Alan Gutierrez

The Detroit newsletter slash website Metromode reports that SRT opens Ann Arbor office, more than triples its employees. Although, it looks as though it was a reprinted press release, the notion of third spaces is one that I’m pursuing with coworking meetups at our lovely New Orleans coffee houses.

Got a trackback from Matt Hampel on a post about the New Orleans Wiki. He is one of the keepers of the ArborWiki. It was from an automatic posting of his del.icoi.us bookmarks. It struck me as an easy way to reach out to new people. An easy way to reward people for getting my attention. As if my attention was not reward enough already.

TeleTwitter and Twitteroo come recommended by RevMark. Sally Tamarkin’s friend recommends Tweetr. Laura Fisher recommends TwitBox. A list of Twitter clients is available at the Apps page of the Twitter Fan Wiki. Update: For Mac I recommend Twitterific which blends in with my desktop beautifully and takes advantage of Growl if it is installed.

A journalist from a major newspaper called me asking for help on local response on the Jefferson indictment. I did not have a response myself. I sent an email with a lot of CC’s, asking people to give their response directly to the jouranlist. The pitch was, if you want to shape the media’s perception of New Orleans, here is your chance.

This has been generally how I handle a request for something quotable. I forward it. It is the same notion as the web. If you want people to return, send them away.

It worked out well. There were three people who gave a considered response.

Web 2.0 is about arbitrary user bases that you can explore, as opposed to the specific user base that you may need to organize.

Here is a dashed off list of things to like about Twitter.

1. You stay connected without disconnecting from the world around you. I’m not a Blackberry user yet, but this shows me the appeal. I don’t mind stopping in the street to Tweet. I don’t feel like a self-absorbed cell phone user, filling the air with half a conversation.
2. Twitter is an effective digression. It is keeping me productive by giving me an outlet that is finite. Rather than check CNN or BBC, and get lost for hours. I read the recent Tweets.
3. No title. That is wonderfully liberating. You do not have to think about a title. You simply have to think about your short, 140 character message. You simply tweet.
4. Narrowcasting at it’s narrowest. I enjoy little updates on other people’s days. I like basic tweets about what a person is doing. It is good to know that Mitten is listing to her ten year old expound on storytelling, that Dave Coustan is eating apple slices for dinner, that Edward Vielmetti is toying with Twitter as a to do list.
5. There are no tasks in Twitter. It is not an inbox. I do not have to dread opening it. No place to inject an obligation in 140 characters.

Edward Vielmetti sent me a link to Hurricanes at Twitter. Which might be reason enough for you to join, if you are a New Orleanian.

Karen Gadbois strikes me as the right person to spur Twitter adoption in New Orleans. She’s a master of the away mesage. She posts away messages in GMail that make you wonder what’s up. It’s never with a link either, so you have to look at the Northwest Carrollton blog, search Google or NOLA.com, or simply send her a message and ask.

I don’t know if she’s proficent at text messaging, but the web interface is simple enough. I’d like to get one key New Orleans denizen going, because our away message network works pretty well for us.

With a few key people, a New Orleans Twitter network could do a lot to keep tabs on our shifty government.

How are lawyers going to continue to harrass us when we can publish thier horrible demands on the Internet?

Take the case of a letter to a family in an RIAA suit, saying that they’ll be given 60 days to grieve, before continuing a suit against the estate of a deceased file sharing culprit.

A legal threat can infringe on a person’s rights, if they cannot afford to meet that threat in court, due to limits of money or time. These sorts of legal shake downs are more difficult when people can make a story of a legal outrage, as in the case of The Shops at Willow Bend.

Is it in any way wrong to post a letter that is sent to you?

Something to keep in mind as we are all going to be facing people with a lot of money to spend on a lot of lawyers as we rebuild New Orleans.

Got back from an open board meeting of Erace New Orleans, where Bill Knecht turned to me to talk about the Eracism blog. I described the open letter to Google, as best I could. We then talked about how we could make the blog an effective organizing tool.

Immediately, Paul Schafer raised the issue of the long rant I allowed through moderation in the Chocolate City entry.

I said that I let that go through as an example of the sort of stuff you might expect, heartfelt and angry. Nothing that would be expressed at a face to face Eracism meeting.

I wanted to spark a discussion of the moderation guidelines, and Sandra did just that. I’ve invited the Eracism organizers to continue the discussion the Chocolate City entry.

I ask that the regular readers of my Blogometer pop over and help them out, explaining your moderation guildlines. Tell them your troll stories.

UPDATE: The discussion is underway over at Eracism Blog. It’s lucid. You all should head over there and get to know some of these community oriented folks from New Orleans.