Blog news

He's had quite enough:

I decided to start blogging from the grave due to the preponderance of mistruths and inaccuracies that have spread across the people by virtue of biographical books and television series. It appears that a host of lecherous pundits and writers have jumped on the John Adams bandwagon. Even in the grave, these hangers-on are annoying and aggravating. So, good people, I have decided to enter the Blogesphere, as i believe it is called, not to correct the inaccuracies of what has been written about me, but to comment on what is happening now. ...

His phone call with Giamatti. However, he seems strangely fascinated by the dealings of high-tech companies. You would think that would be more Franklin's bailiwick.

Via Bijan.

The Times reports bloggers who sit motionless in front of their monitors around the clock are dying in record numbers. Well, two of them died, at any rate. But it's in the Times, so it must be true.

It's great journalism. Let me see if I can apply the formula to another field - journalism itself: Read more

The Globe covers the Blue Mass. Group posting by Deval Patrick's chief of staff.

The Globe, of course, doesn't provide a link so people can see the posting for themselves if they don't happen to know the site's URL.

And then there's a slightly jarring note for people who actually read the site. Read more

Is this town big enough for two food bloggers named Tammy? And how come the Globe couldn't figure out the difference?

Everybody, say hello to, oh, Tammy A., who writes Food on the Food. Now say hello to, oh, Tammy B, who writes Boston Food and Whine. There, that was simple!

But not for the Globe. When the Globe City Weekly section wrote about ParkwayBoston.com a couple weeks back, they decided to use this Universal Hub comment from Tammy B. But, of course, they wanted to use her last name. Rather than simply following the link on that comment to Tammy B. and asking her, they somehow dug deep and found Tammy A. - and more important, her last name, and so attributed Tammy B.'s quote to her.

That caused a bad scene, of course, but now the two Tammies have been introduced, online at least, the Globe correspondent is very apologetic and Tammy A. has promised her dad she'll stop talking about stripping so much.

But, gang? Let's just keep it between us that Boston has two blogging Jim Sullivans, shall we?

Templamatic is a homegrown marketplace for blog templates.

Via 93South.

Worcester Magazine is blogging the blogs, with updates every few days on what Worcester bloggers are bloggging about (blog, blog, blog!).

UPDATE: Looks like the site was taken down. Oh, well. It was full of Mike Barnicle's greatest hits.

If it had a Web site, it would look like this.

I'd forgotten the Mandingo quote.

Via Amy Derjue.

You need to password protect it or, at the very least, host it on a service that lets you put "noindex" tags on it so search engines and the rabble who use them don't find it.

At the request of a blogger, I've taken down a post here linking to her account of an incident involving her son. Read more

Somerville's got to be one of the bloggiest communities around (right up there with Cambridge), with its epicenter being, of course, Davis Square.

Enter Winter Hill Reborn:

An attempt to enhance the anemic web presence of the Winter Hill area in Somerville.

Boston Povo, which aims to be the user-generated, Wiki-based guide to our fair Hub, has gone live.

And, hey, I made my first edit: The site's Boston Neighborhoods page listed roughly half Boston's neighborhoods as "towns" rather than "neighborhoods." Rather than just complain about it here (and you know how much I love to complain about things here), I fixed that.

Compare Povo to Open Guide to Boston.

U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner is one of the participants in Slate's new legal blog, Convictions. She starts off:

I am an unlikely blogger. ... Although judges are more limited than other public actors in what they can say about a host of things, like cases pending before me or even cases pending before other judges, we are permitted to speak about the administration of justice and other general legal matters. To me, the issue goes beyond what we are "permitted" to comment about and what we are not "permitted" to comment about. I think judges have a responsibility to participate in the public debate and that's what I hope to do here -- all consistent with, indeed enhancing, my "day" job.

Via Robert Ambrogi, a member of that much larger genus: blogging lawyers.

Kevin McCrea, the motorcycle-riding one-time city-council candidate, is back from an extended overseas stay and is blogging up City Hall gossip from his new digs in Roxbury's Fort Hill.

Now that the T and the MBCR have figured out how to make the trains run on time (it's simple: just change the schedules), how long before they "improve" the Franklin Line, where we see from a new commuter blogger that things are getting annoying?

Martini flits around town taking photos of people in interesting attire.

Dan Farnkoff at the assessing department had been posting on Blue Mass. Group since last June, but only got a visit from HR - complete with a printout of all his Blue Mass. postings - after he posted several comments this week about Sal DiMasi and that software contract (which is now being canceled). He's submitted his resignation.

An MSM reporter is doing a story on bloggers who break news. She asked me for some local folks doing this and right now my mind is mush, so if you've ever broken news - or try to - let me know and I'll forward your name for possible fame and fortune (well, fame, at any rate).

At Clarendon and Columbus around 1:30 this afternoon.

ParkwayBoston.com.

Looks kinda cool, has potential, but two suggestions, guys: Forum/comments and RSS. The former in particular will help you beat the Bulletin (less so the Transcript, which already has both).

Geek note: Interesting, they're using the same exact software as the Bulletin, which has what might be the world's worst search engine. Longer term, you might want to explore a platform that is not based on the traditional newspaper "edition" model.

Somerville Voices:

An independent, open forum for reports and opinions about life in our city, covering everything from teetering utility poles to drug overdoses to the Green Line.

Via J's Scratchpad.

Adam Gaffin, Boston's reigning Web czar. Thanks to Adam Reilly at the Phoenix for getting me up to my 14th minute - in an article that features a photo of my "perpetually worried look" (man, he got that right) taken through my glasses, which are not on my face.

Tammy is chronicling life with braces.

Scooterdude, the guy you see floating around Copley Square on a scooter powered by a windblown plastic sail, has a blog. And he does more than just scoot.

David Schrag posts a transcript of his on-air takedown of the blabmeister, and then fisks Jimmy Severino's tirade against him (after he'd bounced him off the air, natch).

Via Michael Pahre.

The Phoenix is taking reader nominations for its annual "best" awards. One of the categories is Best Blog/Podcast, and, yep, Universal Hub is one of the nominees.

Yippee, right? I think the other entries they chose (Blue Mass Group, Allston-Brighton Community Blog, Jon Keller, Dan Kennedy) are all fine choices, except maybe Keller, and that's because something happened to his RSS feed and I never read him anymore so I just don't know. But it's an awfully small list (um, guys, if you have a Blog/Podcast category, you might want to list some podcasts). Boston is blessed with tons of great bloggers, so who am I to judge?

Fortunately, you can cast write-in votes. And it's a good thing I don't have a marketing person, because I'm sure he/she would be yelling at me right now. Oh, and when you vote, you need to click on Finish, I think.

Thomas Garvey uses Excel to prove that, on his Exhibitionist blog, Globe arts reporter Geoff Edgers mainly covers non-Boston or Bigfoot Boston stuff:

Posts about events or organizations based outside Boston: 55%
Posts about the BSO, MFA, CitiCenter, or Boston Ballet: 40%
Posts about Ray Davies and/or the Kinks: 15%
Posts about local arts events: 15%
Posts about smaller organizations: 5%

Edgers replies, says he didn't realize he was covering the Kinks that much