Blame the frigging tourists. People drive and fly from all over the world and US to come to our stores. They don't even BUY stuff. They just walk around mouths agape and take pictures. Sheesh

Dude! I am so taking you up on the guest house. And I promise to cook some of my time-tested extra-yummy recipes that'll be coming out on my new ultrasecret food blog ;)

I was reminiscing this morning about the panel at the Apple Store that you, Meg, Nick and others were talking about the future of blogging. This was back in 2004.

The one where you came in your shinny blue suit (please tell me you got rid of it) and Nick was like all suave and debonnaire and almost British about blogging and you said you'd sell Weblogs Inc. for 50million.

And I quote myself :
NYC Bloggers Update : The Skullfucking Conspiracy
My favorite moments? I actually liked seeing the two faces of enterpreneurs with Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis . I am as split about them as lots of the people in the following links. I like Jason's enthusiasm but feel like Nick's business model is more sensible. Then again, Jason has a hunger and passion for what he does that at least makes you stop and think about the possibilities of weblogging as a business...

You want my honest opinion as someone who has seen you grow out (thank goodness) of your shinny blue suit? I think you are going to go with all of the above and pull it off.

I really am going to sound like a groupie but, seriously, you and Jason are the best new media business reads, evah.

Long tail ghetto ... brilliant!

Honeypie,

I love you babe, but the day they put a non-WIN or non-Gawker blog up there, then I'll w00t with you. You sometimes need a reality check my friend --you ARE the major leagues now and what you publish are not blogs anymore --at least in the indy, home-made kind of DIY experience that gave birth to the form.

Liza Sabater
www.lizasabater.com

Oh lawd!

These things seem to come in waves although I am noticing that it mostly happens after 'hiring' season. It's like they get a new crop of bushy eyed junior "communications" assistants that think that telling me to link to a new awesome political movie I've never seen is totally hot and cool for me. WTF!?!?!

And there's the politicians. I wrote a letter to "Mr. Fundraiser" for very similar reasons. Don't get me started with political operatives.

To me it's easy. I am a writer. I've been a writer for over 20 years now. I've done from academic to corporate to technical and literary. As a writer i write about what I know. It's that simple. If I have not seen the movie, listened to the whole album or sat down with the candidate and followed their campaign, I just can't write about them like that! I don't come from the Nick Denton school of blogging. I ennjoy reading it at Defamer, but honestly, it's not what we are up to at my blogs.

I received an email today just like yours for a Fox film and a humoungously star-studded cast. We're not talking about indie filmmakers maxing out their credit cards while living on three-day old coffee and Goya beans. They know I hold a torch for them. We're talking about actors pulling in millions of buckos for just covering their doggy walters and pooper scooper expenses.

What does it take for a company like this to invite me to the critics screening? On my site you can find not only samples of my previous movie reviews (latest one being for A History of Violence) but, dang! I have my bio, my CV. Not doing it here in NYC? Then, duuuuude, if it's in Hell-A, just tell me and I can get a correspondent to report back.

I find it absolutely unprofessional from people in the movie and music business to ask me for a link without a screening or an advance album. When I have people in the publishing world contact me, they always say, here, have a book. If they are blog saavy they say, here, have a chapter and reblog it all you want PLUS read the book and review it. If they are gods they let me interview the author.

I have not gotten a PR god or goddess yet.

I had a PR person send me a link to 15 seconds of a Prince song. 15 SECONDS! They wanted me to give my impressions on a whole album based on 15 seconds of one song?

Say what?

My blogs have decent google rank. I assume that while doing their light research, they hit the first 100 sites and find me there.

I stress the word *light*.

They obviously know nothing about my qualifications, my blogging or my reviewing style. It's unprofessional and a complete turn-off.

So here's to you Jason. It seems like every once in a while these things bear repeating.

Cheers,
liza sabater
www.culturekitchen.com
www.dailygotham.com

BTW, i had links to posts about NYT mining (aka, stealing) content, but it got stripped.

Jason,

See my comments on the previous post. They wont link back to smaller blogs, especially NYC bloggers. They've mentioned The Daily Gotham but did not link back to us. Backroom Dealbreaker got ganked by one of their writers.

Honestly.

You get the link because you're a business. Independent bloggers? That's a whole other thing.

BTW, I have not been following too closely, but there is a firestorm over AP stealing content from Raw Story. This is systemic.

Your blogs get the props because you run them like a magazine or a publishing company. They know you can sue them. As to most bloggers? That's a whole different story.

Austin, what are you talking about? This has nothing to do with paying for it. They bought About.com because those sites have high SEO ranking. Thanks to the likes of people like Jeff Jarvis, thye've caught on they can have a humongous web presence by doing all the blog-like optmizations they've been doing to the site.

Have you noticed how 'bloggy' their pages are looking these days?

They have a list of blogs they've linked, but they so happen to be the megablogs like Huffington Post and Red State. I call it BS that they steal ideas for articles from local bloggers or mention our sites without linking back to us.

They know they can up your rank, visibility and credentials by doing so and that's why they won't.

Liza Sabater, Publisher
www.culturekitchen.com
www.dailygotham.com
www.blogsheroes.com
www.lizasabater.com

YOU NOTICED THAT TOO!

I was totally ferklempt by it. I run a politics blog in NYC, The Daily Gotham and we heavily link to the friggin' grey lady. I'm really seriously considering rallying the NYC bloggers and asking to not only de-link the New York Times but to quote their content w/o linking to see how they'd like that.

The Daily Gotham has been quoted twice in their newspaper and not once have we've gotten a link from those leeches.