Successful Blog

Bloggy Question 19 — A Blogging Life of Fiction

by

What Do I Owe You?

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 Question. This event really happened.

A blogger who wrote a personal blog about his life as a gas station attendant, who worked at a station across the road from a university in Tennessee or Kentucky, decided to stop blogging. He was a blogger with a following — 20 or 30 comments per post wasn’t unusual.

This blogger and his fans were a community. They shared inside jokes, histories, and details about their families. Some readers had planned to drive down to see him.

In the last post when he signed off, the blogger stated quite simply that everything he had said about his life was fiction. He was not a gas station attendant. He was a student at said university.

The blogger claimed his right to tell the extended blogging story in the tradition of fiction writers such as Samuel Clemens. What’s your response to this blogging fiction?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Bloggy Question 18 — Suddenly You Have
Bloggy Question 17 — The Official Writing Book Discussion
Bloggy Question 16 — Customer Feedback
Bloggy Question 15 — Roadblocks

Net Neutrality 8-20-2006

by

Net Neutrality Links

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

Net Neutrality Opposed by National Conference of State Legislatures Over My Objections by State Rep Mark Cohen Dem PA

State Rep Mark Cohen Dem PA’s diary :: ::
I was the only legislator present who was familiar enough with net neutrality issues to argue in its favor. In a voice vote, in which each legislator casts an individual vote, it seemed to be a close call as to which side had the majority. When I called for a roll call vote by states, a majority of 33 state delegations voted against network neutrality, while a majority of ten states voted for network neutrality.

As a 3/4 vote is needed for the National Conference of State Legislatures to take a position, a change of the majority in only one state that voted would have defeated the resolution. The vote was the equivalent of the 2000 Presidential election in the electoral college.

The effect of this resolution is that lobbyists for the National Conference of State Legislatures–the mainstream organization representing state legislatures–will be in opposition to network neutrality for the next year, when the resolution expires.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-19-2006

by

Net Neutrality Links

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

Municipal WiFi is the new hope for Net Neutrality – thinker [via ZERO PAID]

Stanford University law professor Larry Lessig has argued the WiFi clouds popping up across cites from Philadelphia to San Francisco could provide broadband access over the “last mile” between the internet cloud and users’ doorsteps.

Lessig, author and co-leader of the Creative Commons, told LinuxWorld attendees in San Francisco, that unification of the WiFI patchwork would provide an infrastructure that frees the last mile from the “proprietary control” of carriers like AT&T and Verizon. This would restrict carriers’ ability to charge content providers different fees in order to prioritize delivery of their data packets across the internet.

“When one owns the wires as these network operators do, there is a desire to leverage control. To exploit and capture the value up the stack,” Lessig said.

“There’s an explosion in municipal mesh networks… as you see the clouds exploding above the cities and people unify them, the last mile is solved. The last mile is provided free of proprietary control,” Lessig said

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

SOB Business Cafe 08-18-2006

by

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

A Consuming Experience offers us an in-depth first at the new Blogger Beta blogging software.

Blogger Beta Features Review

Christine Kane asks whether you’re the kind that marketers can hook?

Are You Hookable?

CTBIZ Blogs explains how a test drive in a GM car proved the value of video as a quick, effective marketing tool.

Genuine Curiosity makes a great case for investing in yourself where the growth is likely to have the most impact.

Where Do You Invest Your 10%

It’s Not About Your Stuff reveals the secret of how to let go of that pile of stuff you’ve got taking up space inside your closets.

817 12 strategies for (finally) letting go of stuff you don't really don't need

Related ala carte selections include

Creating Passionate Users shows us how to put star power into every customer experience.

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

Net Neutrality 8-18-2006

by

Net Neutrality Links

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

Comcast Wants To Be Yahoo

AdAge reports on Comcast’s ambitions to become a Yahoo-type portal. The cable giant is beginning to add more online sales people, hoping to capture a piece of the online advertising pot of gold. It is also opening up its Internet pages to its non-broadband subscribers, which quickly doubles its potential user base. In theory at least! Paid Content has a good wrap up of the story, and some pithy observations.

Now with around 10 million broadband subscribers, it is hard to blame Comcast for having portal ambitions. Just as an aside, isn’t portal a throwback of a vertically integrated Internet 1.0 era? How quaint! How old fashioned! Still, I wonder the wisdom of this move, especially since the company is fighting the triple play battle with politically more savvy phone companies. Shouldn’t that be the focus? I think this is yet another example of “google envy.”

[…]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-17-2006

by

Net Neutrality Links

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

Google: We Only Want to Be a Catalyst in Wi-Fi

The free Wi-Fi network offered by Google in its hometown of Mountain View has gone live.But don’t look for the search giant to go nation-wide with its broadband wireless agenda. The New York Times’ John Markoff has this piece today noting that Google has said no to jumpstarting wireless competition to incumbent broadband providers beyond its deal with EarthLink to deliver wireless services in San Francisco.

Not that Google wouldn’t like to see a third broadband pipe into homes; it would make net neutrality a moot issue.

“I think there wouldn’t be a Net neutrality debate in this country if we really had a competitive environment for access,” said Chris Sacca, a Google executive who heads special initiatives for the company. “The Internet is not pervasive as it could be, or democratic.”

[. . . ]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE