Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Media Changes Name
SPYvSPY writes "In a move that emphasizes the differences between the blog media and big media, the so-called 'Open Source Media' group changed their name back to 'Pajamas Media' in response to public criticism, including (presumably) yesterday's posting on Slashdot. Regardless of any political bent in their coverage, Pajamas Media acknowledged the public's criticisms and did something about it with remarkable speed, frankness and good humor."
"Pajamas with the Socks in it Media" would have been cooler
My previously mentioned Free Software, Inc. will now be called Open Source Media, Inc.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
They change their name and get lots of publicity. They change it back, they got lots more publicity, and praise on Slashdot. Is that about right? Seems the name change did exactly what it was meant to.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Perhaps they should add this to their Errors and Corrections area ;-)
Jonathan Klein of CNN was debating with Stephen Hayes about the CBS forgery scandal. Klein said that "Bloggers have no checks and balances . . . it is just a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas."
And so, a new champion rised in the world of horribly silly open-source names.
Is the point really to make the application / technology users blush when they have to give away the name?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
or boxers, briefs, or nada ...
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
First they lie about owning opensourcemedia.net, which is owned by Christopher Lydon's radio outlet. Then they lie about owning opensourcemedia.com, which is owned by Zope. They create some BS explanation for how the acronym is "easier to type", and we are supposed to grant them any credibility. They my be famous bloggers, but their notions about running a new website show them to be hacks when it comes to IT issues.
On TFA ther is a banner that contains a quote from someone at their organisation, calling it Open Source Media... Methinks a publicity stunt has been pulled here: Change name to something controversial, get Slashdot etc riled up about it, get a lot of page hits etc, change name back.
Whose bedroom are they reporting from?
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Well, that puts that one to bed...
Good to see that.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
Don't forget, when you presume, you make a pres out of u and me.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
Someone needs to open shop with the Dumbest Name Ever and others will stop trying.
I mean, Pajamas Media? The name alone makes me want to lob ebola bombs into orphanages and run busses full of nuns off the road. No, wait... that how I always feel. Never mind about that.
Anyway, someone please start "Grotty Foo-Foo Linux" or "Neener Neener Neeeeeeeeeeener Media" or some such intellect grating piffle of a name.
Any other suggestions?
They are getting a lot of attention on this. I, personally, had never heard of Pajamas Media before this. I'm sure they are soaking up the aftermath of this debate with a lot of free advertising.
--
Get your Free MacMini's here
What's a 'pres'? And at least I told you it was presumptuous.
I didn't follow all the details of this story but I would be very interested to get away from my current vendor lock-in. So where can I get one of these open-source pajamas?
Million Dollar Screenshot
Back to your pajamasnaughty boys!
And no, ESR did not coin the term "Open Source".
Pajamas has no business in the bedrooms of Slashdotters!
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
Unfortunately, it seems that this is one of the myths they'll never be able to bust. The myth about the so-called New Media not being media, about blogs being the voice of the experts. I mean, fuck, look at us, the commentators on one of the bigger blogs -- we're nothing but a bunch of egomaniacs who think that they "get it", but really don't when it comes to application development, IT, networking, etc... Unfortunately, we're far too common.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
What's all this talk about stupid names? I took a look at their website yesterday to see what the hubbub was about, but didn't see anything that bad. It looked like they chose the name "Open Source Media" without a full understanding of what the open source community would expect from something with such a title. Now that they know, they are going back to to their original name.
It signifies an unprofessional attitude rather than a clever PR stunt. If they had a slashdotter in their core team, I think they would have thought of running a search in the USPTO database before settling on a name. Any PR from an extra slashdot post is miniscule compared to the unprofessional appearance this resulted in.
I don't think Pajamas Media will stay as a name for long either....
Dislaimer: Slashdot is a part of the Open Source Technology Group. Please don't sue us....
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
"Blog media"? Is "big media" prohibited from using a particularly annoying buzzword, or what does the story submitter mean?
...OSM PR claims all fuss over nothing, as the correct declared new corporate name was meant to be 'Open Sores Media.' Something about being on the bleeding edge...
Sorry for the confusion - back to your nap.
we're nothing but a bunch of egomaniacs who think that they "get it", but really don't when it comes to application development, IT, networking, etc... Unfortunately, we're far too common.
Speaking as a card-carrying egomaniac, I'd like to think that I come up with a few cogent and well reasoned ideas now and then. And the fact is this is a forum for people's knowledge as well as their opinions. I find that more often than not, people here open up avenues of discussion about topics that the mainstream media won't touch because they don't fit conveniently into a sound bite or might piss off the advertisers.
Maybe not everyone here has two neurons to rub together, but I think the vast majority of us can back up our egos with knowledge and common sense.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Bill O'Reilley, of course... with OR without the chains.
401 - Attention span not found
The myth about the so-called New Media not being media, about blogs being the voice of the experts.
When I read this, it looks like to contradictory points.
