blogging

This post is to share lessons I have learned about blogging so far, five weeks into this blog.

First, it's hard to believe it's only been five weeks. "Internet time" lives, I can tell you that.

Second, I'd like to truly thank everyone who has read this blog, linked to this blog, sent this blog to your friends, or come up to me at various parties and events to say that you've been reading it -- and also the people who have emailed me and especially the people who posted comments before I turned … Read more

Like many of you, I have my own theory as to Fake Steve Jobs' real-life identity. But I'm not going to discuss it here. At this point, bloggers' rabid attempts to lay bare the face behind the anonymous writer have grown a bit tiresome, and for all we know, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs will turn out to be a corporate travail staffed by a team of six writers nabbed from The Office. But that's not to say that Fake Steve isn't newsworthy. The blog, I'm willing to argue, has more to say about the state of the media today than a thousand "purple cows," noisy disruptors, viral-buzz ecosystems, and whatever other business clich?s you'd like me to throw in your face.

More than a few people would agree that the blogger behind Fake Steve, underneath his exaggerated Jobsian obnoxiousness, ranks right up there with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as one of the most spot-on social critics we have. But because nobody knows who he is, he can get away with more: Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman is a " sociopathic nouveau riche lady-killer," Gawker Media founder Nick Denton is almost never mentioned without the epithet "macrocephalic," and his Valleywag successor Owen Thomas is constantly referred to as "Mr. Bigglesworth." Former vice president and current global warming figurehead Al Gore is depicted as emotionally fragile and tormented by marriage problems that lead him to frequently call up the faux Jobs and ask for a couch to crash on (which tends to infuriate Mrs. Jobs). Rockers turned social crusaders Bono and The Edge, according to Fake Steve, are prone to bar fights. ("Bono says it's an Irish thing," the satirist asserts flippantly.)… Read more

Brad Stone and Matt Richtel of the New York Times recently wrote a piece (here) about the risks of unscrupulous use of Internet blogs and message boards.

According to the article, the FTC says John Mackey, chief executive of Whole Foods Market, masqueraded as a third party to promote his company on Yahoo!. The story also describes how various politicians and reporters have also gotten into trouble by using assumed identities on the net. This practice is called "sock puppeting".

Blogging under your own name can be a problem too, as Google discovered when Google's Lauren Turner … Read more

If anyone's added you as a friend on Facebook recently, you may notice something different: previously, upon confirming a friend request, you were redirected to a separate page that asked you to check a few boxes and fill out a text field or two describing your relationship with the person in question. The options range from "Went to school together" to "In my family" to "We hooked up." The Facebook member on the other end of the "relationship" must then confirm the detail before it becomes visible to anyone who's … Read more

There's a cool little utility, Twitterfeed, that performs a useful service: It can take almost any blog and feed it into a Twitter account, so you see new items when you're on Twitter or using any of the Twitter applications.

Twitterfeed can be used to do other cool things, too. Here's a walk-through of our top Twitterfeed projects: First, the basic blog-to-Twitter setup. Then, a trick with Twitterfeed to update Pownce and Twitter at the same time. And finally, how to use it to pump Facebook notifications into your Twitter account.

To get your favorite blog into your Twitter feed, first decide if you want to create a new feed for it or feed the blog info into an existing feed, like your personal account. I recommend the former. Create a Twitter account just for the blog. Later, you can follow it from your personal Twitter account.

You will also need an OpenID account to log in to Twitterfeed. OpenID (review) is a very different site authentication system from what people are used to, but don't freak. If you don't have an OpenID, just go to MyOpenID and sign up for an account.

When you log in to Twitterfeed you'll need your new feed's password, and your OpenID. Tell it your blog's RSS address (a link usually ending in .XML) and how often you want it to check for new items (once an hour is reasonable), and then wait for Twitterfeed to start scanning. Once the feed is getting picked up, you can "follow" the new Twitter account to get the blog in your feed. And of course, your friends can follow it too.

I've found that Twitterfeed is particular about RSS formatting, but standard blog platforms (Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, etc.) should generate code it can handle.

… Read more

I spent part of this morning having a go with the new Facebook app from the folks at WordPress.com (a Webware 100 winner). Once installed and linked up with your Wordpress.com account, you can post to any of your blogs without leaving Facebook. You can also check traffic stats and add bookmarks to your blogroll. The actual blog authoring tool is very limited in this release. There's no way to add links or pictures to posts. You're also unable to manage some of the subtleties of authoring like bold and italicized fonts, indentations, and the handy … Read more

When you think of a parenting and technology blog, you might expect lots of posts about new gadgets for kids. But I have found that the biggest impact that technology has had on my "parenting" life isn't in my relationship with my child, it's in my identity as a mother. And rather than being about gadgets, for me technology is primarily about relationships and sharing information.… Read more

Searchles: searching goes web 2.0 (on Media Sphere) The search may not be stunning, but Josh Wolf is impressed by the site's video features.

An interview with Matthew Szulik: The culture of Red Hat, the power of open source (on The Open Road) Matt Asay talks with Red Hat's CEO about open source culture, managing a company and building transparency.

Enough with the HD DVD/Blu-ray battle: Bring on downloads! (on The Digital Home) Forget HD DVD versus Blu-ray, Don Reisinger says its time to switch to video downloads.

EU: ISPs don't have to disclose subscriber names (… Read more

Sony fans, the famously secretive company is extending a hand. For the first time in the conglomerate's history, it has begun blogging as it seeks a much more open exchange of information with customers.

In the past month, Sony has launched two blogs. The most recent came Tuesday with the debut of a blog from Sony Electronics. The company's PlayStation unit began blogging about a month ago.

Corporate blogs are designed to build stronger ties with customers and have been around for years. For Sony, a blog might pay additional dividends. For instance, the electronics giant could learn … Read more