oral poetry means podcast and vlog

I am dead serious when I say you must:

(1) abandon plain text blogging

(2) start mixing text, photo, podcast, and video into your corporate web site and CEO blogging.

All arts and businesses are becoming more online, more transmitable, and engaging more of the human senses. Soon, we will have blogs we can smell and taste. Just kidding, but come on. Get with the flow.

Go audio, go video.

Come out, I command, from behind your computer and show your bad self. Warts and worries and all.

Here is a scholarly treatise by a respected author, an article that reinforces the idea of putting the sound of your voice, and the moving image of your animated face, in front of your audience. Not just typed text, that's so 2005...


Notes Toward a New Bohemia
by Dana Gioia


[QUOTE]

Twenty years ago, I started graduate school.

I was a working-class kid from L.A.—half-Italian, half-Mexican.

Entering Harvard Graduate School in Comp. Lit.,

I paid meticulous attention to the literary culture around me in the same spirit an anthropologist might observe the rituals of some newly discovered tribe.

I wanted to understand how the literary world operated, especially its assumptions about contemporary poetry. The poetry world was well-defined back then, but during the last two decades it has changed in important and sometimes even astonishing ways that are still not well understood. Tonight I would like to provide a quick overview of the current state of American poetry by making a dozen observations.

What these various trends have in common is that they represent significant changes in our literary culture that either would have been impossible to imagine twenty years ago or would have appeared too marginal to become influential. I am not interested in judging most of these trends—only in observing and understanding them.

The first observation is that the primary means of publication for new American poetry is now oral.

While books and journals continue to appear and remain crucially important in sustaining literary reputations, they no longer enjoy a monopoly on disseminating poetry, especially new poetry.

For almost every living American poet, public readings, whether they are live or electronic (via radio, TV, or tape-cassette), now constitute the major means of reaching an audience. This situation applies as equally to older academic poets like John Hollander or Daniel Hoffman as its does to younger poets of every school.

The return to oral performance represents an enormous paradigm shift away from print culture.

Until quite recently, most poets didn't give readings until their work appeared in print, and even then public readings were generally few and infrequent. Robinson Jeffers, one of the few major twentieth century American poets who actually made a living off poetry, was 54 when he gave his first public reading; Wallace Stevens was nearly 60.

If you listen to their recordings, you will notice that neither man is comfortable reading his work aloud.

The shift away from print culture to an audiovisual, electronic culture has had an enormous impact. Today the physical audience listening to live poetry vastly outnumbers the people who read it in books.

The shift from print to oral publication leads to my second observation: there has been a huge reemergence of populist oral poetry, largely among groups who were alienated from the dominant, academic, literary culture.

The new schools of populist poetry include rap, cowboy poetry, and poetry slams, which together command audiences in the millions. No one would have predicted this development twenty years ago.

[END QUOTE]


This just makes me even more stubborn about my proclamation: people want to hear you and see you. So you had better comply with their desires, or be cut off. It doesn't take courage or risky recklessness. All it takes is: Do It. Now.

EDIT UPDATE:

P.S.

tonight I registered for a secure server home page at University of Texas at Austin, for the access to literary collections. they also have an IT department to explore. all free. it's a revolution: Everything Free Always. get with it.

do your eyes burn?

Finally LEGAL, an absinthe beer called Four. Absinthe is what Rimbaud and Verlaine drank and wrote some of the best poetry in the cosmos. Bennett remembers me making some homemade Absinthe with Pernod and wormwood herb tincture, years ago. Use with moderation and maturity.

Soon after Kipling had received the Nobel Prize, his output of fiction and poems began to decline.

Last line of James Joyce's short story "Araby":

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

My eyes, when I gaze upon the objects of my scorn and reform, they burn with anguish and anger. Do your eyes burn with anything as you look upon what's wrong? Or do you just focus on what's of benefit to your inordinate cravings?

secret blogocombat trick 2: super focus

Secret Blogocombat
Trick 2 :
Super Focus

When you're discussing a topic at a blog, let's say that someone posts a comment hostile to you and your ideas, experiences, or opinions. And let's say they also type in a lengthy rebuttal to your position and a harsh attack on your sanity or intelligence.

Whadya do? I'm more than happy to tell you. Listen close.

This is not as obvious as it may first appear.

I'm giving you a really effective, nearly guaranteed way to smash your opponent. Use this weapon very carefully, and only when you're sure your debate enemy is being really hateful, disrespectful, or even unethical and deceptive.

Perhaps you even suspect the person of being a Paid Enthusiast, Artificial Word Of Mouth (WOM) Buzz Agent, i.e. a payrolled liar for a fraudulent company or con artist. Here's how to fight back very aggressively and piteously.

Super Focus

Zero in on just one thing. One statement. One anecdote. One experience. One theory. One belief. One idea. One opinion. One remark.

It can be his weakest argument. Or her most poorly worded, and inadequately expressed, sentiment. A mistake in factual accuracy. A typo. A repetition of what can only be hearsay, because no one can verify it. An emotional outburst.

--OR--

It could be her strongest position. Exaggerate what she says, not to be manipulative or deceptive, but to show how this extended statement is what she is probably driving at. Show how the extreme application of this otherwise sober and scientific sounding statement, the radical implementation of it would result in absurdity or counter-productive woe.

--EVEN BETTER--

Find something the debate opponent said that either is antagonistic or critical of the author of the blog in which the blogocombat is occuring, or is offensive to the readership. Latch onto it. Like a bulldog. Wave it around in the air and make sure everyone sees it. Pound away at it. One sly remark, pointing out the deficiency or offense...or a full scale war based on it.

This technique takes the opponent off course. If you cleverly find a statement that you know was just kind of tossed out, a tangential remark, a barely relevant aside, a muttering under the breath, below your threshhold -- use that. You are then forcing your opponent to go off in a direction they had not planned on. Now they are pursuing an argument that steals the thunder and lightning out of the main point they originally wished to debate.

Whether you succeed in diverting your debate adversary's thrustings, or actually destroy a specific and vital component in her argument, you will gain the edge and ascend to the top of the sludge pile, where you (hopefully) belong.

CEOs & video blogging + link tip

(1)
Vaspers the Grate
(clear-voiced recording: for normal people)
"CEOs and video blogging" (9:17)


(2)
Vaspers the Grate
(space shuttle voice de-phasing: esoteric whisper transmission)
"why CEOs should video blog" (4:24)


VASPERS Embedded Link Tip:

WRONG: "The dedicated blog is here."

RIGHT: "Check out the blog about blog ethics."

RIGHT: "Blog Core Values is a deeper analytical treatment of blog ethics and best practices."

Okay.

Now you try it.

"This topic is covered in blogs like this and that."

No, no, no. Wrong!

RIGHT: "This topic is covered by Scoble and CK, two marketing and technology bloggers of some renown."

WHY?

Because "here" and "this" contain no information.

Hurried readers of your blog will not quickly glean that those links have any relevance or value, as they skim your site, foraging for interesting or important data.

:^]

Mark Glaser on CEO vlogs

(left = mark glaser; right = dan gillmor)


Hi Steven,

Good to hear such a pro-vlogging opinion from Peoria.

Vlogs can humanize someone, for sure, but not all CEOs are ready to be humanized.

They also can be very paranoid about saying something or looking a certain way for all to see and archive forever.

So the most image-conscious CEOs would probably never do that -- however, you do have folks like Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Mark Cuban who blog, so it's not as much of a stretch.

Cheers,

Mark


VASPERS: See Mark Glaser's articles on Online Video at his PBS site Media Shift.

/!/

secret blogocombat trick 1: abandonment

You will never know all my secret blogocombat tricks. But the few I toss out should be helpful to CEOs and sensitive approval addicts who think that popularity is a sign of greatness. It isn't. Woe unto you, when all men speak well of you...as someone once said.

I will now begin a series of Secret Blogocombat Tricks, because I think that armed with these techniques, you will be more effective in destroying the Powers That Pretend To Be, reversing the slide into internet nihilism, and purifying the blogosphere of its many vile pollutions and false assertions.

I offer now these paltry dribblings from the sleialgnion oracle.

NOTE: These tricks you'll read about in this series apply ONLY to specific situations.

The strategems will lose potency if you over-use them by defiling them into mere routines, mis-apply them to hurt innocents, or seek "short-cuts" or easy routes to victory.


Secret Blogocombat
Trick #1:

Abandonment


Leave the opponent hanging in the highest blast of his heat.

You know, when the debate gets really fired up and the opponent is super emotional, to him the topic is the most important thing in the entire world. It's a mental judo, using the force of the enemy's onrushing attack against him. Works really good when the last comment posted by the opponent is a series of questions.

Like, the enemy ends his comment with:

"You can't possibly be doing all these YouTube videos, except for ego reasons. Why else would you do such a thing? Where are our band mp3s? Why haven't you returned my phone calls? Are you so full of yourself that you can no longer be even slightly concerned with others? Have you lost your freaking mind? Can you please explain your bizarre behavior?"

Or, the enemy says:

"You seem to hate the mainstream media so much, you refuse to acknowledge any good at all could come from it. Are you that naive and uneducated? Do you want us to just stop watching television and reading newspapers--and turn to the blogs for all our news and opinions? How reliable and trustworthy are bloggers? Aren't they all just a bunch of nude photo posting sluts, wannabe journalists, and whimpering digital diarists? How can you possibly think a slut blog is more authoritative than Brian Williams? Do you really think the blogosphere can change the world?"

Say nothing. Leave the argument and never return.

The message to the lurkers: you've lost interest and refuse to try to reason with a kook.

But the opponent will surmise that he's won, that you could not honestly answer those questions, that you're afraid of his challenging questions and accusations, because they're true and you're ashamed.

But actually: you lost interest. You've got better things to do.

Either you lost interest, or you've got work to get back into, or you are tired of beating your head against the brick wall of stubborn stupidity-- or justified diversity.

Your opponent believes with all his heart that war solves problems. You believe "blessed be the peacemakers". You two will never meet eye to eye, so forget about it. Let him drift off on his determined conclusion, and you drift off on yours. Now, you're both happy.

Who cares who's right?

The world will always side with the violent, the retaliatory, the vengeful, the sensational, the sexual, the rich, the materialistic, the popular ("if it's successful, it must be good"), the selfish hero of misanthropic cash accumulation who's called a "good businessman".

Anyway, back to the main point: often your best policy, especially in a discussion that seems to be going nowhere, time-consumingly, is to abandon the conversation.

Let others pick up the sword and lance and proceed, if they care to.

For your part, you're done.

:^)

bad reaction to my YouTube videos

bennett theissen to vaspers the grate:

Oh vaspers...

Just looked on youtube and saw all these things that you have uploaded there.

Makes me go Hmmmm. A bit much, my friend. I really don't see the point.

One or two I guess can be funny, but I have to fall back on the ego thing -- otherwise why would you be doing all this?

[snip--text deleted]




vaspers the grate to bennett theissen:

I am experimenting with video so as to be able to have expertise to share with CEOs who have the guts to present themselves more fully and more humanly to their stakeholders and customers.

Some of my videos are purely satire or absurdist comedy specials.

Ego? Are you mentally crazy????

Video blogging does not boost anyone's ego, it merely makes more of you more vulnerable to more critiques.

Most [bad] CEOs fear blogs and video. That's funny. They don't fear public ridicule when they raid pension funds or downsize so they can buy a new Lexus three times a year or whatever they do with their plunder.

Pioneers make mistakes. Imitators copy only the successes, skipping depriving themselves of the real learning process.

Hope this clears up your confusion.

~0-0~

Why video blogging is the Next Big Thing: UPDATED

[Update appears at end of post...]

During my advertising career, I learned the Law of Ad Images: (1) show the CEO in appropriate prestige or as an approachable regular gal/guy, (2) show the product in use, by a typical customer, solving a real, common problem.

At Garden Way Marketing Associates, in-house agency for Troy-Bilt garden machinery, we combined them: Dean Leith, CEO, using a Troy-Bilt tiller with Just One Hand ease of operation.

This is the real potential of video blogging, or vlogging.

(1) Show yourself.

Come out from behind your computer and be real. Most CEOs don't want to be so vulnerable and open to ridicule? Great news! That means you can stand out and get all kinds of free publicity! Be yourself, your best self, but your authentic self. Web users can smell inathenticity and deception a mile away. Remember Dan Rather and Trent Lott. But also think of how television and film made stars out of the early pioneers.

(2) Demonstrate your product.

Users can SEE the benefits to be gained, actually watch that chainsaw cut through an oak tree trunk in less than 30 seconds, or whatever. Not just the product sitting there on the shelf doing nothing. Unless it's the beauty of the thing that sells it. Even then, put that beautiful skirt on a typical customer's body. Show it solving a problem, in the case of fashion, the problem is frumpiness. Ha!


EDIT UPDATE:

Chris Ritke
to me

More options 1:26 pm (14 minutes ago)


Yes, videoblogs probably are the next big thing... the long tail is happening. Great stuff, quite confusing though. Where is it headed? I don't know.

