FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
Showing posts with label Josefina Boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Josefina Boston. Show all posts
South Florida blogging scene in 2011; Observations re NY Times' article on growing cleavage between using blogs and Twitter to disseminate original content: "Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter"; On comparing the blog portals at the Miami Herald to the ones used by savvy Swedish news media that makes young women like Blondinbella, Tess Montgomery and Josefina Boston influential voices on so many issues; The whole blogging scene in Sweden is not just different from the U.S. -it's better. Meanwhile, here, MSM and "Usual Suspects' try to dominate the conversation
* Updated in January of 2016 I'm still laughing and bemused after reading this New York Times article, below, with my emphasis in red. This fascinating-yet-revealing quote is what really hit me:“It’s different from blogging because it’s easier to use,” she said.“With blogging you have to write, and this is just images. Some people write some phrases or some quotes, but that’s it.” Yes, putting those pesky words together in sentences and paragraphs sure is hard work! These kids are all thumbs. New York Times Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter By Jim Wilson/The New York Times Published: February 20, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO — Like any aspiring filmmaker, Michael McDonald, a high school senior, used a blog to show off his videos. But discouraged by how few people bothered to visit, he instead started posting his clips on Facebook, where his friends were sure to see and comment on his editing skills. “I don’t use my blog anymore,” said Mr. McDonald, who lives in San Francisco. “All the people I’m trying to reach are on Facebook.”
Read the rest of the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/technology/internet/21blog.html Meanwhile, in Europe, media companies that create a stable of popular and blogs stressing text and visuals, esp. those written by popular teens and twenty/thirty-somethings about fashion, design and pop culture, are making money. Why? Because they offer something that readers always want: interesting unique content.
The hugely-popular blog, The Blond Salad, http://www.theblondesalad.com/created by a very savvy and resourceful Italian twenty-something named Chiara Ferragni@ChiaraFerragni today had this exclusive: Burberry fashionshow in real time on Theblondesalad! Yes, timeliness and genuine relevancy for her readers, just two of the things that concerned residents like me perpetually complain that we have far too little of in South Florida for local politics and government, in part because in the year 2011, we also STILL lack an All-News local cable channel that can fill that gap. To match the All-News radio station that South Florida also still lacks.
Above, the colorful header used by model Tess Montgomery for her popular blog, TessM.se.
*2016 Update to below: In 2013 Tess was one of the featured bloggers on the very popular Stureplan.se platform at http://stureplan.se/bloggar/tess but in 2016 Tess is now blogging at http://tessm.metromode.se/ Spotlife.se with two London-based blogs, Josefina Boston'sAbsolute Boston, http://absolutboston.se/ and Tess Montgomery's, http://tessm.se/, both of which I have mentioned here very positively in this space previously, have multi-national advertisers, and that's even more the case at Isabella Löwengrip'sBlondinbella blog -also at Spotlife-who has become a well-known celebrity/author throughout Scandinavia and Europe. She's also not onlya frequent presence on national TV in Sweden, but is more influential than most veteran reporters and correspondents at well-known European newspapers, magazines and wire services covering fashion or pop culture. And everyone knows it, too. In Sweden, there's even a nationally-televised awards show for blogs on Channel 4, for the best blogs in about a dozen different subject and age categories, and it's promoted on both TV and in print, even to the point where they have TV ads featuring the various candidates in the weeks leading up to the telecast.I've even placed those some of promos here on the blog in the past to give you an idea of how differently blogs are viewed. Here's the video they produced for the Blog Awards2010 show in the category of Best Newcomer -Årets nykomling
http://www.tv4play.se/noje_och_humor/blog_awards?videoId=1.1773279 See some more recent clips at: https://www.tv4play.se/program/blog-awards Let me tell you something -there is no station promo for local Miami TV newscasts or Dolphinsor Hurricanes shows that isas well-produced as that one. Yes, genuine effort and vision still counts for something with readers and viewers. And the numbers show it. Here's the list and video of the 2010 winners: http://www.tv4.se/1.1831566/2010/09/27/vi_vann_blog_awards_2010 Meanwhile, the Miami Herald's blog network such as it is, is featured in the bottom-third of the website's first page, and has no identifiable icon or graphic next to it, just boring black text saying South Florida Blogs. Above, a screenshot I took Monday night of the location on the Miami Herald's website where their blogs and collection of South Flordia blogs are located, with, as you can see, no icon to attract your attention or differentiate them -just text in black. Boring! I'll leave to another time the question of why a media company like McClatchy that prints both English and Spanish language newspapers in Miami insists on placing Spanish language blogs on an English language website, and even worse, confuses people by having a Spanish language blog with an icon being the first one that people actually see on the English language website. And it's also the only one. Why are there blogs listed in the South Florida blogs section that are actually written by Herald staffers, and why aren't they listed in the Herald's own section? That's real genius! And nervy!
