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Wall Street Journal had an interesting article in yesterday’s business section on the growing numbers of Americans who make money by blogging. This includes people who blog on their spare time and professional bloggers for corporations (assuming it is now safe to call blogging a standardized profession?).
Mark Penn (the article’s author) has a rosy outlook on blogging, suggesting that it could be a product of the Information Age with the most profound effect on American culture. As exciting as that is, I’m not sure I want American society being shaped by some of the top-rated blogs: Perez Hilton (#26), I Can Haz Cheezburger (#21), or TMZ (#13).
Well actually, that’s manipulation of statistics. The top ten blogs (as rated by Technorati) cater far less to prurient interests. But, unlike much of the information cranked by the Fourth Estate, they are more opinion-driven than fact-driven. So it seems to me that blogs are affecting our opinions more than anything. Because now I can type my opinions out and blast them to most regions of the earth, without earning journalism credentials, or even changing out of my pajamas. And you know what they say about opinions… Everyone has them.
So… as much as I love the blogosphere, I hope it doesn’t impact American culture, so much as it impacts the state of American opinion. You know, making it researched, fully-fleshed and well-rounded. (This is by no means a critique of Americans or our opinions, I just think we can always stand to be better informed, you know?)
Here’s a quick run-down of some of the more interesting parts of the article:
· One out of three young people reports blogging, but bloggers who do it for a living successfully are 2% of bloggers overall
· It takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000 a year
· In Washington alone, there are now 79% fewer DC-based employees of major newspapers than there were just few years ago (At the same time, Washington is easily the most blogged-about city in America, if not the world)
· For sites at the top, the returns can be substantial. At some point the value of the Huffington Post will no doubt pass the value of the Washington Post
Click here to read the article: America’s Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire
Today I was honored at a reception for Boston University Student Employee of the Year nominees. I intern in the education department of the Huntington Theatre Company (a Boston University partner), which is a huge, huge organization. So it feels special just to be noticed in the first place. But to be counted among the students that won the award at the reception today was very special.
These students were exemplary employees at any age or academic level. There were tutors, student managers, and resident advisors in the group. Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore stopped by the event to thank us for our work and share his own experiences as a student employee. The reception was a great way to begin wrapping up my internship with the Huntington, which has brought many unexpected opportunities my way.
The reception was also a perfect way for Boston University to acknowledge National Student Employment Week. Hopefully, you show some love to your student interns and let them know how much you appreciate their work!
…I don’t see how anyone does it. I can barely remember Comcast channels to get my morning Golden Girls fix, let alone words and sentences and grammar and syntax and punctuation
I have some new posts planned for the week, which for me should kick in around Tuesday:
· Ode to the Sims 2, top-selling, awesome-est video game of all time
· Live-blogging from the ER, how I spent my Saturday night
I am still trying to get into the Bobby Pens groove. Every time I want to focus on PR or social and new media, Tyra Banks does something fantastic on her show. And I get the urge to write about it. I appreciate singularly focused blogs, so it keeps me on the edge of my seat when I think about the many courses this blog could run. But blogging is exciting and I’ve had so much fun starting this blog and getting involved in the Twitter-sphere (twitter.com/BobbyPens). I’m meeting awesome people and learning a lot. My next goals are to buy a domain name or two and to try my hand at website construction. Any pointers you have, I’m all ears! Seriously. Nothing but ears here, folks.
[This post will far exceed my self-imposed limit of 300 words… I couldn’t help it! This was a convergence of two of my favorite things in the entire world and it is all I can do to keep myself from writing a book.]
I’ve said many times before that I think the universe communicates with me through the Tyra Banks Show. Every time I’m going through drama in my life, Tyra does a show on it. And when I need some general catharsis, this show provides it in 60 minutes or less. The universe delivered AGAIN. Tyra did a show on Twitter (and Facebook). Message received, universe: spend more time online.
I’m going to recap some of the many highlights of this episode, in hopes that you appreciate this show’s dedication to thoroughness. They left no stone unturned in getting some thoughtful commentary… Well at least for Facebook anyway.
“So everybody’s on Facebook, right?”
