TwitterFone, a new service that allows you to post to Twitter via voice by calling a number on your mobile phone has just been lit up. The application is currently in an invite-only beta so if you want to use it any time soon I suggest you hustle on over and get yourself on the list.

I’m finding the proliferation of voice to text applications interesting. While some are more useful than others what is becoming clear is that we’ve finally reached a point where reliable translation of the human voice into intelligible text messages has reached the point where we can make it work reliably - even over a mobile phone and even without the ability to see what the results of our utterances are coming out like on the other end.

This might result in some embarrassing and surprising things happening because I’ve yet to see any program that was even 85% at doing these translations and that’s sitting right in front of the computer and watching in real time as the system decoded my own voice speaking clearly and slowly which is hardly what I’d expect from someone posting a quick message to Twitter while using a cell phone in traffic. I guess if we start seeing less than sensible posts to Twitter we’ll realize that there are still some bugs to be ironed out of the whole speech to text thing. On the other hand, if we don’t see any difference it either means people aren’t using the interface that much or all the kinks have been worked out and it’s time to start brushing up on our dictation skills.

If you work in public relations, either for a firm or as a consultant, and particularly if you wish to engage with bloggers as part of the services you provide for your clients than you probably want to read this…

Here’s the thing; for those of you that are trying to engage bloggers about 95% of you are doing this in a way that is not only wrong, but has the potential to be damaging to your client, embarrassing to you and unwise from a career perspective. Bloggers are an unpredictable bunch - just ask anyone who’s dealt with Valleywag or Robert Scoble or even me for that matter. In fact, try to engage any blog that has built any kind of following and you are playing with fire. If you’re smart or experienced you know this, if you’re typical you’re about to wander into a minefield. That’s because there’s a good possibility that what you’re about to do is completely and egregiously incorrect in terms of your approach, your follow up and in fact any effort you are likely to make at all.

Case in point: tonight at 2:35AM no less I get an email from a “PR consultant” I won’t embarrass him or the company he represents for the purposes of this explanation but let me start of by saying that at a minimum his approach will simply be ignored. After all, sending me an email with a press release - not even bothering with the formality of a salutation, a greeting or any indication that the PR hack has any idea who I am or what I write about doesn’t exactly engender warm and fuzzy feelings about what he’s pitching.

After all, why did he send me a release? Of course it is because he’s hoping that I’ll write about it on my blog, give him coverage, make him look good to his client, generate eyeballs or clicks or at least a clipping that can be added to a portfolio or a website, right?

Do you think that this individual ever stopped to think about what was in this for me? I mean the benefit to the PR person and his client are obvious but what about the benefit to me? If I choose to cover his non-news event what do I get? I get to spend my time checking out the information, writing a post, finding an image, editing the post, posting the item and then possibly even promoting the post.

But if you’re sending me a plain vanilla press release - one that has already seen the light of day and hence other journalists and probably other bloggers just like me it isn’t even news any more. After all, since the PR guy never even bothered to say hello, how do I know if I’m the first blogger he sent this to or the five hundredth? (Since I’m a bit smaller than say TechCrunch I’ll asssume I’m not first)

So if it’s not news, and since there was no special note with information that might be especially relevant to me there is no value in posting this article from my perspective. In other words the time the PR person spent mailing this was wasted and from my perspective this crap is simply spam taking room in my inbox - something else I have to delete at some point in the day.

In tonight’s case at least the item was related to a topic I cover although not closely. Worse is when a PR hack sends me something that is so totally unrelated to my areas of interest as to have no conceivable interest for me or my readers. Surprisingly this happens more than you’d realize.

This is a double insult - not only does the PR person expect me to do them the favor of promoting their client and making them look good but by their very act of sending me a press release that has nothing to do with what I do they’re telling me in no uncertain terms that while they are anticipating that I’ll be going out of my way to do them a favor they can’t even be bothered to read my work or have a clue what I write about.

That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. It makes me feel like teaching the PR person a lesson by posting their press release and writing about “How Not to Approach a Blogger”. How hard is it to treat someone that for you is a resource with even the smallest bit of courtesy and appreciation? After all, we can make you look like a hero or just as easily make you look like a zero.

