The drive for young women to be like Miley Cyrus continues with golf star Michelle Wie and her new blog that's caused quite a stir online. I received an email tip and had to check out the latest buzz on Wie, which I did with my friends who own the Lake Merritt Cafe in Oakland, CA:
so i took a calligraphy class in high school and i reallly loved it. i would love to learn how to do asian calligraphy again. classic asian art is beautiful. love
Folks Wie's art work is fantastic. I don't know what it would fetch in the open market, but I'm sure the price tag would be substantial. She has everything from calligraphy to stencil and her talent's to be seen. Then there's her modeling career:
Here Michelle Wie shows her Miley Cyrus side showing a lot of skin and the color black. While I'm tempted to make fun of her desire to "show some skin" and do with my Lake Merritt Cafe owner friend in the video, I've got to note that Wie made the clothes she models herself. By contrast, Miley's modeling what someone created. Wie reports:
my cousin showed me how to use a sewing machine last week and its sooo awesome! so with my new knowledge, we ran to the fabric store and got some fabric. i got some leather looking material, black jersery fabric, and zippperrs. so i made a dress... i feel like with this one, you can either wear it without anything inside and be uber sexy with the exposed skin, or you can layer it up..
You go girl!
Seriously. Wie's an amazing genius, who's full range of accomplishments should be on display for all to see. At the age of (well, she's about to turn) 20, Wie's discovering that she's more than just a golfer, and she's pretty good at that too!
I wonder if Miley would consider sporting the latest in "Wie Wear."
College Football's back and ESPN's Lou Holtz thinks The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame will be in the BCS National Championship Game. He's wrong. But the Cal Golden Bears will beat the USC Trojans October 3rd in Berkeley, 20 to 14.
Notre Dame lacks team speed
At 29 wins, 21 losses this is Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis' make-or-break year. If he wins seven games or more, he's in the clear and gives Irish fans and boosters a reason to expect better years ahead. But if he losses 7 games or more, he's in trouble. My prediction is for another six win season.
Why?
Notre Dame's chronic lack of team speed.
The Fighting Irish have a problem drawing the fastest players at all positions. The states that generally produce the fastest talent - Florida, California, and Texas - have those players literally programmed to go to one of the colleges in those states, and for good reason: they can get into them.
Notre Dame's demanding academic requirements, both before and after entering the school, are a road block to securing the best athletes required to reach the BCS title game.
So how does one explain Notre Dame and Weis success in 2005 and 2006, winning nine games in '05 and 10 in '06? Easy.
First, Weis was coaching former Notre Dame Head Coach Tyrone Willingham's recruits. Coach Willingham was able to get talent to chose Notre Dame in large part because as the school's first African American head football coach, he was a symbol of change where it wasn't expected. One of Willingham's prized players was Brady Quinn, who was obviously a player with great potential before Weis arrived: Weis caused Quinn to reach his potential as a passer in 2005 and 2006.
Quinn is Notre Dame's career passing leader and set 36 records while there. How he did this is the second reason why Weis won in 2005 and 2006: the system was new. Weis brought in the schemes he created while Offensive Coordinator with the New England Patriots: a combination of the timed offense popularized by the late Coach Bill Walsh, and a system that looks a lot like elements of the passing patterns used in the "Airraid" Offense at Texas Tech.
But in fairness, while Weis' system looks like the Airraid Offense created by Coach Mike Leach and Coach Hal Mumme, it's not and evolved from his years at New England.
It took two years for Notre Dame's NCAA foes to develop a "book" on the Weis system, and as that happened, the Irish faced a loss of Willingham-recruited talent. The once-good Irish defense was weakened by these losses.
The result was a season in 2007 that was so bad, with Notre Dame winning one game, it's not even mentioned in Weis' profile on the Notre Dame website.
2008 was not much better. While Notre Dame showed promise it was trying to determine who its signal caller of the future would be. Emerging from injury, Weis star recruit, the celebrated high school passer Jimmy Claussen, emerged to take control of the offense. The Irish roared to a 4 and 1 start, but finished 6 and 6.
I can't see them doing better this year. But this is not a wish just an analysis; I like Coach Weis and met him at the 2005 Super Bowl Party hosted by ESPN and sports agent Leigh Steinberg in Detroit.
Where I would be wrong is in the scheme changes. If Weis stays with more shotgun and spread attacks, rather than trying to emphasize running the football, the Irish will be in for a long season. But if he places the load on Claussen and uses the short pass and screen game, a 7 or better season can happen. Plus, I'm not sold on their decision to use a 3-4 defense with their opponents: pass rush has been the Irish' problem.
National Championship? Notre Dame? No. Cal beating USC? Yes.
Why?
Everyone talks about Cal's offense and Jahvid Best, but for me the key to what could be a national championship season for The Golden Bears is their defense. Cal has eight of eleven defensive starters returning for 2009. USC by contrast is burdened with the task of breaking in a freshman quarterback and rebuilding their defense. I can't see USC beating Cal, let alone Ohio State.
Score: Cal 20, USC 14.
On this issue, there's a looming problem for Cal this Saturday in that reportedly, Cal has no idea what kind of defense the Maryland Terapins will use because its brand new.
Maryland's planned "attacking 4-3" is a design that I favor, but I also know how to beat it: spread four and five wide receivers and match pressure with pressure and throw short passes. If Maryland should go "max blitz", the chance that a receiver will score after a catch-and-run or be wide open increases dramatically.
But if Cal runs a two-back set it's not going to be the easy win that's predicted for the Golden Bears.
At any rate, GO BEARS! And remember its BLUE DAY Saturday at Berkeley!
Ha! This is the beauty of being a local in Oakland and the Bay Area. Having friends who have old photos of you and them in action. In this case the photo below is one of Lars Frykman, Bill Boyd and myself on BART in 1975. (In case you're wondering where Bill is, he's the photog here.)
