Successful Blog

Blogtipping Day–Where’s Yours?

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Link Love Costs Nothing

Easton Ellsworth at Blogwire declared today official Blogtipping Day and I’m in. How about you? As
the song goes “Give a little bit . . .” Here’s how it works.

  • Choose three or more bloggers you admire and link to them,
  • List three reasons why you admire each one.
  • Then add a tip at the end.

That’s all there is to it.

Janice Myint

  • Janice is the best at her job. She knows what she’s doing.
  • Every email and message is filled with smiles and energy. I feel like a valued customer every time she talks to me.
  • She takes on big complaints as personal quest, and tackles them like a warrior.

Tip: Janice, be careful. The whole blogosphere is going to be proposing marriage to you, and trying to steal you away.

Jeremy Wright

  • Jeremy’s a great guy with a heart as big as the world.
  • He works hard, doing thousands of things, but never loses his humanity.
  • He makes things happen for other people and asks nothing in return.

Tip: Jeremy, don’t wear yourself out. We need you just as you are.

Brian Clark

  • Brian teaches me more about writing every time I read his blog.
  • He has been a friend to me beyond the call of duty.
  • I feel lucky to have him in my address book.

Tip: Brian, stop, breathe and look at what you’ve built. It’s fabulous.

That was fun. I hope I get time to do more before the day is over.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Net Neutrality 5-01-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

AT&T and Verizon: We Own Your Congress

The Center for Public Integrity compiled a list of the top 100 money-givers to Congress between 1998 and 2005, and telcos dominate the list.

Here are a few of its findings:

* Verizon Communications Inc. $81,870,000
* SBC Communications Inc. $58,035,037
* AT&T Corp. $53,349,499
* Sprint Corp. $47,276,585
* BellSouth Corp. $33,732,827
* Qwest Communications International Inc. $24,523,480

Policy Analysis: “Net Neutrality� Digital Discrimination or Regulatory Gamesmanship in Cyberspace?

Moreover, far from being something regulators should forbid, vertical integration of new features and services by broadband network operators is an essential part of the innovation strategy companies will need to use to compete and offer customers the services they demand. Network operators also have property rights in their systems that need to be acknowledged and honored. Net neutrality mandates would flout those property rights and reject freedom of contract in this marketplace.

The regulatory regime envisioned by Net neutrality mandates would also open the door to a great deal of potential “gaming” of the regulatory system and allow firms to use the regulatory system to hobble competitors. Worse yet, it would encourage more FCC regulation of the Internet and broadband markets in general.

The Struggle for Net Freedom

To get a sense of the bargain the industry is proposing, imagine if the maker of your toaster had to give a cut of the sales price to the electric company before it could be turned on. Or suppose the post office charged you to mail and receive the same package if you wanted it sent first class.

[Many, many great links here.]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Quality, Schedule, Budget

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Taking This Show on the Road

Customer Think Logo

In an hour or so, I move my computer downtown to a hotel in Chicago while I attend a literacy convention. I know. I know. I live here. I could stay at home.

It’s a bit of a financial hit. Convention hotels in Chicago aren’t particularly inexpensive, but I see it as an investment in my customers and myself.

It’s hard enough to give my clients my undivided attention at a convention of 15,000 attendees. I want to have the flexibility to be at their exhibit booth when meetings inevitably are rescheduled. I want to be around for the after-hours events when relationships become real.

An adage in publishing, perhaps in every business, says:

Quality. Schedule. Budget. Pick Two.

What’s the right choice? Is it always the same two?

Besides it will be fun, sending you notes from the convention. Any advice you have for me while I’m there?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Don’t Pay Attention — Are You Curious?
Better Than Hi! How Are Ya?
Do You Know a Customer When You See One?

Fun Find: Color Box Game

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Playtime for your right brain . . .

Great Find: Color Box Puzzle Game by Eyehook
Type of site: Addictive color box puzzle game
Permalink: http://www.eyehook.com/games/colorBox/index.html
Target Audience: Everyone who likes puzzle games
Content: I’ve found that a way to recharge my brain after writing is to do something colorful that has no words involved. This game by eyehook does trick far longer than it needs to . . . uhm . . er . . . I get started and I don”t want to stop. Click the screenshot to play with this coloful little gem.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
300 Naked Women Feared Lost [Branding The Onion]
Great Find: Surfing the Net with Kids
A Message for Everyone!
WhosWhoo?! at Yahoo?

Critical Skill 4: Part 2-Designing a Complex Process

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One GIANT Flow Chart

Future Skills

It was an interview with the Chairman of the Board of a publishing company. We had just taken a break. I came back from stretching my legs to find six 4ft. x 8ft. foam core boards that made one GIANT flow chart, supposedly outlining the publishing process in complete and total detail.

I thought, “Ohmygod. They’re one of those kinds of companies.”

He said, “So, what do you think of that?”

I said, “I believe it was very useful for the folks who put it together.”

I usually think of work situations like I would a dating relationship You don’t date a guy thinking you’ll change him. That I took this job thinking I could change this company was just wrong. [Read more…]

Net Neutrality 4-30-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

NEW YORKER, TALK OF THE TOWN
THE FINANCIAL PAGE
NET LOSSES by James Surowiecki
Issue of 2006-03-20
Posted 2006-03-13
[via the left coaster]

The Internet has become a remarkable fount of economic and social innovation largely because it’s been an archetypal level playing field, on which even sites with little or no money behind them—blogs, say, or Wikipedia—can become influential. If the Internet turns into a zone of tiered access, it will be harder for noncommercial sites or startup companies to compete with bigger firms.

Broadband providers insist that they have no plans to block access or degrade service to those who don’t pay a premium rate. But if some companies are getting better service, then all the others are getting worse service. Besides, there have already been examples of active discrimination. Last year, a rural telecom company in North Carolina blocked its users’ access to the Internet-based phone service Vonage, and in Canada the telecom company Telus blocked access to a Web site supporting the telecommunications workers’ union. Market forces will offer some check to this kind of interference—if a particular provider goes too far, customers will take their business elsewhere—but, in the world of broadband, market forces are weak, because most cities have only two major providers.

Internet Freedom Opponents Propose Regulation of Search Engines?

This is amazing. Charlie Gonzales proposed and 10 other Congressmen voted for an amendment to investigate search engines.

Mike McCurry’s Reiterates His Lies

The coalition is moving forward, collecting more blogs and more friends on this cause. By contrast, the telcos have been quite taken aback by how much popular outrage there is at their land grab. Over 1500 blogs have rallied to the cause of internet freedom. They are losing, and they know it. I’ve had several disgusted insiders contact me about the low morale and dismay the lobbyists are feeling. They really don’t know what to do, so they are going to the bag grab of tried and true dinosaur tactics.

Onward by Susan Crawford

The amendment requires broadband providers “not to block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade the ability of any person to use a broadband connection to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer any lawful content, application, or service made available via the Internet.”

That’s good, yes. But the bill goes on. It provides that network providers:

(1) are allowed to offer “to users a broadband video service or other service that requires prioritization of content, applications or services,” (as long as those video services don’t amount to bocking or interfering),

(2) are allowed to prioritize in a most favored nation sense (nonaffiliates get the same quality of service as affiliates),

(3) are allowed to discriminate based on “type of application,” and

(4) aren’t required to provide symmetric transport up and down. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE