27 December 2008

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com

SLATE MAGAZINE SETH’S BLOG

Why not start the weekend on In search of competition

DEC 27, 2008 12:46PM
Wednesday?
DEC 27, 2008 3:37PM If your pipes break at 3 am, Roto Rooter is happy.

Were an alien to pick up our news channels, it would conclude that
human civilization depended on the production and purchase of cheap
plastic rubbish. First came the concern that we might talk ourselves into
not spending enough, then the fear that the banks wouldn’t lend us the
money to spend even if we wanted to. In November, our governments
borrowed money and gave it to us in the hope that we’d catch on. Are we
really so dependent on consumption?
[more ...]
They’re organized for emergencies like this, for moments when you have
no choice but to do business with them. Since you’re out of options, their
high-priced service is your best shot.
They do far less well in the light of day, when you can take your time and
compare plumbers and perhaps bargain a little.
Some businesses prefer to catch you when you have no choice. They use
market conditions or even patents to ensure that they can be the bully.
I’m not sure that there’s anything wrong with this, but I’m certain that it
is a deliberate choice.

SLATE MAGAZINE
Tensions escalate between India
and Pakistan; Ohio desperate
for funds.
DEC 27, 2008 2:33PM
The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with word that
Pakistan is redeploying troops who had been fighting Islamic militants in
the northwest. The troops may be headed for Pakistan’s eastern border
with India, as tensions escalate between the two countries following the
November terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The Washington Post leads with
a look at Ohio’s dire need for an infusion of federal funds. After accruing
a $7.3 billion budget deficit over the last two years, the governor says
that the state’s only way out of its economic morass is through federal
funding from a planned stimulus package from president-elect Barack
Obama.
[more ...]
Other businesses, like Amazon, do better when they have lots of
competition. Amazon has made it easy for other vendors to use their
technology platform and even to sell items on their site. Why? Because
they understand that more competition brings more attention, more
business, more commerce. And since they are organized for volume and
are eager to compete, more competition helps them.
The only way to enjoy competition is to have something different, or
better, or something that scales. You need to offer a community that
increases in value as it scales, or a unique perspective or technology.
Compare Amazon to the folks that make the Invisible Fence® dog
containment system. They hate competition. In my experience, they have
really high prices, nasty policies and a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. That’s
okay, as long as you really don’t have a choice—you need a system like
this, and they have it. If there were a transparent market for this product,
they’d fail in a heartbeat.
Of course, nothing lasts forever, and competition does show up. Then
what?
If you run your restaurant knowing that there are dozens of other
restaurants on your block, things will be easier when in fact there are
other restaurants down the block.

Which situation benefits your church or your political candidate or your

store? Do you better when you’re the only choice, with all the power that
this brings, or when there are many choices, with all the audience and
excitement that this brings?

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com
You can pretend that you are unique, that you have no competition and
never will. Inevitably, this will create an attitude that, while fun for a
while, will probably harm you later. The alternative is to acknowledge
that the competition exists and in fact, to encourage it. I have never met
an author who believes that her book is the only one in the world you can
buy... and this realization changes the way books are written and
marketed.
The internet turns just about every category of goods or service into a
bookstore-like bazaar of competition. You can either fight that or
encourage it. No one will be exactly like you, not if you work hard, but it’s
inevitable that there will be replacements just a click away.
MICRO PERSUASION
links for 2008-12-27
DEC 27, 2008 10:02AM
• Alexandra Levit’s Water Cooler Wisdom: 5 Ways to Be Productive
Between Christmas and New Years
• (tags: workplace holidays)
• TweetGrid
• Creates a real-time Twitter dashboard.
• (tags: twitter Tools Search API mashup)
• Sitckyscreen
• Seriously thinking about making this my home page. Great, simple
tool.
• (tags: simplicity notes lifehacks)
• The World in 2009: forecasting the year ahead | The Economist
• The Economist’s annual collection of predictions for the year
ahead.
• (tags: 2009 Economist trends politics business global predictions)
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27 December 2008
A VC
My Quill Pen
DEC 27, 2008 8:01AM
As I was reading Steven Johnson’s Invention Of Air, I became fascinated
with the art of letter writing that existed during the time Steven
chronicles in that book (mid 18th century to early 19th century). The
legendary conversation conducted by Adams and Jefferson in their final
years was conducted entirely via letters sent back and forth. And, of
course, they were written with a quill pen.
The other day, as we were walking thru one museum (I can’t recall which
right now), my daughter Emily saw an antique ink fountain for a quill
pen and said ‘I love these things, I want one”. I guess she shares a
fondness with me for the long gone art of writing with ink on paper.
Yesterday’s post, Bits Of Destruction, generated quite a few comments
and many of you were surprised that I could compose such a long post
on my blackbery. To one such comment, I replied that my blackberry is
“my quill pen”. I was only half joking. Though I like to write on a
computer and mostly do, I really enjoy writing on my blackberry.
For the past several days, I’ve been getting up before everyone else (as
usual - but at 8 or 9 am instead of 5am), going to the gym, and then
getting a cup of cofee in the hotel lobby and posting with my blackberry.
I’m quite happy with the result. I’ve written longer and more thoughtful
posts this week than has been normal and they’ve tackled a variety of
subjects.
I don’t really know why writing on a blackberry brings out this side of me
but it does. It could be the lack of distraction (hard to multi-task on a
blackberry), it could be that I can’t link out so I don’t bother to be
referential, or it could be something else entirely.
All I know is I feel very comfortable writing with blackberry in hand. Its
my quill pen.
CHRISBROGAN.COM
Guest Post - What Artists Can
Teach Everyone About Social
Media
DEC 27, 2008 5:28AM
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com 27 December 2008