A lot of the show was dedicated to discussing Facebook and by the end I realized I was one of the “haters that are lovers” of Facebook—a complicated emotional state that only Tyra could put into words so eloquently. The audience was audibly impressed by news of the social networking site’s 100 million user growth in just eight months. (For more on that, read this). Tyra gave a shout-out to her Facebook fan page (I’m so upset I knew nothing about this before). And we were introduced to Julian Smith, creator of a pretty awesome YouTube clip “25 Things I hate About Facebook” (which borrows from the plague-like viral Facebook meme “25 Things About Me.”
Discussion of some of the awful things we put up with to use Facebook (like being “poked” by strangers) prompted Tyra to give us the “Five Rules of Facebook,” a comprehensive guide to Facebook etiquette:
1) Only tag a photo of your friend with their permission
2) Only make friend requests of people that you actually know (Don’t they know “to friend” is the correct verb here?)
3) Relationship status changes must be mutual
4) Do not write inappropriate stuff on your friends’ walls
5) Do not over-poke people, especially strangers
Other Facebook-centric segments included: a Tyra Show staff member who changes his coworkers’ pages when they leave their computers, a woman who broke up with her boyfriend by changing her relationship status, and a girl meeting her brother for the first time after first connecting on Facebook. By this point, I was tired of Facebook all over again. Move on to Twitter, please!
Again, the universe obliged.
“Are you obsessed with Twitter?”
About 6 people in the studio audience cheer at the mention of Twitter as the next segment rolls along. How sad… You could tell Twitter sounded like the geekiest waste of time on the planet to the women in this audience. They responded with horror and possibly disgust upon learning you can Tweet from your phone. Um, it’s 2009. How is that a foreign concept, people?
Ugh, never mind. Cut to Tony and Ashley, a couple experiencing a romantic downswing because of Tony’s Twitter obsession (the audience was like, “Geek!” I was like, “I feel you, brother.”). Leave it to Tyra to host “television’s first ‘Twittervention.’” Does everyone recognize the genius here? Okay, then I will move on…
I later “bumped into” Tony on Twitter, who was—what else—monitoring conversation about the show. I felt guilty Tweeting back and forth with him after seeing the show. That’s what you just got in trouble for, Tony!
Anyway, Tony gave me the green light to share his experience on the Tyra Banks Show, which he wrote about on his blog. You can also see a clip of the segment. You’ve got to love a man that gives his mom a shout-out! The only thing they were missing on this segment was a couch. They really needed to conduct the Twittervention with Tony sitting on a couch.
No matter, the last of my observations before I begin to wrap things up is a correction. “Tweet” is a noun AND a verb! We can’t go confusing non-Tweeters like that by not properly discussing the grammar involved in sending “tweets” or getting all “twitterriffic” (err, maybe I’m the only one who uses that).
Potent Quotables
Alright, can I just share some of my favorite quotes by one of the most quotable women on one my favorite episodes of one of my favorite shows of all time? Okay great, thanks!
· “Haters that are lovers on the internet”
· “Does the building look like, like, the homepage of Facebook?” (She asks Julian, about his visit to the Facebook studio)
· “…So you don’t even want to date her? So you’re gonna be celibate and not date at all?” (This was directed to the guest whose girlfriend broke up with him via Facebook relationship status. I was so with her on this. His lost: to the left, to the left!
· “If you are creepy, you must suppress your inner-creepiness!” (When writing on Facebook walls)
· And lastly, this AWESOME description of Twitter: “Twitter allows users to let people follow them all day long by constantly updating their status and answering the question ‘What are you doing? What are you doing? …I’m sitting on the Tyra show. What are you doing? …I’m scratching my ankle. What are you doing? …I’m feeling for naps in the back of my hair.’” (Stir, simmer, and stew in the awesome, won’t you?)
This was by far my second favorite episode in the history… of… the Tyra Banks Show (my first favorite was “Black Men in America”… and incidentally, my third favorite was the one with Patti Labelle and Brandy. Yes I keep track of these things!) I’ll just politely ask that The Tyra Show covers this topic like once a month. So I can keep finding excuses for the time I spend doing the things I do.
