I received an e-mail this morning from KNBC-TV writer/producer Colin Campbell announcing their brand new Los Angeles Disaster Response Wiki. Apparently he, Bob Long, and others over there have been talking about this thing and finally got something up and running and wanted to soft launch it with “some of the Southland’s web movers and shakers” or so the e-mail said. The e-mail also asked me not to blog it, in fact, it said:

“Note – we’re NOT looking for you to post a link to this wiki on any of your websites – this isn’t really a “general public” thing, at least not yet.”

That’s fine with me, and I had no intention of blogging it. In fact I hadn’t even clicked the link to it yet when I saw this post on fishbowl LA. They clearly got the same e-mail I did, and ignored the “don’t blog it” part and went ahead and posted it. Since it’s now out there, I thought I’d go ahead and link to it as well, as I’m sure many of the people reading this will have much better contributions to make then I will. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of this.

‚Ä¢ LA Taco takes issue with an unwritten Riverside ordinance against $1 tacos they read about in the Press Enterprise, where writer Dan Bernstein describes being denied one taco a la carte: “The best she could offer was three tacos for $4.87. This, I later learned, may be an unwritten part of the city’s homeless policy… Higher prices — that three-taco minimum — supposedly discourage the ‘undesirables.’ ”

‚Ä¢ Rodger Jacobs returns from a week’s absence at 8763 Wonderland to present part one of Bogart Sleeps Here: A Trace Novella, a modern day LA noir.

‚Ä¢ The Hot Blog cuts through the spin on the Tom Cruise/Paramount breakup: “Cruise/Wagner was not fired. Their relationship with Paramount was not terminated. There was a negotiation for a new deal and the deal didn’t happen… Sumner Redstone made it a much bigger story with his shocking statement… which was shocking because it was so ineptly handled. A.F.S.P. Anything for Stock Price.”

‚Ä¢ Note to all PC haters who laughed at Dell laptops that kept catching fire: “Apple Computer is recalling 1.1 million laptop batteries supplied by Sony, citing a fire hazard, The Associated Press reports.” (via CNN)

‚Ä¢ Congrats to the Four Q BBQ team for landing several top five placements at last weekend’s Silent Valley BBQ Competition. (h/t BBQ Junkie) Four Q is made up of four Los Angeles food bloggers with a talent for ribs, rubs, and all things BBQ. (photo above from BBQ Junkie’s Flickr site)

It’s been a while since Jason Toney stepped down as editor of LAist which to be perfectly honest is good news because I really like his personal site which was all crickets while he was on board over there. Since then his blog has picked back up again. I never felt that his voice was able to show through at LAist and it felt like whatever he was trying to say was getting smushed into the -ist mold so him writing more on his own blog again is a good thing for sure. I’ve never argued that I’m not in my own little world – I try to break out of it from time to time, but for the most part I’ve got too much stuff going on daily so it’s really great when I find a blog that I can relate to but that covers topics I wouldn’t be reading about otherwise. I’ve always felt that Jason’s Negro Please was one of those sites. Of course LA blogs are part of my world, which is why his post today reviewing some of the more widely read blogs in this city is so interesting. He includes Losanjealous (my favorite la blog that I’m not involved with), LA Observed, Angeleno, FishbowlLA, and of course LAist and even has some things to say about us. He also points out a list of blogs that he’s not covering because they are either too niche or solo projects, although he seemed to have missed LA Voice and LA foodblogging which are definitely staples IMNSHO. Jason and I had a bit of a stand-offish relationship for a while but I tend to think that was more the weight of the -ist network on his shoulders causing it because I actually think he’s a pretty good guy. That said, I was psyched to see he didn’t totally trash us in his review:

“I think they’ve really found their stride. In full disclosure mode, during most of my tenure with LAist, I thought we were the better local site. I always felt blogging.la was scatterbrained and not really about LA. Often it was like reading the message board a bunch of friends shared to give tips or anecdotes that only those friends would care about. But in reading today, they were chock full of interesting information. Still anecdotal but much more oriented towards the audience at large instead of the contributors within…”

There is more to it than that but that’s the jist of it. One thing that I’ll be endlessly amused by is when people look at what we’re doing on blogging.la or any of the Metroblogging sites and suggest that we be doing something different. Some people assume we’re trying (and failing) to be a local events listing, or alternative to the alternative weeklies, or even a round up of local news when in fact we’re purposefully not trying to do any of that. Our goal has always been to pool a few people in the city, and have them contribute their slice of life. There are plenty of sites out there that focus on events, or covering the news – if I want to know whats in the LA Times today, I’ll check out the LA Times. If I want some insight behind some of the bigger stories there is no question that LA Observed should be my first stop. We’ve never set out to be the end all be all for everyone (Hell, the Times isn’t even the endall be all for everyone), we write about what is interesting to us, sometimes that is interesting to other people too and that’s what it’s all about. Point being the web is a big place, with lots of people doing different things – no one is being forced to read Blogging.la but we’re happy that some people choose to.