and this.Don’t be afraid to be express yourself.

Make your own rules. John Unger is an artist who is using social
media to finance the building of his new studio, in bits and
pieces.MaryAnne Davis is a ceramic artist who created an online gift
registry so people could register for her work for weddings.I decided to
give the finger to the art establishment that fosters elitism & exclusion by
creating a space that is both welcoming and well curated.Rules only exist
until new rules are created, so make your own!

Choose your critics wisely. In the social media universe, everyone

can be a vocal critic.Some are much louder than others due to their
network or communication style.Good artists value criticism, but know
how to assess their work through critiques from people that fit their
sensibilities or ambitions.In your own social media initiatives, it is
important to ask what you can do better, but don’t be quick to change
your path based on your most vocal or visible critics.Find people whose
opinions you respect, not because they are yes-men, but because they can
give you valuable advice in an appropriate context and constructive
manner.Many of the greatest artists in history were not appreciated in
the prime of their lives.You may wade through many naysayers before
you find your following.

Live an interesting life. What I love most about art is how it allows
people to tell their own stories, whether it is through a painting or a
photograph or a video installation.And the best stories come from people
The following is a guest post from Amitra Chandra, one of the great
who live interesting lives. Look at your own life.Are you in a rut?Are you
people I met in 2008 at PodCamp Boston 3.
afraid to try new things?When was the last time you did something that
took you outside your comfort zone?By being an interesting person, you
What Artists Can Teach Everyone About Social Media
will draw people to you through the stories you tell whether you are
talking about software or changing the world.
People tend to look to leaders in the technology or business world to
learn how to use Social Media. But from my experience, it is artists who
Artists have taught me that social media, like life itself, is an art, not a
are the best teachers of all. Some of the things we can all learn from
science, and the most important thing of all is to just get out, experiment,
them:
& enjoy; the rest will follow. Do you agree or disagree or have a different
take altogether? I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
Find inspiration outside your domain. - Talk to an artist and they
will often tell you they found inspiration in a book or political event or
Image: Earthly Delights, Nasco Pelev. Courtesy of tinku gallery
meaningful place. Artists take ideas from everywhere to foster
collaboration and innovation in their own practice. If you are on Twitter,
are you just following other people in your field or your region, or the so-
Amrita Chandra is the founder of tinku gallery, a contemporary art
called A-listers who everyone else is following?Try broadening your
gallery in Toronto and also
circle, to follow people like @ryantaylor who is using social media for his
a freelance marketing professional with early stage ventures.
sustainable jewelry business and @brooklynmuseum who despite being
one of the oldest museums in the U.S., have started a 1stFans program to
bring art lovers together using social media. Apply what they are doing to
your own area of interest.