Zennie and Lars - 1975
Bill found this photo and put in on his Facebook profile page; now it's on mine too. But I couldn't resist sharing it as it's a small window into the Bay Area of the past. I mean, I had a small "'fro" and Lars was sporting the Rolling Stones' hair look. But that was as much hair as I wanted; no longer. No big 'Fro for me!
The only place I can think of where we may have been going at the time was Berkeley and to the Federation Trading Post (FTP) on a weekend or San Francisco just to ride through the then-new BART tube. That was a store located within a building that's still on Telegraph Avenue between Blake and Parker avenues.
One could go the FTP for book like "The Star Trek Technical Manual" and costumes and replicas of set props like 'Phasers'. I'd bet money that's where we were headed, but I'm wondering if our friend Craig Pryor was with us too. I seem to remember that he was, sitting next to Bill in that lounge seat area.
As to our expressions we were probably talking about the business of the club; that's the only thing that could get all of us worked up at some point in a conversation. Ha. Funny thing is, Lars then looks just like his son Kyle today.
BART was new then. It opened in 1972 and transbay service (under the San Francisco Bay from Oakland to San Francisco) started in 1974. What was neat about BART at that time was everything was automatic: the doors opened and the train didn't even have the monitors that are in each one today. As I recall, the problems didn't start mounting up until 1976. But even with that it was a smooth almost soundless ride; the tracks have worn so much that such an experience is a thing of the past.
Well, in any case, my same friends are the ones who joined me to see the new Star Trek Movie last May, on the day it came out. Here we are in front of the Grand Lake Theater, in this video singing the Star Trek theme after seeing the flick.
This has been a hard day to say the least with the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, but harder still is the idea that the King of Pop, Michael Jackson may still be alive.
You read that correctly.
There's a video flying around the Internet that strongly claims to show Michael Jackson being assisted from the back of what looks like and apparently is a Los Angeles County Coroner's Office ambulance. The vehicle is captures on camera driving in a dark tunnel of sorts. A chain fence door closes as the camera approaches, keeping it from getting any closer to the ambulance.
The camera person has the presence of mind to zoom in and as the person did, a person walked around from the right and opened the door, assisting a small person dressed in a white shirt and black pants and what appears to be a kind of black shall covering their head. If it wasn't Jackson, the person was built like Jackson looks.
This video shows that Michael was still alive after his dead body was transported to the Los Angeles Dept. of Coroner I checked the license plate number and it looks like the King of Pop is jumping out of the same van, his dead body has been in. I got the original video tape from a trustworthy source. I know him for years. And I am sure it´s real and Michael is alive.
It's also the only video on that person's YouTube channel, below are other videos that report to show the bodybag Jackson was in moving. Frankly, it's hard to tell anything from those videos, but the LA Coroner video's another story.
Look at this photo:
Photo courtesy of IrishTimes.com
This is a real picture of the LA County Coronor's staffers placing what's supposed to be the body of Jackon in the van. Look closely at the van itself. Notice the doors and how the blue stripe comes to a pointed end at the nearside door on the car's left. Also, take note of the top light over the doors. And the same license plate on that side.
Now, look at this still from the video claiming to show Jackson's alive:
It has the same license plate in the same area, same painting scheme. Basically it looks like the same vehicle. I can't read the numbers on the license plate, so it's hard to tell if it really is the car, but someone should have these videos and photos analyzed. Also, the L.A. County Coroner's Office should issue some kind of statement.
What does this mean?
I really don't know what all of this means except that this is something that should be looked into if only to debunk it. It's all over the news, from the Chicago Tribune to the website Associated Content and TMZ.com. Those outlets are trusted sources such that they do appears to believe this should be looked into.
In the end, for some reason the words "Maybe now they will leave you alone" keep ringing in my head.
Even though vlogging - video blogging - can be considered a self-indulgent practice, vloggers are fans of others who vlog. In my case, I'm a fan of several - Paul Robinett, or "Renetto" is one of them. Renetto's YouTube's first big vlog star just from the simple practice of posting videos consistently of him talking into a camcorder about something. But after developing a great following - 41,000 subscribers on YouTube - and a "name", Renetto's concerned that he's not serving his fan base, so my idea is that he shorten his video time.
What makes Renetto popular is he talks to you through the camera. It's not so much lifecasting as leaving a message for the World. But they tend to go on for seven or eight minutes, where I've found that people tend to drop out of a video after about 2.15 minutes. I don't always like making such short videos, but I've slowly adopted this rule: me talking should be up to four minutes or so, me interviewing a person can be as long as 20 minutes for my video and TV show, me filming an event can be up to an hour. (My TechCrunch video at the 2008 August Capital Party was over 40 minutes.)
But for me, I try to say it in two to four minutes. Lately, I've clocked in around just a hair over 3 minutes or so average. I can't say I've seen such a short video from Renetto, but I'll check back with him.
Some of Renetto's fans like the long conversational format he brings; I do too. But he started the whole thing by complaining so I thought I'd help out.
We do get paid for vlogging
Some people think we vlog for free - in other words we don't get paid for our vlogging. Every time I hear that or see it written I wonder why some people insist on being so blind. I tell everyone I know about the YouTube Partner program and generally if I talk to 30 people, I'll get one person who's really interested and then it's a coin flp probability that they'll do anything. For example, at the recent blogger meetup at the Berkeley J School, I was the only one of two vloggers in the room.
And while there may be 175 bloggers in Oakland, I can think of one other vlogger than myself and that person's not consistently at it. Terrible. In San Francisco, I know of five - Irina Slutsky, Sarah Austin (back from New York), Tracy Swedlow, Josh Wolf (who just moved to Berkeley), Schlomo Rabinowitz, Justin Kan (who's not as visible of late). (If I've left someone out, sorry. But also I'm thinking of consistent vloggers, not one and done vloggers.)
