Liz, Author at Successful Blog Page

7 Great Ways to Connect with Other Bloggers While You’re Out Reading Blogs

September 18, 2006 by Liz

Blogging Is Lonely Without Someone to Talk to . . .

It started in 1993, long before there were blogs. It was named “The Endless September.” That was when AOL unleashed masses of untrained users onto the Internet. Until then, it has only been a yearly advance of college freshmen.

Before that time, such clue-lacking lusers were a small trickle every September when the college freshman hit the computers to which they got free access when they paid their college tuition. At that time, it was manageable with suggestions to lurk a while and observe how others behaved before jumping in with cluelessness, with polite, behind-the scenes education when nettiquette was breached, and with an occasional BOFH wielding a large mallet when the polite education didn’t stick.
The Endless September

I bring this up for a reason. . . . hinky un-blogger-like things have been happening around here. I see the pattern now and it seems that the Endless September is back on.

Ew, how embarrassing to wake up one day and realize that comments and trackbacks are like diamonds . . . they last.

Burned bridges and drive-by comments aren’t pretty.

Relationships, on the other hand, are what blogging’s about.

[Read more…]

Net Neutrality 9-18-2006

September 18, 2006 by Liz

Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Why Distrust Bell Promises on Net Neutrality

The dirty secret of modern telecomm is that all the money is in wireless. Verizon Wireless is the largest wireless provider. Verizon advertising claims only “the network” can guarantee good wireless service. (That is a lie.) Verizon claims it offers Internet service off its phones.

Does it? Not on your tintype.

Even The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg refers to the Verizon and Cingular networks as “Soviet Ministries.” They decide what online services users will be able to access, and at what price. They also take money from both sides of every information transaction.

When challenged about this, they lie. That’s right, they lie. They claim that if someone was unhappy with a third party they would complain to Verizon. As though people complain to their ISPs about every bad site visit they have. As though the mobile companies were paragons of customer service. They are not.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Bloggy Question 21 — Are You California Dreaming?

September 17, 2006 by Liz

Monday, Monday, Can’t Trust That Day

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week, I offer this Blogging Hypothetical Question.

A friend explains a situation with a potential client who works in a field that suits the friend’s skills, style, and experience to a T. The more you hear, the more you think that the client needs your friend’s help to grow his business. You know the guy’s on the level. You’ve met some of his clients. They speak highly of his work.

The client-to-be is an entrepreneur with important clients, and he’s stuck where entrepreneurs with important clients often get stuck. Your friend is an expert at helping people stretch and expand their dreams. She can show him where to go next, how to get there, and how to delegate. . . .

The problem is that he has some form of “bad date” syndrome. He says he’ll call Monday to set up a meeting — Monday, Monday — pick one the call keeps getting rescheduled. She says he calls with other questions, but doesn’t return phone calls or emails from her. Of course, he treats his clients differently.

Last week a meeting (time and place too this time) was made to set goals. Your friend wants to let the client know that now the work must begin. She knows that relationships that start shaky can turn out to be the best ones . . . but she’s starting to talk about her own disappointment not the potential client’s needs.

What advice do you have for her?

Is this client worth saving or all this time has she been “California Dreaming?”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: PEW Internet and American Life Project

September 17, 2006 by Liz

Who Are These Guys?

If you write about the Internet, you have not done so already, I predict that a quote from the PEW report is in your future. . . .

Great Find: PEW Internet and American Life Project

Permalink: http://www.pewinternet.org/

Audience/Topic: Anyone who researches writing on modern American life and technology

Content: I never heard of PEW & the American Life Project until I started blogging. Yet reesearch blogging or the Internet and PEW information is likely to be there long before you — quoted as the source of the facts. That’s because PEW is always testing, constantly testing — through nationwide (random-digit) telephone and Internet surveys on the impact of the Internet on American Life.

With that in mind, I’ve collected these few facts before I send you there to explore this goldmine of writing ideas and support.

The PEW Mission
The Pew Internet & American Life Project produces reports that explore the impact of the Internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the Internet through collection of data and analysis of real-world developments as they affect the virtual world.

The Key Researchers
The key researchers work in areas of specialty.
Lee Rainie, Project Director,studies trends in how people of all ages use the Internet.
Deborah Fallows, Senior Research Fellow, follows Email, spam, and everyday life on the Web.
Susannah Fox, Associate Director, Editorial. keeps an eye to privacy and trust, health and health care, support groups, banking, and senior citizens.
John Horrigan. Associate Director, Research, follows social and economic impact of Internet on communities and cities, broadband trends and impacts, adoption of new technologies, and online communities.
Steve Jones, Senior Research Fellow, works in these research areas: College Students, College Students and Gaming, Communities, Copyright, Education, Intellectual Property, Internet in Daily Life, Music, Seniors, Technology Consumption, Teens, Terrorism, Workplace
Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist, concentrates on issues regarding children, teens, parents and the Internet, the digital divide, education, content creation, blogging, instant messaging.
Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist, researches copyright issues, music and the internet, intellectual property issues online, teens and communication technology, college students and the internet, online communities, demographic trends in online pursuits.

The reports each researcher has written are listed on his or her bio page.

The PEW and American Life Project has 100 reports, email alerts, “find an expert,” presentations, a searchable database, a commentary section an “ask a question” service, and invitations to participate in furure polls.

To get there click the title shot below.

Every time I think I’ve seen all they offer, I discover move.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Photo Resources to Support Readers
Open Source Education Ã¢â¬â GELC
Great Find: Programmer Meet Designer

Net Neutrality 9-17-2006

September 17, 2006 by Liz

Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Major U.S. Trade Group Makes Case for Neutrality

The American Electronics Association (AeA) released a report yesterday strongly supporting Net Neutrality and urging Congress: “Don’t stifle competition and innovation by allowing network operators to change and distort what is currently a highly competitive system.”

“The principles of Net Neutrality have created the Internet as we know it — the most dynamic network for communication and commerce in human history,” states The Case for Preserving Net Neutrality, a report by AeA, which represents 2,500 companies from every corner of the high-tech industry.

[ . . . ]

According to the report, the only way to [“safeguard the competitive nature of the Internet] is for Congress to prevent companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from abusing their market power by imposing discriminatory new surcharges that favor the content from companies and Web sites that pay them the most.

Allowing the nation’s largest phone and cable companies to tilt the market in favor of larger and better funded content providers would “undermine the fundamental principles of open and free exchange of information across the network,” according to the AeA report.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Thanks to Week 47 SOBs

September 16, 2006 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

muddy teal strip A

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this badge’s validity, send him or her directly to me. This award comes with a full “Liz said so” guarantee. It is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame. Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss