Head over here to toast the troups and send a beer to Iraq. My toast and lousy photo.

Bryan Rahija is a heck of a political blogad salesman. At SXSW, we discovered he’s also an ace-designer of lego-logos.

Q: When did you start doing legos?

A: When I was, I don’t know, four.

Q: And when did you stop?

A: I’ve never stopped playing with legos.

Q: You have a set back at your house?

A: No, I keep them in several boxes at my folks’ house.

Q: How long did this take you?

A: About twenty minutes.

Q: Any tips for aspiring contestants?

A: Think vertically.

Q: Anything else you’d like to say?

A: I’d like to thank my mom and dad. I look forward to seeing what the competition brings to the table next year.

Reading Matt’s blog, just learned about Cathy Seipp’s terminal hours. She was a much loved LA journalist. Links to Matt and Amy and Cathy’s blog.

Today, Dupont is launching ads pitched at the blogosphere promoting a bunch of videos with (my fellow SXSW blogebrity panelist) Amanda Congdon. Here they are…
Shelter from the Storm. Protecting the Protectors: Firefighters. Protecting the Protectors: Police. Glass Houses. Car Artists.

According to Forbes,

The Face of fame is changing. The ranks of the world’s celebrities used to be dominated by millionaire actors, athletes and musicians, but the Internet has leveled the playing field. A kid with a video camera has access to as large an audience as the biggest Hollywood star. A mom with a blog can attract more readers than a best-selling author. And an opinionated entrepreneur can become a guru to millions.

In fact, in a universe that is now intensely quantifiable, Forbes definition of fame is still incredibly arbitrary. Compare Forbes’ “webceleb” popularity with monthly page impressions (from Blogads and Sitemeter.)

What’s the biggest driver of Forbes popularity? Being a woman clearly hurts, but proximity to a body of salt water (and Forbes reporter?) helps more.

Wow, the Wall Street Journal says that its ad revenues were off 10% in February versus the same period a year ago. (Here’s the
press release.) Either we’re in a major recession or the paper business is returning to the pulp from whence it came, beaten to death by the web. Given the 50% rise in “pure online” revs, probably the latter. (Although the jump could also reflect an online-ad-friendly redesign last March and prior under-attention to online ad sales?)

Advertising revenue at The Wall Street Journal decreased 10.0% in February on a 6.6% decrease in advertising volume, due to declines in the technology, financial, general and classified advertising categories. Technology advertising volume decreased 12.2% as decreases in communications and personal computers advertising were partially offset by increases in software and office products advertising. Financial advertising volume decreased 9.8% primarily due to a decrease in retail advertising partially offset by an increase in wholesale advertising. General advertising volume decreased 5.4% as decreases in auto, pharmaceutical, corporate, aviation and other general business advertising were partially offset by increases in travel, luxury goods and other consumer advertising. Classified advertising volume decreased 3.8% due to a decrease in real estate advertising partially offset by an increase in other classified advertising.

At Barron’s, total advertising revenue increased 0.5% in February on a 0.6% decrease in advertising pages due to an increase in financial advertising partially offset by decreases in general and technology advertising.

International advertising revenue increased 16.6% in February due to increases in general, financial and classified advertising partially offset by a decrease in technology advertising at The Wall Street Journal Asia and The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Local Media Group advertising revenue, on a same property basis, decreased 2.4% in February on an 8.4% decline in volume. Decreases in non-daily (down 16.8%), classified (down 4.5%) and display (down 0.9%) advertising revenue were partially offset by increases in pure* online (up 49.7%) and preprint (up 1.6%) advertising revenue.

Talking about SL and other virtual worlds, someone recently muttered, “who has time for it?”

http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html

Considering yesterday’s wager, Valleywag quips that Jason Calacanis won’t get “even get out of bed for anything as paltry as Copeland’s $10,000.”

Well, I’ll consider bigger $$, but remember, my wallet isn’t padded with AOL bucks. And if the odds make Jason queazy about getting out of bed, we can talk about something easier. (Assuming his pride will let him play a 12 year old without giving huge odds. 🙂

Fact is, last night Jason did his pre-dinner vanity Googling and left a rambling comment on Jake Luddington’s blog post about the bet, tossing off a cloud of “it was just a joke” and “apples and orchards” and “henry is making a couple million for bloggers.”

“A joke” — Ha indeed. I look forward to laughing with Jason’s $100k in my pocket.

“Comparing an ad network to a blog publisher is apples and orchards.” Well, Jason’s WIN may have ended up as a publisher, but it originated as an ad network with a software kicker to justify its 50% rev share.

