Seen at TechCrunch50, while filming for Cyber Sapiens:

Heard at TechCrunch50:

So, am I your Production Assistant now?

Am I what?!

P.A., Production Assistant.

Yes, You are my Production Assistant. You are French!

Everybody thinks that.

What are you? Israeli?!

Yes.

Really?!

Yes.

You too? Landsmen. Always. You look like a Sheigetz though. You do!

 

This is probably going to be my most controversial blog post ever.  I’m going in with both feet, kids.

At some point during this blog entry I will probably reveal a MAJOR chip on my shoulder, but, hey! Who doesn’t have one?

Anyway, the discussion about race, racism, exclusivism, ethnicism, all-kinds-of-isms are running thick and fierce in my list of FriendFeed friends list about the 1938Media/Verizon deal.

Which lead to this post by Australian blogger, Duncan Riley (who also, incidentally, is a friend of 1938Media head Loren Feldman), making this statement on the matter. 

He marks on quite a few touchstones regarding American racism, but this one is the one that struck me:

I noted in the podcast, as I know I have elsewhere before, that America’s obsession with race has always struck me as being strange as an Australian.

Here’s why race/ethnicity is still an issue that garners obsession here.  From my vantage point, anyway.

1.  The initial US settlers (c. 1607, or thereabouts) came here to get away from people with whom they disagreed and be around people with whom THEY agreed and felt comfortable around.  Their descendants NEVER got over this.   In fact, you’d see, in our history, waves of European settlers stretching out into the midwest and the west, just to get away from people who were “not like them” (witness the Mormons), and removing tribes in their path who refused to be “just like them”.

2.  Regarding #1, the US has always been, and always will be, about conformity.  Stand out, and you will be spat on.  Not to your face (most here are too polite to do so), but certainly behind your back.   And not just in the white community, either.

3. The US was the last country in the western world to outlaw slavery.  We suffered internal strife in order to do so.  Some pockets in this country NEVER got over it.  Hence, situations such as the Jena 6.

4. We couldn’t get all of our population from Northern and Western Europe, so others had to come in and help fill space.  In regards to #2, the biggest amount of space fillers became the biggest scapegoats.  We had the Irish in the mid-1800’s.  We now target Hispanics and any woman wearing a burka.  We just can’t get over viewing anyone who isn’t “just like us” as anything the same as human.

5. Even the most “progressive” locations in the US weren’t, and still aren’t, immune to, slights on race, ethnicity, etc.  I can offer myself as an example, having kids spit on me and having my American birth while growing up in Menlo Park, because I had an Eastern European last name.   I was also given a lot of crap for not having a lot of “white” friends. :p

6. There are those who figured, since the Civil Rights movement and the passing of Affirmative Action, that racism is over, slavery is done, and that African Americans should stop with the “victimization” cries and just move on.  One would suspect that many of those who were of that viewpoint participated in this nasty little recent exercise against some black bloggers. Not to mention the incidents outlined here.  The racism may be subtle, but it still exists.

7.  America is still a very young country.  We are still doing a lot of soul-searching into things we’ve done in the past, things we are doing in the present, and things we would/should be preparing to do in the future.   Many other countries have gone through these race issues and resolved, well, most of them long ago.  We are probably where France and England are in the late 18th century in regards to race relations.  Does this give us the excuse to not be sensitive about them?  No.  Does this give us the excuse not to talk about them?  No.  In some quarters, just the word “race” brings up awful connotations for others.  That, to me, is not right.  You can spend time tiptoeing around an 800 lb gorilla and pretend that s/he’s not in the room, or you can face it directly.    Some people use satire.  Others use direct language.  Since I shot my video with my thoughts on the matter, I’ve gone back and forth on my feelings on the initial 1938Media video.  Sometimes, I think it’s satirical.  Other times, I think it’s racist.  Did he go over the top?  Yes, he did.  Did he have a point to make?  Yes, he did.  It got lost in all the hyperbole and controversy that followed.  Was it well made.  Well, not particularly, but it was his first one, and he got better since then.   However, he shouldn’t have to spend the rest of his career paying for this one mistake.   It could be said, and has been said, that someone was out to get him, and if so, they did a very good job.  With a year-old video. It does not, however, take away from the fact that racism, no matter how much polite society skirts around it, or screams when it’s discussed, is here and still needs to be dealt with hard.

