When they are not genuine, be prepared. Especially when you try to game me.

This means you, Matthew Duggan.

I got the following comments from Matthew:

Very interesting. It’s good to hear the thoughts of an experienced media expert on a new media like Twitter.
The ‘community’ aspect is a very good idea and tools like TwitterFall are good for regional searches.

Posted on my Twitter Policy page.

Incredible! Those statistics are quite amazing.
Congratulations on the way you use Twitter Ike and on your induction into the Twitter Elite!

Posted on Global Dominance

Now, Matthew Duggan (matthew@buildyourfollowers.com) happens to run a site called BuildYourFollowers.com, and signs his comments with the very search-engine friendly name of “Twitter for Business.” Which means that he wants as many web pages as possible to associate the phrase “Twitter for Business” with his site.

Let’s just see what kind of site this Fake Twitter Guru runs, shall we?

‘9 Free Videos, 6 Free e-Book Chapters and an Exclusive Members Area Reveal How To Automate Twitter and Transform It Into A Marketing Machine For Your Business…. Even If You’ve Never Used Twitter Before’

Fake Twitter Guru, indeed. But wait… there’s MORE!

You’re about to learn little known tools and techniques to transform Twitter into a free and automatic way of generating targeted leads to your website and grow your business. All with little effort and no knowledge.

And I’m giving away part of the course plus another $97.00 in value just so I can show you that this works!

Yes I’m literally going to bribe you just to get you to give me your name and e-mail.

Why would I do that?

Well I know that the only way for me to show you who I am and to demonstrate the value I can add to your online business life is by the 2 of us getting acquainted, and in the online world the medium we use to stay in touch with each other is the e-mail address (here’s mine – matthew@buildyourfollowers.com)

BUT

There is A LOT of garbage out there, and because of this I know that I’m genuinely competing for your time.

So

I’ve decided to do the only smart thing that makes solid business sense. By offering you a 7-part course for free that’s filled with top quality training, I’m hoping that 2 things will happen:

1. You’ll get to know, like and trust me.

2. Later on when I’ve demonstrated my value to you by helping you get started you’ll possibly invest in my full e-book and video course on Twitter.

That’s the truth.

Others will tell you all sorts of BS but that’s what’s really happening.

In the free course, I’ll show you how to:

• Promote Your Business Automatically
• Maximise Your Twitter Profile like a Social Media Pro
• Show you a strategy that got me 1500 targeted followers in 2 and a half months
• PLUS: My free strategy for using little known methods to Maximise Your Business

This way you have zero risk and the onus is on me to impress you… which is, as it should be.

So shall we get started?

SEO is a two-way street

I know what you are saying. “Ike, this guy is a loser, and you’re just giving him free publicity and the link-love that will help him game the search engines.”

I would have just left this one alone and deleted the obviously spammy comments, but there were two things I could not leave alone:

1. He didn’t even bother to read the posts he was linking to. For instance, the “Global Dominance” piece was written last year to mock another Matthew, who trumpeted his own dominance of Twitter. I showed how easy it was to game the system to become the Number One Twitter User on Planet Earth.Apparently, Fake Twitter Guru Matthew Duggan was too quick to post his spammy comment on my site to realize his overly-fawning comment was a joke (and a damned fine one, at that.)
2. Fake Twitter Guru Matthew Duggan – in the process of posting spammy comments on my site – actually links people to this:
   

   

   You think that

   YOU hate Spam?

   (Try running an

   internet business!)

   I personally detest Spam and PROMISE that you will NEVER get an unwanted email as a result of signing up here.

Please help me make Matthew Duggan #1 in Google!

I am a firm believer in Search Engine Optimization techniques, but I am not a fan of being a shameless spammer like Fake Twitter Guru Matthew Duggan. So let’s show Fake Twitter Guru Matthew Duggan how SEO is done right.

If everyone uses the words Fake Twitter Guru as the anchor text linking to his site, then we can make him Number One with a bullet!

