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Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog   yourself for the 21st century or die! Some would rather die than change." Leonard Sweet, cultural historian.
Pomo Blog Archives: July 2006 Monday, July 31, 2006 Advertising's big engine slows
This, of course, leads one to ask what happens to media companies whose lifeblood is the GROWTH of advertising?
Posted by Terry @ 11:44 AM CST [Link] [No Comments] The time to act is NOW While this shouldn't come as a bulletin to anybody who has been following my writing, the urgency I now sense is intense and palpable. Two items of interest today add to my concern. One, the folks at WeatherBug have launched their own video sharing community, where anybody can upload their own forecasts, reports or storm video. The key word here is "community," and while the site sucks so far, that's not the point. It's another play for the local weather niche by an outside internet company. Weather is THE local franchise for broadcasters, and they ought to be viewing this -- and the effort by the Weather Channel to provide local weather applications -- as very serious competition. Two, take a look at BuffaloAtHome.com, a local information portal built by VertaSource, LLC. This company has a deal with CBS/Viacom and has already launched "at home" sites in Chicago, Philly, Baltimore, Detroit, Rochester, and Erie and has plans to launch 30 more -- including Denver tomorrow -- by year's end. These are not stamped with the CBS brand, although it's pretty easy to see the partnership. Bob Gerow, General Manager of VertaSource told me that it's been quite a challenge to get the local CBS affiliates to sign off on providing content, because they assume they already have a portal. In the end, though, revenue drives the deals, and while he won't give me his "secret sauce," Gerow is quick to point out that their model isn't banners and page views. Keyword exclusivity and business search optimization are two areas where they make money, and isn't that just like pure internet players? So while the broadcasters are still out there trying to make a buck off of reach/frequency methodologies, this company is growing revenue the internet way. How terribly smart! Related to local media, "CBS asked themselves this question," he said. "Do we want to be one of 25 sites in a market or one of two or three portals?" Who will these other portals be? Googles, Yahoos, YouTubes, or other internet pure plays? So once again, we have very smart people coming into town and creating applications that could and should be done by the local stations (media companies) themselves. This is serious business, folks, and not to move TODAY to develop new businesses on the web is playing with the lives of your employees. 2007 is just a few months away.
Posted by Terry @ 11:24 AM CST [Link] [No Comments] I must be beautiful
And since I have three daughters and no sons, then I must be one of the beautiful ones, right? Here's Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the evolutionary psychologist who led the research:
This will no doubt infuriate the anti-stereotypers, but, hey, it's science, man, and science never gets anything wrong. Right. Posted by Terry @ 09:11 AM CST [Link] [No Comments] Friday, July 28, 2006 This one was/is the most difficult, because I'm doing it alone. Everything I unpack has a little story attached to it, and I find myself drifting emotionally. On the up side, it's been a chance to clean out a bunch of old "stuff" and organize what's left. I need that to make this truly a fresh start. I'm writing tons of stuff, although it's not for publication. I promise I'll get back to serious writing here as soon as I get settled. Posted by Terry @ 04:39 PM CST [Link] [No Comments] Thursday, July 27, 2006 Posted by Terry @ 09:13 AM CST [Link] [3 comments] The Godlike anchorman But the thing about Walter that was different was that he wasn't pumped as the most trusted guy in America; he simply was. There was no relentless stream of promos touting him as the greatest (although some did appear later in his career). He earned that position, largely, I think, because TV News was still in its relative infancy. Audience manipulation "rules" hadn't been written yet, and network anchors were news people first and "talent" further down the line. In today's world, the "anchor-as-God" is over and done with -- commoditized along with everything else in the TV world. Those who didn't have the good fortune to be alive during the Cronkite years missed a truly remarkable person in the history of communications. We needed Walter. We needed gatekeepers, because access to information was limited to the few. That's all changed now, and I believe that's a good thing. Nevertheless, Walter Cronkite was a big part of my early life, and I'm happy to have been there for the sense of security in "and that's the way it is." Posted by Terry @ 09:11 AM CST [Link] [1 Comment] Spreading the new media word
