It’s probably the best thing to happen to America since the TV was introduced. In case you did not notice, TV sucks. It’s not just the writer’s fault.

BUT, striking is retarded on top of bad.

Did the travel agents strike as the internet obliterated their business?

Did stockbrokers strike after commissions went from $500 a trade to $1 overnight?

Will anybody complain when real estate agents go out of work in the next cycle?

If you are not on the money list in Golf, you toil in complete obscurity travelling from city to city. Life sucks.

It’s the profession you chose and you knew it when you made it. The good ones can negotiate their contracts. They should. You hire CAA to do it and you get what you deserve. The rest of the fish should not rely on a union dude with his own self-serving interests to negotiate for them.

There is no easy fix a completely broken system other than to start all-over. That means bust the freaking union and let the talent rise to the top. Like the internet. Guess what, that sucks too. You can help everybody though by not making it worse.

Here than are two EASY LESSONS FOR THE TALENT AS THEY HEAD TO THE INTERNET to try and start all over:

1. Tell CAA to stick it up their ass or any agent that approaches you

2. Tell VC’s the same thing , just louder. Barry likes the idea. It’s a great post, but wrong on this matter .

You don’t need or want either. Take some control of your own talent and some responsibility. Oh…and be prepared to multitask. It’s freaking hard.

Usually EVERYONE loses on a walkout or strike. At least with this strike, Americans as a whole win with no prime-time television. There is no excuse not to go outside or talk with your kids.

Woops…the Internet!

Facebook is getting all the attention these days mostly deserved. For me, Facebook has become more of a grind. Maybe it’s due to all the busy work I have made for myself, accounting at year end and stock market but I have no time for Facebook. I just got three friend Facebook requests and if one had not been from my sweet niece in Toronto, I would never have headed over to Facebook this weekend at all.

So…is blogging dead?

Hugh MacLeod puts that thesis to bed rather quickly . Here is the rocking part of the post:

Me? I prefer my brand to be a “global microbrand”. It’s easy and it’s flexible. It’s not tied down to one geographical locale, which I’ve always found to be financially unreliable. So business is a bit slow around here in England. No matter. I’ll head over to Redmond, Washington, and do a gig for Microsoft if I have to. New York? Sure. Houston? If they pay me enough.

So that’s why I have a blog, I suppose. I like the control. I write something, I post it, it gets read, hopefully good things happen as a result, somewhere on this small blue planet of ours. Unlike a book or a movie or a TV commercial, there’s no waiting around for somebody else to greenlight it. The only light is the greenlight.

Sure, I hear you saying, “But the scale is so small.” I don’t know about that. At last count [and this was a couple of years ago] the “How To Be Creative” page had been downloaded a quarter of a million times. And Lord knows how many copies of the “ChangeThis” PDF version were printed out and circulated. Most hardbacks are lucky if they sell three thousand copies. Granted, movies get seen by a lot of people, but only for a week or two.Then they leave the cinema and are mostly consigned to a lonely life on the DVD rack. And they’re expensive and take years to make. They have a lot, I mean A LOT of downtime. Whereas a blog is constantly working, constantly growing. I like that.

I guess my point is, if you’re one of these people considering giving up on blogging in exchange for paying more attention to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, or whatever they throw at us mere mortals, bear in mind you are giving up on something rather unique and wonderful. But I would say that.

Pretty awesome and sums up why I do what I do here every day and over at Wallstrip. Blogging has made me smarter, increased my social leverage a bazillion fold and been a rather humbling experience at times. Oh and I feel like I have earned it all . I don’t get that feeling on Facebook.

Long Live blogging.

Stories like this are just the beginning .

Remember to always ask for the order!

Disclosure- Long Amazon

What do you think? I hope you know. Sounds like the Glam of finance is in the works.

Dear Howard Lindzon,

Sincerely,

Nice of them to reach out, but basically a cold e-mail. If I am a handful of people and everybody else knows how to reach me, why the form letter. Furthermore, I write about stocks, I can’t imagine anyone giving me full editorial control, especially a network as ‘trusted’ as Reuters. Not a good deal for anybody who already has a bit of a voice. If you think I am wrong…let me know why. Thanks

I called the founder David and we met for a chat.

Lot’s of people, too many, give up blogging for all it’s overwhelming features and pure heaviness. That’s one of the reasons that Twitter makes so much sense. Bit, Twitter is too light a tool. Tumblr.com may be just right for most, especially for us financial bloggers.

