Much has been made of the ethics of bloggers who receive compensation -- usually in the form of demo units and trial versions of products -- in exchange for reviewing those products, often with the implicit understanding that the review is a positive one. These questions prompted an FTC investigation, and last fall the agency revised their
formal guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials to include bloggers or other "word-of-mouth" marketers. The Interactive Agency Bureau maintains that the guidelines are unconstitutional, and is calling for the FTC to
rescind the rules as they apply to bloggers and other online outlets. The latest casualty? An intern at TechCrunch asked for a MacBook Air in exchange for a post. In the wake of this revelation, TechCrunch fired the intern and issued a
formal apology. To his credit, the intern has posted his own
mea culpa.
posted by shiu mai baby
on Feb 5, 2010 -
69 comments
On August 16, 2008, a small plane carrying a young married couple and their flight instructor crashed in the Arizona desert. Doug Kinneard, the instructor, was killed in the crash; Stephanie and Christian Nielson survived, both severely burned. Prior to the crash, Stephanie's weblog, the NieNie Dialogues,
"had attracted a small but ardent following, thanks to its upbeat dispatches about marriage, home décor, entertaining and the art of raising four children ages 6 and younger." After the crash, with burns on over 80% of her body, she spent two months in a medically induced coma. One month later, she was
released from the hospital (link to Stephanie's sister's blog); one month after that, she
began blogging again. Stephanie's posts since then have chronicled her
gradual recovery, her re-integration into
her family, her
love and gratitude for her husband, and, finally, on the one-year anniversary of the plane crash,
herself. [more inside]
posted by granted
on Aug 16, 2009 -
61 comments
Happy
Vinyl Record Day, everyone. On this date in 1877, Edison invented the phonograph. To commemorate the date, a blogswarm of 22 of the best vinyl sharity blogs out there have come together to celebrate the legacy of the dominant recorded music format of the 20th century, led by jb of
The Hits Just Keep On Comin' and featuring
Flea Market Funk, Echoes in the Wind,
Funky 16 Corners,
Davewillieradio,
Good Rockin' Tonight,
Py Korry,
It's Great Shakes, (
bonus!),
Ickmusic,
Jefitoblog,
FuFu (
bonus!),
Lost in the 80's,
Three-Sixty-Five 45s,
Underground Vault of Records,
AM then FM,
The "B" Side,
In Dangerous Rythm (
bonus 1,
bonus 2),
You Must Be From Away, Got The Fever,
Retro Remixes,
Bloggerythms and finally
The Stepfather of Soul.
posted by jonson
on Aug 12, 2007 -
34 comments
Time magazine recently launched a new politics blog,
Swampland. The blog is, to this point, most interesting for its confrontations between the commenters and the bloggers. [m.i.]
posted by ibmcginty
on Jan 26, 2007 -
26 comments
One Day in History is a national blogging event organised by the
History Matters campaign in the UK. They want UK citizens (or anyone with UK ties) to blog a diary entry about their day today (17 October). The entries will be archived at the British Library, creating a snapshot of everyday life in 2006 for the bemusement of future generations.
posted by chrismear
on Oct 17, 2006 -
7 comments
CBC Blogging Manifesto Tired of waiting for CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, to come up with a blogging policy, CBC bloggers – including the infamous pseudonymous blogger
A. Ouimet – charge ahead and write one themselves.
posted by joeclark
on Aug 13, 2006 -
12 comments
A blog for everyone in Davos. "Every participant of the Annual Meeting – ranging from business leaders to political leaders, heads of NGOs, religious leaders academics and journalists – will be asked to join the Forum blog...All of the more than 2,000 participants, including presidents and prime ministers, will be asked to provide at least one posting for the
blog."
posted by nyterrant
on Jan 6, 2006 -
13 comments
Blogger gets fired. An NYC nanny was fired because of her blog. The twist? she worked for an Helaine Olen, an NY times style-section writer who wrote an article that started like this "
OUR former nanny, ... liked to touch her breasts while reading The New Yorker ... She took sleeping pills, joked about offbeat erotic fantasies involving Tucker Carlson and determined she'd had more female sexual partners than her boyfriend."
