Don't Blog

Steve Rubel posts:

Robert Scoble is getting a life and giving up his linkblog. Good for Robert. Marc Orchant also is getting a little blog-worn, as is Neville Hobson. And Richard Edelman is taking a blog break. Even I was only able to get two posts up today. Maybe there's a trend here. Blogging can lead to success and fame. Couple this with an economy showing life and what do you get? Burnout. No worries. I am still here to keep my blogging pace. Travel, client work and new business pitches do make it challenging, at times. How would you feel if I took the blogging equivalent of a "mental health day?"

Join the crowd of previously stressed out bloggers: reports on Justin Hall, Andrew Sullivan, Vagablog, danah boyd.

TORONTO. Canadian blogging consultant Jeremy Wright was denied entrance to the United States by a security official who didn't understand what blogging was, that you could make a living with it, or that you could talk to people through the Internet. The story is really about the growing communication gap between those who live and work online, and those who don't. Wright's public posts on this: one, two, and three. via Jörg Kantel and Earl Mardle.

Irony and beauty.

• Irony: this happened at a small blogging company (they're all small).
• Beauty: the transparency of this transaction.

More or less:

1. Marginally risky art work provokes disproportionate feedback,
2. directed at the blogger's employer.
3. Employer spells out the effects to blogger,
4. who chooses to further explain/excuse the art and removes the picture.

p.s. No bloggers were bullied in the making of this post. I overstated management pressure for the sake of a corny headline.

Declan McCullagh interviews U.S. Federal Election Commissioner Bradley Smith in The coming crackdown on blogging for CNET News.com. The FEC is now applying McCain-Feingold to bloggers, treating blogging as a political contribution worth money to a campaign. Link to a candidate? Say something nice? Run a Yahoo! group? Host a meetup? Copy something from a candidate's site on your blog? Report it to the FEC or set aside bail money.

Not yet, but American copyright law makes it possible. Blawger Reasonable Man says you own your own words when published. Conceivably commenters might sue for a share of ad revenue, or a partnership stake in the blog.

"Who owns blog comments?" also suggests a blog's Terms Of Service can be written to assign some of the commenter's rights to the blogger, so a blogger can keep the post as part of the web site and protect its conversations.

As bloggers add defensive TOS, look for some bloggers to create predatory terms where all your comments belong to the blogger, no rights left for the commenter.