Let me ask you again, PR people, did you ever, for even one moment take the time to stop and consider why we should be receptive to your pitches? Frankly I’m amazed at the way some PR people act. I swear, the way I’ve been treated by a few of the folks from this profession you’d think that I actually had an obligation to cover whatever they sent my way. I kid you not. I have had PR people send me stupid, badly written, non-news releases that had nothing to do with my area of expertise and then, when I didn’t bother to cover their crap or acknowledge receipt of the message they have the audacity to write me the following day asking me what happened and why I didn’t cover their news. The nerve.

Let me clue you in on a few things. There are plenty of ways NOT to approach a blogger. Failing to consider for even a moment why they would want to hear from you is high on that list. But there are also ways in which to approach a blogger that can make us receptive - anxious even to hear from you.

PR people that understand what matters to a blogger get their stuff published. All the time. Andy Abramson is one of these people. It’s no surprise that he’s also an accomplished blogger. Maybe that’s why he knows what it is that matters to me and he brings me stuff that is as beneficial to me when I write about it as it is to his client when I publish it.

It’s not rocket science. Bloggers want traffic. They want information that no one else has seen yet so that they can write about it first and get the links that come with being the original source of a story. They want exclusive information that is relevant to their readers. They want a heads up in advance so that they don’t get asked to write something frantically at the last minute. They want to feel like they are respected and appreciated - after all as a PR person you are getting paid to pester me to publish something about your client but what I am getting?

Are you going to cut me in on your commission? Is the client going to give me a few shares of their stock if what I write ads a buck to the share price? Is that startup going to offer me a gig when they get their next round courtesy of my recent expose on how they’re taking their industry by storm?

Funny thing, I’ve personally had all of those things happen to companies I’ve blogged about and I’ve never had a PR person offer me a dime. Not that I’d take one mind you but you hve to understand the point of what I’m saying - if you’re pitching someone who is clearly blogging professionally than you have to at least pretend to care about the things that matter to the blogger like making a living. And since bloggers make their money the Google-fashioned way - through ads on their blogs; or if they’re big enough and lucky enough with some sponsors added in - generating page views is really important.

So before you send me a press release that doesn’t relate to my blog and doesn’t even bother to address me by name in the salutation, stop for a moment and consider how you’d feel if I expected you to promote me. For free. To anyone and everyone. Imagine that I write you in the middle of the night announcing that I’ve just authored a post on new Mars Global Surveyor images and I’ve got some good photos and I’m hoping you’ll go around and tell everyone to come visit my site. What’s more, when you don’t do this and blow me off I write you two days later bitching and complaining that you ignored me. It sounds ridiculous, huh? It’s probably something you’d blog about negatively if you had a blog isn’t it?

Well, that’s what we deal with from you guys all the time. Interesting how the shoe feels when you mentally slip it on the other foot huh?

SUMMARY

What’s the take-away? Simple. If you want bloggers to cover your companies, treat us with respect. Consider what it is that we need to get out of a story and deliver us news that in some way accommodates those needs. Let us break the news (Mashable probably won’t anyway unless it’s a big story) or at least give us an angle that no one else is covering that relates to our topic specifically. Get the CEO on the phone with us ahead of the embargo so that we have something unique to say. Give us time to write something good and give us something that is interesting to our readers. Help us get what we need and we’ll help you…

Treat us like a public urinal and you’ll end up smelling funny yourself, after all it’s only fair that we give as good as we get. Deal?

In 2002 Dr. Tom van Flandern, a PhD in Astronomy and formerly the Chief of the Celestial Mechanics Branch of the Nautical Almanac Office and the US Naval Observatory, gave a lecture that sent shockwaves through the field of astronomy ripples of controversy created by this lecture continue right up through today. Rarely do people with credentials such as Dr. Van Flandern’s, who come from typically conservative fields such as the science of astronomy, make strong personal statements about their beliefs, especially when those beliefs are diametrically opposed to that held by the majority of such an individual’s contemporaries. Nevertheless, with his statement:

“The odds of the anomalous items imaged in the Cydonia region of Mars being of Natural Origin are one thousand billion, billion to one against this theory. In other words, the possibility that these objects occurred naturally has been ruled out beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

that is exactly what Dr. Van Flandern did.

