Steve Ballmer: Blogging Is Huge
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Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Wendland reports that Steve Ballmer yesterday had some very enthusiastic things to say about blogging.
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Blogs are popping up all over, and e-mails are being written fast, furiously, and passionately.
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BELOW [surely bellow, Ed.] is the full text of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer&#39;s letter to his customers - we&#39;re one by the way.
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Phil Wolff on things for bloggers to do before they die.
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At the helm of Sun Microsystems Inc., Jonathan Schwartz became "un blogeur" last week when he started publishing his blog in French and nine other languages.
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What kind of E-mail is landing in Martin Taylorâs in-box right about now? Itâs probably not unlike some of the messages Iâve been getting in response to a story I wrote about Steve Ballmerâs Oct. 27
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Yes Virginia, there is money to be made in web publishing, especially stock market and trading news! The news will invigorate bloggers and news publishers everywhere.
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I found this news piece a bit interesting when sifting through the press wires this morning; Technorati Japan has worked on an amazing study which shows how Japanese bloggers are writing about and communicating with companies via their own personal blogs.  One fascinating aspect of the US and Japanese blogging markets is that there is [...]
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It was a matter of minutes before news of Microsoftâs bid jumped from front pages to the vibrant world of technology blogs. Hereâs some of the more interesting thoughts so far.
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Microsoft buys in, kinda WPC Steve Ballmer has promised Microsoft will take the lead in online software and services through a middle-of-the-road approach, while talking swipes at technology luddites and evangelical extremists.â¦
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Blog: Blogs: they're here. They're read. Get used to it.
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Jeff Jarvis, whose mind occupies the intersection of mainstream media and the blogging world, perhaps more than any other person, is having a conference in mid-October in NYC to bring together people from both worlds to present constructive ideas for working with each other. Me, my feet are firmly planted in the blogging world, but I've spent a lifetime reading and watching MSM, starting with the NY Times at the kitchen table with my parents and brother, when growing up. Some of my fondest memories as a child were our discussions of the days events, and the Times was our common structure. Everyone in our family read the newspaper, often from cover to cover.  As Jarvis councils us, never mind the mistakes, what can we do to make things work better? And I have a couple of proposals in that direction that I will try to present at the October 11 conference. In all cases, they involve the MSM opening up more to include not only the ideas of blogging, but also the bodies of the bloggers.  1. I've said it many times before, it's worth raising again. Any newspaper or radio or TV station with a good reputation in its community could embrace the fresh ideas of the bloggers in their community by offering free blogs to members of the community, who may be new to blogging. I suggested this to the Times in 2001 -- when a person is quoted in a Times article, a few days after the piece runs, contact them, and ask if they'd like to have a NY Times hosted blog. There would be no control over what appeared on the blog. It would have a nytimes.com domain (something like bullmancuso.nytimes.com). Build an aggregator, something very much like Twitter (which is after all, a river of news, not exactly a new idea, heh) that shows all the new posts from members of the community. Encourage (but don't require) your editorial people to read the blog posts. Let whatever happens happen.  2. Here's a new idea that I haven't proposed before. Open your newsroom to bloggers. Set aside a half-dozen desks for people who blog in your community, people you've gotten to know, and provide them with wifi, a water cooler, your coffee (no matter how bad it is) and chance to work alongside your editorial people and (very important) with each other. It's an incredible thing when bloggers get together in a physical space, the sparks can really fly. Now imagine what could happen if those sparks got flying between the remaining editorial people in a professional news organization and the bloggers. I believe the secret of scaling the news is right there, you just have to open the door and see what comes in.
