Silicon Valley Watcher - reporting on the business of technology and media

I want to focus on content and not technology and yet I have been off-line for days because of hardware failures. And trying to learn the new worlds of "many-media"--how different types of media are prepared, produced, and then distributed.

These have been frustrating weeks but I am reassured with a vision of the future. We are almost at that cusp in history when technology will matter less. It'll be what we do that will matter more than how we do things. And then I'll be able to focus on content instead of technology.

A 1-click future

Right now, I am suffering the multiple agonies of dealing with resuscitating two notebooks, a failed external backup drive, and setting up up a completely new notebook--plus learning video and audio editing for Podtech.net related projects.

One of these days very soon, these types of things will be all one-click problems because we'll have pushed so much of our lives into the cloud where such problems are cheaply outsourced.

Standards get wrapped

Much of my week has been spent with either trying to revive my old hardware or getting to grips with new hardware such as Sony hi-defintion video camcorders. The puzzle is that Sony and Panasonic have adopted a high definition video compression format that has no editing support from the major video editing software vendors.

Are Sony and Panasonic so bad at evangelism that they couldn't get support for their video format from dozens of software companies a year before launch? It's been six months since the launch and there is only a trickle of low-end video editing software coming out. Corel's ULead DVD MovieFactory is one of the first to offer some limited support for AVCHD.

Lost in Video Translation

Because of my Podtech.net deal to produce a Silicon Valley Watcher show I've gotten to shoot lots of video but translating and publishing the video content takes hours of computer processing time, and that's without the editing time.

I would like a magic button that automatically takes the video from the camcorder and loads it into my editing software and then when I'm finished, in the time to make one-click it publishes my video interviews all over YouTube, PodTech, AppleTV, iPhone and wherever else. That's a fantasy because right now, just getting the video content out of the camera and into a format for the editing software takes about 7 to 8 hours per hour of footage. And then exporting it into different publishing formats can take another 3 to 4 hours per hour of footage. That's way too much time lost.

Why can't we have inexpensive video co-processors specifically designed to zip through such tasks? A general purpose microprocessor is good at many tasks but not as good as a specialized processor at specific tasks. We already have DSP chip technologies and powerful graphics co-processors that process many similar tasks within PCs. It would be good to get some video co-processors, too. I should thing there must be some on the way...

I've been hampered in my posting lately because my usually trusty Thinkpad X31 crashed early last week and I have to send for the recovery CD and install a new drive.

Vid Shots and Shorts

Plus, I've been trying to learn how to use my Sony high-definition camera and load it into an editing suite and then publish here on SVW and on podtech.net. It has been a very good learning experience and part of the solution means I have to get a Mac.

I've also realised, (again) how things are not made simpler by technology, but often are made more complex. My Sony video camera uses a hi-def format called AVCHD, which Panasonic also supports. But editing suites don't--and it is only just now that products such as from Ulead are coming out with editing tools...but it is about 6 months after the cameras were introduced you'd think Sony and Panasonic would lay the groundwork ahead of time, they are certainly large enough. Does this show how much or little they care about third party support?

I hear the AVCHD format has many good qualities but it is an example of how everyone is overlaying a proprietary layer on top of existing standards, which makes a mockery of the whole standards process.

This strategy is not new, tech companies have always sought the proprietary layer because that is where the margins are excellent. And if you can get there with a de facto industry standard, such as Intel and Microsoft--it is a gold mine. (And that is why we no longer have de facto industry standards being established.)

In open source you make the money on services, which is people dependent and less scalable and profitable. But it is still a good business. Open source puts money in people's pockets but they have to earn it by the hour.

IP or software licenses--that's money that you make without having to get out of bed. Much more attractive.

BTW: My frustrations with all the video stuff will be solved very shortly, and that is when you will see more video on SVW and elsewhere.

I used to be impressed by Wells Fargo, professional and with great service. My local bank manager even used to call and invite me to barbecues. That was when I had money in various accounts. He never calls anymore, now that I'm a semi-liquid media entrepreneur, but that's OK, I'd rather he didn't anyway.

