Bloggerati

Chef left Southpark

2006-03-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

The cheerfully politically incorrect series South Park
has Chef leaving - because of an episode where Tom Cruise

DIDN'T COME OUT OF THE CLOSET.

Hush now, Tom probably thought he was a skeleton.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

South Park

We Are A Conversation ....

2006-03-11T05:47:00.000-08:00

We Are A Conversation is a philosophical saying that was used in the Sixties a lot. In a way it is also true for blogging, in that they are participatory in nature. But is "participatory" not just another trendy word for "interactive"?

No, and ...yes. The difference is that a website is interactive and lets users participate in that sense - but this is not an interaction between power equals. Notice the word "user".

Looking at the instruments being used for interaction between of bloggers - it's the blog tool - on all sides. A blogger assumes the role of a visitor, of a commentator and again of a blogger. We all participate in the others'
publications - in that way blogging certainly is interactive but it's more. It is interaction between participants.

Leuc Le Meur's version in regards to blogs is:

Traditional media send messages
Blogs start discussions

Found via Fredrik Wackå's corporateblogging

Gisela Strauss

Translator Munich
Blogging

Mark Morford's columns

2006-03-11T05:46:00.000-08:00

. . . helped me get through the time after 9/11 when I worked at an U.S. chip manufacturer near Munich. My German superior from the Neue Bundesländer treated my - ever talking to any of the Americans who worked there as some sort of insubordination. East Germans are prone to detect some form of insubordination in the most innocent of behaviours. But my East German superior was also younger (!) than me which meant I needed to *prove* in all possible ways that I was willing and able to work *under* someone younger without *any* problems whatsoever.

I know now how to work for some East German person who is younger than me and prove myself as a flexible, adaptive co-worker:

Shut-up, work, do not ask any questions, never talk to any one outside the department, or better - never talk to anyone but your superior, pretend to not be able to speak English whenever possible. And work hard at finding former East-Germans totally exciting, astonishing, hip and noteworthy. And endure petty hurtful personal stabs, irrational accusations and hysterical screeching with a smile.

The problem was that the shock of 9/11 and the mourning and the sadness and the not being able to talk to people near me, in whose country I had been living happily for over 10 years, and bearing the triumphant schadenfreude of my superior was such a difficult task - in addition to working, that I must have appeared somewhat c l u m s y . Which then again inspired intense disdain in my immediate surroundings consisting of German co-workers who strongly believed in giving the East German person a break - as long as I - not them - was paying the price. Indulging a former East German in this way hence was the expedient, the politically correct thing to do - the poor thing had been Coming in From the Cold after all.

Which is why the strange and tortured humour of UC Berkeley alumni and Hearst - SF Gate contributor Mark Morford arriving in my email box in the form of a column every day was medicine, no dope for me.

It's all about retail, just like Jesus would have wanted . . . read Mark's column here

» »

.

T'Rati
UC Berkeley
East + German
Hearst

Gore is Vital

2006-03-11T05:42:00.000-08:00

Gore Vidal

is most likely the real reason I decided to leave Berkeley. Or better his State of the Nation speech at the UC Berkeley Auditorium. Unlike Berkeley underdoggism - which means barking up at anything to do with power - Gore Vidal's eloquent and funny speech revealed the lives of the rich, famous and infamous from the inside out - meaning from peer to peer. Gore was born into an American upperclass family, well-connected in terms of politics and money. His revelations are void of envy, cloaking itself as political correctness. His conclusions are that power happens as randomly as anything - there is no higher wisdom bestowing power and influence on those deemed worthy. Thus he suggests that an attitude of irreverence towards the extremely powerful together with deep, humourous compassion for humankind are the way to go.

At the panel discussion after his speech, some established leftist Berkeley journalist writer simply said, Gore you are full of shit - meaning of course - easy for you to talk like that - you come from money. Well I just had heard enough of the whiny, pol cor investigative journalism in Berkeley to know that this was envy screeching at eloquence.

This dude Gore, I felt, was on to something. And that something was not to be found in Berkeley anymore for me. Later that evening I met Gore Vidal at Amy Wallace's house (daughter of Irving). Then, in response to a "fan" letter I had sent him, he came back with correcting my commas.

Gore Vidal is living in Ravello, Italy, Mainland Europe.

Gisela Strauss, Munich, Germany, Mainland Europe
T'Rati
Gore Vidal
Munich
München
italy+bavaria

The American German Business Club Munich

2006-03-11T05:40:00.000-08:00

The American German Business Club Munich with Patrtick Brennan presiding.

Blogging for Memory and Community

2005-11-14T09:12:00.000-08:00

Having a large following, is a blogger's penultimate goal according to Mainstream Media. (The ultimate goal would be cashing in on a large follwing.) While I like the idea of cashing in on something (am I Polyannna? Blogging is buzzing !!!) having a so called following which expects me to post for them, is filling me with dread.

