8/13/09

 

Roundup of Richmond Media Week of August 13th

Sooooooooooooo.... Hmmmmmmm. If I were on tv right now... what would I be sayin'?
I'd be talking about the hermit crab industry.

It's the perfect time before the back to school frenzy, the perfect lull of contemplation to consider:

• Where the heck do those hermit crabs in those ubiquitous beach stores selling bathing suits and sunblock come from?
  
• And where do those stores get those shells?
  
• Are the shells in those bins just pulled off the backs of some creature? Or farmed? Where the heck ARE shell or hermit crab farms? Are these the crustacean puppy mills?
• What happens to those creatures in the shells *someone* now is now going to brightly, garishly paint for some other hermit crab to acquire?
  
• And who (and for how much) paints those shells?

But lucky for you... I'm not on tv, and this is jest a teeny, tiny little blog o' musings that no one reads... SO:
Here are my thoughts on the week in Richmond media:

• What did YOU do #WhenTwitterWasDown? Did you care? Did you cry? I... was on the beach and only heard about it later. Oh yes, I was.
• Monday's breaking news horse-out-of-the-gate was the newsflash that Facebook bought FriendFeed. You may not know FriendFeed (yet), but this is important because it will be another tool for Facebook to compete against twitter.
• But wait! People may have left the building for the day, but Facebook wasn't done with Monday yet:
  Oh yes, your Facebook updates telling people you went to the beach / skipped work / are you planning a coup? Guess what? Those updates are now searchable.
  This is jest a friendly reminder that data... is... data, and public.
  
• And then, there's Google Voice, to which I will give a massive thumbs-down solely because I spent WAY too much time on Step One: Choose a Phone Number. Oh, the possibilities! Unfortunately all the cool words I plugged in had no Google Voice equivalent, so in my frustration of having to work until midnight last night I typed in... WORK... and voila!~ I've got a number. Drat. Can't I have 555- DISCO? I'm feeling mightily like a workhorse now... : (
• In Charlottesville, police locked up a blogger for... posting about them. Now she may be obnoxious, she may know how to research public data (did anyone just say, DATA IS PUBLIC?!?), but... did she commit a crime?
  
  Elisha Strom has been in jail for... three weeks. So far.
  
  But wait: dig deeper and you will uncover ALL kinds o' ethical and legal issues the Washington Post didn't really get into... but (ahem) I'm not a reporter or legal expert...
  
  
• Oh, hai, Tuesday: twitter went down again... This just all makes you want to take the internet and toss it over for a good book, no? Now where IS my copy of Great Expectations I was re-reading at the beach?
  
• And Facebook, not to be outdone in sneaky-ness, again hit us with more proposed nuances in its Statement of Rights & Responsibilities:
  

  From Andy Beal: "Facebook To Ban All Commercial Activity On Personal Profiles"
  
  Waaaaaaaait. Does that mean because I talk about media or green building in my updates that Facebook would see my businesses as profiting from that, therefore banning me from talking about what I do?
  
  Don't we ALL talk about our work? Hmmmm...
  

• AND OUR BIG NEWS?????????????????
  Yes, Richmond, THERE WILL BE TWESTIVAL!!!!
  I am still finalizing some details but home to make an announcement this afternoon.
  
  **If you are interested in sponsoring, please contact me at 804-515-7886!***
  

Here's some pictures from the beginning of the first Twestival. As an organizer (with Bonnie Larner of Barber Martin), I was in charge of meeting & greeting, so didn't get to take a lot of pictures once the event got underway!


...And a video by visiting West Coast blogger, Jeff Turner:

Come see us at Twestival in September!
In the meantime...

Thanks for listening!
...If you note any trends or local media items of note, feel free to send 'em on!

I'm Copeland Casati, of Copeland Casati Media, the original C3 in RVA media since 1999.

You can reach me at copeland@copelandcasati.com, or on twitter, @copelandcasati. If you are a Facebook user, we can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Copeland-Casati-Media-C3/52352550685

Labels: social media