Thank you to everyone who has stopped by to read or comment. 2007 has been a fascinating year, thank you to everyone who's made it fun.
Will be back here on 2008 :) Happy Holidays, and have a fantastic 2008.
Blogference - Update
The first panel was mainly focused on blogging in the political sphere. One interesting case study was leveraging blogging to promote a nation's public image. David Saranga, the Consul for Media and Public Affairs has opened an official blog called "IsRealli". This blog aims to present news and facts about Israel that the mass media doesn't cover, or in other words - this blogs tries to provide wider information about Israel and change the current negative public image Israel has in the eyes of the world.
David said this was the first official blog of a country (cool!). IMO this is a blessed initiative however the execution is somewhat naive... It should be way more provocative to generate traffic and web awareness. Maybe they should hire marketers? Ahm... ;)
Klonies For Adults? -Yes!
I was reading some very interesting bloggers' opinions about the Klonies service at Skype by Jean Mercier and by Phil Wolff and wanted to answer both. As my comment was becoming longer and longer, I decided to post it here and offer a bonus - Klonies pics!
Before actually addressing the points raised by both Jean and Phil, let me provide some background info for those of you who are not familiar with Klonies; Klonies are a new service of personalized Avatars by the mobile solutions provider Comverse, that enables the creation of Avatars from a big content library of body types, eyes, hairstyles, hats, glasses, moods, clothes, branded accessories, etc., which can be used in traditional web forums, as well as to extend this experience to the mobile arena. Comverse has created a mobile Caller ID service, by which a user can create his Klonie either on the Web or on his mobile handset. Klonies let youth segment do something they could never even dream of doing before: create expressive avatars that represent them on other people’s phones. Klonies give the users extended means for self expression: they define how they are seen by their friends, on their phones.
Both Jean and Phil talk about the workplace and the adult Skype users segment; both raise a certain feeling of discomfort with the young looks of the Klonies; this feeling is associated to the older users (of Skype and in general).
As a member of the Klonies team at Comverse, let me share some insights: at a trial we had at a European TIER 1 mobile operator a few months ago, we received very enthusiastic responses from young adults (19-24) and adults (25 and up) participating the trial. Both young adults and adults participants replied that they find the Klonies content to be appealing and fun to use and that they would be willing to pay for this mobile service.
As for the Klonies looks, yes, Klonies are good looking and juvenile, as they are primarily targeted to the youth mobile market. Klonies are good looking as they are our alter ego, our “wanna be web\mobile persona”. Klonies are also means for playing with our identity. Over the web we can “try” different characteristics as if they were different outfits (or costumes), we can express hidden parts of our personality that we don’t expose in daily life, such as our desires.
As for "rugged", "mature", "experienced", "damaged", “fat” avatars, the question is who would want to have his exact body shape and look to be his\her web representation? Imagine yourself this situation: I’m a very cool teenager but my face is all covered with pimples. Would I want my avatar to be polka dotted as well? -of course not! Would I want to have a button that adds zits to my avatar’s face? -no!! Nobody thinks zits are a good way to promote yourself. We all prefer to show an improved image of ourselves. If an “add a zit" option exists in the avatars building studio, and I’d deny its existence because I want my avatar to look cool and hip (who wouldn’t?!), my friends would say I’m lying about the way I look. The bottom line is that no button that adds flaws is welcome in avatars world. Better not have this possibility\option.
And last note about the Klonies looks - we are working on different skeletons to address different market tastes:
Also, different cultures have different conventions of how to present our body and how to pose:
Thanks Jean or sharing your thoughs and Thanks Phil for raising great ideas (I tried to reply to all of them at the comments section).
The Friday Feed
Hi all,
I wanted to let you know that my dear friends, Nick Wright, Savka Andic and Jan Kuczynski from mobileYouth (part of the Wireless World Forum) have a new blog called The Friday Feed.
At 3GSM, the World Forum Research team recorded a series of podcast interviews with a wide mix of attendees. One of them was my colleague, Tal Dagan, which was interviewed about the Klonies.
If you're interested, you can listen to Tal's podcast here. Also there are a lot of other interesitng podcast so head over and pay a visit at The Friday Feed.
Enjoy!
