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
But somehow, despite all that is known about its power to sift and find that hidden thing which you seek, the article above never mentions the power of Google Alerts, something I swear by and testify to. Just saying...
Music's long-tail idea not working out exactly as planned, is it? I last wrote about rock guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen in my April 30, 2011 blog post titled, If the blog is rockin', don't come knockin' - Yngwie Malmsteen: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (HQ); original version by ABBA (LIVE at Wembley Arena, 1979) http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/if-blog-is-rockin-dont-come-knockin.html of which this remake of ABBA'sGime Gimme! Gimme! is but one of many videos there.
Just to prove a point that I've proven so many times in the past on this blog: Snapshot of the Twitter feed of the Miami Herald shows its complete obliviousness to Broward County and the people who live there -like me; @MiamiHerald, @MindyMarques, @rickhirsch
Above is a snapshot of the Miami Herald'sobliviousness to Broward County, the land it treats like terra incognita in its new HQ in Doral -on the way to all the dumped bodies in The Everglades- even more so than when they were in downtown Miami and lumped Broward in with The Keys edition, withy older news, even though the Broward edition was printed in Broward.
At the top are the tweets appearing on the Miami Herald's Twitterpage as of 6:16 p.m. on Monday night.
How many do you think have to go thru before coming across thesecondreference to a person, place, issue or topic that is of particular relevance to Broward County and the people who live here?
What's your guess?
The correct answer is63.
62 tweets before the second item of particular relevance to Broward residents comes up.
The next time you get a phone call from a Herald reporter or editor, you ought to ask them
if they're sure they really meant to call someone in far-off Broward County.
If you're interested in seeing all the tweets that came before it, drop me a line and I will send it to you.
Sure, because what could possibly go wrong with tens of millions of teenagers' personal information being recorded and stored digitally somewhere on school property, and likely being easily accessible by all sorts of computer-savvy creeps, whether there at the school or many hundreds or thousands of miles away?
WSJDigitalNetwork YouTube Channel video: Does the NSA Know More About You Than Google? -WJS's Best of the Web Today columnist James Taranto on Verizon's cooperation in handing over metadata to the federal govt. Uploaded June 6, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A5yLOwX320
The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night.
The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over 'on an ongoing daily basis' to the National Security Agency all call logs 'between the United States and abroad' or 'wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.
Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism -especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.
On PRISM, admin points to Sec 702 of FISA, says it collects "important and valuable" data from non-Americans politi.co/12vhdG6 — Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) June 7, 2013
The Guardian's bombshell revelation about domestic spying is only the tip of the iceberg read.bi/191sf7C — Politix (@bi_politics) June 6, 2013
The NSA Doesn't Need Much Phone Data to Know You're You. bit.ly/18Yjxab — Niraj Chokshi (@nirajc) June 6, 2013
I'm curious if any Miami or FTL-based federal officials have a similar M.O. to avoid compliance. Not that the local news media will investigate this unless a local federal employee comes forward to say so.
Twitter Proves Pivotal In Dissemination Of Information During Taksim Square Protests mbist.ro/131l3Sz (via @alltwtr) — mediabistro.com (@Mediabistro) June 3, 2013
Social Media superstar iJustine's antics in December included some things you might've done -gotten holiday photos taken with your siblings- but also some you didn't -dress as a panda for the Grand Opening of an Apple Store. In this case, at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, whose beauty left Justine dumbstruck; @ijustine
Out of LA for a bit and back in snowy Western Pennsylvania with her family for the Christmas holidays, Social Media queen, YouTube sensation and tech and gaming guru iJustine (Justine Ezarik) and her sisters, Jenna and Breeanne, head to the Walmart to get their annual 'Sister Christmas' photos taken, show us how they came out, and then head to Red Lobster and crack wise on each other like sisters do.
In mid-December, Justine dressed as a panda for the Grand Opening of the Apple Store at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, and like her friends, was dumbstruck by the beauty of the store...
otherijustine YouTube Channel video: iJustine (Justine Ezarik) dresses as a panda for the Grand Opening of the Apple Store in Santa Monica. Uploaded December 16, 2012. http://youtu.be/eZJUEKa_YDs
Just something to think about: As of 11 p.m. December 28th, 2012, 587,381 people like iJustine. As a comparison, The Miami Herald, at that same time and date, is liked by 40,773 people, while popular Swedish blogger, businesswoman and personality Isabella Löwengrip, a.k.a. Blondinbella, http://blondinbella.se/, is liked by 21,484.
"Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell... The Daily Telegraph on how film director Danny Boyle was able to get 60,000 volunteers to keep Olympic Opening Ceremonies on the QT; #London2012, #TeamGB
The Daily Telegraph
London 2012 Olympics: How Danny Boyle got 60,000 fans to keep mum over opening ceremony dress rehearsal In the age of Twitter, Facebook and 24 hour news, getting 60,000 people to keep details of the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony secret should surely be an impossible task. By Gordon Rayner, and Jack Taperell 4:28PM BST 24 Jul 2012
In the age of Twitter, Facebook and 24 hour news, getting 60,000 people to keep details of the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony secret should surely be an impossible task.
But Danny Boyle appears to have done just that by appealing to a crowd invited to a dress rehearsal on Monday night not to spoil the surprise for the rest of us.
Which nation in the March of Nations in tonight's Opening Ceremonies will be the subject of the most condescending remark or anecdote from NBC-TV hosts tonight in London?
As U.S. newspapers continue their slide down the slippery-slope, former newspaper executive, Cal-Berkeley journalism professor and former Silicon Valley CEO Alan Mutter writes about creating some "change agents" who just might help some papers slow the descent into oblivion, and recapture reader's respect and support again. (And Silicon Valley is helping!) But as Tim Worstall at Forbes.com points out, that newspaper industry is actually smaller than Google now. And shrinking!
Time to get ready for newspaper consolidation? You bet!
Forbes.com
Tim Worstall
The US Newspaper Industry is Now Smaller Than Google
June 18, 2012 @ 12:55 p.m.
Of course, many things are smaller than google. But these figures on advertising revenues show again something we mentioned a few months ago. The revenues of the US Newspaper industry, as a whole, as a total, are now smaller than those of Google alone.
Instead of merely talking about how much the newspaper industry has to change, the Inland Press Association has decided to do something about it – in a big and bold way.
by Lois Beckett, ProPublica,
March 13, 2012, 1:31 p.m.
Instead of picketing outside company headquarters, an advocacy group is using Facebook ads to try to influence people whose profiles identify them as employees of Freddie Mac or JPMorgan Chase.
The anti-foreclosure ad campaign, which launches today, asks Freddie and Chase employees to talk to their CEOs about a veteran -- a former Marine -- who's facing eviction in California.
"This is not any sort of attack on the employees there," said Jim Pugh of Rebuild the Dream, which is running the ad campaign. "We're trying to let them know what's happening."
The ad that targets Freddie Mac employees features a small picture of CEO Charles Haldeman's face, and the message, "Freddie Mac did what???? Freddie Mac is evicting a former Marine who's been trying to pay his mortgage. Tell CEO Haldeman to work out a fair deal with him!" according to a copy of the ad provided by Pugh.
The JPMorgan Chase ad is similar, but with a Chase logo instead of an executive's face.
We've contacted Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase spokespeople for comment, and also reached out to Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase employees on Facebook. If you've seen one of these ads, please let us know.
Targeted online advertising is nothing new. (As anyone who has changed their Facebook status to "engaged" can tell you, a simple update can bring a deluge of new ads.) But political campaigns and advocacy groups are increasingly adopting the same microtargeting tactics that companies use.
Rick Perry's campaign, for instance, targeted faith-focused ads to people in Iowa who listed themselves as Christians on Facebook, and ads featuring his wife to the state's female conservatives, Politico reported.
According to FEC data, Endorse Liberty, a super PAC that supports Ron Paul, has led the way on Facebook expenditures, spending a total of $241,508 through January 2012.
And it's not just Facebook and Google where campaigns and activists are doing microtargeting. The music site Pandora announced last year that it would be selling political ad space targeted to the zip codes of particular listeners, the Wall Street Journal reported.
There's nothing inherently problematic about targeted ads. Campaigns have been using direct mail to target particular voters for decades. Digital targeting can be a cost-effective way of spending advertising dollars, especially for smaller groups, like Rebuild the Dream, which sees the ads as a great way to get more bang for their buck in terms of reaching their intended audience. (The group also launched a special donation drive specifically for the Facebook ad buy.) ProPublica even used Facebook ads to try to find sources for our 2009 series, When Caregivers Harm.