Please share the good news about Fake Twitter Guru Matthew Duggan with as many sites as you can, and be sure to share this entry with your friends! Get them to help too! (There are a number of icons below to make it easy. Bookmark it! Digg it! Tweet it!)

Let people like Fake Twitter Guru Matthew Duggan know that their Neanderthal understanding of marketing is sleazy and won’t be tolerated in a polite society. The business you save from getting suckered by his shenanigans might be your own.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

The Coach is different in a significant respect: one can teach in a sterile environment, but coaching is done dirty. Coaching happens during an activity (or the simulation of it.)

Imagine a basketball team walking onto the court with a stack of books, and playing a game with no adjustments. How well will that work? What happens when the team encounters a scheme or a tactic they’ve never seen?

Coaches adjust on the fly – akin to tweaking the engine of a vehicle that’s in motion. You can’t call “time out” indefinitely to fix the issue, you deal with it as best you can.

Getting beyond a single game, the coach is also looking long-term. You have a plan for where you want your organization at the end of a season (or a year,) and you take measured steps to get there. But you can’t break it down into just any curriculum – you have to build on what is working. (”Here boys, this week we’re going to work on formations, and after this weekend’s game we’ll work on snapping the ball.”)

Coaches have to be able to diagnose problems that may not be apparent, and make the necessary adjustments. And that goes for business, too.

Maybe that’s why in all the rush to be Gurus and Experts in Social Media, I tend to have more respect for (and recommend) those who exhibit the heart of a coach and mentor. Yes, I understand there is a need for those who analyze at the theoretical and academic level. And there are many people who excel in a particular activity who have no business showing anyone else how it’s done.

• Coaches can help you with today, next week, and next year.
• Coaches don’t care if the players are higher paid, they are paid to make others succeed.
• Coaches (if they are any good) don’t have a single template for success, and will build something that works with the available talent.
• Coaches leave their trainees better than when they found them.
• Coaches (if they are really good) aren’t known for just the players they boost, but for the other coaches they influence.

So… who is the Coach who influenced you, and what qualities have you managed to absorb? (If you’ve never thought about it, you ought to…)

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

Two quick thoughts.

One is about the massive hoax perpetrated on the media yesterday. A group of activists spoofed the identity of the US Chamber of Commerce, and got several news outlets to bite on a phony news conference. Those outlets all reported the Chamber’s sudden (and non-existent) reversal of policy regarding climate change.

But hey – by all means let’s do a whole Fact Check segment on a Saturday Night Live sketch.

The second has to do with the legal system.

I remember covering the SEC asset forfeiture hearings for HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy. They were the beginning of his legal troubles, which culminated in fraud convictions and billion-dollar civil suits. (I wrote about Scrushy and HealthSouth quite a bit on my old blog, which remains as an archive.)

At the time, that federal judge was a stickler for technology. She was quite dismayed to find that reporters from Bloomberg, with new-fangled BlackBerry wireless devices, were able to send dispatches from the room. (Of course, in order to get a signal, they had to sit on the back row and sometimes place the device against the wall…)

Contrast that with today, where the federal judge presiding over the corruption trial of Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford issued a directive to the jurors:

It’s not just that the judge was specifically acknowledging Tweets – it was the resignation that we have a technology that can’t readily be stopped.

I’m certain there have been numerous judicial conferences and seminars addressing the changing communications landscape. It would be no more fruitful to ban Twitter than it would to tell jurors they can’t go near a newsstand. He simply warned them about mixing outside information with what goes on within the boundaries of evidence.

For what it is worth, the “tweets from others” doesn’t just refer to friends and family. In this case, there are no fewer than six media outlets Tweeting from within the courtroom. I created a page where you can follow the Langford Trial real-time if you want, including the occasional video from Birmingham Weekly’s Kyle Whitmire.