You can make money creating videos and having an audience - living wage level revenue that doesn't take all of your day to earn. It's all eyeballs folks. I'm up to 7.7 million total viewers on my YouTube channel Zennie62 since 2006 and of that, drew 5 million viewers in the last year, and over 2 million of them in the last five months. That's not a lot compared to vloggers like Renetto or Phil DeFranco, but I'm headed in the right direction: up.
Vlogging is the future of marketing and communications and is at the heart of New Media, and is a powerful tool for social change, but let's face it: it's a test of your self-esteem. The more comfortable you are with who you are the easier it is to get a camcorder, make a video, and post it, and not give a care what people think about your looks. (Well, except the racism and cyberharassment part; that's sick, I have zero tolerance for it, and fortunately a number of people do too. People who do it get cut from my channels or in a few cases reported to the authorities. Period.)
There are only about 600 YouTube Partners out of the thousands of people who upload something daily worldwide. That means we're out there doing this as a business where I have no idea what anyone else is doing.
Hmm. Just 600 YouTube Partners? On second thought, maybe I should stop telling the rest of you about the program! More money for Renetto and me!
Today's Friday August 7th and for any regular Twitter user it it's "Follow Friday". But just what is Follow Friday and why is it so popular? I've got to admit I had no idea why the habit started. Whatever the case, it's a popular Internet happening, so let me explain what it is.
Follow Friday is the act of copying a Twitter account reference (@zennie62) and other Twitter accounts references (@handsongourmet), then in the "What are you doing" field paste those references and add this before them - Follow Friday - so the result looks like this:
And then click on "update". What will happen is others will see those references and click on them to follow if they want. But at times just making that kind of update will not do the trick, so many people add more account references, like so:
The reason for adding so many accounts is that the more people you encourage to be followed, the more likely they are to place you in their Follow Friday update post and the more times you will be "seen" to be followed by their followers.
Got it?
It's like this: let's say there's a 50 percent chance that you will get new followers if you have just two Twitter reference accounts, ok? So, if we have six, we go from one possible new follower to three. But you don't stop there, you add more Twitter account holders as you go along in new updates for Friday. The ideal system is to help those account holders who are following you first. What you want is for everyone following you to gain the benefit of your follower base, and vice versa. The overall objective is more followers, and a greater base from which to issue your message.
It's also the best free way to gain followers in addition to tweeting everyday, and retweeting (copying someone's tweet, pasting it into your "What are you doing? field, adding "RT" before it, and then pressing "update. On the matter of free, I don't recommend buying into a service as many of them don't work as advertised.)
Now, who started all of this?
According to Mashable the first Follow Friday tweet was issued in mid January of 2009 by @micah (Micah Baldwin), then @myklroventine came up with the hashtag #followfriday (which you can use or just "Follow Friday" as I do). But the very next week, the trend went viral, with about two Follow Friday's per second at its highest rate of activity.
TopFollowFriday a great tool
Wondering what online tool to use to "watch" your Follow Friday activity? I learned about something called TopFollowFriday, which is where can see who's endorsing them and who you've endorsed.
So give Follow Friday a try today, which is...Friday!
This morning I ran a poll asking you what you thought Michael Vick should be allowed to do. Thus far, the poll has attracted 998 voters and 1,777 views. Of the voters, 43.99 percent say Vick should be allowed to play in the NFL, 38.33 percent don't want him to play in the league, 9.21 percent want him to play after a one-year suspension, 4.40 percent favor Vick as a special counselor to NFL rookies, and 4 percent want to see him play in the UFL first, then the NFL.
Here's my video on the poll and my thoughts on PETA for some background on why I voted that he be allowed to play in the National Football League. If you've not participated in the poll, it's presented below the video:
On Monday July 20th, Michael Vick becomes a free man, released entirely from Federal custody after being found guilty of harming dogs as part of a dog fighting business, the former Atlanta Falcons star has his life ahead of him after two years in jail. But what should he do, or more to the point, what should Vick be allowed to do? With the idea of getting an answer to that question, I created this poll:
More on pollsb.com
As you can see, it has five choices one can make. Play in the NFL? Play in the new UFL football league after a one-year suspension? Not be allowed to play football at all? Play in the NFL after a one-year suspension? Be a special councelor to NFL rookie players?
I voted for the first choice: play in the NFL. Look, he's done his time and seems to have learned the error of his ways. But there's a weird double standard at play here that just bugs me. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal, has called Vick all kinds of names regarding this matter, even saying that Vick's brain may be tuned to violence, or words to that effect, and asking for a brain scan.
Wild.
But what really bugs me about PETA is that they would, ok, dog Vick, and even get after President Obama for swatting a fly, but PETA turns a blind-eye to the dog racing activities of the Rooney Family, which owns the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dog racing has the same kill-to-weed-out-the-weak process that dog fighting is known for and PETA knows it. But did they say anything about the Rooneys when the Steelers ownership was up for review by the NFL, thus turning a public spotlight on them?
No.
I tried to get a statement from PETA's PR rep on this, and she just sent me the statement they issued about Vick! I have that already! So with that I lost a lot of respect for PETA and chose the "play in the NFL" option. It seems that if one's black and high profile, PETA has no problem aiming its PR machine at you, but if you're white, as is the case for the Rooney Family, you get a pass from PETA. PETA has issued no statement regarding the Rooney Family's involvement in dog racing.
Vick as mentor
But of all the choices, I also like the last one listed in my poll: be a special counselor to NFL rookie players. Vick can be really valuable here as an example of how one can go from rags to riches to rags and yet have a fighting chance to regain his life and to not repeat his mistakes.
Poll can't be gamed
So try my poll. One can't "game" it to get a particular answer outcome. Sorry. If you click on the link "view full results" it asks for your name and photo only once, so it weeds out the double count in the final result.