Blogging in my view is a tool to cope with information overload. Information which moves me to blog about seems relevant, note-worthy. That's a filtering criteria right there. The moment I post about some news, my own thoughts, another blogger's post, a tool, a method, it receives some surrounding con-text, which helps me to log it in my memory (internal linking) but also provides a sur-face, an inter-face to weave it together with other information - in my own blog or in other's (external linking). Linking to content in my own blog creates a local neural network, linking to others' ties my microcontent into the global neural network. Linear information gathering is hence obsolete - since it has become impossible.

Mary Hodder put it succinctly:

For many bloggers the relevant sphere of influence is not overall popularity, as those indexes [technorati, Google, GS] express. It's influence and connection within a community. And the relevant measure of connection isn't the number of connections -- it's the depth and impact of those connections. This is about celebrating the niche, and measuring engagement over time.

Gisela Strauss
Germany

Munich Book Blogs?

2005-10-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

[Update: there is now a Berlin Book Blog, run by a friend of mine, Bernd Sommerfeld, he works at Lehmans Bookstore in Berlin, is involved with the OpenSource Community, and his solution of a book blog is interesting.]

From Feb. 19th 2005:
I am surprised. Munich is the European hub of book publishing.
It is dubbed the Isar Valley because of its role in technology.

And yet and yet: no German language book blog of repute coming out of Munich.

Check it out for yourself with the blog search engine www.technorati.com recently redesigned featuring its own Book category.

Or just click on this link which takes you to a technorati screen with the search keyword "verlag" already entered and view results.

Gisela Strauss
Content Developer
Technical Translator

Dave Davies said they liked it

2005-05-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

Dave Davies said, that the Old Living Nazis he interviewed admitted that they did what they did because they wanted to. Not because they were *only* following orders.

I believe that. This interview is worth listening to.

Why do I believe that? Because I have witnessed the vulgarity and stubborness of Nazi conviction and the craftiness in both putting it forth and hiding it. The complete and utter absence of shame. I wonder, after listening to this, if the sweeping social engineering measures administered by the Allies to defeated German women and men and their offspring later (I am an offspring), has truly achieved the hoped-for results. Because it was based on the assumption of
emancipating hapless masses who had been manipulated by the Goebbels propaganda machine and needed only to be *rewired*. I am not sure.... Certainly that is the script the postwar generations has accepted. And handed down to us, the next generation. But then for someone growing up in the midst of this there always appeared to be holes in this story. Because for one . . .
Why was this war generation always so mean, and envious of our innocence?

Gosfordian to the Max -

2005-03-26T08:22:00.000-08:00

This is subtle beyond subtle: NPR features a put down on snobbery, read in a very snobbish tone of voice , in which "snobbism" is described as Americans showing casual generosity to the remnants of the British upper class, an act which those said remnants define as "snobbery" according ot their own convoluted insider rules. This is so Gosfordian: Is Karen Grigsby Bates of National Public Radio, an American station, sending Julian Fellowes, the reader, up as a snob, or is Julian given a real and earnest chance of lecturing Americans about how to avoid being snobbish towards the British upper crust? Go figure.

Cute, · T E C H N O R A T I · awwwww.

Addendum I
Someone help me out with this - Banksy and his, Please-mom-I-want-to-be-like-Andy-Warhol-when-I'm-6-campaign:
Is it embarassing with it's desperate and deliberate aping of Andy Warhol and a little bit of Basquiat thrown in?
Imitation Andy Warhol and Basquiat squashed into one British person named Banksy can only mean one thing: continuous self-buggery begging for Bankable Attention, payable in pounds, please.

The New York art scene elite is extremely taken aback - but too snobbish to ever let it show, even in the politest, faintest, remotest manner.

Oh c'mon Banksy, you're better than Warhol, you get a straight
A for your work - you are the Ahole.

Wait was that an ever so faint . . . giggle coming from that N.Y. loft space converted into an artistic-intellectual enclave over there? Oh look - Bansky clings to the window with suction cups - evidently begging Whoopy Goldberg to be let in. Cliffhangingly inventive - isn't he. Awwww. Soapy tho the max.

Andrew Blau on Motion Media

2005-03-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

Whether it is the music industry, movies or journalism - anything connected with traditional media production is undergoing dramatic changes. Andrew Blau's take on Motion Media - i.e. media which captures anything that moves throws into relief hidden patterns which hold true for any of the media sectors above. Here is a selection of quotes, from

Telling Important Stories to Growing Audiences

Independent Media a Definition:
Quite simply, video and film conceived and produced independent of the traditionally corporate sponsors for media and made for a wide range of purposes beyond purely commercial considerations. The work could be personal essays, documentaries, media or video art, feature style narratives, or a combination of these.