Lots of online Heraldreaders no doubt see that and say, "Why even bother?" And when you get there, you aren't exactly wowed visually by what you see! http://yourblogs.miamiherald.com/ Compare that frumpy-dumpy scene of the Herald blog page to not only Spotlife'scolorful blog home, http://spotlife.se/ but also the very popular Stureplan blogs, which are very much about Stockholm's exciting nightlife and entertainment scene which puts Miami/South Beach's to shame for genuine fun for non-millionaires, http://stureplan.se/ Could there be more of a contrast between the integration of color and design? And there are other differences, too. For reasons that were never explained to me, my own blog -yes, this one- was listed on the Herald's blog page when it first launched, but since I was never asked about it or received any info from the Herald about their plans prior to its launch, I only found out about it a fewweeksafter it started, thru an email from a friend who'd seen my blog on it and was puzzled why it was there without my ever having mentioned it to her. She wanted to know who I got there to put in a good word for me. Nobody -it was a complete surprise to me, too. That's NOT exactly a strategy to win well-informed hearts and minds -or readers and eyeballs.
And now that theHerald's link for their hodgepodge collection of blogs has migrated from near the top of the website to some dubious real estate with no promotion, graphics or icon, it's not at all clear that readers even realize it's STILLthere. I don't even think about it anymore, even though I'm on it.
Since this article is about a downward trend among some sub-set of bloggers, let's call them the never-reads, let me leave you with a more encouraging stone-cold fact about one who gives people facts and context they are looking for.
Isabella Löwengrip at Blondinbella has more people following her on Facebook than the Miami Heraldand South Florida Sun-Sentinel and ALL their reporters, columnists or subject blogs combined. She's... actually recognized in Stockholm at the airport when she flies home intoArlanda.
Interesting and unique content-it's why I read the blogs I've mentioned here and why so many other people do, too. Just saying...
How a video of Paramore in Stockholm and Razorlight at the Cuckoo Club, London proves the Miami Herald is moving too damn slow in its news coverage. Iceberg dead ahead! A number of months ago -I want to say it was mid-April-when I wanted to prove a few points about how poorly theMiami Herald was serving their increasingly smaller numberof subscribers and readers -esp. the Sports Dept., led by their editor,Jorge Rojas- part of my grand plan was to run photos of what they ranin the newspaper on Saturday and compare that to whatother East Coast newspapers ran that same day, since it's thesame time zone.
The point, obviously, was to skewer the Herald once againthru some easily-understood and rather self-evident anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that their conscious decision to send copies ofthe newspaper to next door Broward County where I live -in my case, right nextto Aventura, only 14 miles due north of the newspaper's HQ on Biscayne Bay in Miami-which contained old news, lots of Wire stories and less local locally-written stories with important context, was only making their well-known problems MUCH WORSE This is most easily demonstrated when you don't see complete sportsstories and scores the next day -or timely election result updates on the website. Some examples of this from this past year:
Monday, January 4, 2010 A TV program we can use more of over here: "Jag ska bli stjärna"; Girls sports in South Florida and the abysmal media coverage of it
As you can see from above, in the interim, I've run a few pieces here and there demonstratingthat central uncontested fact about the Herald's declining quality to a fair-thee-well, using both the coverage of the second NCAA D1 Womens Basketball Semifinal game, and Game Twoof the 2010 World Series, Texas Rangers at San Francisco Giants, the latter of which started before 8:30 p.m. Eastern.
At the time, the other part of my plan was to show that despite allthe technological innovations of the past 15 years that allow legacy media companies like McClatchy'sMiami Herald, as well as bloggerslike myself, to share and post information quickly, the Herald was "movingkinda slow" -like Uncle Joe in front of theShady Rest Hotel in Petticoat Junction- to the absolute detriment of everyone concerned, most notably, news consumers.
One of the ways that I was going to do that was to post a great videoof Paramore performing in Stockholm late on a Friday night/earlySaturday morning, that had been recorded and posted to YouTube, and which later in the early A.M., was sent to me by a friend in Stockholm who'd beenat the concert, and was so wired that she literally couldn'timmediately fall asleep. Naturally, like millions of other people, unable to fall asleep, she promptly started checking her email and surfing the Web.
In her version of the story, after reading my humble blog here for the first time in a few days, and sendingme a note about some things she liked and some constructive suggestions,intent on going to sleep but wanting to check one last time,she typed in Paramore on YouTube, assuming that it was unlikely that anyone at the concert had uploaded something yet.
But she was wrong. Somebody had!
