The (Business) World Takes Notice

The Business Week column Blogspotting has a column this week about the plight of the AOL Journaler. It covers the banner ads situation and the problems inherent in moving, including a link to our own Steven on that subject.

In other news, Jimmy, the "Stupid Sheet Guy," spent part of this week trying to defuse the tension with humor. One night it was a fun, tongue-in-cheek movie equating AOL with the Evil Empire, and the next it was a few pages of parody ads. Apparently a couple of journalers with an axe to grind reported him to TOS for this, and AOL came down on Jimmy, hard. It's a damn shame. You could say that there might be copright infringement involved, but ever since the MAD Magazine vs. Irving Berlin lawsuit decades ago, parody has been considered mostly exempt from such claims. If Jay Leno held Jimmy's creations up to the camera, there would not have been a problem, but Jimmy lacks that kind of clout.

Interesting that AOL (save for sacrificial lambs Joe and John) can't be bothered to say anything to its broken-hearted journaling community, except to make things even worse for someone who tried *not* to leave AOL, and to highlight the situation with satire.

Oh, one more thing. Journals Editor Joe did his own blog picks this week, for obvious reasons. One of them is The History of Theodore Barnes by Nelson Pierce. I've been reading Hannah's journal for a week or two, and it's absolutely the best writing I've seen from someone her age. (She's a high school senior, but only 16, I think.) She won't be leaving AOL because of "parental unit" considerations, and is well worth reading. So read!

I'll probably be back late tonight with another entry. I've got videos to watch and return, and my dinner's long-since grown cold!

Karen