BuzzMachine

Blogging the world
: Loic Le Meur and Samantha Tonkin are in Warsaw blogging the European Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (aka Davos).

Air American laundry
: A shakeup at Air America: CEO and head of operations out.

Reinventing media
: At Unmediated, Yatta has a wonderful post re-imagining TV in the age of blogs. Every medium could stand to re-imagine itself in the age of citizens’ media.

1. Start publishing your program schedule as an openly subscribable RSS feed based on the XMLTV format. It will allow folks to publish feedrolls of their favorite TV shows on their blogs. If people like your programming, they’ll spread the word for you. You gain instant karma.

2. Fund Andrew Grumet’s (and other folks’) work to marry BitTorrent, RSS, and TiVos. Make sure it all works with your newly minted RSS feed.

3. Pay someone else to graft the TiVo interface onto a BitTorrent client….

4. Change your advertising model. People don’t like 30-second ads. Move all advertising to product placement…

5. Make it easy for folks to download your programming via BitTorrent. Don’t worry: you’ve embedded your advertising in your programming, remember?…

6. Encourage bloggers to create feedrolls of their favorite TV programs, irregardless of the TV network….

7. Create an Amazon Associates-style revenue sharing program for bloggers who’s readers click through to download an entire episode. Extra commission for those who click on interactive ad links….

How would you re-imagine radio… books… newspapers… TV news…?

The Daily Stern

: FCC GETS RATINGS: Ever since the FCC started fining Howard Stern in an attempt to make him the American moral pariah, what do you think has happened to the ratings? Do you think the people took the FCC’s fines as a warning to stay away from filth? Do you think the people agreed with the FCC and decided to shun Stern?

Of course not. The ratings have soared:

Federal regulators may have painted a big bull’s eye on Howard Stern’s back, but the recent government crackdown on indecency over the airwaves has proven a boon to the shock jock’s ratings.

The ribald radio host scored major gains in listenership during the winter quarter ended March 31 in the three biggest U.S. markets — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — according to figures made public on Monday by the Arbitron radio ratings service.

In Stern’s home market of New York, where his show is broadcast on WXRK-FM, he topped all morning drive-time competition with a 7.2 share in total audience, up 22 percent from the fall quarter and 18 percent from last winter, Arbitron said.

Selling virtue
: Rick Locke, a commenter in this blog, sent me email the other day with an intriguing suggestion: How about if bloggers band together to buy an ad on Al Jazeera? (Consider it MoveOn in reverse.)

He wants to debunk this Huntington quote that leads off Salam Pax’s site: “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.” Says Locke:

Our army doesn’t make us rich; Machiavelli was obsolute in 1865. Our wealth gives us a strong army, and our wealth comes from our civil and social arrangements. If Arabs want to be strong and proud, we’ll be glad to show them how.

What would you say if you advertised out side to the Al Jazeera audience?