Seriously, what the deal on Reynolds? Is there like a thing he has against ya, some post you did? Does he just not like your stuff that much? Did you ask the guy?

Did Hoke Malokey show up for the last three minutes?

Nah, I didn't get into that, although "someone" encouraged me to ask. I just said hey, thanks for opening this thing up, who were you on Slate's Fray (we were on there at about the same time, though we seem to have mostly missed each other), and then "Nice to meet you."

Karol worked him for an interview, which he "agreed" to, but they all say yes when you ask them. It's when you try scheduling the actual thing yes becomes "well, maybe not."

No Allah, unless he was the bespectacled fellow who grabbed on my joint every time he passed me.

Was it a firm and manly gr-asp? If so, it was Allah.

[your filters are too fk'n much. It wouldn't accept *asp, and therefore rejected gr-asp]

Did you interview Tim Blair like you promised us you would weeks ago? How about Cathy, did you talk to her?

Tim Blair was great. He wants to do the show, it's just the TIME DIFFERENCE. To do the show live, he'd have to be up by 6 a.m., ON HIS DAY OFF. Being australian, you can imagine he has no interest in doing that.

But he's in NY for a week or so, and may be able to do the show live, on our time.

Yes, I spoke briefly to Cathy Seipp. I pretty much spoke briefly to most people.

Well, I didn't speak to David Corn or Jane Hall. "You suck" is not considered good opening-gambit cocktail chatter.

Did you talk to Tammy? Did she bring her gun?

Would Karol not shut up about how dreamy Mahoney was?

Yes, I spoke to Tammy. I don't know if she had her gun, but she was very cool.

As far as Mahoney-- *I* was the one who couldn't shut up about how dreamy he is.

Sorry this is such a lame post... I don't really do gossip and sightings-posts.

Excuse me?? I seem to remember you simply breathless over a certain ex-rapper/television actor and his porn-star wife.

Were there any hot dyke cheerleaders there?

It was kind of like a Star Trek convention without the cool uniforms and weapons.

And without the alien cleavage.

any hot dyke cheerleaders there?

He just told you that David Corn was there.

Did Tammy bring any hot dykes?

Did Roger L. Simon wear his fedora?

Did Roger Simon's fedora bring any hot dykes?

Wait a sec -- was Allah maybe implying that the big A had attended the meeting in the guise of a hot dyke cheerleader?!?

Maybe I should have taken a closer look at all those "funny in the pants" comments....

Serious question: Did anyone you meet there express doubts to you about the company, the business plan, etc?

You don't have to name names, obviously.

Yeah, someone said they thought the business plan was sketchy and that OSM didn't know what it wanted to be. But all of this has been said a thousand times on-line.

Also, people didn't like the MSM types that filled out the earlier panels. Apparently they were either stupid or (in Miller's case) lecture-y and dubious.

All the hot dyke cheerleaders went home with Karol.

Yeah, Miller was a very odd choice for the keynote. It got them some attention, but I'm not sure what message they were trying to send by lining her up.

What's with the time stamps? Ace moves to New Foundland??

Miller apparently lectured everyone on the five rules of journalism, most important being, "If you get something wrong, make sure you correct it."

Remember-- she worked for the NYT.

I think the message they were sending was not unlike the message sent by the AFC when they signed Joe Namath.

or, maybe, the message sent by the porn industry when they get a legitimate "star" to appear a their awards show.

Something like, "We're big enough to buy off your dregs, now."

AFL, I mean. And yeah, he wasn't "dregs."

But that kind of idea. Grabbing one of their stars or former stars to create a sense of importance.

Not that that's a bad thing.

I really want to see OSM succeed, if only because Charles and Roger are such good guys. But between Judy Miller and the confusion over what the business does and now this trademark dispute.... I dunno. It's a bit of a head-scratcher.

how neat

Are you going to tell us more, Ace? Or, are you going to be coy?

To address Allah's question: Was there any discussion on editorial policy after the keynote address. A key part of the biz plan has to address the market differentiator of the new business compared to the existing businesses. Otherwise, it's just another on-line group blog.

Something like, "We're big enough to buy off your dregs, now."

Yeah. Not sure that's a message they really should be sending, though. "We're big enough to provide an audience to someone who just did a turn in prison and resigned from her paper in disgrace."

Or rather, "We're big enough for the MSM's sloppy seconds."

Pretty gay it seems to me.

They're like the middle-aged guys trying to figure out how to make money on all those kids they see skateboarding.

Oh and business model? Are you kidding me? The only reason they won't burn through a lot of cash is because no one will give them that much to start with. Seriously, if the big idea of the blogosphere is its decentralized spontaneity, then coming up with their approach seems like a retard grade solution for missing the obvious.

