USA Today’s Andrea Stone has this thumbsucker today about the rise of blogging among Members of Congress and Senators. It’s noteworthy for several reasons.
First, as might be expected, politicians like blogs — they’re cheap (although not in terms of staff time) and easy ways to keep constituents informed, even if most Congressional offices have turned off commenting capabilities. So in this respect, they’re not really “blogs,” but still a step in the right direction.
Most congressional “blogs” aren’t really blogs with unfiltered comment and frequent updates. Members of Congress are limited in what they can put on taxpayer-funded websites, while government rules forbid instant comments on them. Instead, readers can e-mail the lawmaker, whose staff either replies privately or, after reviewing the comment, posts it on the website.
Another noteworthy point: because maintaining blogs and answering questions does chew up staff time, many politicians try to use other blogs to get their viewpoints across. Senate Majority Leader and presidential hopeful Bill Frist (R-TN) blogs from his PAC’s web site.
Although the article offers no statistics, Democrats tend to lead the way when it comes to blogging (I’ve noticed this too — why would blogging be a big-D Democratic thing to do?).
Many “off-site” bloggers are Democrats. Michigan Rep. John Conyers, attracts 650 people a day to the no holds-barred blog at his campaign website, recently criticizing President Bush’s domestic surveillance program. When Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey wanted to let loose against a bill he says would put limits on the Internet, he linked his blog to entries on the liberal Huffington Post and Agonist websites.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:46 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Online portal giant Yahoo! announced this morning a new site called Yahoo! Video that looks a lot like, well, YouTube. (The comparisons with YouTube are everywhere.)
The site allows viewers to upload their homemade videos and browse and download videos uploaded by other users. Yahoo Search blog has a more user-friendly description of the site’s functions.
By throwing its hat into the user-posted video ring, Yahoo! is taking on the same copyright headaches that have bedeviled the phenomenal YouTube. Indeed, Gary’s write-up of Bill Gates’ D conference talk notes that the billionaire himself said that although he is a big fan of YouTube, Microsoft isn’t ready to take on all those copyright messes that a YouTube lookalike would entail.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:54 AM | Print | Comments (0)
In the continuing fallout from the unbelievably bad public markets debut of VoIP provider Vonage, the company is now saying that it might not let off the hook customers who purchased pre-IPO shares but refused to pay for them.
On Tuesday, Vonage said that it would reimburse bankers for the shortfall and wouldn’t legally pursue its non-paying customer/stock buyers. But yesterday, Vonage seemed to back away from that position from its earlier posture that it wouldn’t sue customers who purchased stock but didn’t pay for their shares.
But a Vonage spokeswoman, Brooke Schulz, said on Wednesday that the company might pursue those customers who fail to pay for the stock they committed to buy.
“We’re reserving our right to pursue customers for payment,” Ms. Schulz said. She added the company would “take action should we deem it necessary.”
Memo to Vonage: Don’t do that. Not only will the 9,000 or so customers who purchased the stock because you pitched them via emails and voice mails quit your company (if they haven’t already), but the bad press is just not worth the cash.
Update: As Andrew Schmitt notes in his comment to this post, Vonage has to reimburse the brokers, so they can’t walk away from that. What they’ll do is then turn around and try to recoup their costs from the customers who failed to pay. Schmitt raises a good point — folks who thought they could make a quick buck with the Vonage stock shouldn’t get away with it. Still, if Vonage were smart, it would leave this one alone given how unusual the IPO was to begin with (direct pitches to customers) and how abysmally the stock has performed.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:38 AM | Print | Comments (1)
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