Update:

From John Archibald:

Judge is on his blackberry. I wonder if he’s following the trial on twitter. There are a lot of twits around here. #langford

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

I promised another idea today.

Sonic Boom

The second idea is more specific, and revolves around the current campaign for Sonic. The premise for the ads is simple, based on meaningless front-seat conversations in the drive-through.

(Aren’t you glad I had auto-start turned off?)

The commercials work because they walk that fine line between the real and the surreal. It’s a situation we’ve all been in, and I’m pretty sure that my conversations with my wife and my brother have been no less alternate-universe.

So, here’s the opportunity for Sonic to step up with being Social.

Invite people to send in their own 20-second clips. Do it as an online audition. Let people vote. Then put as many of the ads to work as you can:

• The winning ad gets added to the television rotation nationwide
• Regional winners would be run on the air within their own hometowns
• Local spots that meet the standard would be run on the web.

Obviously, you’d vet the spots to make sure there was no hidden nudity, and no one throwing in gestures for “shock value.”

How exactly would those local spots work again?

Run them online. Run them on Facebook, targeted to specific cities. Run them inside your friend’s list on Facebook. It’s not as intrusive as those ads that associate your picture with a product without explicit permission – this is a clear case of consent. (No one goes to the trouble of putting together a :20 video, with all the editing involved, on a particular topic, and submitting it through a portal and then gets shocked when it is used.)

Put the rest on a branded YouTube channel, and let people watch themselves over and over, all the while reinforcing your delicious tater tots.

The opportunities are there. You don’t even have to be good at Food Math.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

That’s the sound of ordinary people unshackling themselves from traditional one-way media. And it’s going to get louder.

If you’re a business that relies on traditional advertising models, now would be a good time to figure out where those people are going with their newfound freedom, and maybe even make a buck or two as you make them happy.

What follows are a couple of ideas I offer to the business world, free of charge, after spending a few minutes thinking Social.

TiVo Judo

One of the great lessons a non-martial artist can learn from martial arts is the concept of using opposing energy in your favor. Judo – the codified sport version of Jujitsu – is all about taking your opponent’s momentum and force and redirecting it. Aikido (a beautiful art made famous as the “bits between Steven Seagal’s awful acting) accomplishes this in simple, circular movements. So how can traditional media benefit from the momentum behind TiVo and DVR?

One of the features I wish I had on my DVR is a bookmark. That way when there are touchdowns or key plays in the game I am watching, I can press a button and have a placeholder. Then I can go back and enjoy them faster.

Share the moments

Of course, Thinking Social means understanding how cool it would be to share those bookmarks with other viewers. The first DVR provider (Comcast, Charter, TiVo, DirecTV) to figure this out will have a huge leg up. We’re not talking about an expensive hardware update to make that happen, either.

But I am thinking even bigger. If the disruption of the DVR is a threat to traditional advertising, then why not redirect it? Yes, it would be problematic to share time-codes from DirecTV with Charter, and TiVo with Brighthouse. So let’s find a common platform:  YouTube.

Instead of simply bookmarking the index on my DVR hard drive, give me the option to have that :30 clip of the winning touchdown uploaded to YouTube.

Regaining control

(But wait, Ike… that’s insane!  In a popular sporting event, you’d have more than a million people uploading the same clip!)

Well, guess what? They’re doing it anyway. But if DirecTV is smart about it, when you click to bookmark and YouTube the clip they’ll handle it another way:

1. The clip will be uploaded only once
2. Instead of being tied to each individual user, it will instead be “Favorited” by your account
3. The Favoriting will trigger any additional pinging, such as notifications sent to Twitter and Facebook and the new flavor of the day
4. The clip will have a :10 or :15 ad built into the front of it.

DirecTV will only have to upload it once, and will have instant feedback about what is popular. It can also sell the interstitial ad (which is permanently “stitched” into the clip) and share revenues with the original broadcast provider. So, if it’s the SEC game of the week on CBS, CBS get’s 70% of the cut from those ad views. Or maybe CBS chooses to run a promo for its own programming in that slot.

