Life Without an iPod

I didn't realize how ingrained my iPod was into the fabric of my existence, and how addicted I was to last.fm, until I had to make this trip to SF without my iPod. I'm feeling really uncomfortable about not having my entire day of Saturday iPod listening not included in my last.fm profile. But, unfortunately, something happened to my iPod on Saturday and I ended up with the little sad face error. I was able to reset it and force it to act as a hard disk, but the sad face came back again. Sigh.

A trip to the Genius Bar on Sunday was even more discouraging. Though they were ready to give me a replacement on the spot, my iPod was a gift and had an inscription on its back, so I have to wait until I can mail mine in and then receive an inscribed replacement. It's going to be a sad week indeed. I thought about digging out my first generation and loading my playlists on to it, but I had forgotten that the click wheel no longer works. I'm going to miss updating iscrobbler. Sigh.

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Ad:tech Experience

So this morning I opened the ad:tech San Francisco Conference with a keynote interview with Brian P. McAndrews. CEO of aQuantive. Apparently it didn't go over as well as I thought it did. According to Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ and someone at AdvertiseSpace I'm too laid back, too New York, and very inexperienced at interviewing and speaking in public.

There's a live blog at Bruce Clay Inc. and Steve Hall posts at both Adrants and ad:tech blog about the keynote.

Oh well, you can't win everybody over. Hopefully somebody there got something out of the keynote. Just as I was blogging this two women approached me to tell me how much they enjoyed the keynote, and they weren't the first I've met in this manner since this morning.

As I said about winning everyone over, not everyone can be pleased by all types of presentations. Also, as both a blogger and a journalist I too am often looking for "the more" or "the wow" or "the takeaway" of everything and end up being extremely critical because of it. So it's all understood.

(Update) More coverage of ad:tech SF opening keynote, "The Digital Decade What the Past 5 Years Can Teach Us About the Next 5":

The Digital Decade: What the Past 5 Years Can Teach Us About the Next 5 (via iMedia Connection)
Prepare for Digital Integration (via Internet Marketing and Technology News)
Prepare for digital integration, ad:tech keynoter warns (via DM News)

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Simmons Says 3 Epithets Should be Banned

This AP story showed up on the home page of Yahoo! a couple of hours ago. I think it's pretty ironic that Russell is calling for an end to obscenity in rap when he cusses more than a sailor.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons said Monday that the recording and broadcast industries should consistently ban three racial and sexist epithets from all so-called clean versions of rap songs and the airwaves.

Currently such epithets are banned from most clean versions, but record companies sometimes "arbitrarily" decide which offensive words to exclude and there's no uniform standard for deleting such words, Simmons said.

The recommendations drew mixed reaction and come two weeks after some began carping anew about rap lyrics after radio personality Don Imus was fired by CBS Radio and NBC for referring to the players on the Rutgers university women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."

Expressing concern about the "growing public outrage" over the use of such words in rap lyrics, Simmons said the words "bitch," "ho" and "nigger" should be considered "extreme curse words." (more)

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Stereohyped, Jossip's Black Interest Blog Debuts

I got an email today announcing the launch of Stereohyped, and this is what it said:

After many months of planning, writing, designing – and returning to the drawing board – today, Stereohyped is born.

What is Stereohyped? It's a black-interest blog with a focus on news and politics, entertainment and celebrity, fashion and beauty, career and lifestyle, and dating and sex. We're abandoning the mainstream media's approach to African-American stories — and making every story for African-Americans.

Stereohyped is the fourth blog from David Hauslaib's Jossip Initiatives, the independent publisher behind insider media blog Jossip, gay lifestyle title Queerty, and online celebrity tabloid MollyGood.

Your editor is Lauren Williams, a D.C. native with a penchant for Beyonce and Barack. But don't worry, she knows more black celebrities and politicos than that.

We invite you to check out Stereohyped. Once you blog black, you never go back.

I haven't had much of a chance to check out it's authenticity yet, but you can bet that I'll be watching.

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While You Were Watching Oprah

Michaela Angela Davis EIC of HoneyMag.com on Scarborough Reports discussing Don Imus and More

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IAC Announces Online Initiative for the Black Community

Appoints Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. CEO

NEW YORK - April 18, 2007 - IAC (Nasdaq: IACI) announced today that it will launch an online destination for the Black community featuring topical content, relevant services and a platform for community interaction. Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. has been appointed CEO of the initiative, which is scheduled to launch in January 2008 and will be based in Charlotte, NC.