As with all startups, revenues--if you are lucky to have them in the first place--tend to be a bit lumpy. Money comes in some months and in other months it doesn't--that's just the way things are.

Last month I deposited a check for $7500, a sponsorship payment from Edelman, the world's largest private PR agency. My bank put an immediate hold on it for five business days because of "unusual checking activity."

Yes, it has been unusual for me to get a check this year but it shouldn't be a flag for suspicious activity and a freeze on the funds. I'm not N.Korea and I'm not buying centrifuges.

After 5 days Wells Fargo cleared $5000 but kept a hold on the remaining $2500 for a further five days.

How is it that a check only clears partially?

How is it that a check takes so many days to clear? Especially in this day and age and with all the massive investments in tech made by the banking industry over the past three decades?

I put these questions to a hapless manager at my Wells Fargo branch. I was told: because the check is over $5,000 and it is an out of state check.

And because I had used an ATM to deposit the check, it takes longer because it is a different bank unit. I should have brought it into the branch.

I said I use an ATM because it is faster for me and faster for the bank.

I had no idea it was better to engage with a bank teller--clearly bank automation is far less efficient than we supposed. Don't be surprised if millions of ATMs start to be pulled out of walls leaving ugly patched holes along streets and on corners.

I then pulled out a $10,000 check from a very reputable company. So how long will it take for this check to clear?  

A careful examination revealed a problem, the check was drawn from a bank in N. Carolina. It will be 5 days for the first $5k and five days for the second $5k.

Is N. Carolina on some dodgy-check watch list? And how is that any faster than using an ATM?

The Wells Fargo person said that in two days time a phone call could be made to the N.Carolina bank to check on the money, as a special favor to me. Actually, make it three days.

Amazing. All that technology and someone has to make a phone call to check on funds.

Do other banks do this? Maybe, but that's no excuse. Everyone and their grandmother knows that the banks could clear deposited checks in a microsecond if they wanted to. Do they think customers are stupid and don't know that?

It is flagrant fleecing of customers because every time a check bounces there are three different $35 fees plus overdraft charges.

I hope Wells Fargo and any other bank that engages in such fleecing gets royally disrupted by PayPal and its ilk. I used to recommend Wells Fargo, I'd recommend otherwise now.

...
UPDATE:
Interesting stuff about Wells Fargo here... http://www.innercitypress.org/wells.html

I've been enjoying time with my 12 year old daughter Sarah, who is on spring break and came down from Sebastapol to stay with me for a few days.

Monday we were down in Santa Cruz at the Boardwalk, one of our favorite local spots. Tuesday we popped into the excellent Vivianne Westwood exhibit at the deYoung. Sarah has an interest in punk music. I should be back to work soon...

I tend to work late in the day and into the night because the evening events are often poorly attended by other journalists, and so there is a greater chance of bringing back a scoop.

Tuesday evening I went to HP's launch of enterprise OS and server products. I quickly recovered from that event and happily looked forward to one of my favorite bands Los Amigos Invisible, playing a five minute walk away at The Independent. It was a show that I couldn't imagine. Lucky me.

My Invisible Friends are playing at The Independent today, too, Feb 14.

(Let me know if you like them.)

By Tom Foremski

Twyla Tharp, the celebrated New York based dancer has a hot book that is making the rounds out here in Silicon Valley. The Creative Habit is her blueprint for how she primes the creative and inspirational pumps.

The popularity of her book represents something much larger. It is our search to be more productive, more creative, to become more inspired. Ms Tharp's techniques offer no shortcuts: "set up a routine" is the most valuable advice. At least for me.

Here is a recent video of my friend Andy Plesser in New York, dancing with Ms Tharp:

This is an impromptu dance created and directed by Twyla Tharp. Joining her is a complete amateur Andy Plesser, a 55-year old with no formal formal dance background but considerable enthusiam.

This was part of a taping session of several interviews about dance, video, creativity and the Internet done for Beet.TV, a videoblog about the online video revolution and it's implications for business and society.

Over the past few weeks I've had time to continue my exploration of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): the glue that holds together the Web 2.0 generation of web sites.

