Kevin Allman

To Facebook or not to Facebook

So far I have successfully avoided getting a Facebook page. Not that I'm against the concept, but I am on LinkedIn and contribute to the paper's Twitter feed, which seems like plenty.

I've got my own reasons for not wanting to be on Facebook, but perhaps there are some good arguments for it. Anyone care to talk me into taking the plunge?

Rising Tide conference in New Orleans: schedule set

Here it is: "Rising Tide: a conference, a party and an opportunity to help New Orleans. Join us in helping to rebuild this city after Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood." I blogged about it last month.

Lots of impressive speakers, interesting panels, and smart people. (And lunch catered by J'anita's!) My panel goes on at 1 p.m., so if you're coming, say hello there or in the comments below.

And thanks to all who've worked so hard to organize this. I think it'll be great.

Cuil? Not cuil.

There's been a lot of fuss in the last couple of days about Cuil, the latest Google-slayer in the search-engine business. Good luck to them, but I entered my own name and got this:

That's my biography, and my LinkedIn page, but the photo? I've never seen that guy before, and certainly not in the mirror. Sorry, Random Guy in a Tie.

Rising Tide conference in New Orleans

Rising Tide logo by Greg Peters

I'm going to be on a media panel at this year's Rising Tide Conference, which will be held Aug. 22-24 at New Orleans' Zeitgeist Arts Center. What's Rising Tide?

Rising Tide is a gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery from the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the failure of the levees that were supposed to protect the area. We will come together to dispel myths, promote facts, share personal testimonies, highlight progress and regress, discuss recovery ideas, and promote sound policies at all levels. We aim to be a "real life" demonstration of internet activism as we continue to recover from a massive failure of government on all levels.

The other panelists will be Lee Zurik from WWL-TV, my friend David Winkler-Schmit from Gambit Weekly, and Eli, who blogs at We Could Be Famous. I suppose that Lee will represent the TV media, David the print media, Eli the blogosphere, and me...I don't know. (I also don't know if anyone from The Times-Picayune will be there, or has been invited, but I hope so.)

And the keynote speaker will be John M. Barry:

John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won more than twenty awards. In 2005 the National Academy of Sciences named The Great Influenza, a study of the 1918 pandemic, the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine, and the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Pathogens gave Barry its 2005 “September Eleventh Award.” Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, won the 1998 Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year’s best book of American history...

He has been keynote speaker at a White House Conference on the Mississippi Delta and he has lectured at the National War College, Harvard Business School, and in many similar venues. He is also co-originator of Riversphere, a $100 million center being developed by Tulane University which will be the first facility in the world dedicated to comprehensive river research.

...Yeah? Well -- I have a Typepad blog!

Anyway, if you're planning to come to Rising Tide, please leave a comment, eh?

Guestblogging elsewhere

I've been scarce around here lately because I've been guestblogging over at Gambit Weekly's site, Blog of New Orleans (aka "Gambit Daily"). The New Orleans alt-weekly has been ramping up its web presence recently, the blog has been redesigned, and there are some fun and funny people contributing over there -- check it out.

Now you can track the death of newspapers -- interactively!

GraphicDesignr is tracking newspaper layoffs with a nice interactive Google Map graphic called "Paper Cuts." Here's what it looks like as of this afternoon:


Each pushpin corresponds to a newspaper, and each is color-coded according to the number of jobs lost (white is 1-25; red is 100+). Click that red dot in the Southern California media market, for instance, and this informative graphic appears:


According to GraphicDesignr's calculations, 3,020+ newspaper jobs have been eliminated so far in 2008 (not counting unfilled positions). That's in addition to 2,000+ positions cut in the last seven months of 2007. Reporter, can you spare a dime?

And a very happy Memorial Day to all! 

AAN award nominations announced

The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies announced its finalist list for this year's AAN Awards, and one of the nominees is Willamette Week's 2007 Restaurant Guide (which I helped work on). Congrats to the WW and to restaurant guide editor Byron Beck.

Also on the nominee list (for Cover Design): the excellent Independent Weekly in Lafayette, La. Congrats to editor Scott Jordan and his staff.

Pardonnez our dust

Two days ago, Kathy Price-Robinson, who writes the "Pardon Our Dust" remodeling blog for the Los Angeles Times, asked her readers if they'd be interested in following the progress of a flood-damaged home in New Orleans' Holy Cross neighborhood:

I'm enthralled with this region and the fact that an estimated 50,000 storm-damaged homes need work. Whenever I see a 100-year-old home that needs help, I feel an almost irresistible desire to fix it up....

Would readers of this blog enjoy following along as Ariane restores this house? And to hear of her struggles as a community activist fighting against the area's rising crime? Or is this just too far from SoCal to be of interest?

Julie's readers spoke, and by an 89%-11% margin, wanted to know more. So she's gonna do it:

This kind of reminds me of the 18-month-long Dream Home Diaries in the New York Times, which followed a Boston couple's building of a $1 million dream home on a small island in Florida.

The difference here is that this is not a new home and Ariane doesn't have $1 million. Her budget is more like a wing and a prayer. And all this makes for a more fascinating story, at least to me.

Me too. This has the potential to be, as Julie wrote, a fascinating story -- a lot more fascinating than the millionth struggles-of-the-rich architecture-porn story in The New York Times.

Magazine work

I've got a story in the new issue of Get Active! magazine...a consumer piece on the best smoothies for the gym.

The pornographer and the garage sale

Once again, Nancy Nall analyzes What's Wrong With Newspapers, and shows that she should not only be writing for one (again), but should probably be running one:

The other day I took a left turn (oh, never mind how) and happened upon a porn blog. Immediately I was served a banner ad offering to hook me up with some hot babes in Grosse Pointe. Their adware had figured out a way to access my Zip code — fine with me, and not because I want to meet hot babes in Grosse Pointe. I want the newspaper industry to continue in one form or another, and needless to say, this does not happen when I land on the Free Press or News sites. Let’s check now and see who is advertising there. A bank and the lottery on the home page. A house ad — an ad for the paper itself, one that doesn’t return revenue, in other words — on the first inside page I visit. Elsewhere, not bloody much.

If a pornographer can figure out what Zip code I want to meet hot girls in, why can’t the newspaper ad staff figure out a way to sell a similar ad to a local bakery having a sale on muffins? Why doesn’t the ad say, “36 garage sales in Grosse Pointe this weekend! Search the listings by clicking here!” Just wondering.