Here’s WIN’s pitch to bloggers circa May 2004 and continuing through October 2005… “Our goal is to partner with individual bloggers, letting them do what they do best (writing, creating community, researching) and support them with what we do best (upgrading the software that drives their Web site, generating revenue, running the business). We split the profits 50/50 with each of our bloggers taking out only hard costs (i.e., sales commissions, credit card fees). We also allow bloggers to leave our network at any time, for any reason, and take their content with them.” There was lots of noble rhetoric about valuing blogger automony … “After the bust everyone realized that a) no company is loyal to them and b) that they can often make a better living on their own and have a better lifestyle.”

If WIN gave up on that approach and turned to straight publishing, it proves my point, no?

“A couple million for bloggers?” If Jason will step up and wager, he won’t learn the exact figure, but at least he’ll know it’s bigger than whatever figure WIN paid out for ’06. (I hope it was more than a couple million!)

Jason has often portrayed himself as the great and visionary funding font of independent blogging… here, here, here, here, here for starters.

My $10k says he’s been bluffing.

Asked whether his new venture will take on Blogads.com, Jason Calacanis responded, “That’s like Michael Jordan going after a 12-year old in a game of 1-on-1.”

I laughed when I first read that. Typical Jason.

But, having thought about it, I think there’s an interesting game to be played.

Does Jason think he’s the Michael Jordan of blog businesses? If he really believes that mallarky, I’ve got $10K that says he’s wrong.

For those of you who don’t know Jason, he’s the hyperarticulate entrepreneur who made his fame by poaching pioneer tech blogger Pete Rojas from Nick Denton, duct-taping Rojas to Brian Alvey‘s smart software and Google Adsense, calling it “WeblogsInc” (WIN!), then talking AOL into buying “the future of blogging” for what some say was $25 million and others say was $6 million with an earn-out.

Jason, of course, views this feat as proof he’s the Michael Jordan of building blog businesses. If you measure business as a) talking very fast and sometimes brilliantly, b) embracing Pete Rojas, and c) putting the most money in his own hands, Jason is Michael Jordan.

Fact is, on all the key metrics, Blogads.com creamed Jason.

Foresight: Blogads.com was registered in March of ’02, WeblogsInc was registered in June of ’03.

ROI: While Blogads.com bootstrapped with less than $20,000 in cash in the bank, Weblogsinc reportedly relied on millions invested by Jason’s buddy Mark Cuban of Broadband.com fame.

Customers: While WIN had zero happy customers — at least judging from an archive of WIN’s pre-AOL website — we’ve got miles of uniquely thrilled customers.

Innovation: While WIN was peddling web 1.0 ad units, Blogads has pioneered genres of ad units designed for social media — long before the concept of “social media” existed. More on the way, too. (WIN’s “comments on ads” came 18 months after our experiment; like us, WIN discovered that mutating ad creative (at least from smart advertisers) fast obsoletes each comment.)

Staffing: While WIN had a handful of full-time staff (5 or 10?), we’ve got 22 brilliant staff (and dog Taco!) in Europe and the US with new office space to grow…

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Why is Jason so cocky? Personality aside, Jason is inebriated on the big city/old media parochialism of NY/LA/SF. Nothing significant happens in places like Carrboro, North Carolina ’cause rednecks don’t read the internets, right? Jason and his cronies want to forget that the blogosphere transforms the outside into the new inside.

Now Jason has departed AOL and is entrepreneur in residence at Sequoia Capital. Should I be wary of Jason? Absolutely. He’s had five years to study our business and has a excellent track record of “borrowing” good ideas/people, whether from Gawker or Digg. He’s sitting in the offices of a VC who backed Yahoo, Apple and Youtube. Even a midget can jam the ball if he has a ten-foot ladder. So I won’t make predictions about the future.

But let’s talk about the key performance metric. Does Jason want to put his big money where his bigger mouth is? I’ll wager $10,000 that in 2006 Blogads earned more for bloggers than did WIN. After all, blogger earnings is the true measure of a blog business, right?

What kind of odds would Michael Jordan give a twelve-year-old in a game of 1-on-1? A million to 1? Maybe 10,000 to 1… with the MJ blindfolded and his shoes tied together?

Well, this twelve-year-old would be happy with 10 to 1 odds, Jason’s $100K to my $10K. If those odds make Jason queazy, I’d be happy to discuss something gentler.

Jason apparently got $25 million from AOL and is the Michael Jordan of blog businesses, so he’s got the cash to toss on the table. Does he have the guts?

Details: the arbiter will be a mutually agreed independent accounting firm (in Vegas?) with an NDA to all parties, comparing both companies’ 2006 totals for net blogger earnings.

Let’s play 1-on-1 Jason.

… processes, attitudes, cultures, not just cars.