It is easy to get lost in that CSS space and lose hours, and days, because it promises supreme control over any web enabled computer user interface--which is where the crown jewels are to be found.

The beauty of CSS is that there are many techniques to get to the same place, which means there are endless arguments on many issues, within the CSS webmaster communities. Yet two or more years ago, CSS was still very much in the background because web browser support was patchy and differed.

These days Internet Explorer 7.0 is a much better citizen of the CSS world, and so are the other major browsers. But there is still  no universal CSS understanding among browsers. This makes it more difficult, more time consuming, and more expensive to build web sites using a pure CSS approach that look the same within all browsers.

One way to avoid the madness in chasing workarounds,  is to realize that a web site should look good in all browsers, but doesn't have to look the same in all browsers.

Yet within the web master web design communities there is a strong Puritan streak emerging in regards to CSS. Now the trend is to try to develop pure CSS based web sites--without taint from any other, or older web design technologies..

There is almost a mania to validate web sites as pure CSS (by using free online services) to make sure everything is kosher and copasetic. And web masters will sneer at sites that don't validate as pure CSS. (By the way, if a site fails CSS validation it doesn't mean that it doesn't work...)

I don't care if my sites validate as pure CSS, as long as things function they way they should.

For example, the use of tables, a common way to layout web page elements using html--the core web language--is one of the biggest sins in the CSS community. Yet this is technique is easy and offers greater browser compatibility.

Such hybrid approaches are fine; and chasing after pure CSS layouts is money wasted at this point in our web tools evolution. The point of web user interface design should be to figure out a way to implement it using all available techniques and technologies. The end justifies the means. Web design projects do not have to validate as pure CSS if there are faster, hybrid approaches available, IMHO.

Still, CSS is incredibly compelling once you start getting to know it and use it. It's because it promises to abstract all content from all form. CSS defines the look and feel of content such as text, images, video, with incredible control and dexterity, and can be changed in a micro-second. You'll be surprised how much separation from content and form can be achieved. CSS Zen Garden is a stunning example of the power of CSS.

The reason I'm interested in CSS is that it is important for journalists, and any online publisher,  to know about CSS, RSS, PHP, JavaScript, and how server-side processing/publishing works.

My goal is not to become expert in these areas but to know enough about how they work, how they slot together. Because then I can potentially design new types of media products. After all, these are all media publishing technologies.

Tools I've been using and like:

- StyleMaster 4.6 from Westciv.com in Australia. This is an excellent CSS editor with dozens of tools plus inbuilt tutorial and support functions that work very well. StyleMaster makes for an excellent CSS development platform--you don't need DreamWeaver of GoLive and everything validates 100 per cent.

- EditPlus is a great text/html/CSS editor, it is small, fast, and clean.

- Microsoft's Live Writer is a very good "Word" for creating blog posts and then posting to multiple platforms. Many users are also developing and releasing a lot of good plugins, so it is only going to get better. We'll have to see how Microsoft decides to monetise this free Beta.

. . . It's good to be back in London after nearly three years away. When I arrive with my son Matthew, the weather is pretty much as I remembered it, mild and gray, and night falls early--by 4.30pm it's nearly dark.

The streets are full of people and their diversity is striking. Women in full burkhas are a common site, along with people of many colors. Lots of mixed couples abound, and many different languages can be heard on the Underground, the main way for getting around town. London is much more multi-cultural and integrated than I'm used to seeing in US cities.

. . . There are also lots of twenty-something Poles, seemingly everywhere. The UK and Ireland have welcomed their new European Union member neighbor by allowing Polish citizens to come over and work. By some estimates there are about 1m Poles working in the UK and Ireland--a smart move that harnesses the energies of the most motivated Polish workers--much to the benefit of the local economy. Other European countries have strict barriers on their entry.

In many London neighborhoods there are Polish delicatessens, and most grocery and supermarkets have Polish food sections catering to the homesick home grown tastes of the new residents. Newspapers and magazines are printed in Polish and Polish language classes are readily found (for English people, for managers and new English spouses of Poles.)

