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There Is Always A City

April 24th, 2009 by AV Flox in blogging, intarwebz, malwebolence, personal brand

Mark Zuckerberg is not joking when he says Facebook is the sixth most populated country on earth. It is a country. We build a space in it, have friends in it, work in it and love in it. Are our online properties not a home, in a sense?

Perhaps it’s just me. I don’t really have a childhood home the way most people do. I had many, all around the world. When I moved out from my parents’, I lived in many spaces, but these always felt temporary, too. I am a creature of motion. The places that were always a constant for me, the ones that I devoted time and energy into making mine, have all been online. I have made a few moves here, too, sometimes taking all my things with me, and sometimes leaving it all behind as one does when they’re walking out of a life that no longer suits them, with nothing but their name.

I can count these occasions.

My childhood homes, on the other hand—well, they require more than all the digits on that other hand.

I LOVE PARIS IN THE SPRINGTIME

Yahoo is pulling the plug on its free personal home page service, GeoCities.

For those who were not around in the early days of the web, GeoCities was the original social networking site. Only clunkier, devoid of most features you use without a second thought on Facebook—and on dial-up.

Back in the days when basic knowledge of HTML was required to carve a space on the web, and when very few people really knew it, GeoCities gave us n00b pioneers the ability to get ourselves started without too many complications, as well as helped us connect with others through “neighborhoods,” a feature of GeoCities that subdivided its users into categories (Paris for romance and the arts, SoHo for the hipsters and the arts, SunsetStrip for music, SouthBeach for intensive socializing, etc.).

It’s nothing new now, but back then, it was revolutionary. In 1997, a little after I joined, GeoCities was the fifth most popular site on the interwebz.

I don’t remember the kind of stuff I put up there now, but I do remember the wonder of discovery as I began, for the first time, to make, what I felt, was a home online. Before this moment, I had “rented” on bulletin boards and chat rooms. This, however, was like “buying.” It meant long-term. I made my little Paris place home.

(Of course it was Paris. I was a fetus, give me a break.)

THE END OF AN ERA

Perhaps more than places of residence, spaces online are like lovers. We enjoy many people who touch our lives, but there are only a number of them that really change us so deeply, and teach us so much, that we remember them forever.

In a sense, GeoCities was that. It may not have been the moody codependent relationship I had with Diaryland, or the drama-filled, torrid affair I had with LiveJournal or the wild, no-strings-attached fling I’ve been having with Wordpress, or the warm marriage I enjoy on this self-hosted blog—but it shaped me.

Maybe it was my first crush.

And now, it’s gone. Yahoo, which bought GeoCities in 1999 for a sweet $2.9 million, will be closing GeoCities later this year. Their statement doesn’t say much else in the way of whys or hows, but that isn’t necessary.

We’ve grown up. That first crush doesn’t make our heart melt when we see it or think of it. Instead, it fills us with a nostalgia. Not for the thing itself, but for who we were when we were first discovering it. That wide-eyed wonder, where expression meets exposure: one part confessional, one part art exhibit, one part life with a dash of dream.

Everything has the power to trigger memory. A sunset, a song, a scent. And now, a site.

THE CITY AND THE PICKAX

There is always a city. There is always a civilization. There is always a barbarian with a pickax. Sometimes you are the city, sometimes you are the civilization, but to become that city, that civilization, you once took a pickax and destroyed what you hated, and what you hated was what you did not understand.

– Jeanette Winterson, The Powerbook

So long, GeoCities. You may have already been forgotten, but our Facebooks, Tumblrs and Twitters will forever rest on the ruins of your temples.

More ruminations across the web:

As URLs Go By by Atherton Bartelby
Because, much like I can vividly recall the scene outside of my apartment’s balcony when my brother told me over the telephone that our mother had died, or describe in minute detail the scents that filled my nostrils as I lost my virginity, so too can I recall precisely which design forums I was frequenting when my father died, or which blog I was maintaining when I was told that my first friend to die of AIDS had just been diagnosed with it, or exactly how many subdomains resided on my website when I experienced the most soul-destroying breakup of my life.