Then, DirecTV (substitute your DVR provider as needed) gets to place ads around the video, and can even offer discounts and premiums to those who refer the most views. If you happen to come to my YouTube page and watch the video, there will be an icon you can click on to find out more about DirecTV’s super-awesome Social-DVR service (and if you buy through my referral I get a free month of programming, or something.)

Win-Win-Win-Win

There is a huge opportunity here, because they would be making it easy for me to share with the people who probably have compatible likes and dislikes. Content creators aren’t left in the lurch, because someone is paying the bills. YouTube will like it because it can make money on a single upload viewed 10,000 times moreso than 100 uploads watched 100 times. Advertisers will like it because it provides a real-time metric of what people will share, a buzz-worthy meter.

And I will like it because the (funniest happiest scariest) moments in (sports news entertainment) get shared as quickly and easily as possible.

So, DVR makers. Get to cracking.

Idea #2 comes tomorrow.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

Culturally-speaking, that’s often seen as a statement of weakness – uttered by one who lacks the willpower to stick by their own rules. However, we tend to take that concept further than we should. And it has to do with our forgetting the difference between practitioners, teachers and coaches.

Practitioners get things done. They perform the actual tasks. They play the game from whistle to whistle, they run the track. And while practitioners can eventually become teachers or coaches, there’s no guarantee they have the skills to succeed.

Teachers exhibit a level of mastery, and their job is to bring their students to the bar. Whatever that bar of expectation is, the teacher must bring the student along. To do so, the teacher must demonstrate the same level of ability in performing the task. A math teacher can’t teach you the quadratic equation without showing you how it’s done on the board.

Coaches are a little different, because no one expects the coach to run every lap faster than the student. It’s the coach’s job to help practitioners figure out how they can improve, and set them on a path for that. Often, that requires a level of mastery in the theory of an activity, even if there is no longer the physical ability to carry it out.

Why do I highlight these distinctions? Because the failure to understand them is resulting in a lot of ill will in the communication arts.

When everyone is an expert.

I’m flabbergasted at the number of people who sell themselves as “Social Media Experts” or “Gurus” or whatever the title du jour is.

Being free to start and easy to learn, one of the selling points of these revolutionary tools is that “anyone can do it.” But how many can do it well?

• The ability to dribble a basketball doesn’t make you Michael Jordan.
• The ability to recite Dennis Hopper’s “run the ole Picket Fence at ‘em” speech from Hoosiers doesn’t make you a basketball coach.
• Neither does it make you Dennis Hopper.
• The ability to be a goalie in soccer won’t help you be a goalie in hockey, much less a forward.

We’ve got a lot of people who have proven they can do one thing, and they are hanging up a shingle to sell you on something else.

Choosing the right path.

Now, if you’re a business looking to get involved in a new endeavor, you have some options:

• Hire a big name and let them carry you to the top.
• Hire someone cheap, and hope for the best.
• Hire no one, and let best practices bubble up from your own people.
• Hire a coach who can bring the best out of your people.

Notice that I am not talking about Social Media here. This goes for anything, but let’s see how it applies.

Go hire that big name (like a Robert Scoble) and that person will bring you an instant audience and instant credibility. But when that person leaves, who owns the knowledge? Who owns the relationships? Who owns the accounts? Who is ready to step up and fill the shoes?

Go hire that affordable alternative. Why not? In the grand scheme of things, you can write it all off as a pilot project.

Don’t hire anyone. (Be prepared for very mixed results, and a very nervous legal team.)

Go get a coach, who has a proven ability to elevate your game. Build bench strength. Build for the future, by injecting the change comfortably into the culture. Granted, there are very few of these coaches around. Within Social Media, there are many people who are great at what they do, but it might have little to do with coaching ability and everything to do with their own knowledge of the industry they are augmenting.

Past performance is no proof of future success.