To avoid trying the subject too much to the physical properties of film or video, to acknowledge the new digital media that will be neither film or videotape, and to distinguish the media we're referring to from media primarily composed of still graphics, text or audio, we sometimes use the term "motion media" as a substitute.
· · ·
Evidence of growth and decline, opportunity and threat, is no contradiction but different parts of the same story. The field is reorganizing, and the flow of resources and attention is reorganizing with it.
· · ·
It may not be an economic opportunity immediately or directly, but am opportunity to make and move work in unprecedented ways with unprecedented flexibility.
· · ·
The resulting output will overrun the institutions and strategies created to organize and navigate an era of great scarcity of media equipment and products.
· · ·
The internet will be the home of coming generations of media makers and viewers. For them, the Internet is neither new nor special, just the thing that connects most of their media choices.
· · ·
When work can be made cheaply, cheap becomes the new normal.
· · ·
The majors aren't set up to make money on artists selling small number of albums, but that's not a reflection of the commercial viability of the artists. It's a reflection of the economics of running a huge record company. Small independent labels are breaking even and turning profits with sales figures that the majors would take as losses and an excuse to dump the artist, and a small but growing number of artists are taking advantage of the new economics to put out their own records.
· · ·
more stuff
· · ·
and more stuff
· · ·
Gisela Strauss
http://sepiaport.com

Bloggerati Has Found: Kids Can Click!

2005-02-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of plankton swarming around the word bloggerati. It just fascinates the masses. Words worming, squirming themselves around the term without rhyme and reason.

That word reveals the irrational need of false entitlement in so many envy-stricken wannabees lately that it is, I am totally sure, coincidentally as much as it is painfully embarrassing to watch.
Want Pain?
Scavengers at the ready here comes the plankton:
BLOGPULSE RANKING
GOOGLE RANKING
Y'S AGGREGATOR RANKING

Or pleasure:
"Did it hurt?" "What?" "When you fell from heaven?" "Not as much as my boot up your ass if you don't step off in the next 5 seconds."

Nobody is falling all over themselves with a word like Toytown it seems. Wait there:
Toytown: with a link that says: Kids can click!

Cute, · T E C H N O R A T I · awwwww.

Gisela
Modest in Munich

2005-02-19T12:42:00.000-08:00

The Cross Atlantic Crowd Has Always Been Among the Early Adopters.

Many of us have heard of corporate blogging and either dismissed it as yet another Internet hype or something pretty risky to do.

The first assumption is wrong the second correct.
It will not be a hype because the technology needed for a blog is free and unsophisticated.

It is risky however if your company does not practice transparency across the board. Or as one of the blog pundits said: if your company is bad, blogging is very bad for your company. If your company is good. Blogging is very good for your company.

Simply put: A blog expands the content and the "surface" which a search engine will be able register and feature about your company.

Debbie Weil provides us with valuable and down to earth pointers on corporate blogging.
http://blogwrite.blogs.com

Greetings
Gisela Strauss
Cute, · T E C H N O R A T I · awwwww.

Profiling Today's Munich's Expats

2005-02-19T12:31:00.000-08:00

Not so long ago, the Munich expat community consisted of upper rank executives on A Very Important Mission, or at of least Very Important Managers with the task of effecting some strategically crucial change in the local version of U.S. global corporate culture. A host of relocation-related services and subservices has established itself around this breed of professionals, their spouses and families.

Today this scenario has dramatically changed in several ways:
- There are more expat professionals working within a greater
diversity of professions in Munich.
- Many do not desire or could afford White Glove Executive
Relocation Services.
- To-the-point detailed and practical data, facts, insider
tips, help and advice for expats given by expats are
available on-line to a degree unheard of, only several years ago.
- Many of today's expats are media and Internet savvy to a point
which renders traditional fee-based relocation information
services patronizing and stifling, if not redundant.
- Many U.S.expats are here, because of the networked modality of
corporate projects:

A project lead, coordinator or manager my be flown
in from the U.S. just-in-time, leading a team to
produce the target objectives and move on to even
grander things back home.

-The all-encompassing corporate tendency to have work environments appear fluid and cosmopolitan, plays an even greater role now. There may or may not be a mission critical role to play at the target destination, but everybody involved is expected to benefit from the experience such as demonstrating leadership potential by coping with reality on and *even* off the corporate compound.

Especially British personnel enjoy their stay in Munich so much, that they have founded an exclusive dining-out club only for young British expat workers. Theirs is the tactical benefit of U.S. companies putting their foot down off-shore Mainland Europe first - anywhere on the British Isles: English staff holds on tight to the opportunity to migrate here when U.S. management moves on to the mainland.

Not to be forgotten are the sought-after software engineering geniuses hailing from Dublin, who are mostly contractors, very self-sufficient and patronizing a network of creative, comfortable Irish Pubs, which are owned and operated, very fittingly, by some Dubliners as well.

In short, the Internet-enabled, self-organizing expat community is extremely resourceful. Relocation services are in dire need of adapting, if they are to survive. Lean, demand-based, just-in-time services, which factor in the Internet as a primary and free resource for many things expats need, will be the winners.

Gisela Strauss

My Mom's Days at Moon's Mall

2005-02-19T12:16:00.000-08:00

The conspicuous consumption was the combative response of the ignored rich bores, eking out an attention-starved existence on the margins of the limelight in Hollywood, where the stars get all the love, admiration and attention.

Too proud to stalk, too cowardly to stab celebs to death, they channeled their murderous envy into shopping. So they stalked the shops where celebs went, and found out that if they spent zillion times more money than the celebs do, they get a teeny weeny bit of attention from those staff who were - naturally - spoilt brats, due to their daily brushes with stardom and getting lavish tips.

