Design Director, WAGA
Atlanta
Read the full post September 21st, 2006
Archive for September 21st, 2006
‘Virtual Laguna Beach’ goes live
MTV.com has now launched Virtual Laguna Beach, the virtual community based on the MTV show (earlier report here.) Time to pimp out your avatar, hit the beach, shop, party it up and chat with, like, random people. Couple screen grabs…
4 comments September 21st, 2006
Bush administration opposes federal journalist shield law
The Bush administration does not want a federal shield law for journalists, and made that clear again this week. The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on the Free Flow of Information Act of 2006, and the Attorney General’s office is arguing that “Our national security is too important to be subjected to (the) standards and burdens” of having a litmus test. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D - VT) pointed out that six journalists have been fined or jailed in the past year for not revealing sources. The AG’s office countered with “There is not one shred of evidence supporting the notion that the Department of Justice is out to get the media.”
14 comments September 21st, 2006
Sen. Stevens calls net neutrality a ‘fetish’
What would we do without ol’ Sen. Ted “Tubes” Stevens? While pushing for his franchise reform bill (I suggest better McDonald’s bathrooms), Tubes is bemoaning that he’s getting delayed by the network neutrality lobby. “It’s a fetish. It’s really something that doesn’t exist,” said the esteemed Senator from Alaska. In the interest of helping Sen. Tubes, may I suggest he avoid searching “fetish” on the internet?
3 comments September 21st, 2006
Dead! From L.A.! It’s the ‘Studio 60′ fake blog!
The folks behind the otherwise acceptable “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” have come up with a terrible, terrible idea for a blog called “Defaker.” It’s a, um, fake blog. It’s meant to be written from the POV of a Studio 60 viewer/fan who writes “Since I’m lucky enough to have some contacts at the show, and thought that other fans might find the backstage shenanigans of interest in light of the recent shakeup…” It has stills from the show posted as “shots my friend smuggled out.” Worst of all, there are fake comments interspersed with real ones. Dreadful. How does a show with such decent writing turn out this? I’ll stick with the Studio 60 real blog instead, if you don’t mind, Aaron. (thx, Best Week Ever, which presents a funny network-exec-meeting scenario of how this marketing “idea” may have happened.)
6 comments September 21st, 2006
YouTube teams with GMA in talent hunt
Unsigned bands and musicians can submit original music videos to YouTube next month, and the finalists will appear on ABC’s Good Morning America as well as on video-enabled Cingular phones. The best will be picked by… the YouTube community, of course.
4 comments September 21st, 2006
LR takes a ‘frequent poster’ honor in Scoble’s RSS
As the Lost Remote Manager in Charge of Bragging, I was thrilled to read this: Robert Scoble found that Lost Remote was among the most frequent posters in his estimable RSS feeds. Scoble conducted an unintended experiment by not checking his RSS reader since mid-August. (He humbly writes: “That’s why my blog has sucked lately.” Hardly.) His top five frequent posters in that time: Engadget had 1,093 since he last checcked in, Boing Boing had 701, LifeHacker had 552, GigaOm had 466, and there’s LR at #5 with 408. Considering Cory had some considerable tech challenges (remember nowbreaking.com?) I’d say that’s pretty great company. But we don’t envy Scoble’s backlog of RSS reading. (Dude - just skip to LR…)
3 comments September 21st, 2006
‘Breaking news’ threshold keeps falling
Seen on MSNBC yesterday (video): anchor Chris Jansing interrupts a talk-back with NBC News’ Jay Barbree on the space shuttle to announce “breaking news” of an ostrich on the loose on a school playground in North Carolina. “Is that breaking news?” Barbree asks. “I have a bicycle crash down here, you want to cover that, Chris?” Jansing laughs, “I don’t know.”
7 comments September 21st, 2006
HP reportedly considered hiring newsroom spies
The Hewlett-Packard boardroom spy scandal would have come to a newsroom near you if some of the HP braintrust had their way. HP reportedly ruminated over hiring spies in the offices of CNet and The Wall Street Journal. The spies would have cleverly been disguised as custodians or worked in clerical positions. The report also says the company’s surveillance extended to a CNet reporter, whose email they tapped by sending him an email with monitoring spyware in it. The scandal didn’t stop a San Francisco group from honoring HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn - she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Bay Area Council. Maybe the council didn’t feel like reprinting the invites.
7 comments September 21st, 2006