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Who Are You?

April 7th, 2009 by AV Flox in blogging, personal brand

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence; at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”

“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.

“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied, very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself, to begin with; and being so many different sizes a day is very confusing.”

“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.

“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; ‘”but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel a little queer, won’t you?”

“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar.

“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.”

“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are you?”

– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

THE ELEVATOR PITCH

That’s the assignment: write an elevator pitch for your blog.

Assignment, yes. Darren Rowse at Problogger is hosting his biennial 31 Days to a Better Blog challenge, which combines theory and homework, and I’ve joined.

I signed up because I’ve been feeling a little disconnected from my blog and I thought that having a reason to reflect on it daily would be a good way to get back on track. I didn’t foresee that the first assignment would expose the main reason I’ve been drifting away from my blog.

I don’t know what my blog is about.

How technology is changing our our lives? Personal branding? What people are doing around the web? Traveling? Relationships? All of the above? Where do I fit into all of this?

“If you’re fuzzy on what your blog is about it’s unlikely than anyone else will have much of an idea either,” Rowse writes in his first post.

We all keep blogs for different reasons, but most of us want to be read, want to share, and a great many of us would like to give our careers, and maybe even our incomes, a boost through it. Having a focus is smart business. It enables you to connect with a specific audience and develop a community, it gives you visibility and credibility in your field, it allows you to effectively implement advertising and helps attract sponsors.

“I started out with a personal blog that covered everything from spirituality and church to photography to blogging (and more),” writes Rowse in his book ProBlogger: Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. “And though the blog did become quite popular, after 18 months of running it, I began to notice a number of things that made me consider a new approach: some readers became disillusioned with the blog. My blog had a number of main themes and different readers resonated differently with each one… when I focused on a topic they were not interested in, they either ignored the post or, at times, pushed back… I began to feel guilty about blogging on certain topics.”

Rowse decided to break his blog into different, well-focused niche blogs.

“The result was a more natural blogging experience for me and a more useful one for my readers,” Rowse recalls.

REBRANDING SMUT

In 2004, my friend and fellow writer Laura Roberts turned me on to her newest endeavor: Black Heart Magazine, an independent webzine featuring “the dirtiest minds in literature.”

My career as a blogger started in high school, centered around the wonders of dating and sex. Before there were blogs, there bulletin boards and I was on there, pushing the pixels into elaborate recreations of my adventures and experiences. By the time Laura and I connected, blogs had taken off and we each had a nice crowd of readers who were eager for more.

And more we gave them. Even as we continued to evolve, wrapped up the college years, hit the workforce, got into more and more serious relationships, we continued to write about sex—how we liked it, how we had it, how it played into our everyday lives. We were driven by desire and desire would always enjoy an audience.

Or so I thought.

Last month, Laura sent me a direct message on Twitter asking what I thought about changing the tagline of the magazine to shift the focus from smut to literature.

“That will change the whole direction of Black Heart, won’t it?” I asked her.

Yes, it would. And that’s essentially what she wanted to do.

“Rather than cater to the sex crowd, when I find myself increasingly bored with erotica, I am looking to bring my love and lust for literature to a new format,” she elaborated on a Facebook note. “Black Heart will be moving in a new direction as a result of this, focusing more on the literature side of ‘literate smut’ … I’m looking for people who are passionate about reading and writing, who love literature in a slightly dirty way … interviewers, authors, book lovers, book snobs, lit pimps, booksellers, book publishers, book readers, book reviewers, academics, writers, dilettantes, anybody who considers themselves a writer of poetry, prose, journalism or blogs/rants/whatever pops into their head.”

I didn’t comment because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand what I felt about it.

The next time I stop by Black Heart Magazine, I notice the banner has changed from “the dirtiest minds in literature” to “sex, love, literature.” The featured story is “Poetry for the People.”

I don’t click.