The Poles are not work shy, which has prompted the UK government to institute new policies that seek to encourage long-term unemployed UK workers to compete for some 600,000 job vacancies.

. . . On Tuesday lunchtime I popped into the Cheshire Cheese (rebuilt in 1667), a pub on London's Fleet Street, a street that once well known as the center for nearly all of the UK's national newspaper editorial and printing offices.

Rupert Murdoch broke the power of the print and journalist unions in the early 1980s, moving out of Fleet Street.  Other newspaper barons soon followed with moves to less expensive facilities in London's Wapping and Isle of Dogs districts, and further afield. I remember being on the picket lines and taking part in the tumultuous demonstrations.

The Cheshire Cheese has been the venue for an annual Christmas-time gathering of journalists. It was started many years ago by Bill Moores a prominent public relations chief (now retired in Rio de Janeiro) and the tradition has continued under Sourcewire.com, a PR firm.

I walk down a narrow alley and turn into the side door of the Cheshire Cheese. Inside it is dark but warm, a welcome feeling because the weather has become a chilly in the few days since I arrived. I can smell the smoke of a fireplace as I walk down a steep flight of stairs, ducking my head under the low beams.

I turn the corner and there is a large cavernous room where people are sitting at long tables, eating steak and kidney pie and ordering drinks at the bar. I notice some familiar faces who seem pleasantly shocked and surprised by my appearance--it's been about five years since I attended this traditional holiday event.

More people arrive and the next seven hours are spent in excellent company and conversation, catching up and hearing about changes in the UK media sector from former colleagues at many publications.

The journey back to my parent's place, on the outskirts of London, Wanstead is eventful. My tube train stops at St. Paul's, and remains firmly stopped because of "a serious incident at Bethnal Green" a few stops ahead of my eastbound Central line train. I wait 15 minutes before deciding to try my luck with the buses.

I take the long escalators back to the surface of the city. The temperature has fallen further and it is quite chilly as I walk to the bus stop. The sound of sirens from emergency vehicles seems to be everywhere, bouncing off the old buildings.

I wonder what the "serious incident is" naturally thinking it could be terrorist related. St Paul's cathedral looks stunning, lit up from below. 

I'm lucky to get on board a very crowded bus heading east, to Ilford. Others, waiting at bus stops along the route are not as lucky, as the driver refuses to let more people in (some sneak in through the exit doors.)

After about ten minutes, I'm lucky to find a seat, and soon start to doze, the effects of a boozy afternoon. But I'm an experienced Londoner, my inner alarm clock always wakes me as we near my exit stop.

. . . I have to use Internet cafes the first few days because my parent's house isn't wired for broadband. I'm shocked that I can't access SVW, I find out my web site host, TotalChoice Hosting, has canceled my account.

I'm angry and frustrated as I try to use their support procedures to try and sort out the problem. It turns out they have moved to a new billing system and canceled my account. I'm hoping that they haven't erased my files--the last thing I want to do is reconstruct my Movable Type installation with some 1300 posts,  and comments.

Fortunately, I sort out the problem and my site is back up. But two days later it is canceled again! I'm back at step one trying to get reconnected and back online. Hours later it is done . . .  my apologies for the downtime.

- - -

Please also see SVW: London's Hipster markets attract US companies

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/20...

I'm heading out to London later today for my parent's 50th anniversary, with my son Matt. I have to figure out my internet access once I get there so I might be offline for a day or two.

In the meantime, here are a few items:

. . . Jon Swartz, reporter at USA Today just published:

"Young Wealth: Trade Secrets From Teens Who Are Changing American Business" (Rooftop Publishing: $14.95).

Dan Fost over at the SF Chronicle reviews it. My advice to teen entrepeneurs is not to publicize their business models, no good can come from it except copycat competitors. It is best to fly under the radar as any new rules enterprise knows... ;-)

. . . Silicon Valley startups get Sarbanes Oxley relief:

Technet applauds SEC action to ease burden of compliance.

www.technet.org.

But startups want to get acquired so they want to be SOX compliant like the big boys so that they can be integrated faster.

