This is the story of the first of two words.

As one of the older
Vocians, I’m usually the feisty and headstrong one. As such, it wasn’t
surprising that I had my fair share of strong opinions while, over the
past few months, we internally debated how to "name" Voce’s work in
the online arena.

Wait. Online? Is that right?

What about Internet or Web? What about the infamous e@ or
two words runtogther or ManyWordsRunTogtherWithCapitals?

We went with two simple words — adjective and noun.

The adjective? Digital. It was, without doubt, the one term
that I initially found most bothersome. It sounded. . .well, very 1995 to me.
As brilliant as his
book still is, the word lacked the edge and drama that I personally
thought our practice should bear. I’d been striving, like the
others, for a phrase that could encompass blogs and wikis
and RSS and online groups and everything that is and will be in this developing
Collective Brain — and I was at an utter loss.

Turns out, I began to see the light during an impromptu
huddle with my colleagues on a rainy January Tuesday in Palo Alto, and the gist of it is this: we
have no idea where this will go. While blogs and wikis are the current items,
and rightfully so, we have as much chance of forecasting about this environment
as the 1969
NASA astronauts did of predicting the International
Space Station.

The only common denominator, for now, is
"digital." Strings of ones and zeroes. It might be the internet, or
TV, or your phone, car or toaster. But it’s happening digitally and will for
about as long as a good name should last.

So what bugs me about "digital"? I did a little
soul-searching and a little reading and I think it bugs me because,
essentially, digital is nothing more than a really
good fake. The digital clock is accurate — but discrete. There are no
shades of gray. One digital picture might be better than another in terms of
clarity and color, but it still boils down to zeroes and ones. It’s a fake. It
may be a very good fake, with gazillions of ones and zeroes, but it is still a
fake.

For all its bad rap, analog is where it’s at. Analog is
real. Analog is the chest-thunder of a bass drum, the lush smell of onions and
butter on the stove, the stuff for which there is no substitute.

So call me old-fashioned, or feisty, or even headstrong. As
clear and present as is high-definition TV, I’d rather be there. For all the
tremoring beauty of Meeting
Across the River, I’ll take the power and life of Springsteen
in concert. No matter how cute that picture might be — and it is really cute
– I’ll take the warmth and the humor and the realness of my nine year old girl
on a rainy January Saturday with a chocolate
ice cream mustache.

We all would, wouldn’t we? It’s real. It’s analog.

But the next best thing — and the entity in which the
Collective Brain resides and will reside — is digital.

Next word next time.

– Tim Johnson

To read that nearly two-thirds of Americans (66%) are going online every day to access information with an estimated 29% accessing the Web specifically for news, it’s no surprise to hear online publishing is making a major comeback. 

In fact, look no further than BusinessWeek Online for proof that ad revenue channels are returning and margins are increasing, but more important, look at BW Online as testament to how a highly successful print publication brand can adapt to new technologies and ultimately evolve (quickly) to meet the changing needs of its readership.

BW Online has undergone some rather significant changes lately, including the addition of RSS-enabled news feeds, full-layout digital archives, and of course the introduction of a newly designed Technology & Science channel.  The most impressive change, however, is the addition of four new weblogs: Tech Beat, Deal Flow, Well Spent, and Brand New Day. 

I caught up recently with Rob Hof, BusinessWeek’s Silicon Valley bureau chief and one of several authors contributing to the Tech Beat blog to ask him one question: why is he blogging?  If you follow this blog you’ll know it’s a question I’ve been exploring (here and here) with several journalists recently in the interest of simply understanding what motivates them to use this particular form of communication.

Here’s what Rob had to share:

We [the Tech Beat authors] blog for several reasons. Initially, at least, we see it as a new way to talk about events, news, and thoughts that really had no outlet either in print or online. I think most of us also see it potentially as a way to make the publication more of a conversation with readers. Many-to-many connections are the unique nature of the Internet, so if we’re to be relevant now and in the future, we have to find ways to make that conversation happen.

Personally, I blog because I believe in something Dan Gillmor, among others, has said: The readers know a lot more than I do. And blogs, with comments, provide the best way for them to express their opinions and offer their own expertise—both to us journalists and to other readers. I think before long, no story, whether it’s on a blog or anywhere else, will be complete without reader comments attached.

A lot of journalists I read about seem to feel threatened by blogging. I don’t get this. When you get down to it, bloggers are going back to the roots of journalism. (It wasn’t called journal-ism for nothing–originally, we were all amateurs, right?) I think it’s great that there’s a new form that’s getting us closer to the “audience” and giving us a chance, at least, to write a little closer to the truth of things. Warts and all, blogs have to improve media overall.