Mind you, I love literature. But my relationship with my books was never what Black Heart Magazine was for me. Black Heart, for me, was about the ever-evolving process of sexual discovery. I don’t want to read that April is poetry month unless—pardon my boldness—the poetry in question is being written on my back in cum.

That’s the reaction Rowse was talking about—that’s the reader pushing back. In this case, it’s not that the blog has gone off-course. Laura has carefully navigated where she wants to go after some careful deliberation and discussion with her contributors. She has done everything right.

Still, here I am, staring at the main page of Black Heart Magazine and feeling, though I’m sitting in an office wall-to-wall with classic literature, that I no longer belong.

WHEN YOU TURN INTO A CHRYSALIS—YOU WILL SOMEDAY, YOU KNOW

Blogs are not static because people are not static. The reasons for choosing a blog with a specific focus have been enumerated here and elsewhere. But just as they give you a solid framework within which to work, they also serve to restrain you.

“I would really like to be one of those bloggers who is comfortable with being all ‘niche,’ all ‘industry-specific,’” my friend Atherton Bartelby remarks in a post regarding the elevator pitch assignment. “I would love to be termed a ‘design blogger’ or a ‘media blogger’ or a ‘gay relationship blogger.’ But neither I, nor my blog, will ever be just any one of those things, because one’s life is not single-faceted like that; one’s life, and certainly mine, is multi-faceted: the professional and the personal, the good and the bad, the specific, and the all-encompassing.”

WHO ARE YOU?

After thinking about my blog for several hours, I decided to let it speak for itself.

Since the inception of this blog, I have put out seven interviews, 11 news items and 26 essays relating to blogging, web culture, social media, old media versus new media, oversharing, cruelty on the internet, branding, marketing, gender, relationships and, on two occasions, travel.

As more and more of my relationship discussions move over my column at BlogHer and as more of us begin to settle into the world of new media to the point where it’s no longer appropriate to call it “new,” the content that initially made this blog an adventure in discovering how technology is affecting the way we interact with one another is becoming scarce.

Further, as I continue to attend events and meet people working on web-based projects around Southern California and elsewhere, the focus is shifting to them and their endeavors. Four of the seven interviews conducted on the blog happened after 2009 kicked off, and I have quite a few more in the works.

So what are you, blog? Or should I say, what are you becoming in that chrysalis?

A reflection on the web—the people in it, the things we’re doing, the customs we’re adopting, and the things we’re leaving behind as we venture forth into this uncharted territory of trial-and-error, where more and more, the digital is colliding with the analog.

And I hope you, dear reader, will stick around to see the wings that surface from this chrysalis and the many, many rabbit holes thereafter.

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“Coming Correct” in Self-Promotion and Other Tidbits from E! Online’s Leslie Gornstein

March 16th, 2009 by AV Flox in integrity, interview, personal brand

While Celebrity gossip blogs have existed for a while and Hulu, which brings film and television to computers everywhere, won best of show for film and TV at the South by Southwest: Interactive awards this year, in general, the merging of Hollywood and the web has been slow and clumsy.

Enter Leslie Gornstein, the Answer Bitch for E! Online. After working at a start-up that failed and spending some years freelancing, Gornstein got a column online when an editor at E! approached her in 2004.

“He was looking for a sassier, angrier ‘Ask Marilyn’ character,” Gornstein explained over coffee at Caffe Luxxe in Brentwood, where she met with me, Laurie Percival, editor-in-chief of Lalawag and Macala Wright, director of marketing and PR for 1928 Jewelry.

“He said, ‘I’m looking for someone to be the answer bitch, you can be the answer bitch,’” Gornstein recalled. “I said ‘all right.’”

Thus, the entertainment question and answer column ‘Ask The Answer Bitch’ was born. Gornstein never looked back. After living and breathing the celebrity lifestyle for four years, writing a book was natural progression. Her book The A-List Playbook, was released by Skyhorse Publishing last month.