But as the ability to use data to reach particular people grows more sophisticated, targeting risks crossing privacy lines, as demonstrated by a recent New York Times article on how Target knew a teenage customer was pregnant before her father did.
What's clear is that if all this microtargeting translates into electoral gains, the scale and sophistication of these efforts will continue to grow, and the data science that gained traction in 2008 will become a regular part of campaigning. In the meantime, the Obama campaign's already substantial data team continues to hire statistical modeling analysts and analytics engineers.
The increasing ease and flexibility of online targeting also raises new questions about how politicians are presenting themselves to different audiences, how much campaigns need to tell their supporters about the personal information they collect -- and what will happen to the massive databases of voter information collected during the 2012 presidential campaign. Will they be sold? Passed on to other politicians?
Rebuild the Dream, which focuses on economic issues, was launched by MoveOn.org in 2011, but has been independent since January, Pugh said. The group's president is former Obama green jobs adviser Van Jones.
Pugh worked on the Obama campaign's digital analytics team in 2008 while also trying to finish a Ph.D. dissertation in robotics, and later did similar work for the Democratic National Committee. He said he was not sure what kind of reaction the ads would receive.
"I would imagine that people are fairly used to targeted ads at this point," he said. But while people who work in politics and advocacy may be used to receiving Facebook ads targeting specific causes, "It's hard to know in advance how unusual it will seem to the employees of Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase."
----- Reader comments at:http://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-win-facebook-friends-and-influence-people/single#comments
Justine Ezarik, a.k.a. iJustine, modern-day Digital Renaissance Woman and well-known YouTube Partner, back from CES, is in Miami for NATPE and checking-out the South Florida scene.
I originally meant to post the two videos -below- of lovely multi-tasker Justine about three months ago, back when she was visiting Norway and taking some awesome photos and videos of that beautiful country that's been the sad subject of so many posts of mine here since the massacre in Utøya, and home to so many friends, talented musicians -and, let's be honest, very beautiful women.
Plus, in case you missed it, Justine finally explained, to those who didn't know, what the reality of the Swedish Fish situation was. So there's that!
Curiously enough, that video of Justine and her Norwegian tech friends doing the glacier trek was one of the things that I had waiting for me in my YouTube inbox one night three months ago, when I'd come home from spending a few hours with my Dad when he wasn't doing very well after he'd taken a fall earlier in the afternoon at the Hollywood ALF he's living at up the street. I'd had to jump into the gridlocked traffic on US-1 and rush up US-1 to get him and then head south to the Mt. Sinai ER in Aventura, with a large and disconcerting gash above his right eye.
Right where he had had surgery back in 1973 after he was the innocent victim in a car accident in North Miami Beach, while I was in Junior High School.
When I finally got home and flipped on my computer and the TV, with Jimmy Kimmel
about mid-way thru his monologue, I was both physically exhausted and emotionally distraught, and driving home I'd once again been mentally debating my idea of whether or not my visiting Sweden and Iceland soon for two weeks to just get away from here for a while and clear my head is such a great idea. Something I've mentioned a time or two here before. But as she has so many times before, especially the rough last year-and-a-half, with all of its upsetting ups-and-downs concerning my Dad's health, Justine made me laugh and smile when I really needed it... so there's that. She's Pittsburgh thru-and-thru! Something my Steubenville-born dad would surely appreciate if he only fully comprehended the whole Influencer scene.
Months after I'd originally planned on doing so, I'm going to be over on South Beach Monday afternoon to take some photos and shoot some video of the space on Lincoln Road that was supposed to be the new H&Mstore many months ago, but which is, well, STILL not open.
I'm going to try to get some straight answers from some responsible people as to when that soon-to-be cash cow store is going to be a reality, but if by chance I run into Justine, with her camera in tow, well, that sleuthing of mine may well have to wait until another time.
Even though I'm NOT a fan of reality shows anymore, per se, since the only one I consistently watch is CBS'sThe Amazing Race, Justine is definitely someone whose quirky personal adventures, misadventures and hijinks I would watch on the small tube. Yes, smarts, savvy and personality still counts for a lot with me, and Justine has enough personality for any two women. Take that as a hint, NATPE programming types looking for new ideas.
A head's-up for those of you with YouTube Channels, esp. those of you who DON'T receive anywhere near the volume of visits that Justine gets.
