Thursday, July 15, 2004

Would you like to play a fantasy game? 

Real Simple Shopping: "Why give away your email address to get your favorite marketer's promotions?" 

Tim Jarrett: RSS roll-out continues across Microsoft.com. 

I got a call today from Hank Barry, a VC at Hummer-Winblad. He reminds me that there are people in the Silicon Valley investment community who work hard to make a difference. He came to Cambridge to talk with our blogging group at Berkman earlier this year, and did as much listening as he did talking. If I were the CEO of a hot tech startup I'd take his call.  

So here's the travel plan for the rest of the month. Tomorrow I fly to El Paso, Texas, rent a car, stay the night in Ciudad Juarez, then the next day head to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and make my way north to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, as far as Taos, then turn around to El Paso, returning to NY on Thursday. Spend Friday and Saturday in New York, then Sunday fly to Boston, where I spend the week at the DNC. Then the first week of August I'm going to Seattle, to chill a bit, and see the Scobles (Patrick will be in town) and probably visit with a few people at Microsoft. Planned for August, for sure, more time in NY, a trip to Florida, and then Europe sometime in early September (after Labor Day). Topping the list for the next year are still New Mexico and Florida, both states that can make a difference in the election. And I want to have time between now and Election Day to help lots of candidates, either party, to use the Web more effectively to represent their constituents.  

Scott Johnson: Feedster Version 2.  

Flickr and Feedburner in a deal about "feed splicing." 

I found the original Quantum Light Breath tape from 1990, scanned it, and linked it into the Jeru site. "Existence is waiting for you to flower, waiting for your to dance your dance, to sing your song." 

USA Today: Bloggers to join the mainstream at conventions. 

Global PR Blog Week 1.0. 

I booked my hotel for the DNC, now I just have to figure out how I'm going to get back and forth. Also, you can still book rooms via Expedia, but the prices are out of sight. One hotel is charging over $4000 per night, and it's not even a very good hotel. My hotel is two miles from the Fleet Center, so I can walk, if need-be. I'm paying $180 per night. That's much better.  

Okay, our mission when covering the DNC is to figure out what goes on at a DNC. On the other hand, some portion of the 15,000 reporters at the DNC will be trying to figure out what we, the bloggers, are doing at the DNC. I suspect most of them will conclude that we don't belong there, in the same way most of the early articles about weblogs concluded we are not going to kill professional journalism. We may be like the original astronauts, just smiling for the cameras, but I kind of doubt it. We're not generally young or photogenic. And we say weird things. The NY Times today, in this editorial, wonders how we'll feel wearing badges. Somehow I don't think that'll be the biggest challenge.  

InfoWorld: "Google added a new feature to its toolbar this week that allows users to navigate the Web by typing in a name instead of a URL." 

Keith Teare: "Google rips off RealNames idea!" 

BBC: "While the FastTrack network (which carries Kazaa) still accounts for 24% of all P2P traffic, the lesser known Bittorrent and eDonkey together account for 72% of file-sharing, according to CacheLogic's report." 

Don Park: "Firefox's address bar stopped working today." 

NY Times: "Last month, a [poll] found that 21 percent of voters had a favorable impression of Mr Cheney, compared with 39 percent for Mr Bush." 

Had dinner last night at Sammy's with Mary Jo Foley. She covers Microsoft for Ziff-Davis. Great conversation. Learned that Sammy's has chopped liver. It was absolutely delicious. The steak was good too.  

Zawodny reports that the NY Times has white-on-orange XML icons. 

Bob Doyle has one of these super-sexy Sony sub-notebooks. A total lust machine. I've been toying with the idea of getting one of these to carry with me at the DNC. Do you think I deserve one?