“Despite what’s going on in technology right now and despite the ways that you can push yourself out there to a lot of people, people still see a book as a calling card,” Gornstein said. “I learned some really fascinating basic facts about Hollywood. But there was no compendium of it anywhere—the fact that celebrities have three nannies per child, the fact the average celebrity spends an hour a day with their child, and maybe three to four during a vacation period, the fact that most celebrities get 20,000 dollars a month of free stuff—and the fact that’s how you can gauge if they’re A-list or not. I wanted to put it in a survival guide format because I thought that was the most fun way to read it. But really it’s a window for the rest of us about how those people really live.”

“Are you using social media to promote your book?” Lalawag’s Laurie Percival asked.

“Everything that has an internet connection is now my bitch when it comes to promoting my book,” Gornstein responded, laughing. “Facebook, MySpace—not so much, there is something really disco about that. It looks like a Lebanese disco whenever I go on there! I can’t deal with that. So Facebook, Twitter, E! Online—even World of Warcraft. If it has a line out to the world, it’s my bitch.”

Gornstein, who started tweeting as @answerbitch only last November has almost 2,000 followers. She follows almost everyone back.

Macala Wright can’t get over the information saturation that comes with following that many people on Twitter. She confessed she’d pulled a Loic just a few weeks ago to make her stream more manageable and reflected on how annoyed some people got when they were unfollowed.

“Someone has decided following everyone back is Tweetiquette and you know what? I think people are taking things way too personal,” Gornstein replied. “Because, what does that mean when I don’t return someone’s phone call? Sometimes I’m just not going to return a phone call.”

“I think about this all the time, too,” Laurie Percival pitched in. “Do I have to reply to every @message? How do people do this all day long? There’s no way!”

She described with awe the people who sent personalized direct messages (DMs) after she followed them.

“I just don’t know how they have time,” she said. “So I just don’t do it.”

“You could send out auto-DMs.” Gornstein suggested.

We looked at her with horror. I think one of us even gasped.

“The only reason I think an auto-DM would be offensive, and I got one of these recently, ‘thank you for following, be sure to link my blog’—that’s not cool,” Gornstein defended her position. “When people follow me I send out an auto-message that says, ‘Welcome to the all American festival that is me!’ I don’t see that as a particularly obnoxious thing to do.”

Gornstein seems to have an inherent understanding of how to work new media and leverage the power of real-time user feedback.

“I’m really careful to do it,” she said about self-promotion. “You have to come correct about it, as the drug dealers say. You come to people correct and you say ‘yes, I’m pimping now,’ or I’ll make it participatory and say, ‘correct me if I’m wrong…’ and people like that. It’s conversation. I think that’s respectful.”

She limits the bulk of her self-promotion to Sundays and constantly invites input from her followers and readers. To a large extent, the web has allowed her following to grow and thrive.

“On the internet we have the concept of microcelebrity—being famous for fifteen people, as Momus said in the early 90s,” I told her. “Do you think of yourself as one?”

“I’m definitely famous for fifteen people,” she responded. “My husband loves me!”

“Do you think microcelebrities could apply some of the knowledge found in your book?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “You really need to be visible planet-wide to be able to sling this kind of power around.”

“So you don’t think Julia Allison could get through airport security without having to remove her stilettos?”

“No,” she replied. “Microcelebrities are most famous to themselves. Without the internet, would these people be famous?”

Sounds like a challenge to me. Hear that, NonSociety?

Gornstein pointed to a copy of her book on the coffee table, buried under iPhones, packs of cigarettes and idle Flip cams.

“These people are all cross-media megastars,” she said. “If the internet did not exist, Julia Allison would be a nice intern somewhere, working her microminis and then maybe one day meet Tina Brown and have something nice happen to her for a year. She’s extremely bright and when you read what she writes you see it’s well thought-out, but to be really famous your face needs to be recognizable, your name needs to be recognizable—by more than a small subset of people. If you said, ‘I saw Julia Allison yesterday!’ most people wouldn’t know what you were talking about. But if you said, ‘I saw Julia Roberts yesterday!’ they’d know what you were talking about.”