Am I going to tell more? Honestly, there's not much more to tell. It wasn't a meeting of the Jacobin Society. It was, "hey, how ya doin'."

Re: the business model, I really didn't get into it. When I go to these things, the last things on earth I feel like talking about are 1) politics and 2) blogs.

My conversations were superficial. No gossip, no big catfights.

To address Allah's question: Was there any discussion on editorial policy after the keynote address. A key part of the biz plan has to address the market differentiator of the new business compared to the existing businesses. Otherwise, it's just another on-line group blog.

I don't know. I've never really been that interested in that aspect of it. I don't know how they plan to take aggregation and make it something bigger than that.

And I wasn't at the keynote address. That was early stuff, and I don't think it was about OSM per se.

The morning panel featured the NYT's fashion editor (whoo-hoo!) who declared blogs, bloggers, and blog-readers were stupid. She tried her own blog, wrote three posts, got zero comments, and gave up.

Why such a woman was asked to speak I have no idea. Again, it's sort of like the AFL signing former NFL stars when they're past their prime to give the new league some name respectability.

Although in this case, no one knows the name in question.

The fashion panel this morning was probably a sop to all the non-political bloggers in OSM's ranks. But hey -- give the NYT editor credit for having the balls to slag blogs at a launch party for a blog syndicate. The Times staffers must have gotten a big kick out of it when they heard.

Yeah, but who the fuck is she?

She's virtually a blogger herself.

Dennis The Peasant has been all over this for about a month now and though he reads like the jilted ex-lover that he is he makes a lot of good points about PJM OSM and its lack of focus and business model. The more I read the more it seems to me that they're looking and acting exactly like a typical nineties dot-com startup. There are a lot of good bloggers that I respect involved in the whole thing and I wish them well but I'm not expecting much from OSM.

I think I understand where they are going with this.

If I understand it correctly, the OSM is trying to set up an online network. They are going to be pioneers in the new frontier. In this case, a new medium for news, politics, and entertainment.

Soon the TV is only going to be a monitor for watching movies on DVD. The Internet is where people will go to for news and entertainment.

We are heading towards a time where everyone is going to be "connected." A device slightly larger than a PDA will be the new PC/wireless telephone. What else do we need, really?

From what I gather, Dennis was wronged by Roger Simon (?).

He probably has a legitimate gripe with Simon, but it looks as though he's devoted his life and blog to shitting on Simon and the Pajamas media. It really makes Dennis look pathetic. Enough already. You said your peace; now move on with your life.

It's amateur hour over there. Unfortunately, they probably don't have the scratch to fix it by hiring -- I don't know, I'm just gonna pick something at random here -- a businessman. So far the jazz musician, fiction writer and law professor seem to be bringing exactly those skills to the table.

Most of my favorite blogs are on their little list. I hope none of you are signing any contracts that last longer than a week or two.

This venture is exhibiting some kind of weird reverse synergy. Exactly like the Huffington Post.

There's got to be a way to aggregate blogs to produce a newswire-like effect without much need for jerkass reporters - with bloggers in the local area doing first-hand local reporting, and other bloggers who have expertise in the area doing both jobs of the wire reporter and his paid "expert" (e.g. Taranto's snarky "What would we do without experts?" entries).

The problem is, no one yet has a clue how to perform that aggregation. I'm betting that OSM has a few ideas they want to try out to achieve it, and/or they're betting that when someone figures it out in the next year or so, they'll have an operation that will be able to co-op the idea quickly before the other guy knows what to do with it.

It's all thrown together on a wing and a prayer, but the need is there and they'll have the tools. It's simple economics: find the niche and fill it. The only question is, can they figure it out in time to pull it off?

Well... there's one other question, too: will Ace be able to make any of that crazy blog money in the process?

If we all agree that the Internet will be the new place to be for everything and anything, then we must agree that ALL the advertising dollars will soon follow.
The money has to go somewhere.

DtP claims the mainstream corporations would not advertise on a political blog for fear of alienating or offended potential customers. That may be true if the blog were offensive and alienating for a segment of the population. A blog doesn't have to be ridiculously insulting to be popular and high quality.

But like I said, the ad money has to go somewhere. The corporations are going to have to learn that the Internet isn't the politically correct medium that TV, radio, and print is. Besides, it would be silly if the moonbats called for a boycott of McDonalds for advertising on AoS.

The blogosphere will evolve very soon. The "aggregation" you speak of will take place and the fringe blogs will wither away.