The writer, Crayton Harrison, has no doubt read IBM's "The End of Television As We Know It," because of its references to the "massive passives" as the majority of consumers and "gadget lovers" and "young trendsetters" as everybody else. The general premise of this article and the IBM report are the same, and if you haven't read the IBM report, I encourage you to do so. The most important thing about articles like this morning's is how they're spreading the technology word to people outside the typical tech publications and challenging people to boost their knowledge of technology. This will accelerate change by breaking down knowledge barriers. I believe this is a fundamental role of media companies who wish to play in these new worlds downstream, and it's nice to see a report like this in the paper of my new hometown. Posted by Terry @ 08:52 AM CST [Link] [No Comments] Wednesday, July 26, 2006 Gone are the days when they just pick you up and move you. Allied told me they'd be by at 8am Monday. They got there at 1pm, which put me on the road near nightfall. My "window" for furniture delivery is today through August 4th. So I'll be camping for awhile. The phone is in. Cable TV on Saturday. Internet sometime next week. I'm writing now from the apartment complex's business center, which will be a frequent visiting spot for me. I'm working on a new essay about third-party metrics for the web that should be finished by Monday. Stay tuned. Posted by Terry @ 01:10 PM CST [Link] [No Comments] Monday, July 24, 2006 ABC's experiment becomes permanent
This is an important piece of data as it relates to the diminishing value of the 30-second spot paradigm. Will advertisers pay a premium for 87% recall? You betcha. Will the 30-second spot ever go away? Not a chance. It's also another significant blow to network affiliates, because it reduces the rerun value of primetime programming. I've been predicted for years that the programming value of net affils will be steadily diminishing, because the web eliminates the need for middlemen. This'll be my last post from Nashville. I'll be westbound later today and hopefully blogging again later in the week. Posted by Terry @ 07:40 AM CST [Link] [2 comments] Saturday, July 22, 2006 The problem? I've enjoyed the email address "xnuzboss@comcast.net" for eight years, and it's my connection to a hundred websites and businesses, all of whom will "lose" that connection in after 30 days. I'll be sending notices to many online billing companies, but I'll never remember them all. This, I suppose, is why God made Gmail, Hotmail, etc. I submitted a formal suggestion that comcast create a business that will allow people to keep their addresses (heck, I'd pay for it), but even if they do, it'll be too late for me. The things we learn, eh? Posted by Terry @ 01:06 PM CST [Link] [3 comments] Quote of the day Posted by Terry @ 12:59 PM CST [Link] [No Comments] Friday, July 21, 2006 So she essentially just drifted off to sleep, then coma, then death. She felt no pain. I say she "may have taken too much," because Dr. Adele Lewis, the pathologist, told me that 10-20% of people are what's called "slow metabolizers" of dextramethorphan, and that could account for the extremely high level of the drug that they found in her blood. In other words, a pretty fair chunk of society doesn't process the drug like it's supposed to be processed, so multiple doses even as directed can accumulate and stay active in the body. I want to point out that this is a very common over-the-counter medication for cough suppression, and it's been around for 50 years. There are documented cases of accidental overdose death with this drug, so it's not something to play around with, especially when mixed with prescription medication. Some idiotic people actually abuse the drug, but that certainly wasn't my Allie. She just didn't feel good, so she took something she had taken many times before. We'll just never know for certain how much she took or when. As I researched the possible causes of the sudden death of a young, healthy woman, something like this was high on the list. It is profoundly sad, because her death was an accident, and accidents -- at least one like this -- can be prevented. I don't dwell on that, however, because it will keep me forever bound to the past, and the best way I can honor her and her life is to live on and be well. It took a long time for the Medical Examiner to piece this all together, and I am extremely grateful for their assistance. It has been agonizing for me and Alicia's entire family, but now we know. And this will help us with our grieving. There aren't words in any language to adequately express the loss of someone like her, so I won't try.
