So, Jason Calacanis officially announced the coming of his new podcast where he’s going to donate the proceeds of the show to charity. Apparently, he’s raised $100K so far and it’s going to the private Bay Ridge Preparatory School in Brooklyn, NY, so that “disadvantaged youth” can attend. It’s a great way to give back to the community and a good way of making the world a better place to live.

Interestingly, Jason asks:

“Who should I have as my first guest?”

Let me see … quoting from the press release:

“The weekly show […] will focus on Jason’s insights in new media and technology trends and those of his special guests.”

[…]

“The media philanthropy model that the CalacanisCast show represents is a first example of a sustainable, high-quality media property that generates not only awareness, but monetary support, for philanthropic causes.”

How about interviews with people who do the work for philanthropic causes. Ask them how this new media and the latest technology trends has affected their causes. Is it enabling? Can they bring benefit a larger audience now? Garner more support and volunteers?

Jason, you could provide insight into ways we can continue to evolve new media in a direction that could further meet their needs and goals. Wouldn’t it be keen to see a “Web 2.0” startup built around providing a service that facilitates or works to directly achieve some goal of one of these philanthropic organizations?

Of course, I don’t know if this would build you an audience. But, just another bunch of talking heads egobating about their wild successes and “the next big thing” isn’t exactly what I’d consider a “high-quality media property.” Highly valuable to advertisers, maybe, but value isn’t quality.

Tags:
Jason Calacanis,
AOL,
PodTech Network,
philanthropy,
new media

To those of you who actually noticed that my blog was down yesterday on 8/29, I’ve finally found out why … according to Rich Dean, construction workers dug into Verizon’s lines:

Late this morning, the contractor working on Park Place in Butler apparently damaged Verizon’s underground telephone cables causing phone problems for customers in the area including the Butler Police Department Communications. The cables involved connect most of Butler and Kinnelon with their central office in Riverdale. In this instance Cablevision’s Optinmum phone customers probably won’t be affected like they are when the power goes out. I understand that the news media is being notified.

This little mishap managed to take out my DSL circuit around 11 AM and has been flaky since.

Who needs terrorists when we seem to do just fine disrupting our own lives?

Tags:
blog,
downtime,
Butler, NJ

Last week’s Argonauts Gang Part II features Jason Calacanis with the Gillmore Gang. Jason makes the comment that, “I heard you could buy a review at TechCrunch” which gets Michael Arrington to write about it and Jason responds. Apparently, this caused quite a swirl over the holiday weekend.

Jason definitely takes transparency to the extreme. I’m sure he’s said stuff which he has either regrettted saying or has been misinterpreted. But, one thing’s for sure, he must have gotten the fortune cookie my wife got this past weekend: “It is better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly.” You can always correct mistakes, but you can’t get things done unless you do something, and Jason is definitely a do-er. For example, now that he’s part of the AOL family, he’s shining the light on some pretty dark places like the new AIM Triton and AOL Search.

A fellow AOL’er, Shawn Christopher suggests that he thinks Jason’s straight-forward approach is somewhat disrespectful. You know, you might be right, Shawn. Sadly, AOL is an extremely reactionary company. “Proactive” might as well be a four-letter word. I’m guessing that Jason understands this, that you kinda-sorta have to “force the hand” of business to react and you do that by airing things in public, not behind closed doors where suggestions can be ignored.

You’re right, maybe it’s not very nice. Maybe it’s even disrespectful. But, as an employee and shareholder myself, perhaps it’s time for “A little less conversation, a little more action, please. All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me.” — Elvis (Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, Lyrics) In times where AOL is being touted as the number one worst tech product of all time according to PCWorld, perhaps the time for ignoring our glaring faults is long gone?

Jason takes care not to disparage the talented engineers that work on our products. I bet if you ask him, he’ll tell you that he respects them all a great deal. But, our products are a different story. He takes an objective look at the products, focuses on a metric that’s measurable (i.e., placement of first organic search result, memory footprint of Triton), and then asks for change and improvement. How many times have you had your management make vague and overarching edicts like “make it better” without any clue what “better” is? Jason at least gives feedback where improvements are straight-forward to evaluate and measure. That’s golden, in my book.

Lets start focusing the conversations around how we can make AOL products which are clearly hurting, better. Suggesting we shouldn’t be openly discussing problems and listening to our customers’ feedback is also disrespectful: of our customers.

Tags:
Gillmore Gang,
Jason Calacanis,
AOL,
Michael Arrington,
TechCrunch,
Shawn Christopher

Back in July 2005, I blogged a bit about my 9/11 conspiracy theory and at the end, I included this snippet:

Over two hundred years ago, this country was formed by a group of people who were known as “Patriots.” These people fought against the rule of a government that didn’t serve its people. What it meant to be “a patriot” back then was to support the revolution in overthrowing the former government. It meant fighting against huge odds because to continue to live the way things are would be far worse than trying to overthrow the government. It was downright treasonous to be a patriot, but these people did it because that’s what they felt was the right thing to do. They risked everything because they couldn’t go on living the way they were — they were pushed past a point.

Today, the words “patriot” and “patriotic” get thrown around, but in the same breath with things like the “PATRIOT Act” and “Homeland Security” — implying loyalty and support of our current government — but when and where did the meaning change? Perhaps it really hasn’t. Perhaps there will be a new generation of patriots who will overthrow this government and install a new one whose interests, once again, lie with the people it represents. They will be fighting against huge odds, and be treated as traitors — maybe even labelled terrorists — and will risk everything for something they believe in. But, how many 9/11’s will it take before the American people are pushed past their point and become true patriots? We will see.

Last week, Wil Wheaton blogs about Glenn Greenwald who started a blog back in October 2005, which lead to a book deal in March 2006. The book, How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok, sounds like it takes the central idea from my two paragraphs and turned it into a book. I’ll have to read it and find out, I guess. For now, I’ve added it to my Amazon.com wishlist.

Tags:
America,
government,
politics,
conspiracy,
9/11,
patriotism