On Monday July 20th, Michael Vick becomes a free man, released entirely from Federal custody after being found guilty of harming dogs as part of a dog fighting business, the former Atlanta Falcons star has his life ahead of him after two years in jail. But what should he do, or more to the point, what should Vick be allowed to do? With the idea of getting an answer to that question, I created this poll:
More on pollsb.com
As you can see, it has five choices one can make. Play in the NFL? Play in the new UFL football league after a one-year suspension? Not be allowed to play football at all? Play in the NFL after a one-year suspension? Be a special counselor to NFL rookie players?
I voted for the first choice: play in the NFL. Look, he's done his time and seems to have learned the error of his ways. But there's a weird double standard at play here that just bugs me. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal, has called Vick all kinds of names regarding this matter, even saying that Vick's brain may be tuned to violence, or words to that effect, and asking for a brain scan.
Wild.
But what really bugs me about PETA is that they would, ok, dog Vick, and even get after President Obama for swatting a fly, but PETA turns a blind-eye to the dog racing activities of the Rooney Family, which owns the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dog racing has the same kill-to-weed-out-the-weak process that dog fighting is known for and PETA knows it. But did they say anything about the Rooneys when the Steelers ownership was up for review by the NFL, thus turning a public spotlight on them?
No.
I tried to get a statement from PETA's PR rep on this, and she just sent me the statement they issued about Vick! I have that already! So with that I lost a lot of respect for PETA and chose the "play in the NFL" option. It seems that if one's black and high profile, PETA has no problem aiming its PR machine at you, but if you're white, as is the case for the Rooney Family, you get a pass from PETA. PETA has issued no statement regarding the Rooney Family's involvement in dog racing.
Vick as mentor
But of all the choices, I also like the last one listed in my poll: be a special counselor to NFL rookie players. Vick can be really valuable here as an example of how one can go from rags to riches to rags and yet have a fighting chance to regain his life and to not repeat his mistakes.
Poll can't be gamed
So try my poll. One can't "game" it to get a particular answer outcome. Sorry. If you click on the link "view full results" it asks for your name and photo only once, so it weeds out the double count in the final result.
In the third installment of my series on the "Top 10 on Twitter" in different cities, I took a new look at Oakland today and found some dramatic changes. But first, from Dharmesh Shah's awesome Twitter Grader app, here's the list by name, score, and number of followers:
The news? Well, compared to two day ago when I started this, I jumped from number 7 to number 4. How? Well, I really didn't set out to improve my Twitter Grade from 99.8 to 99.95. What happened was that in losing followers - which happens all the time - I gained a better score! I was up to about 6,000 followers, then at 6,001 I lost followers, a weird development that happened right after the installation of my first blog on this matter of Twitter rankings. Well, all I can say is "Thanks!" to those who dropped, it really helped my score.
MistahFab Rules; KTVU needs a Twitter lesson
But some things remain the same: Rapper @MistahFAB still rules Oakland, and has a healthy following (visit his site to hear his music at http://www.mistahfab.com), Tom Merritt and Molly Wood are in the mix at two and three, and while Oakland-based KTVU Channel Two is still in the rankings, I'm over them by two!
YEAH!!! Woot! Woot! Alright!
I cheer this because it's yet another example of how some - ok, most - big media organizations don't get new media. If KTVU knew what it was doing, it would be at the top of this list with a score of 100, but it doesn't so it's not. By contrast, CNN gets it. CNN now has over 2.2 million followers on Twitter. What CNN does is encourage people to follow them on Twitter. Of course that doesn't mean CNN's use of Twitter is flawless, as MC Siegler points out over at TechCrunch, having millions of followers means a lot of people will be upset with you when you install tweets that have broken links!
Moreover, to digress for a moment, broken links mean no traffic from Twitter, which then means less online ad revenue than CNN has a right to expect from CNN.com given having 2 million followers. Fix the links! I doubt this is KTVU's fear - they just plain don't give a care or don't know what they don't know. For example, KTVU's website lack's a link to their Twitter page as of this writing. So if you see one there, top of the fold, you know this blog post had something to do with a change they should make ASAP.
Of course, they could consult me. I certainly hope they're not so naive as to think I've given them all the answers to the problem here. We'll see.
DaveyD out of the top 10 in Oakland
I had to admit I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that Oakland's hip hop journalist and UC Berkley alum, DaveyD fell out of the top 10 here. DaveyD, what happened? Well, one thing that has occurred is he's not tweeting as much as he should, and he needs to discover the joy of retweeting so he can gain more followers. But that written, I expect to see him back in the ranks again, especially once he sees my blog post!
Oakland Twitterers need to improve
Look, it's a total shame Oakland's not on the top 10 Twitter cities list and that can only happen when the ranks of us are not as engaged or partnered with each other as we should be. Every one in Oakland on Twitter should follow each other first of all, then promote each other second. In fact, I'll lay out a plan in a future post.
Who's on the "Top 10" list of Twitter users in Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco? There's no question but that Twitter, the microblogging service, has become a "must be on" new media system with an engaged and loyal core group of users, all microblogging about events, activities, news and opinion. The San Francisco-based firm has grown from small beginnings just three years ago to 19 million visitors (or 17 million if one goes by the digital research service ComScore.com) in April in what was a dramatic 83 percent jump over March, and in that month alone Twitter went from 9.8 million visitors to 17 million visitors, perhaps the fastest expansion of a new media service in the short history of the industry. It's clear that Twitter, as Eric Schonfeld with the tech industry website TechCrunch.com said, is working to become "the pulse of the planet."
As Twitter has grown so have the number of ways of measuring a twitter account holders effectiveness, or "Twitterers" as I call us. Perhaps the best Twitterer evaluation system is "Twitter Grader" made by self-described "serial entrepreneur" Dharmesh Shah. I am rather addicted to his application because it not only lets one know how effective they are on Twitter, but how they rank in their city, which is the most fun part of it all. In his blog at the site, Mr. Shah or "dshah" as he goes by explains how the final Twitter Grade is calculated:
1. Number of Followers: More followers leads to a higher Twitter Grade (all other things being equal). Yes, I agree that it’s easy to game this number, but we are looking at measuring reach and I did say all other things being equal.
