Slowly Getting There

Well, got the Facebook page put up today, but couldn't get MySpace to let me make a business page. I likely would have figured it out but I didn't feel like messing with it. Zya might have access to an electronic tablet soon which will allow me to put up some graphics here and on our Facebook page so people will know we aren't blowing smoke here.

This project would go a lot faster if I had more disposable income for it. As it is, it will be an effort to get this started, but I sort of enjoy this guerrilla approach to things. I find it's not all that impressive when people of immense wealth start a news company or something. A good for instance of this is Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post.

I've known vaguely who she is for almost a decade now but I have only been to the Huffington Post once. Seriously, I have only been there and the DailyKos one time each, and then years after everyone else had been there. They just never really interested me, I was getting my news and information from other websites and didn't want to spread too thin.

Recently I was reading Jameson Forester's book about blogging and its role in politics "Bloggers on the Bus." In it he spends a lot of time paying homage to Arianna Huffington. Notably the fact that Huffington started her blogger clearinghouse in the first place. Forester rhapsodizes over the fact that Huffington created the site and allowed bloggers (unpaid) to write their missives and post it there for free.

Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking the idea in any way. It was a smart business decision by the wife of a billionaire to spend some cash setting up a website that used unpaid labor to generate free content. Then she used her Hollywood connections to give A and B-list celebrities a platform to air their views to the world. This, of course, would make news worldwide with the celebrity-watchers who would then tune in to the Huffington Post to read the postings by the celeb in question to either praise or ridicule their views. A successful formula that has turned the HuffPo into the online equivalent of a physical newspaper.

And all of this traffic was generating sufficient ad revenue that the Post pays for itself.

I don't blame Huffington for starting her site, quite the contrary: I wish her all the best, success, and praise for it. But when you praise her, don't make her sound like a saint or a rock star (two diametric opposites, I know, but I believe the metaphor stands). give her the credit for being a brilliant business woman.