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As I said above I'm glued to the TV, but I'm also on Twitter, and blogging, and email, and IM and I'm subscribed to hundreds of RSS feeds, and I've been noticing that slowly the TV news organizations are integrating new Internet services with their TV offerings. They're all getting started, and eventually I'm pretty sure they'll be where Yahoo is now. The thing is, it works. For example, newmediajim is a cameraman for NBC News and he's on Twitter and sometimes I'm watching the other side of his camera on MSNBC and twittering with him before and after. A guy named creepsleepy is a radio guy in Manchester, interviewing presidential candidates, wouldn't it be great if I could listen to his interviews while he twitters his progress? Well, there's no doubt that soon we'll be doing that. We're finally really at the convergence so many have predicted for so long. With the help of a few members of the community Yahoo can get there first. BTW, I read on the NY Times site that Yahoo is going to open up more to developers. Hmmm. If you want to impress end-users and shareholders run it in MSM. If you want to get through to developers, use the developer blogs. Let us have the story first, otherwise you don't seem very serious about it.
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Standing on the edge of the blogosphere, you can see some pretty strange sights (and sites). Pillows that look like they are stained with blood, a debate about national borders and journalism ethics, and even one site commenting on the staff salary levels of another (now that is odd).For blogs like Valleywag and Gawker, risk-taking is routine -- even part of their reason to exist. It's obvious when they post about George Clooney's medical record that they are stirring up controversy. Other sites -- such as the less commonly known Daily Awesome or the video blog Rocketboom -- take risks by posting pictures and video clips that traditional media would never touch. A few tech blogs are risky in that they are not afraid to call something ugly, confusing, or useless (see Daring Fireball).Here are some of the riskier blogs on the Web, along with a few examples of what makes them that way.Dooce  A classic blog in the sense that it really is a daily journal of the owner's life (including kids, illness, finances and husband), Dooce.com is controversial only because it's honest about the mundane. Posts about mental illness, skin cancer, sex, Mormonism and other subjects are sometimes over-the-top -- in some cases, causing virulent reactions from readers. Interestingly, in the comments for the more unconventional posts, such as this one, where the blogger is wearing a shirt about meat, the comments are generally supportive and sympathetic.Gawker  This Manhattan gossip blog (and publishing home of blogs such as Gizmodo and Kotaku) doesn't necessarily view itself as controversial or vengeful, but posts tend to be filled with gossip. "We're not trying to be inflammatory," says managing editor Choire Sicha. "We definitely get a lot of mail, some of it a little frightening, when we discuss race, ethnicity and religion."Boing Boing  One of the most unusual sites on the Web, Boing Boing just recently updated its design (it's now much easier to read) and has recently started posting video blogs. They cover a wild variety of topics, from giant squids to privacy rights to Christian comic books, usually with a keen eye for exposing anything misleading or naive.Posters such as Cory Doctorow (a science fiction writer and former Electronic Frontier Foundation director) and founder Mark Frauenfelder cover the dark side of the media, covering unusual gadgets and toys such as a Tonka truck cutlery set."Once I blogged photos of pillows that looked like pools of blood,"says Frauenfelder. "My timing was bad, because it was the day after the Virginia Tech shootings, and some readers thought the photos were of dead students. I posted it before I realized people might connect the two. I got a bunch of angry e-mails. I took the images down right away, but a few people remained apoplectic."Valleywag  Valleywag is essentially an investigative reporting blog that "outs" companies that do dumb things, or at least the shenanigans of people at really popular corporations (such as Google Inc.). One recent post about a Google employee who claimed to invent AdWords led to a series of scathing comments from readers and a rebuttal from Google employees. ("The reviewer on Valleywag needs to go back to school to learn to read," said one commenter.)Part of the risk-taking nature of Valleywag is that the site reports on well-known company officials and other bloggers, not just untouchable Hollywood celebrities. A post about Robert Scoble, in which he was Photoshopped to look like a troll, makes a jab at his claims about not seeking high traffic.Your Daily Awesome  Another unusual site, Your Daily Awesome is risk-taking in that the images are sometimes mesmerizing and jarring. On more conventional sites you probably won't see photos of Buster Keaton riding a donkey, big whites sheets used as a backdrop for real trees or "brain maps". Scans of old books like the environmental classic What On Earth Are We Doing? and dreamy