Blogistan

Mark Logan, Twitter's official spokesman, graciously admits customer service is not what the company does best.

We're posted the memo in full below. Our favorite is,"As always, there are no deadlines or quotas."

Or money.

Dear Huffington Post blogger,

We know that you have been a valuable contributor to the
Huffington Post, and wanted to let you know that in early
December we'll be launching a local edition in Los Angeles.
We'd love for you to be part of it. As you think of future
blog posts, please keep the city in mind. From the beaches
to the desert, we want to create a running conversation on
everything from entertainment news to trends in food, art,
health and fashion. React to the biggest stories in city and
state government, share upcoming cultural events or activism
opportunities. Or make some news of your own. Drawing from a
city as vast and diverse as Los Angeles, we hope to build a
forum that allows our bloggers to share their unique LA
experience, and talk about what matters in their
neighborhoods.

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Threatened Voices is a new website designed to track the suppression of free speech on the internet. According to the site, online writers and bloggers currently represent 45% of all media workers in prison worldwide. Launched by the non-profit Global Voices, the focus of the site is a mapping project that catalogs bloggers and online journalists who have been threatened, arrested, killed or disappeared because of what they've written online. The database stretches back to the year 2000, and to keep in current they're asking for the online community to submit new information about bloggers in danger.

In danger. Disappeared. Killed. Jeebus! This one time we got a really angry letter for a post we wrote calling Liz Smith a twat. Doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.

In an article about the authors of the popular Twitter feed @FakeAPStylebook, Wired author Callie Kimball notes that their popularity has greatly surpassed that of the real AP Stylebook Twitter feed. Especially impressive considering @FakeAPStylebook launched only 2 weeks ago. The handy-dandy chart below "gives credence to the long-held theory that Twitterers are more interested in a good laugh than in an honest fight with an unarmed semi-colon:"

Other highlights include:

Thank you, internets. Also, any journalism professional who needs to attend a conference or class in order to learn how to use Twitter should retire immediately.

Found via Gawker.

The L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has launched their new blog "The Source" which describes itself as "your window into what's happening at Metro. We'll be writing about agency news, funding and policy issues, and how to get the most out of transit and Los Angeles."

The editor of "The Source" is former LA Times transit and city hall reporter Steve Hymon. Fred Dennstedt, a.k.a Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA.com will write for the new site. LAist notes that "It's very common for reporters to cross the line and become communicators for agencies they once reported on and investigated."

Hymon remarks on his new role in an introductory post:

Local media has taken more than a few hits (I was one casualty although I prefer to look at it as the long-awaited liberation of my soul). At the same time, the Internet has provided government a way to directly speak to taxpayers without having to go through the media. No longer can government complain the middleman got it wrong or wasn't interested in doing a story.

Readers will naturally wonder if an agency can honestly write about itself. Here's what I can tell you: The agency still very much wants and needs press coverage and invites and needs outside scrutiny. As for the Source, I'm not here to invent some new form of propaganda, nor am I the agency's new inspector general. The goal is to honestly and fairly explain how Metro works.

Technorati had their The State of the Blogosphere 2009 study to try and analyze just who makes up this mass of content.

Interestingly, California has the highest percentage of bloggers than any other state. Take that West Virginia!

Also, the majority of bloggers according to this study are not virgins like we've always assumed. Most of them are married, educated and make enough to not live with their parents.

But what we were a little surprised by is the small percentage of bloggers who have worked in traditional media. By this report it's only 35%. We thought it should be higher.

There were 17th-century scribes who got trained how to operate a printing press, right?

My Parents Were Awesome is our new favorite blog. Pictures of parents being young and amazing, before ungrateful children sucked the life out of them.

Photos of your own parents being awesome can be submitted to myparentswereawesome@gmail.com - be sure to include names!

The FTC published their guidelines for bloggers disclosing endorsements. Half the blogosphere is upset about the government intrusion. The other half is upset no one is sending them free stuff.

We like the whole idea of sunlight and everyone just coming out and saying companies have given them stuff and now therefore they like those companies. Like how you're supposed to publicly swoon over your employer.

And second off, they're guides and not laws. So "intrusion" would need to at least be binding. It's requesting disclosure or truth in advertising.

We predict this updated guide will become the new bragging rights for bloggers. It will all be page views and "material connections." As in,"Dude says he gets 200,000 page views and already he's got at least 15 different material connections?!" Remember a couple years ago when musicians were "sell-outs" if their songs were commercials? Now if you get a song made into a commercial - you've hit the big time and your MP3 blows up.

And as far as celebrities go, of course they are swag swillers. Isn't that why people get famous so they don't have to buy anything ever? People with fake body parts on fake reality shows with fake relationships and fake personalities now have to be real about who pays them? Bring it.

LAT's James Rainey discusses the finer points of Kim Kardashian, the Billboard Belle.

Oh wow. We thought maybe this was a spoof. But uh, no it's not.

After the break we posted a screen grab with the name PETA file on the home page.

Well there you go. Good job beating us to the punch there...ahem.

Via Reddit

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