She is gone, but her memory will always be with me. Posted by Terry @ 01:55 PM CST [Link] [13 comments] Thursday, July 20, 2006 Blogging as community (DISCLOSURE: WKRN-TV is an AR&D client.) Posted by Terry @ 08:34 AM CST [Link] Sunday, July 16, 2006 News Corp and MySpace -- pay attention, everybody
This is an insightful piece of knowledge that those who are stuck in the rut of trying to make this quarter's sales projections are unable to use. That's too bad, because money always follows eyeballs, regardless of how or where they're gathered. Something WILL become of this, although I'm not alone in suggesting it won't be a traditional media model.
Maybe you don't, at least not in any conventional, top-down sense. That IS the question, though, and so far Murdoch has been smart to approach it cautiously. It is the anti-establishment nature of teens that brought them to MySpace in the first place, and it can just as easily move them to abandon the place.
Posted by Terry @ 04:27 PM CST [Link] Saturday, July 15, 2006 Want to know the cause of all the strife in the Middle East? I'm about to drive to Texas, so the price of gas had to go up, right? I had a flashback to the Ma Bell days this morning. AT&T has cable and broadband "rights" in the apartment complex to which I'm moving, so I called to make the arrangements. Their voice mail told me to call back during normal business hours, Monday through Friday. Ah, I can just hear Springsteen singing "Monopoly Days."
Finally, on my way home from Dallas on Thursday, I had a fun experience on the plane. My cellphone has the old "Our Man Flint" hotline "red phone" ringtone, and I usually have it set pretty loud. We were heading out towards the runway, when the flight attendant made the usual announcement about shutting down everything that has an on/off switch. I lifted my phone out to turn it off just as Harry called. The "Our Man Flint" theme echoed throughout the plane, and everybody broke out laughing. It was a moment. Posted by Terry @ 06:02 PM CST [Link] Friday, July 14, 2006 Today's episode, I think, is pretty much an instant classic. Give a lookie-loo at Casual Friday. Seriously, Rocketboom is a show -- a concept -- not a person. I adored Amanda and hope we all see her again soon, but Joanne Colan brings new life, energy and opportunities for conflict that only help the program. Good job, Andrew. Posted by Terry @ 01:53 PM CST [Link] Rather wants "to do news that matters."
This is Dan Rather's public spin, the fundamental positioning of himself for the future. The above had nothing to do with his departure from CBS News, and the network's wishes to "go in a different direction" isn't a suggestion that it won't include "news that matters." If Dan wants to do that kind of news -- and Mark Cuban's HD Net is making that possible -- then the statement "I want to do news that matters" clearly implies that at CBS News he wasn't, and that's just a self-serving positioning statement. This is spin and nothing more; it's Dan's way of twisting his departure from CBS into an unrighteous act, a jihad against the high priest of 20th century journalism. He's a victim of "Viacom News" and nothing else. This is simply false. For all his experience and credentials, Dan Rather was a polarizing evening news anchor and was the perfect foil for the right, because historical facts didn't support his claims of objectivity or lack of bias. Rathergate was simply the last straw, and I'd rather (I know) see him now do news with a perspective than to claim that his news is fair, accurate and done with integrity. This interview -- and others he's doing to promote his new gig -- suggest that Dan Rather has learned nothing from his experiences during the last two years, and that's a real shame. Posted by Terry @ 08:15 AM CST [Link] Wednesday, July 12, 2006 Some take-aways for me: I've been alone for so long in my world and its accompanying vision that I need to go back upstream for a season and strengthen the various thought tributaries that guide my future view. I've no intention of altering them in any way; it's just that when you've been down this river for as long as I have, there are certain things -- certain pieces of knowledge -- that I cannot assume others will understand without further explanation. And without those explanations, it's impossible for people in positions of power to be persuaded by the business concepts and opportunities I present to the extent that they will actually implement change. And I'm in it for the change. Someone once gave me the picture of myself and those I'm trying to reach as traveling along the current on separate rafts. I