Metroblogging for good or ill

Don't forget that 'blogs will change the world.'

If you need further persuasion then you can hire the Bonner man for 'consultancy' work.

My masterplan was to make some money out of metblogs so that I could afford to hire him so that he could explain to me exactly how a London blog based in LA will change the world.

I'll get back to you ;-)

I don't have a problem with the idea of blogs changing the world. For example, you only have to look at earlier posts today to see blogging giving us more direct access to local politicians than we're accustomed to.

I know American hyperbole doesn't sit well with us Brits much of the time, but that doesn't make it inherently wrong. ;-)

Adam-

First of all I want to thank you, as you seem to be the only critial blogger in London interested in actual discussion. The others seem much happier to hurl insults. As a result I'm more than happy to answer your questions, and look forward to continued discussions.

That said I do feel you are missrepresenting us and here's why (all references are to this post).

1. As much as I myself would like to get paid for blogging, I would like to pay the bloggers. As soon as that is realistic I'll be doing it. I explained this a bit further in a follow up to your previous post.

2. We are actively soliciting advertising, however the Suicide Girls ad is the only paid one, and I've explained that situation previously.

3. I'm sorry if I was unclear on this in my earlier comment, There's people from 20 cities that have currently expressed interest in helping up get a metblog running in their city. Some of those cities only have the one person signed on, others have 7 or 8. We are trying not to launch a city until we have 10 bloggers for it, so some of those 20 cities are still quite a ways off. We launched 7 cities in the first month we were doing this and I think that is the most ambitious we'll be, more often I expect something closer to 2-3 cities a month.

You referenced the comment by the BigBlogCompany, their post (As per usual) was just echoing Jeff Jarvis's post, which you also mentioned. There's a considerable amount of background to this post which I think you should consider before taking it at face value. Jeff Jarvis is involved with a local-blogging venture, and an investor in some of Nick Denton (Gawker media) ventures. Jason Calacanis who runs Weblogs, Inc is Nick's biggest competitor. Jeff has a history of criticizing Jason's blogs while hyping Nicks and not making public his financial involvement. Perhaps that's just over sight or generalization, but plenty of other bloggers have noticed it and Jeff continutes to keep his mouth shut about it. So, when I e-mailed Jeff the link to metroblogging, he assumed the Jason I said I was working with was Calacanis and trashed it, when his mistake was pointed out left and right (my partner in this is Jason DeFillippo) he had to back peddle and correct himself, however, as you can tell he's not the kind of person who likes to admit he's wrong to his correction is really a big justification. However he never once links to my sites, names them, or names the authors he's quoting. That's a clear violation of the CC license on the sites, and any requests to fix that have gone ignored. I've recieved countless e-mails from people who have known Jeff for years claiming that if he hadn't made the Jason/Jason error he never would have trashed my sites, but since he did he couldn't turn around and say "ooops, they aren't being run by who I thought they were, sorry they don't suck."

There's quite a few more blogs out there talking about how much they like the sites, than the very few saying they don't.

The inc. behind it, Bode Media Inc is just me and Jason. sean BOnner + jason DEfillippo. It's not some big company, it's a safety net. If we keep adding cities, which have 10-20 bloggers writting for them, that's going to be a lot of bloggers before too long, putting it under the umbrella of an Inc makes it so that if some blogger in some city slanders someone they can't sue me or Jason personally, and that's pretty much it.

You mention that you make your living by writing so it makes no sense for you to give it away for free, and I agree. I'm not looking for "professional writters" I'm looking for bloggers. This is a supposed to be an enjoyable, fun project for everyone, and so far it is everywhere except London, and even that is being fixed. Certainly we have some pro-writers on board in several cities, but I'd much rather have someone who has a day job and is just writting about the the city they live in because they like it, than someone who is only writing because of the promise of a paycheck. That's what blogging.la is and we all love it, I don't see any reason why that shouldn't work in other cities, and like I said for the most part it is.

