Le Hot Blog de Toronto

response to Nancy

2007-11-14T12:58:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, facebook is just too damn friendly and positive, it's no place for crusty, antagonistic people like me (but not you dear Nancy!). In all seriousness, you're right, to be a "fan" of a brand or other entity (I'm apparently a fan of an NGO and a blogging network), makes no sense. The platform is struggling with numbers it seems. There are lots of reports now about getting 'timed out' notices for too much cruising around Facebook, or refusals of facebook to send out notices to groups that have over 1000 members. So while this represents a certain clumsiness on the part of an exponentially growing platform, the issue for me is one of framing -- where can we indicate our curiosity, frustration, deep antipathy, or apathy? While at AoIR I bumped into an old nemesis from my undergrad days, an enemy of sorts lets say. But hell, he was a significant person in my life... but why is there no language here (or in some of the more vocal academic work on social networking) about networks that include such figures in ones past or present...this fella was way more important to me than 95% of my facebook friends -GE

Ron Paul's 5th of November fundraising campaign

2007-11-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

Yet another example of maverick campaign working online but going nowhere with the electorate.

Covert Cat

2007-11-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

Does anyone want to share insights on Youtube's "Covert cat". This person has uploaded some rather lengthy -- and interesting, to say the least -- videos. I'll pass on posting links.

too many friends: a warning

2007-11-03T10:37:00.001-07:00

Kevin's Facebook Friends

Add to My Profile | More Videos

2007-10-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

Waiting for call to be on the Christy Clark show...;-)

...but Canadians don't want an election (Conservative -Liberal coalition government emerges)

2007-10-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

How much longer can Dion say he opposes the government, think their proposals are wrong for Canada, and then abstain from voting in the house? The Conservatives have already done a pretty decent job painting Dion as a weak leader, now the NDP are doing the same. The Tories near term agenda seems to offer yet more of the same for Dion, modest right-of-centre policies (or the "new" Centre as Andrew Coyne has argued) that the majority of the Liberal caucus support (or have proposed before). Unless the Tories take a sharper turn right, Harper will continue to benefit from the Conservative-Liberal coalition government.

video threads

2007-10-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

I love video-bloggers who respond to videos with another video. Well, I thought so until this:

sign of the Times

2007-10-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

OK, now I'm more convinced that a federal election is around the corner -- Signs for sale, advertised on political blogs.

No PMO blog contract? Why not blog for RBC?

2007-10-05T07:39:00.001-07:00

OK, I'm not making this up...this is all from RBC and their blogger or P2P "contest" where university students can "Make some cash blogging from your room". Imagine being able to: "Get paid to tell the truth about money". But this is of course contingent upon being able to answer yes to their litmus test question: "Do you use money?"

This, here

2007-10-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

So, for the best coverage and analysis on the Ontario election, check out this, from this guy, and make sure to tell your friends about this, cause here is where it all happens.

Dump Dion, hell Dump Tory!

2007-09-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

Leadership matters! Well, as Tories gloat over the state of Dionistas they are also voicing questions about their own provincial leader, see influencial blogger Greg Staples for one glum take on Tory's future.

Facebook Libs, post Outremont

2007-09-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

So, what better way to advertise internal strife than a Facebook group entitled "A United Party, A Unity Canada - Stephane Dion", so far it has 60 members, that's 12 more than the "Stéphane Dion looks like a turtle" group (if anyone is counting). :-)

Blogging Tories in search of Loonies

2007-09-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

A number of Blogging Tories have banded together to form an ad co-op, ooops, business. Rates look a bit out of wack considering that Google ads run between $30-$100/month.

Dry run for Federal election

2007-09-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

Much that we have seen from the Liberals online in this provincial election is surely a dry run for the next federal election, remember their war room is being run by Dion backer Warren Kinsella. And if there is any more proof needed about the need for parties to rethink their campaigns with the net in mind, one need only look at what is happening elsewhere around the world: Australia, a case in point.

/GE

The basics....

2007-09-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone, well almost everyone, seems to be doing it. Internet campaigning that is. Here is a decent outline of the benefits, for those who remain critical. So, folks the bottom line is this....if you're just going to run a campaign with a website (and leave the social networking, youtubing, facebooking, etc. to less organized types), then at least think about paying the $30 to Google (OK they hardly need it), to increase traffic to your stand-alone, network phobic website.

Education fairness: who buys this stuff?

2007-09-21T19:58:00.001-07:00

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where www.educationairness.ca comes from.

Nasty brutish and short: Greg's "live" debate blogging

2007-09-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

McGuinty looks like a bored highschooler. He is getting spanked. Hampton started slowly and lacked specifics, but has come on as the debate goes on. Tory looks very composed. I'd be very surprised if polls don't reflect his good performance.