I've Been Tagged - Five Things About Me
I was first tagged by Tom sometime last year with “Four things you didn’t know about me”, and now I got tagged once again by my beloved Mobile Diva, this time with 5 things! I guess the next round will be 6 things and so on… :)
So here I go with 5 things you didn’t know about me:
- I use glasses since I was about 3 years old. Since I turned 14 I started using contact lenses. I
put them on the minute I wake up and wear them until I go to sleep. Sometimes I even forget I’m “4-eyed”… - I’m very short! My height is (only) 1.52m (and I weight 47 kg). I was always the shortest girl in class so I always got to sit the closest to the teachers in the front row.
- Even though #2, when I was 21, during a family vacation in Mexico, I was offered to model for a chewing gum campaign. I refused since I had to get back to Israel on time for the beginning of my first year of university… (After reading Darla’s story about the Vaseline on the teeth I guess I made a smart choice).
- My dad is a dentist, so I got lots of opportunities to get my smile featured on his clinic’s walls ;-)
- I have a dream of living (and working) abroad (only for a few years), most desired place is Spain - but I’m sure that other locations might do the trick as well.
Well, I tag the following friends (hope you haven't already got tagged): Jan Kuczynski, Nick Wright, Martin Sauter, Russell Buckley and Emily Turrettini (even though I never got to speak with Emily). Enrique, you were one of my natural candidates but I saw you've already been tagged :)
Update: I'm tagging Georgie as well! :)
Happy Holidays
Hi everyone,
Have a Safe and Happy Holiday Season, and best wishes for a wonderful New Year!
And a personal note - Happy Birthday Dad! :)
Vote for Being Five
My friend George Sfarnas, who was interviewed here not so long ago, just told me that Being Five has been chosen as a finalist in The 2006 Weblog Awards, under the category of Best Comic Strip. Way to go!!
If you wish to help sweet Georgie win this, click here to vote daily for Being Five, till Dec. 15 2006.
Thank you :)
Introducing Comic-Blogging: Interview with George Sfarnas of Being Five
As a visual communication fan, I really like how blogging has been taking some interesting directions into different means of communication, like posting pictures, videos, ads..., other than plain writing. About a month ago, NRG, one of the Israeli web portals, brought a coverage of geek\techie comic strips (*note: the post is in Hebrew yet you can still follow the links for the comics). I followed the links and found out that almost all of them use blogging platforms as their publishing tool. Apparently blogging has turned to be a great vehicle to convey comic strips as well.
A little more investigation around the web brought up Being Five, a cool blog strip about a five years old boy who blogs using voice recognition software, by the cartoonist George Sfarnas. What I really liked about this strip (besides sweet Georgie) is the artistic decision of having two visual medias, blogging and drawing\illustrating, interlaced one inside the other. Sfarnas created something way more ingenious than two medias one inside the other: he writes a blog (1) where he posts comic strips (2) about a boy who blogs (3) using a visual face recognition (since a 5-yrs boy can't write). In other words, it’s visual blogging (through the innocent eyes of a child) inside a comic strip inside a blog. We get meta-blogging, a blog about blogging!
So, I decided to ask George a few questions about comic-blogging and other things. Here is our email interview:
Getting To Know George
Who inspires you artistically?
Honestly, I'm inspired every day by cartoon art I see. Maybe on a cereal box at the store, or on a billboard, or the net, wherever I see cartooning that catches my eye, it inspires me.
How do you define your art?
Simple drawings that tell a story.
What brought you into the world of comics?
I enjoy the freedom of doing a comic strip. It's like shooting a little movie without having to raise a budget or hire a crew. It's all at the end of my pencil.
Other hobbies, fields of interest?
I just like to draw comics all the time, I'm pretty boring that way.
3 birthday wishes?
1) Another birthday next year.
2) Hope someone remembers my Birthday
3) World peace, of course :)
Comic-Blogging
When did you start blogging?
When I debuted Being Five in April of this year. I find the blogging community is pretty cool as a whole. There are a lot of well written, interesting blogs out there...like yours :)
Why did you choose a blog to be the stage for your art?
The main character in Being Five, Georgie, has a lot to say, like most five year olds, so I thought it would be funny if he could share his thoughts with the world. Blogging was his vehicle.
What apps\ software do you use to draw your comic strips?
I first draw on paper with pencil, then I scan the drawings onto the computer and do my inking and coloring with a software program called Xara. I used to ink by hand but now I enjoy doing it on the computer. A lot of clicking but no messy spills.