The yet-to-be-named site aims to bring the best the Web has to offer to the U.S. Black population, specifically catering to the community‘s distinct needs and interests. It will be part of IAC Programming, created in 2006 to grow branded online content properties that engage passionate communities.

“There exists enormous opportunity in today’s online landscape to provide Blacks with an experience that engages their unique communities through a collective voice,” said Mr. Taylor. “There are 40 million African Americans in the U.S., and we estimate an additional 20 million Blacks from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. IAC – with its superior technology, operational expertise and more than 60 brands – is poised to provide exceptional content and services for this growing and underserved population.”

Michael Jackson, President of IAC Programming, said, “Johnny has superb experience in talent acquisition and an exceptional track record in business strategy and execution. He is also a passionate advocate and leader for the Black community. With his intelligence, business acumen, and people skills, Johnny is the best person to launch this important Programming initiative – the first ethnically focused property in the IAC family of brands.”

For the past year, Mr. Taylor has served as IAC’s SVP of Human Resources in New York. Previously he was SVP of Human Resources at LendingTree, an operating company of IAC. Before joining LendingTree, Mr. Taylor was President of McGuireWoods HR Strategies LLC, and served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Compass Group USA, Inc. Mr. Taylor also spent more than eight years in senior executive human resources and legal positions with Viacom subsidiaries Blockbuster Entertainment and Paramount Pictures.

About IAC
IAC is an interactive conglomerate operating more than 60 diversified brands in sectors being transformed by the internet, online and offline... our mission is to harness the power of interactivity to make daily life easier and more productive for people all over the world. To learn more about IAC please visit http://iac.com.

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Upcoming Speaking Engagements

If you're in NYC this week or SF next week, and happen to be attending MIN or ad tech, let me know.

April 19, 2007
"Creating Community & Better Social Networking." Panelist
MinDay 2007 | New York, NY

April 24, 2007
"The Digital Decade What the Past 5 Years Can Teach Us About the Next 5." Keynote Interviewer
ad:tech Interactive Media Conference | San Francisco, CA

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Qunicy Jones III Profile

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a feature on Quincy Jones III quest to take over the digital urban entertainment category. Right now, he's really in the best position to do this, as no one else is stepping up to the plate. There was a time though, way long ago, when we had sites like Volume.com, 360hiphop.com, Hookt.com, Platform.net, and UBO.com -- before it was a Reggaeton distribution and promotion outlet. It was a time when sites like BlackPlanet, Africana, and BET.com mattered. Back then, there was an even a need for an Urban Internet Forum, as there were so many players in the game. These were all well-financed attempts at making a destination for urban entertainment and culture online. But many critics say they were ahead of their time.

But for Quincy Jones III and his company QD3 Entertainment, there is the possibility of piggy backing off of the success of such community-centric sites like YouTube. Read about how "Quincy Jones III Builds a Digital Entertainment Brand."

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E-Activism: Analysis of Black Bloggers in the Blogosphere

Brown University released a press release on April 5, citing the findings from a study conducted by Dr. Antoinette J. Pole, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, in which she found that of 20 black bloggers that she surveyed:

"85 percent of respondents use their blogs to engage in political advocacy and to raise money for charitable causes. A majority of the bloggers said they encouraged their readers to vote or to register to vote; 40 percent of the bloggers asked their readers to contact elected officials; 35 percent suggested that their readers sign a petition or attend a rally, protest, or march."

The findings appear as Black Bloggers and the Blogosphere in the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, and can be downloaded for $4.09 US.

One of the most interesting things that Pole said she found in her study was:

“While black bloggers face challenges such as not being linked by more popular bloggers or not receiving as much traffic as other bloggers, they perceive the blogosphere as inclusive.”

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Mashable is Hiring Writers

If you're into tracking social media startups, Mashable is looking for you. And though they didn't ask me to provide this announcement here, I'm doing it because I love the blog and learning about new social media tools through the site's postings. Unfortunately, a conflict of interest would deter me from joining the Mashable crew myself, but that's why I'm putting the word out. Though it's something I'd love to do, and can't, I know that many people who read this site would be into the gig. Besides, it pays.

Let's just thank the Mashable Twitter edition that I found out about this.

For more info, go to Mashable.

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