Friday, March 11, 2005

Ellen Dana Nagler: Journalists 'R' Us. 

BadBetterNews 14 starts with my podcast about integrity and adds music and imagery. Very nicely done.  

AP: "A judge on Friday ordered three independent online reporters to divulge confidential sources in a lawsuit brought by Apple Computer Inc." 

Brief editorial: Bad move Apple. The big mistake you're making is the same one Google is, rolling over the core advocates with your corporate machine. You forgot how hard it was to build loyalty in the first place. In Google's case, there were good search engines when you came along. The thing that made Google different is that you treated us decently while the earlier search engines forgot who we were, and were treating us like eyeballs, not people. Apple lost their connect to their most loyal users when they killed the clones, that was the low point, and since then have steadily reconnected, although it's doubtful if they even understand this. Again, it's only because Microsoft was so utterly unable to understand computer users that Apple was able to get back on its feet. Now both Apple and Google are inviting a new generation to perhaps treat the users with some respect, or at least not quite so much disresepct as the current leaders are. Round and round we go, big wheel keep on turnin. Lalala. (PS if you work at Microsoft and think this is your chance, forget it. Your company is totally scared of users.) 

Today's song: "Welcome to my blog, I guess you all know why you're here. My name is Davey, and I became aware this year. If you want to follow me, you have to use RSS. And post to your weblog, plug in your iPod, you know where to put the cork!"  

Full text of the podcasting article that appears in today's Charleston paper. Here's the MP3 he refers to in the opening section of the story. 

I just noticed that Megnut is posting again. I guess my aggregator turned her off after she stopped updating? Re-subscribed.  

Rogers Cadenhead: "Harvard should be dropping the hammer on ApplyYourself, the company whose poor programming revealed admission decisions prematurely, not on these hapless applicants."  

Rafe Colburn: "It's hard to imagine any rational person not peeking." 

The results from the Blogads reader survey are up. 

Mary Jo Foley: "Not only is Microsoft filing patent applications like crazy, but now the company is putting forth a platform for reforming the US patent system." 

Boston Globe: "Groove is one of a new breed of accidental defense contractors, companies that changed their business models and marketing strategies to adapt to new realities in the aftermath of the technology bust and the terrorist attacks of Sept 11." 

Rex Hammock got the scoop from FEC commish David Mason on upcoming rules about pointing to candidate sites from weblogs. 

Joshua Allen: "Shel Israel interviewed me for the book that he and Scoble are writing." 

Chris Sells: "if you build yourself a reputation for good things, when occasionally you stray, folks will cut you some slack." 

We speak in code 

Listening to NPR on my afternoon walk yesterday, they were interviewing the head of a game designer association from their annual convention. They were running a contest to see who could come up with the most clever application of poet Emily Dickinson in a game. In one they had her play the role of Clippy, the awful commentator of your productivity from Microsoft. Anyway, at one point the interviewer expressed surprise that they were doing a game that didn't involve guns and shooting. The guy said that only a small portion of the games that were produced were of that kind. Really, said the interviewer, I guess that's just what the kids talk about? To which the game guy said "And the journalists." That's the code, I said to myself. It's just like blogs. All they talk about are the violent ones. Time to overthrow the bastards. Ooops, caught myself there.