Sandra Day O’Connor
The retired Supreme Court justice talks to TIME about her work to stop attacks on the judiciary, her lunches with her former colleagues on the bench and her overbooked schedule
Megan Mullally
The Will and Grace co-star talks to TIME about her venture into daytime television
Carlos Ghosn
The celebrated auto exec says benchmarking is the key to any good alliance
Trent Vanegas
TIME clicks in with the creator of celebrity gossip blog Pink Is The New Blog
Megan Mullally
The Will and Grace co-star talks to TIME about her venture into daytime television
Carlos Ghosn
The celebrated auto exec says benchmarking is the key to any good alliance
Trent Vanegas
TIME clicks in with the creator of celebrity gossip blog Pink Is The New Blog
Q&A: The Gossip Blogger With a Conscience
In the August 14 issue of the New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann says, “Great citizen journalism is like the imagined Northwest Passage — it has to exist in order to prove that citizens can learn about public life without the mediation of professionals.” If the measure of a successful citizen journalist is popularity, then Trent Vanegas comes out on top. Without any media background whatsoever, Vanegas has created a celebrity gossip blog — Pink Is the New Blog — that has become a favorite among celebrities, their publicists and the average American, bringing the blog over 200,000 visitors a month. Writing with tact, Vanegas fills his posts with entertaining captions and star-studded images superimposed with tongue-in-cheek thought bubbles. Vanegas recently moved to Los Angeles, where he will continue to post to Pink Is the New Blog while pursuing other interests.
When did you start Pink Is The New Blog and why?
I started Pink Is the New Blog in June 2004, but it was actually an offshoot of my original blog that I started in August of 2002. The whole reason I started blogging in the first place was because I wanted to get into the habit of writing every single day, and I thought that if I did it online, and if there was an audience — even if the audience as small as my parents and my friends who I made read my blog — that I would have this sort of commitment to writing. So the original purpose was just for me to exercise this thing I wanted to do. I wanted to write every day and because I only know to write from my perspective, I would naturally write about movies and music that were interesting to me at the time. I’m such a huge fan of celebrity and pop culture that it grew into my daily writing and evolved into what it is today. I didn’t set out to do this intentionally — it just happened and I just feel very fortunate that it did.
You take the stance of being more tame than a lot of other celebrity blogs. Do you have the audience in mind, or do you care what the celebrities think?
I don’t know. It’s so difficult. I’ve thought about this so many times, and there’s no way that I could please everybody. If I’m trying to make a joke, say the whole elbow-in-the-ribs thing about Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, everything can’t be sugar-coated. Sometimes you’ve got to just go with it and make the joke. I can’t really be worried if celebrities get the joke or not. I have been fortunate that all the celebrities that I’ve met have been very nice to me. They’ve told me they like the website, they think it’s funny and they get the jokes. Cameron Diaz once told me that it doesn’t go too far and that’s what she likes about it. Cameron Diaz is one of the celebrities I’m a little harder on because she doesn’t like doing autographs and she doesn’t like getting her picture taken, which I find completely annoying when you’re a celebrity. In the early days, you want people to buy your product and you want people to follow you, but when they become rich and famous they don’t have time for regular people anymore, which I find really irritating. For her to say to me that it’s funny and she gets it is a great compliment — she gets that I have fun with it and I’m not trying to be mean-spirited.
Let’s talk about the celebrity craze in America. It’s at a point bordering on ridiculous. Others have argued that this obsession with the fabulous is part of the dumbing down of America. What is your reaction to that?
I don’t know if that’s necessarily where that comes from. My whole theory is that the rise of reality TV is when the fever-pitch need for celebrity news started rising as well. Reality TV breaks down the barrier between being a regular person and being a celebrity. One day you’re a college student and the next day you’re on the Real World and people recognize you all over the world. I think the rise of reality TV is what really has fueled the fire and made the insatiable need to know and to be one of those celebrities even more rampant…. The fast-paced way information is able to be delivered just throws gasoline onto the fire and makes it blaze more.
Why do you think your blog is better than other celebrity blogs?
I try to give it a little personality, to inject as much of me into it as I can. I don’t necessarily cater the text toward audiences, but I kind of feel like I’m talking with them. I try to make it very conversational and put in everyday speech. I don’t say “holla” and I don’t say “y’all,” but I think it gives it a more familial feel. People feel like they’re reading a friend’s website, and that’s what I try to have in mind with every single post.