call to them to come closer to me, but realize when I look down that we're actually traveling along parallel streams, and moving others to my stream requires a return to the original split in the streams -- the old fork in the river. This is tough for me to do, because even my language assumes years of life on my stream. But this I will do, because my work with television stations demands it. For example, I can't talk about RSS unless those in the room fully understand my knowledge of RSS. I want to talk about downstream applications, but the immediate need is for upstream entry points. Next, I think I've got to tone down the shouting. This stems from frustration (a three-syllable word for anger), and I've caught myself lecturing here many times. Who wants to sit through that? I need to try harder, because an iconoclast is born of anger, and while my communication from that perch may resonate with readers, it throws an unnecessary roadblock in my attempts to take "the message" to the industry I have loved all my life. Passion can be interpreted many ways, and it's my responsibility to make sure it's not interpreted as unbridled criticism. AR&D is a dynamic, smart, vibrant and flexible company that sees the challenges facing television stations with informed eyes, and we're going to do our best to be a big part of the solution to those challenges. Turning my esoteric concepts into doable products and services is the best part of my new job, because it will result in opportunities for broadcasters in the months and years ahead. Allie, I'm sure, is smiling at the thought. This is a brave new world we face, and I'm a very happy camper tonight, because I'm now linked with the broad shoulders of people who are just as motivated as I am to face the new world with confidence, conviction and workable ideas. BTW, I'm "Senior Vice President of New Media." Holy crap. Posted by Terry @ 09:45 PM CST [Link] Monday, July 10, 2006 Posted by Terry @ 09:44 AM CST [Link]
Mejias' writing is essentially a modernist intellectual rant about the cultural evils of a liberal web. While I do think it's important to consider the potential downsides of cyber "life" compared to real "life," categorizing life this way is a slippery slope.
The problem here is that the logical modernist mind enters the equation, and sense isn't made of anything postmodern, including the concept of tribes. I completely reject the theory that the web destroys community and invite Mr. Mejias to examine the local blogosphere in Nashville as an example. The web, with its associative links, is a deconstructionist machine, and this is (and should be) frightening to the institutional status quo. In that sense, it DOES destroy community, but let's not stop there. Let's look at what it is about "community" that it's destroying, because maybe, just maybe, that needs destruction. It's not liberal versus conservative. It's about the failure of modernist institutionalism. Posted by Terry @ 09:36 AM CST [Link] Let's hope not
The report goes on to tout television (shocking, huh?) as still the best tool for mass marketers.
It's hard to disagree with the positions presented here, but they assume a significant fact not in evidence -- that media is an open playing field for "marketers" to push products and services at "consumers" (who are increasingly hollering "STOP"). This is a dangerous assumption, because it blocks creativity at a time when creativity is what's needed most. It is foolish to take the position that there is only niche marketing and mass marketing, when technology is on the side of people in their efforts to avoid all forms of push marketing. Secondly, this report conveniently offers up hope to traditional marketers by presenting the have-not's lack of web access as a potential opportunity to achieving mass status on the web. Here we have an appeal to the government to interject itself into business, and that's a loaded gun. Besides, while equal access for all may be a big help socially, it won't change people. Do these marketing types honestly believe that low-income web users will be any less resistant to pop-ups, blinking and whirling, or uninvited video than the current crop of users online? I think not. Mass marketing will always be around, and television will always provide the best bang for the mass marketing buck. But increasingly, there is really only a perception of mass, because people are scattered and rarely get together in one place and one time (like the Superbowl). We've entered a new era of advertising that demands something other than tired efforts at manipulation of masses, and reports like these that offer