This became a movement, The Lifes of the Rich and Famous was born, and their offspring the yuppies and their offspring the synks followed.

Now synks have found out, that celebs come to Europe to hide from the madding crowd, including them, which really hurts. Synks are tortured knowing that celebs come to, say, Munich, enjoy hanging with the local popist yokels, buy property in France, own vineyards in Italy. Synks, ever too proud to stalk, too cowardly to stab celebs to death, they channel their murderous envy into Conspicuous Consumption Blogging, pretending to be in Europe:
It goes like this:
Yesterday I talked to my friend in France for three hours on the CELL PHONE from the lobby of such and such, discussing whether we would buy that property on the Côte d' Azure, but then dismissed France for like Italy, because we are into Slow Food, after three hours on the CELL I had to go because my friend the movie producer wanted to be picked up and brought to the Hilton Hotel in Munich where we dined together and discussed my mom's days at The Mall in the Valley Moon Zappa wrote the song about. That is to say, Moon wrote that song after she overheard MY MOM sigh, Gag Me With A Spoon.

Gisela Strauss
Munich
« Unsinkable »

Unilateral Cowboy

2005-02-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

Unilateral Cowboy

General Motors Behaves Like a Cowboy

There we have it:
The unilateral cowboy tramples not only on all that is good, noble and sophisticated in Europe, he dogs the German workforce as GM incarnate. Opel Germany is singled out, made scapegoat, because we know why, it need not be mentioned.

Except that………….
"General Motors Corp. will close a Baltimore assembly plant next year that employs about 1,100 people and makes two van models that are being discontinued, a spokesman for the world's biggest automaker said Tuesday."
by SARAH BRUMFIELD, Associated Press Writer

Observed by Gisela Strauss, Just a Bloggerette in a Bloggerati World, whatever that means
Munich

It's a DownHill Struggle, Let's Face It

2005-01-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.downhillbattle.org/ provides some pretty good insights into a couple of things which possibly might not be evil incarnate in regards to file sharing. Please ask your local authorities for permission before reading, though. If you are in Germany, you might ask the hawkish GEMA for permission to click on this link to read on.

Wired.com has even been less evil ever since the Conde Nast takeover coup committed by the Swiss, though they do not *always* and *totally* condemn things p2p as a federal crime, if not as an immoral deed.

«As Wired News first reported, Eyes on the Prize, the 14-part series chronicling the civil rights movement, can no longer be broadcast on television and has never been released on DVD because of copyright restrictions. »
» » »

Therefore some people are thinking about some sort of downloading venture.
But I think the liberal well-heeled middle class of America would even pay for the download when asked. So why rip it?

About that Room

2005-01-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

No comments possible. Go there. Listen. That's all.

» » »

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

2005-01-18T18:13:00.000-08:00

«DISSENT SPEAKS TO A FUTURE AGE... »

quoting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
in an interview with Nina Totenberg, on Morning Edition:

Bloggerati
Munich
delivering ROI, live and direct.
gisela.bloggerati@gmail.com

Helmut Berger

2005-01-18T13:08:00.001-08:00

Dear Helmut,
I would not go near you with a ten foot pole because your bitchiness is in direct proportion to your glamourous looks, but then that's what pics are for.

Experience tells us further, that bitchiness grows in diametrical proportion to which looks diminish. Again, that's why we love our pics. They arrest arresting beauty. Life is fair after all.

» » »

CITROËN Does That , No Really . . .

2005-01-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

There is a Citroën dealer around the corner form where I live: Near a big forest in the Greater Munich Area. And at dawn, when I go jogging, way before the dealer is opening shop, I have observed what it is, that has been drawing an unusual amount of early morning joggers onto the streets of Paris ever since the release of the Citroën C4.
Watch how it does it's thing.

Bloggerati Munich

gisela.bloggerati@gmail.com

Show Your ROI, Blog, or Else

2005-01-17T00:20:00.000-08:00

When someone at a German-run bulletin board in Munich bullet-pointedly asked me, What is the ROI, the purpose and the meaning of blogs, alarm bells went up in my head.

The question I felt was just wrong.

Bill Joy and friends put together the Internet protocol at Berkeley. Tim Berners Lee came up with html. They did this because it made the quality of their work better. It's uses were widely adapted because it made the collaborative quality of work better.

Then some software firms began putting information rich high quality hyperlinked copy online.

And the Internet world was still good.

Fast forward some years: Someone asked some guys at Harvard to create a PowerPoint bullet point list for managers and bankers, outlining the ROI, purpose and meaning of the Internet. Then, things went from good to bad: Investment capital discovered the Internet, followed by Madison Avenue. Then, things just got plain ugly.

So how can anyone ask a question like that again?

Blogging does not have to show ROI. Blogging is.
It renders more effective ways in which highly skilled knowledge workers keep track and reflect on their methods, work processes, their brainstorming.

People in general get to hone their debating, creative writing and conversational skills.