With the aggregation of respectable people/bloggers, the credibility will follow.
With cred, an idea like OSM can take off.
If a site has 1,000,000 regular daily visitors, the corporations will notice and want to put their product on display in front of so much traffic.

DtP claims the mainstream corporations would not advertise on a political blog for fear of alienating or offended potential customers.

Two words: Rush Limbaugh

Things worked out so badly for Snapple.

Really?
Didn't Snapple always have lousy ad campaigns? Spike Lee, Howard Stern, the Snapple lady, etc.

The Snapple product sucks. It was good 15 years ago when there was no competition. Now it sucks.

So far just about everything "OSM" has done--from their initial e-mails, contracts and legal documents to this disjointed kickoff--has resulted in massive head-scratching and produced more questions than answers, a lot of which have gone unanswered.

No business with this kind of rocky start succeeds unless they're in a total boom business, like the periodic real estate spikes or the dot-com cash tsunami.

This thing will go down in flames, sorry to say.

Aggregating the little guys into a Player seems like a natural. And yet...and yet. It feels like the antithesis of what makes the blogosphere work. No blogger, me, so I'm not a blogger scorned, but the idea made me bristle from the moment I first read about it.

I suppose it's possible to herd cats, but I'm not optimistic.

-----

Great Moments in Future History:

OSMSelect - For the low price $4.95 per month read all your favorite bloggers and online pundits through the user-friendly OSM BlogPortal.

-----

This will lead either to the complete collapse of the rightwing blogosphere's ability to influence and inform or the result will be Friday Caviar Blogging and Calvalcade of the New Porsche Owners.

.

Man, I *never* get invited to the cool blogger parties.

Or this one.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Bart, Snapple had been a small regional company before Limbaugh said he liked it and talked about it for a week on his show for free. By the end of the month, they could afford to pay him for ad spots. While the product was still good and before there was competition, the owners sold the company and made a gazillion on the deal.

You know, I waited for the fateful phone call, inviting my and my abandoned crack-house of a blog to join PJM/OSM. I may only have three regular readers (two of whom are personalities I manifest when taking Vicodin), but they are discerning, well-informed readers. But did anyone call? Was I invited to this blogger love-in?

Hell no. No crazy blog-money for Monty.

But Ace? Why, they beat a path to his door! (And then beat a hasty retreat as a boozy, woozy, wild-haired madman opened the door a crack and screamed that they'd better exeunt posthaste before he got medieval on their asses.)

If I can't make crazy money by being lazy and selfish -- well, what the hell kind of world are we living in? That's sort of contrary to the whole AoSHQ lifestyle, as I understand it.

I don't understand what it is they're trying to do or why the blog-consumer wants it.

Can someone explain the concept to me?

Cliff May and David Corn were there? I bet that wasn't awkward.

So far just about everything "OSM" has done--from their initial e-mails, contracts and legal documents to this disjointed kickoff--has resulted in massive head-scratching and produced more questions than answers, a lot of which have gone unanswered.

That says it all. I was starting to think "WTF, am I dense?" because I *still* didn't get an idea of what they're doing. I have my guesses, but it seems like from everything I've read, I have more details in my own imagination than they have in this project.

I'm not bashing OSM at all--I just don't get it. I didn't sign on because it sounded like too much commitment to something about which I have no clue. A REAL roadmap and plan would have helped me make a decision. I know a lot signed on because they "trust" CJ and RS, but in the end, people are pretty much out for themselves. Well, so am I. I still don't know if they have certain standards by which the members must abide (i.e. no profanity, x number or posts per day, whatever), and I have! artistic! integrity! dammit! Besides, I never know if "today" will be the day I say "fuckit, I'm tired of blogging" and quit. (Every day seems like that day!)

So, whatevah.

lauraw:

As I understand it, OSM is to blogs what a network is to the individual shows on the network. The network is the "Administrative" branch: it does the contracts, the legal stuff, the paperwork. The "creative" side (blogs) give the network content.

And no, it's not really a new concept. It's a slightly-fancier aggregator with (one hopes) a clueful and experienced legal/admin staff to bring in the bucks.

If OSM can indeed give blogs the same coverage as the MSM (which is to say, first-sourcing breaking news instead of commenting on it), then I think it might be a very good thing. Time will tell, I suppose.

I agree lauraw. There are only a few blogs I enjoy reading on a regular basis. Some others might have an interesting piece every now and then. I certainly believe it proper to tip the few I like. But if I'm going to be forced to pay to wade through other peoples' opinions, I'll just say no thanks and get back to working a full 8 hour day.