Which is to say, all of you.
And me!
After originally planning on posting it over Christmas week but not being able to do so for reasons that some of you know about, in the next day or so I'll be posting the fascinating and instructive video of ABC News' 20/20 program from September called "YouTube Generation" that I've already spoken to some of you about via email.
I'll also post some of my pithy observations about it.
The Washington Post By Evelio Contreras, Marc Fisher, Kat Downs and Jon Cohen January 20, 2012 ----- Below, the everyday media world of three South Carolina voters who are avid news consumers... Prepare to see this effort copied by newspapers and TV stations across the country!
The Washington Post Polarized news market has altered the political process in South Carolina primary
By Marc Fisher January 20, 2012
LAURENS, S.C. — Once upon a time — oh, about two presidential elections ago — Dianne Belsom would get up in the morning and read the paper, taking in news stories about candidates and campaigns. Some stuff she agreed with, some she didn’t.
This morning, Belsom wakes in her splendidly restored pink Victorian on Main Street in this rural South Carolina town, makes coffee and settles in at her desktop to fire up Facebook. There on her news feed are more than 100 stories that some of her 460 friends have posted since Belsom went to bed eight hours ago.
This article accompanies a quiz on the Washington Post's website to measure the reader's daily media consumption. ----- http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics
Late Fall evening in 2002, looking south at The White House from Lafayette Park, with statue of Gen. Andrew Jackson in the foreground. Photo by South Beach Hoosier. If only I'd started a blog back then -or earlier!!!
I've been meaning to post this bit of positive news for a while now, but kept shunting it aside because of other matters, including what has been a LOT MORE time this past month dealing with family health concerns, and then coming home exhausted, only to run head-long into longstanding problems with AT&T'sU-Verse service.
Thanks to you readers out there in the blogosphere, especially a very loyal core of large-volume readers in certain cities, including some in Europe, which the Feedjitwidget never fails to disclose in the right-side column, last month set a new record for eyeballs coming to your humble blog: November 2011 Pageviews: 22,430.
Hallandale Beach Blog also set a new daily record on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, November 22nd, with approximately 2,863individual pageviews of something on the blog, for whatever rhyme or reason. (More than 119 an hour.)
That's more than one-tenth of the month's total!
Who says that people who work in offices aren't hard at work the week of Thanksgiving?
Uh... the actual evidence.
Doing simple math, that monthly total means that there was a daily average for the 30 days of November of 747.66 pageviews.
Before the end of the year, I'll disclose some of the positive changes that will be coming to the blog in the new year, as well as some of the new tools I'll have that will play an important role in what you can expect to see here.
I'll also probably have some practical suggestions for those of you who have written and asked what sorts of common sense things they should consider or have before starting a blog, since a new year always gives people the chance to do lots of things they've heretofore put off doing, learning or experiencing, including reinventing themselves as bloggers, after putting it off for years, so they can finally share some insight, curiosity and experience they have with the wider world.
That's especially true when they want their newly-christened blog to have at least an occasional oversight element that involves informing the public about local, county or state government chicanery, skullduggery and crony capitalism.
What do you know, Florida is not only the Sunshine State, it's the home of both Old Style and New School govt. chicanery, given the number of Floridians I've heard from who say that when reading the posts here, their favorites are not necessarily the ones about pop culture or sports or the news media -MSM and local- but rather the ones where they can really sense the delicious satisfaction (and occasional glee) I feel in helping to expose elected officials and highly-paid govt. staffers to a degree of scrutiny they hadn't counted on.
Of showing them becoming so blase about riding the gravy train in the Pay-to-Play culture hereabouts, that they forget the public duty they have to those they they are supposed to serve, not become affluent off of.
Of simply taking the time and energy to do some of the investigatory research and field work that the local and state news media should be doing -but isn't- to show the public thru both self-evident photos and hidden records what the genuine reality of their actions, words and policies are.
I can't deny that when you have the goods on one of them, and they can't explain away the facts they find so uncomfortable because you have stolen their crutch or wrath, it's a good feeling.
Given what we already know about the caliber and competency of many elected officials and government employees at the city, county and state level here in Florida -and probably where you live, too- this is a particularly target-rich environment for would-be bloggers who want to hold them accountable thru old-fashioned reason and common sense, regardless of whether you are conservative, liberal or just plain angry at the intersection of political culture of self-enrichment and ego-tripping.