Dye your hair pink.Okay, maybe not literally.What I really mean is don’t
be afraid to be different. Artists are typically on the fringes of society so
we are used to feeling a little out of place.How that helps us in the social
media front is that by talking about things that may be unpopular or
controversial or just plain weird, we stand out from the crowd.And that
makes us memorable. What I love about Hugh Macleod’s cartoons is that
he says things everyone is thinking but is afraid to say.Things like this

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com 27 December 2008

MICRO PERSUASION MICRO PERSUASION

Google Search Now Features The Web 2.0 Blogs Will Be Fine
Blog Thumbnails in 09
DEC 26, 2008 11:09PM DEC 26, 2008 10:35PM

Twice this week when I searched for a blogger’s name and some other
related keywords, I noticed that Google is running a little thumbnail
alongside the first links. I have verified that this is not an experiment but
rather a new mini feature. When I logged out of my account I was able to
replicate it.
You should be able to see this for yourself on the following searches:
Gigaom papers and Luis Suarez. I have not been able to reproduce this
with any other blogs.
Anyone know what gives?
Mark Evans is asking whether the big Web 2.0 blogs will face tough
times next year...
One of the fundamental questions is whether there will be
enough “juice” to support growth or, for that matter, the
status quo. If advertising declines, particularly by attention-
seeking startups, how will that impact TechCrunch,
GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, et al? And if the number of new
start-ups shrinks, does that create less editorial fodder to
attract readers?
Robert Scoble wrote in the comments that the action is moving out of
blogs into social networks and that this will challenge the bigs.

I think the big Web 2.0 blog franchises will remain strong in 2009. I do
expect their editorial slants to change with the times. Beyond that, here
are three things to watch ...

• First, to Robert’s comments, blogs vs. social networks is not a zero

sum game. Social networks and search will help all of us filter out
the noise and hone in on the signal. Some of this signal will be blog
content. Other times soc nets will serve as a lens onto traditional
media.

Second, expect to see these sites diversify their revenue streams beyond
advertising and events. Research is a good area and one that probably
leaves other, older companies exposed on price. GigaOm is already
publishing solid white papers. Databases are another potential source of
revenue. CrunchBase may have unlocked value.

Finally could there be a demand for subscription blogs? In other words,

maybe there’s a premium
version of TechCrunch that is for VCs and reasonably priced.

SLATE MAGAZINE

What’s new in Good, Reason,

LATER:: It can also be found in a search for Scobleizer. Maybe it’s tied to
blog names?
and the New York Times
Magazine.
DEC 26, 2008 10:15PM
Harper’s, January 2009A piece charts the aftermath of the summer
conflict between Georgia and Russia over the breakaway republic of
South Ossetia. The author spoke with Georgian President Mikhail

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com
Saakashvili, “a man for whom delicacy does not come naturally,” at the
height of the conflict, when Russian tanks were miles from the capital of
Tbilisi. In that conversation, “Saakashvili attempted to thread a
perilously thin needle, casting Russia as imperial and revanchist but not
so imperial or revanchist that, should Georgia be protected (whatever
that might entail) from Russian aggression, the West would have
anything to fear,” says the piece. … A story outlines how Bush’s
aggressive government spending doubled the national debt to $10
trillion during his two terms in power. “The worst legacy of the past eight
years is that despite colossal government spending, most Americans are
worse off than they were in 2001,” the authors write. … A celebratory
Harper’s Index bids adieu to Bush, offering a look back at the dismal
stats that characterized the last eight years.
[more ...]
MICRO PERSUASION
Twitter on Crack and for Speedy
Customer Service
DEC 26, 2008 10:00PM
A couple of Twitter-related gems from my feed reader tonight...
First, Mike Elgan has set up a site called Twitter on Crack that auto-
refreshes your personal Twitter page every 15 seconds. If I recall Twitter
used to do this on its own, but now it doesn’t.
I avoid running any more desktop apps than I need to, so I skip
TweetDeck and the like. Now, however, when I want to swim in Tweets, I
find this site is the ideal solution.
Meanwhile, down south, Rex Hammock has a Christmas Eve tale about
how two companies - EyeFi and Griffin Technologies - were using
Twitter to respond to customer inquires over the holiday. The use of
Twitter as a customer service venue is definitely a key trend to watch.
SLATE MAGAZINE
Corrections from the last week.
DEC 26, 2008 7:38PM
In the Dec. 20 ”Today’s Papers,” Lydia DePillis misidentified the
attorney general of New York as Mario Cuomo instead of Andrew
Cuomo.
[more ...]
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27 December 2008
SLATE MAGAZINE
Miley Cyrus, Marc Chagall, and
39 other topics that distracted
us—at least briefly—from the
election this year.
DEC 26, 2008 7:17PM
The first sign that it might be tough for cultural news to attract any
attention in 2008 arrived on Jan. 4, a Friday. Britney Spears had been
hospitalized the previous day after a late-night custody scuffle with ex-
husband Kevin Federline. But despite putting on this Grade A fracas, she
was not the most-Googled person in the news.
[more ...]
SLATE MAGAZINE
Harold Pinter, 1930-2008.
DEC 26, 2008 7:07PM
Playwright Harold Pinter died Dec. 24 in London at the age of 78. In
2005, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the Nobel
Committee lauded Pinter for “forc[ing] entry in oppression’s closed
rooms.” Rachel Shteir said that by focusing on his strident politics,
rather than on his plays, the committee was doing Pinter a great
disservice. Shteir’s piece is reprinted below.
[more ...]
SCRIPTING NEWS
Four movies and other follow-
ups
DEC 26, 2008 6:34PM
Yesterday was the NakedJen Film Festival in Salt Lake City and
Berkeley; it was also Christmas Day around the world.
The festival is for movie lovers wanting to indulge in a massive amounts
of movies on a day when many of the best movies of the year are
released.
In Berkeley, we went to four movies: 1. Gran Torino, 2. Doubt, 3. Time
Crimes and 4. Cadillac Records. By far, my favorite of the four was
Doubt. Wonderful acting from Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com 27 December 2008