She’s right. Even so, the section about how Paris Hilton plays the press (“The Paris Hilton Method,” page 65) could be of some use to aspiring fameballers—I’ll trade Laurie’s home phone for Owen Thomas’!

Seriously, though, the way fame is spreading on the web, and with microcelebrity having such a wide and bizarre array of wonders and dangers (from the power you can exert dating the founders of your choice start-up to death by commenter execution) I think there’s a definite sequel there.

Of Possible Interest:
Leslie Gornstein will be signing books and holding a live chat in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 19, 2009, at 7:00PM at the Barnes and Noble at the Grove on 189 Grove Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90036. Call (323) 525-0270.

Full disclosure—Leslie gave me a copy of her book. Yes, I’ve read it, but I’m not gonna tell you just how juicy it is. I’ll leave it by saying that two friends have already attempted to steal it.

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Unbowed and Unafraid: Old Media’s Old Battle Is New Media’s New War

January 13th, 2009 by AV Flox in blogging, citizen journo, freedom of expression, manifesto

Lasantha Wickramatunge was the editor-in-chief of the The Sunday Leader, a Sri Lankan paper founded in 1994 to expose corruption and confront issues facing the people of Sri Lanka.

On January 8, 2009, while driving to work, Wickramatunge was viciously assassinated by two unidentified gunmen. As attacks on the media increased around the country, Wickramatunge knew his death was near, but his commitment to truth was bigger than his fear. In an editorial he wrote just days before his death–and which The Leader ran three days after–he reminds the world, what seeking the truth and reporting it is all about:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse…. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not…. But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

… The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful…. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

… I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands….

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view.

For this I–and my family–have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am–and have always been–ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be–and will be–killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.

… If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

His message ripples across the world, calling attention to the fight in which many engage every day to report the truths around them.

“Just two days earlier, the offices of Sri Lanka’s largest private broadcasting company were attacked in the middle of the night,” Jyoti Thottam writes in a piece for TIME, which paints a frightening picture of the fight between freedom of the expression and the oppressive climate in Sri Lanka.

“What has happened to Lasantha Wickrematunge today is an absolute atrocity,” the TIME article quotes Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a research group. He said the two attacks were linked, part of a plan to silence Sri Lanka’s few independent media voices. “Those who are doing it want to stifle dissent and destroy democracy in this country.”

Wickrematunge had known his time was coming, but he hadn’t shrunk away in fear.

“I spoke to him less than an hour before the gunmen appeared, and he was full of ideas,” Thottam writes in his memorial piece at TIME. “It will be up to the staff at the Leader—including his wife, also a journalist with the paper—to continue that work. A staffer who was waiting at the hospital during his surgery told me a group of her colleagues had decided to go back to the office before they knew whether their mentor and friend would survive. ‘We have to get the newspaper out,’ she said. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute.”

Neither can I.

THE HARD FACTS

Reporters Without Borders has fought for press freedom on a daily basis since it was founded in 1985. Their annual survey of violence against journalists continues to be the canary in a coal mine, indicating the well-being of freedom of expression in our increasingly hostile world.

In 2008, the figures for print media tally as follows:

  • 60 journalists were killed
  • 1 media assistant was killed
  • 673 journalists were arrested
  • 929 were physically attacked or threatened
  • 353 media outlets were censored
  • 29 journalists were kidnapped

But it’s not just tradition print media that’s at stake here. Let’s not assume that just because one is a blogger and not working at a newspaper that these numbers don’t mean anything. We can bicker all day long about whether a blogger is a journalist but at the end of the day, this isn’t really about the medium or the way of reporting: it’s about the freedom of expression.

The Press Freedom Round-up 2008 report by Reporters Without Borders summarizes it well: “As the print and broadcast media evolve and the blogosphere becomes a worldwide phenomenon, predatory activity is increasingly focusing on the Internet… it poses a threat to those in power who are used to governing as they wish with impunity.”

Last year, for the first time in the history of the blogosphere someone was killed while acting as a citizen journalist.