Queen's Park Press Gallery tires of Youtube surveillance

2007-09-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

The president of the Queen's Park press gallery issued a terse statement today calling into question the legality of partisan Youtubers capturing conversations between candidates and some journalists. Some members of the media have also recently grumbled about being poorly treated by the Premier's lead Communications guy, former broadcast journalist Ben Chin. Torytubers might be testing the patience of the press gallery.

CBC-RC also just came over to get my thoughts on the Tories 3 new TV ads. In short, a shocker (on violence and sentencing, which will be controversial), a dud (broken tax promise), and an absolute gem (broken promise on coal plants).

McGuinty getting trashed....on Craigslist!

2007-09-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, much has been written about how nasty youtube has become during the Ont. election. But a quick scan of the politics discussion group on craigslist will leave no doubt where the trash talking is taking place. Besides the foul language and nasty personal attacks (I'm not going to repeat any here), I found it odd that McGuinty is the target of many of the attacks (while Tory seems to be getting hammered on youtube and in the blogosphere).

by-election hijinks

2007-09-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

Tory humour. I'm impressed.

This video takes the nut!

2007-09-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks to fifth column for this bizarre video from the Toronto Star. I thought I'd seen it all, but I absolutely must know more about this. We've seen journalists blog before, but is Torstar now asking Q.P. bureau folks to cut iMovies during campaign stops on the road? Or is this what my undergrad students are doing for internships now?

GE

Liberal Bloggers out in the cold

2007-09-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

Liberal bloggers are starting to mumble about the sad campaign put on in Outremont, While in London, Ont. a former Liberal blogger left the campaign there after his previous online comments were made public. The Ontario Liberal party also seems to be largely ignoring the power of their partisan blogosphere focusing instead on a closely scripted and centralized campaign supported with a nasty backroom internet war room.

GE

media concentration -- hearing begin in Ottawa

2007-09-17T11:43:00.001-07:00

the CBC weighs in on the state of broadcasting in Canada.

Film/TV conference

2007-09-14T05:26:00.000-07:00

While the infoscapers will plough through today's net shenanigans, I'll be taking a breather from the media to host the "Locating Migrating Media" Conference at Ryerson. We'll have a new code politics weekly report out later this weekend.

Meow

2007-09-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

2007-09-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

A good article from Lydia Perovic on 2.0 Campaigning. A bunch of other good stories and links too.

Tomorrow, I'm on CHCH Hamilton, which I hear is now referred to as E-Hamilton...which kinda sounds sexy in that new media meets old industry town kinda way.

Britney and Torytube crash Youtube

2007-09-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

OK, got your attention. My bet is on the former. Didn't Google buy Youtube? Then why does their search engine, well...suck?
-GE

Youtube crashes?

2007-09-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Jason Cherniak just pointed out that Youtube is not showing any new videos from the leaders for th epast 5 days, which seems to be at odds with some videos I found earlier today from Torytube that were clearly tagged "John Tory". This might throw a wrench in the works.
/GE

Blogging Tories Keeping Close Eye on CBC TV News

2007-05-06T15:17:00.000-07:00

Blogging Tory founder/"pundit" Stephen Taylor continues to keep a close eye on the CBC. Other media outlets have largely bypassed the story, but Taylor reports on his blog that the CBC has officialy apologized for the second time in a year after the Conservative blogger question their coverage on his blog.

http://www.stephentaylor.ca/archives/000833.html

The Infoscape lab (of which I am the director) also reported last week that other Blogging Tories uploaded and discussed a clip of CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge. The Tories were seemingly unimpressed with Peter's facial expression and body language as his interviewee, the Israeili Prime Minister, gushed about PM Stephen Harper.

Amsterdam

2007-01-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

decided to pick the worse time of the year to come to Amsterdam. Though unlike June when I was last here there are at least much fewer packs of drunken British men (sheesh). For visual update check out flickr.

In my absence (actually I'm a visiting fellow at the Virtual Knowledge studio, for the next 3 weeks) the infoscape lab continues to pur along. We will be rolling out a set of new projects in anticipation of the upcoming federal election in Canada (editorial: which may well see the most boring set of party leaders ever in CDN history).
stay tuned...

-Greg

media reports

2006-12-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

Check out the following links to the Toronto Star and the PR department at Ryerson University, for discussions of the recently released infoscape research report on blogging and internet campaigning during the Liberal leadership race and convention.

seeing lots of green on Rae supporters

2006-12-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

Looks like Dion may be over the top. They are pretty pumped on the floor. But his victory speech needs to be much better than his candidate speech -- which was a big clunker.

Blogging Tories track Parties on the net

2006-12-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

Tories are getting ready to track politics online: http://www.bloggingtories.ca/pie-charts.php

Voting begins

2006-12-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

In the blogging room. Joking about why voting was delayed for an hour. Perhaps it has something to do with the electronic voting machines? Diebold?

