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Friday, November 18, 2011
BlogCatalog Owners Silencing Writers With Threats Of Lawsuits
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BlogCatolog owners did it to me also so I posted the screenshots of it @ http://www.myspace.com/home#!/morganaspov. Reputation: Character Minus What You Been Exposed Doing.
ReplyDeleteInstead of being professional and business as smart people know the only one that wins in any lawsuit is the lawyers, Tony Berkman, self identified several places on the internet as "owner and CEO" of Blog Catalog and Broowaha has very publicly wrongly name-called Morgana on You Tube and very publicly wrongly threatened on You Tube to sue Morgana yet per previous screen shots and this screen shot there indeed truthfully remains Continuing Wrong & Unethical Use of Content by Blog Catalog, Broowaha, Tony Berkman, Broowaha Editor Cher Duncombe, Fried Eggs, et al as they continue to wrongly and unethically reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display, or make into a derivative work Morgana content as it is without the permission of Morgana, its owner.
This unprofessional, anti-business, immature, bizarre, amateurish, name-calling, and legal threatening without cause, behavior also sadly at You Tube from Mr. Berkman is a disturbing continuation of why Morgana was sadly finally forced to take the step of requesting her content removed from Broowaha under Mr. Berkman.
When it comes to networks, size does not always matter. Ariel Vardi’s BrooWaha clearly showed that.
ReplyDeleteAriel Vardi started BrooWaha, “Citizen’s Journalism” in 2006. In October 2009, chuckling all the way to the bank, Ariel Vardi sold BrooWaha to his new partners Tony Berkman & Tony’s Merry Band of Partners. According to Tony Berkman, he and His Merry Band of Partners paid $15,000. That being John, Tony Mouthpiece & Senior Yapper Alan Handwerger and his 57 Socks, Angie, Tom Bates, and Enforcer Tom Lewis.
Ariel’s BrooWaha, and Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners’ BrooWaha, were horses of very different colors. Failing to understand that, Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners soon had BrooWaha up for sale. Who said slavery still isn’t thriving?
Networks are people and neighborhoods also.
ReplyDeleteAt the network micro and macroeconomic level, Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners made fundamental mistakes. One was the failure to understand the consequences of networks’ interconnectedness and interdependencies. Failing to understand this basic business issue that should have been previously covered in their Business Plan, Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners exposed themselves to the risks of interdependencies without benefiting from interconnectedness advantages. Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners’ disdain was and remains palatable as networks are people and neighborhoods also.
Ariel Vardi started BrooWaha, “Citizen’s Journalism” in 2006. In October 2009, chuckling all the way to the bank, Ariel Vardi sold BrooWaha to his new partners Tony Berkman & Tony’s Merry Band of Partners. According to Tony Berkman, he and His Merry Band of Partners paid $15,000. That being John, Tony Mouthpiece & Senior Yapper Alan Handwerger and his 57 Socks, Angie, Tom Bates, and Enforcer Tom Lewis.
ReplyDeleteAriel’s BrooWaha, and Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners’ BrooWaha, were horses of very different colors. Failing to understand that, Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners soon had BrooWaha up for sale. Who said slavery still isn’t thriving?
Hotmail’s recognition of the scale-free structure of the internet, that hubs spread products, services and ideas, only intensified Hotmail’s growth rate to astronomical success.
ReplyDeleteHad Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners exploited the power of networks, as so many others have already figured out, like Ariel Vardi for one, things would be different, but they didn’t. Viral marketing works on the same concept as a computer virus, hence the name. Computer viruses exploit the structure underneath the internet, which is a scale-free network with power-laws and clustering. That means a computer virus or a message or story can go viral, circle Earth using exactly the same routes, in less than 24 hours.
Because there is no Critical Threshold, the likelihood of the virus or a message or story’s success on the internet is immensely improved.
Back to Ariel Vardi and his BrooWaha dream of “an interactive online "citizen newspaper," who wanted to "create an unbiased, reliable source of local and global news written by a large community of amateur writers and journalists." So BrooWaha started up in LA by Israeli/Parisian Ariel Vardi. In true citizen newspaper form, Ariel Vardi gave FBLA the scoop himself at http://www.nowpublic.com/new_kid_on_the_block_is_broowaha_the_answer_to_las_newspaper_woes_0.
ReplyDeleteOn January 8, 2008, then came BrooWaha’s new editor DigiDave’s Journalism is a Process, Not a Product @ http://blog.digidave.org/2008/01/broowaha-where-im-the-new-editor.
DigiDave proudly wrote “Broowaha is a space to experiment. I do believe the future of citizen journalism is in networked reporting – groups of people working together on larger investigations. Broowaha is already a vibrant community with writers across the world (literally from Los Angeles to Paris).
Right now Broowaha writers are centered in LA, SF, NY, Miami and other cities around the country. I hope that we can tap into stories – even simple stories like "the dying 1950′s diners" and report on them in cities across the country.
So – if you believe in citizen journalism, want to start writing/reporting about issues or events in your neighborhood check out Broowaha.” That was BrooWaha editor David “DigiDave” Cohn’s proud words then. And DigiDave had good reason to be proud of them.
To understand why BrooWaha tanked under Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners, but grew under Ariel Vardi and David “DigiDave” Cohn, the lessons of February 5, 1997 to October 27, 1997, are useful. A Thai company, Somprason Land, Ltd., the Thai government, Michel Camdessus, International Monetary Fund Managing Director, the Thai government let Thailand’s largest finance company go bankrupt, and on to October 27, 1997, the Dow Jones spectacularly tanked. The failure of one node is seldom detrimental, unlike the failure of a hub. The breakdown of several nodes like what happened here can and does set off a domino of failures that can shake or destroy a whole system. Which happened here. It happened due to the natural consequences of connectedness and interdependency.