My experience is to let the facts tell the story, along with some informed commentary that you can back up with hard evidence.
There are clearly a lot of people in South Florida who possess the intelligence, common sense and tools to make a positive, tangible difference in their own community, they just need some positive encouragement.
So whether you know someone like this who has talked to you in the past about their desire to start a blog, and you didn't take it upon yourself to encourage them, or you yourself are that would-be blogger who has let things get in the way, DON'T procrastinate this year like last year.
Get organized and get started on giving your community the added oversight and accountability that only serious concerned citizens can give.
I know from personal experience how procrastination is the creative blogger's worst friend -or even the would-be blogger- since while I was living and working up in Washington, D.C., many of my in-the-know, tech-forward friends on Capitol Hill, in the myriad federal agencies, think tanks and news media, encouraged me to start a blog right at the point in the late 1990's when when blogging was becoming easier to do for non-techs like myself.
A blog that would incorporate many of the interesting and delicious tidbits of information and insight that my friends and I knew first-hand, whether thru discovery or, sometimes, literally, stumbling into it, which we mentioned whenever we got together.
But lacking a blog or website of my own to tell the tale, I shared it with people who already had a news media perch, many whose names you'd recognize, who eventually got the word out, via print or TV. Me, I always had an excuse not to do it, usually, involving lack of time.
This was back when I was averaging going to about 25 Baltimore Oriole home games a year at Camden Yards, despite living in Arlington County, so I really didn't have a lot of free-time during the baseball season, since I'd usually not get back home from those long American League ballgames until about 1 a.m., and had to leave the house by 7:15 to walk to work via the Ballston Metro station.
Even after returning here to South Florida, it took me a few yearsto finally bite the bullet.
Every day that I stare at my computer screen now, I think, "If only I had started this blog earlier!"
When I think about all the crazy, amazing and useful things things you readers would already know by now -but don't!- about many nationally well-known pols, pundits, reporters and Washington-area institutions, to give you a sense of why they are the way they are, both good and bad, but don't because I hesitated, it's frustrating beyond words. (And perhaps best explains why my posts on Washington tend to be so lengthy?)
In the hands of a serious and dedicated blogger, truth, fairness, context and facts are king. But they're meaningless if you don't jump at the opportunity that presents itself. Don't repeat my mistake by procrastinating too long!
Like I have with Twitter, which will change in the new year!
Above, five screen-shots I snapped of Amanda Römmesmo Diaz (as Lucia) during the 2010 St. Lucia Day ceremony and concert telecast from Kungsholms Church in Stockholm last year, which was broadcast by SVT.
The ceremony starts Tuesday, December 13 at 7:00 a.m. Stockholm time, which is GMT+1, meaning it's on LIVE at 1 a.m. Miami/Eastern Standard Time.
If you're seeing this blog post of mine sometime on Tuesday morning, it's not too late to check it out again on the re-broadcast at 6 p.m. in Sweden on SVT2.
Everywhere else in the world, including here in Miami, the Land of the Luckless Dolphins. you can see Luciamorgon at SVT Play, specifically at
It will be available for viewing on theSVT Playwebsite until January 12, 2012.
Hallandale Beach Blog/South Beach Hoosier favorite Jill Johnson, along with Sofia Karlsson will be at Gothenburg Cathedral, along with their Boys and Girls Choir, to sing some traditional holiday songs and carols, and actor Tomas von Brömsen will be keeping it real by reading some stories that capture the holiday moment and explain the story of Lucia.
Clips from Jill's new "Welcome Christmas" holiday album with the Gavle Symphony Orchestra. http://tjuvlyssna.nu/
Among other places in Sverige last week, Gothenburg was absolutely flooded with rain last Thursday, and, according to soggy friends of the blog on-the-scene, it was only Monday that water started receding to reveal just how many cars got completely swamped. And more snow and rain, snöfall och regn, is coming toute-de-suite from the west, with very strong winds in tow.
In a sign of the times, due to so many creepy people in the world using Social Media for nefarious means, in Gavle, schools are forbidding families from videotaping or photographing their own daughters -and others- doing their Lucia ceremonies, so that the resulting photos and video are NOT swiped off the Internet and abused by being posted at porn sites or maintained for personal use.
Parents actually have to sign forms acknowledging they know the new rules before attending.
