Getting Buzzed
posted at 10:00 am on September 10, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Have you noticed the new addition to Hot Air yet? We have added a Yahoo Buzz Up tag to each post. This allows readers to give a post they find especially interesting a vote in Yahoo’s aggregator, which then promotes the posts to its large community of members.
Until now, conservative sites have largely ignored these community-building tools, and we’ve left the traffic — and the debate — to progressive sites as a result. We’d like to see more balance in these forums, and we’ve added the Yahoo Buzz to see if we can make that happen. Give us your vote in this election year, and let us know what you think about the new feature.
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Yeah, we HotAir should add Digg just to mess with the libtards.
carbon_footprint on September 10, 2008 at 10:01 AM
I vote we quit calling them progressives.
flyoverland on September 10, 2008 at 10:02 AM
Every now and then I’d like to be about to put a Hotair post directly to my Facebook page, too. I really like the sites that give you the choice to do that.
Bob's Kid on September 10, 2008 at 10:04 AM
as long as we keep in mind that they are progressively regressive I think the term progressive works out.
theguardianii on September 10, 2008 at 10:04 AM
I’ll tell you what “progressive means”
Communism-100 million dead and growing
“Pardon the mess we are a work in progress”
sven10077 on September 10, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Ditto.
RobertInAustin on September 10, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Why don’t the pronounce it YAYhoo, like Festus Hagen did?
Akzed on September 10, 2008 at 10:07 AM
I use Yahoo Buzz and facebook.
Connie on September 10, 2008 at 10:08 AM
I say if they don’t like the liberal label, let’s start calling ourselves classical liberals.
MadisonConservative on September 10, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Hey if there weren’t Liberals who would we laugh at??
Fandango on September 10, 2008 at 10:13 AM
I second that vote.
The only thing progressive about them is that they progressively prove they aren’t.
tru2tx on September 10, 2008 at 10:14 AM
I vote we quit calling them progressives. – Fly
Agreed, they are not in favor of progress for anybody but themselves. The same can be said about the words “liberal” and “democrat” WE are the true Liberals, we are the CLASSIC Liberals. Today’s ‘libs’ are socialists, they don’t want liberty for anybody except, again, themselves. Nor do they want democracy for anybody else but themselves. We should just call them what they are … and they should call THEMSELVES what they are, socialists!
Tony737 on September 10, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Would this help organize the internet community?
DaveC on September 10, 2008 at 10:16 AM
Seriously. Why use their terminology? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, goes steady with ducks and calls itself a horse, do you have to also?
Spanglemaker on September 10, 2008 at 10:17 AM
…let’s call ‘em “Whigs”. That’ll stump ‘em.
It takes a bit of reading to get your brain around what a Whig is, be it an anti-Jacksonian Whig or an early English Whig.
Then, they might begin calling us “Tories”, and we could wind down the next 50 or so days hurling barely understood names at eachother which are both printable and a welcome distraction from the petty, juvenile and stupid one-upsmanship we’re seeing daily.
…or, we could take their logo at face value and call ‘em “jackasses”.
Puritan1648 on September 10, 2008 at 10:17 AM
BTW, last week I had this old hippie lady on my plane, she bragged about how she and her friends back in the 70s tried to burn down a bank branch. This wacko said “I’m not just about communism, we can build a society of conscience.” And when I asked her what that meant, she just stuttered and stammered and tried to change the subject.
Tony737 on September 10, 2008 at 10:18 AM
If you put lipstick on a pig you still have a pig. If you label a liberal a progressive, you still have socialist.
volsense on September 10, 2008 at 10:18 AM
or, we could take their logo at face value and call ‘em “jackasses”. – Puritan1648
Well, that is their party symbol and … HOLY CRAP! IS THAT PURITAN??? Where the hell have YOU been???
Tony737 on September 10, 2008 at 10:20 AM
Good move, Ed. He who controls the internet message will eventually control the country.
petefrt on September 10, 2008 at 10:20 AM
My favorite part of that would be that the Whigs in Name Only..
WINO.
