The Ultimate Series - Episode 1 - The Pilot

I grabbed the AudioBoo App for the iPhone thinking that I’d use it to start a new short form audio podcasting series. I happen to be more interested in video myself, but audio is probably more useful and more versatile in where, how, and what you can do with it.

I’m calling this episode “The Pilot.”

Let me know what you think.

About that link I posted last night...

I realized after looking at the last link that I posted that it needed a little cleaning up. So this will be a more dedicated piece.

I got the idea from Journerdism, which doesn’t seem to have permalinks for its link blog. That’s rough, but I can live with it. The reason is that he quoted this part of the article I linked:

“Jeff Jarvis does a great job of defining a different way to do investigative journalism, which he calls process journalism. I prefer to call it iterative journalism. Everyone follows a “process,” so that word doesn’t really define it. Traditional journalists follow a process, and so do blogger journalists. Theirs are just different processes. “Iterative” is the way of the Web. Create something, put it out there, get reactions, improve. That has to be the future.”

That is what specifically got me to thinking about what I wrote last night, which is this:

This hits a note close to home. A couple weeks ago, I was sitting and chatting with Mike Henderson, Wolfy, and he was saying that too often, arguments (debates, as I refer to them) online were a little too all over the place. I answered back that I thought that was the point of online conversation—that all thought was iterative, and the perfect blog post and the perfect comment didn’t necessarily exist—that all debate was based on the last thing said. That’s the beauty of the ongoing conversation online, as I see it. Granted, this isn’t necessarily “investigative journalism,” but it is something that can be equated to what’s being said here. All online conversation offers the opportunity to drift off-topic, seemingly, when what’s really happening is that the people involved are thinking through their positions and adjusting to what they see as the point of the moment. That’s a big deal. Whenever anything is put into print it’s over. Either you write a perfect article, or a flawed one. That’s that. And a lot of people think that’s the way it should be. In a generation, that’ll be laughed at. I think we should laugh at it now. (via Journerdism)

I hope that puts it in a better context.

This short piece says a lot about what blogging should be

This hits a note close to home. A couple weeks ago, I was sitting and chatting with Mike Henderson, Wolfy, and he was saying that too often, arguments (debates, as I refer to them) online were a little too all over the place. I answered back that I thought that was the point of online conversation—that all thought was iterative, and the perfect blog post and the perfect comment didn’t necessarily exist—that all debate was based on the last thing said. That’s the beauty of the ongoing conversation online, as I see it. Granted, this isn’t necessarily “investigative journalism,” but it is something that can be equated to what’s being said here. All online conversation offers the opportunity to drift off-topic, seemingly, when what’s really happening is that the people involved are thinking through their positions and adjusting to what they see as the point of the moment. That’s a big deal. Whenever anything is put into print it’s over. Either you write a perfect article, or a flawed one. That’s that. And a lot of people think that’s the way it should be. In a generation, that’ll be laughed at. I think we should laugh at it now. (via Journerdism)

Excellent mashup of music and sports press conference clips

If you pay attention to sports, you’ll probably recognize several of the clips that are mixed together here in this outstanding remix, set to music. All of them are laugh out loud funny in context, especially the one with Joe Namath. It’s four minutes long, but worth it, to me. (via Deadspin)

Bob Conrad brilliantly lays out a strategy for launching a social media political campaign

Start here. Read all the parts, then come back.

Having read that, you should now know what I think the background is. There’s this guy running around on Twitter and other places, I suppose, who was talking about getting a cease and desist order for his actions fighting against higher taxes in Nevada. Or something. See, the problem was that while there was publicity about the cease and desist, the dude categorically refused to answer questions about:

1. Who sent the order
2. What the order actually called on him to “cease and desit” doing
3. Who he really is
4. Anything else

It was the quintessential bullshit PR stunt completely void of:

1. Transparency
2. Truth (presumably)
3. Real names
4. Substance

See, the thing is, when Bob sees something inherently interesting to PR people, something he lays claim to being, he tries to figure out if the people involved are handling it correctly. I can also say from personal experience, he’ll also offer help when it’s something that has a lot of merit. Had this clown Todd Taxpayer’s claim had any merit (something that could have been figured out by his answering the simple question of who sent the order), I have no doubt that Bob would have played a role, big or small, in the open or not, in helping publicize the injustice that the order would have represented. I have no doubt whatsoever.

Instead, however, this guy refused to answer questions and instead pointed Bob, and by default all of the people subject to his PR stunt on Twitter, to a column written by the infallible (according to the wackjob contingent) Chuck Muth about taxes.

Whiskey. Tango. Fuck?

Therefore, as I read this, Bob must have decided to make fun of this bullshit by detailing how a ridiculous campaign seeking publicity for your bad videos without even a proper player (based on the conventions of the World Wide Web), bad haircut, and trite ideas, can be launched. Without taking a political stance on this (and believe me, I’m not), I can’t help but laugh at this dude. He turned his refusal to answer questions into an attack on Bob for being a state worker wanting his taxes to be raised so he can continue to live in style, or something of that nature. Bob never once took a stance on the topic—he approached it completely from the angle of a PR guy seeking to teach someone who needs a lot of help. Instead, he was met with a wall and decided he could have a little fun with it.

So, if you haven’t already read what I’m talking about, go read it now. It’s golden.