Who’s Reading What
Matt Yglesias notes that bloggers and others who write for the Web lack a luxury of those who write for print: "nobody has any idea who’s reading them." Whereas there are detailed metrics about pageviews on the Web, all print has to go on is circulation figures. So they can blithely assume that their long features and hard news and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 25, 2009 17:19
Outed Liskula Cohen Blogger Sues Google
Remember when Liskula Cohen forced Google to reveal an anonymous blogger who was using their domain to call her a "skank" and suggest she performed lewd sex acts? Naturally, now that she has been outed -- as Rosemary Port, a Fashion Institute of Technology student -- is suing Google for violating her privacy. "This has become a public spectacle ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 24, 2009 07:04
Liskula Cohen Forces Google to Reveal Anonymous Blogger
A Vogue cover model of whom I'd never previously heard and does not conform to my preconceptions of what a Vogue cover model looks like has won a lawsuit against Google over an anonymous former blogger who called her names on the Internet. A Vogue cover girl has won a precedent-setting court battle to unmask an anonymous blogger who called her ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 20, 2009 09:04
3 Ways to Avoid Drowing in Information
Steve Rubel offers "Three Tips for Managing the Stream Before it Manages You." Between email, blog feeds, Twitter, Facebook, and various other applications out there, we've all got too much information to contend with. Those of us in the information business are even more overwhelmed because we both need to follow more things and figure out ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 19, 2009 10:09
Two Political Blogospheres
Two blogging conventions, Netroots Nation (the successor to Daily Kos) and RightOnline, are being held in Pittsburgh this week. As Timothy McNulty reports for the Post-Gazette, they're different in ways other than politics. The RightOnline conference starting tomorrow morning at the Sheraton Station Square will have about a quarter of the 2,000 attendees at the liberal conference in the convention center, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 13, 2009 10:47
Jeff Jarvis Has Cancer: Robots Attack
Longtime blogosphere stalwart Jeff Jarvis has announced that he has prostate cancer. Thankfully, they caught it early and he's got access to the most advanced treatment options. I’m opting for robotic surgery – geek that I am, how could I not? My only fear is that they’ll wheel me into the O.R. and I’ll see that the machine is powered by Dell. I’ve ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 10, 2009 13:29
Andrew Sullivan Goes Off-Grid
Andrew Sullivan has been blogging nearly ten years now and notes "it's grueling month after month being responsible for up to 300 posts a week." So he's taking a month off to avoid burn-out. Which is fine, of course. Sully is as prolific as any blogger out there. Indeed, Jim Henley argues, he likely blogs too much. (He said the same ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 10, 2009 09:39
Announcement
After long contemplation and discussion with my family, I have decided to continue working. Further, I will not be attending training camp with the Minnesota Vikings. I had to be careful not to commit for the wrong reasons. I'm 43 with a lot of time in front of the computer. The problem with going to work every day for twenty-odd years ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 28, 2009 17:26
You Know You Got it When You’re Going Insane
Norm Geras (who just celebrated his 6th blogging anniversary) points us to this hilariously annoying SPIEGEL interview with Wired editor Chris Anderson: SPIEGEL: Mr. Anderson, let's talk about the future of journalism. Anderson: This is going to be a very annoying interview. I don't use the word journalism. SPIEGEL: Okay, how about newspapers? They are in deep trouble both in the United States ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 28, 2009 12:07
New Atlanticist Roundtable: Transatlantic Alliance
Those of you in the DC area are invited to attend the first New Atlanticist Roundtable at the Atlantic Council today from 11-12:30. We'll be discussing the big issues faced by the transatlantic alliance including: Is NATO expansion over? Can NATO survive losing Afghanistan? and What will French reintegration mean for the alliance? In addition to myself, participants include Christian ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 22, 2009 08:24
Bush’s Third Term
My first piece for The National Interest, "Bush's Third Term," is now up. It catalogs the remarkable continuity between Barack Obama's foreign policy and that of his predecessor. The closer: Through some combination of political calculation and genuine misunderstanding, Obama campaigned against a caricature of Bush’s foreign policy. Early in Bush’s second term, he began quietly shifting away from the so-called neoconservatives, and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 22, 2009 07:47
The Biggest Obstacle to Blogging
Megan McArdle reports that she has had a fourth bicycle stolen since moving to DC, all of them locked, all of them at her home, the most recent inside a stockade fence. In frustration, she observes, "I think I'm done with bike commuting. I'd rather just hand out $100 bills to random people on the street; at least I ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 21, 2009 13:47
Iraq War Casualty Predictions
Tim Lambert linked some prewar Iraq War casualty predictions collected by John Hawkins in early 2003: If we go into Iraq, how many casualties do you expect to see (on the side of the US and our allies) John Hawkins: "Probably 300 or less" Charles Johnson:"Very few" Henry Hanks: "Less than 200" Laurence Simon: "A Few hundred" Rachael Lucas: "Less than three thousand" Scott Ott: "Dozens" Glenn Reynolds: ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 17, 2009 07:39
Hilzoy Retires
Since I check Memeorandum before Google Reader most mornings, I saw Hilzoy's post "Bare-Faced Go-Away Bird" there first. I glanced at it before going on to other posts but resolved to write something snarky about how it was quite likely that it was the first time the phrase "I'm going to Rwanda this weekend, on vacation" had ever been ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 14, 2009 08:40
Blogging is Hard
Bernard Finel has been trying this blogging thing for a while and finds that it's harder than it looks. He notes that even very short posts require quite a bit of effort. Even short posts take me forever. Not writing the text, per se, but I think most posts are useful if you include a couple or three links to relevant ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 7, 2009 07:50