All of the 'real videobloggers' hate YouTube (whatever that means), I personally think they're doing some cool stuff, you might say they've figured out how to exploit the stupidity of the general public - but hey: they're people too, right?

The big problem with most of these services is that you pretty much give up all rights to your work, ie the site owns what you create. Two sites that the videoblogging crowd (members of the yahoo videoblogging group and those who attended vloggercon etc etc etc) are using ourmedia.org and blip.tv (I suggest you try blip).

You might want to join the videoblogging group at yahoo if you want to hook up with some of those folks!

If you want to check out some of the more well known videobloggers (A-Listers? Blah):

www.momentshowing.net

ryanedit.blogspot.com

www.newmediamusings.com

www.wearethemedia.com

apperceive.blogs.com

imakethings.com

joshleo.com

xolo.tv

medianipple.blogspot.com
(watch out, it's not what it looks like... dig in anyway - great guy, watch his Folk Video Manifesto!)

www.freevlog.org
is a great place for tech tricks and tips.

I've got to say this: they are all extremely nice people - I've met quite a few videobloggers - lots of fun, and they're really thinking hard about all of this.

Have a great weekend!

-Chris

chris ritke

NOTE: Chris Ritke, of 49 Media, did the first and only podcast interview with Vaspers the Grate about a year ago.

He
knows
the
multi-media
site is...
the
FUTURE.

*

artificial intelligence chatbots for site orientation: intro

Today I'm investigating Artificial Intelligence applications for a client.

We're interested in having a chatbot, aka "virtual assistant", welcome people to their site, explain the basic info architecture (a talking site map), and act as a search agent.

Users could type questions or keywords into a text entry box, and the animated representative would tell them the info or take them to the desired page, saying "Here you are. If this is not exactly what you wanted, try typing in more keywords, and search again. Thanks." or similar. I have contacted a world expert in such AI topics, and expect to hear from him soon.

[snip--text deleted]

Some chatbot applications are stupid and worthless. Others hold much promise. I think. Maybe all chatbot/virtual assistant applications are stupid. I'm still pondering.

For a taste of chatbot community, check out Personality Forge and for more corporate applications, Daden Chatbots, by David Burden.

We must humanize and customize our online presence. Video posts, podcasts, and chatbots are 3 possible solutions. More later. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.

first law of blogocombat

The first law of blogocombat is this:

When you respond to a statement, do it
with Utter Disregard for Who Made It.

By obeying this law, I may be banned from Blog Business Summit.

But first, let me explain to you this...

First Law of Blogocombat: consider the opponent to be anonymous.

I mean, don't even click on the person's name to activate the embedded URL and visit their profile, site, or blog. Let your reaction be to the words themselves, and not considering who is saying them.

WHY?

In this manner, one becomes objective and is pitting one idea against another, not one person against another. Plus, you are not unduly influenced by the position, title, or charisma of the person whose ideas you're debating.

Blogocombat, at its best, is one set of text responding to another set of text. No egos. No hurt feelings. No personal hostility. No desire to hurt another person. No desire to dominate anything or anyone.

Just the simple advancement of an idea, sometimes gentle, other times harsh or abrasive.

As the ancient Greeks philosophized that the soul was divine light burdened with a dying and already dead body, consider your "self" to be deeply buried in your body and thus beyond the reach of angry comments and bitter remarks.

If you're angry, postpone the debate to another time.

You may be naturally passionate, have an unpaid and non-buzz agent enthusiasm for a topic, a web usability expert, a music band, a design theory, a garment fashion, a television talent show, a political candidate, a religious belief, a money-making strategy...

...but never engage in blogocombat in any state of extreme emotion.

Take the blogocombat campaign as a joke, as a way of testing the weak spots in your opinion, as an experiment in debate maneuvers.

I may be banned from Blog Business Summit, like I said earlier.

They did an article about the increasing mentions of the word "blogger" in the Wall Street Journal, like it might mean a good thing for the blogosphere. Unfortunately, content analysis provides no understanding of the context or semantics of the word occurances and their tally.

I posted a comment critical of content analysis without semantic hermeneutics, and of the WSJ's understanding of blogs.

Someone posted a subsequent comment praising the Wall Street Journal, calling it THE newspaper for Business America or similar.

Without investigating who posted that comment, I fired off another critique...then realized later that Steve Brobeck is one of the team bloggers of Blog Business Summit. Oooops. Or not oooops? That is the question.

You decide.

I now quote the comment exchanges.


[QUOTE]

Comments

27 Jul 06 | vaspers the grate wrote …

This content analysis is of interest from, as you say, an interest level, a temperature indicating the heat of conversation revolving around the word, and hopefully the practice of, blogging.

Not blog acceptance, however.

That would require a semantic analysis of the content analysis results.

Judging from past articles at WSJ, and the MSM in general, especially newspapers, I’d be very slow to say this is a good thing, all these mentions.

How often is it, “the bloggers are spewing forth their unedited, non-journalistic opinions”—? and such?

27 Jul 06 | Steve Broback wrote …

Right, this can’t be construed as acceptance. It is likely a non-trivial indicator of interest though.

I find the WSJ coverage to be very objective in this regard, very few articles about “bully bloggers” and a LOT of coverage on how influential bloggers are these days.

The numbers speak for themselves. The WSJ is THE daily business paper for North America, and their coverage of this topic is exploding. They write about what they think is of interest to their readers…

28 Jul 06 | vaspers the grate wrote …

they regurgitate and their coverage of blogs has been worse than clueless

28 Jul 06 | vaspers the grate wrote …

P.S. Steve Broback sounds like a paid enthusiast artificial WOM buzz agent.

[END QUOTE]


I had no intention of disrespecting, or picking a fight with the editors or contributors or authors of Blog Business Summit. I visit this blog more than most other blogs I visit. I like it.

But come on. That comment really did sound like commercial spam, orchestrated and paid for by the WSJ.

Did it not?

#1 secret of blog writing

Vaspers the Grate Executive Training
"Blog Writing Secret #1" (4:08)
Your top priority as a blogger should be Quality Input. Read good tech blogs, classic literature, and business books. Tech savvy helps pro and personal bloggers.

See that white streak-like entity hovering gracefully, perpendicularly, just a foot above the sidewalk? That's a rod-being come down to earth from the stratosphere to inspect the blogosphere.

recipe for a compelling blog

Vaspers the Grate "compelling post writing" (1:07)


Chartreuse is discussing something called WordCamp 2006 for WordPress bloggers. I have a WordPress blog that I've shelved to the back burner, but need to get it up and running again, a pure business blog. An "all business, all the time" type thing.

But in his random musings about WordCamp, he tosses out the fact of a seminar he wishes to preside over, called How To Write a Compelling Blog.

I don't know much more than the next guy about writing a blog. But my Aunt Randy gave me a burly recipe for the delightful dish Compelling Blog Casserole.

Compelling Blog
Casserole Recipe:

Read quality literature and tech articles.

Ponder. Mix in your own observations and insights. Season with the salt of skepticism. Add a dash of controversy spice. Toss in a sprig of robust rosemary, for feminine appeal. Thicken with the flour of web expertise.

Make the whole mess connect with audience, by bringing to a slow but vigorous boil, over medium heat, while stirring constantly.

Dish up while steaming hot.

Serves 50 million readers.

deconstructing a non-human blog

I am a human blogger. This is the entrance to my office-studio, where Vaspers the Grate occurs daily. I also operate a video and computer music production facility in this location.




I don't know any blog consultant who covers the bizarre topics you get here at Vaspers the Grate.

You may not agree with every sentence I type, and you better not, because that would mean you're a Copy Cat, but I'll bet you learn a few things here and there, in my semi-metaphysical sermons.

Behold: a typical Pseudo Blog, a Vampire Blog, a Search Engine Generated Blogoid Object.

3d game arcade

This non-human blog lives by feeding off other sites.

It has no independent existence without them, no content I mean. Keep pace with me, for we're going to launch out into the depths of Pseudo Bloggery. A realm that most blog consultants and web analysts shun in fear and confusion, I suppose.

I found this Pseudo Blog by doing a Technorati search on my listed blog, this one, Vaspers the Grate. See that text link in my sidebar, that says "Technorati. Other blogs that link here"? Click that.

You'll see nice human people-bloggers like Doc Searls, Carrie Snell, Chartreuse, Dustbury, Peoria Pundit, Lipsticking, Harvey Dog, 1938 Media, and Paul Woodhouse linking to me.

Then ... you'll see the terrible Blogoid Objects -- blogs with cold, lifeless names, like 3d game arcade, online real estate loans, discount computer software, dish tv network -- whatever.

I visited, armed with firewalls and AV and a secure browser, the site or page, called Skype upgrade not mentioned on website by 3d game arcade.

Notice this "Skype upgrade not mentioned on website" is the title of a Vaspers post. (And the issue with Skype is still unresolved.) An entire page, what even looks like a blog main index page, has been created from my original headline.

My post is credited in this manner:

"Original post: Skype upgrade not mentioned on website by at Google Blog Search: computer game download"

Thus, this post, and the entire non-human blogoid object is generated by a search engine query, a collection of search terms.

Similar Vampire Content Suckers can be created with RSS feeds, and feed scraper technology will enable the creating of feed URLs, at sites without feed syndication, from the HTML data contained in the site. So all sites are vulnerable to being plundered.

I moved my cursor up to the web address bar at the top of my browser chrome. I clicked in the bar three times to position the cursor at the end of the URL, then backspaced out the numbers to arrive at "/net". Clicked Go. Went to the site's main page.

3d game arcade is a Non-human Pseudo Blog, because it simply aggregates content according to such search terms (in bold type in the blog) as: "computer", "computer game", "downloads", "games".

3d game arcade is a Vampire Blog, because it has no blog author content, even the sidebar seems is artificially contrived, a robotic list of previous automated posts.

This blogoid object may have been created by a human maybe, but it functions entirely without human intervention. Comments are not enabled. All you get are headlines of other bloggers' posts, with a little text.

3d game arcade is a Blogoid Object, because it is not a true blog, with opinions and links inserted personally by a real human author--and comments from readers appended to posts. This is merely "blogoid", meaning: imitating certain aspects of a true blog.

Vaspers the Grate brings you all the latest in technology.

:^)

Recommended Summer 2006 Music

Ambassador 21 presents: InvaZine Live Sets/Mixes MP3
Recommended ragga-core artists: Breakin' Stevens, Aaron Spectre, DJ C, Lingouf, Fragment King, DJ Ripley, Parasite, AZ Rotator, Bong Ra, Basek, Sleepbug vs. Capslock. I've got all these, current heavy rotation = Breakin' Stevens (w/Elvis & Beach Boys samples), Aaron Spectre (live @ Beat Research Boston), and Lingouf.

Ubu Web presents: Mauricio Kagel "Acustica" (1971) and "Der Schall" (1968) noise concertos by a famous genius avant composer.

Israel, Dana, web logs, seashells

Source: Pew Research Reports: US Public Support of Israel is Strong online.

I vote for Dana for Rock Star Supernova Idol Poobah Be-a-Star whatever show last night.

Dave Winer complains how the MSM still calls blogs "Web logs". Clueless assholes. See his NewSpaPer article for a laugh. More from Genius Blog Man, Mr. RSS Himself...

WHAT RSS IS GOOD FOR...

When people ask me what RSS is good for, I start with "automated web surfing." It gets you more news for the time you put into using the Internet.

If you don't want more news then RSS is probably not for you. But if there are subjects that you are intensely interested in, and if the people covering the topics also offer the information in RSS, then your computer (or a web site) can make web surfing a richer and perhaps more productive experience.

I could write about this (and have), but it would be widely flamed about, by the same people who control the conversation on Google.

AARP Survey says #1 goal of retirees: move to Florida, play softball, collect shells. Folks, that is a brain dead, self-righteous, Ungreatest generation. They are collecting more than seashells, they're using up a disproportionate amount of Social Security funds. Baby Boomers to Mosaics will have to be poor in old age.

Down with the Old Regime, up with the New We-gime.

David Weinberger buries the Old Regime

This from David Weinberger's JOHO newsletter that arrived in my inbox this morning.

[QUOTE]

The Encyclopedia Britannica has refused my request to interview an editor for 15 minutes about the process by which it chooses authors.

I explained that this is for a book.

But, the head of the Britannica's communications group decided -- based on -- what? -- that they don't want to support people who are "cheerleading for the downfall of businesses that they deem to be part of an old regime".

All part of the command-and-control mentality at some of our great institutions of knowledge.

Go team! Sis boom bah!

THE END OF THE STORY
(OR: THE TYRANNY OF RECTANGLES)

If you've ever been part of a story covered by a newspaper, it's a near certainty that you didn't think the story got it exactly right.

Even if there were no outright mistakes, you read it thinking that the emphasis was wrong, that it didn't quite capture all sides, that there was more to it than that, that a turn of phrase was prejudicial.

You would have written it slightly differently. At least.