For me, blogs work because I don't have to login, I can simply browse what's written and if I like it I can stay, if I don't I leave and haven't lost anything but a few moments of my life. If I'm forced to pay, I will find another resource where it's not an issue.

I guess it's like Sam's Club. Somehow it works. Personally, I give the place the one finger salute because they charge you to shop there. You have to be a member. Screw that! There a plenty of other stores that want me there that don't have a membership fee. I suppose it's a success because people believe they're getting great deals. That's what this OSM or whatever is going to have to offer.

And Monty, I don't know where in hell I've been, but I didn't know you had a blog. This was the first time I believe I've seen you link to it.

Any grammatical or spelling errors in my previous post are the sole responsibility of the reader to fix in his or her mind without giving me any loose shit , umm, shit.

...wait, are you saying its a subscriber thing compos? It was sounding to me more like a scheme to harness better ad revenue.

I suggest that someone change the name, I find Open Source Media just too damn close to Open Sores Media.

Holy geez! Monty has a blog? Is there poetry...?

Maybe 'tiny little genital warts media?'

Sounds cuter and less threatening.

Maybe I misunderstood the concept lauraw. But I thought someone mentioned membership fees somewhere.

If this is simply about bloggers somehow banning together to show advertisers mondo traffic numbers, I see how it might work. The thing is, big hitters like The Professor, et al could be tremendously helping out bottom feeders like Monty WHO ONLY UPDATES HIS BLOG ABOUT ONCE PER MONTH! And then doesn't even have it open for comments. Not that they would let him in their club anyway.

Got to be an uphill battle trying to pick up women at an Open Sores Convention. I bet half the people there don't even have blogs, they are just looking for some free ointment.

It doesn't seem to me to be as shaky a concept as it does to some of the rest of you. Realize some economies of scale in selling ads, create some new product (content), coordinate coverage rather than hit-and-miss linkage and leverage the combined readership to compete directly with larger mainstream media outlets.

I can't see why it shouldn't fly, especially if you run lean until the blog-bucks start rolling in. Of course, instead of writing readable poetry I actually run a business, so you creative types might have an angle I'm not seeing.

They've already raised a few million I hear spongeworthy; to my mind that is a liability instead of an asset.

I actually run a business

Missed that part.
What kind of business?

Another thing; if this concept makes sense...wouldn't it be more organic for hosts like Pixy Misa to offer and 'ad package' to their bloggers directly through mu.nu?

Uh, if this link:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blogjam/archives/2005/11/are_leftright_politics_becomin_1.php

is any indication, I wouldn't spend too much time at OSM. A "debate" which consisted of two moonbats, one ditherer, and one conservative. And the tone of the debate was that the one conservative was an extremist, but the moonbats were not. In fact one of them actually said that Republicans are extreme but Democrats are moderate.

Unbelievable.

Do you have the Books Are Wings project in your area, Scott? They ran radio ads in my area with the tagline, "Reading Makes Your Imagination Sore!" Which, you know, it can definitely do.

I don't think it's impossible that somebody could harness the blogosphere to advantage. At one end, one could simply organize for ad revenue, giving out Good Blogkeeping Seals of Approval to people whose content makes them a trusted source. Trying to reorganize content along the lines of traditional media international news bureaux...I dunno.

It's been precisely the unorganized, prestige via readership, accuracy via peer pressure, free wheelin' nature of the blogosphere that has given it so much of its power. You know, if something flares up in Argentina tomorrow, some obscure Argentinian blog suddenly catapults to fame and fortune, and dies back to embers when the crisis resolves. You don't organize that; it's organic. It grows and trims itself.

OSM is an internet company. They don't need a business plan. Some booth babes, a logo and ka-CHING!!!

Why not a paid subscription model?

I don't know about you, but my time on the Internets is valuable. A well-run editorial board that quickly chooses valuable stories and well-written opinions that are available at a single source, pulled from hundreds or thousands of sources would be worth $5/mo to me. If it saves me clicking around to a dozen or more sites, at my hourly rate, it's cheap at that price.

If you can't sell an ad that reaches a well-paid, informed audience, then you're doing something wrong.

(Drudge more or less does this now, but not nearly well enough, IMO, and his ad policy is "I don't know who my customers are--send me anything and I'll put up a banner.")

I won't pay. Won't. Shan't. Can't make me.

Sounds like what you're looking for is a portal, rho. Wasn't that the thing just before blogs?

I think the concept of micro-markets would be a big area where OSM could do some good. For example: a million or so people is too small a market for the MSM to try to reach, but it's pretty darned big for a group blogs. Figure only 5% of that group advertises or buys based on advertising, and you're still looking at some decent money. (Not Sultan of Brunei money, but make-a-living money.)