Here is the three part lecture where Dr Van Flandern makes this statement and brings to our attention many other previously unpublicized features of the Martian surface that may surprise, bewilder, shock or humble even the most skeptical of viewers. Please watch with an open mind. For additional revelations about Mars, please visit my friend J.P. Skippers amazing website Mars Anomaly Research for even more amazing images and insightful analysis of the hidden truth of our second nearest celestial neighbor.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

CNN is reporting that James Karl Buck, a graduate student from University of California-Berkeley was arrested while on the outskirts of a riot related to the rising food prices in Egypt when he was taken into custody by the Egyptian authorities.

Thinking fast, James, who had only become familiar with Twitter the previous week, twittered “Arrested” to his network. He figured, he said, that at least his network would have some idea of what happened to him and would make it less likely that he would simply disappear.

The power of this network was demonstrated by the fact that less than 24 hours later a subsequent one-word tweet informed his friends of his new status: “Freedom”.

His friend and interpreter, Mohammed Maree, was not so fortunate and as of this date his friends and family as well as a determined Mr. Buck have been unable to determine his whereabouts.

As the world gets smaller, the power of these networks increases every day. If this isn’t evidence of that I don’t know what it.

We all have a website that at times feels like the bane of our existence.  In my case that site happens to be Southwest Airlines.  Personally, I feel that it suffers from some uniquely bad work flow engineering and if you have used the site at all, let alone as many times as I have had to use it I’m sure you can relate.

So, just what makes it so atrocious?  The first page is actually okay.  You can find what you want quickly and efficiently so the demerits don’t start there. It’s when you’ve actually picked out a flight that you want to purchase where the user experience utterly collapses.  Let me explain.

First, there is no intelligence built into the page at all.  If there’s a field that requires data, you better enter the requested data.  Forget something and your transaction will fail.  Okay, I admit, this isn’t all that unusual and if I’m too careless to enter in the requested data my transaction should fail, right?

But then, when it does fail (and let me assure you, it is inevitable when you are late for a flight, or running out of battery power that you will miss some tiny field that Southwest demands you  fill such as whether your address is your home or office) you can’t simply click the back button and enter the missing data.  Ohh noo.  That would be too simple and easy.  Instead you get to start from scratch and re-enter every bit of data that you’d just entered previously - and of course now that you are annoyed and later than ever your chances of missing some other field or even entering the data in a field but not making sure it stayed entered is going to go up exponentially and if you blow it again - guess what - you get to try for the third time, or the forth, or the ninth… until you get it right.  There are plenty of second chances with this site it just that they all start from zero.

Better still while the site won’t leave the fields that you entered populated with the data, the cookies the site keeps will hold whatever you entered for eternity.  Of course God forbid you entered the wrong thing because it will still be there too just waiting to jinx you when you’re in a hurry.

It’s secure too. I mean how many sites do you use frequently that won’t permit you to store a profile on line to make you life easier, but insist on cookieing your credit card number so that anyone that uses your computer can buy themselves a trip on Southwest courtesy of your bank account?  It’s stupid but that’s the way it works.

I have to wonder if the execs at Southwest have ever tried to use their website?  If they did have they ever gone back?  Did it not occur to anyone there that the most valuable travelers they have are the ones that fly often and that we might not want to enter the same stupid information every single time we use their site?  (let alone enter it half a dozen times until the darn transaction actually processes) I swear, if I have to continue to fill out this ludicrous page I’m going to start paying the extra fifty bucks to fly United or American and consider it an anti-frustration tax - and one that is probably well worth paying.

After all, if a company like Southwest doesn’t care enough about people like me that fly often enough to be bothered by this bad design to actually improve upon it, perhaps they don’t deserve my business in the first place.  Honestly, I’d like to know why they think the current set-up is okay, why they cookie my credit card number but won’t keep the fields populated for thirty seconds so I don’t have to re-enter everything, and why, by God, they don’t simply let me store a “traveler’s profile” so that I don’t have to enter the data again, ever???