This is not because reporters aren't good at their job. By and large they are, and it is hard job requiring skill, experience and persistence. It also generally doesn't pay that well. The problem is not with the reporters.

[END QUOTE]

Yeah the Blog Pioneers are still harsh, abrasive, knockabout arguing Charlies trouncing the undead Old Regime of embittered hacks and losers.

Newer bloggers are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses:

Dave Weinberger, Rebecca Blood, Heather Armstrong, Doc Searls, Evan Williams, Chris Locke, Dave Winer, Tom Peters, Paul Woodhouse, Cory Doctorow, John C. Dvorak, Laura Ries, Katherine Stone, Dave Taylor, Jeffrey Veen, Peter Merholz, John Battelle, Perry DeHavilland, Yvonne Devita, Toby Bloomberg, Hugh Mcleod, Jason Kottke, Joi Ito, Roblimo, Constantin Basturea, Jeffrey Zeldman, Dave Sifry, Matt Mullenweg, Mark Cuban, Richard Edelman, Glenn Reynolds, Tim B-L, Laura Ries, NevOn, John Hagel III, Biz Stone, Debbie Weil, Lawrence Lessing, Chris Ritke, Jeremy Wright, Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, Dean Esmay, Jason Calacanis, Jorn Barger, Seth Godin...

...and many other brilliant minds...

...all defending The Blogos, the Beginning of the We-O-Sphere.

So freaking die already, Old Regime!

Long Live the We-O-Sphere!

From Me-O-Sphere to We-O-Sphere

What can I call a media revolution that implies self-manufactured and auto-distributed content?

As a blog author or reader, you are deeply involved in this social media frenzy that everybody's gone stark raving crazy about.

Old Economy is still hype, push, prod, irritate, Digital Rights Management rootkits, command & control, patriarchal, sexist, racist, and did I mention -- dead?

New Share Economy is everything free all the time, mostly. Free versions are fundamentally all you really need for basics, while paid versions are for the more expert users who need advanced tools.

Re-blogging and Reciprocal Commenting are examples of how we are advising each other, entertaining each other, and supporting each other's work...without any need for broadcast media, sales staff, editors, publishers, promoters, or censors.

You write a funny post on Blog Addicts or a hateful post on Blog Porn STD Carriers. I laugh. I quote it and link to it in my blog. We are enjoying and re-circulating each other's content. With no intermediaries, no ad agencies, no PR machines, no anchors, maybe even no advertising or commercials.

We are creating our own music, movies, radio stations (podcast channels), books (text blogs), and other online content.

We love (some of) what we're making, and (some of) what others make.

No advertising agency is telling us what we need and want. We know exactly what we want, and we're creating it ourselves, or know an online friend or fellow content producer-consumer who is.

Division between "consumer" and "producer"? Gone. Forever.

As my former band mate proclaims:

it's the End of Stardom.

Even if all we do is contribute comments to our favorite blogs, we are creating content. Remember: "comments" are actually free, voluntary CONTENT. Comments enrich a blog. Never post a comment just because you merely agree with, or wish to flatter, the blogger. Post some valuable contribution, your own insight, a specific praise to encourage, or whatever you can add to the conversation.

Even lurkers, those who haunt a blog and never post any comments, lurkers are also helping by increasing the traffic count, displayed on site meters, to the blog.

The Me-O-Sphere, which, when the narcissistic element is mixed with interaction between content creator-consumers, turns into the We-O-Sphere.

Me-O-Sphere: using blog text, audio, video, podcast, mp3, posts for Exhibitionism: narcissism, egotism. Approval addicts and self-obsessives.

We-O-Sphere: using blogs, chat, VoIP, email, etc. to interact, collaborate, and co-produce or share content, with others.

aaron spectre video & Loren Feldman vs. text

Aaron Spectre aka Drumcorps aka Air Inspector
"live" ragga junglist DJ Feb. 2006 (2:30)


In Loren Feldman of 1938 Media's post "I Lied to Vaspers the Grate", he boldly asserts, with Dadaist flair, the superiority of the webcam over the keyboard.

THE LOREN FELDMAN "VIDEO vs. TEXT" CHALLENGE:

[QUOTE] I don’t write more often because I think it is too easy to censor yourself. I’m not interested in doing that.

Writing gives you too much time to think. About everything. Most people don’t talk the way they write. There are pauses when you type. Time to reflect, write something witty, use a really cool analogy. It’s not real.

I use video because it is the purest form of communication you can have on the web. [END QUOTE]

I'm glad Loren pointed out the higher position occupied by video.

Vlogs are of higher attention/interest value and purposeability than text, podcast, and photo blogs.

Vlogging is The Next Big Thing. As Loren states, video is more pure a communication channel than text blogs. Video is more human, more of you appears, it's the bigger picture of who you are and what you do and what your company is.

Vlogging lets you show and tell.

Vlogging is dumping us on the teetering tip of the bridge that takes us to full and constant CompuTelepathy, as Loren and I have agreed to in a Skype Chat conversation.

internet > web > blogosphere > podosphere > vlogosphere > web conferencing glogosphere > computelepathic nation

ride your blog to the bitter end

Your blog is the New You.

In the laboratory of the blog platform, and surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, the fellowship and suffering of the blogosphere, you perform HTML, RSS, and psychological experiments.

You define, refine, and re-define yourself, your cause, your company.

Ride it to the bitter end, your blog. It's your friend. It may sometimes be your only true companion on the narrow way of the blog core values.

Stand back and gaze. This time I'll let you stare in fond devotion at your blog. It is your achievement, your work of art and personal presence, your path through the digital jungle.

Today is local Blog Appreciation Day, a time to look in awe and admiration at Other Blogs as well as your own.

Ride your blog to the bitter end. Let no one deter you. Not even you. Finish what you began. Ferret out new ways to enhance it. I strongly recommend Video Posts. Especially for all you CEOs and artist-musicians out there.

Enter the Podosphere (podcasts) and the Vlogosphere (video blogging).

Come out from behind your computer and show yourself, warts and worries included. Establish an animated version of who you are, in serious and trying to be funny moments.

Ride your blog through text, audio, photo, and video.

power of purposelessness

I ate a bowl of vomit for lunch today. -- parody of vanity blog postings.

How many times have you done something for no reason outside of the act itself? For itself alone, and without any imposed meaning or subservient goal? Done something for the sheer joy and delight of it?

Not even for personal fulfillment or satisfaction? Just doing it because you like it, or, even better, because you feel it must be done?

Blogging can be like that.

You may be improving your blog design, writing style, topic relevance, and entertainment value...but getting few reactions. Still, you continue in the direction you set upon, because you feel confident you're on the right track.

Why would few people respond to what you're doing?

Maybe -- they are lazy, or inarticulate, or overwhelmed with work, or in a big hurry, or, perhaps, they're jealous of you. There could be many reasons your improvements result in nothing externally. You may be too far ahead of the curve, which makes mediocres very uncomfortable.

When you read about John Milton, Galileo, Thomas Jefferson, Blake, Robbes-Grillet, Rimbaud, Picasso, Dali, Varese, Ussachevsky, Martin Luther, Hemingway, Dickens, Martin Luther King Jr., John Cage, and other great reformers and innovators, you learn about Opposition and Attack.

Some great thinkers and change agents suffered horribly. Milton wrote Paradise Lost during blindness and extreme poverty and hardship. Many artists do their best work under terrible conditions, loneliness, betrayal, heart ache, depression, and despair.

You don't need "purpose", "goals", or "meaning" as much as the pop psyche guys tell you. What you do need is stubborn determination to stick with something. Something you know is right. Even when it seems burdensome and meaningless and without "desired results".

Business today is too much about a quick profit, then cheapening the product, generally by outsourcing, without passing the savings on to the retail store owners or the consumers. This is very greedy and fucked up.

So keep performing your music, selling your computers, teaching your pupils, launching your space shuttles, sewing your fashions, writing your blog, painting your art, composing your poems, building your ethical business. Be blind and deaf to negative slurs and demotivating losers.

Keep at it. The reward is great, both material and immaterial.

Of Milton's complex and troubled career in controversy, we need not say much.

...He began by publishing antiprelatical tracts, against government of the church by bishops. These are rough, knockabout, name-calling pamphlets in the style of the times...

...Milton was much embittered by ridicule of his ideas.

[Regarding Paradise Lost]...despite the many difficulties that it presented, despite its unfamiliar meter (blank verse was rare outside drama), despite the unpopularity of its attitudes and Milton's reputation as a dangerous man, it [Paradise Lost] was recognized at once as a supreme epic achievement.

--Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors

the machine tyranny

How much do you eat the machines that are eating you? We must be nice to the machines, as they may be have mercy and be somewhat kind to us as they eliminate us. We should be friendly to the machines. We no hate machine. We obey machine. We maybay. We machine. Machine.

Vaspers the Grate "the machine tyranny" (2:40)

CompuMusik Very Strange video

Experience the irreversible madness and formal beauty of this voice/noise/sound collage, from CompuMusik "Galaxies Who Shaped Our Knowledge" CD (2006). Video by Brandy Brev.

CompuMusik "Very Strange" (4:47)

poor pool of mediocrity

Dieter, a fellow I made electronic music with in the mid 90s, emailed me some poignant snarly literature.

It's a lengthy debate we're having, full of messages overflowing with torrential musings on The Muse, the clues, paying dues, who's fit to choose (define what is musical vs. what is non-musical, etc.) and other fine arts topics.

Here's what I call The Dieter Challenge, from his email to me last night.


[QUOTE--by Dieter]


THE DIETER CHALLENGE:

The problem with the web and other internet based marketing is that it only seems to be viewed by poor kids who are all competing with each other through those very realms -- so they are filled with mediocrity, and they have no potential to make any cash, so they are really pointless to me.

[FURTHER COMMENTARY by DIETER...]

I'm still under the theory that good work will sell its self.

Rather than worry about how I'm gonna sell shit, I put my energy into trying to first create something worth selling - then it should just sell it's self. I don't claim to have achieved this yet, but I'm close.

I can say though that when I do create a product worth selling, I probably wouldn't sell it the way all these kids are with the internet shit because then I'm just putting it into a pool of mediocrity.

I would want what I do to stand out and for the extra talent and effort to be known.

Every kid with a PC is putting their shit out on Ipod and file sharing sites and there is just no way to sort through all that crap ...

... plus it makes no money, since the only people who seem to visit or be into those places are people who have no money and are making music, most of the people there are trying to sell shit or just get it heard, not buy it.

[END QUOTE]

What say you, cowgirl?

Post a comment and voice your well considered opinion.

#1 YouTube most viewed video 7-23-06

335,655 views; 1,291 comments; favorited 1,758 times. Funny slam against white racism.
"Mac Spoof: Performance" (0:44)

player hate

You don't want to blog, that's too trendy. You're too hip for that. You don't care about net labels, podcasts, or social media. You belong in the future, you don't belong here. And your inappropriateness for this world makes us now begin to honor you and want to subsidize you...PLAYER HATE.

You don't care about marketing or sales, you will produce perfection, and that perfection will sell itself, unaided by any external forces...PLAYER HATE.

You say technology has ruined music, now any kid with a PC and a sampler (etc.), making garbage calling it music (etc.) -- but True Music, the ambient sounds of nature and traffic, the Music of God and Environment, that sounds perfectly fine to me...PLAYER HATE.



You say what you do is a lost art, real music you call it, but the only dying art I know of is sword swallowing, and I'm not sure how one practices that, begin with toothpicks, perhaps?

And music began with crickets and birds, not humans...

therefore: all human sounds, from Beethoven to Beatles and Britney, are manufactured "noise", extraneous and non-satiating, vainglorious exhibitionism of narcissistic defect, springing like flimsy dreams from dubious inner darkness, while nature sounds are the Only Real and True Music in this very noisy galaxy colliding and amoeba splitting cosmos...PLAYER HATE.

You shun mass marketed technology, but have a cell phone (burning a microwavelet hole into your brain), yet you rejoice to proclaim that you do not have, you proudly refuse to have, an interactive free sample site, you offer no free items to hook up customers with a taste, just words floating in the air, grandiosity fueled by sensitivity...

but enlightened Other Thans already know: all man-made music is artificial, pretend, eternally amateur din, just crooning and clamor that is defined and structured according to the composer's libido, tradition or peers, and "musical" theory sympathies...PLAYER HATE.

"Music is rarefied [refined, enriched] air." -- Busoni (Futurist composer)



CompuMusik: "unnatural noise" (6:07)
from -- the void blue human CD--video by Brandy Brev!

10 Commandments of CEO Blogging

Vaspers the Grate Executive Training
"10 Commandments of CEO Blogging" (7:49)
Learn the rules for successful corporate blogging: reciprocal commenting, Sarbanes-Oxley transparency, flames vulnerability, blogos participation, digital charisma, non-abandonment clauses, etc.

what CEOs should blog about

Vaspers the Grate
"what CEOs should blog about" (5:56)
Build credibility for your CEO blog, by sharing with your readers your experiences, insights, historical facts, expertise, anecdotes, and lessons learned.

winning through eccentricity

Vaspers the Grate
"winning through eccentricity" (4:41)
How to use a little oddness to be memorable, entertaining, and influential.


