Ever since Veronica Belmont announced that she’s leaving Mahalo Daily, competition for her spot has been raging. There are a host of nominees, and it looks like Calacanis is taking his queues from the fans while out scouting new talent.
Who’d make the best new Mahalo Daily host? There is no question, Christina Warren (@film_girl), my co-host from The Squadcast. We don’t want to lose her, far from it, and we’d fight hard to keep her at Download Squad where she beongs if an offer were made. That being said, Mahalo Daily would be a huge opportunity for Christina, and if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. So, in an effort to help rally her 1000 plus Twitter followers and fans of The Squadcast, I’ve created http://jasonstealmycohost.com/
The picture above is from SXSW, and I think it speaks volumes. Who needs to rank amongst the biggest and brightest in web video? film_girl, plain and simple. Really, it’s a no brainer.
I’m excited and a little sad to announce that I’ll no longer be leading Download Squad for Weblogs, Inc. I’ve been talking to Robert Scoble quite a bit since SXSW, after my business card put me on his radar and, I’m happy to announce I’ll be starting my new position at Fast Company as Shel Israel’s producer as of tomorrow. Shel is an amazing, intuitive and insightful guy who I admire very much, as is Robert. I’m honored to be invited into their team and I’m enthusiastic about the direction in which we’re headed.
It’s been a great ride at Weblogs, Inc. I’ve led Download Squad for a little over a year, doubled traffic, hired an incredible team of bloggers and taken the site in new and interesting directions. As hard as it is to swallow, I know in my heart that what I’ve helped create has outgrown me. Download Squad needs far more competent leadership than I can provide. I’m creative; a content guy, not a team manager. So, I’m really happy to say that in conjunction with my departure, Download Squad has scored a top piece of talent to take my place. Starting tomorrow, Download Squad’s new lead will be Aaron Brazell who formerly led operations at b5 Media. Aaron is an amazing guy, dynamic, sharp and super motivated. I know he’s going to take good care of the team I’ve worked so hard to build, and I wish him every success in his new position.
To my friends at Weblogs, Inc and my bloggers at Download Squad. You’ve all meant so much to me. So long and, thanks for all the fish.
It’s on, baby. The quest to make Atlanta the most Twitter connected town on the map is in full swing after last night’s impressive two-Tweetup duel.
The Tweetup I organized, at Taco Mac Lindbergh, had a respectable 14 people in attendance. Not bad, considering I had no idea how many interested parties there would be when I started planning and, didn’t pick a venue until Monday. By complete and total coincidence, there was a second Tweetup/beer and pool bash going on at the same time, organized by @rustytanton and @shelbinator. The fact that Atlanta can support similtaneous Tweetups without exploding or leaving one Tweetup without any attendees is really impressive. In the end, I think the rivalry helped promote both events. It also led to some fun trash talking between the two groups.
We talked, we laughed, we did what the social web is meant to facilitate; socialize. Then the rivalry hit top gear. I was checking Twitter on my blackberry when I saw this tweet from @shelbinator. The gauntlet had been tossed down, the game was on, the Tweetups would be judged not on the quality of attendees, of conversation, of interconnection. Nay, the real Tweetup battle would play out in the most base rating of human attributes, boobs.
Rate, rank and evaluate in the comments. I think we clearly win but, you make the call. Public commentary, FTW!
Splinter Tweetup Boobs:
Our Tweetup Boobs:
Thanks to everyone who showed up, and to everyone who contacted me to say they’d make it to the next one. We’re definitely doing this again. Also, big thanks to Paul Stamatiou for taking pictures, since I was too lame to bring a decent camera.
Gary Vaynerchuk. Arguably the nicest guy on the web. His web show WineLibrary has skyrocketed to the top of the heap. Part of that has to do with the quality of his show but, a large portion of his fame is due to his ability to convert viewers into true fans by taking the initiative to connect to nearly everyone in a very personal way. He answers every email. He responds to every @ tweet.
Loren Feldman. He’s the curmudgeon of the web video world. He takes pot shots, he stirs things up. He’s made a name for himself by taking on some of the top players in the social web and cutting them down to size with wit and a total lack of fear. He’s really a big softie, but don’t tell anyone.