The victim was Chinese businessman Wei Wenhua and his infraction was filming a clash between demonstrators in Tianmen with municipal police officers. He was beaten to death.

Cases of online censorship were recorded in 37 countries, above all China (93 websites censored), Syria (162 websites censored) and Iran (38 websites censored).

There are democracies that do not lag far behind in terms of online surveillance and repression. Taboos established by the monarchy in Thailand and by the military in Turkey are so tenacious that incautious Internet users are increasingly being monitored and punished by the police. Video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Dailymotion are favorite targets of government censors. It is becoming more and more common for sites to be blocked or filtered because of content that officials have deemed “offensive.” A visceral reaction from some governments towards participatory websites, especially social networking sites, is beginning to give rise to cases of “mass censorship.” The censorship of sites such as Twitter (in Syria) or Facebook (blocked in Syria and Tunisia, and filtered in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates) leads to massive amounts of content being blocked–an effect that is considerably compounded when combined with other standard methods of control.

Governments are increasingly responding with imprisonment to criticism by bloggers. In China, 10 cyber-dissidents were arrested, 31 were physically attacked or threatened, and at least three were tried and convicted. In Iran, Reporters Without Borders registered 18 arrests, 31 physical attacks and 10 convictions. Online free expression is also curtailed in Syria (8 arrests and 3 convictions), Egypt (6 arrests) and Morocco (2 arrests and 2 convictions).

Internet freedom has been crushed with particular severity in Burma, where the military government has arrested and tried blogger and comedian Zarganar and the young cyber-dissident Nay Phone Latt in a disgraceful manner and sentenced them to incredibly severe jail terms (59 years for the former, 20 years for the latter). These two men join Burma’s many other political prisoners, who include 16 journalists.

RIGHT OR PRIVILEGE?

It’s automatic: open browser, log in to the blog, type like crazy, hit publish. Some of us have been doing it for so long we can’t imagine not blogging.

Take a minute right now to look at the figures:

  • 1 blogger was killed
  • 59 bloggers were arrested
  • 45 were physically attacked
  • 1,740 websites were blocked, shut down or suspended

It doesn’t matter whether you blog about handbags or political issues. The oppression of expression is something we should all fight against.

Lasantha Wickrematunge had this clear. In his last editorial, he quotes the famous and haunting poem by the German theologian, Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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The Balance between Money and Credibility

December 16th, 2008 by AV Flox in blogging, blogging vs journalism, integrity

“I love YOU, but I really hate your URL shortener. It makes me feel dirty—and not in a good way.”

The comment came via Twitter direct message from Adele McAlear in reference to Adjix, the URL shortener I use to fit long URLs into Twitter’s notoriously concise 140 character-long messages.

Adjix is an ad network that pays you to shorten links, which is essentially “a cross between Tinyurl and Google Adwords.” When a reader clicks on an Adjix-shortened link, they are redirected to the URL you input, with an Adjix-generated ad at the top of the page (example).

People who use this shortener earn $0.10 per 1,000 unique link views and $0.20 for each click-through on an ad displayed with their link.

Since I started using Adjix in August of this year, I’ve posted 90 links and made $0.70. It’s been a fun experiment for me, both in terms of tracking click-throughs, which the service does for you, and in terms of learning how to generate some extra cash on Twitter. Its main appeal for me is that I don’t have to pimp anything I wouldn’t normally put out there, I’m essentially getting something back for doing what I usually do: sharing interesting things.

What I never considered is how my followers on Twitter felt about this.

A BLOGGER’S GOTTA EAT!

Blogging can be one of the most thankless things to which a person can devote himself. Whether you’re chronicling your adventures or imparting information within your industry, you’re a person who has to eat and pay bills.

As someone who loves what I read on your blog, I feel it’s my moral obligation to support you. If that means taking 2.5 seconds to scan the ads on your blog after reading your post and commenting, I’ll do it. And I’ll click, too, if something catches my eye. It’s how I say “thank you.”

