Here is a preview of BloggerCon and a taste of the Varieties of Blogging Experience.
Elizabeth Spiers has been called “the Dave Eggers of the Blogolution.” A child of small-town Alabama, she graduated from Duke 
and took a run at Wall Street in the bubble years, tried blogging on her own and then backed into a paid gig with Nick Denton’s Gawker. She quickly became the empress of New York gossip, the “snark queen” and personification of “Radical Manhattanism.” Blogging for Ms. Spiers is a sort of high-style and humorous narrowcasting to the media and financial hive. It’s “Conde-Nastiness” about social climbers and start-up wrecks, starring and/or trashing the likes of Tina Brown, Alec Baldwin, Bill O’Reilly and Madeline Albright. She will be refining and extending the art next with New York Magazine, on the page and in the mag’s new blog titled The Kicker.
Jim Moore is more like a smarter, richer, equally earnest version of me. He had a hugely successful run in the Nineties as a business consultant and critical visionary (as in his book The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems, from HarperBusiness, 1996). 
His on-going study of information technology and democratic development is focused on Ghana. Last April, early in the war with Iraq, Jim wrote a debut blog that drew worldwide attention and comment and bears rereading today. The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head is about the peace coalition that President Bush chose to ignore.
“The beautiful but deeply agitated face of this second superpower is the worldwide peace campaign, but the body of the movement is made up of millions of people concerned with a broad agenda that includes social development, environmentalism, health, and human rights. This movement has a surprisingly agile and muscular body of citizen activists who identify their interests with world society as a whole—and who recognize that at a fundamental level we are all one.”
Listen to the trailers here for Elizabeth and Jim, and hear the rest with our Cluetrain panel at BloggerCon.
{ 13 } Comments
You’re kidding?
Elizabeth Spiers is a perfect storm of a media celebrity who has managed to become this moment’s ‘it’ girl in that infamous echo chamber/infinite regress known as Manhattan. She’s no Dorothy Parker or Fran Lebovitz. She’s not even a Tina Brown….
What’s next a paen to the genius of Bonnie Fuller?
By Serena Enger. Are we fulfilling obligations…?
Newsletter of interest
August 2003 The Real Sheet newsletter
Boston Public Library Professional Staff Association
Volume 32, Number 5
“President’s Message: Your Voices
by Serena Enger, Reader and Information Services
Voices of Professional Librarian Committed to Public Service
…
Staff from all divisions concerned about the Research Library’s status
offered the following concerns:
What are our obligations as a member
of the Association of Research Libraries?.
Are we fulfilling obligations when we:
…
. Fail to aggressively promote our resources through an active formal program
of classes and advertising, staff training, and scholarly programs as the
New York Public Library has done in its research division?…
…”
Ask for August 2003 The Real Sheet newsletter article pages 1-6
available by email from the text editor word processing file.
Contact Boston Public Library Professional Staff Association President
Serena Enger senger at bpl dot org
Or BPL tel 617 536 5400
Or use the form at…
Ask a BPL Librarian a Question
http://www.bpl.org/questions/index.htm
Or ask for the periodical via interlibrary loan or fax.
3 cheers for the 2nd superpower. Now lets all celebrate the victory of another idiot. Mr. Schwarznigger. Compensation from Emerson comes to mind.. mais non?
Realy good site!
Cool…
Cool.
Nice post and blog
Thanks for sharing
Okay, what are our obligations as a member
of the Association of Research Libraries?.
Are we fulfilling obligations when we:
and took a run at Wall Street in the bubble years, tried blogging on her own and then backed into a paid gig with Nick Denton’s Gawker. She quickly became the empress of New York gossip, the “snark queen” and personification of “Radical Manhattanism.” Blogging for Ms. Spiers is a sort of high-style and humorous narrowcasting to the media and financial hive. It’s “Conde-Nastiness” about social climbers and start-up wrecks, starring and/or trashing the likes of Tina Brown, Alec Baldwin, Bill O’Reilly and Madeline Albright. She will be refining and extending the art next with New York Magazine, on the page and in the mag’s new blog titled The Kicker.
A lot of hot air flapping about here
How do people not realize that blogging is just another business model, and like most, it starts with a wide, grass-roots base that refines into a few dominant players (for good or for bad)? Think auto industry, computer industry, cell phones, even education…
chris, cheeeeeeer
Spiers has since become the editor of the NY Observer: http://www.observer.com/masthead
Most people in 2003 would probably laugh if you suggested such a thing, e.g. the first comment above: “You’re kidding? Elizabeth Spiers is a perfect storm of a media celebrity who has managed to become this moment’s ‘it’ girl in that infamous echo chamber/infinite regress known as Manhattan.”
For a while she was over-hyped, I agree. But remember, we’re talking about media in New York City. She had the drive, and look where it got her.
Haters gonna hate…