Throughout history, up until Buddha and Jesus, the merchant class was lowly, considered near to slave in moral standing and significance, the middle man, the interloper, the financier, the speculator, deal maker, traveling salesman...

all despised and degraded, for sometimes not entirely unfounded reasons.

Crafts guilds, apprentice, marketplace, all got along fine without MBAs or CEOs. Information was disseminated in a Share Economy and Strict Standards, set by the makers, who know best how to judge quality and normatives.

Makers are always higher in status than managers or marketers.

As consumers shape, influence, input, or even make the products they need, the cost dives toward nothing, and the universality spreads like cherries over cappacino cheesecake.

naughty blogging

Vaspers the Grate
"naughty blogging" (4:33)
FINAL WORDS: "I give the history lesson, I give the definitions, and I give The Vision."

euphoric power of transparency

Vaspers the Grate THE ASTRONAUT!!!
"euphoric power of transparency" (5:45) "live" from space shuttle!
Honesty, blunt boldness, makes us feel good, triumphant, even ecstatic. How CEO blogs can use conversational candor effectively.

Learn to project a computer screen from your forehead, for others to view favorite sites.

Your speech, in the air or in typing, should reflect your merchandising environment and super-purposed corporate culture, but even more: reflect the needs and interests of your audience.

CEO clicks

Vaspers the Grate
"CEO clicks" (4:37)
How to use a CEO blog for fast results and maximum impact, or, honestly, just a laid back, unfocused introduction to lazy CEO blogging short-cuts, or something in that general area of science.

Wild Wire interview with Vaspers (amended version)

Wild Wire: Tell me Vaspers, why do you think an abrasive, snarling, aggressive attitude is necessary to get your message or philosophy across.

Vaspers: As we machete our way through the thickets, there are bound to be a sticker that cuts across your face, or vine that trips you up, or a mud slide that dumps you into a foul and fetid cesspool of human depravity. I am the salve, the tourniquet, the rescue rope that pulls us out of the quagmire of error and mediocrity.



Wild Wire: Er, okay. Moving on then, to a more down to earth and humble level, why are you reading that Tom Peters book as I interview you?

Vaspers: It's called multi-tasking, and I'm also downloading a free legal music mp3 by Aaron Spectre, ragga junglist DJ.

Wild Wire: Let's get right to it. Vaspers, why do you discuss what you call "blogocombat" so much? Just to attract attention?



VtG: As the sage moves mentally through the valley of veils, an antagonism amasses itself together as fog or mountain, vanquished in vainglorious concentration of self-defense and self-explication. As we progress toward full and complete self-disclosure, of those things that can benefit others, and not just every stray feeling or nutty notion, we will stumble upon snakes that threaten our ankles with pseudo bloggery.



Wild Wire: Whatever. Now, ha ha, you certainly are multi-tasking. I didn't know they made foot pedal mouse controls. You are operating your computer with both hands, your nose, and both feet, as you seem to be stepping on some sort of foot pads. Now, what's that book you're reading? You don't stick with anything too long do you?

Vaspers: I quickly get what I'm after, no need to spend hours searching, when I've memorized the location of all text in all my books. The books that I own, that is. Including Proust, pretty much, though I'm slipping there, in all those flowers and perspectives on bell towers. I don't use bookmarks, and yellow highlighting only entered in when I had to be able to grab a book fast, and find the exact sentence, like during a ferocious blogocombat maneuver.

WiWi: So, what's the book?

VtG: The Analysis of the Self, a monograph by a psychotherapist dealing with narcissistic personality disorder, you know, Blog Psychosis and all that arche-blogging architecture.


Wild Wire: I see you've plucked another book from the stack on the floor...

Vaspers the Grate: This is my favorite ecommerce and internet marketing book. GONZO MARKETING: Winning Through Worst Practices, by Mr. Cluetrain and Mssr. Mystic Bourgeoisie, The Chief Blogging Officer and serendiptitiously self-proclaimed Rage Boy, ladies and gentlemen, I mean the one and only: Christopher Locke.



Wild Wire: What's the most important thing to do in a CEO blog?

[EDIT UPDATE: Sorry...my answer got chopped off when I first posted this interview. Here's what my reply was to that question.]

Vaspers: CEOs must vlog, start doing video posts on the blog. Not every post, but frequently. They can take us on a 5 minute tour through some key process or some obscure historical fact. Demonstrate easy-going expertise on what your company does and the materials that go into the manufacture.

Keep them guessing what bizarre angle or topic you'll discuss next. Variety. Respond to every comment individually and completely, as much as realistic time constraints will allow. At least show up in a personal response to a reader's comment, at minimum, once per thread. At least once.

CEOs, more than any other group, need to project, to present a highly engaging, animated version of themselves to the public and stakeholders.

Not a silly clown, necessarily, but at least someone who is charismatic, believable, down to earth, compassionate, clever, entertaining, nice, visionary, inspiring, and a sharp dresser, even in men's casual wear.


Wild Wire: Why are you suddenly acting like vlogging, video blogging, is the biggest and most important thing in the world?

VtG: When we renounce the shackles of information slavery, the cry of triumph is compu-televised via vlogs, those rum around the edge thingamijigs that everybody's going stark raving crazy about. It's all about humanizing the digital realm, isn't it? An extreme and livid hostility to voicemail options lists, press 1 for thunder, press 2 for rain, press 3 for Ritalin drug exchange program, etc.



WiWi: This is a fine example of your apparent technique of shyly bashing everybody. You holler like a hillbilly and stomp your feet like a paramilitary commander. You pounce on a topic like a SWAT team leader. Then you ruin it all. Unexpectedly, abruptly, you range over a superficial spectrum of pet peeves, slinging mud at them sporadically, some might say chaotically, awkwardly and randomly.

V the G: Correct.



Wild Wire: What's next? I have run out of questions you seem capable of answering.

Vaspy t Grr: Okay. Same to ya. What's up?

WW: I don't know...well, the end of this interview, that's for sure. That's what. That's what's up.

Vaspersian Envoy to the World, Vaspers the Grate: No, fool. "Up" is the opposite of "down", that's what up is. That's what is up, what "up" is.

Wild Wire: Sure.

CEO Video Blogging Basics

CEO Video Blogging Basics

(1) Be yourself, and other original personas, as fits the occasion.

i.e., be funny one time, dead serious another time, happy one day, grim the next, as reality piles its training and challenges on your plate.

(2) Become the Primary Brand Representative of your organization.

e.g., the world traveler with authentic recipes from actual restaurants you really ate in.

e.g., the globally recognized expert on the steel or publishing or garment industry.

e.g., the man with more marketing sense than the top ten business writers combined.

e.g., the lady who ascended to power in a male patriarchal pig sty and granted the men amnesty or reprieve.

i.e., whatever your expertise or product line is.

You be the voice, from the horse's mouth, the buck stops here, the official and benign megaphone to the online world, via your CEO blog, how you appear, how you speak and shrug your shoulders, what you wear, what you fidget with, what your backdrop is, how the lighting makes you look powerful (necessary in some cases) or ethereal (recommended).

(3) Experiment, call nothing a "failure", keep at it, adjust your spectacles, comb that unruly hair, vary your position, play with vocal intonation, move away from or toward the camera, treat the camera as the audience, treat your body as the ghost of your thought.

(4) Be friendly, unassuming, self-effacing, sincere, real, confessional (in small doses for specific goals, not just gushing and blubbering in digital exhibitionism).

(5) Identify yourself verbally and with signage or Hello My Name Is...badges (ala Scott Ginsberg, the Name Tag Guy discovered a while back by Seth Godin and many others).

(6) Vary your attire, depending on the message and purpose of a video post.

(7) Keep posting text, art, photo, music mp3, and audio posts, for those who don't have high speed internet access.

(8) If you can pull off some humor now and then, that will go a long way to making people pay attention to your core message. Watch how people roar with laughter at avant garde, bizarrely funny commercials and movies. Laughing people are happy people and happy people spend more money than suicidal people.

That's all for now. A few hundred more, or less, coming soon.

(Photo directly above is a close-up of my cheek. I'm trying to get closer to my audience.)

humanized CEO video blogging

What are you doing with CEO video blogging? How many experiments, failures and triumphs, have you done? How many times fell flat on your face and looked like an idiot? That's not necessarily a bad thing, you know.

Some CEOs fear flaming, angry consumers or disgruntled ex-employees with hateful comments to post like vandalism all over their CEO blog. That's not such a bad thing, either, flames. How quickly you respond to the rational critics, how you simply delete and ignore the insane trollers.

SPAM & ABUSIVE COMMENT PREVENTION: On your blog, use captchas and comment moderation with delayed posting of comments, to weed out the spambot link list postings. On your vlog and YouTube videos, do the same or similar.

Video Blogging is Closer
To Real Human Presence...

People demand personalized sales and service. They want to contact an actual living human being, not a constellation of computer programs and robot vocoders.

CEOs need to project personality, vibrance, sense of humor, altruism, expertise. You must do the fireside chat venue online.

Eventually blogs will be video conferencing of real time interactions amongst broadband blazers, brazenly blazing new and risky trails through the Absolute Switched-On User Empowerment digital cosmos we now sink or swim in.

I can't think of any better way to get your CEO Personality Which = Your Brand across to the public.

But even more: you become more fully HUMAN in a video.



That's what online presence, corporate web sites, CEO blogs are all about. Not pushing a message, but unveiling a character, a next door neighborly good Joe, a normal with a maverick streak, a rebel with a softer side, whatever fits your product line, blog audience, customer base, and industry standards.

Text? Just words that sit there, superior to blankness only.

Photos? Static but can at least make you visually real, rather than just a string of mental sentences.

Audio? Podcasting is projecting still more humanization. With text, photo, and now voice, you are becoming more like an actual present person. Your audience suddenly plunges into the much deeper connection with you, your company, your products and the sales thereof.

Video? Now we are rapidly entering the realm containing the path to compu-telepathy, mind to mind communications, mediated by software and electricity and steel or glass fiber. You are visually animated now, more than a talking head hopefully, however you work that one out.

Video blogging has a big impact on public perception and self discovery. You are bound to be more strident, or conversely, more relaxed, than you typically are in your timid little textual bloggy thingamajig.

Video blogging is risky. If you look like an idiot, at least you're not a voice mail options list or a pre-recorded, overly-scripted talking head on a newscast. You'll probably need a script, a set of scribbled notes, or a firm and fixed idea of what topic you want to ad lib about.



Improvisation, if you can pull it off, is the name of the game. Vlogs are blogs on cappacino-fueled lithium rockets. You can video log in a sleepy state one time, then a pumped up on fire condition the next time. Swing with variety. Keep them wondering what you'll do next.

Interview handsome, pretty, or smart individuals on relevant topics. Seeing two people interact is more interesting than...why state the obvious?

Enough! You go do a video blog post now, using whatever webcam and image processing junk you got, or go buy some. Get with it, because it is better to let people see and hear you, than to just let them read your typed words on cold white expanses.

hot techniques for new bloggers

Vaspers the Grate
"hot techniques for new bloggers" (6:43)

how to get new clients

Vaspers shows how to use an ordinary telephone to acquire new paying customers for his specialties (web analysis, blogology, ecommerce, etc.). Step by step demonstration of overcoming objections, explaining "blogger", and introductory Miserably Servile Customer Pampering techniques. Subtext: party planning and social climbing.

Vaspers the Grate
"how to get new clients" (9:50)
Observe. Learn. Enrichen.

how to get a job interview + music promo film

Vaspers the Grate
Impromptu Training Film #001
(satirical infotainment)
"how to get a job interview" (5:39)


I have decided to mark my videos, divide them into three major CEO service camps:

(1) Satirical Infotainment: wherein I either try to tickle your funny bone for sheer fun and relief from stress factors on the job...or I get you laughing so I can insert subtle radical suggestions into your corporate culture by tele-osmosis.

(2) Serious Web Analysis: user observation tests, usability/credibility factors, web-savvy text, design, and functionality enhancements, and how to instructions for CEO blogging.

(3) Avant Noise Music Promotions (for Camouflage Danse and CompUMusik): music to relax or get angry by, as relief from mediocrity and lack of imagination on the job. These are the hardest videos to make. I have to crack open my video processing software and [sighs] gain instant proficiency in this [yet another] marketable skill.

All the stuff we do on our blogs? Do you realize they are financially lucrative, sellable skills in a job interview? Job interviews are always more fun than the job itself, if you know how to play them.

Vaspers the Grate is known for being harsh to that which he loves most: literature, music, bloggers, churchianity, metaphysical circuse, political philosophy, and corporations.

In his attacks he brings a long train of future benefits for any organization willing to endure the pain of self-discovery. One of these tagalongs is business humor.