I didn’t think finding creative ways to make money blogging was a revolutionary concept until this weekend when my stream on Twitter exploded with a controversy over a sponsored post by Chris Brogan, the respected social media adviser.

FULL DISCLOSURE

Brogan writes about how businesses and bloggers can forge strong ties by creating valuable content on social networks. He’s basically the go-to guy when it comes to anything relating to new media.

He’s also on the advisory board for IZEA, a company in next-generation marketing. Per the IZEA blog, bloggers that sign on with IZEA do not receive payment, but they do have options in the company.

Working through IZEA for Kmart, Brogan received a $500 gift card to shop ’til he dropped and blog all about it, as well as another $500 gift card to offer readers who participated in a contest at Dad-o-Matic, where this sponsored post appeared.

Writing for IZEA requires disclosure, meaning that bloggers who are pimping a brand for them have to say up front that they got something out of the deal. Brogan’s piece at Dad-o-Matic (titled, “Sponsored Post-Kmart Holiday Shopping Dad Style”) opened with the following statement: “This post is a sponsored post on behalf of Kmart via Izea. The opinions are mine.”

Simple enough, right? Wrong.

LET THEM EAT CHEESECAKE!

“Bloggers should be able to make money and find synchronous opportunities that work for them. What was off-putting is that Chris benefits by writing an overall favorable review and a prominent one at that,” Damien Basile wrote in response to a post by Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications, which puts out The Buzz Bin, a blog about marketing, buzz and PR.

Basile has long respected Brogan’s work and position in the industry, but he had beef with how Brogan handled his part for the Kmart campaign and was very vocal about it. I chased him down earlier tonight to get a handle on why he’d become such an active detractor.

“It was never about how much he profits,” Basile told me on Gtalk. “What is up for discussion is the perception that he may be in a position of conflict and that is enough for me to question it.”

Basile doesn’t feel Brogan’s initial disclosure is sufficient. He thinks Brogan’s ties to IZEA should have been mentioned right on that post, in the event readers did not know he was on their blogger advisory board and held options with IZEA.

“Maybe it was a misnomer to call him a journalist,” Basile reflected. “I do recant that later, but my point was bringing up integrity. Integrity is for everyone. Just because we’re in new media doesn’t mean there are new standards. Truth is truth. Everyone deserves to know the full truth.”

I’m with Livingston and Brogan in disagreeing with Basile that a blogger is a journalist. We could learn a thing or two from them, yes. I’m not a reporter any longer, but I have the Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics up on my wall and it’s never too far out of mind when I blog: 1. Seek the truth and report it, 2. Minimize harm, 3. Act independently, 4. Be accountable.

A blogger may employ these tenets, but a blogger is not a journalist. Journalists have fact-checkers, ombudsmen, editors and publishers, those mighty gatekeepers of information. Journalists are expected to be unbiased. Perhaps most importantly, newsrooms and advertising departments are separated.

A blogger, on the other hand, is often a one-man show. I write the content for my blog, I fact-check, I edit, I publish. You know that saying: a writer who edits her own work has a fool for an editor. Quite right.

That’s not to say a blogger has no responsibility. A blogger has a big responsibility to his community: to provide valuable, quality content.

“How do you think Brogan should have done it?” I asked Basile. “Put up front: ‘Chris Brogan is a member of the IZEA advisory board and has options in IZEA’?”

“The word ‘via’ is very vague,” Basile responded. “It just tells me ‘its way of’ and the link to IZEA was to their main site [as opposed to information about Brogan’s association with the company].”

“How should it have been phrased?” I asked again.

Because this isn’t really about Chris Brogan or IZEA, you see, and to zero-in on that would be to make this a witch-hunt and what have witch-hunts ever gotten us? Nothing. No, this is bigger than that. This is the internet doing what it does best: self-correcting. Let’s not tear down, let’s build. Don’t like how someone does something? Tell me how to do it better.

Finally, Basile replied: “‘This post is sponsored by Kmart for IZEA. I am on the board of IZEA and receive equity options for being on it.’”

