tony

Hey pallies. I just got back from Amsterdam and boy are my senses tired.

On the flight over i picked up a discarded Chicago Tribune who took some data from the latest Gallup Poll and concluded that blogging is dying.

I don't know about you, but I immediately assumed that the Trib (which was my favorite paper growing up in Chicago, but has seen a nastly slow sad decline over the last 15 years) was finally completely full of shit. And it wasn't hard to go there since they wrote "Today there are 20 million blogs worldwide, a number that grows by thousands daily."

According to Technorati there are nearly a third more blogs than that, 29 million with about 100,000 new blogs being created each day. So immediately the Trib doesnt know what the hell theyre talking about as I'm sure if their circulation increased by 9 million subscribers over night with 100k being signed up each day they would certainly have a far more positive outlook on their future... as the Trib should have in regards to blogging.

They also seem dismayed that the Gallup Poll  "Blog Readership Bogged Down" reports that only 9% of all Internet users read blogs daily and 66% never read blogs. Perhaps i'm an optimist, but when I see those sorts of numbers I see that blogging has yet to reach its peak. I see those stats and I think, hmmm blogging has a huge audience that it has yet to tap into.

But then theres something curious in the Gallup Poll about blogging, it says that of those surveyed - most of whom don't read blogs - only 87% use email regularily or frequently.

That means that 13% of these people who Gallup talked to dont even use email - so of course they're not surfing the web and checking out their favorite blogs.  They're probably the ones running around with dial up connections asking people "what is a blog anyway?" Should those people actually be included as to if blogging has reached its peak or not?

Blogging hasn't been around for all that long. Some say that the first wave of true bloggers came around right in the wake of 9/11. Two years later Google bought Blogger which brought more attention to the web activity. Last year two scandals broke out in the blogosphere which would slightly affect the presidential election - the Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry, and the discovery that the documents that were meant to prove that President Bush avoided time in the National Guard were forged. When the mainstream press found themselves scooped by bloggers suddenly the world got it that blogging was for real.

Sadly mainstream journals and newspapers have felt the need to jump on the anti-blogging bandwagon whenever possible. This poll is no execption. Newspapers hate the fact that bloggers have no deadlines, no editors, no red tape, no restrictions. And who can blame them? If some kid in his mom's basement kicked my ass every day I would probably start hating basements. In my opinion the press has instead of hating basements, decided to hate blogging.

Good luck with that, buddies.

Anyways, what's your opinion. Do you think blogging is dying? Do you frequent blogs every day? If so, what are some of your favorites?

I've been enjoying myself in Amsterdam and tonight (Saturday Feb 25) we are going to have a Buzznet Meetup in Amsterdam at 8pm at 't Arendsnest

't Arendsnest is at Herengracht 90, 1015BS, Amsterdam.

I have messaged all the Buzznetters with Holland in their profiles, but if you know of someone who is visiting or travelling through Amsterdam tonight who'd like to share a pint with fellow Buzznetters, pass along this message to them!

First of all let me tell you how nice it is to put up an assignment and see how uniquely creative everyone is in showing us certain areas of their lives and environments.

The other day I invited you to show us things that you love. You showed us friends, family, pets, beverages... and things.

But you did it in a beautiful way and I am always impressed with how talented so many of you are.

If there's anything that I can do to inspire you to keep up the great work please let me know - we try to recognize the best photos through Feature photos and I try to use some of the best assignment pics in these journal entries and perhaps in the near future there might be other ways that we can recognize superior images.

For years Buzznet has been all about photography and the Buzznet community has delivered some of the most spectacular work on the Internet.  Last year we introduced Journals to Buzznet and I think anyone who has read more than a few of those journals have experienced what I experience every day - fall in love with the author.

Now this year we have launched Video, and although we're still in Beta we have been blessed with lots of cool moving images.

But instead of me using this space to tell you what I think are some of the best vids, I want to turn over the comments to you - what do you think are some of the coolest, funniest, neatest videos that have been uploaded onto Buzznet over the last few weeks?

You can write about why you like it or you can just provide a link, but please shine some light and give some props on your brothers and sisters who are taking advantage of this new technology.

Meanwhile here are some of my favorite pictures from the last assignment "things we love"

Here we are on Valentine's Day, so the assignment is easy and predictable, however your results, we hope, will be spectacular:

take a photograph (or two or three) of someone or something that you love, post it and add the buzzword "assignment8" with no space.

while you do that I will post more pictures that people took of this weekend's assignment which was about color.

but before we do that, know that all of us here at Buzznet HQ love all of you out there and we try every day to make your experience here lovable.

This is a one day assignment - this can only be done today, Sunday

take a picture that includes something as colorful as you can get.

sunsets are cheating, and Steve doesnt like em.

so anything other than a sunset

when you post your pics up make sure that one of the tags includes "assignment7" (no space)

readdddyy.... go!

Haiku is severely underrated.

So are many pictures on Buzznet

In the comments below,  link to a Buzznet photo that is not yours

then write a Haiku about it.

like so:

http://sx70.buzznet.com/user/?id=2238187

marc brown is very sweet
his middle finger isnt
look how it says hi

(feel free to make as many haikus as you'd like, its fun)

Last week the Coachella line up was announced. Buzznet will be there at Coachella this year.  And will be following many of the bands on their way to the event.