Hoffman. Very subtle plot and fantastic writing.

I totally didn’t care for the last two, almost no substance to the story of
Cadillac Records, it felt to me a lot like W., very shallow, almost no
character development, at times I had no idea what to think about the
characters, and it’s not as if they were all strangers to me, I was a blues
fan growing up and saw Muddy Waters play a number of times, and
Chuck Berry is a hero of mine. I don’t know why people liked this movie,
I was hoping for something of the caliber of Walk The Line, that did
enough character development so I actually cared about the cast. I didn’t
like Dreamgirls or the Ray Charles biopic either, though they were well-
reviewed.

One other bit of housekeeping — a lot of people didn’t understand my

$249 pre-Christmas gadget quest piece, and thought I was asking instead
for a condescending lecture on charitable giving. Actually I wanted to
know your dreams for modestly priced electronic luxuries, not a big
ticket purchase like a 60-inch flatscreen or a new MacBook, but perhaps
something like a hard drive, iPod, but off the beaten path, something a
guy like myself might not have. I consider the piece a roaring success.
The most popular suggestion was to get a Flip camera, which I’m still
considering, even though I really like my Canon camera and can’t get too
excited about another picture-taker.
The Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Tornino, was nice, had a few
memorable moments and lines, and followed the general pattern of one
One thing was striking about the list was that there was almost nothing
of Eastwood’s earlier movies. I called it The Man With No Name at the
on it from Apple. Such a bad omen. I must have bought 10 or 15 Apple
Retirement Village (even though he was living in an old Detroit
products in 2007. I can’t think of a single Apple purchase I made this
neighborhood that was becoming an Asian ghetto). I wanted one more of
year. These days I can walk by an Apple store without going in. What
the old style Eastwood movies, a Dirty Harry for the ages, a bloodbath of
happened? Why have they stopped creating products that a guy like me
righteous vengeance. I really loved the old Eastwood, the new kind,
lusts for? In the last twelve months they haven’t created anything in the
compassionate and thoughtful, well, not so much.
Must Have category or even Nice To Have. That honor goes to Asus, I’ve
bought two netbooks, and find I’m open to buying almost anything they
All the movies we went to were highly reviewed, including Time Crimes,
offer.
which has a fairly predictable science fiction time travel plot up to a
point, and then it goes a bit further, and has a few small surprises, but
Anyway, I did find a gadget that I don’t have that I wanted, that I’m
nothing that makes up for the extreme low-budgetness of it, and
looking forward to getting! More on it when it arrives.
amateurish acting, and the fact that it’s in Spanish with sub-titles. I was
bored from beginning to end. Our other choice for this time slot in the
festivale, Synecdoche, New York, a Charlie Kaufman film, probably
would have been more entertaining, even though Kaufman movies
generally leave me unimpressed and weary of his self-obsession. SLATE MAGAZINE