DaveC on September 10, 2008 at 10:22 AM
Why don’t we just keep it simple and call them ‘the left’ or ‘leftists’.
They don’t have a liberal bone in their bodies unless you’re talking about (not) punishing criminals, drug use, or abortion.
Like ‘liberal’, progressive shouldn’t really be a term of abus. But when leftists talk about ‘progress’ they’re actually talking about coerced progress, and for the sake of progress, rather than the naturally occurring kind.
Can we have the English language back please?
While we’re on the subject, Charles at LGF linked this superb piece by Melanie Phillips.
Marx > Gramsci > Alinsky > Obama. They are all connected.
EnglishMike on September 10, 2008 at 10:23 AM
What is this internet thing of which you speak?
Bishop on September 10, 2008 at 10:25 AM
Why cant we just call them damn commies?
rgranger on September 10, 2008 at 10:26 AM
Tony, when you say ‘my plane’, do you actually mean it was your plane – ie, you were flying it? (I’m looking at the ‘737′)
If indeed it was your plane, couldn’t you have thrown her out?
EnglishMike on September 10, 2008 at 10:26 AM
O/T: Obambi is about to address the ‘lipstick on a pig’ gaffe. To be honest, this is an old saying. I don’t think he meant it as a sexist comment, it was just a case of bad judgement. “Judgement to lead!” Yeah, lead us right down the toilet.
Tony737 on September 10, 2008 at 10:28 AM
Guess we’ve got a lot of buzz upping to do seeing that the top buzzed item is about the “McCain Palin lies.”
Rod on September 10, 2008 at 10:28 AM
Consider yourself BUZZED.
TheSitRep on September 10, 2008 at 10:29 AM
Tony, when you say ‘my plane’, do you actually mean it was your plane – ie, you were flying it? (I’m looking at the ‘737′) – Mike
Haha, well, it’s not really MY plane, I mean the flight I was working, I’m a flight attendant. But I DO own stock in the company, so I guess it is kinda mine! :-)
Tony737 on September 10, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Tony, stuttering, stammering and mumbling is progressive disease. And by ‘progressive disease’ I mean it seems to get worse with age.
Just check out Kennedy, Obama, Kerry, and a bunch of the others. Levin has a whole mumblers loop that he plays frequently on his show. It’s hilarious.
pistolero on September 10, 2008 at 10:33 AM
Risks in using “buzz up”
Just in case you haven’t thought about it… there are two distinct kinds of risk in using tools like buzz-up.
Both result from the fact that Yahoo and sites like technorati attract radically different kinds of users.
This is clearest if you think in terms of google search vs yahoo search because google uses free text while yahoo built its audience on simpler categorized (controlled vocabulary) searches. Thus if you check the weekly listings of the top ten searches on both sites you’ll find very little overlap – and the reason for this is that the two search strategies attract very different mind sets.
By using buzz-up you attract, or at least feed, the yahoo mindset – so check the top ten yahoo searchs for a couple of weeks and ask yourself whether this sufficiently reflects your core audience that you want to let them influence your editorial policies and/or article rankings.
The second risk is related. Zdnet uses similar technology on my own Unix column – and the results have been very consistent. People who don’t like what I say (mostly junior MCSE types pretending to Wintel expertise) vote things down while the people I want to appeal to can’t be bothered. As a result vote counts are small and negatively correlated with article quality.
Paul Murphy on September 10, 2008 at 10:33 AM
I like to use Stumble! as well. Good luck with buzz.
resqgal on September 10, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Little Green Footballs linked stories to Digg several months back. Charles quit promoting the link due to its being an exercise in futility.
Anytime an LGF post got a high listing on Digg it promptly got beat down by the troglodytes that “live” there.
As Murphy hinted at earlier, the types attracted to these sorts of sites have a great deal of time on their hands and an allergic reaction to ideas different from their own.
You may find that the amount of additional traffic isn’t worth the constant fight. Not to mention the additional trolls coming your way.
Ace ODale on September 10, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Very well said, Paul.