Late parties

2006-12-01T12:57:00.000-08:00

Did the rounds at the hospitality suites, though Iggy seems to have the only hospitable beer prices (free). Rae's party at the swanky "W" bar was surreal for many reasons. Probably didn't help that I was there with a couple NDP friends.

What the Bloggers are saying Convention Week

2006-12-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

Blog Opinions- Opinions turn favourable for Rae and Kennedy

All the candidates except Ignatieff received an increase in positive opinions this week, with Kennedy receiving the largest increase from 19.1% last week to 31% this week. He is followed by Rae (up to 27% this week from 21% last week), and Dion (from 15% last week to 23% this week). Bob Rae is receiving less negative opinions at 16% this week down from 25% last week. The other candidates remain relatively stable in terms of negative opinions.

Liberal Leadership Issues in the news and Blogosphere for November 24 to December 1

National Unity (20%) is the major issue this week in the news, followed by Education (17.7%) and the Environment (15.8%). In the Blogosphere, the Environment (17.7%) has emerged as the major issue, followed by the Economy (15.8%) and National Unity (13.2%). Discrepancies between news and blogs are not as important as last week. Liberal Leadership Renewal has completely disappeared as an issue both in the news and in the Blogosphere.

Top bloggers for past week

2006-12-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

Top Bloggers on Liberal Leadership Race (for week ending Dec. 1st)
Determined by blog posts on top tier candidates

1. Fuddle-duddle by Rousehouse (Ignatieff, Liblogs, progressive bloggers)

2. TIED FOR SECOND
A Bcer in Toronto (Dion)
Calgarygrit (Progressive Bloggers co-founder, Kennedy)

3. Centrerion Canadian Politics by Clear Grit

4. TIED FOR FOURTH
Far and Wide by Steve V.
All Politics is Local by Aginsberg

5. “Darryl Wolk Blog (International and Local Issues)” by Darryl

"an invitation"

2006-11-30T11:10:00.000-08:00

Chairs in the main hall (for delegates) were littered with pamphlets "inviting" fellow Liberals to "Collaborate Online". Not sure if this is offical party effort to steer folks away from blogging or weblogs...They also may want to determine who is actually a Liberal member, as liblogs is an honour system. Anyhow, here's the link:
http://forumliberalcanada.org

if I were a betting man...

2006-11-30T10:39:00.000-08:00

Odds To Be Next Leader Of Liberal Party Of Canada
Bob Rae 3/2
Stephane Dion 2/1
Michael Ignatieff 7/2
Gerard Kennedy 5/1
Ken Dryden 200/1
Joe Volpe 300/1
Scott Brison 400/1
Martha Hall Findlay 500/1

from: http://www.pinnaclesports.com.

turning my back

2006-11-30T10:21:00.000-08:00

On of the Liberal bloggers posted a picture of me being interviewed by the media this morning in the "bloggers" room...
http://devin-maxwell.blogspot.com/

Chant index

2006-11-30T09:36:00.000-08:00

Kennedy's supporters are the loudest...hands down.

bloggers room

2006-11-30T07:45:00.000-08:00

The party has set up a room for bloggers where a half dozen guys are typing away (me being one!). The conversation bounces from Liberal politics to blogging issues. There is no overt signs of partisanship or arm twisting.

Jason Cherniak is launching some new features for his 'liblogs' network: a bilingual template, a news section, and a list of young liberals writing blogs. No mentions though of videos, photos or other formats.

Iggy hotel

2006-11-30T05:19:00.000-08:00

After liblogs, arrived at my hotel to find that is Iggy central. By all accounts it was the party to be at, especially for young Liberals and drinkers. I was told that Kennedy's party was where all the serious politicos were going...though no-one could tell me where it was. Rae was no where to be seen. Apart from top tier candidates, there were few signs of the so-called "also-rans".

Iggy puts out his flashy daily flyer...it lands on my door step firs thing in the morning. There's the man, holding a "Who's going to beat Harper" sign...oh and apparently I was at the "Iggynation" party last night. He highlights links to youth and women's commission and notes that he has 1150 Facebook.com friends.

first thoughts

2006-11-30T05:07:00.000-08:00

Since I arrived at the convention at 11pm, initial impressions were defined by the parties. But before that...on the flight in I saw a quick clip from the Howard Dean speech, which was surprisingly dead boring. Delegates confirmed it was a snoozer.

@ Trudeau Dion had a kiosk with two very keen looking politicos with oversized T-shirts staring me down... I went directly to the party sponsored by Jason Cherniak and "Liblogs" -- a friendly group of folks. Few signs though of tech geeky--ness, except for an older delegate looky very wobbly on a segway in the corner of the room (odd). Who were the bloggers?