Please, someone from Southwest, get back to me with some answers.  I’ll be easy to spot…I’ll be the guy sitting in the airport lounge - most likely at LAX - looking apoplectic and pounding away on my laptop as if there’s something on the keyboard I want to kill.  There is; it’s your website. Please fix it.  Soon.

If you can’t play with your toys properly, they get taken away.  That’s the clear lesson we should all learn from the recent idiocy in Australia where it seems a few folks with IQ’s at least a standard deviation below the mean got a hold of a couple of green lasers and had their fun by pointing them at passing aircraft.

Reuter’s Oddly Enough reports that unidentified hooligans - I’d suggest the term MORONS if you ask me - decided that aiming laser pointers at aircraft was a good way to pass the time.  After several pilots reported beams entering the cockpits of their planes during landing and takeoff maneuvers  and one air ambulance helicopter reported being briefly blinded in flight the Australian authorities have had enough.

Now, merely carrying a laser pointer without the appropriate permits can result in a 14 year (yes, that is ten plus four years) in prison time for a first offense.

Thanks a lot guys.  Your brilliance has done wonders for your fellow man.  Of course the Australian authorities who think that merely carrying a laser pointer is a capital offense need to come to a big US state prison facility and see the kind of folks we lock up.  The guys with the laser pointers can just spend a week here and that would teach them quick enough.  I guarantee it.  Don’t you have enough crime over there in Australia to make it ludicrous to house someone and feed them at taxpayers expense for nearly a decade and a half all for carring a battery powered lightstick?  For crying out loud, we’re not even talking about pointing them at places, just carrying the darn things.  What’s next?  Putting people with glo-sticks on a chain gang?

Nice job, morons!  Nice response moronic authorities…

Editor’s note: Growing up my grand-dad had a feedlot in Greeley, Colorado. This short fiction is based upon events related to that property.

Greeley

The two men leaned against the fence staring silently over the long shadows of the corn as another September day waned gently into dusk.

After a bit one of the two pushed himself away from the fence and strode to his car, a non-descript oversized four door American sedan, a throwback to days when gas was $0.69 cents a gallon, not the $1.75 it had jumped to in the past year.

The man walked around to the rear of the vehicle and the creak of the trunk’s hinges, testifying to a disdain the man had for maintaining that particular vehicle, broke the songs of the meadowlarks in the cornfield.  In the stead of their warble another sound, the soft rustle of ice could be heard  as the man fished around in a cooler that was stored in the trunk. The hinges whined again, more pitifully this time, as the trunk  was closed with a hollow “thunk’ and a click as the lock sprung back into place.

The man walked back around the car, returning to his station along the fence. Holding one beer in the crook of his arm he cracked the can open and solemnly, almost as if it was a ritual offering, handed the first beer to his companion. Then with equal care he opened his own can, deliberately lifted it to his lips and drank deep. He did not hurry.

Then, balancing the remainder of the beer atop the flat stub of a fencepost he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, adjusted his cap so that it further hid his eyes in shadow, and drew in a long slow breath.
“Yeah. Chelsea was never the same after that, he began. It was one of those farm accidents you hear about. Story goes he was working in the field pulling the discus with the tractor- something jammed I hear tell. Said he climbed down from the tractor and could see whatever it was jammed up inside the discus so he used the hydraulics to raise the the works up a bit and had got himself up underneath the whole darn mess.”

“Seems he was yankin’ on whatever it was jamming things up when whatever it was came loose. Trouble was ,it took with it the hydraulic hose that was keeping the discus raised up and the whole damn thing came down on’em.”

“T” tell you the truth, he was lucky - it could have sliced him into little pieces; instead it just sliced into his shoulder - yeah it’s true - sliced into it like you’d slice into a drumstick you wanted to separate from a thigh - but that’s better than getting sliced through the neck or the back or both legs I reckon.”

“Anyways he was lucky twice for being stupid. You know what they say about fools, drunks and children… he coulda been pinned neath it all night. Wouldn’t of mattered if he’d been able to holler till he died from losing all that blood.”