You're saying that
- New Media is media
and that
- blogs are NOT the voice of the experts
The "new media" is media too. That's in the definition. A discussion about how new media turn main-stream with higher readership would be interesting.
When it comes to experts, every moron and his little sister has a blog these days. But some experts do too. You'll find experts in many fields with blogs. What's good about blogs is that the experts can be challenged by their readers, either by email or comments, and by other blogs. They fact-check and opinion-check each other to oblivion or to fame. This massive interactivity is what attracts about blogs. Before, the most you could realistically hope for from the big paper was some sort of non-retraction retraction hidden among the classifieds.....
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
In English "Pajamas" is "Pyjamas". Its not a mispelling, its just the crazy American way of spelling the work.
Pish posh! The biggest problem *I* have with Slashdot is that everyone considers themselves an "expert" when they aren't. I am! I've said many things of great import over the years and like to think that I've had a fairly wide ranging influence over the readers. In fact, I even argue that some of the industry's so-called "experts" like John Dvorak have read my JEs and posts with relish and have used them as source material for their columns. Where else would Dvorak have come up with the idea that games development leads to GUI breakthroughs? I said that like... ten years ago on Slashdot. Back when it used to be called Usenet.
;P
I don't submit any questions to the Mythbusters because I've already debunked all the myths. A few examples:
1. The American economy is improving. (Busted this myth in 2002)
2. The American economy is collapsing. (Busted this myth in 2004)
3. The moon launch was a fake. (Busted this myth in 1969 before I was even born)
4. The moon is real. (Busted this myth in a past life as a sea slug 40 million years ago)
5. Xenu the clam wasn't real (Busted that myth in 1995)
5. L.Ron Hubbard is a con man (Busted that myth in 1996)
5. Tom Cruise likes curly fries (Busted that myth in 2001)
5. President Bush doesn't eat babies (Busted in 2005)
And so you see, I have quite an illustrious body of work that shows "prior art" in the Myth Busting realm. So I claim ownership of all myth busting from here on out. Ask me the questions folks and I'll produce!!!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
According to TFA, the OSM name came from a 'branding company'. Now, personally, if I'd hired 'experts' to come and design my 'corporate image' and ended up with this fiasco, I'd be looking to get my money back. I suspect a lot of people would be looking for not just a refund but 'compensation' for the 'damage' done to them (not that in the end they're really damaged, I think... lots of free publicity... but you know how these things work.) I'd sure like to know who the 'branding' company' was so that I can be sure to never, ever hire them or see them hired by any employer of mine...
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
> And so, a new champion rised in the world of horribly silly open-source names.
If you actually followed things you would know what is going on..... Pajamas Media was the working name of the outfit. I.E. when they decided to try cashing in on this whole journalism in your pajamas thing. "Journalism in your pajamas" was how the MSM always referred to bloggers, long rich tradition there of taking a term of derision hurled by your foe and turning it back on them by adopting it as your own term. Well anyway, they all knew it wouldn't fly in production use and did all the usual things companies do when picking a 'brand name'. Except someone didn't do quite enough checking and they got into trouble. So now they are back to Pajamas Media while they come up with a name again.
And Taco's (don't try and weasel by claiming it to be SpyVSSpy's words, there were a hundred submissions and you picked that one for a reason) attempt at slander in the blurb only reveals the 'political bent' of this site.
Democrat delenda est
I can't tell if you're attacking their business acumen, their politics, or both, but it either way you're missing the point. There was a story yesterday about the name "Open Source Media", and a lot of commenters had a gripe with the use of 'Open Source' in that context. I submitted this story as a follow-up because it is interesting to me that they acted so quickly in response to public criticism. You can deem it opportunism or incompetence if you like, but my opinion is that they (unlike, say, CBS) are a news outlet (yes, I said it) that is paying close attention to what their readers are saying.
I was thinking "Longtail Media" with homer in the Safety Salamander costume as the logo.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Open Source, South Carolina. State chosen to make the city name hard to pronounce. Everybody lives in caravans because nobody can keep people off their land.
Pajamas, Pennsylvania (alliteration is fun)
Indymedia, Indiana. It's placed smack dab in the middle of Indiana.
Sourceforge, Georgia
Windows, Wisconsin. Just make city ordinance requiring everybody to paint their houses blue. Elevators have this installed.
Pajamas, Nevada. (A bedroom community outside Las Vegas.)
Pajamas, New Mexico. New media. New Mexico. Pronounced in a Spanish accent. "Pahamas". Gets lots of tourists who thought they were going to the Bahamas.
Starbucks, The Moon. (A mining community in Mare Nectaris. If your name contains "Star", it better be related to space.)
Slashdot, Kansas. You love torrents. Now build a torrent-proof basement. And ruby slippers. Situated on the railway line between Darwin, Kansas and Pat Robertson, Kansas.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
That would be a great slashdot poll:
Boxers
Briefs
Pajamas
Nada
Cowboyneal
I consider /. more of a forum than a blog.