And as much as I hate marketroid lingo, the key here is branding. You have to differentiate yourself from the other nine-million-and-one competitors out there. You have to establish the brand, and make the value-add clear (such as, "We filter out the shit so you don't have to!").

I'm skeptical, but I'd love to see it work.

So that's what it takes to get your attention, eh, Laura, my sweet?

Wall Street stuff is the answer. Specifics upon request.

I actually run a business, so you creative types might have an angle I'm not seeing.

Oh, please. If you run a business, then I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of an 'elevator pitch'.

Can you find one, or even anything close, for OSM? In plain english, not business-hype BS.

No, no I can't. I can only tell you what I see.

Scalable and retractable synergies produced by focused directive and economies of scale. Nano-coverage expanded to macro-content through symbiosis and serial linkage. Competitive pricing structure resembling traditional marketing and sales practices.

Bunch of shit like that.

Seriously, it would be a simple thing to put together a business plan for this, but I go in assuming the goal is not to fucking rake in bucks but to leverage the medium and make life easier for folks who just want to screw around on their stupid blogs. Now, what they need 3.5 million for, that I can't figure.

A portal? Not really. What I'm describing isn't really extant to my knowledge. A sort-of example is Slashdot. It saves me from scouring hundreds of site for interesting news. It allows me to select what items interest me, and promote those.

You don't have to pay. You're perfectly welcome to go to each site daily to see if there's something interesting to see, or work with a mish-mash of RSS feeds and the like. You can aggregate your own content.

I would prefer to pay somebody to do 80% of the lifting for me, and provide it in a manner that I can read from my computer, or from my PDA, or from my phone.

I'd also like for the people who make that content get paid for creating it. That is much easier to do under a paid subscription model.

I had a great time, just woke up, still half-drunk, were we at the same party?

Would Karol not shut up about how dreamy Mahoney was?

It's Maloney and dude, he's pretty damn dreamy.

After browsing the site, I have to say that I'm underwhelmed. The design is boring, the layout is confusing, and there's almost no content.

I'm not sure what OSM is offering that I can't get just by surfing my favorite blogs. People keep talking about original reporting, but exactly who is going to be doing this? Ace? Glenn Reynolds? I don't see them doing it now. When will they begin?

Further, who decides what to report on and when? Will there be an assignment editor who doles out assignments each week? Will bloggers pitch story ideas to an editorial board? Who will fact check? The readers? Ok, then will comments be enabled for each story/post?

I guess a good starting point would be to let potential readers know what is being offered and why it will benefit them to pay a visit to the site.

"I actually run a business, so you creative types might have an angle I'm not seeing."

Uh, not to give you a hard time here spongeworthy but lots of people run a business. To my knowledge CJ, GR and RS aren't on that list though. And just guessing here but I think most of the skepticism about the venture comes from the green eye shade types. This sounds a lot like a vision/creative/we'll figure it out as we go along thingy. They seem to be admitting as much and their first steps don't encourage.

At some point, an advertiser is going to come along and ask one question. "What kinda overlap are we getting here on the eyeballs?" The honest answer is that the audience numbers aren't anything like additive. The same people who read LGF read Insty. So you don't take all the individual audiences to get a larger number. You figure some sort of correlation number (super high like maybe .75 to .80) and then figure that the total number of separate eyeballs a day is probably something approaching 1.25 of Instapundit's total readership.

Then you get the whole issue of "so, do you mean to tell me your competitors are actually giving it away and I could probably buy their adspace for a nickel?"

The internet is predominantly a machine system to serve porn and to temporary disable people's ability to do simple business math. They might be related somehow but I'm no Steven Levitt.

Was there ever a moment during the gathering when someone yelled out "All those who have a friggin clue what's going on here, raise your hand!"?

Probably why no-one can seem to figure out what they're really supposed to be doing is because they themselves can't really explain it. They think they're going into the alternative media business, when it looks from here that they're really in the real estate & ass business.

They're in real estate 'cuz they just grabbed a whole mess of properties, in blog terms. And they have exclusive selling rights, as far as advertisers are concerned.

They're in the ass business because they have to somehow convince people to sit on theirs and read their site. They don't get the advertisers without the click-through, meaning it's the same-old same-old in a new package.

But it's possible that if they don't get it clear in their own minds what their business is, it will go off-track. Part of it already has. That whole 'we're the cool kids' attitude cuts into control of real estate in that it's self-limiting when applied to an expansive net. If it goes off-track too far, the default method of making cash for them might be akin to the 'honest graft' of Tammany Hall.

Why wasn't I invited?

;-)