ReplyDeleteBrooWaha under Ariel Vardi’s sharp design and his and DigiDave’s hands off operations was showed clear allegiance to network laws. All the network laws. Scale-free, obeys power –laws, performance unchanged by random removal of nodes unless it turns out it was a critical node, vulnerability of its hubs.
ReplyDeleteAriel demonstrated the strength and ubiquity of network thinking. Ariel took what normally would be a node hoping to grow up to be a hub, and cleverly linked it to other nodes hoping to grow up to be hubs. He then further cleverly linked to his whole known as BrooWaha. BrooWaha’s city editions were the nodes hoping to grow up to be hubs. Los Angeles BrooWaha, San Francisco BrooWaha, New York BrooWaha, and Reno BrooWaha did just that. They grew into hubs.
Links are incoming. Links are outgoing. Incoming links improve visibility of the Web page linked to. Links quantify various interactions. The weight of the links captures the value of the interaction. Links make everyone long-term stable partners not competitors. Link stability is vital. Stable links mean you have the ability to focus on something else instead of them, the connection.
Those that resist this change to interconnectivity and fluid alliances, from a market to a network, are doomed.
ReplyDeleteBrooWaha tanked under Corporate Model Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners. The failure of one node is seldom detrimental, unlike the failure of a hub. The breakdown of several nodes can and does set off a domino of failures that can shake or destroy a whole system. The breakdown of one hub or several hubs can and will set off a domino of failures that shake if lucky or destroy if unlucky a whole system.
Corporate Model Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners, probably inadvertently through their ignorance and hubris, immediately removed their city edition hubs. That was a deadly blow in itself to any network. Nevertheless, Corporate Model Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners then kicked the probably unknown to them dead BrooWaha corpse. Hard to believe, but Corporate Model Tony Berkman & His Merry Partners, then, probably also inadvertently through their ignorance and hubris, immediately removed critical nodes.
The only ways to cripple, collapse or stop the actual network is by critical fragmentation, aka removal of enough hubs, which happened immediately at BrooWaha, and cascading internal failures, such as interference or removal of its resources, resources like contributors and content removed here, without writer permission or previous knowledge with articles changed from what they were submitted as, and free speech interfered with. Dead.
ReplyDeleteDead, dead, dead. Did I say dead? The Corporate Model was best suited for production, mass production of goods, then services were later added. The value is no longer in the goods and services. The value now is in the ideas, information and cross-fertilization of them. That puts the value of the underlying networks for ideas and information as All Important to The Age of Information. Those that resist this change to interconnectivity and fluid alliances, from a market to a network, are doomed. Walter W. Powell wrote, “in markets the standard strategy is to drive the hardest possible bargain on the immediate exchange. In networks, the preferred option is to create indebtedness and reliance over the long haul.” Like those lifelong relationships you forged in school.
According to Tony Berkman himself, in Sep 09 he (and his merry band of partners) then paid $15,000 for BrooWaha. I sure hope Ariel's chuckling with delight each time at that!
ReplyDeleteI miss Reno Broo and the Old, Classic, Original, First, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3,...Broo. It was a moment in time that I thought was special. Special as there were actually organic and dynamically alive moments where these various personalities would actually read what another said, commented intelligently on it, and continued a civil discourse. And there is a cool record to refer back to.
Writer Ursula K. LeGuinn had a workshop http://www.amazon.com/Steering-Craft-Exercises-Discussions-Navigator/dp/0933377460 and she was pleasantly surprised at how many people were at it who were writing and wanting to improve their writing, even see their craft improved with critiques of their writing and others' writing. Unless we rise above the lowest common denominator, giving a cr.. is not on ones mind though, is it?
BrooWaha was BrooWaha rather than the FauxBroo it became under Tony Berkman because its focus was on the dynamics; the people and community hum along the links.
ReplyDeleteA fellow Broo writer, Craig B. within days of Tony Berkman arrived, sent me the CEASE AND DESIST he received from Tom Lewis representing himself on behalf of the new BrooWaha owners. In this shocking CEASE AND DESIST were threats of a lawsuit against Craig. B. Then several of Craig B.'s articles disappeared off Broo as well as some of Craig B.'s comments. Craig B. wrote me this interference with his right to Free Speech and Expression was done without his permission.
ReplyDeleteI then got an email from a Cheryl Hanneman (who had corroborated in Broo as comments Craig B.'s facts to Tony Berkman) only to quickly discover her BrooWaha account deleted without her permission.
ReplyDeleteI then read in Broo writer Marga's complaints that comments (tame ones even) on her articles had been deleted with no explanation in spite of her requests to Tony Berkman.
ReplyDeleteIt was Broother's comments in Broo that were deleted not only in Marga's articles, but it seemed now everywhere in Broo. iJoe then contacted me to tell me his Broo account access had been deleted. With no prior no explanation.
ReplyDeleteBecause of what I then had clearly found out were BrooWaha / BlogCatalog's Tony Berkman's gross unethical business practices and illegal business practices and Tony Berkman's repeated illegal, unethical and immoral trampling on my constitutionally protected civil rights, most especially my right to free speech at BrooWaha, my right of expression at BrooWaha and my right of association at BrooWaha, I withdrew from BrooWaha. For which Tony Berkman of BrooWaha / BlogCatalog retaliated savagely, illegally and unethically against me with Tony Berkman's very public on YouTube illegal and unethical name-calling of me, Tony Berkman's illegal and unethical false accusations against me and Tony Berkman's illegal and unethical threat of a lawsuit against me.
ReplyDelete