Lee & Scott Call on House Republican Leadership on behalf of 99ers

Barbara Lee and Bobby Scott today called on House Republican Leadership on behalf of the 99ers to allow a vote on the Emergency Relief to help Long-Term Unemployed Americans now.

From Lee's website this morning:

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Washington, D.C. - Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) joined Gregg Rosen of the American 99ers Union and Dr. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) at a press conference earlier today to introduce The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Expansion Act, legislation to extend emergency benefits to long-term unemployed workers. The bill would provide 14 weeks of emergency unemployment benefits to people who have exhausted all their benefits and are still unemployed. Many of these long-term unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits and need this assistance to support their families, make ends meet and contribute to our economy. The speakers called on the Republican leadership to allow for a vote on this critical legislation to provide emergency relief to millions of working class people.

"Millions of workers across the nation, many of whom live in my district, are experiencing a true state of emergency. Our bill would ensure these long-term unemployed workers get the long overdue assistance they need to support their families, make ends meet and contribute to our economy," said Representative Barbara Lee. "The Republican leadership has given a lot of lip service to creating jobs for our working class, but they have yet to even produce a plan. Now they have a chance to support emergency relief to millions of working class people who can contribute to our economy as they fight to support their families. I call on Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor to bring this to a vote on the House floor as soon as possible"

"The Great Recession has been devastating for so many American families," said Representative Bobby Scott said. "Not only will this legislation help these hardworking Americans make ends meet, it will stimulate the economy. According to the Center for American Progress’s recent report on the impact of the recession, economists estimate that the U.S. economy grows by $1.61 for every dollar the government spends on unemployment compensation because unemployed persons usually spend all of their benefit payments quickly. Put simply, unemployment compensation is one of the most efficient and effective ways to stimulate the economy."

"I represent 19 groups and tens of thousands of individuals from every corner of this great nation who have come together with a common goal: extending unemployment insurance for all Americans. I applaud Representatives Lee and Scott and others for introducing this bill that will assist in curing the disease that is unemployment, The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act," said Gregg Rosen of the American 99ers Union. "Passing this bill will save American lives, assist in rebuilding the American Economy, and get Americans back to work. This vital piece of legislation needs to be enacted into law without delay."

"With December’s tax deal, we just committed to spending nearly $140 billion over the next few years on tax cuts for the richest 2%. These tax cuts are unfortunately one of the least cost-effective forms of stimulus available, since wealthy people are much less likely to spend that money in the near term," said Dr. Heidi Shierholz of EPI. "We remain in a severe jobs crisis and extending unemployment insurance is a lifeline to the most deserving - to the families who have actually been the most hurt by this downturn. And it is one of the most efficient things lawmakers can do to generate jobs."

All unemployed Americans are urged to Contact:
Joel Payne, Lee, (202) 225- 2661
Larry Dillard, Scott, (202) 225-8351

There was NO live major media coverage of the Press Conference, but Ed Schultz will have 99er coverage on his MSNBC show at 10 PM EST tonight.

AOLington Post? Did Huffington just jump the shark?

$315 million from AOL to Arianna Huffington is a real eye-opener, and Zennie's written recently about how various blogs (including this one) are valued, but AOL has a history of getting things wrong, and this is surely a case of strange bedfellows (but hey, it's politics, right?) Consider that AOL's primary revenue stream remains their old-school subscribers, the messy divorce from Time-Warner, and the way their local news theory is - well - sputtering, thus far. Now AOL evidently hopes to capture the unpaid contributors and eyeballs that followed the drama of the 2008 elections. Good luck with that.

In an investor's ideal world, I suppose, they'd expect the HuffPo loyalists to stay interested, and the AOL subscribers to stay, and the buzz to generate more interest and more readers - right? More interest, more readers, more ad revenue, happy investors. It could happen, but I don't see it. Instead, AOL will further tarnish the already slipping HuffPo brand, driving HuffPo's core readers elsewhere (maybe here?) without significantly altering the AOL reader's habits. These are two utterly different groups of internet users.

The kind of folks who were enthused about what Huffington seemed to be about during the 2008 campaign cycle (and make no mistake about it, the rise is tied to Obama, Clinton, McCain and the most-watched campaign in history) are the sort of people who have disdained the AOL model since before the country had even heard of Monica Lewinsky. They'll go elsewhere, and AOL will be left holding the bag.

In fact, it's already begun. As reported Monday in the immediate wake of the wedding announcement, former Essence Editor Angela Burt-Murray is now out of the HuffPost "Global Black" lineup. So, perhaps part of the appeal to AOL was Arianna's ability to come to terms with BET co-founder Sheila Johnson in an attempt to lure more African-American readership, but if you know why Ms. Burt-Murray departed Huffington's fold so soon after the AOL announcement we'd love to hear about it here, since AOL doesn't have the best track record in that department.

