Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Over there

I just posted a couple of long pieces over at IT Garage: The Federated Case, and So using somebody's Wi-Fi at the curb is like pissing in their flowers?

Journalism .01

Dig the headline Mary spotted in our local paper when she was down here.

Also the blowback on Doonesbury's Sunday slam against bloggers in general.

The burden of loyalty

I'm here with my accountant, who notes that I can renew my Wall Street Journal print edition subscription for $231.66 per year (no more multi-year discounts offered), while a promotional mailing from the WSJ says I can get 60 weeks for $178.

When I go online with a different browser (where there are no cookies to identify me), it gives me an offer of $32 for 3 months. That comes to $128/year. Ah, the person on the phone says: that's for students (though the offer doesn't say that, far as I can tell). I check again. This time I don't get that offer, but another one: $215 for 52 weeks. This is starting to look like air travel, where 50 passengers pay 50 different fares.

So we go with the 60 weeks for $178, and let the long-standing existing subscription run out. While double copies of the paper pile up as they try to get me to renew, no doubt.

Is Boeing being boering?

Earl Mardle thinks this Boeing blog is blah:

The actual workers are hamstring into boredom and I find the whole thing audience free...

I'd love to know just who Boeing thinks its talking to and why they would login. And the reason I'm so critical is because I've seen how it can be. Have a look at the Butler Sheetmetal blog, called Tinbashers. This is a great business blog. It is written by people passionate about their work, about their lives and about business in general. Get a load of this post called Peanuts & Monkeys. Its clear, its smart and its deadly honest.

Good points (including those in the paragraphs that follow). I'd never heard of Tinbasher, and it's strong stuff. But back to the two remaining aircraft manufacturing giants, because that's a very big context here.

Interesting to look up blog at the Boeing site. There's Randy's Journal, by Randy Baseler, the company's VP Marketing. Nothing comes up for "weblog". A search for "journal" brings up Randy's blog and the Flight Test Journal.

Not much, but searches for those terms on the Airbus site bring up nada.

Business Blog Consulting has been following Randy's blog, and has good things to say about it.

Same with Jeremy Zawodny, a fellow aviation buff who found himself "sucked into some excellent reading" about the 777's flight testing at Edwards. And hey, I'm a 777 fan. It's my favorite commercial airplane. (So far. I'm looking forward to the new 787.) Most of the best aerial photos archived here were taken from a 777.

It's clear Boeing is hardly as open to blogging as its neighbor in Redmond — yet. But it's off to a worthy, if cautious, start. And Airbus (to my knowledge) has squat.

I'd like to see a blog vs. blog contest between Boeing and Airbus. Betcha that would result in more sales for the company that has the most employees blogging.

Bonus link: Thirty Thousand Feet - Aviation Blogs and Podcasts. Quite a trove.