the obvious as something new do nothing to inspire new thinking. Posted by Terry @ 08:32 AM CST [Link] Blogger skepticism understandable but in this case wrong Seth Seth is one of the smartest guys out there, so it's important to pay attention to what he says. This kind of jaded thinking is sadly the norm, and I've always pointed out to clients that trying to play with local bloggers can be a minefield. The benefits of doing it right, however, can pay off big time and in many ways. It is upon this, after all, that my theories and axioms are based. We shall see. BONUS: Here's a link to the 3rd segment of yesterday's Reliable Sources on CNN. The discussion is about online video and its disruptive potential. (Thanks, Harry) Posted by Terry @ 07:24 AM CST [Link] Friday, July 7, 2006 More moronic observations from the "experts"
Where do they find people like this? "More attention is elicited by things that are not expected?" You mean like a man with a gun jumping in your face? To paraphrase Rishad Tobaccowala of Starcom's Denuo group, "We're in an "empowered era" in which "humans are God," because technology allows them to be godlike. How will you approach god?" It won't be with "sudden bursts of motion and sound." Geez. Posted by Terry @ 10:08 AM CST [Link] In-stream video ads, yes. In-page video ads, no. In-stream video ads are another animal altogether, and I appreciate what he writes about advertisers and ad agencies not being fully up to speed on their effectiveness. He quotes a DoubleClick study that indicates online video ads "roughly triple the increase for all key brand metrics [brand awareness, ad awareness, message association, brand favorability, and purchase intent] compared to GIF/JPG display ads." MediaPost needs to take a hard look at its policies relating to guest commentaries. Self-serving pitches ought not to be allowed, and if you are going to allow them, at least give your readers the courtesy of a disclaimer. John Vincent is merely identified as a co-founder of EyeWonder. There's no mention of EyeWonder's specialty. Of course, I could be wrong... Posted by Terry @ 09:51 AM CST [Link] This is a significant niche for several of reasons. One, Madison Avenue has always paid attention to moms. They are among the most attractive "targets" for advertising, because certain products have a strong appeal to moms and not necessarily everybody else. Moreover, moms tend to influence the family to a greater extent than dads, and that clout has value to advertisers (money). Two, people who read the stuff written by moms are -- by proxy -- also a "target" for certain advertisers, like, for example, Proctor & Gamble. Three, there is a kinship among mothers that is reserved strictly for them -- a club, if you will -- that has deep social significance. The annual BlogHer conference of women bloggers gets underway at the end of this month in San Jose, and the mommy bloggers will be there in force. Last year, they rose to take the floor when someone suggested women bloggers could change the world if they'd only stop blogging about themselves. This offended the mommy bloggers, and one, Alice Bradley (aka finslippy) later wrote:
Powerful stuff, I think, and that backlash against the mainstream is the essence of most blogging, but with this group, trust me, Madison Avenue will pay attention. Mommy bloggers will have their own session at this year's BlogHer event. Read this summary (MommyBlogging is a radical act) from the BlogHer website to get an idea of what's going on. In the news today is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's purchase of a local parenting site, MilwaukeeMoms.com. This could be pretty significant, it seems to me, but according to PaidContent's Rafat Ali, the paper plans to begin carrying content from its parenting magazine, Metroparent. That smacks of another tired attempt to build up the old instead of boosting the new. What about the mommy bloggers in Milwaukee? Why not support them by building a smart aggregator of the energy that's already there? Let me repeat that smart aggregators are where local media companies should be looking for tomorrow, and this one makes so much sense that I'm surprised they aren't already a local internet staple. Are you listening, big media? Posted by Terry @ 09:08 AM CST [Link] Thursday, July 6, 2006 While there are many issues to work out, the reaction in the room was extremely positive. Nashville already boasts several quality video bloggers (vloggers) who are expected to begin offering their material immediately. Sechrist said the station would provide technical and journalism support where necessary or requested