London seems to be the exception to all this, or at least it did. I get along with all the writers in all the cities very well, I get along with many of the ones in London very well. The ones I didn't get along with aren't writing for my site anymore, and I'm adding new ones that I do like. Being that it's my project, getting along with the people involved is very important to me, so I took it very personal when all these people (smacked face, onion, etc..) where were being very nice and cordial to me, were posting laundry lists of complaints on other sites. That's extremely two-faced and not a quality I look for in co-workers. I confronted them, and everyone knows what happened.

I don't see any reason to be cordial to people who are talking shit behind my back, or to people making up lies and writing about them as if they are fact, especially when they have been told that what they are saying is incorrect. You have continuted to be very civil in all of your critiquest and I have a lot of respect for that. When this is all said and done, we don't have to agree but I appriciate the way you'd handled your side of the discussion.

Perhaps there is a different writing style to London bloggers, but I don't really think there is. I could be completely wrong, and I'm the first one to say that, but I think more accurately there is a clique of blogs in London who have a different style, perhaps as you said because of a " largely disrespectful print media." But media, print or otherwise, isn't something that every single blogger is concerned with. Some people just want to write about the great dinner they had last night at that new cafe around the corner, or what they think can be done to inproove that old cinema downtown.

I say this because in LA there is a "press club" which is a collection of journalists who all happen to have blogs, their blogging style is every different than everyone elses, but if you talk to them, they think their style represents LA. Hundreds of other LA bloggers would disagree.

In London, I'd suspect it's a similar situation -as the blogs who are talking about London's different blogging style all link to each other, yet a simple google/technorati/feedster search results in hundred of blogs from London outside of this circle that read just like blogs all over the world.

As for if it will get better, obviously that's everyones own opinion, but I think it will, and the other people involved think it will, and really, at the end of the day, as long we we're happy with the results that's all that matters.

"Part of the problem with the London blog is that Bonner has ploughed ahead with a British extension of the core concept, without making allowance for the rather more robust style of commentary and blogging we have over here"

Having followed this little saga from your first post about it, and on from there through related blogs and discussions I read the preceding sentence as:

Part of the problem is that Mr Bonner has been too lazy/bored/cheap to employ anyone to deal with the fractious and rebellious ne'er-do-wells that make up the UK blogging collective; and then has made the fatal error of engaging in a battle of wits with an Brit via the internet. This has, of course, raised the ire of the Brit-inhabited peanut gallery who have proceeded to pelt Mr Bonner with the internet equivalent of empty pistachio shells.

But then I am uncharitable in the extreme, and count myself a member of that peanut gallery. It seems to me to be arrogant in the extreme to imagine that a London metblog could be run by an american in LA. Can anyone be surprised that this has ended in tears?

Blogs may change the world. But I very much doubt it.

Jason, considering you ignored Onionbagblogger and Smacked Face's complaints when they were first made - and all they were doing was replying honestly to points I made in my own blog - and then referred to the former as "Onion fucker" in an e-mail to the London Metblogs group, I don't think you can really talk about being "two-faced" without another barrage of pistachios being hurled at you. ("Co-workers?" They're not being paid...)

I don't think there's a "London style" of blogs - if there is, it's a reflection of the UK style as a whole.

But I think John S hits the nail on the head about the peanut gallery. I don't think it'll end in tears, but it'll end up as something unrecognisable and unusuable to people who *live* in London. Which is a shame, but it'll probably suit overseas readers down to the ground.

Ooops, called Sean "Jason" there, for no apparent reason. Apologies.

Inspector-

have you ignored everything I've said? Smakced face and onion NEVER made any complaints to me. If either one of them had EVER come to me with a complaint the situation would be different, but they didn't. I found out Smacked face was unhappy when she quit, thats when I went looking and found your site and Onions comments. I e-mailed him and he brushed me off with his reply.

Anyone who talks shit about me behind my back and then dosen't have the balls to own up to it when confronted is a fucker.

John S - feel free to keep echoing the comment about a "london blog run by a guy in LA" all you want, but the fact is all the cities are run by the people in the cities.

