While most of the Blogebrity staff was off honoring America’s veterans, the tech team at Blogebrity managed to get the first piece of Blogebrity: The API up this weekend.
Those of you looking for OPML and RSS feeds of the A, B and C list should head over to Blogebrity: The API, the home for all your Blogebrity/Web 2.0 goodness.
While all of you are busy honoring those who have served our country by ingesting large amounts of meat, beer and drugs…we decided, fuck it, so will we.
Look for even more content that doesn’t deal with who is linking to us very soon!!!
Blogebrity: The Interview debuts today; and fortunate for us, A-lister Tony Pierce was good enough to christen the sloop.
So don’t wait another minute…kick off your weekend with Blogebrity: The Interview’s chat with Tony Pierce of busblog fame.
Tony Pierce blogs daily at the busblog (http://www.tonypierce.com/blog/bloggy.htm), where he maintains a growing stable of devoted readers and fans with his posts about Los Angeles, politics, baseball, music (most often his favorite band, Tsar) and Anna Kournikova.
This interview was originally conducted on May 25, 2005 at 4:00pm via IM.
blogebrity: for starters….you use blogger pro, and always have, to publish the
tonypierce: yes
tonypierce: blogger has been berry berry good to me
blogebrity: never any thoughts about moving over to a movable type or anything like that?
tonypierce: yes, thoughts, but in a few bizarre ways i try to live by example
tonypierce: and i want to show people that you dont need anything fancy to have a good blog
tonypierce: and get a fair share of attention
tonypierce: so yes ive been tempted to move over to something else, and/or get a designer, and/or get people to edit my shit
tonypierce: but i think this is best in the long run.
blogebrity: while you have started other blogs, like lickmagazine, you currently dont blog anywhere else, do you?
tonypierce: no, ive been a slacker
tonypierce: i do comment on metafilter about once a week
tonypierce: and throughout the blogosphere
tonypierce: i dont even update my secret blogs
tonypierce: i suck
blogebrity: of course….i’ve had your back in one or two buzzmachine comment throw-downs
blogebrity: that i remember
tonypierce: ah thank you!
tonypierce: those are tough crowds
tonypierce: the repubs are very nervous for some reason
tonypierce: and defensive
blogebrity: now, as for blog-reading….do you have a blog/rss reader of choice?
tonypierce: I like the old fashioned way of having a homepage
tonypierce: http://www.tonypierce.com/links.htm
tonypierce: but when i do use a Reader i use projectdu
tonypierce: http://www.projectdu.com/reads.asp
blogebrity: you still have a promotional deal with them, correct?
tonypierce: yes, its a great relationship
blogebrity: sort of like jordan and nike?
tonypierce: hahaha
tonypierce: not in the slightest
tonypierce: project du has no sweatshops
tonypierce: on whose backs i make millions
tonypierce: i really dont like athletes who do things like that
tonypierce: sponsorships are ok
tonypierce: but think about who youre in bed with
blogebrity: speaking of athletes–who you rooting for the NBA playoffs?
tonypierce: i love hoops
tonypierce: but with the lakers out of it im not paying much attention
tonypierce: i guess the suns
tonypierce: oh wait
tonypierce: no Shaq’s heat
tonypierce: id like them to face each other
tonypierce: but it looks like its gonna be the pistons and the spurs
blogebrity: yeah
tonypierce: which would be dull as hell
blogebrity: they’re both so seasoned
tonypierce: too seasoned
blogebrity: hopefully this will be the last year for some of the older guards
tonypierce: duncan looks pretty good though
tonypierce: its hard to say
blogebrity: and teams like the suns and lebron’s cavs can step it up next year
tonypierce: definately
tonypierce: too bad phil jackson doesnt want to move to cleveland
blogebrity: yeah, i hate to bash it, since i’ve never been….but i haven’t heard glowing things about the place
blogebrity: but it does have drew carey going for it
tonypierce: ahaha
tonypierce: lebron will be a laker in no time
blogebrity: that seems to be the talk
blogebrity: what about phil–you think he’ll really come back to the lakers?
tonypierce: yes, hes proven his point
tonypierce: and LA is his bitch
tonypierce: he f’ed the bosses daughter
tonypierce: he wrote a book
tonypierce: he left and the team fell apart
tonypierce: now he will come back and have anything he wants
tonypierce: kobe may even listen to him
blogebrity: ok, so veering back towards blogging….