I should also mention that I saw and loved Slumdog Millionaire, outside
the context of yesterday’s festivities; even though it was sort of spoiled by
a negative review on Fresh Air by New York film critic David Edelstein,
who thought (ridiculously) that the movie was ruined by the Bollywood
dance sequence under the titles at the end of the movie. I give Edelestein
a lousy review as a reviewer. The movie was lovely and disturbing.
What’s wrong with that? And it was great entertainment.
I still have to see Benjamin Button, Marley & Me, Bolt, Despereaux,
Rebecca’s Wedding, Body of Lies, and what else? What a year for
pictures!!
Are garbage disposals bad for
the environment?
DEC 26, 2008 3:38PM
I’m sorry to say I live in an apartment without a composter for organic
waste. Given the circumstances, am I better off feeding my leftover
mashed potatoes into the garbage disposal, so they don’t end up in a
landfill? Or should I throw them in the trash can, so they don’t end up
the water supply?

[more ...]

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com
SLATE MAGAZINE
The best Web sites to help you
scrimp through the recession.
DEC 26, 2008 3:29PM
In our not-so-distant time of plenty, the word frugal might have conjured
images of hardscrabble folks who’ve deliberately divorced themselves
from modern pursuits. The Amish live frugally; the rest of us may cut
back when times get rough, but when the world takes off again, we’ll be
right there to grab our share. With a historic recession affecting virtually
every industry, we are all Amish now, and frugality has become a
necessity. In search of tips on austere living, a couple of months ago I
stumbled upon Wise Bread, an entertaining two-year-old group blog and
user forum whose slogan is “Living large on a small budget.” From there,
an entire frugal world opened up to me—Frugal Dad, Frugal Village,
About.com’s Frugal Living blog, and many personal journals
documenting lives of cultivated asceticism.
[more ...]
SLATE MAGAZINE
Why are there are so few black
coaches in college football?
DEC 26, 2008 3:27PM
Last week, Charles Barkley accused Auburn University of race
discrimination after the school hired Gene Chizik as its next football
coach over Turner Gill. “I think race was the No. 1 factor,” complained
Barkley. “[Y]ou can’t compare the two résumés and say that Chizik
deserved the job.” Chizik—a white man who helped lead Auburn to a 13-
0 record in 2004 as the school’s defensive coordinator—had a 5-19
record in his two seasons as a head coach at Iowa State. By contrast,
Gill—an African-American—turned around the University of Buffalo, one
of the nation’s weakest football programs, and guided the team to a Mid-
American Conference championship. Not surprisingly, the school denies
that race was a factor in the hiring: Auburn’s athletic director, Jay
Jacobs, insists that Chizik was simply the “best fit” for the school. So,
who’s bluffing: Is Jacobs heading up an apartheid athletic program, or is
Barkley just playing the race card?
[more ...]
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27 December 2008
SLATE MAGAZINE
A garden coach can jump-start
your vegetable patch.
DEC 26, 2008 3:22PM
“There are several ways to lay out a little garden; the best way is to get a
gardener.”
[more ...]
SLATE MAGAZINE
Israeli cabinet approves a
limited Gaza Strip offensive;
horrifying massacre in LA
suburb.
DEC 26, 2008 2:21PM
The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with the Israeli
government issuing a stern warning against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel wouldn’t hesitate to use
force to retaliate if a series of recent rocket attacks continue. “I am telling
them now, it may be the last minute, I’m telling them stop it,” Olmert
said. “We are stronger.” USA Today leads with an in-house analysis that
reveals more than a third of top congressional staffers who left Capitol
Hill have gone on to work for groups that seek to influence the
government. Out of the 193 top staffers who have left the government
this year, 32 went on to register as lobbyists and 42 went to work for a
variety of other influence peddlers. The Los Angeles Times leads with
the horrifying killing spree that a man in a Santa suit launched at the
home of his ex-wife’s parents in a Los Angeles suburb. The man, who was
apparently angry following the divorce, killed at least eight people at the
Christmas Eve party and was found dead of a single gunshot to the head
in his brother’s home.
[more ...]
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR marshal.m1@gmail.com 27 December 2008

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