Relax. Enjoy. Feel the competitive war wounds and battle stress melt away in chuckles and smirks.

ste/vasp

Vaspers the Grate aka Xomp U-Musik Maestro
"CompuMusik CD promo #001" (4:22)
[feat. "Return of the Lost Astronaut" - CompuMusik "Galaxies..." CD]

blogocombat against telemarketers (training film )

Impromptu Training Film #5:

Wherein I demonstrate "live", in-the-moment, my "Psycho Consumerism" blogocombat technique in the theatre of living reality, against an actual telemarketer on the phone.

Vaspers the Grate
"blogocombat against telemarketers" (4:54)

blogocombat photo story 1

I slid across my office floor, without moving. I just stood there and began to glide effortlessly toward my computer.
I fiercely determined to NOT visit the blogosphere today. I would work on Lulu product downloads for my blog, and other ecommerce applications.
Somebody called me on Skype and we started arguing about podcasts vs. video blogging.
When the Skype conversation ended, I looked up to the sky and drew upon the lofty energies to help me resist the lure of the blogosphere.
After about 10 minutes, I was bored, so I do what I always do when I'm bored. I visited the blogosphere.
But first, I checked my Gmail inbox to see if there were any comments to moderate at my blogs. I published a few new comments, and deleted three irrelevant, spambot comments that were lengthy lists of links.
I visit a blog and right off the bat, see something I don't like.
I study the blog carefully. I post some comments. He doesn't understand or like what I say, so we go at it.
It gets pretty intense. He really thinks blogs have to have eye candy. He's starting to piss me off.
As the blogocombat rages, I'm forced to wear my blogocombat head gear. It's a Mental HazMat hat for hazardous online material workers. This special head gear protects me from online mental trauma.
My special blogocombat glasses enable me to see through my opponent's deceptions and errors.
I look to the sky and wonder why, why me, why am I destined to be--King of Blogocombat? I get pensive, contemplative, and uptight. His flames are easy to extinguish, but I'm feeling uncertain of my own point. I am unable to switch from theory to marching orders, but I'll try not to let it show. I better stick to the abstract concepts and avoid any discussion of implementation.
Can you see how my blogocombat opponent chewed my ear like a stick of licorice? I'm taking quite a beating, and I'm having trouble thinking of a clever reply to his last comment.I suddenly think of something to say that will destroy the enemy's entire premise. I type it fast and hit Submit. He's stunned. There is no reply possible. End of debate. That was easy.
Ah, everything's back to normal now. I won. Now I can move on to other things. I think I'll even smile and act happy. There. That's enough of that. Guess I'll look out my window now. Won't you join me?


Vaspers the Grate "blogocombat against telemarketers"

patching holes in kenneth patchen

Ping me, you sexy little lightweight rss feed scraper.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Vaspers the Grate
"patching holes in kenneth patchen" (6:20)
poetic analysis satire

I deal with mental hazmat (hazardous material).

being Vaspers/CompUMusik new dimension disco

Vaspers the Grate
"being vaspers the grate" (2:31)



CompuMusik, starring Vaspers the Grate
"new dimension disco" (7:05)
from "Christian Noise Metaphysics" CD

always win at blogocombat

Vaspers the Grate
"Always Win at Blogocombat" (2:51)

Vaspers enters the Vlogosphere

I am getting ready, having my hair professionally combed, for my invasion of the Vlogosphere.

Vaspers 1.0 (text version): 2004
Blogger/Blogspot, WordPress, Xanga, Busy Thumbs, etc.

Vaspers 2.0 (audio version): 2005
49 Media podcast (w/Chris Ritke)
Odeo podcast

Vaspers 3.0 (video version): 2006
YouTube (Camouflage Danse)
....???....
[coming soon, sooner than you think]

Like right now:

Vaspers the Grate [7-15-06]
"How To Do a Corporate Video" (0:56)

mental meltdowns in blogocombat

When engaged in blogocombat, one way to ensure a quick win is to install a mental meltdown in your opponent.

You begin blogocombat knowing at least 3 important things about your adversary:

(1) He is against you.

(2) His ruling passion is his great weakness.

(3) Deprived of his ruling passion, he has no fight in him.



With a keen awareness of these key ingredients at your disposal, you can easily, safely, and swiftly induce a satisfactory mental meltdown in any blogocombat enemy.

Mental meltdown occurs when you allow the foe's onrushing energies, in the form of critiques, warnings, and attacks, to hit your most vulnerable spot without opposing them.

By using clever and deft forays into hidden sarcasm, impossible demands, tangled questions, and topic escape clause vectors, you gain decided advantage over strategies that attempt to use the ego and its over-valued objects as a sort of basecamp and supply depot.

Now you may proceed to your indifferent, triumphalist battle play for overt assault and clandestine sabateur operations within the debate.

"Matador Switch Technique"
for Artificially Inducing
Blogocombat Mental Meltdown

One guaranteed trick that quickly produces a nice effect is the Matador Switch technique.

MST involves flapping the red irritation flag in your opponent's face, then, as he rushes at it headlong, with all his prepared statements and infantile emotional intensity, you whip that flag behind your back, a sudden withdrawal of target, and join in the laughter as he goes flying off the edge of the cliffs of your true intentions.

The way to always win is to not care who wins at the end of the argument, but to abruptly withdraw at that point at which you feel you retain the upper hand. You decide when you're done with the topic, not your debate opponent.

So-called "Antagonistic Leverage Superiority", that recently it seems every blogger is honking his little horn about, is something you automatically gain through unemotional blog clobbering and aloof battering at the idea, not the person holding the idea.

You rip the idea out of your opponent's hand, throw it on the ground of being, and stomp on it like you were putting out a floor fire, grind your heel into, kick it and so forth. Furniture polish enters into this, but [text deleted] to explain how.

His selfhood is intimately wrapped up in his opinion. He represents his opinion, as though it were the sum and total of his soul. You merely pit one idea against another idea, with no identification with the idea you send to war in your stead.

By infusing his opinion with his entire personality, the opinion then becomes infinitely vulnerable to externally generated intrusions into the secret source of raw nerves and sensitivity.

You are using the opponent's anger against him, enabling him to look foolish, rash, not sober, infantile, incontinent, irrational, hysterical, and vain.

As the enemy's spear begins to disintegrate, note the facile expressions of nihilism spawned by sudden realization that the world, as he always saw it and experienced it, is gone forever.

Replaced by your opinions.

business prophet in Babylon

(1) Observe with pure, uncontaminated vision.

(2) Mentally note all deviations, dysfunctions, and violations.

(3) Vocally analyze and rehearse your diagnosis in front of an interactive audience.

(4) Indirectly remark obliquely on the real problems, then suggest curveballs that will both solve the problems and disrupt "business as usual" routines and attitudes.

(5) Psychosomatically imply that the intrinsic root of the problem is always and already: the leadership.

(6) Psychotherapeutically administer elixirs and tonics that can squeeze the rotteness out of the core.

(7) Surreptitiously examine the client's industry's errors and successful alienation of customers.

(8) Serendiptitiously participate in the appropriate denunciation ritual or, in the best patients, the revelry of successful salvage operation pagaentry.

(9) Constantly acquire new patients, to replace the suit and tie corpses languishing astray from the path, to perform ethics surgery or financial rescue upon.

super blogs and the future of blogging

Vaspers the Grate/Compumusik:
"Super Blogs and the Future of Blogging" /
"i am entering new found land of vapor bodies" (4:32)


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2 Comments:

Hans said...

It seems that to quit blogging comes out for many guys much more difficult, than quitting with their girl-friend...

I also realized, that quite a lot people are quitting these days, is it just the hot summer, or a start of something more ?

Will there blogs be in 10 years?

Steven, what is your prediction?


Thursday, July 13, 2006 6:31:31 PM

steven edward streight said...

I predict that blogs in the next few years will become more expansive interactive customized web site constellations, more fully humanized galaxies of functionalities. More fully functionalized. More personal and aloof. Indifferent to lack of, or unmanageable excess of, reader comments.

Less frivolous, more focused, until the boring and unstable blogs fall away into abandoned, unupdated nothingness.

Blogs are moving toward full service multi-media centers and trust-net link hubs.

Hardcore Super Bloggers will provide art, photos, music, audio, video, real-time communications via VoIP Conference Calls and web cam chat.

Blogs will grow a human face with a human voice and multiple choice.

In 10 years, there will be no blogs. (As we know them today.)

We will be using glogs instead, psychogeographic bionic controls.

We will have computers and wifi VPN connections embedded in our brains. CompuTelepaths will rule the offices and lead the home.

You'll send an email by scratching your forehead, and view a blog by winking your left eye in a coded sequence of flinches.

Thursday, July 13, 2006 7:07:36 PM

16 aspects of blog visitability

You created a blog and posted a few items, some text, maybe some photos, art, video, or music mp3s of your band.

By what measurements can one predict if a blog will be attractive to others, so that you get visits and comments?

How can you know if your blog is visitable? Well, there are some guaranteed, tried and true items that must ring true, if you want people to visit your blog.

Key Elements of Blog Visitability

(1) Blog Title: Relevant, memorable, and original.

(2) Blog Content: Rich, relevant, and immediately or futuristically useful.

(3) Blog Design: Immediate impact of visual aspects creates an impression of professional, serious, innovative, or whatever credibility and qualities you wish to convey to first time readers.

(4) Blog Tagline: Brief description of contents, statement of purpose, or funny slogan.

(5) Post Frequency: You must post at least once a week, preferably once a day. Group and team blogs should post a few, if not several, times per day. Depending on topic and user needs. People don't feel comfortable visiting what appears to be an abandoned blog. It's like stumbling into a cemetary or morgue. Brrrrr. [shivers]

(6) Post Variety: People get tired of reading the same old crap about your dining habits, love life problems, opinions on trivial matters, or favorite movie scars. Use surprise, uncharacteristic tones, more photos, more text, quotes, running commentary, or whatever it takes to add spice and unexpected tangents to your blog.

(7) Blog Friendliness: As manifested in quick, courteous responses to comments, within the topic thread (and not just summarizing posts), and your general tone of voice in postings. Display a photo of yourself. Humanize your blog with audio or video posts. Let them hear you and see you. But not too much! Careful with that axe, Eugene!

(8) Post Redundancy: It won't hurt to recycle some photos, audio, video, text. Your brand new readers may not comb through your precious archives as much as you'd like to think they would. Don't just regurgitate text, but take an already posted topic and re-work it into a new post.

(9) Blogger Passion: If you're really excited, intense, in-depth, or expansive about a topic or activity, you'll attract readers. Maintain that enthusiasm, coupled with a burning desire to share your know-how or products, and you'll retain readership.

(10) Blogospheric Interactivity: Circulate through the blogosphere, and post comments at other blogs, if you want to attract attention and gain readership. Usually a blogger will reciprocate if you leave a comment at his or her blog.

(11) Blog Language: Use appropriate style and vocabulary. If you're a business blogger, refrain from using certain vulgar, sexual, or amateurish language. If you're a comedy blogger, refrain from using scholarly language. If your mom and dad read your blog, refrain from using words they will spank and ground you into hamburger for. Don't use lots of buzzwords and trendy bells and whistles, unless you want to be known as an unimaginative, know-nothing consultant.

(12) Blogospheric Controversy: Check the blog trackers like Technorati to see what's being hotly debated in the blog realm. Then do posts on your opinions, experiences, or insights in that topic area. Challenge or reinforce the prevailing wisdom. Find faults in the opposing side's position and aguments.

(13) Added Value Items: Consider putting video (your own or YouTube or Google Video), audio, podcasts, music mp3s, art, photography, games, relevant links, custom search engines, PDF downloads, e-books, and other functionalities into your blog. Blogs that are nothing but text are going to vanish or be ignored pretty soon, in many cases. People are looking for full service entertainment and multi-functional information zones.

(14) Benefit Orientation: Think constantly of how you can benefit your readers with how-to articles, insights, tips, lessons, tutorials, anecdotes, quotes, and other helpful items. Don't just keep gushing up tons of trivial personal, or hard sell promotional, text.

(15) Automatic Blog Update Notification/Subscription: Provide email alerts or RSS/Atom syndication for your readers, to let them know you have fresh, new content, as soon as you post it.

(16) Exoblog Interactivity: Communicate with readers outside the confines of the blog. Let them email you. Mail them gifts. Sell them things they need or like. Go to blog conferences. Conduct blog related seminars.

