Concerned Citizens

This past weekend if you surfed the NY Times website Sunday morning looking for information on the “Tea Party” march in Washington you probably were surprised to have a fake antivirus malware popup hit you warning you of virus problems. Many of us who saw the popup were shocked that a site with the reputation of the NY Times would have such a situation happen. Fortunately my browser, Google’s Chrome, prevented the malware from being loaded and installed on my computer and saved me hours of painful removal process. The NY Times did respond to the issue and removed the malicious ad from the site. But how could this have happened? Furthermore, how could a fake picture about the march in Washington be posted as legitimate? Ah, the false reality of the Internet. Read more…

Today was the last day of the largest political bloggers convention in the nation, Netroots Nation 2009. It started with a bang and ended with zzzzs for me. What made it even better was that I snuck a few learning sessions in on blogging and sausage making (aka the legislative process). Valerie Jarrett was our starting speaker and we had a panel on economics during lunch catered by the American Federation of Teachers. In the end exhaustion overtook me and I overslept and missed the closing session with Darcy Burner. Even without the closing session I can say this gathering was even better than last year’s. It accomplished the goal of recharging my blogging spirit, hopefully evidenced in the weeks to come. Read more…

Tomorrow I leave for what is almost a political blogger’s dream vacation. Okay, that does sound a little weird but if you are anything of a political wonk and like to write about it Netroots Nation is the perfect place to be, especially if you’re on the progressive side. For three solid days a bunch of progressive political bloggers from across the U.S. gather in August to share ideas, hear from key political figures and get a recharge to head back and cover the political landscape of our states, counties and cities. Some, such as founder Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos, will bring the conversation up to the national level. Others like KT Musselman, Matt Glazer, and David Mauro, all of the Burnt Orange Report, will bring us the scope at the state level. Regardless, for one weekend we’re just a bunch of political bloggers enjoying the time together. Read more…

Sunday in an article in the New York Times it seems that many people who start blogging either walk away from the experience or have reduced the number of blog postings published. “According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled,” states the article. Sometimes I wonder myself why I keep posting to this blog. Then I see something happening in the world around me and find I have to say something about it and the blog continues. But why should one blog and what makes a good blog? Read more…

Yesterday I decided to make some changes to my blog to position it for the future. The most significant change was the URL for the blog. Whereas before it was my personal domain name, I moved it to the name I had registered to match the name of the blog – Concerned Citizens. A few more changes and it’s running under the new name. That also allows it to grow should I start adding other contributors. It’s no longer about me any more. The other change may have been more subtle but got me thinking. I started incorporating other blogs in my blog roll on the right sidebar. What I discovered during that exercise was interesting. It made me ask the question of how long this blog would survive. Read more…

 
Facebook recently changed their platform to more resemble the Twitter style approach to news feeds. It’s commonly called microblogging and seems to be gathering traction in the social media space. Some view it as the future. I see it as just another tool in the social media toolbox. Use it where it makes the most sense. So when do you use blogging and when do you microblog? Read more…

I just got back from Kansas City after watching the 1st/2nd Rounds of the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament. While we didn’t have the wild ride games of Miami or other sites it was great to watch college basketball at the point where Cinderellas are made or giants fall. Memphis was one of those that almost fell during the first game of the tournament. They pulled it out against Cal State-Northridge and went on to handily beat Maryland in the 2nd round. I tried to post a few items in the blog during the trip and there’s a piece on KC’s strategic vision in an earlier post. For now I’m going to take a couple days break to regroup and recover. I’ve been traveling too much over the past three weeks and need to get a few things done around the house first. But I’ll be back in a few days.

Friday I attended a session at SXSW titled “The Ecosystem of News” presented by Steven Johnson, author of The Ghost and several other books. The session focused on the status of traditional media in a world that has become so connected with the largest number of content authors than ever before. Johnson compared the news media environment to an ecosystem where everything has some sort of effect on the other elements of the system. The question becomes what role each element plays within the ecosystem and what elements survive changes in the system. In other words, will traditional media survive these dynamic changes? Read more…

Just recently in a column by Jaime Castillo in the Express-News there were some comments regarding some of the various political blogs that have been started in the San Antonio community. While I haven’t found all of them one that has recently started up is the San Antonio Mayor blog that focuses on San Antonio issues. There’s also the Walker Report hosted by Judge Steve Walker and South Texas Chisme picks up San Antonio news in its list of postings. Along with those is the Burnt Orange Report, a fine progressive Democratic blog hosted by some current and former college students in Austin. All are fine blogs and carry their message in a unique sort of way. Read more…

Recently at work I started blogging on an internal site I called Mousetraps and Manifestos. It is intended to provide a perspective on things related to my job, my responsibilites and, in general, items that have an effect on my company. Up until a couple of days ago I was diligently posting an entry a day and had started to achieve a readership. People would comment, e-mail or call me about a particular item I blogged about. As I said, up until a couple of days ago. Now I am isolated and the effect has started to become devasting. Read more…