Some other consideration of using sites like Yahoo! and Facebook are that due to the age group of the typical users of those sites, conservatives are going to find themselves greatly outnumbered, to Paul’s point that the feedback is not likely to represent your core audience. Many of the folks on those sites only post statements that make them “sound cool” and a conservative viewpoint ain’t that these days.
You will also have to deal with the fact that many users on these sites believe it is perfectly acceptable to have multiple identities, and will pose as a conservative who “saw the light” and has decided to vote democratic. That is in contrast to most of the folks on sites like this one who usually insist on playing fair.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m the last to suggest running from a fight, but you have to know what the rules are.
dinobalz on September 10, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Ed, have you completely vetted Buzz up! or do we have to airlift a team of investigators?
Mr_Magoo on September 10, 2008 at 11:13 AM
A feature I would like to see on Hot Air is numbered comments. It is sometime shard to find your own comment to see if anyone answered your question because there are so many comments. It would also be nice if there was an automatic listing your profile page of all the comments you have made so you could easily find them.
JC Silverberg on September 10, 2008 at 11:16 AM
If you are speaking of one-liners, there’s plenty of that going on here, too. Not as much as some sites like LGF, but enough.
Won’t matter unless The Boss open registration again. It is a potential problem, though.
Mr_Magoo on September 10, 2008 at 11:17 AM
“And twice a week I shall require a cannoli…”
Mr_Magoo on September 10, 2008 at 11:19 AM
I am sorry but I don’t get that Mr. Magoo.
JC Silverberg on September 10, 2008 at 11:31 AM
Thanks, Paul. I wanted to state some of those points, but couldn’t seem to explain it clearly.
I seem to recall a year or two ago when Michelle tried Digg or some such, she noted that we conservatives need to patronize search engines, photo/video hosts, etc. that are least biased against us, and establish enough of a market presence in them to keep them fair. I agree with that.
Maybe you could give some advice in this regard?
petefrt on September 10, 2008 at 11:35 AM
(greets Tony by wrapping him in a warm but manly hug)
(shrugs, coughs, thinks of baseball)
…out picking posies in the meadows of my mind….
There’s an election coming up…have to dip in an oar…where better to dip than on HotAir?
…we don’t need a rockstar as president. This is a dangerous world with lots of twisting alleys and dark corners.
We need a chess player. You know…thinks about as many as of the potential consequences his actions and his words might bring into being before he opens his pie-hole.
Of course, in isolation it was a simple remark…regardless of his bending it over backwards in is attempt to sound like a “reg’ler guy”. Nonetheless, he left himself open for a spanking.
Now…fast forward to a bunch of bathrobe-wearing Muslims pumping angry fists in unison for the thinnest of reasons outside some sand-blown mosque somewhere. Judgment…judgment is key.
Puritan1648 on September 10, 2008 at 11:46 AM
Wonderful addition! Thank goodness it isn’t Digg.
smfoushee on September 10, 2008 at 11:47 AM
good idea. I have been buzzing up stories and buzzing down some also for the last couple of weeks.
unseen on September 10, 2008 at 12:02 PM
Wish the Buzz link could be set to open a new tabb/page. DSL’s not available to me yet, so closing/re-opening the HA page just to Buzz up is a time-consuming operation.
petefrt on September 10, 2008 at 12:21 PM
Oops, forgot, I can right click it to open in new tab.
petefrt on September 10, 2008 at 12:25 PM
LGF has a link for Digg, Newsvine, and del.icio.us. Some news sites also have StumbleUpon, Facebook, Orkut, etc. You guys should go that route.
OneGyT on September 10, 2008 at 4:11 PM
I don’t like “progressive” in the same way I don’t like “conservative.” They’re meaningless labels. Conservation of WHAT? Progression towards WHAT? Liberal doesn’t work… it more directly applies to libertarians than leftists.
Mark Jaquith on September 10, 2008 at 6:59 PM
Sounds like a recipie for Social Media Fatigue Syndrome. By just having one or two, you consolidate and amplify your community’s effort.
Mark Jaquith on September 10, 2008 at 7:00 PM
It opens in a new tab for me in Firefox/Safari.
Mark Jaquith on September 10, 2008 at 7:02 PM
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