9 effective styles of blog post writing

(1) professional (sharing expertise, analysis or insight)

(2) instructional (explaining how to do something)

(3) technical (discussing and debating technology)

(4) confessional (revealing personal aspects of your life)

(5) satirical (making fun of self or others)

(6) social (interacting with others to get laid or get paid)

(7) metaphysical (psychologically weakening the hold of deception and domination systems)

(8) political (ranting and raving about public servant schmucks)

(9) promotional (selling or freely distributing info and valued items, like music mp3s or downloadable product, like e-books or software)

one sentence summary of 3 vol Proust novel

A site asked me to
Summarize Proust

THE MOMENT by Kenneth Patchen:

before the girl picking field daisies
becomes the girl picking field daisies
there is a moment of some complexity

Vaspers the Grate's one sentence summary of Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" (more accurately: "Reveries of Wasted Time"), in three volumes: Swann's Way, Within a Budding Grove, and The Guermantes Way...

which is one of my favorite books, along with Totality & Infinity by Emmanuel Levinas, The Postcard by Jacques Derrida, Djinn by Alain Robbes-Grillet, The Last Man by Maurice Blanchot, Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau (a one page story told in multiple rhetorical styles), The Castle by Franz Kafka, Impressions of Africa by Raymond Roussel, The Quantity Theory of Insanity by Will Self, The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind, and A Heart Under a Cassock by Arthur Rimbaud,...

Remembrance of Things Past contains this excerpted text, taken from a random page (281):

But he had so far acquired the habit of finding life interesting -- of marvelling at the strange discoveries that were to be made in it -- that even while he was suffering so acutely that he did not believe it possible to endure such agony for any length of time, he was saying to himself: Life is indeed astonishing, and holds some fine surprises; it appears that vice is far more common than one has been led to believe.

Here is a woman in whom I had absolute confidence, who looks so simple, so honest, who, in any case, even allowing that her morals are not strict, seemed quite normal and healthy in her tastes and inclinations.

I receive a most improbable accusation, I question her, and the little that she admits reveals far more than I could ever have suspected.

But he could not confine himself to these detached observations. He sought to form an exact estimate of the importance of what she had just told him, so as to know whether he might conclude that she had done these things often, and was likely to do them again.

MY SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL:

The I of a novel fades in and out of flowers, love, and sleep, gradually understanding society and time, then the whole universe crashes into vainglorious derision.

Camouflage Danse: I wanna be your president

Camouflage Danse: "Apples" (5:20)
live at WFMU, East Orange, NJ many Jovian moons ago

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Camouflage Danse: "I Wanna Be Your President" (2:34)

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blogocombat music by Air Inspector

Aaron Spectre aka Air Inspector aka Drumcorps provides, for my personality, the ideal blogocombat background music. He is a ragga jungle wreckstep dub mash mix master. There is none higher than this amazing guy, he literally RULES the ragga junglist scene.

Excerpt #1 (4:39) from newly released "live @ Beat Research - Boston"


[Music player embed voluntarily withdrawn pending legal approval.]



What's it sound like? A masterful blend of social consciousness, spiritualized anarchy, split-single reggae, hardcore punk, Old Testament warnings against the money-worshiping mammonists, and electronica.



Excerpt #2 from Air Inspector live @ Beat Research - Boston [May 22, 2006] (3:58)


[Music player embed voluntarily withdrawn pending legal approval.]


Here are some FREE mp3s of the astonishing Air Inspector. (Windows users: left click to listen, right click to save mp3 on hard drive). Download right now:

(1) "Life We Promote" (1:08:20) Start here, I suggest. Classic ragga jungle! My first A.S. download and still my favorite: this contains his best work, has lilting happy melodic material -- that abruptly shifts into killer hardcore explosions. If you dig this, then go ahead and download everything else.

(2) "Drumcorps live @ London Resonance" (43:00) NEW! I dl'd it today, have not heard it all yet. The beginning of it sounds rather industrial.

(3) "Air Inspector live @ Beat Research - Boston" (57:33) NEW! May 22, 2006 At 5 minutes into this set, reggae girls begin to trash talk the mammonist exploiters: rasta rant about torture, murder, oppression, and the Almighty Father. Get ready to be rebuked, fat cats.

(4) "Sleepy" (3:34) Uncharacteristically gentle, soothing, ethereal, soft dubstep oatmeal. Cool breezey nap music. A. S. contribution to an Ad Noiseam net label compilation. (link coming: I made a typo)

More free and priced sonic material is available at the Aaron Spectre web site. I like the poetic evocation of such titles as "No Solace in Sleep", "Bleeding Light", "Bliss Out v.18", and "Pure Tone Audiometry."

Judgment is on its way. Look everyone: it's the Doom of Domination Systems. End of Exploitation and Stardom. Death (or Convenient Disappearance?) of Corrupt CEOs.

Enter the Sabred Warrior: Sarbanes-Oxley.

BEhold ISreal. "Creation burn out the Eagle, the Dragon, and the Bear," th' pr'ph'ts s'y.

Air Inspector: musical soundtrack for the fiery future.

Apocalypse Incineration Now!

AND ... HOW ... SHALL ... THE ... BLOGOSfear ... handle this?

Age Reversal Ray

Age Reversal Ray (5:30)
[background = "Soup Up the Radioactive Marshmallows" by CompuMusik, from "Galaxies Who Shaped Our Knowledge" CD]


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Another nice thing about Odeo Studio is you can download mp3s of these podcasts, once enough of them accumulate to around 80 minutes, and then burn them to a CD, to listen to in your boombox or automobile.

CompuMusik presents Hair From Hell

CompuMusik: "Hair From Hell" (3:47)


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Vaspers the Grate relates the nightmarish story of the lady whose bad hair days were lethal to others. Featuring the sounds of CompuMusik “Robot Zombie Mindscan” from the CD “Galaxies Who Shaped Our Knowledge”. July 2006.

mp3 version: CompuMusik "Hair From Hell"

Odeo Directory link: CompuMusik "Hair From Hell"

[illustration at top "Little Wraith" from Monstercake]

Odeo Studio podcasting experiment 1

Problems with FileLodge mp3 hosting have made me experiment with Odeo Studio.

On Google Chat tonight, Bennett told me that none of the Camouflage Danse mp3s are working. So I may make all our music, plus my personal CompuMusik compositions, available on a podcast. Odeo also creates mp3s of what you feed into the studio through your microphone.

I am going to provide an Odeo embed player, and two links to the item.

CompuMusik CD promo "i am passing through rubber mirrors"

(1) mp3 version: I Am Passing Through Rubber Mirrors promo 1

(2) Odeo Directory link: I Am Passing Through Rubber Mirrors promo

(3) Odeo player embed version


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Odeo is the creation of Evan Williams, a creator of Blogger software.

Please be so kind as to tell me if these links work for you.

More to come soon.

Here is Christopher Locke, Mr. Cluetrain Manifesto/Gonzo Marketing/Mystic Bourgeoisie's podcast on Odeo Studio (0:21):

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vlogosphere hero Jerry

It's Jerry Time

New Reformed Insane Blog Media Network

Yawn.

"Your money-making schedule is enclosed," I said in an email sent out to select bloggers not long enough ago.

"Blogs, brains, and castrations blades at your service, sir or madam" was our slogan offered to corporate CEOs and other wimpy executives who need others to defend them in the blogosphere. We would go after flamers and totally destroy them with Derrida-Socrates type attacks.

Make (maybe) millions with social media, etc. Monetize your blog, ROI your mom, make your pets work for their food, teach the birds to bring you cannabis.

Here's real "news you can lose" from the unfriendly folks at the Aggravated Apathy Clinic, a division of the Reginald Mental Hygiene Association, a wealthy sponsor of Vaspers the Grate.

Charles Reginald forced me to do him a favor.

In keeping with author-heroin dabbler and marihuana champion Will Self and his abominable and celebrated Quantity Theory of Insanity, Mr. Reginald asked me to draw the forces of lunacy out of society, to accumulate in a bizarre blog network.

Will Self is famous for saying that his writing is so personal, the reader enters a personal relationship with him that is more personal than having a personal relationship with him.



Quantity Theory of Insanity
(my paraphrasic mutilation):


(1) There is only so much insanity that one world can contain.

(2) In human society, insanity is unfairly distributed.

(3) Undue concentrations of insanity can be diminished by creating insanity in another location. When you increase the insanity in one location, it automatically and instantly decreases in other locations.

So, if you follow this reasoning, if we deliberately create a critical mass of insanity in a certain sector of the blogosphere, we will dilute the insanity in MySpace, online MSM newspapers, anti-blog bloggers, pseudo blogs, and RSS feed Content-Vampire Blogs.



"New Reformed Insane
Blog Media Network" =


(1) "new" -- novelty is king, long live the unknown as it leaks into the familiar

(2) "reformed" -- euphoric upheaval, ecstatic reform, and cataclysmic re-orientation, lending the refreshment of safety and stability to new ventures, the security of constant core and tangential change, continual unanticipated improvement

(3) "insane" -- euphemism for the subversive, para-abnormal, unauthorized, unorthodox

(4) "blog" [allegoria: social trans-volution lycium] -- simple CMS with frequent reverse chronological updates, reader comments, trackbacks, syndication, podcasts, video, feedrolls, links, etc.

(5) "media" -- a constellagtion of public platforms and UI {..."media"...}

(6) "network" -- loose collaboration and comradarie, via comments, email, VOIP, vlogs, podcasts, and blog posts for the perpetuation of ________ and _______.


new + reformed + insane + blog + media + network:

"we do everything backwards, Your Honor"


We are anti-capitalist ecommerce mongers, greedily giving away our online fortunes to the Bill Grates Foundation, the parody charity that gives $1.00 per year to the 10 most wealthy people in the world! With instructions on how they MUST spend it for social reform programs!

Your blog can apply for membership in this non-profit opportunity to almost GET RICH
by doing next to nothing.

Email me today, or post a clever comment. Wait and see, as CEOs say timidly until it's too late.

Maybe a miracle will occur and you'll be accepted. Or maybe, without applying, we'll force you to join. Or add your blog to our membership rolls without your knowledge or consent.

(Most current participants are Involuntary Status charter members.)

The list I promised, of who's in our network, was delayed because the database has a monkey crunch in it and I can't unglue the nature of the beast. Some day I'll produce that list, and wait for the shock and horror to dissolve into a million yellow pieces.

To compensate for this misfortune, here is my 49 Media podcast with Chris Ritke. This podcast was done about a year ago, I think.

I had just woken up, my throat was parched and dry, I had no coffee, nor any beverage, yet. I had no notes, no preparation, no idea what to say.

I believe in unprepared interviews. To send some schmuck a list of questions in advance, to carefully rehearse his replies, is idiotic and not authentic. I think Chris and I discussed a few basic topics I wanted to cover, but there were no specific questions or answers planned ahead of time. That's the screwed up MSM way of doing things.

Blogs and podcasts ideally are all about transparency and spontaneity. Why? Because I said so, that's why. Sucka foo.

49 Media Podcast with
Vaspers the Grate


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Technorati: Top 34 blogs

Here are the first 34 of the Top 100 blogs by number of unique links, during the past 6 months, according to Technorati.

This list is a snapshot of the upper crust of the blogospheric fudge. The upper regions of the digital effluvium.

When you look at this list, what does it tell you about the blogosphere, bloggers, and the people who read blogs? What does this list tell you about succeeding as a blogger?

People often tend to think of the blogosphere as trivial, confessional, sexual, predatory, or full of political crazies...just ranting and raving. Does this list (especially the full list of 100 at Technorati) support or contradict such allegations?

Does the blogosphere, based on this view of it, seem to be a venue where you would want to promote your company, expertise, or products?

NOTE: Also see Top YouTube Videos, and Top News Items lists. (With simple, guessable, memorizable URLs.)

The "???????" refers to words in a language that your browser has no characters for, like Chinese.

1. 1

   老徐 徐静蕾 新浪BLOG

   • http://blog.sina.com.cn/m/xujinglei
   • Last updated 4 hours ago.
   • 45,857 links from 29,181 sites
2. 2

   Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

   • http://www.boingboing.net
   • By xenijardin. Last updated 1 hour ago.
   • 66,219 links from 20,223 sites
3. 3

   Engadget

   • http://www.engadget.com
   • Last updated 1 hour ago.
   • 105,104 links from 15,949 sites
4. 4

   PostSecret

   PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

   

   • http://postsecret.blogspot.com
   • By frank warren. Last updated 7 days ago.
   • 17,103 links from 11,798 sites
5. 5

   Thought Mechanics

   

   • http://www.thoughtmechanics.com
   • By Theron Parlin. Last updated 1 day ago.
   • 12,950 links from 11,528 sites
6. 6

   Daily Kos: State of the Nation

   • http://www.dailykos.com
   • Last updated 1 hour ago.
   • 44,294 links from 11,304 sites
7. 7

   The Huffington Post

   

   • http://www.huffingtonpost.com
   • By Arianna Huffington. Last updated 20 hours ago.
   • 31,806 links from 9,633 sites
8. 8

   Gizmodo, The Gadget Guide

   • http://www.gizmodo.com
   • Last updated 1 hour ago.
   • 71,294 links from 9,485 sites
9. 9

   TechCrunch

   

   • http://www.techcrunch.com
   • By Michael Arrington. Last updated 1 hour ago.
   • 27,699 links from 8,987 sites
10. 10

    Lifehacker, the Productivity and Software Guide

    • http://www.lifehacker.com
    • Last updated 1 hour ago.
    • 27,638 links from 8,389 sites
11. 11

    Official Google Blog

    • http://googleblog.blogspot.com
    • Last updated 2 days ago.
    • 17,465 links from 7,849 sites
12. 12

    Michelle Malkin

    

    • http://michellemalkin.com
    • By Michelle Malkin. Last updated 1 day ago.
    • 43,253 links from 7,262 sites
13. 13

    Break.com Funny Pics, Hot Chicks, & Cool Flicks

    • http://www.break.com
    • Last updated 9 days ago.
    • 15,059 links from 7,246 sites
14. 14

    Crooks and Liars

    • http://www.crooksandliars.com
    • By John Amato. Last updated 2 hours ago.
    • 26,583 links from 7,192 sites
15. 15

    Blog di Beppe Grillo

    Grillo's gags have tackled financial scandals and political corruption

    

    • http://www.beppegrillo.it
    • By Beppe Grillo. Last updated 4 hours ago.
    • 17,016 links from 7,098 sites
16. 16

    Instapundit.com

    • http://instapundit.com
    • Last updated 59 minutes ago.
    • 21,731 links from 6,585 sites
17. 17

    Think Progress

    Breaking news, research and analysis.