How long does it take to draw a strip?
About 4 hours, more or less.
How\Where do you get ideas for your posts\strips?
Sometime it's topical, what would Georgie say about this or that. And sometime I just doodle and draw funny facial expressions, or poses, and then something comes to mind.
What can you say about the balance between text and illustrations?
I like them to compliment each other. In some strips the picture says enough and sometime it's the dialogue. It's just something I try to do by feel.
Why does the story line always contain 3 frames?
3 frames seem to work well for Being Five. Georgie sets it up in the first frame, then he thinks it over in the second, then he delivers in the third. I drew a comic strip, called Prune Juice, for several years and 4 frames worked well for that strip because there were usually two or more people interacting, as apposed to Georgie working as a solo act.
What is the hardest part in the process of making a comic strip?
Well, like Charlie Chaplin once said, thinking is the hardest part. But I can honestly tell you that I enjoy each stage of the process.
Why did you choose blogging as the media that Georgie uses to share his thoughts with the world?
Georgie thinks of "the blog" as his friend. He's not thinking about the prospect of people reading it from around the world. It's just his friend that he hangs out with. Kind of like talking to a stuffed animal.
Getting to Know Sweet Georgie
I read that your 5 year old boy is the inspiration for the character of Georgie. Do you feel that Georgie will grow up as your 5 year old does? Will his front tooth eventually grow? ;-)
It is true that my son was the inspiration for Being Five. The stories and explanations he tells me are so full of energy and life that I wanted to capture it in this comic strip. The character, Georgie, will remain in a magical time warp of being five for as long as I continue the strip. I think the last Being Five strip will be Georgie's sixth birthday, whenever that will be.
Is Georgie a hidden side in you?
I can remember my childhood really well, so I like to go there in my mind and remember the fun stuff. In that respect Georgie is a reflection of me.
What did Georgie get for Christmas?
His cell phone, so he can blog on location.
3 birthday wishes?
1) That he can marry his neighbor, Becky.
2) That his dog Charlie learns to catch a frisbee
3) That his Grandmother stops leaving comments on his blog.
Thank you George for having this interview :) If you have more questions for George, you can leave a comment. And, for more of 5 years old Georgie, head up to Being Five. Enjoy!! :)
Happy New Year - Shana Tova
Happy new (Hebrew) year everyone!
To see this sweet animated greeting you can use this link: http://192.118.48.66
:)
Xen
WP: Monetizing The Blogroll
Jeff Burkett reports that a new, experimental Sponsored Blogroll Service was announced by the Washington Post:
"A very small number of blogs enjoy hundreds and hundreds of inbound links - the A-list, as it were. But almost all others have very few sites pointing to them.
Basically, all of the B-list and C-list bloggers (who may well be very talented) link to the A-list blogs in hope of getting noticed. All this accomplishes is making the A-listers more powerful, while the B's and C's stay where they are. It is very hard to break through the clutter, as many of you know.
Some bloggers are open to putting advertising on their site, so why not strike deals with them and help them do that. The revenue gets shared (in the bloggers favor of course) and we throw in one additional component... A link to their blog on the homepage of washingtonpost.com. With the potential of 8 Million monthly visitors seeing this link, it could very well be the catalyst that them noticed.
Admittedly, right now the index box is a little small and may not be in the most prominent position on the page. Okay, so its definitely in the ghetto position, but its a start. If the blogosphere embraces this and we see a lot of interest from quality blogs we will grow the size of the index and give it better positioning on the page. We'll just have to wait and see."
[via Media Landscaping]
Besides being a great way to tighten relations between the WP and bloggers, the WP Blogroll actually helps the newspaper to put a foot in the door of bloggers' balance of power; a balance that was being kept by the blogsphere among itself until now. I wonder how will quoting a price tag for a link (i.e. for being featured in a blogroll) will affect bloggers' link exchange policies and interactions... If a newpaper with ~8M views per month can set a price tag, why can't other A-listers do just the same?
Please Update Your Feed Subscription
Hi everyone,
Finally I made a little time to do something that I wanted to do for quite a long time... I spent a few hours to work on the blog. One thing I really wanted to is to have a single feed so I could know how many readers I have in total and not divided by different types of feeds (atom + rss). So I played around with FeedBurner and now my new feed is up. Please update your feed subscription using this feed: 
thanks!
