Ted's Take - Interesting Edits - Understandable but Disappointing

Over the past few month's I've been participating in the "blogsphere" I've noticed a few things about blogs by "new media experts" such as "Ted's Take" by Ted Leonsis and Mark Cuban's blogs. Not surprisingly, while these blogs serve to make their authors much more accessible then prior forms of communications, new media savvy execs like Leonsis and Cuban's blogs are quite self serving and pretty heavily edited when it comes to responsive comments. Regardless if they are on topic or not.

I do not take issue with the practices of these bloggers - their blogs are indeed their creations in cyberspace and it is their right to exercise some control on their web presence. Indeed over the weekend, I saw an interview with Presidential Candidate Ron Paul where he was taken to task by Internet "supporters" who hijack and otherwise twist and subvert some of his populist/libertarian views. So it's only smart that folks with high web profiles want to exercise this type of control. What I'm doing here in this article is pointing out that the practice, subtle though it is, does occur.

I offer the following two examples with regard to "Ted's Take" as evidence of it.

Back in late November I posted a comment back to Mr. Leonsis that in addition to his "Revolution Money" card and approach to the market and alternative technology and start-up "Pay By Touch" did away with the card and "token" that cash or other payment forms use by linking someone to their funds via biometrics. I pointed out that this alternative technology was potentially the next step beyond his Revolution Money venture. Not surprisingly, that post and the link to a start up one of my friends is involved with out the San Francisco Bay area never was published on his widely read Ted's Take blog; after all if it were to catch on why would anyone need Mr. Leonsis' "Revolution Money"?

In response to Mr. Leonsis' recent "Beauty is In the Eye of the Beholder" post on his Washington Capitals - I posted a response thanking him for all he and the team does for the community. I also offered five suggestions on how the Caps might enlist more cooperation of us current Caps Season Ticket Holders (STH) in trying to get a couple thousand more STHs signed up. Those suggestions were: 1) When he holds a fire sale to fill the seats next to our $75 and $58 seats for $35 to throw us a bone of some sort. 2) a) Re-sign Ovie now so we know he has a commitment to the team, b) Get a clear successor to Olie on board now, and c) Fire McPhee so we don't have a guy who can't figure out how to sign a guy like Bryzlaglov when he's available in the front office. I believe so far Boudreau is a keeper but the issues with McPhee go deeper than the coaching staff. 3) Influence the Verizon Center to fix the Ice Surface - it hurts the Caps as much or more than their opponents. 4) Improve the food at VC - it would help folks use STH for business purposes. and 5) Host two nights - weeknight games in February & March where STHs could bring an equal number of folks to the game provided they attended a reception before the game with Caps sales staff and heard the benefits of season ticket ownership. (A sales approach similar to what time shares do to sell their wares.)

The reasons for not posting the first comment are probably fairly obvious. The reasons for the second are probably more subtle - from perhaps these ideas have been discussed and discarded for sound business reasons - so why start/encourage further discussion on them if they can't/won't be implemented - to - maybe it was just too long a comment.

In any case I don't have an issue with this censorship. I haven't had reason to implement such censorship here on "Mark's Musings", but if I had the readership and number of comments that Mr. Leonsis has I'm sure I'd need to do similarly. If for example, someone posted something in response to my highlighting the offerings of ICx Technologies, that was erroneous or inflammatory, I'd be tempted to edit it as well and would do so if I felt such action was warranted. I just figured I'd use cyberspace and my own blog to bring these ideas up as well. Merry Christmas & LETS GO CAPS!!!!!!!!