The man fell silent - imagining perhaps the scene he was describing.  Wondering if he would have given up or screamed and screamed and screamed… after a few moments, he went on.

“That no good 500 pound wife of his can’t even get out of her own chair without help, let alone go out inna the fields to see what the noise was about. No sir. He could have screamed til he died with her in the next room and had no help - none a’tall”

“Ray, the other ranch hand forgot his thermos. That’s what saved him. He come back fer it, and noticed that the quonset hut was still open and that the tractor was out. He thought that Jackie’s kids might of come down and been messing with things like they did time to time but then he saw it settin there in the field with the sun goin down and it didn’t look right”.

“That’s what he said, he said it didn’t look right. So he went over to check it out - ta see what why it was laid up just so and when he got close first thing he noticed was a big cloud of flies like something was dead. Damned peculiar he told me…”

“Then that big black and white mutt that only Chelsea could come near stands up in between Ray and the tractor and growls real low and mean like. “Like he meant business” was how Ray put it.”

The other man leaned forward against the fence, cradling his beer in both hands, his head turned to focus his attention on the first man. Like his companion, his eyes were deep in the shadow cast by the wide brim of his hat - a straw cowboy hat that was stained dark from more then one day’s honest labor. The orange-red sun came through the weave of the hat in a pattern leaving a cross-hatch shadow across the lower half of his face, like some sort of weird transparent bandanna used to conceal the features with just the barest hint of the whites of two eyes peering out from the darkness above.

“it’s a good thing we still carry guns out in these parts”

“Yup. Ray said the same. Shot that summbitch right between the eyes - nothing else he could do I reckon. He said he felt bad about it later but as he figured, it was the dog or it was him, never mind Chelsea - he hadn’t even got up close enough to the tractor to get an eyeful of that mess yet…”

“Was bad I hear.”
“Yup. Ray said that too. Said Chelsea was out when he walked up. Said he thought he was dead. Said there was so much blood on the ground - he told me he didn’t know a man had that much blood in’em - told me no way he thought a person could have that much blood drain out and still pull through.”

“From the way Ray tells it he was going to walk back to the office and call the police to pick up the body; he wasn’t even going to touch it, says he can’t stomach the sight of blood and he’s something mighty averse to touching something dead - even if that something was someone he knew. But then he said he got this feeling like he needed to do something - to say something - like something was missing or needed to be put to rights before he left him there.”

“It’s damn weird. You know I’m not a spiritual man, haven’t seen the inside of a church since the day I got married - can you blame me all the favors that woman has done me over the years - no I’m not spirtual t’all but I think that was the spirit talking or something akin to it.”

“Anyways, Ray says to me - I felt like I had to do something - compelled to do something but I didn’t want to touch him you understand - I didn’t want to touch him something fierce. Finally, I pulled my gun out from my belt - it was still warm from shootin’ the dog - I pulled it out and I put the barrel under his chin and kinda lifted it…”

“Nearly blew his head off too is what Ray tells me. Said he was lifting his chin up the guy opens his eyes. ” “Damn good thing I had the sense put that safety back on after - otherwise his problems woulda been over and mine would just been getting started. I closed my finger on the trigger hard - scared the crap outta me it did when he opened his eyes.” Is what he said.

“It woulda scared me too. Woulda gave me nightmares for ages what it woulda done.”

“That’s what Ray said it done did to him too. Said he still couldn’t sleep a night without thinking about it. Figures it’d be the only man in town with two different colored eyes - same as that damn dog of his that Ray shot. Ray said he never noticed if afore that moment. He said first thing came into his mind was that he was seeing the devil up close and personal-like. Said it was closest he’d been to peeing hisself, said it made him want to go back to church.”

“Did he?”

“Did who?”

“Ray.”

“Did Ray what?”
“Go back to church? I mean before today? Did Ray ever go back to church before today?”

“Not that I can recall. Maybe for a wedding or a funeral but I don’t think in the end it changed him much. Aside from more nights up watching the television til the sun come up.”

“So what do ya reckon they’ll do with the farm now?”