Technorati Tags: feed, blogging, Xellular Identity
Some Info About My Readers
Acording to Microsoft's demographics, most of my readers are 18-24 males. BTW, Google is for the ladies, lol. Don't believe me? - check for yourselves :)
Technorati Tags: Microsoft adCenter Labs, demographics, blog readers
Not Feeling Good
I'm sorry that there were no posting during the last week. I was down with flu and I'm still not feeling 100%... My best friends for the last 5 days were Kleenex, cold showers and Dexamol Cold day & night (what a genius idea to provide a different dosage!). Hoping to get back to the human society very soon!
Reality? Check
"Klonies Blogging Idol" is still running... Causing the participants to nervously bite their nails not knowing who’s winning since many friends want to get the chance to try the blogging thing. For those of you who haven't heard about it, I'm looking for blogging talents among the Avatars Group, to get them blogging in our upcoming Klonies Blog. So let me introduce you to my fourth guest, Tom Sella, a dear friend of the group, a Klonies addict, a regular reader (I didn’t pay him to do so I swear) and a great blogger. Well, enough talkin’... Tom, knock ‘em down!
*******
Several years ago I had a couple of paperback Asimov’s Journal (after looking it up, I think it is Asimov’s Science Fiction zine) editions, or something to that effect. These were collections of short science fiction stories by (I think) both known and lesser-known authors.
One story that I particularly liked was one which, among other things, described a message answering holographic video phone, where your (today more commonly known as “avatar”) attendant would answer, and filter messages. Both the complexity of the system, and unsolicited messages (today more commonly known as “SPAM”), were described, where one would try to fool the other to reveal its true identity – the avatar as message filtering service instead of the targeted “live person”, and the message as SPAM, instead of something of importance to the “live person”.
This would seem to be more science than fiction these days, in so many aspects. To forego the subject of SPAM and SPAM filters, we are now making daily progress in manifesting and/or changing our personal representation. We do this in our instant messengers, e-mail, blogs, and when Klonies and SeeStorm have it their way, on our mobile phone.
How long would it take to bring us, our personal computers, and mobile phones, technology just as recently described as being used in movies, where one can come into the studio, and with no makeup and no special effects, appear 25 years his younger, or in fact, anything else? To judge from technologies brought forth by Logitech [videos here and here], combined with avatar technologies like Klonies, possibly not long at all.
As one Israeli child song goes, with a little twist “whomever stands behind in front of me, does not know who I am”.
P.s. if anyone can remind me of the author of the story, and where it may be found, I would be grateful.
Technorati Tags: tom sella, sciense fiction, avatars, mobile avatars, asimov, seestorm, klonies, logitech,
“Shooting People is Fine. Showing Bloody Brain Matter Splattering the Wall is Not.”
Hi everyone,
Let me introduce you to my second guest at my little "Klonies Bloggind Idol" effort to look for blogging talents in our group and get them blogging. Welcome Avner Ronen, the man who brought the Klonies to the world and he's also known as our "spiritual father" at the Avatars Group. Well, now let the genius man speak for himself :)
**********
the wsj had a story yesterday (subscription needed, sorry) of a preemptive move by Cingular and Verizon Wireless to prevent the FCC from starting to regulate mobile content. so in order to stop the regulator from getting involved, they came up with their own set of rules, which seem much more restrictive than what is applied to network television and broadcast radio.
Both carriers have draft policies that go into what types of content is decent enough to be accessible to their subscribers. they also list words/phrases that can not be used in ringtones. for example, according to Cingular’s new policy a ringtone can not include the following words (partial list…):
Ass - Balls - BJ - Breasts
Condom - Corn-hole - Fart - Fornicate
Fudge packing - Insemination - Laid - Lesbian
Masturbate - Naked - Nipples - Nutsack
Orgasm - Pee pee - Penis - Piss
Porn - Puberty - Ruby red bag - Scrotum
Semen - Sex - Shit - Sit on my face
Sixty-nine - Smegma - Teabagging - Testicles
Uncircumcised - Uterus
Verizon Wireless had an even more exhaustive list (with many terms i did not understand..)
