Pamela Parker

There are three guys outside our office building this morning dressed all in black — black clothes, black bulletproof jackets, and black helmets. Yes, they’re cops. And they’re carrying what look (to the untrained eye) like black assault rifles. Let’s just say they’re very big guns. I guess this is what the RNC in NYC means to me — even though I live in Brooklyn and work across town from the convention. Bummer.

UPDATE: My colleague, Rebecca, snapped a picture of similarly attired police officers outside our office the other day. Not SUPER easy to see, but they’re lined up along the scaffolding.  

I’m fond of telling people my hometown of Houston is a nice place to live, but you wouldn’t want to visit there. It’s hot, it’s humid, it’s spread out. You really have to know where to go and how to get there to have a good time. On the other hand, you can certainly have a good time. Additionally, my brother and his family have a gorgeous new four-bedroom house that cost them the same amount I paid for my small studio apartment in Manhattan. It’s a real city, with opera, theater, museums, etc. (Public transportation on the other hand… well, let’s just say the city places quite a bit of importance on the oil business.)

Some of those same thoughts are apparently behind a new, unauthorized marketing campaign for the Houston, which I read about in The New York Times (reg. required) this week. With a tagline of “Houston. It’s Worth It,” the campign seeks to acknowlege what many already know about the place — it’s hot, humid, sprawling, flat, and the cockroaches are of frightening proportions. Once that’s settled, the campaign goes beyond that to explain why, indeed, it’s worth it.

The centerpiece of the effort is the Web site (unfortunately constructed in such a way to where I can only link to the front page), where people are invited to explain their reasons for loving the city. (Update: Nate points out it is possible to link to the reasons, though the layout of the page is kind of weird.)

I think it’s a great idea and maybe the best chance the city has of explaining itself. It’s not some slick marketing scheme that paints Houston as “the space city” — which it is. It simply allows ordinary people to speak up for a city that many love. Seems like an idea worthy of the Internet age.

So, in my ClickZ column published today I make a stab at bringing transparency to our editorial decisionmaking process. I’ve done a lot of thinking about journalism vs. blogging, given that my day job involves breaking news (as well as features and columns), while I’m blogging here out of an interest in the phenomenon and a desire to participate in the ongoing conversation.

Looks like tomorrow’s the day for Google. I’ve gotta say I agree with Nate on this… Gary rocks, and I can’t begin to top him. So I’ll link to him instead. On Gary’s blog you’ll find a compendium of advice for the fledgling public company.

It looks to me that Google is headed the direction advocated by Rob Leathern and Gord Hotchkiss in Gary’s entry. Rather than becoming more of a media company, Google — as evidenced in part by the Picasa acquistion — seems to see itself as more of a tool company. I do wonder whether advertising will continue to play (it probably shouldn’t continue to play) as important a role for the company in the future.

More evidence: Larry Page’s statements in the infamous Playboy interview.

Playboy: With the addition of e-mail, Froogle — your new shopping site — and Google news, plus your search engine, will Google become a portal similar to Yahoo, AOL or MSN? Many Internet companies were founded as portals. It was assumed that the more services you provided the longer people would stay on your website and the more revenue you could generate from advertising and pay services.

Page: We built a business on the opposite message. We want you to come to Google and quickly find what you want. Then we’re happy to send you to the other sites. In fact, that’s the point. The portal strategy tries to own all of the information.

Playboy: Portals attempt to create what they call sticky content to keep a user as long as possible.

Page: <... snip...> Google conscientiously tries to stay away from that. We want to get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible. It’s a very different model.

Best of luck to Google and to all its investors. Looking forward, as always, to see what the company cooks up and what the future holds.

ChangeThis, a project started by Seth Godin and a bunch of interns, launched today. The site/project/publication is designed to use “existing tools (like PDF files, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and spread.”

The idea is that if one feels strongly about something, one can draw up a PDF “Manifesto,” which can then be shared and discussed, etc. The site seems to be using e-mail, trackback, something resembling collaborative filtering, and Amazon-style rankings.

So far, Guy Kawasaki’s riffing on start-ups, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba are talking about customer evangelists, Evan Wolfson’s discussing marriage, Elly Markson exhorts people to learn how to use e-mail, and, finally, Amnesty International and Tyler Lackey are both holding forth about killing children (in very different contexts).

My husband was in town visiting (this bi-coastal thing sucks, I must say) this weekend, so we took the opportunity to splurge on dinner Saturday night. With the magic of OpenTable.com, we discovered just who had tables available in our time frame. We settled on WD-50, a Lower East Side semi-newcomer, and went for the 9-course tasting menu.

The place knows a little about viral marketing (the non-online kind). Our excellent waitress provided us with a helpful list of what we’d had, so I can tell you with full confidence the names of the dishes.

Really great:

Raisin Toast (actually toast-flavored ice cream served over some raisin-flavored croutons, I think). This one took familiar flavors and shifted the textures on you, so you’re eating creamy toast and crunchy raisins. Weird, but very successful.

Beef Tongue, fried mayo, tomato molasses

Scallops, coffee cous cous, pine shoots, licorice

Others were sort of interesting in theory but didn’t do it for me. It was a fantastic dining experience, though, overall. The casual relaxing atmosphere allows you to feel comfortable enough to get adventurous with your selections.