Scowling in the Dark: The Other Side of Blogging

"“I wanted to bring their intimate worlds to the outside public.”

-Photographer Gabriela Herman to Wired in interview, "Bloggers"

I put this on my scoop.it out of laziness, but afterward I felt that itchy and irritating blogger's "responsibility" to write it up because the topic is so close to me.

Humor me ››

AdVerve Episode 13: Bloggers Suck

It’s harder for us to title these things anymore since we go off in so many different directions in each show now. The timestamp breakdown gives you a semblance of what we covered, from dudes who love cars a little too much to my new giggity-giggity* gigs.

The topics we spend the most time on include how blogs are still not taken seriously by “real” journalists (or some ad agencies), and the fear about being too open on them. The show devolves into a cultural ceviche from there.

We also have back a regular feature, 5 Minutes With..., featuring Matt McDermott of Renegade. (Follow him on Twitter as well as on the agency's blog.)

Humor me ››

Air Force Flow Chart for Blogging Engagement

And it's actually pretty good, actually. V-v-via.

Don't you just love flow charts though? There are only ever a handful of variables in a given bubble, and all you have to do is pick a variable and follow through.

A well-made flow chart can solve all the troubles in the universe. (In the event that you do not believe...)

The Guy's On Point.

Yong Fook is the lead developer at Sweetcron,* an open source service that enables you to consolidate your updates -- from blogs, Twitter, flickr, YouTube, wherever -- on a single page. (Imagine if Friendfeed and Tumblr had a really pretty, automated baby composed of all your internet bits.)

In the video above Fook discusses blogging's past, present and future. You've probably felt the crux of his argument already: you started a blog, and maybe let it die because sites like Facebook already aggregate your whole life.

Aggregation's where it's at -- the question is, how best to cultivate and package your aggregated material for the consumption of others? And is there a way to divide the personal and professional? Post-Facebook, should we even care about that anymore?


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*I am playing with it now. Most of the time it drives me crazy, but that's only because I lack the tech skills to really leverage it. See Yong Fook's homepage to get a sense of how it works.

Watch While I Distill a Story and LINK BACK.

For those that have been following the teacup-tempest, no formal guidelines were formed between the Associated Press and bloggers -- which will most likely continue excerpting bits of Associated Press subscription content at will.

Last week the AP and the Media Bloggers Association were supposed to meet to negotiate some kind of good-faith agreement on legitimately quoting paid content. No meeting occurred. Probably for the better: most bloggers were against it anyway, because the AP shouldn't be able to make content use restrictions that are more stringent than actual fair use law (see Wikipedia hash-out on that snaggly bad-boy).

AP says it continues to conduct "constructive [exchanges]" with members of the blogging community, but the MBA is just happy nobody had to go to court.

On Being a Blogger

One of the weirdest things about being a stay-at-home "online publications editor" (a.k.a. "blogger") is you develop a warped relationship with The World Outside.

It becomes strange to meet people that aren't on Twitter. ("I've heard of that. What is it?")

Like a 16-year-old teeny bopper, your ears perk up every time somebody in a 500-yard radius mentions Facebook.

You find your relational skills wanting when people ask about work. But God forbid they venture to introduce advertising -- worse still, Google or Apple -- into the conversation. Like one of Pavlov's dogs responding to the dinner bell, you're suddenly frighteningly animated. Aggressive. Opinionated. Passionate.

And the problem is, nobody else will be. Because they have real jobs involving spreadsheets and mergers and affairs. They will observe you in polite interest, the way one would a monkey playing with its own feces, and tactfully locate the nearest exit.

All those topics that made you a charming college co-ed -- the opinions on Shakespeare, on socialism, on Adorno and jazz? Out the bloody window. (Where did they go?)

It probably doesn't help that you've come to think of showers as optional. You've also developed violent feelings about the consistency of morning coffee, and thrice-worn pairs of socks no longer strike you as dirty.

What's more, you've come to understand that the charming vices of writers in history were not idly cultivated. You, too, have begun to chain smoke and drink before noon, mostly to stave off the abject (but romantic) creative loneliness.

Every once in awhile you'll come across a grad school kid who goes, "What you do is really cool!" And then she'll embark upon some misguided rant about a paper that's due tomorrow. And you will glare. Because that paper-due feeling she so loathes? That is your life. Every. Day. FOREVER.

Once sufficiently alienated among outsiders, you gravitate to the nearest computer, or whip out your BlackBerry and compulsively check email in an effort to look busy.

Congratulations: you have become the walking, talking, less interesting shadow of your website.

Why Children Are Dangerous

I was thinking recently about how most of my relatives don't really understand what I do. A conversation with a dowager auntie typically falls something like this:

"You mean you make webpages?"

"No," I say. "I write ad and technology news for webpages that already exist."

"So if I am having trouble with my page, or if I want to put pictures on it, I call you?"

"No. I write and edit content. You know, like a magazine editor? Like that, except on the Internet."

"Oh." I can practically see the wheels turning: Magazine editor. Sounds successful. Dot com crash - not so much.

The cool thing about nobody understanding what you do is no one is ever really sure whether or not you can be counted among the successful. It's not like it's super obvious, like my cousin the doctor versus my cousin the car salesman.

So, reserving their surrogate proud-parent faces, my relatives just approach me with a look of polite perplexity. I can roll with perplexity.

But kids are trickier. They're not looking for bragging rights; they're looking for the meat of things. And it's their right: after all, this is the world they're about to acquire.

Last month before the move to Ithaca, I was sitting in my pyjamas at my parents' kitchen table, my ass welded there since five-to-the-AM and typing furiously. Around 8ish, which is when people chez Natividad start wandering out into the open, my 10-year-old sister Charysma appeared on the scene. She watched me tap, then dragged her little feet to the living room, where she typically waits for my father to wake up and make her garlic bread.

A break in the silence: "Angel?"

I stopped typing and turned to her. "Yes?"

"Why is blogging your job?"

Pause. Something in my brain was not clicking.

"What?" I said.

Charysma, patiently: "Why. Is it. Your job. To blog?"

This is one of those questions you should always be ready to answer. For some reason, I wasn't.

I faltered. She saw.

"I write about new things that happen in the world," I said stupidly.

Head-tilt. "Why?" she asked.

"Because people want to read them."

"Why?" she asked.

I didn't have a response prepared for that, either. Of course I know why, obliquely anyway. But point-blank like this, I need note cards or something. I just kept thinking, I don't want to be one of those adults who pushes a kid down a well for asking a valid question...

Any number of answers would have worked. Because it's useful to others' jobs. Because the material is interesting. Because even grown-ups need to hear stories.

"Because I want to," I said.

Pause.

"Oh," she said. Then, thankfully, Pops appeared. "I want garlic bread," she commanded, changing tacks immediately.

Sweet relief.