and that all stories would be vetted through the station's existing editorial process and systems. Sechrist told the group of bloggers that they had already had a significant influence on the news programs the station produces, simply by doing what they do. The station has pursued stories first raised in the blogging community and has used local bloggers as a sounding board at various times. This bold move reminds me of South Korea's OhmyNews! and its "every citizen is a reporter" slogan. By paying bloggers to conceive and produce stories that they feel are interesting, the station is following the "networked journalism" model noted by Jeff Jarvis earlier this week and the citizen journalism thinking of people such as Dan Gillmor. I'm sure that we'll hear plenty of bitching about this from the trenches of the TV news business, but the truth is this was inevitable. Stations have always employed "stringers" or "freelancers," but most of their work was raw video that station reporters used to tell stories. This takes the concept a step further and taps into the knowledge, passion, brainpower and, yes, skill of people in the community. This a fruit of the personal media revolution, and it will be interesting to watch. The social gathering tonight was well-attended, and I was taken by the number of new faces present. The blogosphere in Nashville is unique in its real world social networking, and it's always good to see in the same room people driven by the ability to self-publish. These are bright people, and most of them are funnier than all get out, too. DISCLOSURE: WKRN-TV is a client of mine. Posted by Terry @ 08:48 PM CST [Link] Pay attention to what's happening down under What's important here is that this didn't occur over regulated airwaves, but Australian lawmakers now want to extend broadcast supervision to the internet in the name of protecting families "from exposure to offensive material." One can speculate about the chances of this happening, but that's not the point. The more legislative bodies attempt to apply top-down (modernist) mechanics to regulating online content, they more they run into a structure that was designed to avoid command-and-control functionality. Where do you draw the line without stepping all over personal -- and guaranteed -- freedoms? How do you actually implement such controls on those outside your area of jurisdiction? This is a new world into which we've entered, and old laws and methods of enforcement -- like everything else -- must conform to that which is new. People will simply not stand for governmental interference here, and the more they attempt to interfere, the more visible becomes the political motivation for so doing. As I've said before, the internet is taking us to a place where the more we holler at the moon, the louder comes a voice saying, "What do you want?" I view this as a good thing, because it forces the realities of our connectedness and the need to face our problems in a way that's completely new. If we truly want a government of the people, then we must be prepared to accept the consequences of our actions. As long as we can shift the burden of those consequences to others (the government), then there's little need for us to carry the load ourselves, and yet that's exactly what is required of an informed citizenry. Jeff Jarvis notes this morning that:
The last thing the FCC wants is to get into the court system, because it will lose the constitutional challenge to which Jeff refers. That will have a cascading effect on all previous commission decisions and ultimately lead, I believe, to its destruction. We don't need media interpretation for us to see what's really taking place -- that the FCC serves the political agenda of the party in control of the chairs. We know this, because their actions cannot be hidden anymore. Too many eyes are watching and relaying what they're finding. This is what I mean by the new clarity with which political bullshit can now be seen. The FCC was created to regulate spectrum, for crying out loud, not to make viewing choices for us. Does something need to be done to "protect" us from the excesses of human nature? Nothing new there, but what is new is the increasing and healthy shift of that burden to ourselves. Technology is our friend here, not another straw man to exploit for political gain. Posted by Terry @ 10:11 AM CST [Link] ABC's Shaw needs to get real The Shaw statement came as a justification for the network discussing with cable operators the notion of adding technology to set-top DVRs that would disable fast forwarding during commercials, so they could "run as intended."