it must have been interesting sitting in these meetings and debating whether to allow users to hear a ringtone that has words like “camel jockey” or “spank the monkey”. there must have been heated debates on the merits of each phrase.. now that’s the type of brainstorming i’d like to take part in. they probably brought in teenagers as experts on the subject matter, to make sure something like “poontang” does not escape their blacklist.
they go into further detail, defining what type of images may be displayed (”no nipple, no nipple covers, no nipple shadow…” - it seems they really investigated the nipple issue in this post wardrobe-malfunction world), what could be included in the name of the images (no “Bootylicious”), what names for ringtones (no “Grandma pregnant with uncle” ??), what type of video content (i thought the quote from the title of the post is great).
it seems like a very tough task, keeping up with all the indecencies around us. and how to cast a wide enough web to catch them all. Verizon Wireless tried to address the challenge by dividing the problematic content into categories such as “Lingerie - Female” and “Medium Short Rear Nude - Female”. For example, in the definition of “Medium Short Rear Nude - Female” it says that the image “can include a full rear view, but not with legs up or apart”.
i think this is INSANE and troubling. probably the best example you can get of why the carriers should not have such a level of control over the network. just to be clear, this is not talking about the content that the carrier publishes, but rather rules that will apply to ANY content provider that wants to offer content to the subscribers of the carrier.
it is also a good example why the most affective form of censorship is self-censorship fueled by fear (e.g. China..). the carriers are taking an ultra conservative approach, just to keep the FCC off their backs.
i think a much more reasonable approach would be to require content providers to notify subscribers accessing their site that it includes explicit content, so they can choose to go somewhere else. that’s it. without going into the details of defining what is decent and what is not, and censoring free speech in the process.
If you want to take a look at the guidlines - here they are: Download wireless_guidlines.pdf
Technorati Tags: avner ronen, cingular, verizon,mobile content, policy, self censorship
Good Old Consumer Marketing
Hi everyone,
As you probably know, these days we’re working on our upcoming Klonies Blog. Part of this effort was to look for blogging talents in our group and get them blogging.
Let me introduce you to my first guest, which I hope you’ll get to read more at the Klonies’ Blog. Welcome to Tal Dagan, the General Manager of the Avatars Group. Well, enough talkin’, rock on Tal!
******
One of the recent success stories in the device market was Motorola's success with its sleek RAZR devices. Motorola guys were lately quoted saying that in some regions, close to 40% of their total sold devices last year were of this particular model. Now that's an amazingly high number for a company that produces over 50 models a year.
Indeed, everywhere you’ve seen a Motorola phone in the last year, most chances it was a RAZR device. I have seen this taken to the next level in 3GSM in Barcelona; after wandering around the conference, the RAZR effect was evidently seen not only in the Motorola stand. Every single one of the large handset vendors showed at least 1-2 devices which were very nice replicas of the sleek RAZR design. No shame in the industry...
This is all very nice, but what's so special about it? Just a successful handset model?
But there's much more to it.
Although at the beginning of the RAZR, over two plus years ago, it started as just another cool device, its incredible success actually caused Motorola to shift its strategic marketing focus. No more focus on winning the technology/spec battle but rather having "just as good features", and puting the entire weight on design design and design; giving the users a new and exciting form factor, a unique design which is targeted at precise segments of the market. We all know that the handsets have become a user's "statement about themselves" a tool to express one's self... let’s give the user just that.
This may sound trivial, but remember that these industry players have been focusing, and throwing away, billions of $$$ on a technological battle, fighting vigorously on who will be the first to come out with 5,6,7,8...mega pixels cameras, first with double, triple or quadruple packet bandwidth, XHTML and not HTML and so on.
Not only that, but notice another small but significant shift...think about the 'device name': no longer Motorola A900, A1000, V980 or E550 but...RAZR! This makes so much sense. Why should a user remember, or care, if his phone is N-90, or P990 or E750??? I bet 99% of users do not remember the device’s name one month after they bought it. However, go check this with RAZR owners...The opposite will be true. Now that's creating brand attachment.
Following the worldwide RAZR success, Motorola has gone out with its PEBL, ROKR and SLVR models. All follow the same path of the RAZR - a new exciting form factor, no focus on technical firsts, and a cool self expressive name (guess what the PEBL looks like...).
This, in my mind, is good old marketing genius.
