Tweet it old school: A newswire for everyone

Important people with interesting, relevant things to say, seem like the type that would be given a highly sophisticated newswire service that was capable of updating new information from any location, at any time of day. Yet, what is important to you may mean nothing to me and so on and so forth. So who deserves a newswire?

How about everyone - and at no extra charge beyond regular communication fees.

Despite the ease of obtaining such a newswire, many people scoff at the idea-- mostly because they fail to believe a group of people would exist that would want to hear constant updates from their daily lives. Though, if asked, these same people would tell you they aren't uninteresting or boring (I'd presume). Some of these people will cite the excessive time it would take to maintain a constantly updating newswire-like service as reason enough not to bother with it. Whatever the excuse may be, these services are out there and giving those that use it a definitive advantage by knowing things before anyone else.

I'm speaking of a crop of social networking services that emphasis the concept of “micro communication” that is less active than a phone or instant messaging conversation but not as passive as e-mail and the traditional hand-written letter. Pownce, Plurk and Twitter are among those services transforming the way people communicate during a busy work day without sacrificing time or energy.

Twittering and why it's necessary

I've not written about twitter for this site but I really and truly should have by now. Ultimately I haven't had the time and/or mental capacity due to frequent use of the social service that is not restricted to just the web.

Twitter works like this:
Cram an entire message or communication into 140-characters (note: not words) and send out to the world for consumption by friends, colleagues, associates and other like-minded individuals that have the option to “follow” your messages through out the day. The format is perfect for text messaging and by adding a cell phone to an account, you can actually update from anywhere--making it a virtual newswire.

The 140-character limit may seem annoying, however, this journalist and many others view it as a challenge. (Essentially, you are writing all ledes or all memorable quotes for a collected edition of witty remarks, etc.)

As for the content of the messages, almost anything goes. Want to give updates on the PGA tour to friends stuck in business meetings all day? You can now do that. How about the writer in an empty office who enjoys the comfort of a staff to bounce ideas off of as they work? You've got a group of people all paying attention. Plain silliness? That's doable too.

Truthfully, the service is extremely versatile because of its imposed limitations. The only thing that is never acceptable is shameless self promotion through trickery and spam. bloggers who frequent the twitter service usually send links to their articles immediately after they post them. They usually post just once, perhaps twice. Often times Twitter can even be described as a human powered RSS feed, so spam gets dealt with immediately.

What you are left with is a group of people you find useful/interesting/relevant who update you through out the day. In my case it's sparked new relationships and opportunities as well.

So I'm not really sure why anyone would prefer not to bother themselves with using twitter or a similar service. If you're a writer (especially the non-fiction variety) check out twitter for a week and see if it hasn't proven invaluable on at least one occasion.

-TechGOnzo

News media, meet your pioneer

Imagine you're a young journalist who gets called in over the weekend to do a story on education and the state budget because half the staff is out with a nasty flu bug. Also, your regular beat is covering high school sports.

If you were this particular reporter, the appropriate expression would normally be “oh shit.” (See also, "this ought to be interesting")

However, if you are David Cohn, then you'd imagine a fix for this particular predicament and proceed to blog about it on 1 of 5 different social community sites.

I spoke with him briefly, and then proceeded to check out his blog digidave.org, which contains his commentary journalism. He covers all aspects of the profession in relation to technology. It's extremely refreshing and accurate.

After reading several posts on various sites, I find myself wishing someone would give David a million dollars then proceed to lock him into a computer lab with a team of the best coders and a sleek innovative designer. Stir rigorously for one week, and then let them out. I'm pretty sure the result of such an experiment would remake the news media entirely the way Google did for the Internet.

If you've ever wondered why news media hasn't figured out how to make the web work for them in a big way, then I'd highly recommend checking out his daily thoughts.

Here's a quick description for two of his sites:

Digidave.org - Cohn's personal blog
Sample post, Quote:
“Am I a journalist or a blogger? My answer: Both - they aren't mutually exclusive. Every time people ask me what I do - if I'm tired and don't want to go into it, I sigh and say I'm a “blogger.“ But I know that isn't the truth...Give Bob Woodward a blog - and he is still a journalist. Give my mother her own print product - she is still not a journalist (sorry mom).”

Beatblogging.org - Experiment in beat reporting with social networks
Sample post, Quote:
“...Figure out social networks. How do the work, whats the ebb and flow, how do you gently lead one, how do you deal with trolls, etc. This is the skill set that isn't taught on the job right now but will become increasingly important.”

-TechGOnzo

Image Comics founder among citizens of Diggnation

Rob Liefeld and I are friends...at least on the social news networking site digg.com.

Apparently we share the same appreciation for news coverage on the Vatican's decision to place a statue of Galileo in its hallways-- as an apology of sorts after putting him to death for telling people the earth wasn't the center of the universe.

ANYWAYS, I read the story and decided to click the “digg it” button embedded into the browser, which was registering at 1 digg. The submitter was one “RobLiefeld” but I really never considered that it was actually the famous comic book artist that I knew in my youth as the guy who drew cool, bad ass mutants with huge shoulder pads and even bigger guns. As best I can tell, this user is the real deal. I arrived at this conclusion only after reading some of his comments to other posts.