Here’s the dirty secret: there are several reasons why social media practitioners do well. Some are just born with the right attitude for personal and conversational communication. If they have that knack, you can take someone with a few years experience in your company and they might shine. But take them out of your company, and they will be hopelessly lost (like the guy who won every golf tournament, until he got on a real course and couldn’t find the Clown’s Mouth.)

That is the Practitioner - very skilled, but not necessarily versatile enough to change games.

Some have the ability to show you what they do and how they do it, and you are able to follow the steps and emulate their success. This can be a good thing, but it also deceives. The guy who shows you how to get 80,000 Twitter followers might not have a clue what to do with them. His strength is solely in acquisition, not in leveraging or in calls-to-action.

That is the Teacher - who can instruct you on how to do what they’ve already done.

How to spot those who can really help you:

• They have proven their skills in different kinds of businesses and business models.
• They don’t have immediate answers, but instead follow with more detailed and insightful questions.
• They create ideas, concepts and systems that no one has ever seen – because your challenge is unique.

That’s how you know you’ve found a Coach. The person who will push you to heights you couldn’t have reached alone, and will leave you better than she found you. The person who will draw indirectly from past experiences and directly from sound principles to craft solutions to your problems. The individual who can fade into the background after launch, confident those he trained are self-sustaining and know how to improve on their own.

You know when you’ve found a coach, when you hear his students calling their own shots.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

I liked the old look, but there was something about the old “old look” that was missing.

Yet, the “old” old look lacked several features.

This look will get some tweaking in the meantime.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

Marketing guru Seth Godin is selling a new “service” to aggregate mentions of a company’s brand. He’s going to aggregate you whether you want it or not, and for a fee he’ll allow you to edit half the page. (Here’s my full commentary on that.)

That’s like putting honey pots around a picnic area, then charging people for the right to use the tables with ant-repellent.

Seth is somewhat famous for using his blog to promote his personal brand and his books, and is even more notorious for not allowing comments on his blog. You know, to control the conversation.

Except now Google is offering a new service called SideWiki, which allows users to add their own annotation to any web page, and see all the things other people have written.

Goose. Gander.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

This morning, Geoff Livingston asked me to fill in for his vacationing partner Richard Laermer for this week’s “The El Show” on BlogTalkRadio.

We talked about:

• the Age of Experts (who don’t always do their homework)
• balancing life with social media
• the future of journalism, as it melds with social media

I mentioned Scott Karp and Publishing2 – and got a nice note from Scott after the show.

On Twitter:

• @geoffliving
• @laermer
• @theelshow
• @scottkarp

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

One of the great things about connecting with others online is the chance to be part of some interesting discussions. Such was the case of a conversation I recently had with Andrew Fowler, one of the principles at Newsvetter in Portland.

He was concerned about the lack of truly relevant information parents were getting about the spread of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) as the school year was to begin. Sure, outlets like the CDC have done an incredible job pumping out information, but as good as it is, it lacks local context. If the CDC tweets information about several regions and cities having an outbreak, what does that do to the psyche of those living elsewhere?

The fact is that in social networks, relevance is the multiplier that matters the most. I’ll read many things of general interest, but show me something in my back yard and you’ll get my attention.

With that in mind, Andrew and I hatched a framework for connecting health information resources at a local level – one that can be replicated in as many communities as are interested. It involves using Posterous.com as a central input hub for a number of agencies, then using the inherent routing of Posterous to spin that information into other social networks.

Andrew set up the backend of the Northwest Oregon Swine Flu Newsroom as a plain-vanilla Posterous blog. He then connected it to automatically spool feeds through a Twitter account and a Facebook page just for that purpose. Currently, the information is being provided by the Multnomah County Health Department and the Oregon Trail Chapter of the American Red Cross. As a result, residents in and around greater Portland can now quickly access a stream of information meant specifically for them.