. . . AMD says it's still ahead in electric power consumption

Marty Seyer, Senior VP, Commercial Segment gave a presentation at today's AMD analyst day. http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/InvestorRelations/0,,51_306_14668,00.html - click Marty's picture for the server-specific presentation. AMD says is it is "3% faster in 2P than Intel and ahead by 7% in 4P." (Intel is an SVW sponsor.)

I wonder what level of percentage improvement in server power is significant enough to sway buying decisions? It seems that the biggest savings come from the first decision to replace older power hungry servers with the new generation of power-lite servers from AMD or Intel. After that, the incremental savings between the two energy-saving brands are not that significant...?

. . . The dark side of the chip industry

Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry (Publication Date: August 24, 2006) is the first comprehensive examination of the impacts of electronics manufacturing on workers and local environments across the planet.

From Silicon Valley in California to Silicon Glen in Scotland, from Silicon Island in Taiwan to Silicon Paddy in China, the social, economic, and ecological effects of the international electronics industry are widespread. The production of electronic and computer components contaminates air, land, and water around the globe. As this eye-opening book reveals, the people who suffer the consequences are largely poor, female, immigrant, and minority.

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

I do a lot of talking about media, blogging and what it all means. I talk to groups of marketing, PR/comms, journalists, entrepreneurs and executives and I like doing it. I like talking about media even if I haven't been invited to talk about media such as at parties, bus stops and similar ad hoc opportunities. It's difficult to stop me on this subject, I've bent many an ear.

I was recently invited to speak with a large group of Hewlett-Packard people alongside Eve Batey , San Francisco Chronicle's new blogging supremo. It went well, it was the second time we've spoken on a panel together, this time sans Sam Whitmore of the excellent Media Survey.

The event was HP's Horizontal Influencer Summit and Eve and I spoke and answered a lot of interesting questions. I think we made for a good double act.

I left old media for the new media when I left the Financial Times to be the first mainstream reporter to become a full-time journalist blogger--without the safety net of a day job.

Eve went from new media to old media. She used to work in PR at Porter Novelli and at the award winning SFist.com blog site. She was recruited by the legendary San Francisco Chronicle publisher Phil Bronstein to help the newspaper in its blog publishing.

So between us, we have experience in several sides of the mediasphere. And what's interesting is that we provide a consistent view on media developments even though we get there in different ways.

What I tend to find is that talking with media and PR professionals who are active in the new media often means speaking a common language. There is an intuitive understanding of media and communications in this small community that is absent among media professionals and PR people that do not participate in new media,  and its conversational forms.

- - -

If you'd like to inquire about speaking opportunities, or anything else about Silicon Valley Watcher you can contact my colleague Kristie Wells, the Diva of Details.  kristiewells at gmail.com

I'm still digging out from my recent India trip, here are a few bits and pieces...

Here is a hot search engine that gives old meaning to that term: http://www.MsDewey.com

(Hat Tip Dida Kutz)

. . .

I recently spoke at an event organized by SVASE, the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs  and I can heartily recommend its programs. Co-founder Mark Addison set up the lunchtime session and I found it interesting talking with entrepreneurs who hope to leverage blogging in their businesses.

ACTEVA:CXO Leadership Forum - Blogger Confidential: A Conversation ...

. . .

My buddy David Galbraith, co-founder of Moreover and co-author of RSS 1.0, just launched his second Wists shopping blog. Wists is a universal wish-list, with a click or two users can save images of things they like or might want to buy.

Dave's first Wists product is Cribcandy. His second, PopGloss, "covers women's clothing and accessories, an eclectic mix of quirky and fun or innovative design - fashion without the attitude. It has a similar feel to Cribcandy, lots of pictures, few words, updated dozens of times a day and with the ability to save pictures and links to anything you like with one click."

. . .

Giovanni Rodriguez officially launched his PR agency HubbubPR, which is a great name. Social media PR is his focus and he says things are going very well. Here is a recent piece he wrote about social media in the enterprise.