Oddly enough, only a few weeks into this adventure, I’m still more nervous about pressing the button to publish these items than I am about print or online stories that get a lot more traffic. I think it’s because I know that I’m more likely to get a direct, immediate response. That’s not a bad feeling to have, because it makes me want to do better.

Mainly, late as it feels like I am to this party, I want to dive in while it’s still in formation. It feels like blogging could blossom into a number of new modes of expression—maybe it already is. Experimentation will be good, most of all for readers.

– Mike Manuel

Earlier today Andy Lark, former VP of corp comm at SUN and PR blogger extraordinaire, presented his keynote to the attendees at the NewComm forum.  Matthew Podboy, one of our intrepid bloggers, reports back on what Lark had to share:

Andy worked with Jonathan Schwartz at Sun and explains that while
Jonathan created the blog and does the writing, he works with the PR
team and employees at Sun to create the content.  First thing he found
with his blog, it was the most effective way to communicate with his
employees. (note: using blogs for employee communications was a big
theme at NCF - Neville
lead the discussions).  Why does Andy blog? - conversations,
connections, new connections, learn more - see more things, experiment
& ideate, like to write and great archive. Another great point that
I truly believe - there are journalists who are bloggers, but not all
bloggers are journalists.

Read more here.

A few months ago Mercury News reporters Matt Marshall and Michael Bazeley teamed up to launch SiliconBeat, a blog aiming to capture inside news about tech innovation in the Valley and “the money that drives it.”   I think it’s safe to say that unlike most blogs, where over time you build street credit and grow an audience, SiliconBeat landed squarely on the radar of every VC, every tech startup and every Internet company in the area — from arguably the moment of its inception.

Obviously a big factor driving SiliconBeat’s success is the near-instant credibility Matt and Mike bring from the print world to the online world, but it still begs the question: Matt already has a great “platform” for writing about the investing scene via his venture capital columns, likewise, Mike has his Internet business column, why do they blog?

I recently asked one SiliconBeater (um, yeah, that just sounds terrible) to share his thoughts, here’s what Mike said:

I blog because the media landscape is shifting - very rapidly - and as a media professional, I need to move with it.

I cover the Internet, and my readers and the people I write about get a lot of their information from the Web. So I’m doing myself (and them, I’d like to believe) a disservice if I lock myself and my reporting inside of a print publication. Of course, the Mercury News has published online for years. But as the media landscape becomes more fragmented, I believe we should exploit all the platforms that exist, when we can. I feel like Matt and I are reaching a new audience (or keeping an old one, perhaps?) with the blog.

On a purely practical level, blogging gives me an outlet for news and information that wouldn’t always find a place in the newspaper. And it’s a more flexible medium, in that I can write short or long as I see fit.

More personally, I find blogging to be exhilarating in many ways. I appreciate the ability to publish 24/7, the freedom of a different publishing format, and the closer connection I feel to readers. Though it’s been around for some time now, I still marvel at the genius behind trackback and the threads it creates between web sites and online conversations. And of course, the immediate feedback you get through comments is nice.

Also, as any individual blogger or web site owner will tell you, being able to track your readership through the user logs and search engines such as Technorati and Feedster is a bonus.

I would encourage any company swimming in the pools that Matt and Mike follow to subscribe to SiliconBeat now (RSS feed) - in the short term, following their stuff will give you a raw perspective on the tech Valley scene (what’s hot, what’s not), and in the long-run it’ll only make you smarter with respect to understanding how companies and technologies in this space are evolving…

– Mike Manuel

The Voce Nation recently invited Tom Foremski and Dida Kutz, two of the key contributors behind the influential Silicon Valley Watcher blog, over for lunch to talk about how exactly blogging is impacting the media landscape and what it ultimately means for journalists, marketers and the companies pioneering this new area of communication.

I won’t rehash the entire conversation (I’ll instead point here and here for the details), but needless to say it was a valuable and timely conversation - the type of discussion that IMO needs to continue in a similar collaborative fashion between all the groups involved to reach real consensus, err, real understanding of the media seachange that’s underway.

With this in mind (and in the spirit of keeping the conversation going) I thought it would be interesting to ask Tom, a veteran tech journalist, one simple question: why do you blog?