landscape photographs (shot in a large aquarium tank) are also common. In fact, the images are often inspiring because they are so rarely featured on any other sites.G4 TheFeed  Focused mostly on gaming, G4 -- TheFeed is prone to post techie gossip and game rumors, gadget news and unusual tech toys. It's usually a good source for information about game cancellations and news. The site posted about the Bungie North America split from Microsoft, for example, before some of the other game news outlets."Because G4TV.com's TheFeed blog has a heavy gaming focus, anything we post about the 'console wars' between the Xbox 360, the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii elicits an immediate, contentious and emotional response from our readers," says Robert Juster, G4TV vice president of new media and interactive. "We've been angrily accused of being on the payroll of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, often by different readers reacting to the exact same post."Other risk-taking blogs:Gary Weiss  Gary Weiss isn't really a blogger -- he's a print journalist and book author -- but his blog is incisive and often cutting-edge when it comes to Wall Street and tech companies. Posts about Overstock.com caused a stir not only with company officials, but also with readers and other reporters.Rocketboom The only video blog in our list, Rocketboom tends to report on the "other side" of the news, the unconventional stories that mainstream newspaper and television avoid, such as a report in July on the fence/wall constructed around Israel.Share Sleuth  Another investigative blog, Share Sleuth focuses on stock fraud and the illegal practices of companies, partly as a way to guide investors. Recent reports on Xenthanol even led to a Wired Magazine feature story.Daring Fireball  For an Apple-centric site that reports on new products and software to the Macintosh faithful, Daring Fireball is also not afraid to take the company to task on software foibles.
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Tycho:  Months after it was necessary, Sony has thrown their blogging hat into the ring...  of blogging.  I've heard people compare it to Larry Hryb/Major Nelson's blog, but with a rotating "crew" of bloggers - like a public relations version of the Wu Tang Clan - it's more like Microsoft's Gamerscore blog.  Which, coincidentally, I never read because it is run by a rotating "crew" of bloggers, like a public relations version of the etcetera etcetera.  The mental image is that of a corporate hydra, the brand seared and scabbed upon its breast.
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In March 2002, I made a bet with Martin Nisenholtz about the relative importance of weblogs and the New York Times. I was and am a blogger, and Martin worked then, as he does now, for the Times. For the actual terms of the bet, read the piece on the LongNow site, and a story I wrote to announce the bet. A few comments.  1. It seems now is the time to decide who won the bet, if either of us did. 2. The world that I hoped would come about did not. While blogs have broken many stories, they have not, in general, turned into the authoritative sources I hoped they would in 2002. When the blogosphere resembles journalism it's often the tabloid kind.  3. I wouldn't mind losing the bet. That is, I wouldn't mind if the Times fully embraced the web, and I suspect Martin wouldn't mind if blogs rose to the quality of the Times. 4. If the bet had been held a year later, it seems there would be a pretty good chance that Martin would have won the bet because they recently took down the firewall at the Times, allowing search engines to index the full content. In the past, articles would remain visible for a couple of weeks then you'd have to pay money to access them. I believe they have a special deal with Google and other crawlers that allow them to get past the membership wall. For most of 2007 the Times articles were behind the firewall, and were less likely to be pointed to (which is how they rise in rank at Google). 5. It certainly is fun to speculate, but the decision about who won belongs exclusively to the Long Now Foundation. They have to decide who determines what the top stories of 2007 are, and imho they should consult with search experts to determine how to do the queries. Apparently it makes a difference how you do it.  But ultimately it's their decision. 6. Whether Wikipedia has more or less results seems to be a sidebar to the bet, which only talks about blogs and the Times. 7. Another interesting sidebar is rich media. In 2002, before podcasting had taken hold, before YouTube existed, it would have been hard to forsee the story of the South Carolina beauty queen, or the Don't Tase Me Bro guy. Questions about the future are always framed in the context of the past. Did the question Martin and I asked have any value in 2007, or did it just say something about the world of 2002?   Update: Paul Boutin who arranged the bet, apparently in conjunction with Google (I didn't know this) in 2002, weighs in.
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There's no doubting that Forbes senior editor Dan Lyons is enjoying his heavily-hyped adventures as the blogger behind The Fake Steve Jobs.