Thanks Mr. Parmet, for the link yesterday. I'll have to step it up here in the event someone may actually be reading...

I've been around in the blogesphere for about 10 years (yikes!) but static for a big chunk of time due to various evolving demands of my job. It's fun to be back and see how the tools have changed.

I used to be a Bravenet component girl but I thought I'd try this Blogger service and see how evolved the arena has become. It's ok...the html publishing format is nice, but over the next few weeks I may try to Pimp My Page because there are number of features they are missing here - starting with a "click" counter or a visitor tracking system. It's nice to be able to track the people who flame your comments section or just see who's reading. I'm a big fan of checking ISP addresses.

And that brings me to something I've been thinking about this week: the online medium is seeing a lot of traditional branding tactics transcending into this medium. Online stunts - such as the narnia rap battle (nice effort guys - hope it gets you PAID and off of free video sites) and "flaming" (ripping on established "online" stars to establish yourself and build a following)- are two tactics that I'm seeing more and more. The latter really ticks me off. I call that "hijacking celebrity for celebrity." It's an old O'Reilly tactic. Bill O'Reilly jacked up his viewership numbers when he attacked George Clooney on his show. Right now, desperate vloggers are flaming one of my favorite vloggers, Bowiechick.

At least O'Reilly was man enough to attack someone without hiding under the cloak of anonymity, like a lot of online flamers do. It's certainly easy to attack people online from the safety of a basement and an anonymous username miles away. That's one of the downsides of the Internet.

That said, I love that bloggers and vloggers like Bowiechick have the moxie to keep putting themselves out here in the public online forum.

My life would certainly be a lot more boring without them.