blogebrity: for a sec
blogebrity: do you have any plans to ever go pro, a la jason kottke ?
tonypierce: i barely get any hits
tonypierce: i couldnt do it
tonypierce: kottke is a genius
tonypierce: his design is amazing
tonypierce: he has so many things going for him
tonypierce: if you look at most of the technorati 100 you can totally see why those people are on that list
tonypierce: there is no way i will ever get the hits those people do, so therefore i will never be able to go pro
tonypierce: ive had my blogad thing up for three weeks
tonypierce: not even a nibble
blogebrity: on the subject of buzz and big traffic….do you have any idea what your all-time most popular post was?
tonypierce: yes my most popular blog post by far is my How To Blog post
tonypierce: it gets linked almost every day
tonypierce: its amazing
tonypierce: people disagree with a lot of it but they love parts of it enough to link it and copy it on their blogs
tonypierce: or translate it, or lots of cool things
blogebrity: How To Blog, for those of you reading at home who don’t know, is also the title of Tony’s book
tonypierce: yes, i like to make things as confusing as possible
blogebrity: you had published other books, or blooks as you call them, before How to Blog, right?
tonypierce: when i was in college i didnt have any money for christmas gifts
tonypierce: so i made little collections of my poems each year
tonypierce: and gave them to my friends
tonypierce: so in college i made 4-5 of those “chapbooks”
tonypierce: some of those poems eventually got published, which was nice
tonypierce: then two years ago i made Blook
tonypierce: and then when CafePress got into the selfpublishing biz, i made How To Blog
tonypierce: and i will have a new one coming out in June
blogebrity: does it have a title yet?
tonypierce: yes,
tonypierce: Stiff
tonypierce: its the stories i posted about dying and meeting kurt cobain
tonypierce: i wanted to call it “The Time I Died and Met Kurt Kobain”
tonypierce: but theres a hot picture of karisa on the cover
tonypierce: and Stiff looks better on her leg
blogebrity: sounds like the must-have beach read of summer 2005
tonypierce: ahahah i hope
tonypierce: it is good, i will say that
blogebrity: awesome….we’ll be sure to plug it all over blogebrity
tonypierce: that would be very very very nice of you
blogebrity: we’re big fans of the bus, if the A-list placement didnt already suggest
tonypierce: thats tremendous
tonypierce: i cant even believe that
tonypierce: im not even the best blogger in my zip code
tonypierce: so to be in that sort of company on your list is really flattering
blogebrity: who would that be?
tonypierce: matt welch, his wife emmanuelle
tonypierce: theyre both awesome
tonypierce: heather from suck used to live down the street
tonypierce: but she moved to a house
blogebrity: something in the water, just gave you all your freakish blog skills, or what?
tonypierce: Los Feliz attracts smart young hipsters
tonypierce: i dont know why there arent more bloggers around here
tonypierce: Franklin Ave. is good too
tonypierce: i think those guys would all have better blogs if their day jobs were easier
tonypierce: speaking of which Ben Sullivans Science Blog is tremendous
tonypierce: he lives around here i think
tonypierce: also Coop
tonypierce: the artist dude
tonypierce: he lives around here and has a good blog
blogebrity: well you’ve been a phenomenal first IMterview subject for Blogebrity….thanks a ton for your time
tonypierce: no prob
tonypierce: let me show you the cover of this book
tonypierce: http://www.tonypierce.com/2005/5/stiff.htm
blogebrity: hold it up for the audience
tonypierce: ahahaha
blogebrity: so….if anyone in the world started blogging tomorrow–whom would you want it to be?
tonypierce: thats a good question
tonypierce: because some people who i would never think to read actually have good blogs
tonypierce: like rosie odonnell
tonypierce: and then some people have super dumb blogs
tonypierce: who youd think would be super exciting
tonypierce: heres whose blogs id read right now
tonypierce: axl w. rose
tonypierce: jd salinger
tonypierce: jenna jameson
tonypierce: kurt loder should have a blog too
blogebrity: with john norris guestblogging in the sidebar?
tonypierce: i cant stand john norris
tonypierce: who did he pay off to stay on mtv this long?
tonypierce: he has no personality
tonypierce: all the people who have come through mtv and thats who their franchise is?
tonypierce: he was just in
tonypierce: how amazing is that?
blogebrity: from
blogebrity: what a wild strange trip it’s been
tonypierce: totally
blogebrity: well dude, thanks again for your time
tonypierce: no prob
Tony Pierce’s new book, Stiff, will be available online at the busblog merch shop in June. His previous bestseller How to Blog is available in paperback now.