At the top of this blog post is a better quality version of the original video that I saw, but you still get the point nonetheless. Technology and social media allow news, ideas and information to flow freely from all sorts of places. So why is theHerald so laggard at doing the basics, like timely reporting? Why are they consciously turning their back on covering local government in South Florida and losing what precious remaining credibility they maintain?
When I woke up that Saturday morning in April, the newspaper lacked whatI and many other news junkies or sports fans would consider some basic information, yet my email inbox wasALREADYfull of interestingnews, including that hours-old video that was still PIPING FRESH! Since I didn't post that back then when I was of a mind to, I'll do it now, and further buttress my point by posting here yet another video thatproves the point.
Blogger extraordinaire Josefina BostonofAbsolutBostonblog fame,and Escada's London HQ, http://absolutboston.se/shot some interesting video when she and her beautiful model pal Tess Montgomery went over to theCuckoo Club in Mayfair. That is, they did so after they and two other fashion-forward friends hit the openingof the new Dior store on Bond Street, where the champagne was really flowing. http://absolutboston.se/dior-opening-party/
While there for the Cuckoo Club's second anniversary, Josefina filmed this performance by Razorlight from very close-up.
Not that there's anything wrong with the regular-sized one!http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000365/ Tess blogs from http://tessm.se/, where she has even more photos of Razorlight performing at http://tessm.se/cuckoo-club-2-ar/ as well as some photos of the Dior event athttp://tessm.se/dior-event-pa-bond-street/ Bon Chic, Bon Genre! Tess even has some good sound advice that's especially practical at this time of the year when she says at one point in her post, "Jag har nämligen som regel att aldrig blanda shopping och alkohol." Which is to say that she's developed a rule aboutnever mixing shopping with alcohol.
That's clearly a lesson that's yet to take hold of many area women, since I often see them over at the Aventura Mallaround 6:30 p.m.or so, as they go straight from drinking with their gal pals to shopping, usually over atNordstrom's. http://about.nordstrom.com/MapPoint/MapResults.aspx?bizid=774
I can't help but think that Tess probably has a good story behind that rule, too, just like Jethro Gibbs oflongtime Hallandale Beach Blog fave NCIS has for his rules. http://ncis.wikia.com/wiki/Leroy_Jethro_Gibbs/Rules So, getting back to the Herald, I know when I look at the Saturday newspapertomorrow and it's ponderous website that is both too-busy and yet NOT full enough of legitimate news stories, I will see so-called "news" that's largely been pre-chewed or eaten with all the turkey leftovers on Friday, on what is traditionally one of the worst weekends for news stories because the varsity news team is away on vacation.
When specifically is Miami Herald publisher David Landsbergfinallygoing to publicly share withHerald readers what his actual plan is to rescue the newspaper, and make it relevant to readers and news consumers, which it increasingly is NOT by any stretch of the imagination? It's getting kind of late in the voyage with Landsberg at the helm, and while I'm no expert on icebergs, I can see with my own eyes that the known and unknown icebergs keep getting closer and closer to the Herald's bow as it steers into unchartered waters without a compass or, seemingly, a legitimate plan to get to its destination.
And like you all, I know with absolute certainty that most of an iceberg is unseen -and below the surface. Just like the Herald's myriad problems. But some problems are too big to hide.
Fashion TV video: A bit closer with Daria Werbowy. She's sort of like a taller Canadian & Slavic combo version of Cali's Amy Smart -whom we LOVE! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005442/
See more photos and video of Daria over at The Daria Files http://dariawerbowy.onsugar.com/
When you're finished watching the vid, head over to Absolut Boston and see what fashion forward Josefina is up to these days in London, a far cry from our own summer nights in South Florida trying to avoid the heat, humidity and heavy thunderstorms.http://absolutboston.se/
Our guess? It'll involve fashion, her friends and clubbing! Yes on all three!
First a little Cricket, then Thai food with friends in Notting Hill, plus a plug for her good friend, Tess Montgomery, who also has a Spot Life blog. http://tessm.se/ Now that's the life! Tess is the model featured here for British-based Seksy Wrist Wear by Sekonda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWy3TA3Hw3o
and here at their website, http://www.seksy.co.uk/ Josefina is someone who SHOULD absolutely -Absolut, get it?- have a TV crew following her every move for a reality TV show worth watching, since she's always on the move and doing interesting and amusing things.
She's sort of the alter ego for so many of the female bloggers in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe who are heavily into fashion, but while they mostly just talk about it, she's actually doing it for Escada AND talking about it. Plus, she's a savvy trend-spotter!
Meanwhile, it just rains and rains here in South Florida... http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/
Above, a screenshot I took Monday night of the location on the Miami Herald's website where their blogs and collection of South Flordia blogs are located, with, as you can see, no icon to attract your attention or differentiate them -just text in black.