Technorati Tags: tal dagan, motorola, razr, mobile device, consumer marketing
Blogs - THE Stage of our Lives
It was very interesting to read a techie guy like Stowe Boyd writing about life and Philosophy… :) for a Theatre groupie like me, the greatest thing was to read his views on our theatrical personas in blogging and in everyday lives. Stowe writes that:
“By becoming bloggers and writing […], our self can become larger than life. Some magic that is buried in the human psyche makes the figures leaping about on the stage a representative of something larger than that single person. The actor, writer, poet, or artist is a sort of shaman, responding to a higher calling. And, as such, I believe we lose something of ourselves in exchange for the experience. Our personas are not our own, truly; we are part of something larger. And that larger thing includes both dark and light sides.“
Not just the blogger, actor, writer, poet or artist… I think we All have a persona\ a role\ a character that “leaps about on the stage” and is presented to the world. This persona is built from several roles we hold in life (a blogger, a woman, a student, a daughter…) which build our self esteem and the sense of who we are. For example, if you’ll ask me at university: “who are you?” I’ll probably answer: “an M.A. student at the department of Theatre Arts”; asking me the same at my hometown neighborhood will get me to say: “I’m Dr. Mendelsohn’s oldest daughter”. Both answers are right, accurate, and different. Both are parts of my persona, among other roles.
When it comes to famous people, it’s easier for us to assume that they have a ‘public’ persona in contrary of a ‘private’ persona. We know that a celebrity has a different “face” when getting in front of the public or when talking with a close friend. (And what is more interesting than getting a glimpse of the private persona, like on a paparazzi pic?!) But if you think of it for a moment, we all have “different” personas: we act differently when we are at work, at the supermarket, at the movies or at home… Even at home, far away from the public’s eye, we might act (i.e. behave and play a role) differently in front of our parents or in front of our naughty kids. (“Not in front of the children” rings any bells? BTW, that is basically a theatrical ACT…)
As for the blog-sphere:
“People know us through our personas, and they expect us to stay in our roles, and to play our parts. If we have done a good job of portraying ourselves, up here in the limelight, then they will be surprised -- maybe angry -- when we step out of character: and I mean character in both the theatrical sense and the sense of 'person of good character'. And sometimes they will be angry when we do things in character, because the role we are playing is not always the hero in the story. […]”
Stowe describes the response of the readers to the public persona. Readers get angry when the blogger’s persona isn’t linear\ coherent\ consistent, when bloggers “step out of character” or step out of the desired theatrical plot. The interesting question here is why? How come there’s a difference between our acceptances of the multiple celebrity’s personas and our refusal to treat the A-list blogger (like Robert Scoble, Dave Winer and others mentioned by Stowe) the same way?
The difference is the medium itself. A blog, or better said a Weblog, is first of all a kind of a public diary. So it gives the reader a sense of intimacy and closeness to the blogger. A closeness which he\she doesn’t get when watching a movie star getting interviewed (on TV, magazine etc…). So we assume we’re getting to know the blogger’s private persona. We don’t realize, or maybe don’t want to realize, that a blog is a ‘public diary’, a stage. As a stage, it is a place to present a role, a mask, a character. It always brings inner truths with it, as an actor brings his experiences and his feelings to the role. At the same time, it is an act. That is why it can be criticized by the public, or 
better written by Stowe Boyd, that is why
“it's not us that define the character we are playing: it's the larger group, the world beyond the footlights”, “so they become public property, not the possession of the bloggers.” “Whatever we bring into the role, into the role, becomes a prop. Even it is 'ours' in some sense -- like a personal relationship, or a project, or some idea -- once we bring it on stage, it is no longer personal.”
Realizing that blogs are the new theatrical stage would make it easier to maintain our blogging relationships and to synch our expectations as bloggers and readers.
Self Portrait Tuesday
I was playing around and found a very interesting web community – The Self-Portrait Tuesday. Each member posts a self portrait on his\ her blog on Tuesdays (as often as wanted) and sends a trackback to the Self Portrait Tuesday Blog. There is also a Flickr group filed under the same title.
I watched dozens of self portraits and I felt admiration for the self exposure that people are willing 
to have. Yet it should be noted that on the process of taking pictures we stage ourselves (lighting, angles, colors, compositions, etc…). So the outcome is less invasive than a spontaneous paparazzi photo taken on your worst bad hair day. Moreover, there is also the "editing decision", i.e. which pic to upload or to destroy. It’s like willing put up an act on stage – the actor reveals something private about himself (his pain, his joy…) and he puts a mask, a role, a character at the same time. In this duality of hide-reveal, we express ourselves in a very genuine way.