2. Power of Followers: If you have people with a high Twitter Grade following you, it counts more than those with a low Twitter Grade following you. It’s a bit recursive, and we don’t get carried away with it, but it helps.
2. Updates: More updates generally leads to a higher grade — within reason. This does not mean you should be tweeting like a manic squirrel cranked up on caffeine and sugar. It won’t help either your Twitter Grade or your overall happiness in life.
3. Update Recency: Users that are more current (i.e. time elapsed since last tweet is low) generally get higher grades.
4. Follower/Following Ratio: The higher the ratio, the better. However, the weight of this particular factor decreases as the user accrues points for other factors (so, once a user gets to a high level of followers or a high level of engagement, the Follower/Following ratio counts less).
5. Engagement: The more a given user’s tweets are being retweeted, the more times the user is being referenced or cited, the higher the twitter grade. Further, the value of the engagement is higher based on who is being engaged. If a user with a very high Twitter Grade retweets, it counts more than if a spammy account with a very low grade retweets.
As you can guess, one's Twitter grade can be all over the place. As of this writing, mine is 99.8, which means out of out of 2,747,790 Twitters, there are just 4,953 who are better than me at this point in time. But a month ago my grade was 99.9 and last week it was 99.7. But since I'm hyper competitive, adding followers at a regular daily clip, I want to know where I stand in Oakland, California, where I live. With that, here are the top 10 users on Twitter who live in Oakland, followed by Los Angeles, then San Francisco, and listed by name, grade, and number of followers:
Oh, and just for grins, the top 10 Twitter cities are:
1 London H9 United Kingdom 63.53
2 Los Angeles CA United States 70.80
3 Chicago IL United States 67.08
4 New York NY United States 71.52
5 San Francisco CA United States 74.00
6 Toronto 08 Canada 67.12
7 Atlanta GA United States 70.60
8 Seattle WA United States 67.91
9 Boston MA United States 69.14
10 Austin TX United States 69.98
Nope, Oakland's not on the list.
Top Cities have celebrity Twitterers
You may wonder why Los Angeles and San Francisco have so many Twitterers with 100 grades. The answer's a simple one: the vast majority of them are celebrities and micro celebrities who have vastly more followers than people they follow. In San Francisco, the number-one-ranked "missrogue" is Tara Hunt's the queen of online community consultants, and just wrote a book called "The Whuffie Factor" about how to improve one's use of social networks. "EV" in San Francisco is Twitter CEO Evan Williams, who has over a million followers. In Los Angeles, "iJustine" (Justine Ezarik) has over 600,000 followers and that number's sure to grow because today she's a "trending topic" on Twitter due to her new live show on USTream.Tv and as I watch this, she's actively trying to push "Harry Potter" out of the way for the number one topic spot today.
IJustine
Twitter Influncers
What all of this says is if you want your message to get out a large audience you have to work with these Twitterers or become one of them. When one gets over 2,000 followers, and updates over 10 times a day, they can cause others to share their news and information in a process called "retweeting". Or think of how Ellen DeGeneres used her 1.9 million followers to gain signatures for an online petition to stop the proposal to reduce the time animals are held in shelters before being euthanized. Some question the value of Twitter, but those who do, universally also just aren't good at it.
Oakland needs to grow more celebrity Twitterers, and of the top 10 in Oakland only DaveyD and myself are consistent bloggers. Considering the number of bloggers in Oakland, that's a shame. Maybe I should move to San Francisco or Atlanta. And on that, one can make a strong argument that the top Twitter cities are also the best ones for the consumption of online content.
The giant 100-acre Oakland Army Base is the focus of a development competition between two groups led by people well-known to many Oaklanders: "AMB/CCG" (for AMB Property Corporation and the "CCG" is California Commercial Group) is directed by Phil Tagami, of California Commercial Investments, and who redeveloped two Oakland landmarks the Fox Oakland Theater and the Oakland Rotunda, and Federated Oakland Associates, who's boss is Michael Johnson, the developer of several multi-unit housing projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the builder of the San Francisco version of Yoshi's Jazz Club.
The Oakland Army Base
The developers are engaged in a competition with the Oakland City Council as the final "decider". The winner gains the right to enter into an "Exclusive Negotiating Agreement" with the Oakland Redevelopment Agency, which will lead to the production of a kind of contract called the "Disposition and Development Agreement" or "DDA" that is the guiding agreement stating what developer and redevelopment agency will do. The objective is the creation of what will be a "new town in town" given the size of the land area.
Today (Wednesday) the Oakland Tribune reported that the City Council's Community and Economic Development Committee could not get the majority votes necessary to move to the full Oakland City Council with a recommendation on July 21st. The vote was 2-1-1: with Vice Mayor Ignacio De La Fuente and Councilmember Patricia Kernighan voting for AMB/CCG and Councilmember Jane Brunner and Councilmember Larry Reid voting abstaining and voting for Federated Oakland Associates respectively. Brunner said she needed more information and wanted it before the matter was brought before the City Council.
Just looking at the two proposals, I can tell you what's missing from both without having talked to anyone about them. A bit of background: it was my job to review such proposals for Elihu Harris when he was Oakland's Mayor. I worked for him in the capacity of "economic adviser" from 1995 to 1999, then from 1999 to 2001 headed on the Oakland Super Bowl effort.
My job for Mayor Harris was to represent him on the same Community and Economic Development Committee the Tribune referred to today. My specialization was in reading development spreadsheets because of my background in urban planning and experience with the Oakland Redevelopment Agency; I could comb through one and explain what the strengths and weaknesses of a proposal to council were. I could also determine what information was missing from a fiscal presentation or proposal.