Steve Huff alerted me that after some folks at ABC 7 read my blog entry about his possible match in the case of 50 unidentified women (from here – original coverage here), they interviewed him for “NewsRaw”, their internet based news programming that, after a quick look, simply rocks.

I’ve been critical of NBC4 in the past (see my posts on Boobgate here, here, and here), but based on what I saw today, “NewsRaw” may have raised the bar and created a standard for video bloggers in L.A. and elsewhere.
Read the rest of this entry →

The always insightful LA City Nerd brought a word of concern along with his praise for the new and improved LA Observed in a post entitled “LA Observed expands to most of the City”:

I’m slightly frustrated that there is so little digital media coming from certain parts of the City. I would argue that Silver Lake, Echo Park, Atwater Village, Los Feliz, Downtown and Hollywood are well-covered….

…with the Exception of the one or two blogs down in San Pedro and the few on the West Side Coastal Communities, few posts come from folks south of the Rosa Parks/Christopher Columbus/10 Freeway (or those just north like Pico-Union).

A daily visit to the LA Observed eliminated my need to read the LA Times long ago, but the City Nerd’s point is especially well taken when you see that Roderick and company are covering the newspaper drama up in Santa Barbara, but don’t give a lot of attention to large chunks of our city.

But Observed can’t be criticized alone. Here at blogging.la we’ve had multiple posts regarding Comic-Con 120 miles and two counties away in San Diego, and frequently indulge in Metroblogging Orange County’s territory of Disneyland.

I also noticed that on his personal site LAist editor Tony Pierce is considering soliciting non-Los Angeles based writers:

the hits are good at LAist but they could be better. plus id like a few more writers. im not even sure they need to live in LA. people shouldnt be punished just because they dont chill in the 323. (from the Busblog)

Is this a sign that LA bloggers have oversaturated the market, or do we (as writers and readers) just need to look a further out than our local ‘hood?

I know a few days ago Sean put a call out for other LA writers to add to our own blog roll, but are there really only a handful of bloggers from South LA? Are there any East LA bloggers out there… perhaps even blogging en Espanol? And if gangbangers are indeed swiping laptops from local coffee shops, are there any South Central bloggers or writers from other underrepresented area of Los Angeles?

Everyone around me is pretty much sick of hearing me describe what summer is like back up in my hometown of Victoria, BC. It doesn’t cold enough to seriously snow in Victoria or Vancouver, yet the temperature also rarely goes over 80F in the summertime. I remember equating 30C with “very warm” (that’s about 90), but I had absolutely no clue what “really hot” meant. I have since found out that “hot” is much higher than 30C/90F. I have also since found out that heat totally exhausts me. I have no idea how most of America survived before the air conditioner was invented – especially the parts of the country that are unfortunate enough to have real humidity.

Therefore, to take my mind off the L.A. heat, I thought I’d check in with the MetBlogs back up in my home region of the Pacific Northwest, where we could afford to sell our extra hydroelectricity to California because we didn’t need it to run air conditioners. I’ll start in my old stomping grounds with Metroblogging Vancouver, where Jeffrey has celebrated the launch of Sacramento by calling it “the Victoria of California.” I actually think San Diego is more the Victoria of California, myself.
Read the rest of this entry →

If you live in New York then you know all about Overheard in New York which is a endlessly entertaining blog that just posts snipits of conversations from all over the city. It’s a great idea has spilled over onto other blogs as well. They also have Overheard in the Office and Overheard at the Beach. You see the theme here I’m sure. Which is why the submission we recently got for Overheard in Los Angeles struck my eye. The anonymous submission said “Like Overheard in New York. But with pictures. And commentary. And fewer quotes.” But what is should have said is “Stealing the brand from the ‘Overheard’ sites but adding other stuff and putting in less of the one thing you actually want in an ‘overheard’ site.” This is so lame because they are trying to swipe the name someone else has tried hard to build, and then sucking on top of that. What’s even worse is it’s happening in other cities too. Hopefully the folks at the real Overheard have a lawyer and can get this crap taken care of.