Blog-nalism

Smartbook doesn't want bloggers to use the term "smartbook." Good luck with that.

The Germany-based seller of laptops owns a trademark on the word in most of Western Europe, Australia, Singapore, South Korea and two other countries, according to TechCrunch, but the term has been adopted by the industry to describe a device that falls somewhere between a smart phone and a netbook.

This will likely turn out the same way Twitter's attempt to prevent use of the word tweet ended up.

20th Century Fox teamed up with TypePad owner Six Apart to launch a community supporting the release of upcoming feature film AVATAR, directed by James Cameron, which hits theaters Dec. 18, paidContent reported.

AVATAR fans can get branded themes for their blogs, trailers, behind-the-scenes clips and news updates about the film, paidContent reported.

Six Apart worked with Universal Pictures on a similar campaign for 2007 release Knocked Up, according to paidContent.

Latina Lista transformed itself from a blog to an online niche news destination with its relaunch Wednesday, featuring more original stories, multimedia, links to breaking news at other news outlets and its own space for news videos, documentaries, films, entertainment series and Webisodes.

New sections include Hometown News, which showcases content-sharing partnerships with regional Hispanic English-language publications; Linking Latinas, a network of female writers from various South American countries reporting on the news in their countries; and blogBeat Partners, where bloggers writing about a particular topic of interest to Latina and Latino readers are highlighted.

The site was founded by syndicated journalist Marisa Trevino with a goal toward featuring stories about or of interest to Hispanic readers that are not found in mainstream media.

Trevino said:

The news industry is obsessed with hyperlocal content, yet when it comes to niche communities like Latinos, most fail to realize that national is local. Within the Latino community, there is a strong collective sense of pride and interest when it comes to knowing about our fellow Latinos that isn't restricted by geographic boundaries.

The war of words between Deadspin and ESPN over the sports blog's coverage of alleged sexual escapades at the sports cable network heated up following ESPN's dismissal of Major League Baseball analyst and former New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips, who admitted to an affair with 22-year-old production assistant Brooke Hundley.

Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio told The New York Times he called ESPN Sept. 9 to investigate a rumor that Phillips was about to be fired, and the rumor was denied. When the story about Phillips' affair broke last week, Daulerio wrote, "Well, it's probably about time to just unload the in-box of all the sordid rumors we've received over the years about various ESPN employees."

Daulerio told the Times:

Obviously, I take a different approach to this than a normal, regular, mainstream publication would. Do I bend the rules a little bit? Of course I do. We're still a blog at the end of the day, a Gawker Media blog. The larger truth out of this, outside of my temper tantrum over getting scooped out of a story, is that this is the worst-kept secret in sports media.

ESPN responded:

Deadspin's self-admitted rumor-mongering is despicable behavior by any standard and shows callous disregard for its impact on people's lives. It is not worthy of response and those responsible should be called to account.

And Gawker Media owner Nick Denton chimed in via an email to the Times:

When an unnamed source misleads, as far as we're concerned, they lose the right to remain in the shadows.

Attention, women: Prevention editor in chief Liz Vaccariello wants you to Defy Your Age.

Vaccariello launched the Prevention-branded blog on MSN, and it will focus on age-defying tips, trends and advice on health, fitness, weight-loss and nutrition, with the first entry being "The 10 Most Ridiculously Healthy Foods."

Vaccariello is a New York Times best-selling author and editorial expert in women's health news and information, and she regularly appears on NBC's Today and CBS' The Doctors.

She said:

I'm thrilled to bring Prevention's health message to as many people as possible. More than ever, people realize that taking care of themselves now is the key to happiness and vitality later.

When is a Sphere no longer a Sphere? When it becomes a Surphace, as AOL is rebranding its blog-content engine, TechCrunch reported.

Sphere launched in private beta in 2005 and publicly in 2006, and it uses a technology that automatically finds blog posts related to whatever a user is currently looking at, with the technology integrated into more than 50,000 Websites, according to TechCrunch.