AMB/CCG: Long on capacity, short on complete cash balance numbers
The AMB/CCG proposal touts the financial power and real estate development and acquisition experience of AMB Property Corporation. But the problem with the proposal is actually something Phil Tagami (who's my friend) and I used to talk about frequently: it has a lot of "pretty pictures" and little numerical substance, even in the proforma. What it lacks is a full 10-year presentation of the full cash balance - even if the results are in the "red" - which is a possible and expected fiscal picture of what is to be an enormous mixed-use development project.
In the main proposal there are a number of sheets that read "To Be Determined" in large letters, which sends up a red flag for anyone on the City Council, and certainly would for me. What the City Council wants to see is some assurance that a proposed development will throw off enough cash to pay for itself over time and if that's not the case, how much the Oakland Redevelopment Agency will have to contribute should it fall into the red (which means it has generates more in expenses than revenues).
That kind of fiscal presentation is what's missing from the AMB/CCG proposal. The proforma is there with the 10-year revenue estimates, but absent the overall cash balance (revenues minus expenses) forecast sheet. By contrast, its in the Federal Oakland Associates proposal itself (and they provide the proforma), and they're bold enough to show a positive net operating income over time.
While the Federal Oakland Associates proposal is long on the kind of concise fiscal representation the Council wants to see as well as the kind of minority representation the Council (at least part of it) wants to see, its short on the development power presented by the the AMB/CCG team. Not that Federal Oakland is weak - not at all - but Phil's adding of AMB Property Corporation to his team was a huge coup that he worked a long time to secure. But that written, financial power is no excuse for presenting an incomplete proposal. Yes, that's a harsh statement, but I go back to the large red letters in the AMB/CCG proposal itself that read "To Be Determined."
Both proposals lack an economic impact analysis report
Something else missing from both proposals is an economic impact analysis report. In other words, what's the employment estimate per year, revenue from all taxes and fees, total population, and municipal costs to service the population will be. That's not a hard task to complete; when I was fresh out of Berkeley's planning grad school I created something called "The Area Redevelopment Economic Model", a spreadsheet program such that one could have both a fiscal and an economic impact report of any redevelopment project in the State of California. I used it to evaluate the then-Coliseum Redevelopment Survey Area. (Now, it's a full redevelopment area.)
The Oakland Redevelopment Agency should have insisted on this being part of the proposals from both teams. It would give the Oakland community a complete idea of what to expect from something that will completely alter the landscape of the city. Yes, some environmental impact reports have such a section, but this is too big an undertaking to wait for that. Moreover the council needs to be able to compare economic impacts of the proposals - it can't do that right now.
The City Council should combine AMB/CCG and Federal Oakland Associates
The Oakland Redevelopment Agency / Oakland City Council is not bound by the competing teams as they're presented; working as the Oakland Redevelopment Agency, the council can combine the groups into one. Let's be real honest here: this is a competition between a largely white group and a mostly black and "of color" one in an Oakland with a history of supporting minority business efforts. That to some extent is what's holding up the Council's vote; it's not said publicly, but for anyone who knows Oakland's political development landscape, that's the issue to a degree. The best way to end that racial division is to fuse the groups into one.
The new group would have to mate its development plans: take out those land uses which will not "pencil" (make money over time) and keep those plans that will. Personally, given America's push toward increasing its manufacturing base, the AMB/CCG plans look better, but the proforma numbers in the proposal support what is basically an educated guess at this point and need to be placed into a full cash balance spreasheet. I'm not at all comfortable with the lack of a real cash balance presentation in the AMB/CCG main proposal; if the project's going to be in the red or the black, show it.
Of course, they will show it in the black (making money).
Having a theater complex in a proposal - as Federal Oakland Associates does - is a terrible bet given the placement of movie content online and the negative impact that technological development is having on the theater industry overall (But at least they have the cash flow estimates installed in the proposal!) I can't see how anyone could justify the assertion that such a development would pay for itself over time. Talk about a rosy scenario!
On Saturday July 11th at 5: 30 PM, I walked out of a cafe on Grand Avenue near Lake Merritt in Oakland and noticed that sweet smell that comes after a light rain and a weird amber tint of the sidewalk below me, so I looked up and was surprised by an incredible site: a remarkable double rainbow that stretched overhead and to the left and right of me. It was such an amazing event that people came out of ZZA's and Sidebar restaurants just to take pictures of it; fortunately, I had my small Flip Video Camera.
Double rainbow in Oakland
There were two rainbows, one on top of the other in a perfect arch. It was such a site that people came out to their balconies to see it, and car traffic on Grand Avenue slowed because drivers were craining their necks to get a better look at it. What was remarkable was how robust the double rainbow was as I walked along, not dissolving into one rainbow. It's the first time I've ever seen a double rainbow, so I wondered what caused them to form. Off to Google.
To make it simple, because there are a lot of complicated explainations out there, a rainbow is formed when sunlight passes through raindrops at a certain angle. According to the Natonal Center for Atmostpheric Research, a double rainbow ">happens when sunlight is reflected twice within raindrops: the "primary rainbow" is formed in the "normal" way, but the "secondary" rainbow occurs after the double reflection in the raindrop itself (and explains why the outer rainbow's color order is reversed from that of the inner or primary rainbow). Given that information, can a triple rainbow form? Yes they can and do.
How rare is a double rainbow?
I wondered what does it mean - if anything - to see a double rainbow? Blogger and vocalist Luna Jade believes it means the viewer will be blessed. The Osho Energy Transformation Institute, that Jade links to, explains that "the double rainbow the symbol of transformation":
The double rainbow is the symbol of transformation.
In the first rainbow we see red is at the top and
violet at the bottom.
This represents the material world.
We are a rainbow, but the red belongs at the feet and
the first chakra area and the violet at the head.
So when we see the red at the top and the violet at
the bottom, it is as if we are seeing a person upside
down or descending from heaven diving down to the
earth. In the upper second rainbow,
and remember it is not such a common sight,
the colours are the right way up,
this symbolizes the journey back to heaven,
the ascent of the kundalini,
the journey of transformation, the spiritual world.