I blog because it is by far, the most satisfying form of journalism that I have found. The blogging format allows me to write news, news analysis, features, and columns in the same way and same style as when I worked at the Financial Times. But it also allows for a wide range of styles, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, conversational, rambling, serious, funny, mischievous and downright silly. I can experiment with new types of writing and presentation. For example, in a recent piece about Steve Jobs I threw in a line that said: stevepleasedonthavemekillediamjustapoorbloggertryingtokeepitrealsmileysmileysmiley

As a journalist, I want to break stories and I want to publish them at any time of the day or night. Blogging allows me to do that. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more to blogging than I ever expected. My friends Om Malik and David Galbraith would talk about blogging all the time with a passion and enthusiasm that I couldn’t see, until I tried it.

In the short time (relatively speaking) that SVW has been active its readership has skyrocketed and it has quickly become a must-read source for the Valley tech scene.  I’ll also point out that Tom’s comments about the nimbleness and flexibility of a blog for news reporting purposes were exemplified just this past week when SVW scored several major scoops on news that Google would be launching an Adwords API and a new Adsense program.  I think what Tom and his team are doing with SVW has interesting implications for reporters and newsmakers, and perhaps more important, it’s having a direct influence on the bigger conversation that’s taking place right now.

– Mike Manuel

What does life as a young PR professional mean for
those just entering the game? I spent the first year of
my professional PR career compiling coverage reports, creating media
lists and updating editorial calendars - pretty sexy stuff, I know. Such is
life for "Account Coordinators" and "AAEs" at one
large PR agency in San Francisco.

Six months ago, I joined Voce and learned about a different side of communcation.  With my new colleagues came a new way of thinking about
PR. Terms I’d never heard before: "wiki", "blogosphere",
"RSS", "usenet groups", "digital
advocacy" were used in daily conversation. I quickly learned about the new PR resources out there waiting to be tapped - tools
beyond the traditional ed cals and media lists - tools I didn’t know were
available six months ago. Terms I didn’t even know existed, let alone
defined in Webster’s
dictionary, have now become an extension of who I am and how I work.

I too have adopted this "Voce vernacular" when it
comes to thinking about communications for my clients. My advice to
fellow PR young guns out there - start
thinking beyond the traditional ideals of PR. Start reading blogs that
relate to the industry your clients work in, sign up for RSS news feeds and
subscribe to Bloglines - you’ll be thinking like a PR
veteran in no time. — Michael Moeschler

Last month we watched speculation and media fervor build over which company
would buy CBS Marketwatch.  In the end, Dow Jones won the bidding with a
deal, expected to be completed today, for $519 million, about six times
MarketWatch’s 2004 revenue.

Today’s NYT
story by Eric Dash sheds more light on the deal and explains how Internet
news sites — once the shunned cousins of major news outlets — are making a
strong come back.

I should preface my first blog post with a little
background… I cut my teeth in the high-tech industry working for Oracle over a
10 year period in the 80s & 90s and therefore I’m a dyed in the wool anti-MSFT
person, and find this to be a new low for MSFT - suing
a blogger?

Dale Carneige first published "How to Win Friends and
Influence People" in 1937 and it was and still is a best seller.
Interestingly, the principles outlined are still relevant today.  I think
if you just read excerpts of the book’s review, it is obvious that the better
companies with strong customer service canons employ many of these same
principles when they create customer advisory councils or beta groups for new
products coming out.

From the review….

• underlying principles of dealing with people so that they
  feel important and appreciated.
• fundamental techniques for handling people without making
  them feel manipulated.
• how to make people like you, win people over to your way of
  thinking, and change people without causing offense or arousing resentment.

But I am not sure where in Carneige’s book it discusses
suing people?  Microsoft might need to review the book again and take it
to heart when dealing with bloggers.  MSFT certainly is not going to be
winning friends and influencing people by suing them!  — Lauren Ames

The Voce Nation was cracking up today over Frank J.’s post on blogging myths and facts.  Some notable excerpts:

MYTH: Bloggers are just a bunch of ill-informed polemicists writing in their
pajamas.
FACT: Not all bloggers wear pajamas while blogging. I myself
wear boxers, a gun belt, and a bandolier. One of the contributors to Power Line
is famous for wearing a gorilla costume while writing.

MYTH: Bloggers are a bunch of ankle-biters to the mainstream
media.
FACT: Our effect to the MSM is more akin to a strong kick to the
groin. Thus, we are "groin-kickers."

MYTH: The most popular blog is Instapundit.
FACT: The most popular
blog is mine. If you don’t read it everyday, you are dumb and ill-informed.