Atlanta Social Media Party Links BASHH And Digital Atlanta Meetup

This blogger went out to what was expected to be a small gathering of bloggers at 5 Seasons Westside Brewery, but was a first-time gathering of two digital and social media groups: BASHH, for "Big Ass Social Happy Hour" and the "Digital Atlanta" Meetup. In fact it was a total dive-in and swim experience, where I met a lot of great people, some who I interviewed for the video.

Some brief highlights:

The first person I met was John Peltier, one of the organizers of what he and colleague Anna Gonzalez (who I also interviewed at length) said was a continuation of the BASHH party at SXSW (That's "South-By-South-West," the giant music and tech confab held annually in Austin, Texas.) John says the idea is to have a party that presents a non-threatening place for people curious about blogs and social media to come and find out more about both by meeting people already involved in it. In other words, another excuse to have good drinks, good conversation, and good humor.

Met a lot of great bloggers, for example Cecilia Dominic runs the Atlanta wine blog Random Oenophile , where she highlights "reviews of restaurants and wineries," and from our conversation, has a lot of fun doing it, with some help from her husband Jason. A fun couple to hang with.

Victoria Ellis is a smart, sexy, man-eating riot, who's blog VISHous Life is a diary of dates past and recent, good and bad. Ms. Ellis and her friend Elwyn Lopez left me laughing up a storm, as you will see in the video. Is winding up a subject in Vish's blog's a good thing or a bad thing? Whatever the answer, she's got great material for a TV show, already.

Grace, a junior at Georgia Tech, smartly started a Twitter account that spots deals for Atlanta sports events. Want to know what specials the Atlanta Braves have? You're better off following @ATLSportsDeals than visiting the team's own website.

Nick Valencia is a CNN assignment editor, who describes himself as an "all-round jack of all trades" which is a redundancy, but whatever. Nick's project at CNN is Mexico's drug war, where his collection of blogs and podcasts really constructs and excellent and frankly, very human picture of a problem that's all too often painted in black and white. Take a search look here: LINK.

Terry Coniglio is the Social Media Coordinator at Georgia State University and handles all such activities for the college. That and I observed that she's got a good eye for decent food!

Anna's the ring-leader of the thing - darting, dashing, greeting, and making the event the fun happening it was. When I found out about the meetup, the list I saw read that "9 bloggers" were expected, but it was more like 50 people. I even met two reps of an app called FitRadio.com, that's positioned as a Pandora competitor.

As it happened there were two parties, the BASHH event, and the Digital Atlanta meetup, held next door at the correctly-named Octane Coffee cafe. I ran into someone I'd not seen since the 2008 Democratic Convention, and met two of the organizers of Digital Atlanta, set for November 7th 2011.

The idea of Digital Atlanta is to have a "week-long series of events celebrating technology and new media marketing achievements in Atlanta" according to its website. The second annual Digital Atlanta (the 2010 event drew over 3,000 people) is in the planning stages, and, as Susan Berry and Stephanie Frost explain in the video, it's seeking sponsors, so this is a great time to get on board.

In short, I happened to walk-in on a major event in the growth of Atlanta's social media community. I hope this blog and video can help spread the word about what's going on. It's quite exciting.

Stay tuned.

Stolen 1953 Gibson Les Paul Guitar Story Takes A Turn

If you recall the story of Maurice and his stolen 1953 Gibson Les Paul Guitar, where the Vancouver musician took to Facebook and Craigslist to report the theft of his prize possession, the story has taken a new turn.

Someone, either for real or malicious play, has posted a Craigslist ad offering the same 1953 Gibson Les Paul Guitar for sale. This is how the ad reads:

I have for sale a very altered, but very real 1953 Gibson Les Paul.

This is not a gold-top. In the 1950's, it was refitted with an ABR-1 bridge and stop tailpiece, and then refinished, all by Gibson. The green colour in the picture is accurate. It's one of the lightest Gibson Les Pauls, and the only one of its' colour, that I've ever seen.

The ad also uses the same description of how the guitar was altered that Maurice used in the original Craigslist ad, but it leaves a phone number:

Some changes have been made including:
--changed the P-90's to humbuckers
--had the neck thinned and it, the back and the sides were refinished
--replaced worn out machine heads with gold Gibson ones
--added brass switch ring, jack plate, and rear cavity covers that were made for me by my brother-in-law
--added a truss rod cover with "Les Paul" on it
--installed strap-locks

Give me a call on my cell, (515) 460-1400. Headed back to The States soon and I need it gone by then.