"The essay is based on a survey I conducted of 40-plus publicly available case studies.  My thesis:  the business benefits of social media are becoming quite apparent, but the pressure to stand out -- and do something different -- is mounting," says Giovanni. Read it here:

http://hubbub.typepad.com/blog/2006/11/peer_pressure.html

. . .

Coming up at Stanford University is Web 2.0 Wave in the US and Poland. I'll be there to check it out on November 29 at Stanford's Clark Auditorium. Book your tickets here:

ACTEVAWeb 2.0 Wave in the U.S. and Poland User Contribution, Data Analytics, and Monetization

Clay Bullwinkel helped to organize the event along with the US-Polish Trade Council. Clay says: "Did you know Poles are much more Web 2.0-oriented than other people? Check out Wikipedia’s home page. The quantity of Polish articles ranks 4^th after English, German and French. And this is with a much lower percent of PC ownership and broadband connections."

Clay says that Poles continue to win world champion computer coding events. Case in point: Marek Cygan, who beat out programmers from IBM, Microsoft and Baylor University.

. . .

Interesting evening at Sun Microsystems' media dinner Thursday night about eco issues. This was the first time I had heard of PG&E's incentive program for data centers running virtualization software. PG&E's Mark Bramfitt, High Tech, Biotech & Health Care Segment Supervisor, said that by using renewable sources of energy and by encouraging businesses and residential customers to save power, PG&E has saved the equivalent of 25 power stations.

I mentioned that PG&E should wire up all the treadmills and stationary bikes in all the gyms in California. That way, it could pump up the power grid, we could even get paid for working out, (or our gyms would pay us to go there! (Hat tip Elsa Butler). And our healthcare service providers would provide us with big cost breaks, we'd be independent of Middle East oil, and we would all look damn good
...

My good buddy Tom Abate at the San Francisco Chronicle keeps reminding me that I should share my "Foremski's Law." It is something I've been talking about with small numbers of select individuals over the past 18 months or so....

Here is is.  Foremski's Law: Content is infinitely scalable.

I"ll explain, some time soon, or if you ask me in person. This points to the keys to the kingdom, if you dig, and I know that you do... :-)

I'm back from a very interesting trip to India, I'll have at least one more post on my trip. I just wanted to let people know that I will be at the de Young from 6.30pm to 8.30pm for "First Friday with Foremski." Come on by and enjoy the museum. There is a no-host bar and music with Conjunto Romero celebrating Día de los Muertos. This is not a networking event, it's about connecting :-)

Fridays at the de Young.

Tuesday morning I'll be flying to India, my first visit, and I'm excited. I'll be travelling with Tibco (an SVW sponsor) as Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, launches his book over there - "The Predicitve Enterprise." I'll be a fly on the wall as Mr. Ranadive meets with the local captains of industry and many others.

I'll be back November 3rd and will post as I can. I hear India has a pretty good Internet connection :-)

I've been thinking about how ideas are created and how they are used. There seems to be a life span to good business ideas in that most ideas eventually become obvious because at some point they will make sense to most people.

Within the startup community there is great fear of ideas being stolen. Many people hang onto their best ideas as if they were unique to them and won't share them easily. Maybe those ideas were unique at some point, they were the first to spot things/trends, the first to connect the dots, but they won't stay that way forever.

Others will find their way to the same ideas sooner or later because they are also working with a similar base of concepts and information. We are all exposed to the same things, although at different times, and that leads to the development of similar ideas.

It is wise to be protective of business ideas for a while so that you can try to monetise them first. But many people hang onto their ideas for far too long, and this can interrupt the process of new idea creation. At some point ideas need to be let loose so that at least you can get a date stamp on the idea, and more importantly, create more good ideas.

I've noticed that more good ideas I talk about, or give away, the more ideas will take their place. Because there is now space within the colloidal supercomputer, our brain, for new ideas to take root and flourish.

Linus Pauling, the two-times Nobel prize winner, said that the way to have great ideas is to have lots of ideas. By having lots of ideas you can pull out the great ideas.