How about I-hate-Microsoft-dot or Apple-Dot?
Best Buy can have you arrested
I'm not sure that the problem is that people claim to be experts. In fact, I haven't read many articles that start off with I am an expert and know everything about what I'm talking about...prior to discussing the topic. I think the real problem is close to what you are getting at.
/. are so important. Because people are beginning to realize that most of these people posting and reporting may not (and arguably definitely not) as smart and knowledgable as the person receiving the information. Therefore, I think this will prompt people to get off our lazy @#$ and research those things we care about or are skeptical about. You can blame people for crappy and outright false reporting/blogging, but I think the person who takes this stuff on faith is the real problem. My hope is that the average Joe will start to be more skeptical of all reporting, especially what we hear from our politicians, which can only be a good thing IMO.
People are lazy and assume that if it's in print, on TV, on the radio, or on a webpage, it must be true and it must be backed up by facts from experts. That is exactly why I think blogs and forums like
Do what is right and let the consequence follow
That's the 'how to get started with Zope page'. They've apparently set up a web server, installed Zope, and then didn't bother to configure the actual site. It's the equivalent of the IIS 'No web page is yet configured for this address' page.
There's a store near me called Barefoot Shoes.
Every time I go by, I just wonder WTF?
One of the cooler ones I've seen though is Ho Lee Chow (chinese takeout).
They managed to go through a whole sequence of fund-raising and hire a branding company which came back with a totally inappropriate and appropriated name ... which tells me that they aren't smart enough to be in charge of all the money that they've been given.
Has anyone mentioned this to their investors?
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
Note that media and intelligence (aka spooks) are the only areas where "open source" had an established meaning before the FSF started using the term: "open source" referred to the use of published, generally available sources in intelligence gathering. Other kinds of sources were "covert sources", "anonymous sources", and "confidential sources".
The only area where I have, so far, noticed any difference is disaster-reporting. Blogs have brought disasters (invcluding war) to your bedroom. But I tend to see this change as a negative one: you still get lots of lies and misinformation just like you got from the 'old media', except that it's all loaded with tons of emotion, making you less critical about what you read or see.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
They may also want to change their website icon while they are at it.
http://www.osm.org/favicon.ico
http://plone.org/favicon.ico
Maybe they had to back down after someone pointed out that their privacy policy includes terms like "You may not reproduce, distribute, copy, publish, enter into any database, display, modify, create derivative works, transmit, or in any way exploit any part of this site". Hardly "open source" - just another orwellian lie to cover up their corporate agenda with "freedom" dressing.
I'm glad their PR firm managed to spin their surrender with "humor", but that doesn't mean their effort isn't a joke. When do we get to read Woodward's defense of his role inside the Plame outing as "better late then never reporting", rather than a feeble coverup of his sellout?
--
make install -not war
... so shall they become corrupt, just like the "old media". Basically they'll have a blaze of fame and then they'll become targets for other bloggers who claim they are now corrupt...
Something Witty Goes Here
They should have just appended a "2.0" to the name, which is what all the cool kids are doing these days.
Dude... what's with all the repition on item "5"? Did your key get stuck or something? Get over yourself...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Some of us had little birds tell us the name early and pointed out it would not fly. Perhaps that's why they were prepared to pull it so fast. The name change to Open.... appears to be a request by their Venture Capitalist and not really their choice. Many of the Pajamas principals hang out at: http://www.windsofchange.net/ to discuss issues before blogging about them.
I will say, when you think of Open Source, you think of a certain ideology and this is in contrast to the ideology that the founders of the news site hold in many aspects. Although, in the narrow view of technology, the ideologies are consistent. Outside of technology, many /.'s will disagree with the points of view expressed on OSM or Pajamas or whatever it will be called.
chuck klosterman on blogs (via ESPN's Page 2 columnist Sports Guy):
A term you hear people use a lot these days is "New Media," which really just means, "Electronic Media, Minus the Actual Reporting." This is what the Internet is, mostly. I constantly see all these media blogs that just link to conventional "Old Media" articles and pretend to comment upon them, but they add no information and no ideas. They just write, "Oh, look at this terribly archaic New York Times story. Isn't it pathetic?" But that sentiment is being expressed by someone who's never done an interview and has no tangible relationship to journalism. It all seems kind of uncreative.
it's not even the voice of the experts, just think about how blogs there are out there and how experts there really can be in this world.
-joseph
I'm not a subscriber, I've never paid for slashdot. You do realize you can get an account for free right? I wanted you to be logged in so I could go post similar you = teh stoopid comments after all your comments. Fuckwad. You were totally wrong about your post and won't admit it.
BTW, you could mod-bomb me every day and it would never matter. I maxed out on karma several years ago and i get modded up routinely.
You'd think that a branding company would at least go to uspto.gov and do a search for possible conflicts.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!