There is a valuable lesson here and it goes further than well-worded disclosures, debates about what makes one a journalist, or whether money invariably destroys a blogger’s credibility. As I said before, a blogger has a responsibility to his community. Mob mentality or not, I’m ultimately in accord with Basile: it’s about perception. The perception of your readers matters.

It doesn’t matter if your community thinks you did one thing when you really did another. It’s folly to stand by and call them stupid. They might be stupid, but perception is reality.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

We should care because social media is about community. Brogan addressed several of the issues raised by his post in comments on blogs as well as in his own blog. That goes a long way.

It may not be enough for others who are disillusioned by the fact he is working with IZEA, but it’s responsible and in the end, all you can do is listen, address concerns as you best can and learn from the experience.

I CAN SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU

Darren Rowse, my one-man resource when it comes to making money blogging had a series a couple of years ago about credibility and blogging. His series closed with transparency:

I don’t mind bloggers getting something for themselves out of blogging but what does bother me is when I see bloggers attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of their readers by not being honest about their true motivations. Credibility comes when people trust that what you are saying is truth and when there is a lack of truth the consequences for a blogger can be significant.

Transparency also comes into play when you make a mistake or need to apologize for something you’ve done or written. The way bloggers admit to mistakes and rectify them says a lot about their character.

In taking on Adjix, I was experimenting. But I never disclosed the details of my experiment. In fact, very little on my blog speaks about what I’m doing here and why. This needs immediate rectification, which I vow to undertake.

For now, the short of it is: I make some money via another experiment, this one with Google Adwords, but outside of that, no one pays me for any content, including the features. However, my blog does serve me indirectly in that through it I have landed gigs contributing to other web publications and ghost-blogging.

HOW MUCH IS INTEGRITY WORTH?

I found myself asking this question earlier this evening as I chatted with Adele McAlear, head of McAlear Marketing, who’d first objected to my use of Adjix.

“My real problem is not that I have to look at a banner or text ad, or that you’re making money from it,” McAlear told me over Gtalk. “It’s that the URL doesn’t show the true URL of the page you’ve sent me to and this makes linking a pain. It makes me not want to link to you at all, or re-tweet, etc.”

This was a definite downside to the use of Adjix, as retweets are the currency of Twitter. I explained to McAlear that in the Adjix banners, there’s an arrow on the far right that you can click to reveal the true URL.

“I didn’t know that about the arrow,” McAlear told me. “I don’t click on anything that looks like an ad because I never know what I’ll get and where I’m going to be taken.”

Coming from a web-savvy woman, that said a lot. How many other readers didn’t know how to get rid of the banner? Was I short-changing myself for the promise of a quick dime?

“Aside from linking, there’s perception,” McAlear went on. “I think you are a great writer, you have a great handle on social media, marketing, and how all of this works but, yet, this type of URL shortener reminds me of spam. To me, it kind of cheapens your personal brand.”

There it was. She’d said the key word: perception.

“It comes down to balance,” she said. “What your readers and followers on Twitter expect versus what Adjix gives you. I have no issues with anyone making money but there are different ways to do it.”

Integrity versus $0.70. Sure, I could make more if I devoted myself to better employing Adjix. But is it worth it?

Do you make money blogging? Is a disclosure enough to keep yourself from losing credibility? Have you ever unsubscribed from someone’s blogs because they wrote a sponsored post? Your opinion matters whether you’re a webcock or just a reader. We’re all the web. Tell me how you really feel.

UPDATE

December 16, 2007, 5:28PM: In an excellent display of what tuning in to user perspective is all about, Joe Moreno, President of Adjix contacted Adele McAlear after reading this post to let her know that based on her feedback, Adjix has changed the arrow on banners to a simple hyperlink that says, “Remove ad.”

Kudos, Adjix. This is what the web is all about.

Of possible interest:

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  • AV Flox writes about web culture; new media’s gradual overthrow of old media; trends in social media; and the complicated entanglements people get themselves into as we venture forth into this new world where, more and more, the analog is colliding with the digital.

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