Isn’t everyone in Wall Street waiting for the bell. Not that bell to strike. I’m talking about Elizabeth Spiers’ new blog DealBreaker.
There’s less than 24 hours left.

Here’s some legitimately exciting news: Elizabeth Spiers, the founder of FishbowlNY and mediabistro’s former editor-in-chief informs us that her potentially white-hot Dealbreaker.com blog will launch on Wednesday, March 29. (And, despite what we thought, it’s not a blog about trying to date a NYC actress while living in Connecticut with your Mom.)

As you all probably know, Spiers left her mb post late last year to write a novel (And They All Die in the End, due this fall) and — with the backing of Logicworks CEO Carter Burden and The Week president Justin Smith — launch a blog network starting with Dealbreaker.

Until it goes live, a decidedly ghetto static page soliciting tips and potential interns’ résumés will have to whet the Street’s insidery appetite. We can’t wait.

via MediaBistro

Originally posted on March 28, 2006 @ 3:55 pm

Darren Rowse, and Jeremy Wright recently celebrated B5Media’s 6 Month Birthday. Businesses are all relatively new at the six month stage. But conversations and relationships are all starting to gel. One of the things that was especially profound about this was something Darren referenced he called them ‘campfires’.

A friend recently reminded me that throughout all history people have clustered together to have conversations. Over the ages a lot of these conversations happened at the end of the day around a campfire where extended families would come together to tell stories, debate issues that impacted them and to entertain each other.

Over the centuries the locations of where these conversations took place changed with in more recent history us moving towards methods of communication that relied upon paid centralised experts to inform and entertain us.

With the advent of new media, like blogging, we’re seeing a move back to the days of people informing and entertaining themselves. In a sense what I see b5 (and other blog and podcast networks) doing is creating spaces for these conversations to happen.

It gives me a great deal of joy to see 100 small (but growing) campfires glowing in the b5 landscape and to witness the growing numbers of people gathering around them to learn, build community and converse.

This is truly what new media,social networking, and really largely what Web 2.0 is all about. It’s about creating conversations. Every blog network, social networking site,podcasting network, vlog out there is lighting fires and asking people to join them in the conversation. This is why it’s just so silly to sit around and fight because occasionally you want to go sit around someone else’s campfire. The more campfires we have the better. It’s about distributed media, not monopolized conversation.

The Old Media is scared of conversation. Mostly because they are so used to being the only one that gets to talk. Kevin Anderson from another campfire group Corante recently touched on this point very well. He is referring to new media, interactive media when he says:

They feel a sense of ownership with their media, but not with the stuff they dismissively call the MSM (the Mainstream Media).

I think Kevin hit the nail squarely with that swing.

Originally posted on March 26, 2006 @ 12:29 pm

Police in Boulder, Colorado used MySpace to identify suspects in a robbery and rape case according to detectives. The incident took place on February 23rd in Boulder when the unnamed victim was sexually assaulted at a party. Police were able to identify the suspects with her help, and the use of the social networking site MySpace which was were she met the seven people involved in the crimes. She did not know the full names of the suspects because she met them online. The suspects allegedly also stole upto 40,000 dollars worth of electronics, jewelry and other valuables at the party. The men face numerous charges steaming from the incident.

While some speculate this could probably be a black eye for the social networking site. The pros and cons are evident. Police were able to utilize the same technology quickly to identify the suspects. Negatively speaking you never know who your meeting online until you meet them in real life. All the more reasons for Fox Interactive to potentially create a system for parents to monitor their chidren’s activities. Luckily for Fox/MySpace the victims, and suspects were all adults. If this had been a case of an underaged victim we might see a much greater backlash than what MySpace is seeing at this point.

Via APWire

Originally posted on March 26, 2006 @ 7:02 am

The Lulu Blooker Prize announces its winner.

What are The Blooker Awards you might ask:

Blooks are the world’s fastest-growing new kind of book and an exciting new stage in the life cycle of content, if not a whole new category of content. Learn more

The Lulu Blooker Prize is sponsored by Lulu, the world’s fastest-growing provider of print-on-demand books, including an increasing number of blooks. However, the judges are independent of Lulu and no favor will be shown to blooks published on Lulu.

The first ever winner of The Blooker is Julie Powell.
Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that’s going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother’s dog-eared copy of Julia Child’s 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.

At first she thinks it will be easy. But she soon realizes there’s more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia’s stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovered how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver. Via The Blooker Prize

Originally posted on April 3, 2006 @ 1:38 pm

Fired Washington Post Blogger Ben Domenech called the Washington Post Editorial Staff Fools.

“While I appreciated the opportunity to go and join the Washington Post,??? Domenech said, “if they didn’t expect the leftists were going to come after me with their sharpened knives, then they were fools.???

– Human Events Online

Ben Domenech fired back a rebuttal to all the claims of plagiarism. But clearly if he wants to work in journalism, he’s now passed himself off as The Bob Knight of Blogging. An ill tempered, yet talented guy who everyone admires but no one wants to get near. This is a bad label for anyone who wants to make it in journalism. Luckily for him we live in a new media world. He can always spin this bad press into developing a new level of prowess for his blog.

Originally posted on March 26, 2006 @ 1:31 pm