“That’s the question, ain’t it? That’s the $25,000 question.”  The man sighed heavily.  “I seen that crook of a developer pokin’ his head around a few times and I seen that sneak they call “Stevie” out here too. Wish the lot of them would stay back in the city far as I’m concerned. They’re gonna fill her head with nonsense and she won’t listen to reason what I figure is gonna happen.”

“They’re all in it for theirselves ain’t they?”

“Well, we all are - but some folks can be in it for theirself and not take advantage of nobody else neither but not those city people. They’re all the same near as I can tell. Like rats worried someone else got a bigger piece of cheese.”

“Hell. In the end don’t matter anyway. We all end up in the same ground under the same sky with someone rememberin’ us in ways we maybe wish they wouldn’t. Far as I’m concerned you do your best, you don’t take unfair advantage, you put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wages  and you treat folks with respect. You keep your word when you give it and you hope for the best.” The man said that last softly - it came out but barely as a whisper.

His friend couldn’t tell what he was thinking - the man’s face was a blank mask under the hat in the waning light.  Finally, the other man, the one in the cowboy hat turned towards his friend and said  “Yeah, Joe. I know. I’ll miss him too.”

Hey, everyone. This is a bit of a non-typical post but I figured I might as well reach out to my community of readers since reaching out to some other folks (like Engadget and Gizmodo and CNet and Expert Village and the bloggers from B5 Media and others ) didn’t result in any responses…

Basically, I have a client that is interested in republishing your “how to” content as well as an good “tips and tricks” or “did you know” sort of information that you may have published previously but would like to monetize again.

Here are the details:

OPPORTUNITY FEE: $10 to $15 per post.
MyThings, Inc. is offering cash for your archived or newly created content (archived content is preferred). Additionally, MyThings is offering bloggers significant awareness of content to its member base and web traffic.

REQUIREMENTS
- Must provide a practical and useful tip for a product (laptop, digital camera, dishwasher, etc.) in one of the following categories: Mobile, Laptop, Desktop, Mac/PC, Digital Camera, Appliances, Home Theatre, Car Accessories, Gaming Consoles or Sporting Goods.
- MyThings prefers practical, useful and fun posts. We are looking for “Tips and Tricks”, “Do It Yourself” and/or “How To” type content. The more practical ‘Tip’, the better it is.
- Must send post (link) or e-mail to contentmgr@mythings.com

BACKGROUND:
MyThings.com is a fast growing global company (headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, with offices in London and Tel-Aviv). MyThings helps consumers organize and manage all the possessions they value most. With one click, MyThings allows consumers to save details of an online purchase. Our web service is highly engaging, interactive, and free. Our members return frequently to access relevant information and services of things they own.

To keep members coming back, MyThings has started a content section of interesting tips… connecting consumers to useful and fun content about their things. We are looking for posts that specifically relate to “tips and tricks”, “do it yourself” and “how to” type content. For example, after a member registers her dishwasher on MyThings, we’ll provide practical and fun tips such as: how to use your dishwasher to poach salmon, wash keyboards, or clean hats. When she registers her digital camera, she’ll get a tip that twisting her feet in photos will make her look thinner. When she buys a microwave, she’ll get a tip that microwaving a lemon in water to clean stuck-on dirt. Our members aren’t interested in an elaborate hacks for their GPS, but they will care if mounting their new navigation system a certain way may attracts thieves… or how to use their GPS to avoid speeding tickets. The criteria for content we are looking for is less cutting edge and technical… more simple and useful.

NOTE: We are happy to re-use old content, if it meets our criteria.
For more information, pls contact contentmgr@mythings.com

So, if you have any content of this sort that you’d like to contribute for a fee, either get in touch with me directly or contact MyThings at the email address above.

It’s no surprise that half a dozen people sent me a link the Matt Richtel’s New York Times Article (login required) about the stresses of blogging and the toll it takes on one’s health. To his credit, Matt did attempt to reach me, however phone tag and deadlines precluded our having a discussion save the one we had with one another’s answering machines.