    

    • http://thinkprogress.org
    • By Judd Legum. Last updated 8 hours ago.
    • 28,408 links from 5,887 sites
18. 18

    dooce

    • http://www.dooce.com
    • Last updated 1 day ago.
    • 9,290 links from 5,716 sites
19. 19

    Scobleizer Tech Geek Blogger

    Microsoft Geek Blogger, writes about the technology industry.

    

    • http://scobleizer.wordpress.com
    • By Robert Scoble. Last updated 1 hour ago.
    • 15,444 links from 5,630 sites
20. 20

    Gawker, Manhattan Media News and Gossip

    • http://www.gawker.com
    • Last updated 1 hour ago.
    • 13,044 links from 5,514 sites
21. 21

    A List Apart: A List Apart

    A List Apart, For People Who Make Websites, is one of the longest running, most trusted, and most influential independent user experience and web design magazines.

    

    • http://www.alistapart.com
    • By Jeffrey Zeldman. Last updated 13 days ago.
    • 10,568 links from 5,465 sites
22. 22

    Cute Overload! ;)

    • http://cuteoverload.com
    • Last updated 15 days ago.
    • 7,411 links from 5,185 sites
23. 23

    Topix.net Weblog

    Topix.net weblog.

    • http://blog.topix.net
    • By Rich Skrenta. Last updated 31 days ago.
    • 5,230 links from 5,089 sites
24. 24

    The Superficial Because You're Ugly

    • http://www.thesuperficial.com
    • Last updated 23 hours ago.
    • 10,658 links from 5,025 sites
25. 25

    【方道‧文山流】

    • http://www.wretch.cc/blog/fanwenshan
    • Last updated 69 days ago.
    • 8,372 links from 4,828 sites
26. 26

    がんばれ、生協の白石さん！

    • http://shiraishi.seesaa.net
    • Last updated 16 hours ago.
    • 7,794 links from 4,795 sites
27. 27

    Explosm.net Flash Animations, Daily Comics, and more!

    • http://www.explosm.net
    • Last updated 1 hour ago.
    • 21,025 links from 4,790 sites
28. 28

    Search Engine Roundtable : The Pulse Of The Search Marketing Comm...

    

    • http://www.seroundtable.com
    • By Barry Schwartz Barry Schwartz. Last updated 2 hours ago.
    • 9,219 links from 4,783 sites
29. 29

    Google Blogoscoped

    • http://blog.outer-court.com
    • Last updated 19 hours ago.
    • 15,822 links from 4,711 sites
30. 30

    Go Fug Yourself

    • http://gofugyourself.typepad.com
    • Last updated 31 days ago.
    • 7,794 links from 4,690 sites
31. 31

    Seth's Blog

    Seth Godin's riffs on marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread.

    

    • http://sethgodin.typepad.com
    • By Seth Godin. Last updated 4 days ago.
    • 10,471 links from 4,668 sites
32. 32

    Joystiq

    • http://www.joystiq.com
    • By WeblogsInc. Last updated 58 minutes ago.
    • 30,296 links from 4,666 sites
33. 33

    Wonkette, Politics for People with Dirty Minds

    • http://www.wonkette.com
    • By editor wonkette. Last updated 1 hour ago.
    • 11,426 links from 4,466 sites
34. 34

    kottke.org : home of fine hypertext products

    • http://www.kottke.org
    • Last updated 1 day ago.
    • 9,441 links from 4,377 sites

8 Signs of a Blog Hater

(1) You reject any questioning of the blogosphere or blog practices, since your own blog is part of the problem.

(2) You post anti-blog comments at blogs, unaware of the contradiction. Or you wish to kill people who dare to express their contrarian opinions and "unacceptable" beliefs (see cowardly anti-blog thug above, with shameful face wrap).

(3) You praise the MSM, because your parents still love Dan Rather and can't understand why he got his ass kicked by his own network.

(4) You defend anything that is done with a blog, simply because it exists -- because analysis means thinking, and thinking is not your cup of tea.

(5) You despise the invention of new expressions like "blogocombat", "reciprocal commenting", "blogology", "vampire blog", or "blog scorching". You prefer to speak of new, innovative things with old, familiar words.

(6) You have a blog, and post comments on other blogs, but persist in making rash statements like "nobody wants to be called a blogger anymore" or "nobody reads blogs anymore".

(7) You love to bash anyone who takes blogging seriously, since to you, everything is just a joke.

(8) You resent the fact that average people have a web presence via blogs, since you feel that media and journalism are the sole province of "trained (though increasingly discredited) professionals".

Top 20 Blog Designs

By way of My Name is Kate, over at Simple Bits (which has a nice design itself), which is linked to under the del.icio.us column at Pop URLs, here are links to a ranked evaluation of blog designs:

Top 20 Blog Designs, Part Two

Top 20 Blog Designs, Part One

Yippee, Ken Lay is dead!

Won’t you good people and peepholes join me in celebrating the DEATH of Ken Lay? Now I KEN LAY me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Ooops, ken weren’t no spiritual soul, were he? Ding Dong the Bitch is Dead! Long Live Sarbanes-Oxley!

Behold: the power of HATE. My hate for Ken Lay is what killed him. I can prove it.

mild blogocombat at Chartreuse: Hate vs. Sex

Gentle/Violent Reader, here's an excerpt from the comment thread at the very interesting Chartreuse blog, under his post entitled "The Race To The Bottom (Or Oprah, Lesbians, Jason Calacanis And The Future of Blogs)":

1. vaspers the grate, at the gates of timelessness Says:
   Sorry but this time, you’re WRONG about everything, and I’m pleased to point it out.

2. Blogs are about HATE. It is ANGER, all caps, that fuels the Real Blogosphere 4.0 that me and my cohorts are exstablishing faster and harder every day.

   Tits and ass are boring. Only Junior High chump ass half-gays are into nude photos. A real man goes out and gets a girlfriend or wife. Losers drool over photos and beat off to them in silent sorrow.

3. vaspers the grate, at the gates of timelessness Says:
   July 4th, 2006 at 11:39 pm

   And PayPerPost is shit.

   Paying dumb ass bloggers to Pretend to be enthusiastic users of crap products. Screw PayPerPost and blog whores.

4. Mr Angry Says:
   July 5th, 2006 at 3:25 am

   I started at the bottom, why aren’t I rich yet? Ever since the Jack Mark/Russell Crowe story broke I’ve been lobying to be Rusty’s next stooge but no contact from his camp yet. He’d be worth way more than pay per post.

5. chartreuse Says:
   July 5th, 2006 at 4:22 am

   Vaspers, nice to see you back. You were missed.

   Here’s why I’m not wrong about the bottom.

   Most popular searches on the internet: hot chicks and sex
   Most profitable sites on the internet: porn and dating
   Most buzzworthy sites on the internet: MySpace

   Mainstream comes on the net and wallows on the bottom already. Blog owers are just figuring this out.

   Mr. Angry, PayPerPost is just product placement. No one had a problem when pp was all over Sienfeld. Nor when it’s in every movie you see. Why it’s such a problem for blogs shows how out of touch bloggers are with mainstream audiences.

   If you want to catch me in something wrong, try music or my objectification of women. I got this new media stuff down cold

6. Maura Welch Says:
   July 5th, 2006 at 9:22 am

   Chartreuse, when you make your point, it’s poetic and devastatingly clear. I agree with you on not romanticizing the wisdom of crowds and the idea that for media to be successful it has to cater to the masses. This is the second time I’ve put one of your posts in my Boston Globe column on Mondays. Maybe not a lot of people are reading blogs, but I find myself reading you all the time and posting in Business Filter about what you say on your blog. Always something insightful and provocative.

7. vaspers the grate, at the gates of timelessness Says:
   July 5th, 2006 at 9:51 am

   Cater to the masses? Is that what Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine, Nietzche, Hegel, Marx, Freud, George Washington, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Einstein did?

   Isn’t Tiger Woods a better example? He got damn good at something, screw the racists and etc.

   How do you define success? By mass popularity, which is fickle? By money? So Donald Trump is more successful than Tim Berners-Lee?

   Give me a freaking break here.

   You all need more HATE. … for the right things to hate.

   Now go here to see why our music tastes suck:

   www. chthonicionic.net/bile/default.asp

   Chart, I know you’ll love this Maddox of the Music World.

8. vaspers the grate, at the gates of timelessness Says:
   July 5th, 2006 at 9:55 am

   Again the link to the Music Hate Machine:

   Music Hate Machine

   I typed in Stereolab, and was I insulted. Wow. That felt GRAAAAATE!

hate drives the blogosphere, you idiot!

No, my little lad, it's not sex and political punditry that drives the blogosphere. It's hate.

I mean, blogs began in January 1992 with Tim Berners-Lee's "What's New" page.

Then it moved onward through all the pioneers you know already:

Marc Andreessen (What's New), Justin Hall (Links from the Underground), Carolyn Burke (Online Diary), Michael Sippey, Dave Winer (Scripting News), Rob Malda (SlashDot), Jorn Barger (Robot Wisdom), Cameron Barret (CamWorld), Peter Merholz, Andrew Zeepo, Brad Fitzpatrick (LiveJournal), Doc Searls, Evan Williams (Blogger, EvHead)...etc.

Blogs began as technical communications between geeks. Then they quickly evolved, in a quantum leap, into digital journals, but still with a professional orientation, not "I ate a cheese sandwich today."

From tech updates...to personal opinions...to personal drivel/confessional writing...to what we have now.

What do we have now? Blogosphere under attack from business morons, Pseudo Bloggery, [certain elements of the] MSM, MySpace toilet heads, sex maniacs, online predators, smut machines, Non Human vampire RSS blogs,
political crazy blogs, and PayPerPost blog whoring.

What drives the blogosphere now? HATE. Even if I have to spearhead the whole mess all by myself, with Randy Primm, Mr. Angry, Disgruntled Car Salesman, Tinbasher, and others fighting by my side, sometimes taking over the battle plans.

We'd like to welcome the, what I call, Music Hate Machine, to our New Reformed Insane Blog Media Network.

If you have no HATE, delete your blog.

If you refuse to ATTACK the exploitation and mediocrity in this world, delete your blog.

If you don't have any balls or castration blades, delete your blog.

If you support the myth of government, delete your blog.

If you think success is measured by fickle popularity or unreliable riches and fame, delete your blog.

Delete your blog now.

THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE ABD COUNCIL (ABD = Anti Blogospheric Defilement)

Camouflage Danse WFMU part 1

Happy 5th of July, the day we Ethical Anarchists celebrate our Declaration of Independence from the Powers That Pretend To Be and their callous, insane Myth of Political Government.

To make the momentous occasion festive, here's some more music by me and Bennett Theissen's band that flamed through the East Village, NYC 1980-89.


2 more FREE mp3s
by Camouflage Danse


Live at WFMU: Part One

(20:30)

The beginning of our 2 hour concert on WFMU, Upsalla College, East Orange, NJ. Intro, Apples, The Wet Look, etc., as always, 100% spontaneous. We were guests on The Immigrant Show. "Apples" is probably my favorite song that we ever did. I'm on high pitch screech guitar.


We Wait

(4:10)

Pretty strange, that "yelping" sound, I think it's a distorted loop of Bennett saying "Bucky Fuller" or something. Not sure what we were "waiting" for, probably the courier service to deliver our [unliquorly socially scorned substances list deleted]. One of our more atmospheric pieces.


For more info and free mp3s: see my original post about my old band Camouflage Danse.

blindness by The Fall

The Fall "blindness" (5:32)

is there really a "blogosphere"?

When you engage in blog debate, you can count on some idiot, sooner or later, to pop in with "the word blogosphere is ridiculous, you cannot use it without laughing".

For those new to the blog practice, "blogosphere" is a term used to refer to the entire group of sites that use a simple CMS (content management system) and feature frequent updates and reader comments.

