Daddy, why do monopolies suck?

I have hated Comcast for a long time. For many reasons. Many are legitimate, business reasons, tied to the overwhelming corruption of mind that comes from operating in the space of an essential monopoly. Thank goodness Knology came to town, just to give a little competition. Anyway, here's another guy who's not so happy with the Commies...

blogging is messy

Yesterday there was a minor event on TUAW. You can read about it here, or go back to the Procrastinatr post and see how it began.

Point is, David made a mistake. It happens every day. Someone once scolded me for a grammar error I did NOT make. I sent him an email, and he responded with much enthusiasm... heh. Well, poopie happens. When my wife waited tables, they had a sign in the back of the restaurant: "We're serving food, not saving lives." Word.

My bigger picture point: he fixed the mistake. See, in main stream media, a "fix" could take days or weeks. In the paper, it's buried inside a section-- who is going to see that? Maybe the guy who corrected my (admittedly) bad grammar (except that time I didn't make a mistake, go figure).

My point: mistake, but corrected within hours, not days (like MSM)

Now I remember back when OJ was speeding down the highways of LA, then-living Peter Jennings supposedly had a "witness" who had a bead on Simpson in the back of the car. Guess what? It was a trick.

Remember the time Dan Rather used fake docs to "nail" Bush? Good times.

Or how about the one where NBC will never again air Rob Smigel's brilliant "Media-opoly" episode of "TV Funhouse."

Yes, there are a great many journalistic atrocities out there. I have a feeling one blogger won't commit the same one twice ;-)

PS- I had another example of how blogging gets messy, is fast, real, dangerous, and sometimes stupid... But after listening to the chaos of the "Vloggercon" TWiT epi, I can't remember it...

digg vs. Netscape

OK, Kevin Rose told the fanboys, and (as usual) they still didn't listen. So let me SHOW you children how it works. And yes, for the record, I work for AOL. Get over it.

I popped on to the beta today, because I have yet to be able to set up an account (see, I can be critical). What's on the front page? Someone posted an audio recording of himself trying to cancel his AOL account. The AOL guy is a total ass. Why? Who knows... It's sad, funny, and irritating at the same time.

Now, on digg, this would shoot up, everyone would have a great time. However, there wouldn't be any follow-up. The guy who posted would have his moment in the sun, and the diggers can snigger at another big company being mean to everyone. Hee haw.

However, on Netscape, we see the finish. We understand the story because it gets DUG DEEPER... That's the power of bloggers. Bloggers are like this weird hybrid of news reader and journalist. Believe me, it is NOT easy to find a "real" blogger.

The Netscape gang is getting into the story. It isn't fair to post an audio clip and pretend it represents a company of thousands of workers who, like me, are busting their ass for their customers. Now you get the context, and, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story."