Satire or no.

Discuss…

Vous connaissez surement Lauren Feldman, un blogueur américain très critique sur la vie et le développement des start up de la Silicon Valley. Il n’hésite jamais à détruire littéralement un nouveau site (il s’attaque assez régulièrement à notre Loïc national) mais aussi à pousser des coups de gueule sur les comportements des blogueurs en général. Ici un craquage sur l’utilisation égocentrique des commentaires :

Ces critiques me font énormément de bien car elles sont souvent tout à fait pertinentes et extrêmement lucides quant aux véritables explications du développement croissant des services sociaux.

J’ai posé la question récemment sur Twitter : Comment se fait il qu’il n’y ait pas en France une personnalité correspondante, capable de critiquer de manière vive et acerbe le système du Web collaboratif ? Je trouve que nous sommes tous assez complaisants, peut être un peu trop. Par exemple, dans un récent article, Eric annonce clairement qu’il n’a reçu quasiment que des encouragements depuis l’ouverture de son blog. Cela me paraît absurde. Toute la blogosphère française se tape régulièrement dans le dos, se congratule, nous faisons une ronde bon enfant dans un monde idéalisé. Selon moi, il n’y a pas assez de clash, pas assez de confrontations ni de débats, trop de “super ton billet”, “tout à fait d’accord”, “longue vie à ton blog que je lis régulièrement” etc. Seuls les trolls font office aujourd’hui de contre pouvoir, et ce n’est pas franchement satisfaisant…

Thierry (qui est justement pour moi est le blogueur qui a assez d’impertinence et de recul pour devenir l’équivalent de Feldman en France) m’a rétorqué que Loren pouvait se permettre cette posture parce qu’il n’avait aucun intérêt personnel en jeu dans le Web et que son image ne pouvait pas être dégradée par son show quotidien. Après une recherche, je me suis rendu compte assez rapidement que c’était absolument faux. Feldman est le propriétaire d’une agence interactive qui réalise du contenu vidéo pour des annonceurs américains, il est ami proche de Arrington et Calacanis et récemment promu journaliste chez cnet.

Pour conclure, je dirais qu’il nous manque un Feldman d’abord parce que la France est une minuscule île dans le gigantesque océan que représente le Web mais surtout à cause d’un poids cuturel qui n’existe absolument pas au US. La liberté de parole et de ton est infiniement plus développé outre atlantique. Ils ont la culture de la confrontation, de la liberté d’expression débridée et du clash. Bref, beaucoup d’avance encore une fois pour nos cousins américains, ils ont décidement le don pour faire avancer, détruire, reconstruire et nous mettre face à nos limites. Ce sont eux qui font le Web, aussi parce qu’ils savent en quoi il n’est pas parfait.

Thanks Loren! And I truly appreciate your support and ‘matter of fact’ delivery.

Seriously. Kick ass. This means a lot.

And congratulations on the C-NET gig! Have fun with it!

Loren Feldman of the often rant-heavy blog 1938 Media has decided to see if people will be willing to pay for the occassional post, to the tune of $.99.

“Why am I doing this? Because I want to. It’s an experiment. I know that most of 99 percent of you aren’t going to pay 99 cents ever. So it goes. But you know what? Content has to be paid for at some point.” (via CNet)

I definitely think this is an interesting and worthwhile experiment but I am not convinced that Loren is providing enough value for the fee.  His videos are pretty rough and his posts are interesting but rarely worth more than, say, a copy of both NY dailies.

It would be interesting to see if he tried a pay-what-you-like scheme.  Anyhow, here’s his explanation:

Alcat, a very good friend of mine, has had his YouTube account for more than 2 years now. He was born in SF and was a wannabe video blogger after being inspired by the likes of Bre Pettis and Steve Garfield at Gnomedex 2005.

He never quite got his act together, however, and languished behind the scenes, licking his paws.

Until he found Seesmic. It was easy to post quick, often rude and argumentative videos there and he liked it. He liked to mime. People seemed to like him. He performed for them. He answered their questions. He joined in their conversations whilst feeling slightly “luckier” than the other cats there because he, unlike the rest, had the power of speech. And he wore wigs well.