With over 70 bands ranging from the hugely famous Depeche Mode  to up comers like Giant Drag and Matisyahu, this year looks to be just as exciting as ever.

So tell us, if you could attend this two-day show, who are some of the bands that you'd most like to see?

SATURDAY APRIL 29, 2006

Depeche Mode, Daft Punk, Franz Ferdinand, Sigur Ros, Damian Jr Gong Marley, Common, Atmosphere, Carl Cox, My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, Ladytron, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Tosca, Cat Power, Animal Collective, HARD-Fi, Derrick Carter, Devendra Banhart, She Wants Revenge, The Walkmen, The Juan Maclean, Imogen Heap, Audio Bullys, Lady Sovereign, Deerhoof, The Duke Spirit, Eagles of Death Metal, Lyrics Born, Matt Costa, The New Amsterdams, The Zutons, Platinum Pied Pipers, White Rose Movement, Chris Liberator, Colette, Joey Beltram, Hybrid, Living Things, Wolfmother, The Like, Nine Black Alps, Celebration, The Section Quartet, Shy FX & T Power, Infusion


SUNDAY APRIL 30, 2006

Tool, Massive Attack, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bloc Party, Paul Oakenfold, Scissor Sisters, Matisyahu, James Blunt, Sleater-Kinney, Mogwai, Coheed and Cambria, Wolf Parade, Coldcut, Phoenix, Digable Planets, Gnarles Barkley, Amadou & Mariam, Little Louie Vega, Mylo (DJ Set), Seu Jorge, Ted Leo & Pharmacists, The Go! Team, Kaskade, Metric, Editors, Art Brut, Dungen, The Dears, Jamie Lidell, The Magic Numbers, Los Amigos Invisibles, Jazzanova, stellastarr, Michael Mayer, Murs featuring 9th wonder, Mates of State, Gilles Peterson, Infadels, Gabriel & Dresden, The Subways, Minus the Bear, OneRepublic, Be Your Own Pet, Youth Group, Giant Drag, Kristina Sky, The Octopus Project

(updated 2/7/06 - Coachella lineup and Coachella Community.

   When i started writing on the Buzzblog i promised id give you tips on how to best utilize all the cool parts of Buzznet.

so today i will tell you a little but about buzzwords, also known as buzz, also known as tags.

if you look up at the top row of this screen you sill see video - photos - journals - buzzwords - people  - search - music

buzzwords is a very very very easy way to find similar entries of something that you might be interested in - but it only works when you and your fellow members of buzznet tag your pics, vids, and journals properly.

for example the bass player of Fall Out Boy is very popular here on Buzznet. i understand that his name is pete wentz. if you took a picture of him and posted it on Buzznet you should tag it "pete wentz" and maybe also "fall out boy" and "fob" and if he is wearing a top hat you'd be wise to also tag it "top hat".

that way if someone wanted to see a lot of pics of mr. wentz then all theyd have to do is go to buzzwords and type in "pete wentz" and bam theyd find your killer pic of pete busting with the sweet top hat.

likewise if someone wanted to see a lot of pictures of top hats they might discover mr wentz.

but unless you properly tag things its hard for people to find your cool pictures unless they go through each and every one of your galleries by hand.

most people dont have that sort of time so it's good practice to think about what is in the pics that you upload and tag them appropriately.

some of you may remember this decemeber we had a user who posted pictures of that college stripper in canada. because buzznet gets spidered by Google several times a day we had some visitors who found those pictures from direct links (http://avrilrulez.buzznet.com) but we also had people who went to google and did searches for "saugeen stripper" and "university of western ontario". if that buzznet user hadnt tagged those pictures with those buzzwords nobody would have known through Google how to get to her pics.

we want your pics to be seen by all the people who are looking for what youre taking pictures of, so do yourself a favor and tag them, and if you go to someone elses pics and you see that they could be tagged better, click the Add Buzz button and put in the key words or phrases that best describes that pic.

my advice - keep the tags short, think about how you search for things, and try to only put those very short phrases or words in there. also be specific.

one final thing. lets say a few months ago you uploaded a few dozen pictures of the night jessica simpson came over to your house drunk to play monopoly, and now that youve read about tagging things you want to add buzz to those pics. we've made it easy to tag lots of pics in one shot.

just click Manage Photos then go to the page where the picutres are and click the box under each pic that you want to add buzz to. then click the link at the bottom that says "Add Buzzwords" and type in the buzzwords that best describes those pics seperated by commas (jessica simpson, monopoly, bacardi) and you will see how fast all those pics can be tagged properly.

now go off and tag stuff!

This is the place to put your picks.

For example I think it's going to look like this:

Pittsburgh 35
Seattle 9

Friends, Christmas has come 11 months early.

Video is now available on your favorite community!! It's still in Beta but we figured that we should let everyone enjoy it as we work out the wrinkles.

Click the words "New Video" and upload your masterpieces, add the correct buzzwords (AKA: tags) to them, and check out the majesty as people check out your videos!

There is a file size limit of 20MB  please. And as you check out everyone else's vids, make sure to rate them and leave comments. Enjoy the show!

If you have any issues make sure to either comment here or message video mastermind kevin. gratzi!

so far this one is my favorite