What absolute poppycock! Mr. Shaw apparently doesn't read research on the subject or simply ignores it, because it doesn't fit his paradigm. Here's a graphic from the folks at eMarketer on why people use DVRs.  What Mr. Shaw doesn't want to accept is that time is the new currency and that his industry has done this to themselves. One-third of prime-time viewing is now devoted to marketing, and this revolt against that is driven by a very real need for people to manage a decreasing amount of leisure time. The 30-second ad model is broken, folks, and we need creative thinking to find ways to overcome it -- not crap like this from network executives. The horse has left the barn, and it ain't comin' back. Why can't we bring ourselves to accept that? There's a lot of experimentation with program sponsorships, and I like that model. Whether it will provide the kind of revenues broadcasters need is questionable, but at least the concept begins with accepting certain realities about life. New options yet to be created certainly won't be created, if this kind of reasoning is the best the networks can offer. Bring on the right-brainers! Puh-leeze! Posted by Terry @ 08:47 AM CST [Link] Wednesday, July 5, 2006 Is Amanda leaving... UPDATE: Mathew Ingram talks with Baron. She wanted to be in L.A. He didn't want to move that fast. Sounds like typical anchor/management stuff to me. Posted by Terry @ 12:29 PM CST [Link] Networked journalism
This is very good thinking, because it provides a way for all media to work together, which is the advice I've been giving clients for a long time. This term gives the concept an important framework for discussion. I teased Jeff about starting a meme, to which he responded "I wasn't trying to claim provenance." Nevertheless, it'll be interesting to follow the Google link to see how quickly it grows. Posted by Terry @ 09:09 AM CST [Link] Networking blogs Let me make something perfectly clear: Blog groups -- such as those of Nick Denton or Jason Calacanis -- were originated to carve out pieces of the mass media pie, and while they use the technology of blogging, the business play is textbook reach/frequency. Are they then blogs? Well, I believe that if you call yourself a blog, you are one, but I think the argument is irrelevant. The point is these networks are media companies, and they are competing with every mainstream outlet online. Nothing wrong with that. But blogging -- as in the personal media revolution -- is much, much more than this, and it's here where I part company with some of my colleagues and friends. Heather Green of Business Week gets it right when she writes that blogging isn't about making money.
Fellow Nashville (and beyond) blogger, Rex Hammock (himself a magazine publishing fellow), writes that Denton is just practicing good business, but that many observers are missing the point about blogging.
Of course, the real problem for me, since I deal with real world media companies, is that they view the Gawker model as the "real" model for blogging and the other, generally, as a messy nuisance. It's really not, because there are ways that local media companies can work WITH local bloggers to make money. Networking local blogs is a win-win for everybody, because it creates clout that advertisers recognize and provides the money for bloggers to pay for their hosting, etc. But this type of network rises from the bottom instead of being organized from the top, and this is the source of its strength. Posted by Terry @ 08:56 AM CST [Link] [Archive Index] [The Pomo Blog]
Leonard Sweet |
My furniture -- or should I say boxes arrived first thing this morning. Not bad, since I was expecting Allied to deliver the stuff next week. I counted this morning, and I've moved my whole household 18 times since 1970. That's what happens with the news business, but I was a little extreme. 
It is with great sadness -- yet in the hope that her tragic end might save another -- that I report the cause of my beloved Allie's death. She may have taken too much over-the-counter cold medication (generic Nyquil) that night before she got ready for bed. The cough suppressant dextramethorphan interacted with prescription pain medication that she took for endometriosis and, as the pathologist at the Davidson County Medical Examiner's Office told me, it shut down the mechanism in her brain that controls the "will to breathe."
I'm moving to Dallas next week to begin another chapter in my life, one that she had a major role in developing (and is likely orchestrating from the world beyond). I need this move, this change, this turning-of-the-page. The headstone on her grave will be up soon, and it contains the last words I ever said to her: "He gives to His beloved, sleep."
My 
One of the things I learned at Bloggercon this year was the growing strength of a niche group of bloggers known as "mommy bloggers." I don't know the source of that title, but there are apparently quite a few of them writing about their adventures with their children. 
In an unprecedented industry move, Nashville ABC affiliate WKRN-TV announced tonight that it would begin paying local bloggers for approved video stories they submit and running those stories on its Website and in its newscasts. WKRN president and general manager Mike Sechrist told a "meet-up" of local bloggers that he could envision the day when a daily program would be made up entirely of material submitted by the community.