Owners of SMES and freelancers get to deploy their own public relation campagin via blogs, free of charge. Huh, and Madison Avenue, can't screw it up this time.

And by the way:
Is there any one single process or tool within a corporation, which directly hauls in ROI?

Of course not. So that is why this question is wrong. And so called experts trying to show the ROI of BLOGS are wrong as well.

Shut up and blog, or

else.

Bloggerati
Munich

Sinful Thoughts Near the Munich Synagogue

2005-01-16T05:24:00.000-08:00

There is always film festivals in Munich it seems. Now there is one at the Filmmuseum Munich, near the Jakobsplatz, where the Munich Jewish Cultural Center cum Synagogue is currently being erected.

What caught my eye at the festival location was the movie title Brand Spanking, evidently a British Indie. I am not sure what the movie is supposed to be about. But I like the idea of being able to spank a brand, this overused word, good for every cheap hustle there is on the planet, screaming, Admire, Desire, Acquire Me.

A website is a tool-toy, an application. When applications scream at you, as brands would, Admire, Desire, Acquire Me, they stop dead the user’s wish to intelligently interact.

The never ending self-inflicted labor of ad agencies is to transfer branding onto the Internet. Thanks to the fact that it will never ever work, it is a very complicated, lucrative job. About which endless briefs must be produced and long hours be billed. Thus, unlike the labor of Sisyphus it has its rewards.

But because ad agencies have stopped dead clients' wishes such as to intelligently spend money, there is no problem. Soon Branding will discover blogging. Enter the endless loop of never ending stupidity.

But then again, it is never too late to spank branding.

Gisela Strauss
O-pining Tech Translator
Munich

cry, cry, cry, moosey die

2005-01-14T07:08:00.000-08:00

Stop crying . . .

Look at Them Lil' Thingies Down There

2005-01-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

IKEA GOES TEX-MEX

2005-01-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

Is there something as pre-emptive brand name adaptation? I remember hearing something about a car named Nova that did not sell in Mexico - because in Spanish it means "no go". This is definitely a no-go:

Fartfull is fubar
Must have been some bean counter who came up with that. Even though fart is on everybody's mind nowadays. D & G showed a commercial where the admired girlfriend agreed to wait for a fart break in the middle of being handed over some glitzy jewelry. They had had some refried beans together.

The pendulum swings back to grunge it seems.

Gisela Strauss
Giving no beans about it in Munich.
No wait I have an idea - how about seating for a Tex-Mex restaurant?

A Swirling Ocean of Change

2004-12-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

{ M U N I C H : I t ' s C E T }

In the blog entry Sampling Dan Gillmore I hoped that blogging was « Change that is post Industrial, post Communication Age, post New Age, post Free Speech ». Well as soon as the ink dried what did I find but a blogged welcome to the Organic Age.

That's right, blogging is not just some nice paraphernalia to hype-up boring Corporate Communication procedures, nope, blogs are here to change the very nature of Change Management in the form of blog-based on demand adaptive networks.

On Demand Network grows poetic when it says:
« Welcome to the Organic Age...
« Businesses exist within a swirling ocean of change that equally features opportunity and threat. The only constant factor is that it is continually changing, so organisations that want the adaptability to be first to market with new products, to right-size the workforce to match conditions or to customise services exactly to clients needs require the correct formula. A formula that reflects this reality.»
[update: ]link to that company no longer works, swirl, swirl...

» » »

Everyday is a winding road. Isn't that a song in the Julia Roberts, Erin vs PG & E movie?

Sampling Dan Gillmor

2004-12-14T07:18:00.000-08:00

So, it's time I delve into the theory of blogging.

{Munich Time: It's CET}

Because if there should be, God forbid, no ROI at the end of the blogging tunnel, at least I want, no, need, require, desire the assurance, that there will be light in the shape of the Greater Good. Or even better the hope, that ubiquitous blogging is the harbinger of great evolutionary change. Change that is post Industrial, post Communication Age, post New Age, post Free Speech, full circling, as it were, back to the future, where we all, in our past lives were story tellers and where getting food on the table was connected with doing great heroic things such as killing bears, or whales. Living to tell about it and eat in a convivial setting, too.

I am sampling Dan Gillmor because he believes in the Greater Good of Blogging. And he has no reason to. He is a journalist.

Sampling Dan Gillmor in a foreword for WE MEDIA:
http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php?id=P2
http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/pingserver.php?p=tb&id=2

«I've been lucky enough to be an early participant in participatory journalism, having been urged almost four years ago by one of the weblog software pioneers to start my own blog.

«That audience, never shy to let me know when I get something wrong, made me realize something: My readers know more than I do. This has become almost a mantra in my work. It is by definition the reality for every journalist, no matter what his or her beat.

«This is all about decentralization. Traditionally centralized news-gathering and distribution is being augmented (and some cases will be replaced) by what's happening at the edges of increasingly ubiquitous networks. People are combining powerful technological tools and innovative ideas, fundamentally altering the nature of journalism in this new century.

«Participatory journalism is a healthy trend, however disruptive it may be for those whose roles are changing.