I've noticed that the brain does a tremendous amount of work processing information in the background. Then it will throw its conclusions, ideas into our consciousness and we get that eureka moment coming from seemingly no where. And it's important to write things down otherwise the thoughts will be lost and forgotten.

That's why it is important to turn off the chatter, the many conversations around you. Listen to your own conversation. The reason we get great ideas in the shower is that this is often the only time we are not bombarded by outside chatter from the radio, TV, family, or colleagues. In the shower we have an opportunity to hear ourselves, and that's the source of all our ideas :-)

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I would love to buy the San Jose Mercury if it's still for sale. I know *exactly* what to do with it, how to turn into a superbly profitable cash printing laughing-to-the-bank golden-goose machine.

Maybe I could buy it for $1 and be paid $66m as when the Hearst Corporation did in 2000 when it divested its San Francisco Examiner as part of its acquisition of the San Francisco Chronicle.

And they should sell it to me because I know the secret formula. Well, it is secret for about the next 18 months to two years. All secret formulas, just like all great ideas, eventually become obvious to all. But a two year window is nothing to be sneezed at, although you could try :-)

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Giovanni Rodriguez from Eastwick Communications, seems to think that Strumpette, the latest out-of-left-field blogging sensation written as a stylishly erotic PR blog, by Amanda Chapel--is a fake.

Maybe, but...does it matter? It is wonderfully entertaining and I sent a personal email of encouragement with some of my top blogging tips and said I'm happy to help out with any advice needed. I also said that I would respectfully keep confidential any private correspondence between us--unless agreed otherwise by both parties. [This has to become a basic rule of social etiquette in this day and age when anyone can publish.]

And, I would also keep quiet if Amanda were to be a single or group project. Either way my blogging advice remains the same.

Here is Giovanni's comment and my reply. Let me know what you think about my idea for creating a persona that several writers could share on a weekly basis...I might enjoy it, I'd give it a try, anybody else?

by: Giovanni Rodriguez on March 27, 2006 06:20 PM
Strumpette is a H-O-A-X. Sez me.

Do we have any evidence that "she" exists? Yes, there's a blog. Yes, there's email. What else?

Reply by: Tom Foremski - Silicon Valley Watcher
That's what you said last time G. You said SandhillSlave was a man and I said no way and I betcha I'm right.

Strumpette's Amanda might very well turn out to be a group hybrid personality--it would be fun either way. It is certainly entertaining so far. Maybe we could all take turns to be SandhillSlave or Amanda and play out a persona. Perhaps the real person could be hidden among a flurry of writers and able to protect their insider identity...?

What if we were to adopt a real or imaginary persona, one with a distinct blog voice/online personality, and several people agreed to write one blog post per day within the character of the blog persona? That could be interesting, and maybe even compelling content...

So for example, if Amanda is a composite of several persons then we could have several writers randomly writing as Amanda... They could be semi-fictional semi-factual stories for entertainment purposes only...and they might even protect the anonymity of insiders?

What do you think G? Could you pretend to be Amanda, or an Angela or an Angus, for one day? I bet you could do it with your theatrical background... you could probably manage all three :-)

I'm not sure how I came across egoSurf. I couldn't resist plugging my ego into its search box and its algorithm calculated 17,731 Ego points. Which apparently is quite good putting me into 3rd place on the "biggest egos" chart.

Somehow I beat out Dave Winer, who has the seventh largest ego, with 9,763 Ego points. Which makes me a bit suspicious that there is a bug in the algorithm :-)

egoSurf says:

Why do I need to egoSurf?
egoSurf helps massage the web publishers ego, and thereby maintain the cool equilibrium of the net itself.
We, the publishers of this here internet thing, need the occasional massage, the odd stroke. We aren't paid. We aren't recognized. Our sites hit count used to be enough, but no longer.

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I have completely fallen for Slave Girl (http://www.sandhillslave.com) and I think that every other red-blooded person in this somewhat emasculated region has too. I have had some correspondence with Slave Girl, who admits to sometimes falling into a groupie mode when communicating with SVW--which is something I would not recommend but I'd be hard pressed to discourage.