What do you get when you take Technorati data and mix it together with Blogebrity list data? Way, way more data about your favorite blogs and bloggers than you could ever imagine.
It’s BlogCompare, complements of TDavid.
Oh, and just a note–we’re hard at work at making our list system even more accessible to anyone via OPML and our own API, so more of you can experiment away. After all, APIs are the new HTML.
You know when Scoble calls you a link whore, you’ve really arrived.
This one is going straight to the refrigerator door.
Holy crap….we’ve been Slashdotted!
Hello to anyone that’s here from /. We look forward to all the mountains of praise that we’re sure the Slashdot audience is wanting to dump on us.
I know we got posted on /. like 6+ hours ago…as I’ve said before, the rigors of the Blogebrity media schedule can be demanding. Where is my Blogebrity-funded Treo already?
(Who do you think I am, Calacanis? -ed.)
In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a new poll up in the sidebar–this time, we ask the controversial question:
Who would win in a steel-cage match?
- Instapundit
- Daily Kos
- Wonkette
- Michelle Malkin
Make yourself heard–cast your vote in the sidebar. Because, you know, it’s highly scientifical and stuff.
Blogebrity has been the subject of almost as many “is it real or is it fake” speculations as everyone’s favorite F-14 pilot and a certain virgin Connie Swayle.
The fine folks over at Ad-Rag (who beat AdCritic all to living hell with their great site) have weighed in and definitively declared that Blogebrity is not real. Well thank god, cause we weren’t quite sure exactly sure what the hell we were going to do after June 9th. Looks like the annual Summer Solstice party where we sacrifice a virgin (Katie Holmes is still not under consideration, L. Ron’s PR team notwithstanding) is back on!!! Hot Shit, invites apparently to follow.
As our favorite girl with a plan already pointed out Blogebrity is part of the Contagious Media showdown. Since life still forces us to be a for-profit entity, we would obviously be delighted to see Blogebrity make a dent some of our bar tabs this month. However, we’re a bit puzzled with the conclusion that being in the contest somehow bestows a June 9 death to it. Well guess what, maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t.
Blogebrity was certainly a gleam in our eye before the contest came along, and it just so happened that the idea fits the contest like a glove, for reasons that were pointed out long ago by the grand master himself.
So what becomes of it when the contest is over? We’ll talk more about that soon enough, until then, you can keep checking Snopes to see if we appear over there too.
Just for the record, those * or > next to any list member’s name means they’ve updated recently; not, as some had suggested, that they have linked back to us.
Upon noting our arrival. Rex Sorgatz makes it official:
My dear internet, you have jumped the shark.
Less than a week on the scene, and we manage to bring down Al Gore’s magical invention. Now you’ve got us blushing.
While the majority of the emails we’ve received have been something along the lines of:
I love it….this is so much fun; I’m glad somebody finally did this, etc.
There have been a few of these:
You suck. Your list sucks and you suck and people should ONLY talk about blogs in the way I WANT THEM TO. Shame on you. Oh….and you didn’t put me on your list. You suck and I hate you.
Just a clue to the haters–your whining is more transparent than a glob of used Neutrogena. But please, do keep it up….your sour grapes are like a glass of Opus One to us.
Speaking of which, I do think it’s time for an eye-opener.
So is Foxy Jess on like, the longest hiatus ever? Or is Gawker just on permanent rotation, as Denton schemes to find cheaper and cheaper labor for his flagship? Stay tuned.
UPDATE: We’ve just been informed that “the only vacation she’s ever taken was 1 week about a month ago and two days two weeks ago”. Here we are casting dispersions, without even doing our DD. Our apologies. Let the Jess & _____ show roll on!
Yes, membership on Blogebrity’s A, B, or C-list does entitle you to Blue Ribbin’ treatment at Outback Steakhouse, as well as a 15% discount on shrimp at Red Lobster, and immediate enrollment in Baskin-Robbins Birthday Club.
If you’ve been lucky enough to make one of these lists, we’ll send along your membership card ASAP, so you can start enjoying the perks promptly.
As you may have noticed, the first major update to Blogebrity: The List has recently been completed. Along with launching a separate page to house the complete index, you will see we’ve also set each list to display 50 at random in the sidebar on the right….to keep things fresh and interesting, everytime you visit Blogebrity.
Enjoy, kids.