Let’s talk about the future; what do you see for Pink?
I see no end to it. I see no reason to think that it won’t go forever. It’s still very much a fun thing for me… I reached a point two or three years in where I hadn’t missed a day and I was like, “I’m just going to see how far I can go.” That sort of “work ethic” is what has led me to where I am right now… There’s always something to talk about. I try and make it interesting because it’s interesting to me. But yes, there are only so many Paris Hilton stories you can talk about.
Q&A: Gina Trapani’s Tech Lifestyle
Nick Denton, owner of Gawker Media, could not have chosen a better person for editor of the tech time-saver blog, Lifehacker. Gina Trapani has her hands in numerous projects: contributing to leading technology magazines, running her own personal weblog and filmmaking. With a demanding lifestyle, Trapani understands the necessity to make life easier. With the help of two editors, RSS feeds and aggregators like De.licio.us, Lifehacker publishes 18 to 19 “Lifehacks” a day. TIME.com talked with Trapani about what it means to “Geek to Live” and the future of personal publishing software. Lifehacker is also one of TIME.com’s 25 Sites We Can’t Live Without.
If I had to give your blog a nationality, I would call it American, not French, or a blog with a schedule. Is Lifehacker more for the time obsessed or is it more about practicality?
The irony of Lifehacker is that people are wasting time productively. It’s the site that you can look at and justify and say, “Well I’m learning something now that will save me some time later even though I’m wasting time now.” I think it’s more about practicality.
Lifehacker’s entries are primarily about software and Web tips, but there are at least one or two a day that have to do with life in general. My recent favorite was about what it’s like to be young. What’s important about these types of posts to Lifehacker?
I think that it’s really important to me to make Lifehacker not only about technology. The whole point of the site is that technology is so interwoven into our lives and exists not for the sake of worshiping shiny, cold machines, but for the sake of helping us. We’re humans and I think that the human aspect of software and interfaces is very important. That aspect is the emphasis at Lifehacker as opposed to other gadget-focused or software-focused sites. Those are my favorite types of posts and make the most sense to my mother-in-law.
How would you feel about being called the Martha Stewart of the tech blog world?
Martha Stewart has come before. I would take it as a really big compliment — I can’t bake or cook — but she is really successful.
In your words, what does the website’s tagline “Geek to Live” mean to you?
It’s about not worshiping technology for the sake of technology, but it also goes into the gender stuff on the site. Most tech sites that you find online are written by men and have a male appeal. Lifehacker has a feminine, girl-geek spin to it, but there’s no pink or pictures of lipstick holders. I think that women — there have been studies — are interested in how technology can enhance their lives and not just for the cool factor. That’s what Lifehacker is all about. Is it useful, is this meaningful, will it do something for me as a human being?
Blogging has moved from experimental to mainstream. What social or technical features would you like to see enter the world of blogging?
I have been blogging since 2001 and the one thing that bugs me about the format is the reverse chronological format. There is no good way to highlight very good pieces of content. I wish there was a way to highlight content better with blogs. I don’t think that blogs are easy to navigate just yet. When I go to a blog I ‘m like, show me a post that is most representative of this blog. I don’t think that it’s perfect and I don’t think that blogs will be the end-all, be-all for publishing software. I think there is a lot of innovation that could happen and will. I think this is all very young. Q&A: Environmental Blogger Graham Hill
Barcelona resident Graham Hill is a next-generation environmentalist. With an advanced degree in architecture and industrial design, extensive travel experience and an avid interest in extreme sports, he is just the man to create an environmental design blog that is everything hip and urban. TreeHugger attracts about half a million visitors a month, mostly students and designers in their 20s and 30s, and posts an average of 16 entries per weekday. Using the latest in blogging technology, including an interactive broadband channel TreeHuggerTV, Hill is making every effort to get his message of “green” living out to the world. In addition to TreeHugger, Hill maintains a user-generated environmental blog, Hugg.com, and sells a ceramic mug at WeAreHappyToServeYou.com which pays homage to the popular paper cup found in New York City delis.
When did you start TreeHugger?