Blogosphere is just as legitimate and valid a term as "business world", "democracy", "youth culture", "sports fans", "environmentalism", "Christendom", and other broad terms that are used so we can discuss a diverse but coherent group.

credibility of blogosphere

What do you think of when you think of the Blogosphere?

[EDIT UPDATE: go read the Seth Godin quote, that I refer to, on the coming backlash against a non-credible blogosphere.]

Naked sluts and political crazies? Teenage diaries? Mommy bloggers who post photos and information about their babies and where they live and shop? Online predators ala Dateline exposes? Frivolous exhibitionism?

Or do you think of serious business communications, digital penpals sharing an interest in music, or an easy way to publish your art and literature to the web?

What does the general public, or the business community, think of blogs?

I had posted a comment on Heather Green's post in Business Week Blogspotting "The Meaning of Being Bearish about Blogs is..." about Nick Denton's remarks about "too many blogs". My comment ranged over several different topics related to this issue.

Heather Green said:

....Or is Carr saying that Nick Denton is bearish about blogs as a publishing medium? That also may be the case, since Carr quotes Denton saying that " 'the world does not need more blogs,' adding that if you count all the pages on MySpace, 'there is approximately one reader for every blog out there.'

I posted my comment at Heather's post.

Then Stephen Baker zeroed in on my "blogosphere is bloatosphere" remarks in his post "The blogosphere is not 'credible'", where I credit Seth Godin for alerting me to this pollution and dilution of the blogosphere *as a whole*, or as a distinct medium of public, private, and business communication.

Stephen Baker asserts, rightfully, that if you don't like one street in the blogosphere, you can go to another neighborhood. He feels that his favorite blogs are not damaged or degraded by all the whacko blogs out there. This is true, but there is more to the bigger picture.

This is my response:

I agree with you Stephen, that we can bookmark or blogroll a select list of valuable, relevant, quality blogs...and just ignore the bad, boring, or crazy blogs.

My point, inspired by Seth Godin, is this: compare the Blogosphere with FM Radio, or Television, or the Telephone.

Take the phone. Back when I was a kid, when the phone rang, it was generally a good thing. Aunt Mary calling, or a job offer, or some other relevant, useful, positive message was on the line.

Now: when the phone rings, my answering machine takes a message, and 50% or more of the calls are telemarketing, often a pre-recorded message.

A medium can become devalued by the quality of the components which compose it.

Many think: "Blogs? That's those little web things where naughty girls show their bodies and lunatic political pundits spout off about Demopublican policy. Forget it."

As far as entering a whacko block in a neighborhood, you make a good point in my favor: wife and I just bought a bungalow on a quiet street with pretty good neighbors, not a street where hordes of bored teenagers are roaming around, breaking windows, smoking cigarettes, blasting rap or country music at high volume, and saying "What's up?" to passing motorists looking for a house for sale.

Thankfully, about 50-75% of all blogs created are abandoned forever within about 3 months, if I recall the Technorati stats correctly.

Yet, remember, I'm not saying the entire blogosphere is Non-credible, just that most of it is. I also champion the idea of businesses starting a candid two way conversation with customers, via a blog.

And I also champion the boring drivel blogs...as the rise of individual voice against MSM info hegemony. I don't include Business Week in the dreadful Main Stream Media. I consider it to be a Specialty Media.

If the blogosphere contains a large percentage of nudist, private confessional, and political whacko blogs...does this not have an impact on public perception, and business adaptation, of blogs?

bizarre police & military action a few blocks away

EDIT UPDATE: The next morning, the news report on local TV was: when the police entered the house, the single guy with a gun was passed out drunk. Asleep. What a dangerous thing to do, call in SWAT teams for this.

Just a few blocks away from where my wife and I live, there is a mysterious event happening, and I just posted a comment about it on Peoria Pundit. The local TV news stations are being their typical MSM dorky selves. They reported it, gave us an update near the end of the news program, then back to broadcasting as usual. Schmucks.

National Guard soldiers in camouflage battle gear, SWAT teams, cops, a 5 block wide section of the city barricaded, traffic halted and detoured.

What the...?!?!

The ridiculous spin that the mainstream media is trying to shove down our throats: a domestic dispute. Between a man and a woman. The woman is safely out of the house. The man refuses to communicate with police and is heavily armed.

"Traffic is being detoured around a 5 block wide sector, to avoid bloodshed, to protect motorists from bullets."

What...? Why such a wide sector? I speculate: others bad guys are involved and have escaped from the house, and are in that area somewhere. I think I'll walk up there and check it out.

blogs don't need to produce results

I question ROI (return on investment) analysis of blogs. I question the desire to burden a blog with the demand to "justify its existence" by showing measurable results.

How do you measure good will? Customer satisfaction? The value of open communication with customers? How do you prove that a CEO blog is a good thing to do?

I just talked to a garment industry client today. When he started telling me all sorts of colorful anecdotes, and said he had a million of them, I said, "You'd make a great blogger!"

Isn't this all a blogger is, really? Someone who is fairly good at writing, and has expertise or anecdotes to share?

All you should need to do, in an ideal world, is say, "Mr./Ms. CEO, here's an opportunity to present your side of the story, to fill your brand with your personality, and to show customers that you really care about their suggestions, complaints, questions, praise, criticism, and problems."

I keep warning my blog consultant colleagues that the resistance and pretend "cluelessness" about blogs, on the part of business, is due primarily to corporate arrogance. My mantra: All that business wants to say is "buy my product" and all they want to hear is "how can I buy more of your product".

That's the only "conversational marketing" most companies care about.

It doesn't really matter if your blog can be proven to have a "measurable impact" on sales. I proclaim: "If you do something (like blogging or manufacturing) JUST to get rich, you're a greedy, materialistic idiot. Do everyone a favor and stop."

RIGHT: Do it because you love it and you wish to benefit others, without screwing them with excessive profit and mediocre quality.

WRONG: Doing it because you hope to get rich and famous.

Take music for example.

I can somehow "sense" insatiable mammonism (money worship, Psycho-Capitalism) even in music.

When the primary goal of a musician is to make money, no matter what, that musician's music will actually sound exploitive to me. Music that is made, not for the love of music or audiences, but just to capitalize on a fashion, just to exploit the music buyers by hyping crap product...such music, or any other product, is always automatically mediocre.

This is relevant to such topics as:

* monetizing a blog (making it produce income via ads, downloadable products, etc.)

* building a "blog media network" (consider my parody: the New Reformed Insane Blog Media Network--under construction)

* convincing businesses to blog

* blog whoring, as in PayPerPost or Buzz Agent marketing (paying bloggers to pretend to be enthusiastic, loyal users of a product).

Here's my comment posted a few minutes ago at Business Week Blogspotting post "The Meaning of Being Bearish on Blogs".


[QUOTE]

My gut reaction to this is to side with Nick Denton. He seems to be opposed to exhibitionistic narcissist blogs, and I hate them, too. From narcissist blogging to naked photo blogging is a very tiny step to many.

As in the foul MySpace toilet.

The blogosphere has indeed become the "bloatosphere". There are way too many irrelvant, mypoic blogs. And 90% or more are pure boring nonsense, trivial chump buckets of slop.

As the blogosphere fills up with more and more worthless blogs, the overall quality and reliability of the blogosphere as a whole declines. I'll credit Seth Godin with advancing this concept about a year or more ago.

Like what happened with FM radio and TV, 55 channels of garbage or mindless mediocrity, the same old sitcoms, the same 30 songs played over and over ad nauseum.

However, I do champion the rise of individual voice against the MSM information hegemony.

Too many blogs? Yes. But I am happy to see even the boring drivel blogs keep at it, ppl expressing whatever, and the public moving more and more to the internet, with some quality, unfiltered, unedited journalism and creative writing.

I wonder why business wants to do an ROI on blogs. Has Business Week done any analysis on the "profitability" of this Blogspotting blog lately?

To me, you might as well question the ROI of company picnics, business cards, or new office carpet.

A blog is something a company should do, mainly to demonstrate a desire to connect with customers on a candid, honest, sincere, and lively basis.


[END QUOTE]

Bottom Line = either you want to connect with other people, and have a two-way conversation with customers, or you don't.

If you want to connect with customers in a candid manner, you need a blog. If you just want to only do what generates measurable results, forget it. Some blogs produce measurable results, most don't.

What say you? Post a comment here and share your thoughts.

9 reasons to skip blogging

Carrie Snell aka Sea Snail, has issued forth her meta-blog list of "12 reasons to skip blogging".

I can see John C. Dvorak, Paul Woodhouse, Evan Williams, Jason Calacanis, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, and Chris Locke laughing at this post of Carrie's. It's funny, for sure.

Let's put on our thinking caps and examine her first 9 reasons, which are more universal than the last 3 reasons. To enliven the debate, I'll attach my running commentary in [red bracketed type].


[QUOTE]


1. blogging is for lame-o's who have no life, but like to pretend that they have a life.

[VASPERS: I have a life. Just because 80% of it is in the blogosphere, is no reason to call it lame. I hope.]


2. blogging is like a never-ending pursuit that gets you nowhere... often nobody reads your glorious posts of wisdom and they are just left there to float like a corpse in the ether.

[VASPERS: This is as it should be. The main benefit of blogging is how it impacts the blogger herself. She is transformed by her own blog. A blogger benefits by improving her thinking, debating, analysis, writing, editing, HTML, CSS, RSS, and web design skills.]


3. essentially blogging is the new version of talking to oneself.

[VASPERS: Very astute. Yes, in most cases, blogging is a narcissistic neurotic reflex, self-talk, auto-chatter, idio-prolixity, overly verbose nomenclature offspewing. Awful offal.

But...every boring voice that rises up against the MSM/Govt./Religious Information Hegemony is welcome! Speak up, speak out, speak loud!]


4. nobody is as obsessed with your life as you are, so get over it already!

[VASPERS: Are ppl obsessed with their lives, or are they obsessed with exhibitionism? Obsessed with reader reactions? Obsessed with Chatty Cathyism?

Online friendships are very dubious, to say the least, with all the predators and psychos out there. But Carrie and I have become rather good friends. I even postal mail things to many of my blogo-comrades, and they mail things to me.]


5. nobody from the 'real world' understands blogging, and don't bother trying to explain it to them, because they won't get it, and they will just think you are strange and have no life.

[VASPERS: Normals, non-bloggers from the real world...hell, they don't understand anything anyway. They "have a life" of greedy materialism, negligent parenting, and stupid ass voting for their new oppressors.]


6. there are eight hundred million other things you really should be doing instead! come on!

[VASPERS: And there are over 50 million blogs, if you count Non-English language blogs. I escape the confines of imprisoned blogging, by working in our gardens.]


7. nobody cares!

[VASPERS: Correct. Just a handful of true friends will care...and even they can't make it to every single post we fart out.]


8. you'll eventually run out of blogworthy material and start making shit up like i am right now.

[VASPERS: Right and wrong. Right: we run out of things to say, so we need to read books and other blogs to get ideas. Wrong: when we are most depleted and exhausted or frustrated--often, that's when our best work comes out.]


9. it's a waste of time.

[VASPERS: Right. Blogging (writing posts, posting comments at other blogs, reading other blogs, etc.) is a huge time drain sink.

Blogs swallow enormous chunks of time. That, plus Authenticity, Passion, and Integrity, is why CEOs run away from the blogosphere like frightened little girls. ]


[END QUOTE]


Now, can you think of any further reasons why Blogging is Futile and Silly? While corporations and individuals can use blogs for good purposes, many use them for vanity, exhibitionism, narcissistic spiels.

Post a comment and let's hear YOUR opinion. Thanks.

how a corporate CEO video should sound

Watch this brief 1938 Media promo update YouTube video of June 5, 2006. I love it when Loren Feldman says:

"I might seem a little goofy, but I really know what I'm doing....Again, I'm goofy a lot, but I'm also serious....Right now we're focusing on video marketing for our clients. Words and clever writing can only get you so far. It's a video world now. And that's what we're concentrating on, and we're good at it."

This is how a corporate video should sound.

Candid. Open. Relaxed. Opinionated. Non-hostile. Intimate. Sincere. Humorous. Thoughtful. Honest. Fair. Happy. Firm. Positive. Dedicated. Ironic. Hip. Smart. Cool. Friendly.

Promotional sans cold aloof impenetrability, sales without all that insane, exaggerated, over-stated zeal, or "hype".

Loren is chatting mildly and engagingly. It really is like he has pulled up a chair next to your computer at home, and is calmly but firmly explaining what he's been up to lately, pass the cheese dip please.

This is how a CEO should look and talk on video.

I'd also add the visual elements of corporate logo signage.

Plus then and some of your products, Mr./Ms. CEO. Loren could visually display client logos or have a monitor running sample clips of video work his 1938 Media firm has produced, or photos of when Loren was a child, stuff like that would add more of a personal touch.

But I'm just rambling incoherently. I shut up now.

You listen to Loren and get a feel for bleeding edge corporate video style: understated, relaxed, intelligent, hip, suave, debonair.

1938 Media Update - June 5, 2006 (2:55)