«But I'm optimistic, largely because the technology will be difficult to control in the long run, and because people like to tell stories. The new audience will be fragmented beyond anything we've seen so far, but news will be more relevant than ever.

«In the view of futurist and author
Watts Wacker,
the question is not about greater personalization but about greater perspectives. According to Wacker, the world is moving faster than people can keep up with it. As a result, there are fewer common cultural references that can be agreed upon. Ideas, styles, products and mores accelerate their way from the fringe to the mainstream with increasing speed.

«And what will we be doing in the future?

«To understand that, Wacker advises, you must seek out people from the future today and study them.3 How do you find people from the future? Locate early adopters — people who are using and appropriating technology in new ways.

«We The Audience As Predator
The rise of we media
The venerable profession of journalism finds itself at a rare moment in history where, for the first time, its hegemony as gatekeeper of the news is threatened by not just new technology and competitors but, potentially, by the audience it serves.

«With every major news event, online media evolve.

«Weblogs, or blogs as they are commonly known, are the most active and surprising form of this participation. These personal publishing systems have given rise to a phenomenon that shows the markings of a revolution — giving anyone with the right talent and energy the ability to be heard far and wide on the Web.

Kovach and Rosenstiel say that terms such as fairness, balance and objectivity are too vague to rise to essential elements of this profession. From their research, they distilled this value: "The primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing."

"The main concept is that every citizen can be a reporter," Yeon-ho says. "A reporter is the one who has the news and who is trying to inform others."

Traditional media are created by hierarchical organizations that are built for commerce. Their business models are broadcast and advertising focused. They value rigorous editorial workflow, profitability and integrity.

Participatory journalism is created by networked communities that value conversation, collaboration and egalitarianism over profitability.

Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor at New York University who has consulted on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies, sees the difference this way: "The order of things in broadcast is 'filter, then publish.' The order in communities is 'publish, then filter.' If you go to a dinner party, you don't submit your potential comments to the hosts, so that they can tell you which ones are good enough to air before the group, but this is how broadcast works every day. Writers submit their stories in advance, to be edited or rejected before the public ever sees them. Participants in a community, by contrast, say what they have to say, and the good is sorted from the mediocre after the fact."

Many traditional journalists are dismissive of participatory journalism, particularly webloggers, characterizing them as self-interested or unskilled amateurs. Conversely, many webloggers look upon mainstream media as an arrogant, exclusive club that puts its own version of self-interest and economic survival above the societal responsibility of a free press.

Scott Rosenberg, managing editor of Salon.com, explains, "Weblogs expand the media universe. They are a media life-form that is native to the Web, and they add something new to our mix, something valuable, something that couldn't have existed before the Web.

"It should be obvious that weblogs aren't competing with the work of the professional journalism establishment, but rather complementing it. If the pros are criticized as being cautious, impersonal, corporate and herdlike, the bloggers are the opposite in, well, almost every respect: They're reckless, confessional, funky — and herdlike."

And so on.
But what I did not realize was, that Dan Gillmor leaving the paper for participatory journalim was such a
big deal

The source of the samplers:
http://www.mediacenter.org/mediacenter/research/wemedia/

Bloggerati
Munich
delivering ROI, live and direct.
gisela.bloggerati@gmail.com

Google-Pyra Deal That Significant ?

2004-12-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

Dave Winer, quite obviously an industry insider,

has interesting perpectives to offer on why Google bought blogger.
He mentions Vintage, a content management tool, that some years back had a price tag from $ 20.000.

This brings me to how I arrived at blogging - I was looking for a content management system.

Anyhow -
Dave connects the dots and arrives at compelling conclusions.

Gisela Bloggerati

Rebecca MacKinnon Observes That . . .

2004-12-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

Rebecca MacKinnon observes that . . .
. . . « blogs in China have quietly managed to expand the range of online discourse in China. » » » »

She has spent nine years in China as a journalist, and was around when the Internet happened there.

Bloggerati
Munich
delivering ROI, live and direct.
gisela.bloggerati@gmail.com

Collaborative Blog About Blogging

2004-11-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

While it is flattering that some journalists find blogging cool,

It's more important that bloggers define who they are and what they do,
and this is even more compelling and adequate when bloggers use the very medium of blogging to blog about it thereby demonstrating the essential value and functionality of collaborative content creation.
» » »

Bloggerati
Munich
delivering ROI, live and direct.
gisela.bloggerati@gmail.com

Sigh, if she'd only known about ROI

2004-11-20T07:16:00.000-08:00

The girl, who called herself Twinkly Spangle, offered E-Bay bidders a 15- minute fondling session with her 32C assets to fund her university fees.

She even promised High tea at her Colchester home - and included a naked snap of her cleavage on the site.

Bidding for the breasts, "still attached, great condition" started at £20 yet quickly soared to £180.

Sigh, if she'd only known there is ROI in blogging ! ! !

NY's ScenarioDNA asks, Is Your Brand Embedded?
It wants to embed your brand.
Honey chile, blogging can do that, too. An' cheaper.
So read about all of ScenarioDNA' promises, which only blogging can keep.
ONLY BLOGGING !