He went to SXSW and there he found he could at the same time delight and frighten people. Was he real? Why was he talking? He collected stickers. He ignored those who stared as they passed him talking into the laptop in anticipation of sessions. He marvelled at the people and their geekery. He liked what he saw.

Now, it seems, he is not alone. And he is pleased. When once people scoffed at his video ambitions, taunting him with cries of “but you are a puppet”!, now people are paying for other such felt fellows in video form.

Even Flickr is doing it to launch their video service because they have realised that humans are essentially boring.

Alcat welcomes this. The internets is a big place. There is enough space for all the puppets in the world.* He has even encountered the Feldman man on Seesmic and he looks forward to more encounters of the felt kind.

Except he is furry. Superior to felt.

*Never must he be called “puppet” to his face.

While this blog isn’t totally dedicated to the bastards of the Internet and will focus on what’s good and bad with web and mobile I thought this was fitting for the first post.

Loren Feldman of 1938media is one cool dude, he’s a witty and stinging commentator on the web, specifically video and start-ups

Although I love his stuff and his site is probably my favourite at the moment, Loren is definitely a bastard of the Internet.

Check it out www.1938media.com 

I completely forgot it was Hanukkah.  I was in class anyways.  Thanks for the reminder Loren Feldman. 

The Blog Columnist. Post #1. Welcome. And enjoy …

Congrats and kudos to b5media as they approach their 100,000,000th page view - according to Duncan Riley. Impressive numbers guys and gal. Now what have you got installed for us next - the blog network industry is pretty much watching you guys seeing that JCal has more or less gone to the otherside.

But you know what I want to know and what has bugged me from day one (I’m simple sometimes in that way) - who were the other 2 that were going to be part of the original b5?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Flash has recently turned 10. Ten years already!

Of course we know what Flash is: an impressive app that presents audio and video on the web - great for short, quirky games, and other presentations when you can call on demand … but much maligned (and rightly so in 99% of cases) when placed within websites … or when Flash IS the whole website.

Read about the life and times of Flash at Wired News.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A shit storm of sorts errutped last week over the noble efforts of super cool blogger Prince Campbell (aka Chartreuse), Know More Media and a host of others in gathering a posse and heading on down to New Orleans to get the “real” story, on the ground.

Seems that there are, and have been for a long time, quite a few blogs and bloggers doing their stuff on the ground in New Orleans - mainly unheard - who didn’t take kindly to the “blogerati” barging in.

Two issues here: #1: Now they are being heard, and if it takes a so-called “blogerati” to do it then who cares - it’s a win for all.

Issue #2: Really, this “Blogerati” maybe should have done some research and realized that Yup, there are many bloggers doing their bit in New Orleans. Rather than acting like the “blogerati” they just as easily could have rounded up all these unheard off bloggers into one giant co-op and pushed it for all it’s worth.

At the end of the day, blogerati or no blogerati, this is all about one thing: getting to know the real story about what’s happening in New Orleans.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

David Krug, known to many as “Cowboy” and initially coming to fame from the blog Jack Of all Blogs (as well as all of his snark, ups and downs and 1001 unfinished ventures and ideas) has recieved his fair share of attacks over the last year - none more so from yours truly … and mostly, they have been justified (but of course, that’s from my perspective).

But the attack has gone to a new level with Loren from 1938 Media going vitriolic in a recent post sparked by a Krug post at another one of his frequent blogs.

One thought: Extremely Nasty!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Finally, copyright issues on the internet (particularly in the blogosphere) are on the table again with another shit storm coming from the Chartreuse stables. Seems some folks didn’t like Prince (who thinks everything on the internet is a free-for-all) using pictures from the mega successful WordCamp 2006. Check out the posts and comments here and here. Prince has an interesting stance and is an idealists all the way - he really does want to change they way things are done. Sorry big fella, not this time. Matt from The Blog Herald sums it up very nicely.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Question I Want/Need Answered…

• Duncan Riley is about to start a column, and it’s not at b5. Where?
• Will the juggernaut that is TechCrunch ever stop?
• What is 9rules‘ monetetization strategy? We want to know!
• Will Martin Neumann ever finish Liz’s eBook?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Have a good blogging week… and come back Wednesday for another instalment.