So a double rainbow over Oakland must mean something good's going to happen for a city that can use a few blessings, or at least for the Oaklanders who saw it today. With a massive budget problem, a persistent image as a dangerous city, and a double-digit unemployment rate, Oakland people overdue for great positive developments. The double rainbow's a great start - people who didn't know each other were talking on the street which is a rare happening in a Bay Area culture I think encourages anti-social behavior.
According to a story by TMZ.com, Tennessee assistant medical examiner Dr. Feng Li said an examination of the crime scene, police interviews, autopsy results, and lab analysis revealed that Sahel Kazemi did indeed murder former NFL Quarterback Steve McNair with multiple gun shots last Saturday.
Both were found dead in his Nashville condominium.
Many reports speculated that McNair was to divorce his wife, but TMZ also learned that the couple planned to purchase a new home. So with this, we can figure out that Sahel Kazemi didn't want McNair to go back to his wife and settled the issue with a tragic action. After purchasing a gun, she shot McNair four times - twice in his body and then in the head - and turned the gun on herself.
- Kazemi was pulled over for DUI Thursday morning between 1-1:30 AM. McNair was a passenger but was allowed to leave the scene via taxi with another person. Kazemi admitted to being high.
-Thursday night, Kazemi purchased a semi-automatic pistol. Police will not say who she got the gun from.
- Early Saturday morning, McNair meets Kazemi at his Nashville condo.
- 1:30 PM Saturday, 911 call is made alerting police of the shootings. Police believe bodies were actually discovered before 1 PM -- cops are "concerned" about the time lapse.
What's interesting is there's no indication Kazemi was arrested by police but that McNair was allowed to leave the scene without her. If the police did take her in if only for a few hours to sober up, she may have felt abandoned by McNair, and that coupled with the fact that he was not getting a divorce, may have pushed her over the edge.
Regardless of the details, it's a terrible end to the life of one of the NFL's most popular stars. I prefer to remember him as I saw him in the 2000 Super Bowl:
The latest issue in the ongoing story of Michael Jackson's death is who should get Jackson's kids that he had with his third wife Debbie Rowe. Apparently, Debbie Rowe wants custody of the children, son Michael "Prince" Jackson and daughter Paris-Michael Jackson. Reportedly, Jackson's will states that he wants his mother Katheryn Jackson to take care of Prince and Paris, while Rowe wants them to live with her.
There are many reasons why Jackson's children should go to either person, but what I object to is the fact that what the kids want and where they want to go is not the first consideration of the judge. I write and say that because those kids are taking an emotional beating: they've lost their father and now don't know where their home will be or who they will be living with. That's enough to make any decent person cry for them. There's no reason at all the judge can't let their desires be consideration number one, and the only one.
The children undoubtedly feel like their lives are entirely out of their control, give them final say over their own destiny. It's the only fair thing to do.
A side note on how to look for tv
I was taking a sideways gander at Chris Matthews' show "Hardball" on MSNBC when Chuck Todd, who filled in for Matthews had on as guests Gloria Alred and an African American gentleman who's name I didn't catch appearing on a segment about Jackson. The dude's name's not important; how he looked is: terrible. He had on a slightly wrinkled shirt without a tie, open at the neck, a big 'fro that really needed trimming, and a weird blue colored something-like-a-cheap-blazer. It was as if they just pulled the brother off the street to come on the show. Then Todd asked him the standard issue "questions one would ask a black entertainment reporter" like "Can you comment on the cultural significance of three news networks playing the same video at the same time?"
What!?
I couldn't believe the question and "Frumpy 'Fro Brother" couldn't either, trying to duck it for a time before giving in. I'm sorry, but this isn't yet "postracial" America, so why dress to a "You know, I'm just a poor, hard working brother" stereotype? Come on!
Next time, wear a decent suit and tie; it's national television, your image, and mine too.
Michael Jackson's passing is still a shock to me. The very idea that someone I feel like I grew up with left us at the age of 50 is just not right at all. I first saw Michael perform when I was 10 years old at the old Chicago International Amphitheatre in 1972; the Campbell family, who babysat me, took me and I remember it like it was yesterday. The Jackson Five was then the must see event and Michael was the star.
Michael was like my brother. In a way for many African Americans he was just that, a sibling. I knew him as the guy who grew up in Gary, Indiana. We knew people who knew them in Chicago, so I felt close to him long ago. I think it's for that reason so many African Americans were on Michael's side during the years when it seems he was kind of flying the coup: changing his skin color from brown to near white; narrowing his nose, and basically seeming to channel his best friend the legendary singer Diana Ross. Then, of course, there were the claims that he "liked boys" which we figured wasn't the case, and was more a byproduct of the money and attention seeking people who surrounded him. Michael was a person with an arrested development: he never had a childhood so to escape the trappings of a constant adult life, he created a childhood for himself.
I think being an adult just literally killed Michael.
For me, Michael Jackson was the person who wanted to bring us all together, as shown in his "We Are The World" effort. That amazing production and song, created with a group of the World's best known music talents, with Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Steve Perry, Bob Dylan, the late Ray Charles, and a host of others and to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, was just amazing. Amazing. I loved that song then; I still do today and I cry every time I hear it. (the lyrics and video are at the end of this post).
Talking with people About Michael's passing
The death of Michael Jackson is one of those events that will cause you to remember where you were when you learned of it. In my case I'd just emerged from a private movie screening at the Saul Zaentz Film Center in West Berkeley, CA. My Mom just happened to call with the news as I was walking to my car; I was stunned. Just stunned. So I took my Flip Video Camera and set out to talk to people about what happened to Michael. I had plenty of places to do this: the BART train station, the San Francisco Magazine "Best of The Bay" party, and all points in between.
