Successful Blog

SOB Business Cafe 12-15-06

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the title shots to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Marketing Profs is explaining why everything old is new again.

Creating Passionate Users suggests that we innovate on our own model.

The Copywriter Underground points to something unconventional and asks whether it could be a trend.

Who's Writing Next Year's Blog?

Resonance Partnership discusses a trend most folks are hoping will die out.

Attention - Are Your Children Blackberry Orphans?

Attract More Customers points out three reasons people miscommunicate.

Seth unveils the magic and mystery that is the difference between being an Apple and owning a Dell.

Brand as Mythology

Related ala carte selections include

Lorelle on WordPress has a challenge. Help her compile the list.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like.
No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The Work We Do

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A Few Words from Michael E. Gerber

I read this last night, and I had to share it with you.

“He said,’The work we do is a reflection of who we are. If we’re sloppy at it, it’s because we’re sloppy inside. If we’re late at it, it’s because we’re late inside. If we’re bored by it, it’s because we’re bored inside, with ourselves, not with the work. The most menial work can be a piece of work done by an artist. So the job here is not outside of ourselves, but inside of ourselves. How we do our work becomes a mirror of how we are inside.’ ” –Michael E. Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited, pp. 199-200.

I can’t add a word to improve that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The book is in my store and at Amazon.

Net Neutrality 12-15-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Net Neutrality Works Both Ways: What Happens When Websites Block ISPs?

Some anti-spam organizations believe that collateral damage is the best way to get an ISP to stop harboring spammers, so they’ll blacklist entire swaths of IP addresses in order to force non-spamming customers to complain. That tactic has been violently debated for years without consensus, and the only way outfits such as SPEWS get away with it is by remaining anonymous. One can only imagine the broader network neutrality impact if everyone erected blockades to settle digital disputes. AT&T bans Google video to hinder U-Verse competition, Google bans AT&T DSL customers in kind, and pretty soon the Internet is little more than a cratered out highway, riddled by vendettas.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Internet Net Law and Net Neutrality 12-14-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Senator [McCain]: Illegal images must be reported

Millions of commercial Web sites and personal blogs would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000, if a new proposal in the U.S. Senate came into law.

The legislation, drafted by Sen. John McCain and obtained by CNET News.com, would also require Web sites that offer user profiles to delete pages posted by sex offenders.

In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, the Arizona Republican and former presidential candidate warned that “technology has contributed to the greater distribution and availability, and, some believe, desire for child pornography.

Internet service providers already must follow those reporting requirements. But McCain’s proposal is liable to be controversial because it levies the same regulatory scheme–and even stiffer penalties–on even individual bloggers who offer discussion areas on their Web sites.

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“I am concerned that there is a slippery slope here,” said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “Once you start creating categories of industries that must report suspicious or criminal behavior, when does that stop?”

According to the proposed legislation, these types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service.

[. . . ]

A McCain aide, who did not want to be identified by name, said on Friday that the measure was targeted at any Web site that “you’d have to join up or become a member of to use.” No payment would be necessary to qualify, the aide added.

Please send the senator a copy of “Atlas Shrugged.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 12-13-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Alaska’s Stevens Left Out in the Cold

Senator Ted Stevens boasted this summer that he had nearly all the 60 Senate votes he needed to muscle his massive telecommunications bill through Congress by the end of the year. But as his fellow lawmakers called it quits this weekend, his quest to overhaul America’s telecom laws ended in failure.

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Some doubted that a rowdy coalition fighting for such a nebulous cause as net neutrality could shut down a bill backed by Stevens, the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

“This is a huge victory for real people and a clear signal to the next Congress that standing up for big bold ideas is a winning political proposition,” declared Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Civic Action, a member of “Save the Internet” group that campaigned to sink the bill

But if his crowd is serious, it will have to do more than block legislation – it will have to get laws passed requiring net neutrality in the next Congress. That will be a great deal more difficult than thwarting Ted Stevens.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 12-12-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Why Jennifer Granholm Really Is Helping Destroy the Internet

InterrupT has an interesting post at Michigan Liberal where he argues that a franchising bill that looks like it’s about to pass, HB 6456, isn’t really related to net neutrality. Sadly, he couldn’t be more wrong, and it’s the type of wrongness that is going to lose us our free and open internet. Here’s an email from a knowledgable friend of mine on how these guys work and why it’s not as simple as thinking that we can just put through net neutrality protections.

Net neutrality politics have gotten a shade complex. Here’s a stab at sorting out why it’s important to pass net neutrality in a state, why it must be done in the same package as “franchise reform,” and why it’s critical even though it would only apply to Internet connections in that state.

Let’s start with power. Ultimately, all politics is a competition for the power to change things. Net neutrality pits the power of the cable and phone companies against…well…pretty much everybody else. They are more organized, well-financed and professional in the game of politics than “everybody else”, which explains why they are so successful.

[ . . . ]

What does telco power do when it fails to win in Washington? It goes to the states. They believe they can get the same thing at the state level. They can convince state legislators that build-out and universal competitive cable TV services aren’t important. And they can pretend net neutrality doesn’t matter. If they win in enough states, then they will have effectively outflanked Washington. That’s their strategy. They’ll have what they want, and we’ll have nothing. Worse, when they don’t need things from politicians, there is nothing to extract from them in a compromise. So, they’ll focus all their time on killing good things we’ll try to get politicians to do.

So what do we have to do? We have to go to whatever states they go to. And we have to put net neutrality and build-out requirements into their “franchise reform”. If we don’t, they’ll win. Simple as that.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE