Potter party: Two years ago, when the 14-year-old was 12, I got to take him to Davis Kidd and hang-out for a couple of hours for the release of a new book. His big sister (the 18-year-old) voluntered to take him (and get her own copy) this year. A think it’s great that a book — any book — can attract several hundred people to a bookstore to celebrate its arrival.
Update: Tim, taking this whole Nashville is Talking guest-blogging thing to a higher level, actually went to Davis Kidd and blogged it. He was probably the only one there who didn’t buy a book. By the way, it’s 1 p.m. on Saturday, and the 14-year-old is two-thirds through the book. He’s the fastest reader I know.
What Bob Lutz said: The blogging vice chairman of GM says there’s nothing to fear from executive blogging.
(via: Debbie Weil)
Tim is talking: Tim is guest blogger this weekend at Nashville is Talking and starts things off with some Photoshop fun.
Arnold terminates his pumped-up magazine deal: Like he needed to ’supplement’ his income anyway. “Schwarzenegger said he would continue to promote weight training, health and fitness.”
A trip down Powerbook memory lane: Nostalgia shots. (via: kottke.org)
There goes the neighborhood: I guess Kid Rock likes Nashville’s criminal justice system so much, he’s bought a condo down the street from rexblog HQ.
Washington Post adds ads to RSS feeds: (From AdAge.com – reg.
required)
“
Washingtonpost.com
yesterday quietly began integrating advertising into its RSS feeds, the
first major news site, it says, to offer such a service. The MSNBC TV
show The Situation with Tucker Carlson is the inaugural advertiser.
“
As I’ve said before, I believe anyone can exercise their
right to add ads to their RSS feeds and I can exercise my right to
remove them — if I don’t like how they do it — from the feeds to
which I subscribe. However, I think ads on RSS feeds miss the point. I
agree with Dave
Winer who says the feeds themselves are ads. In my opinion, this is
especially true about the feeds that merely provide a headline and summary message.
(via: John Battelle)
What newspapers (and magazines) can learn from Starbucks and Apple: (Columnist William Powers in National Journal magazine)
“The companies that thrive in this economy are those that work hard to please the fetishists, by getting all the details right. Starbucks not only designs your coffee the way you want it, it gets it exactly right almost every time.”
I agree with the premise, but (and I’m a regular customer of both) think Apple and Starbucks also provide lessons of what not to be, also. Arrogant springs to mind.
Rafat’s Essence of Being: I’m a fan of Rafat Ali & PaidContent.org and have never doubted his ability to balance the roles of journalist and business-entrepreneur. Rafat spells out the challenge in an essay this morning. Powerful stuff.