The hotel also seemed to be the headquarters for Dion, but might be wrong on that one. Dion was the only candidate to show up, while I was there at least, but apart from one photo-op with delegates, Andrew Coyne (National Post) seemed to have a bigger crowd around him. Met up with Cherniak and "A BCer in Toronto" and was told that Calgary Grit had 'come out the closet'. Apparently Stephen Taylor, head of the 'blogging Tories' is also cruising around the convention.

check back for daily updates

2006-11-29T14:07:00.000-08:00

I will be posting daily updates to our recently released blog and news analysis of the Liberal Leadership Race. We will be looking at how much coverage each candidates receives and how bloggers (friends and foes of the Liberal party) will be commenting on the convention and race.

@ Liberal Convention

2006-11-28T10:17:00.000-08:00

Hi folks, I'll be in Montreal late Wednesday night for the convetion, so will miss Howard Dean's keynote unfortunately, but am looking forward to meeting some folks and taking in the scene. I will also be discussing the findings from our (infoscapes) recently released report on bloggers, issues, and news coverage of the leadership candidates. email me for meet ups.

Infoscape Research Lab releases final report on Liberal Leadership Race on the Internet

2006-11-28T10:10:00.000-08:00

To download a copy of the report please see: www.infoscapelab.ca/gritrace

my nasty website

2005-06-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

OK here's the site: http://manu.rcc.ryerson.ca/~gelmer/

I welcome feedback as I'm about to make it suave. An homage to myself. Or at least less ugly.

The death of news (again)

2005-06-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

If there wasn't yet enough anecdotal evidence already telling us about the death of news...

Apparently the Annenberg Center has found in their surveys of American public opinion that more Americans defined Bill O'Reilly (that really pushy condescending right wing nut on Fox) as a "journalist" than Bob Woodward (Washington Post).

here's the link from the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/06/14/Arts/poll050614.html

Streisand tells the truth

2005-06-13T22:01:00.000-07:00

Barbara Streisand's truth alerts!:

http://barbrastreisand.com/news_alertTalk.html

suicide bombers -- the case for "context"

2005-06-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

from
http://www.peaceinchechnya.org/reports.htm
A report from The American Council for Peace in Chechnya

"...ACPC is releasing this comprehensive study on suicide bombings associated with the war in Chechnya. As the author has noted, suicide bombers are typically not motivated by ideology, but more often by a desire for revenge and retribution in the vicious cycle of violence created by the Kremlin's five year war in Chechnya. Though this study was prepared prior to the terrorist acts in North Ossetia, we hope that it will provide much-needed background on understanding the aims and motivations of suicide bombers in Chechnya."

"The Take"

2004-10-29T11:49:00.001-07:00

Avi Lewis and Naomi Kline's documentary . "The Take" opens this weekend in Canada (www.thetake.org), autonomists will be dancing in the aisles.

Hope to get tickets to see it at Atom Agoyan's new intimate cinema "Camera" on Queen West, nestled in between a number of art galleries, a stones throw from the uber trendy Drake Hotel (Martini-face time palace).

Lewis will be in attendance for post-chat with the audience. Reviews on the film and venue to follow...unless its already sold out, then its off to the Horseshoe for some music.

real time riot: Boston

2004-10-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

We receive Boston US networks here on our Bell TV satellite, odd since cable and over the air TV receives Buffalo, just down the road from le hot blog. But regardless having previously lived in Boston we enjoy the familiarity. Last night's coverage of the post-Red Sox celebrations on the city streets was a bonus: the ABC affiliate in Boston was flush with real-time crowd dispersion techniques, periodically interspersed with interviews with Red Sox players and owners (btw why do they give the sports trophies to the owners first now? that irks me). Back and forth: cops in riot gear, champagne over Pedro; horses charging, fan on the street comment, close up of arrest, 'thank you god' from player x, y, z...etc. Late night of viewing...

new blog title

2004-10-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks to A. Opel for inspiring the renaming of this blog (am I talking to myself...is there anyone out there?). I hope he doesn't sue me. Those Flordians are funny that way.

Eminem's new video

2004-10-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/26/142031/17

This video reminds me of the film _Fight Club_ without the irony.

wireless

2004-10-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

In my previous life (the one where I lived 6 blocks from Jeb Bush) I was a thief. I stole from my neighbor. How awful...no, how unneighborly. I surfed the net on their wireless. I stole their waves. I admit it.

I didn't download, nor did I listen to net-radio. That would have been downright rude. I'm an ethical WIFI thief. My new neighbor has a password protected WIFI hub. I wonder if he/she had some nasty neighbor sucking the speed out of their last connection.

first post

2004-10-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

Has anyone seen "The Yes Men" yet? Apparently it played at the Toronto Intl. fil festival (in my hometown), but I was oblivious to it. Then again, from what I hear all the talk (wet-blogging) and buzz happens in the lines outside the festival cinemas.