That phone number is, interestingly, the same one as used in this ad selling tickets to the Cubs vs. Pirates Opening Day Game:

2 Tickets Cubs Vs Pirates Opening Day 4 1 11 The Loop 40 details visit
04/01/2011
I was planning on going opening day for The Cubs tomorrow vs. The Pirates. Unfortunately work is bringing me home early, and I have two tickets to sell before 11am. First come first serve, $40 for both. I am staying at a hotel in the loop, you would have to be able to get down here in the morning to pick them up. 515-460-1400 Location: The Loop it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests ...more

When I called the number, the message said "Hi, this is Chris. I can't get to the phone right now, so leave a message. I'll get back to you."

According to the Facebook friends who tipped me off to this story, Maurice was informed of the ad, and called the police.

I just wonder if the phone number itself belongs to someone other than the person who created the ad.

Stay tuned.

Oakland News: Changing State Of Blogs In Oakland, Part One

Oakland News on the changing state of blogs in Oakland - part one.

Oakland Blog Shrinkage

First, what happened to blogs like OaklandSeen and Good News In Oakland? The OaklandSeen blog started by long-time Oakland political activist and KPFA Morning Show star Aimee Allison has not produced a single new blog post since late May - it's June 24th now. And this tweet was issued June 8th and pointed to some kind of problem:

OaklandSeen has been undergoing a few technical difficulties. Thank you for your patience. Keep watching this space for more Oakland LOVE...

The most recent, most prominent blog post pointed to Oakland Seen's recently gained "Making Democracy Work" award, presented by the Oakland League Of Women Voters. That's the same award given to this blogger for work during the Oakland Mayor's Race - thanks again!

But whatever's happening, and sources have pointed to some difficulties between editorial staff and management, let's hope OaklandSeen makes a come back.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: hyperlocal is hyperstupid. Unless you're going to walk the beat and try and get local businesses to pay more than the website space is worth from a traffic stand-point (hey, there are suckers out there who don't know how to value what they're paying for), you can't make money and sustain a stand-alone blog site that just covers local community news and ignores World News, pop culture, and sports.

And all for the pseudo-intellectual reason of "That's not news." Look, the fact that people look at web items about, I don't know, Heidi Montag, makes it news. This blogger says this all the time to journalists: "Stop whining about it!" People are voyeurs, and so want to read about other people - a web link with a name of a known person will be clicked on more than one about a known place or a thing.

OaklandSeen is still up, but Good News In Oakland is not. It's dead for now, because when you click on the link to the URL, you get a Go Daddy-owned webpage where Good News In Oakland once was. That's sad.

What's happening is that, because the Oakland locals - OaklandSeen, Good News In Oakland, A Better Oakland, Oakland North, Oakland Focus and Oakland Local - largely don't work together, the overall web strength of the total group is poor.

The main problem is that there are a ton of huge egos among Oakland Bloggers that for the most part don't want to really work together, and for the dumbest of reasons.

To point the finger at myself, I've lent a hand to help a number of people, and even invited some Oakland Bloggers to cross-post to my blogs at Oakland Focus and Zennie62.com, and other blogs in my 100-blog network. Some do, but then fall off after a time, and then some bad mouth me for no good reason behind my back.

So I'm supposed to want to help that person in the future? I'd rather not. Life's too short for that.

If I'm asked to come to cover an event by another Oakland blog, I'm there. If I can't make it, I explain why I can't. I've shown many how to video-blog, and some how to blog for traffic - but that's where the rub is. Some can't seem to "get" that the Internet is not print, and people will not come just because you wrote the modern day equivalent to War and Peace. Who cares?

Oakland Bloggers: take your freaking ego out of the equation. You have to write so your work is picked up by search engines and news aggregators. What you want people to accept is a dream - wake up.

According to reports, Good News In Oakland had a fund-drive party on December 18th - I wasn't informed of that. But whatever happened, it didn't raise enough money to sustain the blog site; it's gone for now. And the fact that the URL wasn't purchased is reflective of the lack of value of the name itself; people don't type "Good news in Oakland" in search a lot. Just a fact.

What remains is a Facebook page "liked" by well-over 9,000 people, including me. It's one reason why I went off on The City Of Oakland's ill-advised press release about its Facebook Page that has barely one-third the number of likes.

The blog A Better Oakland chugs along, unsupported by ads or a wealthy investment banker; V Smoothe (Echa Schnider), the blog's owner, has a full time job with the Oakland Public Library system (which hopefully she will be able to keep). Plus, she has a tight focus and a small, loyal following of people who reallycare about Oakland, even if they always don't agree with each other.

