Day: June 1, 2003

OK folks, today is the last day to vote for this first week of the Weblog Showcase.
A bit before midnight PDT, the final links will be gathered and counted, and first thing tomorrow morning (probably around 6am PDT) our first winner will be announced.
And then, next week’s contest will begin. I’ve received quite a bit of feedback this week, and so will be slightly changing the approach for next week. Here’s the deal:
– Because folks were still figuring things out this week, I’ve decided to waive the prohibition on blogs entering the Showcase twice for next week only. If you meet the ‘newness’ criteria (which for next week is having started blogging after March 11th), you can submit your blog to the contest even if you entered this week. (Except if you win this week. Don’t be greedy). But you will have to resubmit; I’ll be clearing out this week’s entries tomorrow morning to start with a blank slate. And I’d suggest using a new post for next week, just to keep things fresh, although that’s up to you.
– By popular demand, the list of entries will be presented in random order next week, shuffled each time the page is loaded. I will continue to display the number of links and current rank of each entry, however; I think this is a reasonable compromise.
– There will be a new requirement for anyone who wants to submit their weblog to the Showcase. To be eligible to win the week, you must link on your own weblog to at least three other contestants. (And by the way: like any weblog, you need to make sure you’re registered in the Ecosystem for your votes to count. I haven’t fully integrated the two yet…) I don’t have the validation code in place to enforce this yet, but by next weekend, I will (and I’ll check the leaders manually if I have to). It occurs to me that without making this an across-the-board requirement, some contestants might actually have not linked to others because they knew it would put them at a disadvantage. I think asking the contestants to give a little link-love themselves to help their fellows out is reasonable, and many participants followed this approach anyway, so let’s try it next week and see how it works.

I haven’t seen Bruce Almighty yet, but boy, sounds pretty dumb:
A lot of mortals who happen to share God’s telephone number – or at least the one He uses in the new movie “Bruce Almighty” – have spent days now taking calls from curious dialers, snickering cranks and desperate souls…
Usually, movies and TV shows use the telephone exchange 555, which is not used for homes and businesses. But “Bruce Almighty” used a seven-digit number valid in many parts of the country.
Ok kids. Any marketing whiz worth their expense account could have figured out what the right way to do this was. You set up a full, real telephone number to be used in the movie, then use the “calls to God” as part of the marketing campaign. Heck, make it a 900 number!
Do I have to think of everything around here?

Well, I was going to be a but that kinda piffled out into the ether for reasons that remain unclear to a simple bear such as I.
But one door opens for each one that closes, and thus, I’ve accepted Venomous Kate’s offer to join the Slutertarians as their Director of the Census.
Go there now, and you can check out my department mission statement & professional bio.

I haven’t devoted much time / coverage to the current discussions of FCC media ownership rules.
But as the deadline of June 2 is fast approaching, I’ll at least point out that a few other bloggers haven’t been as remiss as I: Jimm at For A New Century Of Freedom and Lisa English over at Ruminate This are flooding the zone.
I’ll be honest and admit that I haven’t reviewed the proposed changes enough to have formed an opinion. But I can certainly support Jimm and Lisa’s contention that whatever the decision is, it should be done with the informed consent of us lowly citizens. So go inform yourself, and decide if you want to consent…