We started posting two years ago at the end of July… and the concept has been percolating for many years. The first time it manifested physically was in 2000, when I took a Photoshop class with an assignment to create fake ads — I did three. I essentially took three different pictures that I ripped out of magazines of cool urban types, two guys and one girl, and then superimposed text over the middle of the photograph. The words were treehugger, damn hippie and bleeding heart. The point I was getting at is that we have stereotypes about what treehuggers, damn hippies and bleeding hearts should look like. You should be allowed to be a modern city dweller and still care about the environment.
Your design approach is “it’s for the cool folks.” What advantage does that have?
My premise is if you have a choice, try to work with human nature and not against it. Sadly, humanity has a lot of negative aspects, and the two I focused on were laziness and shallowness. It is my belief that we are aesthetically shallow. We are very aspirational; it really matters how we dress, what kind of car we drive and what our place looks like. That’s why gossip mags, TV and movies are so aspirational — it’s always about something that is slightly out of our reach …I want to capitalize on the way that our society seems to work, and make green, help green, profile green as this cool thing to help make it trendy and aspirational.
What do you want people to walk away with?
I hope that they can say, “Hey, I care about the environment and I can still do a lot and keep my lifestyle.” The other thing I am trying to do — back to the laziness aspect — convenience is the real killer. If you want anything to happen, you have to make it easy. I’m hoping the takeaway on the site is this positive “Wow, I’ve seen this green that is here now and I can change my life in a green direction, whether it’s transportation, fashion, housing, etc.” A lot of environmentalism has been doom and gloom, negative, inspired by fear. We are trying to be positive: 80% of of the stuff we feature are solutions and good news. I try to make it really inspiring so a lot of people come away hopeful.
It’s difficult to have an environmental blog without having a political stance; how do you manage that?
I want all parties, all persuasions to be comfortable on the site. It’s very tempting for this to be a left-leaning site. Our gig is green — period. We want Republicans, Democrats, etc., all to be comfortable on the site. We did a survey a while back and we had 10% to 20% Republicans. I would like there to be more Republicans on the site. I feel that it has been a largely Democratic issue, but it shouldn’t be.
What about your broadband channel, TreeHuggerTV. When did it start and how did it change your blog?
TreeHuggerTV is fairly new, within the past four months. We have gotten a lot of nice comments on it, people enjoy it. Clearly cable, network and the Internet are slamming together, which makes sense… That’s clearly where things are headed, and I think the Internet allows a lot of that to happen. I think that much of advertising is difficult to measure on TV and is much easier to measure on the Internet. Those factors together suggest to me that there will be a role for online video in combination with advertising. My feeling was to develop this green media brand called TreeHugger and how it could expand in many directions. New York City’s Celebrity Voyeur
Overheard in New York (OHinNY) is the brainchild of 30-year-old Morgan Friedman. Empathizing with a conversation a hipster and his girlfriend were having in a cafe in Brooklyn in 2003, Friedman decided that what they were saying was worth writing down. He then published those quotes for the whole world to see. Friedman and his “trusted spies” of five friends combed the streets of New York listening for interesting and entertaining bits of conversation to post on OhinNY. One recent favorite, overheard in downtown Manhattan: A tourist asks a cop for directions, and he replies, “See that naked Chinese guy? Walk down to him and make a left.” Since 2003, OHinNY has expanded into two other blogs, Overheard in the Office and Overheard at the Beach, and the spy network of five friends has turned into hundreds sending e-mails describing the latest entertaining quotes “overheard” on the streets of New York.
What does it feel like to be a professional voyeur?
It’s a lot of fun. It’s especially fun because a lot of people know this blog and know me through the site, but they don’t know what I look like.
What did you set out to accomplish with Overheard in New York?
The blog has a couple of objectives. The most obvious is that it’s a humor blog — its purpose is to entertain. At the same time, there are a couple more subtle things happening. One is that the actual way people talk is very different than the way we think people talk. When you’re watching a TV show like Friends, the dialogue from the script is nothing like the way people actually talk to one another — random and full of non-sequiturs. OHinNY tries to capture authentic speech, diction and syntax, making it a fun, living record of how people talk. Imagine if OHinNY existed in 1906… The blog is an interesting contribution to an archive of what life is like today, as well as a re-creation of what it’s like to walk down the street in New York. There could be a Hassidic Jew on your left mumbling things you can’t understand and an Asian hipster on your right on his cell phone. It’s a complete cast of characters saying things that are being thrown at you simultaneously.