With apologies to One Man and having to correct the misinformed (or maybe just plain dumb?) using your space�

I was asked a number of questions via email. I answered them. What more was expected? A legally binding contract that locked me into a ten year blogging deal of original content and flying the flag (probably a jolly roger, the thieving knobbers) of the good ship Metblog before it sinks somewhere in the Thames without a trace?

There was NO behind the scenes backchat. In my private mail to the pornographer I said that London Metblog is shit. I raised similar concerns elsewhere.

If asked now my opinion of Metblog then I would refer my honurable friend to the answer I gave last week. and next year probably.

"feel free to keep echoing the comment about a "london blog run by a guy in LA" all you want, but the fact is all the cities are run by the people in the cities."

With all due respect, Mr Bonner, the untruth inherent in this statement is exposed by your removal of certain bloggers from your site. As you state above:

"The ones I didn't get along with aren't writing for my site anymore, and I'm adding new ones that I do like."

You then go on to state:

"Being that it's my project"

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that it is your intention to let the city bloggers run the applicable metblog. After all, this makes good business sense, in this case. If I were attempting to set up the kind of site that you are trying to, then I'd be doing the same. In fact it could be argued that this whole situation could have been avoided had you actually done what you claim to do, and let the london residents deal with their own. But you didn't.

You also misquoted me. What I wrote was "a London metblog... ...run by an american in LA." Your nationality is important, in this case. It is a very rare american that understands London, and is qualified to run a metblog, in my opinion. Hell, I'm english, and spent 5 years living in London, and I'd not consider myself qualified to run a London metblog. London is a unique city, and it takes more than 5 years of living there to understand it fully. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you have never lived there, as I understand it, and in fact have never even lived in the same country. How can you hope then to run a London metblog?

I have no particular problem with you, or your site (though I have to echo Adam's comments about quality). I'm quite partial to noodling on the web, reading other people's thoughts. But if you really want to make your metblog idea work, then I suggest that you wipe the whole London metblog, and hand over the organisation of it to a long-term london resident, allowing them to run it for you. Unfortunately, it seems that your credibility has been pretty badly damaged by this whole affair, and it's a lot of work to expect someone to take on without any financial reward. The currency of goodwill is paramount in these things, and you seem to be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Still, someone might prove me wrong.

"All the cities are run by the people in the cities."

Right. So how comes it is you who decides what does on there, you posting supportive messages on your contributors' individual sites and you which plonks an ad for a Playboy-affiliated porn site on the London page?

Or maybe not, as it suits you.

Make your mind up, sunshine.

Why is it called Metblogs suddenly? Not Metrobloggers? Who changed the name?

Right, I've said this all before and Onion, Inspector S, John S and Adam have all said it better. But I do take issue with being accused by Sean of being two-faced.

The first time I raised any complaints about the site were with you personally, Sean, in an email which I have on file. My point was that the site hadn't turned out to be what I'd been led to expect, and that the quality of many of the posters was far below the standards I would want to be associated with, and asked to be removed from the collective.

You asked me to think about it. I did, and 24 hours later, I replied to you, announcing my decision to leave, and saying this:

"To me, blogging is all about the quality of the writing - anyone can just voice an opinion. I love the idea of a London blog pool compiled of really accomplished bloggers with something to say or an observation to make - whether I agree with them or not doesn't matter, as long as they're saying it in a witty, well-considered manner. What we seem to have ended up with on the site is more like a badly-spelt teenager's diary or a university chat room..."

Following my decision, I then posted publicly in other forums repeating these opinions, obviously in a more light-hearted manner as suited the situation.

I haven't said anything anywhere that I hadn't already communicated to you, Sean: I told you the site quality was rubbish and I wanted out, I also told you I appreciated your vision and hoped you could pull it off eventually; I told other sites the same things. I stand by my opinion. Deal with it.

I notice that Sean is scheduled to speak at the BlogOn 2004 Conference.

Woh! Way to go!

Under discussion is 'how Metblogs are impacting issues on a local level.'

London should make for an interesting case study.

Nice site. Thanks:-)