That Echa has outside income is what makes her situation vastly different from the other examples. The other Oakland blogs have tried to generate income from some source; but while Echa has went on a fund-drive or three in the past, it wasn't to "save" the blog from extinction, more to generate some income for the amount of time she spent on it. Still, it's touch and go.

And what about The Oakland Post, the news of Oakland's black community and stalwart since the Jurassic age of news? The online version exists, but that's about it. It's just a collection of blog posts, and with no social media component - Twitter? Ever heard or it? - at all.

The Oakland Post is a sad example of the Oakland Blog landscape - so full of great potential, yet poor in execution because of lack of teamwork. If the vast majority of people in this town would get over their petty crap, the news would be different. But they don't, and the town suffers.

Ask yourself this question: why don't Oakland Local, Oakland North, and A Better Oakland work together? Why did A Better Oakland and Oakland North skip the Code For Oakland event? Was Echa invited? Was Oakland North invited? A look at their content shows that that Code For Oakland wasn't a subject of coverage - I covered it. But then I was invited.

See? Something's really wrong here in Oakland.

Stay tuned for part two, when I focus on Oakland North, that dreaded interloper The Bay Citizen, and some other surprises.

Stolen 1953 Gibson Les Paul Guitar: Man Using Facebook, Craigslist To Get It Back

Stolen 1953 Gibson Les Paul Guitar: Man Using Facebook, Craigslist To Get It Back 3, a photo by zennie62 on Flickr.

This is the sad story of a man, Maurice in Vancouver, B.C., who had his 1953 Gibson Les Paul Guitar stolen on June 5th, along with other valuables. The theft has left Maurice without the ability to produce his music, let alone continue his occupation in the way he has done for so many years.

Maurice took to Craigslist and Facebook for help in recovering his 1953 Gibson Les Paul, and while it's not yet been returned, his cry has gone viral: a friend of mine urged me to make the video above to inform the public.

What Maurice writes on Craigslist will make you angry with the person who took his prized possession. He writes:

It's my most personal possession, and I have always planned for my son to have it one day. By the way, the other Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head you took was his.

It's not of much value to you, but to me, I can't buy another Les Paul like it because another one doesn't exist.. Here's a thought:

Have some decency and redeem some karma. Bring my guitar back. You've fucked my studio up and stolen a life-time collection of my shit. You stole my guitar rig, which was MY sound that I've spent years achieving.

You haven't ripped off a money making business. You've ripped off my life and my spirit immeasurably by taking away the tools of the pursuit of my passion. I've worked extremely hard for my whole life to earn my right to do so, and you took it all away in an hour or two. You've also ripped off my son, now, and in the future. I don't have the money to replace the gear, so it's just gone.

Just give it back - NO QUESTIONS ASKED. PLEASE

So, if you see a guitar that looks like the one here, call the police and make sure it's returned to Maurice. You can reach him via the Facebook or Craiglist page links in this blog.

Stay tuned.

City Of Oakland's Social Media Strategy Is A Joke

This blogger just received an email that added up to an unfortunate joke. The email consists of a press release that starts out like this:

City of Oakland Launches Social Media Strategy with a Twist
New Oakland Facebook Page an Instant Hit

And then goes on to read: "The City of Oakland, CA has ventured into the world of social media by launching a new Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/kJsg2B) “where people who live or work in Oakland connect with each other to discover and share all that makes our city great.” After just a few weeks, the page is already nearing 2,000 fans who are eagerly sharing commentary on topics ranging from arts, culture and family fun to expressing support for local businesses and standing up for Oakland when overlooked or maligned. The result is a robust community dialogue emanating from legions of fans passionate about Oakland.

If a "social media strategy" consists of one Facebook page, then there are millions of social media strategies, just because some Joe Blow started a Facebook page. The main problem, to cut to the chase, before I continue, is that a social media strategy is much more. I've talked about this before:



And even though the video's geared toward the individual, the rules can be easily adopted for any municipal business like The City of Oakland.

What's really sad is that my friend Samee Roberts, the City of Oakland's Marketing Director, went out and put her name on this really, really, tearfully terrible approach. Well, I guess I have to get after a friend, so be it, but Samee informs is that the City spent time and money conducting a survey to tell them they needed a Facebook page!

I'm not kidding, and I'm really disappointed in Samee here. And Karen Wertman, of the consulting firm "Indelible Branding" had the never to make this statement:

"We wanted to make sure that every decision about how to proceed with social media was informed by what matters to people who actually live and work here. We found that as a whole, Oaklanders are incredibly passionate about their city and feel bonded by that appreciation."

