On The Turning Away

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
-Winston Churchill

The “human edited” blog aggregator TopTenSources has received $3.5 million in a venture round led by Highland Capital, according to PaidContent. The company has also bought Blogniscient, an automated blog news aggregator. It is based on human editors selecting their favorite 10 blogs on a wide variety of topics, from food to blogging to Second Life. In June, the company acquired StyleFeeder, a social shopping site.

How does TopTenSources stack against Tailrank, another blog aggregator “which finds the hottest posts from thousands of blogs”? News top of the hour at both sites is John Kerry’s remarks on the troops. Further investigation is needed.

The Media Guy at Ad Age is among those who have graduated from Friendster to MySpace: “My-,” which has recently eclipsed the suffix “-ster” as the linguistic appendage most likely to induce spontaneous orgasm in media moguls and venture capitalists.

He also goes out on a limb to defend Rush Limbaugh for apologizing “for accusing Michael J. Fox of exaggerating the severity of his Parkinson’s disease by cranking up the shaking in a pro-stem-cell-research political ad”: It turns out that he’s almost exactly as fat, bloated and hateful in real life as he appears to be on TV. He’s a radio guy; he didn’t know better. He would’ve said, “do you know where I could score some hydrocodone?”

As to Jane Pauley’s suit against the mighty NY Times: It’s justified as “the Times isn’t really from Kazakhstan, nor is it really interested in cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan.”

Halloween is an appropriate time to mention the scary and spooky - by that we mean pervy - dudes, otherwise known as billionaires. “To be a billionaire is to be radically free. You are your own galaxy. You make your own rules, hang out with the former president, send tourists to space”, among other exordinary stuff. Besides, they’re into work and…massages.

According to New York mag, Jeffrey Epstein epitomizes such moneyed persona. Mr Epstein was “humuliated ” over the summer “when his lifestyle was made public”. We say, bad timing. He should’ve waited till the temperatures drop precipitately - All Hallow’s Eve would’ve been a more opportune occasion.

Halloween or “All Hallows Eve” celebrates the liminal time between summer and winter, when the spiritual and physical worlds collide when magic is most potent! Check out Yahoo Halloween 2006 central that includes podcast, “A History of Halloween”, Halloween’s scary myths & spooky traditions, etc.

When it comes to social media marketing, no one has created a structure to work from, and there’s so much overlap in functionality of different sites that it can be confusing as to a site’s “single purpose”. Of late, however, marketing types have churned out rules of social market optimization, strategies or tactics of social media marketing. Marketing Pilgrim has a roundup -

1. Declaration of Identity
2. Identity through Association
3. User-initiated Conversation
4. Provider-initiated Conversation
5. In-Person Interaction

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Brightcove is launching a consumer-facing video portal today amid fanfare. Both AdAge and MarketWatch plug the site that includes a distribution platform for content owners and Brightcove.com, a central repository to access the aggregated works of its customers. While its offerings are designed à la YouTube to allow users to publish video content, the business model incorporates fully licensed content from media players.

Unlike YouTube, the company doesn’t rely heavily on the long-tail of consumer-generated content. One of its competitive advantages lies in its touted open distrbution model that gives media owners a platform to syndicate their content to affiliates across the web, let publishers sell their own advertising or use a Brightcove ad network and e-commerce solutions that dovetail with many existing media companies’ models.

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Bruce Feirstein offers an interesting perspective on why the L.A. Times is in a spiral of decline: in striving to become a national newspaper it’s become irrelevant to the very city it calls home.

He rebutted the charge that the LAT needs to get more “gossipy”, arguing that “it’s not gossip that’s lacking, but personality”. By not covering the city as an interesting place, it isn’t an interesting newspaper. In contrast, the NYT, which doesn’t run a gossip column anymore, he said, has always put “flesh and blood on the bones of the people who mark the city” - what their foibles and idiosyncrasies are.

In the Internet age, newspapers face a double whammy of competition from the Web and falling ad demand. Against this backdrop, however, major national newspapers are profitable. According to the FT, in 2005 margins at both the WaPo and NYT are above 13%, whereas 26% at USAT. An interesting recent development has been the clamoring for local ownership in the wake of Tribune hubbub. Last Week Jack Welch was reportedly to be looking into acquiring the Boston Globe. Perhaps a return to local ownership will revitalize the LAT?

If CNN is any indication, come election night next week, breaking news maybe brought to you by…bloggers. The cable network is “corralling some of the top online opinion makers in one place to provide instant reaction as the results come in”, the LAT reports.

Oddly, the LAT put this under “Entertainment News” - perhaps recognizing and trying to amplifying the “entertainment” component of the election politics? Kudos to CNN for coming to grips with the fact that “most of the political dialogue in this country is happening online”, so if MSM doesn’t incorporate that into the coverage, they’re “missing a major element.”

Not to be left out, FoxNews.com will “feature an election tracker that will allow viewers to monitor specific races on a customized Web page, with updated results every two minutes.” Bring ‘em on.

Starting in February, Monocle, a glossy covering geopolitics, business, culture and design will grace newstands around the world. Inspired by Der Spiegel and Stern, Monocle will emphasize visuals as much as reporting and writing, said its founder, Tyler Brule, who writes for the Weekend FT’s Fast Lane column and has Wallpaper under his belt.

Monocle joins Cultural and Travel in the latest craze of high-concept, niche appeal magazine. Brule believes the value proposition in giving people “all over the world” something which was “more visual than what’s on offer and more of a look ahead.” The stylish Monocle will be variously priced at $10, 5 pounds or 7.50 euro, and will have a companion site at Monocle.com.