It’s too bad. I would have added a certain amount of balance to his story - balance that I think, in the grand scheme of things was badly needed. Why? Because much as people would like to blame blogging and the strains and stresses therefrom as the culprit’s behind Om Malik’s heart attack, Russel Shaw’s fatal heat attack, or even the death (again due to heart attack) of my dear friend, Marc Orchant.

In all three cases, as well as several other examples, blogging was implicated as a singular stressor that in and of itself was responsible for everything from Mike Arrington’s 30 pound weight gain and sleeping disorder to Marc’s cardiac arrest early one December morning. The thing is, we’re talking about a couple of instances out of a group that now numbers well into the millions.

If you look on Technorati or Bloglines, or Google Reader, you can see that there are literally hundreds of millions of blogs. This means at a minimum there are millions of bloggers - so even if only a very small percentage of them blog seriously, it’s still a big number. A big enough number, in fact, that it is likely to statistically mirror the greater population at large. This means, that, as in any large group, there are going to be a few people that pass away and some of those or likely to pass from heart attacks as they are among the biggest killers of mature men and women in the US.

Personally, I see this less as a statistic that relates to blogging and more one that relates to pre-emptive care, regular checkups and healthy living. I know/knew all three individuals (four if you count Arrington) that were the subjects of the New York Times article and I can tell you with certainty that it wasn’t the blogging that these individuals did that resulted in their particular personal crises.

Marc, it turned out was suffering from about a 75% occlusion of the major arteries feeding his heart. 75%! It is amazing in retrospect that he was so energetic and robust and the sad part is that had this man, who was so concerned about being on top of so many aspects of his own life had taken a couple hours out of that busy schedule to get a regular check up his doctor would have almost certainly discovered this health emergency and ordered immediate action to prevent what was, ultimately, the inevitable outcome of this condition left untreated.

In Marc’s case I do believe that stress - but not stress directly from blogging - was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Namely that Marc was growing progressively more distraught over the games that Sam Sethi was playing with Marc’s money - that is the money Sam was contractually obligated to pay Marc and which he had lied about having, had lied about raising from investors, and had lied to us when he said it was already in the bank; which was, in both Marc’s case and my own, one of the main inducements to join his company.

My association with Marc was only for the last two years but in that time we spent a tremendous amount of time together. To understand Marc’s demeanor, the easiest way to explain it (at least to those that know me) would be to say imagine me, now imagine someone exactly the opposite. I used to say before big meetings that my job was to make people nervous while Marc’s was to calm them back down. It seemed to work well.

My point is that Marc was as even tempered as I am mercurial. The guy was quintessentially cool headed in the way that great martial artists are cool headed. He was the rock for a lot of people, myself included. Thus, during my last visit, seeing him lose his temper a couple of times over just a few days - and over traffic of all things - was quite surprising and said to me “wow - this guy is under a lot of stress. Since I’ve already said it several times I won’t bother to say again just what that stress was…

As for Om, I don’t know him the way I knew Marc, but I knew his reputation and I think it was obvious to a lot of people that physical fitness wasn’t at the top of his list of priority items. In fact, I think this holds true for all the folks mentioned in the New York Times piece. This problem is not the sole providence of bloggers. It should be a wake up call to anyone, though, who spends 8 to 10 hours in front of a computer, takes the elevator down 3 floors to the garage, hops in their car, hits the drive through on the way how and then spends three hours wearing the hair off the back of their head kicking back in their Lazy Boy before toddling off to bed with a bowl of ice-cream.

Seriously. This is not a blogging issue; this is an America is going soft issue - and I’m sure that the rate of serious health emergencies is just as bad or even worse across many professions. Moreover, while there are times when bloggers work odd hours there are very, very few that force upon themselves the sort of self-flagellation that characterized Mike Arrington’s early TechCrunch efforts let alone the lifestyle attributed to Matt Buchanen.

At the end of the day, the deaths of Marc and Russell and the near death of Om Malik are personal tragedies comprised of equal parts lack of concern for one’s health and the misfortune of a deadly genetic predisposition, they are not, as the article in the Times postulates, occupational hazards. In other words, I don’t blame blogging one bit for Marc’s death, however, Sam Sethi is another story…

Have you ever been THIS BRAVE? I haven’t.