So what’d you think of the show? Comment, and let me know what you think of the recaps, xoxo
So I’m still fumbling around this blog, getting into my guh-rooove thing. I really like the concept of live-blogging because I love taking notes. (Yes, you should sit near me in that 8 a.m. lecture on communications law).
I watch pretty much every episode of the Tyra Banks Show now that I’ve been blessed with a DVR. Before that, I just scheduled my classes around it…
Why not do something more productive with my “Tyra-Time”? Haha, okay, well something that at least makes me feel productive.
Some notes on how I plan to live-blog:
· I know… this isn’t technically liveblogging because I’m not watching a live event and I’m not in actually in the studio during taping (weep). So I’m just going to stick that “semi” in there and go on about my business.
· My timestamps are somewhat arbitrary, I have no way of knowing when each aired segment really happened, so I instead give the place in the DVR recording. Six minutes into the program is 0:06, and so on. Not exactly military precision, but it gets me by.
· My method: I take notes on the show as I watch, and type them up. Then I clean it up before I post. Again, I think this goes against the true nature of live-blogging, because it’s not a live recap of what I’m seeing, but it makes for clearer, more concise reading. I can always share my “live” notes on the show with whoever wants them, if that helps matters any.
Alright, so check back often for my semi live-blogging of the Tyra Banks Show. Especially if you miss Tyra because you work or go to school, and don’t yet have a DVR. I feel your pain, and I feel strongly that no one should go without his or her Tyra fix. Ever!
This entry is perhaps not technically live-blogging, since I DVR’d the show and watched it the next day. But post-show-live-blog I must when Tyra compels me so!
A while ago (scroll down what? two entries), I wrote about Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appearing on the Tyra Banks Show. The quasi schadenfreude I experience when watching this talk-show continues, as Tyra continues bridging worlds that are as diametrically mismatched as ketchup on cornflakes. It gets so uncomfortable on that set that I often bury my head under covers, just watching from my sofa.
Levi Johnston, father of Bristol Palin’s baby Tripp, went on the Tyra Banks Show to talk about his experience dating Bristol and dealing with media scrutiny during the campaign… But it got awkward. Fast.
I’m not going to fixate on Levi’s explanation that he started dating Bristol because her family hunts, or Tyra’s probing about the safe sex practices between Levi and Bristol. I will, however, commend Tyra on getting to this interview first. Is Katie Couric somewhere, kicking herself?
How does Tyra, still a budding executive producer get these exclusive interviews? I wonder less about Tyra’s prowess in TV production and more about the family’s motives for choosing the Tyra Show as a venue to “set the record straight.” Who are they telling their story to, and how does a show aimed at a diverse audience of young women meet that goal? We’re going to see more from this family and it might not be pretty…
So my involvement with Twitter has forced me to confront my age-old enemy: Brevity. Those 140 characters are a total buzz kill when you’re suddenly struck with the urge to pour out your soul on the topic of seafood bisque, as I often am. (I like mine chunky. Why must chefs blend it to a pulp so that I’m forced to drink my shrimp? Is that someone’s idea of cuisine? Because from where I sit, it’s just a glorified, aquatic-life-based protein shake.)
I’m not the biggest fan of conciseness. It does nothing for me. Eclecticism? Cool. Specificity? Awesome. Give me any topic, any story, but by all means, do not skimp me on the details. And for the love of Office Suite, don’t ask me to keep it short either.
You may not know me, oh, but you know someone just like me. The kind of person who tells a story that starts in one time zone and ends up just like that time my Grandma took me to see a taping of Wheel of Fortune, only Vanna White didn’t look anything like I thought she’d look up close, you know?
But I can’t function that way anymore… I start to write a blog entry that looks like a FAFSA application. And for what?! I can’t even tell by the end how the beginning got there. And it keeps me from saying all the things I’ve got on my mind. WHO OTHERWISE WILL SOUND THE ALARM ABOUT SEAFOOD BISQUE??
So I’m going to limit myself. I have to. For the sake of sanity, Bobby Pens is becoming a macro-blog. 200 words or less, per entry. For the next 5 posts (it’s trial run). Maybe 250 words if the topic moves me. Hey, you don’t get to make the rules! And you don’t need to count the words in this entry, either. Nope… no need.
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