Saturday, April 03, 2004

Stephen Manes asks for less of Lessig. Kind of mean, and unnecessarily personal. But it's still pretty rare to see criticism of Lessig's work, so it's worth a pointer. 

Also worth a pointer is an Orlowski piece that rounds up privacy concerns about Google's upcoming email service. A year ago people wouldn't have been so outspoken with their concerns about Google (many had them, but only expressed them privately). The honeymoon for Google is ending. A reporter told me about their top PR person a few days ago, saying he's the smartest one in the business. I had never heard of him. Before he came on, I had a very good working relationship with Cindy McCaffery, who was the top PR person before him. Now I don't even rate a notice that there's a new person. PR is about relationships, that's Marketing 101. Clearly Google doesn't handle criticism well, and they're about to enter the big leagues, in competition with huge companies with seasoned management, that know (more or less) that whether or not someone has gone negative on you is irrelevant, you still have to work with them. And the other guys know how to sling the mud, and it's going to stick on old Google if they don't do something, quickly, to rebuild relationships that used to work. If anyone has a positive relationship with them on a PR level, I assume it's because they've never written anything remotely negative.  

A few thoughts to share after visiting my uncle's home this week. It was a letter to members of my family, but the concepts are pretty general.  

Markoff: Silicon Valley Is Seeking Peace. 

I will be in Amsterdam April 25-28, Sunday through Wednesday. Hoping to have an informal meetup with European Frontier developers to talk about some projects we might collaborate on. Andrew Grumet will be there Sunday and Monday nights, we're both staying at the Swissotel on Dam Square. After that, I've bought a Eurail pass through May 4, so I don't know exactly where I'm going, but it'll be somewhere in Europe.  

Linda Paulson at IEEE Computer writes: "My editor urgently needs a moderately detailed technical schematic or diagram showing something important about the way RSS works. Doesn't matter how rough it is. The art department can pretty it up." I offered to help. If you have idea for such a schematic, send me an email and I'll forward it to Linda. 

Rogers Cadenhead: "Meeting Dave Winer today was like reading several months' worth of Scripting News in rapid succession." 

I see a flurry of activity in the Are Bloggers Journalists? permathread. I love the arguments people make about how thorough and skilled most professionals are, and how most bloggers just shoot from the hip. I think these people need to look closer. Journalists do all that they think bloggers do, with an extra added bonus of arrogance. There's no accountability. No equivalent of the ABA or AMA. No malpractice suits to worry about. I love to draw analogies. Try this one out. I'm sure travel agents said something like what people say about journalists. In the last month I've booked four trips, and I'm about to book a fifth. One through Travelocity (who still hasn't given back the money they stole from me, another issue for another day) and three through Expedia (which isn't without its glitches, in Gainesville they reserved a handicapped room for me, and I had to wait an hour before I could check in, and the room had an absolutely bizarre bathroom). Anyway, are there still travel agents? Has their industry shrunk or grown? You may be surprised at my answer. Yes there are still travel agents, and the industry has grown enormously. But I do it myself, and I do a better job. I am willing to rebook a trip if it turns out one flight has more open seats than the one I'm booked on. I shop for bargains. I read the descriptions of all the hotels, and I search for reviews. I don't mind putting in a lot of extra effort for the customer, who is someone I really care about a lot -- me. I used to use professional travel agents, and I'd end up staying at golf resorts (I don't like golf, or golfers) or far from the places I wanted to visit, or pay way too much, or get a seat I didn't like. For BloggerCon, I'm going to write a review of all the professions that have been transformed this way. Journalism is one of them.  

Screen shot of Google's mail app. 

Suw Charman reviews Kinja. 

Wired: "See what a little financial desperation can do?" 

Will Richardson: "I want to go back to school and be in Christopher Allbritton's class at NYU."