The nanny, saving money to get a PhD in english, chose to
respond
posted by delmoi
on Jul 17, 2005 -
210 comments
Blogs are bad, essays good. Yet another priesthood is taking defensive action, this time essayists. In this piece, the author argues, without much thought or precision, that the throughtful, precise essay is much, much better than those dirty blogs. With apologies to Bill Maher, NEW RULE: If you think Matt Drudge is a blogger and cite him as such, you've already lost the argument.
posted by baltimore
on May 15, 2005 -
20 comments
National Review's Heather McDonald responds to columnist Steven Levy's question:
Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem? "Could it be that the premise of the 'diversity' crusade is wrong—that there are not in fact hordes of unknown, competitively talented non-white-male journalists held back by prejudice? Don’t even entertain the thought. Steven Levy certainly doesn’t. 'It appears that some clubbiness is involved'—that is, that white male bloggers only link to other white male bloggers." Do we need a race-based quota for web journalism? As racial identity is often anonymous, where would we start?
posted by jenleigh
on Mar 30, 2005 -
59 comments
Remember this? It has won recognition as "Best Interactive Viral" in the
Viral Awards. With all the viral
1 and stealth
2 marketing campaigns, comment spam, astroturfing
3, and other tools that marketeers are using to infiltrate the Brave New(ish) World of blog, we sometimes forget that we also have the power to do good, so "
you know, like, reclaim the streets, or re-frame the conversation, or some damn thing". Words of wisdom from our not-so-subservient chicken.
[and, a bit more...]
posted by taz
on Mar 26, 2005 -
20 comments
Are Blogs to Blame? Tom Regan, Associate Editor of the Christian Science monitor wrote an interesting
piece referencing the latest findings of
the Feb 2005 Harris Poll showing that more and more Americans (64%) *still* think that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al-Qaida. Tom's piece proposes that too many Americans are getting their "news" from sources -- including blogs -- that are tainted with right-wing opinion. Tom proposes that blogs share a large responsibility for confusing readers and blurring the lines between news and opinion. On this same topic, last week Editorial Cartoonist Ted Rall wrote
an Op/Ed piece last week on blogs that primarily talks about the dangers of the right-wing blogger "lynch mob." Does the sphere of right-wing blogs far outweigh the sphere of influence of left-wing blogs? And is this something that is worrisome? Are blogs a danger to further polarizing public opinion? What do you think?
posted by popvulture
on Mar 4, 2005 -
52 comments
Grandfather of the personal blog freaks out at age 30, after spending 11 years writing about the most
in
tim
ate
de
tai
ls of his life. From
the beginning, he was always brutally honest in a time long before it became so commonplace, before any of us knew where this internet business would take us. Naturally he recorded said freakout on video for the world to see, and more or less
shut down his
storied site. Can we take this kind of display at face value? Is it a bad case of someone substituting net life for the real thing? Is it all just effete whining? Or is this a genuine case of two loves colliding, and a man forced to make a difficult choice?
posted by drpynchon
on Feb 7, 2005 -
42 comments
Web of Influence Every day, millions of online diarists, or “bloggers,” share their opinions with a global audience. Drawing upon the content of the international media and the World Wide Web, they weave together an elaborate network with agenda-setting power on issues ranging from human rights in China to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. What began as a hobby is evolving into a new medium that is changing the landscape for journalists and policymakers alike. Hmm. Big Talk or should I get a clue & with the program ? Decisions, decisions....
posted by y2karl
on Nov 4, 2004 -
15 comments
Dan Rather: : "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story. Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'" (reg. req.)
Andrew Sullivan: "Memo to Rather: you can't break that story, because someone else in pajamas already did. Check the frequency, Kenneth. You are so far from being out front on this, you are leagues behind in the dust. Have you heard of the Internet? You can find it on that weird machine in your office they call a computer."
Me: Is anyone else astonished as I am at how far CBS seems to have its head up its ass WRT news media in the 21st century?
posted by ericost
on Sep 16, 2004 -
128 comments