Always be evaluating

I have long advocated for the use of Wordpress blogs as online newsrooms, going back to the very first ones we set up at Red Cross for specific disaster operations. Wordpress is fantastic in this regard, because of the use of static pages and especially category and tag-specific RSS feeds. If you check the Red Cross Online Disaster Newsroom, you’ll see how flexible that platform can be.

However, that also requires training many individuals on how to upload and produce in Wordpress. Not that daunting a task, really – but when you will have subject matter coming from a consortium, you may not have the luxury of that mandated training.

The great advantage of using Posterous for projects like this one is the only interface is email. You can add several email addresses as authorized contributors, and everything they send in as attachments gets converted and prepared for consumption. Also, you can use the system as a router by specifying exactly where Posterous is to publish.

Additionally, the media is mixed in a fashion that plays well with other networks, too. If you take a video from your cell phone and email it to Posterous, when that video gets posted to your Facebook as a clickable embedded stream – not just a link.

The notion here is creating an easy machine where multiple agencies can add to an aggregate feed – and then make the output available in multiple formats for easy adoption and consumption. As a multi-input multi-output publishing engine – with a low-hurdle interface of email – the Posterous model deserves serious consideration for a variety of uses.

Add in the fact that as of this week you can skin and customize the look of a Posterous blog (like I have with mine) makes it even more attractive.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

I suggested it to her this morning as we were discussing social networking, and how difficult some of the navigation can be. I had a hunch that the Lite interface – being more streamlined and less AJAX-y – would make it easier for her to get to the information she wanted.

She says the Chat function is gone, but that’s not a huge loss for her since the main Chat interface doesn’t give her any information about who is or is not online. She says she will revert to the main page if she needs Chat, but is bookmarking the Lite Facebook for everyday use.

POSTSCRIPT: My coworker is a little disturbed to find out that her sighted friends have a way to hide YoVille, Mobsters 2 and Castle Age requests… and she doesn’t.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

The morning hosts were extolling the virtues of a paying client, which is exactly what you would expect them to do. This client, a jeweler, had just held a “sell your scrap gold” event this past weekend, and the owner was on the phone talking up the success.

Yeah, I’ve ranted about the Old Gold Game before, but this had a twist.

The jeweler made this statement, paraphrased to the best of my recollection:

JEWELER: “Believe it or not, there was another sell-your-gold event in town this weekend, being run by some out-of-town outfit. We actually sent one of our people into the other sale just to check on their prices, and we discovered we were paying 30-percent higher than the competition.”

DJ: “Wow! 30-percent higher?”

JEWELER: “That’s right, 30-percent more.”

DJ: “Gosh, that just proves the value of staying local!”

Now, I’m not going to get into the argument about whether shopping local really helps all that much. No, the issue for me is the whopper of a lie we’re expected to believe.

Put yourself in the shoes of that jeweler for a moment. Let’s say you’re paying $520 per ounce for scrap gold, then you find out your competition is buying it for only $400 per ounce. Tell me…

HOW LONG WILL YOU CONTINUE TO SELL AT $520???

Do you honestly believe they continued supporting a price imbalance of that degree, with no adjustment whatsoever? That they didn’t ratchet down their payoff to $420? Remember, this is a highly speculative market, and there are more than enough players that no one is going to corner it. The money is made at the margins – so why would they continue paying $520/ounce when they know people are selling for $400?

(I don’t know the going rate for gold, but the numbers $400 and $520 are based on a 30-percent difference. As of this writing, gold bullion is trading for somewhere in the neighborhood of $975 per ounce, so my figures are likely in the ballpark. If I am actually low, then the marginal difference is even higher!)

Here’s my original rant on this, while it was fresh on my mind.

©2009 Occam's RazR. All Rights Reserved.

One of the incoming hits to my site came from Virginia, specifically a site called “Virginia Sites.”

I don’t know who runs and operates the page, but it seems like a harmless resource designed to direct visitors to the many fascinating tourist attractions the lovely state of Virginia has to offer. It certainly appears to be designed to be attractive to search engines.