In a post on the Surphace blog, chief operating officer Josh Guttman writes:

The obvious question is why, in the midst of continued success—growth and distribution—are we changing our name? In most cases, businesses change their names in order to relaunch, restart and/or establish a clean break from their pasts. Our situation is very different. Our business is as strong as ever, and from where I sit, the future looks as bright as I can remember (brighter, in fact).

Surphace is also a name that weaves incredibly well with our 2010 product roadmap, which includes, among other things:

• S4—our self-serve platform currently in alpha (you can sign up for beta right here)

• SurphBoard—a spiffy updated editorial UI for our larger partners

• A URL shortener in stealth mode—strategic to other products

• A real-time conversation thread, showing topical surphing in motion

• And a few more that we can't yet disclose…:)

Please don't squeeze the bloggers: Procter & Gamble wants to hire five "Charmin Ambassadors" to staff its Times Square bathrooms during this holiday season and blog about doing so, AdAge.com reports.

Aside from all the toilet paper they need, the Charmin Ambassadors will be paid $10,000 for manning the johns from Nov. 23-Dec. 31.

Applicants should report to the New York Hilton Nov. 5, with photos, resumes and reasons why they "enjoy the go."

This blogger, who is not working from his bathroom (yet), hopes the winners remember to wash their hands before posting.

There has been an Internet boom of sorts spurred on by a particular topic, which would ordinarily be good news, except that the reason for the Internet boom is the tragic disappearance of a five-year-old girl from Satsuma, Fla., Jacksonville.com reports.

Haleigh Cummings vanished from a mobile home where she was living with a younger brother, their father and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Misty Croslin, according to Jacksonville.com, and her story has spread across the World Wide Web.

Ellen Johnson, a 46-year-old petroleum engineer in east Texas, set up Twitter account HaleighNewz to chronicle the case and traveled to Florida for a school-supply drive for Cummings' classmates, Jacksonville.com reported.

Johnson told Jacksonville.com:

You are interacting with the people themselves. There is not that distance between them and you. On some level, I felt compassion for them.

A blog following the Cummings case, Watts Up With This???, was created by broadcast producer and journalist Steph Watts, who has worked with Court TV, CNN and Fox, according to Jacksonville.com.

Watts told Jacksonville.com:

What the Internet has done is taken those local stories and made them national stories. I think people are feeling that they can become part of the story by weighing in. This is like a high-speed letter to the editor.

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Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh was the subject of a Q&A with AdAge.com in which he discussed how one site featuring funny pictures of cats with amusing, misspelled captions turned into a thriving blog group, including I Can Has Cheezburger, I Has a Hotdog, FAIL Blog, Engrish Funny, There I Fixed It, Roflrazzi and newest addition That Will Buff Out.
Huh told AdAge.com:

We're just going through the process of creating content that makes people happy for just a few minutes a day. We are not trying to be a TV network; we're not trying to be a big media company. We are growing small things that are gathering loyal audiences. When you show up and you want to laugh or take a break from your daily work, then we have this little blog for you. You go, load the page, you scroll, and you're done.

Everything we do is screened by a moderator. We see 10,000 submissions a day across all the blogs. So they look at everything that comes in to see that it meets our terms of use, that it is editorially appropriate, and then they classify and tag it. So if there is nudity, violence toward animals, racism—the stuff advertisers fear, their worst nightmare—we guarantee that that does not happen. Then the editorial control is turned over to the users, who tell us what is funny. But before something is promoted to the home page, there is one more check to make sure it is advertiser-friendly, and then we put it on the blog.

I love the fact people think I do this out of my garage! I am a business person. Let's put it this way, no LOLcat I have ever created has made the home page.

The Federal Trade Commission sought to clarify its policies on bloggers who fail to disclose paid reviews or free products, as most stories about its "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising" focused on the potential of an $11,000 fine.

FTC assistant director, division of advertising practices Richard Cleland told paidContent:

That $11,000 fine is not true. Worst-case scenario, someone receives a warning, refuses to comply, followed by a serious product defect; we would institute a proceeding with a cease-and-desist order and mandate compliance with the law…There's no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We're focusing on the advertisers.