I often spend a little time over at Blogmaverick.com, where Mark Cuban recently sought to give the world of blogging a little of his insightful perspective. It seems that Mr. Cuban finds little to respect in the world of blogging, or at least in the world of slipshod ,cookie-cutter blogging. Though I found Mark's blog entry a trifle difficult to read, which is quite unusual coming from him, I nonetheless agree with most of the body of his post. I especially agree with his assertion that just because a blog is backed by the name of a well-known media organization does not in itself render that blog worthy of special notice.
Mark Cuban wrote, "...newspapers having 'bloggers' is easily one of the many bad decisions that newspapers have made over the past 10 years." If newspapers are going in a wrong direction by producing blogs, perhaps they need to reinstall the title reporter and drop the title blogger to give a different perspective to the reader. If newspapers are using the term blog simply as a culture hook, then they have it all wrong and they're just selling their reporters short. I believe that I'm in agreement with Mark Cuban when I say that true reporters should be releasing content within some format other than blogs. Blogging is what I do, and I'll be the first to tell you that I'm no reporter. The titles are absolutelynot interchangeable, though they may sometimes be used correctly in tandem.
Yesterday's big lead story in the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) questioning Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's ethics surrounding his relationship with a female lobbyist, was nothing more than a political hit job and not only did it backfire as McCain is raising money off this story but also sent shares of the Times' stock slipping more than 6%.
The Times stopped long ago being the paper that coined the phrase "all the news that's fit to print." The paper has turned into a mouthpiece of the far left wing in not just domestic but also foreign politics. Yesterday's article was a rehashed story from years ago that has been denied by everyone involved. How the editors of this story could have even published it is shocking.
What's the price of a blogger's soul? In some cases, it's as little as dinner with a guest at a nice restaurant.
According to The Wall Street Journal, "As online food sites become increasingly influential in the restaurant business, chefs and owners are plying bloggers with free meals to get good write-ups. Some are also posting favorable reviews about themselves on popular Web sites or becoming Internet scribes."
This is as clear a violation of journalistic ethics as you will find. Real food critics dine anonymously and pay their own bills -- a known critic is likely to receive special treatment, which of course could make their experience less than indicative of what their readers can expect.
And then there's another problem: Is it really possible to be objective in a review when you aren't feeling the sting of having paid for it?
Blogs are certainly giving the traditional media a run for their money. But in order for the coup to be successful, they will have to adopt some of the ethical standards of the traditional media. For what it's worth, this is the policy for all blogs in the Weblogs Inc. (owned by AOL; includes BloggingStocks) network:
Bloggers do not receive free products or services from the companies they write about.
Bloggers do accept review units (e.g., a new cell phone at Engadget, a video game at Joystiq, or a week-long car loan at Autoblog); however, when they're finished reviewing products, they return these items to the manufacturers. If the manufacturers do not take the items back, we give them to our readers. This is the same editorial policy as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.
Friday's Wall Street Journal talked about the efforts Democratic Presidential candidates are making to gain favor with some of the blogosphere's most prominent Democrats. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, blogs really are that influential nowadays. Senator Hillary Clinton has even sent her communications director on television to support Daily Kos, a liberal blog that has been highly critical of her campaign.
This got me to thinking: How much longer before lowly business bloggers like me can make an impact on corporate America? I've always wanted to launch a campaign against incompetent management at a company, and use the power of blogging to effect change. I've made several attempts at this here at BloggingStocks, but didn't generate much interest.
I believe that the internet, social networking, and blogging could be the catalysts for tremendous positive change in corporate governance -- something that I would argue is severely lacking at the majority of America's publicly-traded companies. I know of several small, grass-roots efforts that have generated some waves, but nothing major ... yet.
I believe that our day is coming though. Does anyone else here think bloggers are perfectly positioned to take on greedy and lackluster management?
Several sources have confirmed that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is in the closing stages of buying RSS management company FeedBurner. The start-up's traffic has increased over 200% in the past year, according to Hitwise. The company describes its business as Web-based tools to help bloggers, podcasters, and commercial publishers promote, deliver, and profit from their content on the Web.
Websites and blogs use FeedBurner to track RSS feeds and traffic to their sites. Google will pay about $100 million for the company.
The RSS feed business is one that has yet to be monetized, but FeedBurner does have a nascent advertising program. With the use of Google's Adsense program, this revenue could almost certainly be pushed up sharply.
Because FeedBurner is an important source of traffic and data for blogs, it also fits well into the Google Blogger platform, which is used to create millions of blogs. Many of these blogs use Adsense to get their revenue. With Feedburner, Google will have "one-stop shopping" that will offer RSS feeds, audience data, and advertising.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) could have used FeedBurner to enhance their relationship with the blog and RSS communities, but that's another story.
When it comes to the reporting of real-time news, blogs and bloggers are -- as many of the media is finally finding out -- a force to be reckoned with. When the Apple iPhone was unveiled this past Tuesday, much of the tech and business world was glued to the news to find out what Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs had up his sleeve. Or his turtleneck.
Sometimes, "the Steve" can shake the fortunes of markets and companies just by announcing products. Apple fans everywhere make as much noise as possible and Apple again demonstrates that it is a company tuned into the needs of consumers like no other.
But, MSNBC, Fox, CNN, the New York Times and other media outlets were not covering Apple's latest announcement in real-time that involved the long-anticipated mobile phone that may change several major industries this year and into the next. Nope, it was bloggers -- and the best one on the planet at covering live news like this is our sister blog over at Engadget, which covered the entire Macworld keynote address with Steve Jobs in perfect minute-by-minute fashion -- something standard news mediums could not (or would not) do.
Is blogging changing the face of media-n-things? As an investor, if you were tuned into Engadget's coverage as the iPhone was announced -- and bought AAPL shares as soon as that happened -- you'd be sitting on over 9% gains over a couple of days. 30 minutes later (for AP news releases, etc.) and you would have had less of a gain -- so who rocked the foundation of short-term investing this past Tuesday in San Francisco? The bloggers, that's who.
Do you spend the day glued to the your favorite finance news source, waiting for breaking stories to brighten your day? Are the stock quotes for your favorite companies always an Alt-Tab away? Do you know the difference between P/E and EPS and MSFT? Most importantly, are you passionate? And can you write with wit, charm and a tad bit of snark?
If this describes you, and you'd like to share your passion with the blogosphere, go to our main site and click on the "more info" button under the "Bloggers" tab. Don't forget to submit three samples of between 100 and 400 words.
I often spend a little time over at Blogmaverick.com, where Mark Cuban recently sought to give the world of blogging a little of his insightful perspective. It seems that Mr. Cuban finds little to respect in the world of blogging, or at least in the world of slipshod ,cookie-cutter blogging. Though I found Mark's blog entry a trifle difficult to read, which is quite unusual coming from him, I nonetheless agree with most of the body of his post. I especially agree with his assertion that just because a blog is backed by the name of a well-known media organization does not in itself render that blog worthy of special notice.
Yesterday's big lead 
When it comes to the reporting of real-time news, blogs and bloggers are -- as many of the media is finally finding out -- a force to be reckoned with. When the Apple iPhone was unveiled this past Tuesday, much of the tech and business world 
Do you spend the day glued to the your favorite finance news source, waiting for breaking stories to brighten your day? Are the stock quotes for your favorite companies always an Alt-Tab away? Do you know the difference between P/E and EPS and MSFT? Most importantly, are you passionate? And can you write with wit, charm and a tad bit of snark?
Yogi is right: Ninety percent of this (economics) game is half-mental
Is the market always right?
Comfort Zone Investing: How this all might play out