Bloggerati
Munich

Bloggerati
Munich
delivering ROI, live and direct.
gisela.bloggerati@gmail.com

Healthy Antidote to Hype

2004-11-17T06:11:00.000-08:00

I found this on

http://pjnet.org/weblogs/pjnettoday/archives/000472.html
via
http://www.natterjackpr.com/2004/11/17.html#a1262

"Note blogging is not a replacement or substitute for mass media, it
supplements and enhances the media environment by offering an
alternative for people who want more on a particular subject or
viewpoint than what's currently available on TV and in newspapers."

Feels like this is a healthy antidote to any unreasonable
hyped up expectations about blogging.

Quoting Jay Rosen

Gisela Strauss
Munich
Content development
Technical Translations
Project Communications

Blogs deliver radio content.

2004-11-16T13:44:00.000-08:00

Blogs deliver radio content.
I love listening to Paul, when he talks about blogging.
His blog is a download bonanza and support site for anything blog.
Even more importantly it emanates optimism without being hyper.

Thanks Paul.

Bloggerati
Munich

Bloggers Time People of the Year?

2004-11-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

«The bloggers absolutely deserve to be this year's People of the Year. If you agree, then make your voice heard.» says Steve Rubel
You can tell Time: letters@time.com

Or you can leave a comment here with your e-mail details and I will forward it to Time Magazine from my Munich office.

Bloggerati

Karl, Hennes & Mauritz

2004-11-13T13:36:00.000-08:00

If Your're Cheap, Nothing Helps!

Burda publishing house produces magazines replete with scandals and celebritiy pics. Sometimes it gets sued for slander or invasion of privacy. Winning, then loosing some law suits. At any rate the enterprise generates a lot of money.

But money is not everything. Unnoticed by us, Burda-Verlag is an awakened sleeper and expert in the area the Iconic Turn:
Because pictures have dramatically altered the way cultural values communicate themselves, we have regressed from a language to a picture-based society. Thus the "icon turned", and, hey folks, the Burda mag has been into this all along, what with the celeb piccies. And now it's time to get some credit. The mag wanting to position itself as the avantgarde of that regression. So it has sponsered the Iconic Turn Lectures at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich.

Apparently the idea of getting housewives addicted to peeping into the lives of the Rich and Famous, has an Andy-Warhol-Marshal-MacLuhan-like hipness embedded in it, which these lectures will have to bring to the attention of students.

Well I don't know. I place my bets on the iconoclast Karl Lagerfeld, who has, with his Hennes & Mauritz campaign smashed the iconic idea, that hâute couture should be reserved for the moneyed elite.

In a commercial, launching a low budget Karl-Lagerfeld-Collection, Karl quips, when accused by two ageing and morosely campy queers of being cheap, What an ugly word. If you're cheap, nothing helps.

And as to that faddy expression before - the Iconic Turn has just recently completed its inevitbale 360° round.
We're text-based again. READ MY BLOGS.

OK, here's something with pics:
Karl Lagerfeld, slumming it, looking guilty and biting his nails.
Another fashion victim

Signing off
Bloggerati
Munich

Addendum:
Karl, derrìere ses lunettes noires:
Pic (of pic) taken in Munich

Bloggerati Unlike Digerati Are Not Elistist

2004-11-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

Blogging a way to become a writer. But then, do I really want to become a writer in the classic sense of the word - using blogging as a short cut? No. Not really.

Blogging in and of itself is a new way of interlinked, interactive verbal expression, where text itself is the applicaton, the interface. It is neither push, nor pull.

It's networked. Connected. And it's sustainable. It's word of mouth in every respect. It's the re-emergence, the rebirth, the renaissance of traditional modes of communication - the conversation, the salon talk, the shop talk, the gossip - transported, mapped, captured and enabled in new electronic media.

Unlike digerati - bloggerati are not elitist - they are no avantgarde - only early adapters.

I do not want trees dying for my self-expression. It's that simple.
Bloggerati.

What do you think? Leave a comment here with your blog url.

WE THE COOL PEOPLE

2004-10-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

It's not the big scandal part of the thing of blogswarms bringing down Dan Rather.

Nah. It's that Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather descended to the studios of humble NPR.org to sort things out, talk them out, discuss, converse.

If you listen carefully you notice that they have aquired a new quality. Less of the WE THE COOL PEOPLE attitude. More of the WHO ARE THESE NEW COOL PEOPLE ON THE BLOCK wonder.

And it's the astonishment and the absence of any real smugness or defensive rage in their voices, which tells me that bloggers may have done some good.

Gisela Strauss
Munich
gisela.bloggerati@gmail.com
http://bloggerati.blogspot.com

Expats forums - are they well run?

2004-10-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Expats forums - are they well run?

I have experienced forums where the operators used the information passing through for their – undisclosed - business purposes, or shamed contributors for the most innocent or well-meaning posts, because it – again - went against some undisclosed objective. "Big deal go somewhere else", you might say.