It's a triumph for Ms. Huffington, who has been very savvy in building and executing her business model. She sold out at a very opportune moment - and $315 million is a handsome profit - a remarkable return on investment. As such, this may even represent, or spark, the next hot wave of interest from big investors; it's clear that many stalwart media companies would benefit from some infusion of newer know-how, and tying their brand to an up-and-comer. But this unlikely union may well be the beginning of the end for HuffingtonPost's Happy Days.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community. You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.

With Arianna Huffington Boss Of Michael Arrington, More Women In Tech?

One ironic development in the wake of AOL's purchase of The Huffington Post for $315 Million, is that, with Arianna Huffington now content editor for all of AOL's acquisitions, including TechCrunch, this question must be asked "Will we see more Tech Crunch content on Women In Tech?"

I put that in caps because last year the lack of representation of women in tech fields, and at TechCrunch events, morphed from a complaint to a full-blown TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco panel that can only be described as horrible. For all practical purposes it degenerated into a near-cage match between Rachel Sklar and Sarah Lacy, the moderator.

Meanwhile, Michael Arrington stayed out of sight from the panel, an interesting development for a man who was so out in front in hitting back against Rachel's criticisms of TechCrunch and women. (Which it really boiled down to far more than "women in tech.")

 Last year, Michael wrote:

Every damn time we have a conference we fret over how we can find women to fill speaking slots. We ask our friends and contacts for suggestions. We beg women to come and speak. Where do we end up? With about 10% of our speakers as women.

We won’t put women on stage just because they’re women – that’s not fair to the audience who’ve paid thousands of dollars each to be there. But we do spend an extraordinary amount of time finding those qualified women and asking them to speak.

And you know what? A lot of the time they say no. Because they are literally hounded to speak at every single tech event in the world because they are all trying so hard to find qualified women to speak at their conference.

Now that Arianna Huffington's basically overseeing TechCrunch, Michael has no excuse that he can't draw the best names from the vast pool of women in tech. He can just call her for help. The question is, will he?

The overall attitude expressed by male TechCrunch readers in Erick Shonfeld's blog post from February 7th is that it's not just about "Women, Power, and Local" as Eric's title was strangely named, but about their overall bitterness toward Arianna, as expressed in some of the comments - well a lot of them.

As one commenter put it:

Are you guys taking issue with being UNDER a woman now?

With that, maybe TechCrunch could stand more content from women to draw female readers.  There's no reason it has to be male-dominated, anyway.

Stay tuned.

AOL Buys Huffington Post At $315 M; Zennie62.com Val $864,930

864,930
How much money is your blog worth?

Yep. You're reading that right, according to one website, that this blogger used for the first time (never saw it before) Zennie62.com is worth $864,930.

On Sunday night, well after the conclusion of Super Bowl XLV, and the emergence of the new NFL Champion, The Green Bay Packers, another event happened that, for moment, caught the attention of Twitter, becoming a top trend: "Huff Po."

That was because America Online just shocked the Internet world and purchased a blog site called The Huffington Post for a record $315 million, or to put it another way, almost a third of a billion.

Now, as I said in my video below, blog valuations will increase. No, the Huff Post sale to AOL in no way impacted the MyBlogValue.com estimate for Zennie62.com, but the simple fact is more and more blog owners have looked at their blogs as investment vehicles, and as online new traffic has increased and newspaper readership falls more and more, blogs are looked at as more than "legitimate" news sources. Now, they're solid revenue-generators.



Want more proof?  You may know that AOL also purchased TechCrunch for $30 million, and already owned Engaget after buying it and Jason Calicanis'  blog network for $25 million in 2005, but between 2005 and now, a wave of blogs have been purchased, or have been acquisition targets.  If you're wondering what the common draw tends to be, it's one person.  That is, the blogs and blog networks that have been sold were started by one or two people and came to be known by those personalties.  Perez Hilton of PerezHilton.com, and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.com are the two best examples.

In Perez' case, his blog has been valued at as great as $38 million last year.   And while estimates of PerezHilton.com's actual worth vary wildly, there's no question that more often than not, the number falls between $20 million and $40 million.  And that's for a blog that's more associated with one person, and not a staff of bloggers, like TechCrunch.    Personality drives blog value.

AOL's Tim Armstrong was basically paying for Arianna Huffington as much as the gargantuan traffic levels The Huffington Post generates.  For all of the writers and bloggers, and recent staff additions like Howard Fineman, the "Huff Po" has always been seen for what it is: a child of Arianna Huffington.