However, I clicked on the “Virginia News” link, and what I found was a marketing nightmare.

Apparently, the page periodically auto-updates with the results from news searches that mention “Virginia.” However, there appears to be no moderation whatsoever in the process of publishing those results.

I went ahead and snagged a screen capture of the page as I saw it, and here’s a breakdown:

Virginia Named Infrastructure ”State of the Year”
WASHINGTON, DC–(Marketwire – September 1, 2009) – CG/LA Infrastructure, LLC announced today that Virginia has been named the Infrastructure State of the Year, in advance of the upcoming
bignewsnetwork.com Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:09:51 -0400

Well, at least we can count on having nice roads and bridges to drive upon during our stay.

Suspect Climbs Through Window, Sexually Assaults GU Student
Authorities say a female student was assaulted after a man entered her apartment through a window while she was sleeping. When she awoke, they say, the man fled from the apartment.
bignewsnetwork.com Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:37:51 -0400

Nothing like news about random crime to make a destination more palatable!

Same-Sex Marriage Opponents Launch New Efforts in D.C.
‘);} //–> WASHINGTON, D.C. – Same-sex marriage opponents are launching new efforts in the District in an attempt to get the gay marriage issue in the hands of D.C. voters. `We believe we’re…
bignewsnetwork.com Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:37:49 -0400

This isn’t even about Virginia…

Lanes to be opened to ease Labor Day travel in Va
Lanes on major Virginia roads that are temporarily closed for construction or maintenance will be open during the Labor Day weekend. The Virginia Department of Transportation says the move is aimed a…
bignewsnetwork.com Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:35:33 -0400

Yay! Real news that could help travelers!

NC university carries on amid swine flu outbreak
Officials at a North Carolina university say more than 80 students are thought to have swine flu. The Winston-Salem Journal reported Tuesday that Wake Forest University plans to continue with classes…
bignewsnetwork.com Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:35:30 -0400

Ooooh, Swine Flu! Better not go to Virginia. But wait! That’s a North Carolina article. Maybe they’re trying to get people to scrap those hiking vacations in the Smokies or the Blue Ridge…

Reward offered for boy lost in rough NC surf
A New Jersey man is offering a $25,000 reward in the search for his best friend’s son who disappeared in rough surf along North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Officials say Chance Cosgrove was body-boarding…
bignewsnetwork.com Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:35:28 -0400

…or the killer waters off the Carolina coast!

NC Army base joins cord blood donation program
The hospital at Fort Bragg has joined a North Carolina program to collect and donate umbilical-cord blood to help researchers and patients. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Tuesday that Womack…
bignewsnetwork.com Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:35:26 -0400

This one speaks for itself.

Fake bank calls grip JCC residents
When Bill Gibbs received a call last week asking for his bank account information to `renew` his debit card, he knew something smelled fishy — phishy, to be exact. Gibbs, an economic and computer crimes investigator with James City County police, rec…
Daily Press Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:28:00 -0400

More crime news. Apparently, we’re supposed to feel better that the criminals are so dumb they call the police to scam them. (Or maybe they know the police are usually dumb enough to fall for it…)

WVa sees rise in state-paid burials
The number of burials paid for by the state has been increasing since 2006, a trend likely tied to an aging population and the faltering economy.
Topix.com Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:34:59 GMT

Again, not Virginia but West Virginia. Where you can’t walk ten feet without running into some unburied dead guy.

Man Charged With Murder After Allegedly Stabbing Two in Va.
A man who stabbed two people inside a Fairfax County apartment last week, one fatally, has been charged with murder, Fairfax police said yesterday.
Washington Post Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:14:58 EDT

Alright, an actual Virginia-related story again! What’s it about?

My takeaway? You can only automate the flow of information to a point. There is (and will be) a need for human beings to do the curating and aggregating of information. In an age of overload, people crave relevance and context over a river of content.

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