Much to my surprise, when I caught the two of them in the hallway shaking hands at SXSW, the internet universe did not implode upon itself. Two rockstars of the video web, two very different strategies. Viva la variety!
Promoting yourself at conferences is hard. SXSW is an especially tough field to compete within, as it’s crowded and full of the best and brightest among the blogosphere.
I nearly blew it. I forgot to order slick cards in time for the show, and I went into panic mode. Sometimes, panic brings the best inspiration to the table. Laying in bed two days before I left, I realized I had a perfect opportunity to stand out. Everyone — and I do mean everyone — would have amazing cards with pretty graphics, slick logos and clean cut edges. So, why not go the other way?
This passage from William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic was the inspiration I needed:
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you’re crude, go technical; if they think you’re technical, go crude. I’m a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. I’d had to turn both those twelve-gauge shells from brass stock, on the lathe, and then load then myself; I’d had to dig up an old microfiche with instructions for hand- loading cartidges; I’d had to build a lever-action press to seat the primers -all very tricky. But I knew they’d work.
So what did I load my shotgun with? Humor. I decided to tell the story of how I’d fucked up, forgotten to print cards, and beg for forgiveness; all in one paragraph. And hey, it couldn’t hurt to take a shot at Robert Scoble while I was at it, right?
This is my, “Oh, crap! I forgot to print cards for SXSW!” card. Laid out in romantic old-school fashion using tape and a Xerox machine, this card was forged on paper crafted from only the finest pelts of the most adorable baby seals and printed with ink containing the blood of Robert Scoble, god of first person pronouns. It may or may not possess magic powers. Please hold this card dear as a souvenir of my absentmindedness and an invitation to stay in touch with Download Squad”
It was pithy, reasonably short, and gave a bit of insight to my personality. I had no idea how it would be received, but I love to experiment.
The verdict? It worked. In a sea of slick business cards, my crudely crafted calling card stood out, stopped people in their tracks, and made them pay attention. I got more compliments on my card over the week than I ever could have hoped for.
Yesterday I found that Darren Rowse of Problogger had even given my card a shout out in his “How to Promote Yourself (and Your Blog) at a Conference” video, which was a huge honor. Weeks after the SXSW glory has faded, my cheap and easy business card still has legs.
The moral, “If they think you’re crude, go technical; if they think you’re technical, go crude.” I can’t wait till next year. I won’t do it exactly the same way, but I’ll certainly take a lesson from this victory pulled from the steely jaws of defeat.
I’ve finally concocted a grand unified theory of lousy PR. Hopefully this will streamline the process of submitting things to the Download Squad tip box. Please use this form from now on.
[ ]on the web
[ ]as a download
[x]via paid subscription
Our
[x]product
[ ]service
makes
[ ]Windows
[ ]Linux
[ ]The web
[ ]Facebook
[ ]Twitter
[x]Other
[ ]more useful
[x]less time consuming
[ ]easier to navigate
while also
[x]lowering total cost of ownership
[x]keeping your records in the cloud
Our clickwrap agreement is:
[x]complex
[ ]thick
[x]full of things you’d never agree to if you actually read it
only requiring your:
[ ] complete and total submission
[x] waiver of any rights to your own data
[x] first born child
We appreciate your time and consideration. Please contact:
[x] Our poorly paid and under-trained PR flack
[ ] Our expensive PR company
[x] Myself
[ ] No contact details provided
with any questions.
Sincerely,
[ ] CEO in title only
[ ] Eastern European programmer with lackluster English skills
[ ] The comic book guy
[x] Anonymous tipster who is actually a company representative
Shark-jumping, corporate shilling or innocent mistake? BoingBoing’s recent decision to accept in-post ads for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile drew huge amounts of fire from the readership. To be expected, perhaps. What wasn’t expected was the way in which BoingBoing’s staff handled the ensuing conflagration in the comments.
BoingBoing is famous for its anti-corporate, anti-big brother bent. Cory rips on DRM, Xeni rips on the status quo throughout the world, and the blog in general takes swipes at all sorts of imbalances and power struggle situations where the people are losing to the bully. So, is it any wonder that BoingBoing’s readership goes absolutely mad when Frauenfelder begins running posts with an embedded MS logo?