All of them were a bit off color, cocky and reeked with sullen elitism...all the signs of a genuine comic book fanboy. Either this was the Rob Liefeld who drew about 25 percent of all art that hung on my wall when I was nine-years-old, or someone who can fake being him really well.

It actually makes perfect sense that Liefeld is somewhat of an active digg user. The truth is that he's got a lot in common with both Kevin Rose and the former Tech TV crew (in regards to starting a revolution of sorts--- specifically to Rose's departure from the G4 television network.) While Rose believed in the work he did while at Tech TV, his conviction was extinguished when the network was re-branded, which meant it was moving in a direction (one would assume it would be called the wrong direction if you visited the exodus message board of old Tech TV fans ) that might hinder future aspirations.

If you don't know who Liefeld is, then you are probably not one of the four million people who purchased* a copy of X-Force #1 or had no interest in super-hero comics in the '80s and `90s. Aside from his creative talent, he also helped bring about a revolution in graphic literature into the modern age of technology.

X-odus or Exodus?

In 1992, Liefeld and a group of white-hot talented artists quit their day jobs at Marvel Comics to start a new company appropriately called Image. The movement was dubbed the X-odus.

Instead of taking the cheap route of printing comics with the minimum cost, the company chose to utilize the best technology of the time. Gone were pages of crappy paper and low DPI color printing. The image books were glossy pages in high-resolution. Marvel and DC soon had to follow Image's lead to ensure their place at the top (eventually leading to a new era of foiled, holographic, lithographed books---A.K.A. Expensive Crap)

Usually the credit for this new era of comics goes to Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri, Whilce Portacio, Jim Valentino and Erik Larsen who are all among the Image Comics founding members. Each have had great success with the studios they set up with the company over a decade ago. Some would even argue that Liefeld has the least of all the contributions since his work never really took off in the way the others did.

Critics describe his Image work harshly by saying:

“...contained elements that became Image stereotypes: huge muscles, breasts, and guns. However, Youngblood immediately began to suffer from delayed publication dates and major changes in direction.”

I find it hard to believe that Liefeld's role was anything less than absolutely essential to the movement that began the Image imprint.

Rather than looking at the longevity of Liefeld's creative projects, look at the campy-ass New Mutants series written by Chris Claremont about five years into it's run. That book was worthless by most standards and probably only survived as long as it did out of nostalgia for the times when stories were actually good. It was a throwback when Liefeld got put on the book. My thinking is that they didn't much care what he did because they expected it to fail anyways. It didn't.

Eventually the campy team of goofy mutant kids was transformed into a a stronger, better and prettier force of warriors. They had a purpose and a new direction that did not mesh well with the classic old guys' methodology. It was X-Force and it sold more copies of its first issue than any other book Marvel had published at that time.

If you look at what happened in the next few years, you'd know that Liefeld was probably channeling the energy he'd later take with him to help form that new company---the Image founders, perhaps, a version of X-Force in the real world. All that frustration of big box corporate comics was building and, in turn, producing some great stuff that had never been seen before.

When I reached high school I remember even harsher criticism of Liefeld when he took on the “Heroes Reborn” story line back at Marvel. Mostly it was of industry guys and other creators reiterating the less than complimentary points I've mentioned above. A hand full even described him as the center of his own universe.

Unlike Galileo, no one has ever figured out a way to execute him for crimes of heresy. However, if they do find a way, I'll expect history to repeat itself by having a Liefeld bust or statue installed into the Image Comics office.

-TechGOnzo

*I'm well aware that it was probably closer to 1.5 million people who actually purchased a copy of X-Force at initial publication in mass quantities of around 4 million...and that's still lotsa damn books.

Innovative way to socialize about music

The two most frequent questions I was asked while attending a social gathering in college were: "So what kind of music do you listen to?" and "What was your name again?" in that order. Depending on your response to the first question, the second one may not even be asked.

My most common response was "Pat Benatar" and "John Mayer," which rarely garnered me a second question. Yes this is because I had the unfortunate experience of attending a college filled with "music kids." Mostly I couldn't relate anything to them because I did not share musical aspirations nor did I want the pleasure of paying $5 cover after $5 cover to attend shitty shows.

If thesixtyone.com had been around back then, I presume that things would have been much different.

One part pretentious music kid, two parts digg.com, thesixtyone.com is a social music Web site allowing undiscovered artists to upload their songs for people to hear. After creating a free profile on the site, users then listen to said music and give it a "bump" if they like it. Songs with the most bumps hit a front page of sorts, which consists of other popular tracks.

The site also goes further than a social news site by mimicking the elitist* behavior of discovering new bands. You start out with 99 points which can be subtracted or added depending on your actions. Bumping a new artist costs 33 points, but listening to new artists also gains you points. If and of these artists gain in popularity you get points for that too.

When surfing this site I feel like I've finally found a sufficient way to socialize about the concept of music. I loath most conversation because it just seems so inadequate considering the medium. Perhaps if reality were a musical I'd change my tune.

Yes, I know that wasn't funny.

-TechGonZO

*I'm a huge comic book geek so no matter what you think I'm a bigger elitist.