledge?

No, of course not.

The general degree of PR propaganda goes up at the firm — now through the fingers of bloggers — while the potential disclosure of important information and facts slide down a few degrees of visibility with the corporation pointing to the transparency of their blog.

Now extend Edleman’s edict across all of corporate US over the next 5 to 10 years; what does that do to a society chock full of corporate, PR messaging already?

It creates more noise, minus the signals.

But at least Technorati is looking out for the voice of the common man and not big business. They close out their last post by stating:

“Technorati continues to work with public relations firms and corporate communications team to better understand the best practices of blog interaction. We believe that markets are conversations and will continue to seek out new ways to add information and context to conversations online“

So fellow bloggers, here’s the question I leave with you:

How sure are you that we’re not entering the test lab for enabling greed, the type of which Gordon Gecko so intelligently designed?

Brilliant. Thanks, Paul!

Tom Toles (via Yahoo!)

Ah, someone with a sense of timing and a sense of humor! How good is this?

Now, all I ask is take it to the next level. Whoever put this together, if you have the time or inclination, create a database of all appointable government positions and track and update appointments with the details of each individual’s background, their known relationships to the power structure of the time, who affirmed their appointment in the house, etc.

Basically, refocus this as "Government Crony Jobs" and update it across all administrations. While Bush is the worst culprit in recent memory (in terms of cronyism leading to loss of lives), we all know that corruption isn’t party based.

Political satire is awesome. Political satire framed with real-time information is powerful. It’s accountability.

(via Jesus’ General)