I've tried to encourage Slave Girl to write a column for SVW and she is considering my generous offer. However, I think it best that no one, not even I, find out who Slave Girl really is.

Because we all need a person such as Slave Girl, a persona that knows us all so well. And we appreciate the attention that she gives to us poor Neanderthal males--studying us in such detail that we learn so much more about how not to meet women.

Therefore, I forbid anybody to reveal the true identity of Slave Girl, and I encourage all that share her sensibilities, to use the alias Slave Girl so that her identity becomes completely lost among many.

We are all Slave Girls, in the same way that we are all Sparticus--a rebelliousness of spirit that communicates across millennia and is part of our core humanity. That is why I feel that Slave Girl should be kept as a mysterious, seductive, and marvelously forbidden fantasy, imho.

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I've been away from the blogosphere, or rather mediasphere for three days, and I noticed that it is still here.

I spent those moments with my kids and I've grown to like spending my time offline. The resolution of offline images is incredible--much better than on a plasma HD.

We went up to Mount Shasta and you could really feel the cold at night, 14 below, and the sensation of the ice crystals from a snowball down the back of the neck was incredibly realistic. I felt the ice slide all the way down my spine . . .

And then when we we were driving up the mountain, we hit an icy patch and slid sideways into a snowbank, that flipped us around like an LP on a turntable. We collected our thoughts, and went back down the hill, but the feeling of crashing into a snowbank was very realistic.

We bought a sled and found an incline and played. And the sensation of being with my kids and goofing around was fantastic, incredibly realistic and three dimensional.

It was a great Presidents Day weekend, I hope yours was too!

By Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher

It's a warm Wednesday evening in North Beach San Francisco and it is Neal Cassady's 80th birthday and the remnants of the Beat generation, Jack Kerouac's remaining drinking buddies, are inside a small storefront.

It is also the opening of the Beat Museum, and I'm there with my buddy Paul Hrisko to chat with Neal Cassady's son John, and visit with a slice of San Francisco's history from the late 1950s.

I've become very interested in the Beat generation, the mostly East Coast/New York intellectuals that came to San Francisco, and were chosen by the media to represent the rebellious youth of those times.

From Wikipedia: "The members of the beat generation were new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity. The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style...

. . . Echoes of the Beat Generation run throughout all the forms of alternative/counter culture that have existed since then (e.g. "hippies", "punks", etc). The Beat Generation can be seen as the first modern "subculture"."

The Beat Generation created a literature that was passionate, raw and emotional. This was a time when a poem, Allen Ginsberg's Howl could spark arrest, and trials for obscenity. The poet Czeslaw Milosz said of Ginsberg: "Your blasphemous howl still resounds in a neon desert where the human tribe wanders, sentenced to unreality".

I've become interested in Neal Cassady, who was somewhat of a mysterious character to some degree, because his writings are rare. Yet Neal Cassady became the muse, an influencing force on the writers, poets, and cultural icons of those days. People such as Jack Kerouac, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and later, Ken Kesey, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and many, many more.

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

My apologies--but I've been in Greta Garbo mode this past week--I just needed to spend some time alone, with myself. That's why my email is so backed up along with all my other conversations.

It's nothing personal about anybody, except it is personal in regards to myself. In this Always On world the greatest luxury is time to yourself.

That means switch off the chatter of the blogs, the chatter of the radio, the chatter of TV, the chatter of marketing messages, the chatter that is the white-noise of our existence.

Do you get to listen to yourself? That's when you get your ideas. That is precisely why you get great ideas in the shower, or walking down the street--you get a rare moment to listen to yourself (and you should write stuff down immediately).

I "throw things in the back seat" and then my brain throws them back up and out when it is done processing--sometimes they are good ideas and sometimes they are not. But I write them down always.

Linus Pauling, the twice-Nobel prize winner (Chemistry 1954 and Peace 1962--died 1994) said that the trick to having great ideas is to have lots of ideas. Yes, most of your ideas will bite the dust, but the rest...?

The law of large numbers is in your favor but you have to switch off from the chatter once in a while so that you can hear yourself; and that means switch off the blogs too, (including this one :-).