Take a look at the list of the 25 most valuable blogs in 2009, and the majority of them are known for the work of a single person, or at best, a few people: Gawker Properties, Huffington Post, The Drudge Report, Perez Hilton, PopSugar, TechCrunch, MacRumors, SeekingAlpha, GigaOm, Politico, SmashingMagazine, SearchEngineLand, Boing Boing , ReadWriteWeb, SB Nation, Destructoid, Mashable, Alley Insider sites, slashfilm, The Superficial Network, Neatorama, Daily Kos , Talking Points Memo, VentureBeat, and Wowowow.com.

Moreover, many of the blog on that list have been acquired since then.

What Does This All Mean?

What this all means is that a hyperlocal blog like The Bay Citizen is less likely to fit in that group of blogs "ready to be bought" because there are two problems: established local news sites, and math. A hyperlocal blog or website is a slave to its population size. And established news websites are hostitle to, and don't seek to partner with, sites like The Bay Citizen. The only way to grow is for such a blog to stop being "hyperlocal" and be more "local," having a mix of civic-interest, and World-interest content. That's what Zennie62.com's built to do.

The New York Observer is a great example here, as well - actually a better one.  While it covers New York City, it really focuses on pop-culture and then asks "Who in New York is impacting World pop culture?"  Thus, it's not surprising to see posts on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg next to posts on The Hotel Chantelle, and then a post asking "What Did Wil.I.Am: tweet at the Super Bowl?"

(I've tried to explain that hyperlocal's a stupid idea, but my thought now is to let the hyperlocal blogs just pass on because their founders just don't listen and some established news websites don't listen either.)

This also means that more local blogger have to team up, but with so much vanity it's hard to actually cause such a dynamic to happen: everyone seems to want what the other person has already built. But I think this current wave of very public blog acquisitions will force bloggers as a whole to stop being immature, start thinking of their blogs are the business units they really are, and seek their potential value sooner rather than later.

Stay tuned.

Art Schlichter's Alleged Ticket Scheme

Art Schlichter, former Ohio State All-American quarterback, is currently being investigated for the role he may be playing in an alleged sports ticket scheme that is raking in millions of dollars, according to CBS.

WBNS online, Central Ohio's News Leader, reports that sports fans were promised hundreds of thousands of dollar in sporting event tickets, but the money was never received.

There are at least six lawsuits filed against Schlichter's partner in crime, Anita Barney, a woman from Dublin whose husband was the co-founder off the Wendy's restaurant chain.

WBNS' Paul Aker reported that Barney is also accused of writing bad checks to cover the debts. She was not reached for comments but her attorney said that she was conned by Schlichter. A text message from the football star said:

"it will help a lot of people and "this addiction is an (expletive)."

Aaron Rodgers On David Letterman, At Disney World

Aaron Rodgers - Main Street USA Parade at Walt Disney World, originally uploaded by nickel.media.

In case you missed it, here's former Cal Bears Quarterback and now Green Bay Packers Super Bowl XVL Winning QB Aaron Rodgers on The Late Show With David Letterman.

It was a full first day basking in the glow for the two-year Cal great, just 24 hours or so from beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 31 to 25. He was at Disney World that morning, in a parade in his honor. (The amazing photo by Nickel Media and posted on Flickr for blog use.)

Then, Rodgers flew to New York to be on David Letterman's show that evening, thus completing his East Coast swing.

On Letterman, while Rodgers explained how Cal Football Coach Jeff Tedford found him while scouting for Butte Community College tight end Garrett Cross. As Rodgers explained, Tedford saw him and called that evening to offer a scholarship.

But instead of continuing that conversation, Letterman went off on the idea that Rodgers supposedly played with "ex-cons and 25-year olds," the East Coast media line that was propagated during Super Bowl media week.

Because of that, Cal lost any hope of more Letterman glory. RATS!

I was waiting for Aaron to bring David back on course, but you know what? It's his moment.

But I can't help but think would Rodgers or for that matter Jahvid Best, have been more an advocate for Cal if they were four-year players? Moreover, what does this say about Cal overall that it's main would-be spokes people, it's players gaining a national spotlight, aren't really speaking up for it.

Something's wrong with this picture.

GO BEARS!

Oakland Video Blogger Video "My City : Oakland" Shows Kids Views

An interesting video I just ran across by Oakland YouTuber floralhoippietown, who wanted to provide a way for Oakland's kids to express how they see the city. The video is just over five minutes long, but presents a good example of how we can "see" our city through the eyes of the young.

If you have a similar video like this, email me about it. I'll feature it.