I haven’t been writing here recently.  Twitter sucks up the micro-links I used to post, and FriendFeed and Facebook capture the numerous links I push around the interwebs. The blog feels best for longer and more thoughtful pieces, and while I typically have alot to say, I also have tons of deadlines and things to… Continue Reading

Poking around as I work on launching Oakland Local and wanted to share these links: University of Southern California Report: Growing Funders of the News (7/7/09)  A growing number of foundations are now supporting news-and-information nonprofits–but how much suppport is really out there? Check this report by David Westphal for some sobering data. Download the… Continue Reading

For Oakland Local, I’d like to hear from local writers, bloggers, photographers, videographers(low end tech) and community folk who’d be interested in working with us. Oakland Local is a hyper-local community news and information hub focused on giving voice and facilitating discussion of issues important to Oakland in order to support positive social change and… Continue Reading

Vacation was GREAT. Being offline in a house on a lake was superb, as as hiking, boating, swimming, cooking and writing the specs for Oakland Local. Yep, nothing like vacation for planning your next big adventure. I’m working this summer, along with a team of people, to launch Oakland Local, a news & community hub… Continue Reading

Just doing some site clean up and reposted links to these handout on the site: Social media for social change, We media paper–the brief on using social media for social change, commissioned for the We Media conference, Feb 2009, ifocos_wm_socialmedia.pdf Social Media for Social Causes, detailed case studies of Knight News Challenge, Women Who Tech… Continue Reading

from Spot.us via kara andrade, and well worth it–I am going to try to be in two places at once and make part of it– “BEAST is Pig Latin for East Bay, a name that has all the power of bloggers in the SF Bay Area who are the eyes and ears of the East… Continue Reading

TBD founder Robin Wolaner posted a note last week saying the 50-something, Boomer social network she founded, TBD, will close in mid July 2009 due to lack of funding after burningtbrough a $4MM series A round.  In a Mercury News interview, Wolaner suggests Facebook killed the site, but I question whether TBD would have gotten… Continue Reading

My friend AV Flox steered me to a Guardian  UK  piece by Hadley Freeman on women and first person narrative as a form that brings out the worst in female writers. Short version: Freeman goes on at length about the awfulness of self-loathing female journos and the navel-grazing pieces they are paid to write about… Continue Reading

My 2 cents, here.  Brief snippet: “Is it possible that Jenny Sanford kicked her husband out of the house in June 2009 not because he’d fall in love with–and gotten physical with–someone else back in 2008, but because the world had found out?” Have fun.

I slept 9 hours last night, 10 hours the night before, At home, I sleep 6, maybe 7.  It’s been raining here for 3-4 days, so we run out and do a walk or a hike in between downpours, sit on the porch and read books.  I have been writing the product specs for oakland… Continue Reading