In a normal environment this sounds completely practical. But take the expat environment. When expats live in a metropolitan area, they flock to the one happening expat board in town. These boards are run by individuals who may be idealistic or may hope to derive some profit from the board in some way. This sounds harmless enough. But on second thought, because community is something we invest in and take to heart ... and twice so when abroad, people can get hurt. It does take awareness and strong ethics to run such a board or a forum well. Forum software, even state-of-the-art, is available from 200;- dollars up. Anyone with some server know-how can open a board in town.

gbrowser.com Registered by Google

2004-09-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

gbrowser.com Registered by Google
Stefanie Olson also writes on Sfgate.com that Google might be working on a browser. She cites these Google activities as indicators:

gbrowser.com was registered recently by Google
Veteran browser war horses were pouched such as:
Adam Bosworth, a former employee of BEA and Microsoft (IE)
Joe Beda (MS graphics Engine Avalon), further
Joshua Bloch, Sun Microsystems(Java application programming interfaces)

Source: Stefanie Olson, SFGate...SfGate is part of the Hearst Corporation.
Hearst Corporation holds part of Google.

Stefanie Olsen also has commented on Web developer Joyce Park, aka Troutgirl.

And this is what the Mozilla crowd thinks.

Gisela Strauss

Blogger ID Troutgirl

2004-09-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Canned with a positive outcome you could say:
Joyce Park, view her pic on Red Herring,
blogger ID Troutgirl, with a huge following, was canned by Friendster, a blogging company, for.....blogging.

Duh, %&? you might be tempted to say. Not so fast. Now and then, the interactive media gets reverse-engineered in the worst sense of the word, by big, huge succesful TV execs who Bring Their Business Expertise to the Interactive Field. By sharks, whose world is one of one-way broadcasting, where dumb consumers can't talk back and employees, *if they're smart*, will say what they're told. Two-way conversations in any way are an anathema to the foxy toxidity of general non-eclectic dishing out of news speak mentality.

Joyce Park is currently getting deluded with job offers. Interactive is cool, sharky.

Link Roundup:
Troutgirl on Troutgirl

Red Herring on Troutgirl

Sharky you've got a name!

Is Sharky cool or clueless? Poll in the comment section below:

Stefanie Olson, CNET Writer, who also publishes on SFgate comments on Joyce Park.

Gisela Strauss
Technical Translator
Munich
http://bloggerati.blogspot.com
gisela.strauss@gmail.com

° ^° ^° ^° ^° ^° ^° ^° ^° ^° ^°
TRACKBACK AND X'POSURE:
C-NET
Socialsoftware
Randomthoughts
Nevon
www.unix-girl.com

PLEASE NOTE: when commenting, please enter your URL/EMAIL together with your comment in the text box. Apologies for this inconvenient feature.

Neville's Comments on Troutgirl

2004-09-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

Neville would have left these comments on Bloggerati, if the comment app would have allowed non-anonymous commenting. Good point Neville, I wish it were different too.
So I am posting your comments here:

« Gisela, those are interesting comments.

The only trouble as I see it, and which makes me reserve commenting on the right or wrong here, is that all that's in the public domain right now is Troutgirl's story -there's been no comment from Friendster.

See my later post on this with a link to Troutgirl's interview at Fast Company: »

See my comments
my comments on Neville's comments here.

Gisela
http://bloggerati.blogspot.com

RSS has changed how we digest information.

2004-09-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

Perhaps nothing has changed the value of a website as much as RSS. RSS has changed how people who come to websites, digest information, as much as the reasons for people to come to websites at all, have changed. Websites have lost their place in the information feed chain and dropped down a few notches.

[http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/]

The - now- old adage that a website ought to offer value-added information in order to be attractive to users, has lost its meaning. People get independent, value-added information via RSS at all times, places, hours and seconds of the day. Audiences' media-savvy evolves no longer in a measurable timeline-friendly manner, it quantum-leaps by the second.

There is however one role a website still can fill best: To provide succinctly context-relevant information regarding a product, service or topic.The task at hand is to give content back its uniqueness by harvesting only the best of what's out there, in regards to its applicability to the initial service/product offering.

As the flood of content delivery gains momentum, the time and attention factor for both producers and users shrink. The killer-app is the word. And a website is wrapped around the delivery of it. It is only one of many wrappers available, and it got to prove its usefulness by sticking close to its function: delivery of context-sensitive content, may it be text, sound, moving pictures or goods.
posted by bloggerati 4:15 PM 0 comments

Bloggerati

Thanks For Subscribing

2004-08-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

Bloggerati unlike digerati are not elistist.
Blogging in and of itself is a new way of interlinked, interactive verbal expression.

It's networked. Connected. And it's sustainable.It's word of mouth in every respect.It's the reemergence, the rebirth, the renaissance of traditional modes of communication - the conversation, the salon talk, the shop talk, the gossip - transported, mapped, captured and enabled in new electronic media.
Unlike digerati - bloggerati are not elitist - they are no avantgarde - only early adapters.

I do not want trees dying for my self-expression. It's that simple.
Bloggerati.