I decided to publish an avatar, a Klonie of myself. Your first thought might be – “she’s hiding, this isn’t a self portrait”. But if you really think about it – every decision we make says something about us. Oscar Wilde phrased it (so much better): "Give a man a mask, and he'll tell you the truth." the mask lets us loosen up and expose hidden parts of the personality. Because we’re putting up an act\ a role we allow ourselves to unleash some inner restrains and express ourselves (“that’s not Xen, that’s Hamlet”). I'll say it allows more libidinal materials to come upon surface and become less hidden. So, next time you change your Avatar into a sexy diva or a Manga worrier think what kind of emotions are you restraining in your life. Or you might consider taking some martial art lessons…
Technorati Tags: self portrait tuesday, exposure, avatras, Oscar Wilde, Flickr Group
Name-Expression...
Hi everyone,
As you probably noticed - the scenery has changed here, and for those of you who usually notice little details, there’s more than meets the eye, a lot MORE than new colors and templates…
Friends, I decided to share with you something personal that happened very recently in my life. My husband and I are getting a divorce. I know that it is very sudden, and it came as a huge surprise to all the people who got to know us as couple… and yet, the decision has been made, the procedures are in process, and this is the right thing to do.
On Saturday, the morning after the decision to break up was made, I felt the extreme urge to change everything here, at my blog. First, there was the name issue. I realized that I’m no longer “Xen Dolev”. But until I’ll have the official papers I can’t officially change my name back to my maiden name “Xen Mendelsohn”. So, for now it’ll be just “Xen”. It’s not that bad actually. But then, I noticed that my name is writen all around (!), so I started changing it everywhere I could... Yet there's a major problem with my blog’s URL since it contains my "old" name in it: “http://XenDolev.typepad.com”. If that is not enough, everyone in the blog sphere knows me by that name and URL...! [For the URL problem, I really need a “redirect link” - If someone knows how to make one, please leave me a comment or an e-mail (thanks!)].
I realized that a name says something about us too – it’s not just something we use as a username or as part of an e-mail address. Think of a social gathering where people mingle: it really makes a different statement if I introduce myself with an academic title (B.A.? Dr? MD?) civil title (Mrs.? Miss?), first and last (last name by marriage? maiden name?) or just by my first name “Xen”. Thinking about it, my beloved Klonie has a very big advantage not having a last name… :)
Well, if I can’t just personalize my name yet, I would then personalize my blog to better express myself! Suddenly my life and my work blend into one another and I really FEEL the extreme desire\ need\ urge to reinvestigate my identity and to express myself as the genuine Xen, as I know she really is. At this moment, my Klonie here really expresses the way I feel now… :(
A Thought on Blogs & Avatars
The other day, I was asked by a well known blogger this question:
Is this you?
I answered: "Yup, that's me."
All day long I was hearing the question in my mind over and over again: "is this you? ". Then, it suddenly came to me! I don't know if you thought about it before, but I've realized that your blog is part of who you are. Your blog is another way to introduce yourself on the web. A blog is just like an avatar that represents you or stands for you on the web sphere.
Like an avatar, you can personalize it to better fit your mood, and to better express who you are...
So, we have an icon\an avatar\our web-representation, which we can edit\manage\manipulate to master the message we want to promote about ourselves.
But (there's always a 'but', ha?) does this blog self-representation resemble to the real-life self-representation?
-To a limited extend. Can they (blog and real-life self-representation) co-exist??
Letters To The Editor?
A new Tech blog was born, and a worth reading-&-commenting kind of blog! The IHT Blog was finally
launched and it offers to post good comments on the print and internet editions of the IHT. Does this new feature brings blogging, or better said - citizen journalism, to a new level? IMO it all depends on the range of editing... If every single comment would be posted (excluding spam of course), the IHT guys are undoubtedly bringing something new to the world of journalism. But if editing means selecting what makes it in-or-out the edition, it's practically the web figure of the deceased "letters to the editor" column we used to write to 10-20 years ago...
well, we will have to wait and see, won't we?
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