BB, we expected the giant editorial screw-up which allowed Microsoft to sneak its way into the body of a post. Really, we did; it’s been a long slippery slide and this is finally the bottom. What wasn’t expected, and what rocked the trust you worked so hard to build amongst your readership is the blatant silencing of the community when it loudly complained. Deleting comments (since restored) and allowing your “community director” to attack the readership is so very contrary to the perceived face of BoingBoing as to be antithetical. I’m not even sure what to make of this slip, so I’ll assume it was a lack of communication between the editorial directors and the community manager. I can only hope that open loop has been corrected as a result of this, and that there will never be a situation again where BoingBoing feels it necessary to silence members of its own readership in an effort to actuate spin control. It’s childish, misguided and, in the end, it’s totally ineffective; I’d have thought that would be well understood by now.
I think I can illustrate the point at which BoingBoing crossed the line, and it brings up something I truly appreciate about working for Weblogs, Inc. BoingBoing’s biggest mistake isn’t accepting advertising from Microsoft, it’s blurring the line between editorial and ad sales; something we absolutely never do at Weblogs. Inserting an ad inside a post takes the visible side of the separation away, and having Frauenfelder (ostensibly) carry a provided Windows Mobile device to use for producing mobile posts takes away the separation between the content and the advertisement.
Breaking down this invisible wall between content and advertising is the most important thing you should never do in blogging. At the first point which you allow the slightest consideration to be paid by the editorial side to the needs/wants or desires of the advertising side, you’ve lost. It’s like a cancer, a disease which is difficult to stop and which you can never be sure isn’t plotting its grand return. Once that editorial firewall is breeched, you can never, ever go back to the way you were before.
I’ll still read you BoingBoing, but I’ll never look at you the same way again.
We interviewed Alex King for our latest episode — we’ve got a few more great guests up our sleeves for the next few shows — and he was cool enough to blog about the release of the show, which in turn means if you log into your Wordpress blog, you’ll see his link to our show! Given that the episode is on “Pimping your Wordpress”, it’s just about as circular and meta as it gets.
Thanks Alex for being on the show, and thanks to all of our other guests on soon to be released episodes.
The whole fiasco Gizmodo created by firing infrared bullets of demo destruction at flat panel TVs all over CES seems to have blown over with very few actual repercussions — aside from a huge number of pageviews for Gizmodo’s own video of doom. Gawker’s no-give strategy dealing with The Scientologists over that crazy Tom Cruise indoctrination video pushed the calls for Gizmodo’s head on a platter right off the front page.
Coupled with this quote I ran across today, it made me think; Why is Gina Trapani still at Lifehacker?
Actualy, come to think of it, why DOESN’T Denton fire all his writers, across ALL the blogs, and hire cheap[er] nobodies? You’d think that as soon as one of his serfs reaches the Gina Trapani/Mark Lisanti level of name recognition, they’ve outlived their usefulness. It certainly would empower his all attention is good attention as long as it translates into traffic mandate if he could funnel it through young rent-hungry writers too inexperienced to care about reputation or long term repurcussions.
I’ve got massive amounts of respect for Gina. At Download Squad we’ve chased Lifehacker, traded links with Lifehacker, and often watched in stunned amazement as Gina or Adam Pash cranks out yet another inspired piece. We don’t *directly* compete but enough overlap exists to keep us in the same room.
Having watched Gina closely over the last year and a half, I feel like I can say with a high level of confidence, she’s a machine — and I say that with the utmost respect. I firmly believe that Trapani is a replicant, crafted in a laboratory somewhere with the singular purpose of being a super-star productivity blogger. That’s what I tell myself so I can sleep at night, as an excuse for not living up to my own potential.
The point of this being, Lifehacker is so out of place among the Gawker stable. While Idolator, Gawker, io9, and Consumerist are all busy taking cheap shots at the world like a pack of junior high kids, Lifehacker has dutifully created a respectable brand. That’s commendable, especially among so much noise. If Trapani could create that while mired in a platoon of blogs with the journalistic standards of a gossip rag, she could certainly create amazing value elsewhere.
“Essentially a universal remote that cycles through every possible code, the TV-B-Gone has a single purpose: to power off televisions whenever the user feels like being a dick.’