Do you think you’re overstepping any privacy boundaries?
The short answer is no. But the long answer is, I think about this all the time. A few hours ago, a quote was posted on OHinNY about “Tom.” When I looked to see who had linked to OHinNY that day, Tom had found the quote and identified himself on his own blog as the guy on OHinNY. There’s no other information provided in the post except for his first name, Tom, but the blog is popular enough that even if it’s technically private, it’s really easy to deduce who someone is, and that has very interesting ramifications. I think the better comparison is reality television — people really want to be on it. It’s a compliment in a weird, 21st century kind of way.
Do you consider your blog a gossip blog or a commentary on social issues?
It’s a New York version of the gossip blog. The California version of the gossip blog is captions about all the famous people and what they’re doing. The New York gossip blog is about the unknown person walking down the street next to us. I do consider it a gossip blog and I love to gossip about people I don’t know. I like social situations that are similar to my own. That’s where OHinNY derives a lot of its humor.
What’s your demographic like?
The demographic of the readers is different than the demographic of the speakers. The audience of the blog is largely a yuppie-type crowd. A lot of the great quotes come from non-yuppies, especially the homeless. The best quotes are from the intersection of these different socioeconomic classes in New York. OHinLA would be boring because it would be about celebrities and everyone is in their car. But in New York you have the yuppie standing right next to the ranting homeless man on the subway platform. No matter how much money you have or where you come from, everyone is right next to each other. OHinNY is this weird way of bringing together these different people that in the real world don’t have any connection to each other at all. I think the best quotes come from the exact point of this intersection.
The New Chief of Gizmodo
Gizmodo, a Gawker Media blog for the gadget obsessed, recently got a new editor — Brian Lam, a former assistant editor for Wired magazine. Lam, 29, has big plans for Gizmodo — to utilize his magazine publishing skills to enhance the already popular and prolific blog. With an average of 40 to 50 posts a day, Gizmodo is an advertiser’s dream, attracting 25-to-35-year-old males with annual salaries of $50,000 to $100,000 and more. Gizmodo is one of the few blogs to take on the role of a viable media source with Lam’s recent coverage of the Sony Mylo, the result of an official deal with Sony’s corporate communications department. TIME talked with Lam about the blogging craze and the future of Gizmodo.
What do you think it is about gadgets, these “shiny new” toys, that have captured people’s attention?
There’s a Batman utility belt or “Data” from Goonies concept to it. You can reach out to people and you can do things — not like being a superhero, but it can make you move through your day in a more powerful way. You’ve got an easier way to organize things and a lot of information at your fingertips. For people who feel naked without having gadgets around, like their cellphone, it becomes a fetish. So, when you upgrade your piece of electronics, you are upgrading an extension of yourself.
What kind of experience do you hope people walk away with after visiting Gizmodo?
I hope that they walk away with an amazement of how fast gadgets are becoming more and more powerful. It’s like hotrodders in the ’60s — gearheads getting hot and bothered over things that other people wouldn’t care about, like engines. It’s the same thing with gadgets — they are the hotrod of our generation.
Why do you think blogs have become an important part of the way people now access information?
It’s the promise of constant conversational updates. I think the best blogs cover the kinds of things that traditional media don’t think are important enough to cover, or don’t want to tie their names to. The point of Gawker Media is to write about what journalists would talk about during lunch.
In this age of terrorism, do you think that technology and gadgets are being produced at a rate that makes regulation difficult?
Information is always going to want to be as free as possible — people want it that way. There’s an article in Wired this month by Bruce Sterling, who says that the greatest threat to America are airplanes (affordable airfare) and net access. But in terms of regulations with gadgets like cellphones, fundamentally a lot hasn’t changed. There are all of these little upgrades, but in the big picture the basic functionality of cellphones hasn’t changed.
What social or technical features would you like to see enter the world of blogging?
I’d really like to see it become as easy as talking to a group of people… I would like it to be more fluid. There is this Web comic called Shooting War; it got picked up in the Village Voice and it’s this really cool web comic about blogging in 2011 in Iraq. The war is still going on and the blogger does everything by video because it’s easier than typing. The fact of it is that the Web comic shows the future of blogging as being more flowing, more conversational.
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