Check out the interview with founder David Karp.

Lately, I have been linking and greatful to some more voices. My friend Phil at EightFatSwine (thinking), Dealbreaker (shits and giggles and irreverance), my friend Ashkan who just has something to say on everything tech – HipMojo - and Henry Blodget at alleyinsider for just plain internet knowledge and knowhow – good writing and reporting too.

Today Henry catches old friend/nemesis? Mary Meeker in a math error . Just $4 plus billion so not a biggie :) .

If you need Mary to analyze Google for you in any way shape or form, you are royally f@!#cked. Google could give a rat’s ass what she thinks and never will. Google is still way in open field with YouTube and all the rest of their developments and product lines. They had to buy YouTube – if only to prevent it falling in other’s hands. It was worth more at $0 in revenue to them than in someone ele’s hand. Now they will monetize the crap out of it. If they don’t, we are all screwed. Further, if they don’t who really cares. The stock will drop to $380, where it was the moment they bought YouTube.

Monetize the crap out of it is all Mary had to say. The numbers she and her seven assistants performed and got wrong just justify her existence and she should do charity work instead.

I will be upgrading my blogroll in depth quite shortly. It’s long overdue for at least my short-list.

Seriously, we are just tapping the surface. With my old friend/troublemaker and loose cannon Chartreuse back blogging, I am more confident in the future of the biz, despite his ripping on us at Wallstrip .

Off the top of my head, I still say we are in the first inning of web content and new media. Nobody has ‘THE’ answer…AND THATS GOOD! Obviously I am happy that CBS thinks we do :) .

My friend Jason pointed me to this blog today . If you think blogging can’t change lives, you are wrong.

Elsewhere, Henry Blodget has recreated himself as a web/tech/east coast TechCrunch meets Valleywag , but better website and real experience along with his co-founders of Doubleclick fame. I like it. Personally, I want my info from that team, not just the West coast. Check it out. I am reading it daily now along with Dealbreaker.

Tons of ways that people are changing the way I read and consume and how we share information. Quit bitching and join in the revolution with something other than nasty comments.

WOOPS – One last point. I think it really makes sense for great businesses that already have a community to add a daily or weekly interactive video component. It is much safer and smarter than doing what we did at Wallstrip if you want to start from scratch. Cheaper and deeper and better than PR firm if done well. At GolfNow.tv, the trivia show is loved by it’s sponsors and golf community and that helps. Today they are celebrating their 150th show which may mean nothing to the web in general, but much to the community of GolfNow. Zillow, Expedia, Yelp – are you listening?

The comments always get out of hand, but they should. Actual conversations are known to happen.

At GolfNow , the Hawaii and Mexico integration has been awesome. You can click on the map for tee times all over Hawaii or go to TeeTimesHawaii directly. We now have the largest inventory of courses and inventory to choose from in those areas.

We also have a big tee time partner in the UK. Today’s Golfer is a huge magazine in the golf crazed UK and they have licensed our software to sell tee times to those tea drinking people. There are over 900 courses to come on board. To put it in perspective, California is our biggest market today with 400 courses so obviously a great opportunity. Congrats guys.

Alex keeps cranking out the widgets and smart links at Adaptive Blue. First a revamped homepage .
They also now support Movie Stars and Music Artists in both organizer and SmartLinks .

Most importantly for bloggers and potential income through affiliations, SmartLink Feeds are now all viral, JavaScript and Flash widgets . They are currently supporting and weekly updating 8 feeds so go check them out and spread the word. Make a little money as well from the best of lists.

The BlogTalkRadio team has been on fire as well. Thousand’s of new hosts have been signing up and politics seems to be the hottest category . I loved BlogTalk from the minute The Fly linked me to it. It’s live voice blogging and they have a twitter app as well. Talk Radio will ALWAYS be a big market and BTR has a global opportunity to get people heard. BTR had a big voice in getting the CBS show ‘Jericho’ back on the air .

Have a great weekend everybody.

I love WordPress, we (Wallstrip) love WordPress, you would love WordPress…if you blogged.

If you don’t blog, at least learn about it’s history, from Matt , the founder. That picture of him is recent. He is freaking 8 years old :) .

Don’t think Bubble when you think of Web 2.0, think deflation. More money in that train of thought. More on THAT this weekend.