It took a survey to learn that?

Oakland's social media strategy is a massive sham if this is all it is.  Samee just emailed and said it was a start; that's good.

Just the other day, I looked for Oakland's Twitter page, and that photo on the left shows what I found.

That's right, the photo reveals a Twitter page with zero tweets, and no followers. An apparently someone had started the thing recently, because the page has one Twitter account followed: that of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. Other than that, the page reads:

@cityofoakland hasn't tweeted yet.

Then, when I checked Twitter Grader, I learned that the City of Oakland's Twitter page has been in existence for 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days.

So someone at the City of Oakland started this Twitter page and basically never maintained it, except for following Mayor Quan.

Wild, man.

I am not going to spend this space giving the City of Oakland free consulting work, and there are those within the City walls who think that when I give advice I'm telling them everything I know, or so other friends hace told me.

Heck, I remember Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty saying to me "thanks" for the "free" Coliseum website advice he thinks I gave the County way back in late 2001. Then, on the urging of then-Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb, I applied to be the Coliseum Executive Director, even though, given the players involved, I didn't expect to get the job.

I saw Scott at the Coliseum box during an Oakland Raiders game that year, and of course the Supervisor couldn't resist being a Smart Alec to me at the time. I didn't have the heart to tell him he got very little out of what I wrote, because he was being so nasty to me at the time.

Sorry, no love from me - I've been around too long - just the truth. We have to do better.

And that something better should be a task force. There are so many people in Oakland who already DO social media well, why hire a consulting firm? A task force is better.

And in closing, something else.

Since the World discovered Twitter and Facebook, I've seen an alarming number of old media-oriented organizations send out press releases on their "social media strategy" only to be hammered by the tech community, of which I'm a part - even have a CrunchBase Profile.">CrunchBase Profile.

The one rule is, if you're new to tech, and don't know what it means to be "disrupted," then stick your neck out to say "Look at me. what do you think?," get ready to be disrupted.

City of Oakland, you've been disrupted.

Of course, I expect the attacks from "anonymous" using whatever they can come up with; so be it.


Stay tuned.

Whitey Bulger, Subject Of The Departed, Arrested By FBI

James "Whitey" Bulger, subject of Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning movie The Departed, was arrested in California on Wednesday, along with his girlfriend Catherine Greig, by the FBI and after 16 years on the run.

Bulger's due to appear before a Federal judge in a Los Angeles court room on charges of of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, narcotics distribution, extortion and money laundering, according to RadarOnline.com.

Here's the ABC World News Now video from YouTube (as a note, ABC thankfully allows bloggers to embed their videos, and is a YouTube Partner, which means they gain revenue from the additional views from the embeds):



The FBI went around the World in pursuit of Bulger and at one point thought they had him in Europe, only to have taken in a German couple.

Not In Good Health

When The FBI finally caught up with Bulger, he was said not to be in good health, according to the Boston Globe - he's 81 years old and his girlfriend, who faces a charge of "harboring a fugitive" is 60 years old. Bulger reportedly didn't put up a fight with the FBI and confessed on the spot.

Reads like he wanted to get caught.

Played by Jack Nicholson

James "Whitey" Bulger was played by legendary actor Jack Nicholson in the 2006 Oscar Best Picture-winning movie The Departed, with Leonardo DiCaprio. Here's a scene from that film:



Stay tuned.

Cal Baseball News: Virginia Rematch, , David Esquer Coach OF The Year, New Video

After defeating Texas A&M 7 to 3 on Tuesday in the College World Series, Cal Baseball continues its amazing storybook season today, with a rematch game against Virginia. The two teams played Sunday, with Virginia getting by Cal 4 to 1; today's game starts at 7 PM EST on ESPN 2 and ESPN 3.

Cal goes into today's revenge, er, rematch game starting right-hander Dixon Anderson (4 - 3, 3.90 ERA, 41 SO/23 BB in 67 IP), a six-six junior who was drafted by The Washington Nationals.

Cal Baseball Coach Gets Coach Of The Year

According to the California Golden Blogs, Cal Baseball Coach David Esquer was named Coach Of The Year by the National College Baseball Writers Association, and will likely get a contract extension.

Here's the video from Bear Territory:



A New Cal Baseball Video!

Finally, and as you can at the top, Cal Baseball has a new video!

You can still donate to Save Cal Baseball at their website here: Save Cal Baseball!

GO BEARS! BEAT VIRGINIA!