Just found this email buried in the flood of spam (someone's going around the web signing me up for every mailing list in the world) - sorry I missed it when you sent it!

I'll be around this afternoon at 310-838-8025, after about 3 pm Pacific if you still want to talk about this stuff... I like your idea of using an invitation model for building the network.

CJ




On Feb 12, 2010, at 11:52 AM, Barrett Brown wrote:

Howdy again-

Coates Bateman wants me to come in to the office next week to discuss the blogger project, and I was hoping to get some more input from you as to how we should approach certain elements of both the software and the blogger network itself; for instance, if there are any features you can think of that might be helpful, or if you have some suggestions regarding how the network should be organized and the extent to which it should be overseen by you and I and whoever else we bring in at the outset, let me know. Right now I'm thinking that, generally, the network should proceed by way of invitations from the original bloggers that we pick on the outset (Allison Kilkenny, Juan Cole, and a few others), and that anyone who joins thereby will have the option of bringing in others, perhaps with a veto option on the part of the committee in order to ensure that the network isn't eventually watered down by the participation of crazy people. I imagine you've probably got some insight into this sort of thing due to you having co-founded Pajamas and whatnot.

I'm about to talk to Matt Taibbi about him getting involved in a high capacity as well; he gave me a cover blurb for my first book and wrote a famous piece about how incompetent Thomas Friedman is, so I imagine he'll be interested in helping us to bring greater accountability to the traditional news outlets, and he'll be a great asset due to his involvement with Rolling Stone and his relatively large audience.

If you've got some time in the next few days and are still interested in working with me on this, let's talk via e-mail or phone, as I'd like to get your input before I meet with Coates.

Thanks,

Barrett