Is this because Al Gore lives here? “High ozone levels reported in Midstate.” According to the story, “Less strenuous exertion is recommended.” Okay: I’m lying down to blog this.

Technorati Tags: nashville

Flickourd out: Next time your site goes down, have a colouring contest. They apologise, however. Sir Stewart Butterfield explains the outage.

Update: Later in the evening, the site is back up. What’s more, there are a gazillion entries in the contest. Lesson to marketers: I’m not exactly sure what the lesson is, but I think it’s something about turning lemons into lemonade and always having crayons handy for when the kids get restless.

Technorati Tags: flickr

Steve Jobs is blogging: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Aged 51 1/2.

Sample:

“So every once in a while, usually when I’ve smoked a little too much weed and I’m feeling kind of malicious, I like to crank call old Agent Sculley and just frig with his head.”

(via: Heather Green)

Technorati Tags: humor

You’re so Nashville if…: Your name is Mike Williams. (Second place: You’re so Nashville if you can remember when ‘You’re so Nashville if’ was actually funny.)

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Why people blog: “Storytelling, not journalism, spurs most blogs” is the headline on a Reuters story about a new study from those Pew Trust folks who are always studying stuff so we don’t have to. I think too often the meaning of the word “journalism” is needlessly debated by bloggers, and about bloggers. I actually am a journalist, but what I do here is not journalism — except when it is. I don’t lie. I express opinions. I’m transparent in my motives and relationships. When I’m just passing on gossip, I admit it. But the reason this weblog exists and the reason I post to it has more to do with telling stories than about journalism — unless you want to debate the meaning of the word, and I don’t.

Update: Dave Winer: “And the story here isn’t the big picture, get your mind out of the aggregate, and start thinking about the small picture. And blogs aren’t driving the change in perspective, they just reflect it.”

Observation: I think bloggers say they’re not journalists because they believe to do so would place a limit — perhaps even demean — what it is they’re doing. They’re observing, recording, entertaining, interpreting, screening, pointing to, calling out, casting out, body slamming, I could go on. To put the journalism label on what is taking place is to place it in a very small box. It’s like calling everything that’s on TV “journalism.” Maybe the news shows are, but do game shows fall under the “journalism” label? That said, if it’s journalism you want (again, whatever ‘journalism’ means), then I can’t think of a better means to practice it than to allow everyone equal opportunity to record how they experience the world — or a specific event in their neighborhood — from their unique point of view.

Soon, we’ll be talking about real money: I rarely blog industry personnel moves or business transactions on this weblog (I leave those to Staci and Rafat and many others). I especially eschew VC funding announcements. Nothing personal, it’s just not news that interests me. However, when an entrepreneur whose blog I subscribe to and enjoy, Jason Goldberg of Jobster.com, uses his blog to announce his company has raised $18 million in new financing (for a total of $50 million during the past two years), well that’s news. But what makes it significant to me is that the latest round is from Reed Elsevier Ventures, the venture arm of the largest business-to-business publisher in the U.S. and (I’m guessing on the world). Again, because I don’t follow closely “the transactions” of Web 2.0 (except the big ones and a few acqhires), I can’t say for certain if this is the first significant investment by a major B-to-B media company in a high profile Web 2.0 (or New Web) company that is at its later-stage of starting up. Anyway, I find this personally interesting and may be significant news for a small slither of folks who read this weblog. And while I don’t know him personally, I feel I do, so congratulations, Jason.

Technorati Tags: b2b, jobster