What's amazing is the sheer number of people who were immediately informed via text messages and the reactions: shock, sadness, but not joy. No. No one expressed anything close to that at all, even given the part of his life where it seemed he was overwhelmed with "kid" issues. Nothing.
Dominic Phillips, the master of event planning in San Francisco, and who produced last night's "San Francisco Magazine Best of The Bay" party said "It's horrible. First and formost, anybody dying is horrible. There are so many family members that are just gonna be torn apart. But also Michael Jackson; on the one hand he was a very maverick person. But on the other hand he was part of my generation's life. He was like part of my experience, my growing up and I feel a little robbed that he's not there anymore. Like whether you thought his experience was your experience,that doesn't really come into it for me. I just sort of bonded with him in my youth and now he's gone."
Another woman I talked to on Howard Street in San Francisco said "I was just walking and three people got text messages (that he died)...just terrible. My friend Beth Schnitzer, who's the Director of Sponsorship Marketing at Pier 39 said "I can't believe it. Every time I listen to his music, it brings back a great memory from growing up somehow, some way. You know, it really hasn't hit me. He was too young; way too young." Jerusha, "The Last Single Girl In The World" said, as only she can, "We all have to go sometime and boy did he have a fabulous life before he went. He did it up and he did it up right. You know what they say, you only live once and that's all you need if you do it right!"
I talked to a lot of people, and if you see my video there are more than what's presented here, but all just variations on what was expressed. People loved Michael, warts and all. The "Best of The Bay" event turned into a kind of tribute to Michael, with his music playing continuously through the evening, and people danced, especially to "Thriller" which is a modern classic.
Sad day it was to have this happen. Michael, the world will miss you.
Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones.
There comes a time
When we head a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all
We can't go on
Pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of
God's great big family
And the truth, you know love is all we need
[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
Send them your heart
So they'll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand
[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
When you're down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well, let us realize
That a change will only come
When we stand together as one
[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
So a few days ago I wrote a blog post with a vlog about the Iran Elections or given what's going on over there the "Iran Revolution" and in preparing for it ran across an article who's take on Twitter, the main event in the Iran uprising, I disagreed with. It was written by Kara Swisher, the semi-well-known Wall Street Journal vlogger who covers "All Things D" or "Digital" as her blog site's called.
I wrote:
The amount of information communicated through Twitter has been of staggering proportions. While Kara Swisher may write that it's "inane and half-baked", the fact that Iranians can use their cell phones to tweet information and share photos has done more than the mainstream media in telling the World what's happening.
Well that sent her into a tizzy. She got on Twitter and publicly blasted me, writing things like:
karaswisher@zennie62 "inane and half-baked" were NOT my words and you said they were. I said it was simple which is different. Are you all-baked?
At first, I looked at her words with empathy and offered to make a correction, even though I totally disagree with her take. As a response, she wrote:
karaswisher@zennie62 it is not a favor to me for you to make an alteration. You attributed a quote to me I did not say. You made an error, so fix it.
After that, I reconsidered. After all it's my view, my opinion, and it's not against her at all. I like Kara's work and her -- not met her yet. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything she writes. In this case, no the words were not Kara's but she used them as a device to make a point and it's the use of the term I take issue with, as she didn't back away from it in her blog post.
And her title did use the words Inane and Half-baked. Maybe she'll go back and change it (please don't), but that's what was there.
So Kara, it wasn't personal. Ok? Twitter is a complex system to me. The rules of engagement on how to gain followers, following the right people, improving one's reach; that's a complex set of relationships in my view.
Twitter's not simple, and it's indeed revolutionary.
A few months ago, a few vloggers (that's video-bloggers), most located in the SF Bay Area, and a few from other parts of the country came to meet in North Beach for the San Francisco YouTube As-One Meetup.
Now you're probably thinking "What's the heck is that." Well, the idea was started in 2007 by Cory Williams, AKA "Mr. Safety" who's current claim to fame is something called "The Mean Kitty Song" and who's knack for making viral videos has earned him celebrity status in the vloggerverse, if there is such a thing.
Ok. There is. The vloggerverse.
Anyway, the idea is for YouYube vloggers, or YouTubers, to get together at one place and get to know each other in a real-time physical environment. Mr. Safety organized the first one of these at Pier 39 in San Francisco and included then then major star of YouTube, Renetto, who flew out from Ohio to be a part of the event.
That gathering, helped along by YouTube's marketing staff, attracted about 200 people, 60 of them YouTubers, and was a ton of fun. There have been "As-One" meetups in New York, London, Australia and other cities I'm not aware of. (But frankly it hasn't really caught on as I thought it would for reasons I'll get into later in this post. ) The San Francisco As-One held in March was a new stab at re-establishing the trend of events like this. The organizers even made a cool video:
Personally, I really loved meeting all the vloggers and the wanna-be vloggers, but something's missing from the concept.
I think that something is a thing to do other than just standing around. The first As-One was really cool because the YouTubers that arrived really just re-started online conversations offine before the cameras, thus putting them online again. For example, Renetto's great at talking about race without bringing his emotions into it. He's a talker and an idea exchanger; that shines through in his videos. But a lot of that conversational activity that used to gain viewers has been replaced by fake sex tape videos, music videos, the Associated Press, and Oprah.
For Renetto, YouTube adding Oprah was the last straw. He helped start a new vlogger community of which I'm a part called Vloggerheads. There, the kind of conversations Renetto enjoyed on YouTube before it got big have been replicated on Vloggerheads. So now, the kind of community energy once there has gone to a degree and that's reflected in the As-One meetups.
What's the answer?
Well, having something to do is one. That could mean having the events at restaurants or bars which helps market those places. The As-One concept's also perfect for events, too (especially street fairs). In other words, when we YouTuber's come to As-One's the producers should have a plan for us. All that camcorder firepower's a waste just pointing them at each other.
So, if you're getting the view that I have a plan of my own, I do.
