Don’t know how I missed Laura Creekmore’s major pub in today’s Tennessean. Besides moderating the East Nashville listserv and blogging about food, she’s head of Internetology at Hammock. From that photo on Tennessean.com, you can see she’s the one with clutter-free desk.

A little less than two years ago, I suggested that “the reason you’ve heard of podcasting is because no one first “demo’d” it at a conference and no corporate marketers were involved.” I was taking a cheap shot at the DEMO conference at which startups who pay $10,000+ can make a six minute presentation to a room full of VCs. Today, Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington are posting of their aggitation with the notion of startups being charged $15,000+ (apparently there has been some inflation) to DEMO their ideas. And so, they have a barn and they have a stage, so they’re going to put on their own show where startups can demo for free. “A committee of expert analysts, entrepreneurs and journalists” will be choosing 20 such startups, so you can also anticipate a coming round of angry excluded startups who will want to start yet another competing conference. (See: BarCamp) Frankly, I don’t think what the world is missing is fee-free DEMO. However, I’m a big gung-ho supporter of anyone trying out a new idea — including yet another tech conference. I’m sure it will be a barn-burner of a well-attended show. I know it will be a blast and a great time will be had by all. While I doubt it will be the launching pad of any major new tech successes, connections will be made and old friendships renewed. But the real innovators will be at home somewhere, too obsessed with their ideas to attend.

Sure, with a headline like, “French embrace the power nap,” and the lede, “The French already enjoy Europe’s shortest working week. Now they being encouraged to have a nap after lunch,” it’s a challenge to restrain myself from the cliché.

The SmallBusiness.com Weblog launches tomorrow*, but since this is about all of the announcing we’ll be doing (except adding a link to the front of SmallBusiness.com), I guess it’s launching right now. This is a blog about SmallBusiness.com, not a small business blog — however, I think we’ll be pointing to lots of bloggers who track the smallbizosphere. If you’re a MyBlogLog user, be sure to join the SmallBusiness.com Weblog’s community.

Another suggestion: if you maintain a weblog for or about a small business topic, or about your small business, don’t forget to add a link to SmallBusiness.com’s Weblog Directory. It’s has grown rather large and is now divided into different categories.

*After a strange crash of a previous iteration of blog tracking the development of SmallBusiness.com, I tried a blog-like thing within the wiki, itself. However, I’m more comfortable with a blog than with a blog-like thing, so we decided to begin a new development blog rather than attempt to resurrect the old one.

Technorati Tags: business blogs, small business, smallbusiness.com, wikis

Harvard Business School’s Andrew McAfee points to a new HBS case study of Wikipedia that he and Karim Lakhani have completed and have made available free to everyone.

One of Andrew’s case discussion points is today’s quote of the day: “(Has) Wikipedia really…become a ‘post-revolutionary Bolshevik Soviet,’ with an inscrutable central power structure wielding control over a legion of workers?”

Bonus: From my Flickr set of photos from last August’s Wikimania, a photo of Andrew and Karim (and others).

(via: David Weinberger)

Technorati Tags: wikimania2006, wikipedia, wikipedians

It will be interesting to see the reactions to the Harris/WSJ rankings of the world’s best and worst corporate reputations [free feature].

Quote:

“Top-ranked Microsoft managed to beat Johnson & Johnson, whose emotionally appealing baby-products business had kept it in first place for a remarkable seven consecutive years.

The article implies that Bill Gate’s personal philanthropy efforts are what raised the company’s rank. This seems quite logical — even obvious — but I can’t see in the actual survey or explanations of methodology — except, perhaps, from the comments of survey respondents — where the theory that Gate’s personal actions are what drove up the reputation of the company. Again, I think the theory is probably correct, but it’s just a theory — it’s not something teased out in the survey but is, rather, an interpretation by the reporter.

For fun, here are my predictions for the response from various places on the blogosphere to the announcement that Microsoft is the world’s most respected company:

From PR bloggers: “It proves allowing employees to blog helps humanize a corporation and soften its reputation.”

From some tech bloggers: “It’s because of Robert Scoble.”

From other tech bloggers: “It’s because Robert Scoble no longer works there.”

From tech media: “It’s because real people don’t read blogs.”

From legal bloggers (blawgers): “It’s because of the time lapsed between the antitrust settlement and now.”

From business bloggers: “Warren Buffett’s billions are driving up the reputation of Microsoft. What’s his ROI on that investment?”

From pop culture bloggers: “It’s proof that people love John Hodgman and hate Justin Long.”

From cult of Mac bloggers: “They only surveyed idiots. What about viruses?”

Technorati Tags: microsoft

• Awaiting the Day When Everyone Writes Software | New York Times
  It took me a couple of days to get around to reading this, but it explains to me why I wish I was a programmer sometimes.
  (tags: technology)
• Paul Conley says no website that embedds ad links in the edit well should be a Neal finalist | Paul Conley’s Weblog
  Paul thinks that hyperlink-linked text ads within the body of a news story is a slimy practice and is a violation of ABM’s ethics guidelines. I agree. (Fortunate sidenote: the practice sinks a site’s SEO.)
  (tags: magazines)
• Mashing up flashcards and a wiki - Memorizable.org
  Dear parents of school-aged kids. Don’t say I never sent you helpful link. [via: Ross Mayfield.]
  (tags: wiki study-hacks cool)