Buffalo Rising?
The redesigned Buffalo Rising Magazine hit the streets yesterday after a short hiatus. The new design is much different than both the original quarterly that built the company and the confusing tabloid version that was launched when the magazine went monthly.
The new tagline for the magazine? “Nothing happens here that’s not on our screen.” Or, more succintly, “You already read all of this on the website last month.” (Well, except for a couple of things…which I’ll cover later in this article.)
The articles are shortened versions of posts to Buffalo Rising Online and the pages are also sprinkled with reader comments from the website. Essentially, the new BRM serves as a marketing tool to get people to visit the website and as a vehicle to add value to advertising contracts. Not a bad model, I guess.
What’s notable about the magazine and the website, is what you find when you do a little “digging”.
As described by Co-President and Publisher George Johnson in the latest edition of the magazine,
“We break news of New Buffalo online. Everyday, you can find out about development, neighborhood improvement, grassroots initiatives, cultural and community events, food and the city’s restaurant scene. It’s our beat. It’s what we do best. It’s what we love.”
What’s missing in his description of BR is that they also host discussion about heroin, dog sodomy, and muggings in the city…
Before we get to that, let’s back up a little to frame the discussion properly.
Buffalo Rising eschewed the typical media mindset of dealing with political issues and focused on iterative economic progress and events within the City of Buffalo. They would embark on building a business model around the selling of hope. They built a loyal cadre of readers after asking for wide support from the established blogosphere at their inception.
As Co-Founder and Co-President Newell Nussbaumer told Donn Esmode in 2006 “Unlike a newspaper, we don’t have to cover everything,” Nussbaumer said. “We can focus on community-building issues. We fill a niche that people want to explore.”
BuffaloRising also has a mission and editorial direction and it is markedly different (not better nor worse) than ours. They have always been “hyperlocal” and exceedingly positive.
Nor does the company want to veer out of city centers towards the suburbs – which pretty much rules out serving the huge campus of SUNY Buffalo in suburban Amherst. “The City is the aspirational center,” said Johnson. We are identifying stakes in the community. We want user exhaust.”
BuffaloRising Online (BRO_1.0) grew out of a quarterly magazine that highlighted local business, mostly on the Elmwood Strip, and after nearly a dozen issues, they added a free Blogspot blog that also highlighted positive news and goings-on within the geographic boundaries of the City of Buffalo.
The mission was to spread the good news about what’s cool and happening about Buffalo. It was a good idea and one that served to counteract the never ending drumbeat of negativity found in the pages of The Buffalo News.
BRO_2.0, did away with the Blogspot blog, enhanced the design, and made the whole outfit a bit more corporate, but what didn’t change was that it was fueled by a dedicated cadre of Buffalo lovers who wrote about the city and their passion for living in it.
The new site served the purpose to build an online buzz about Buffalo. They had made the leap from being a member of the online community into the local vernacular. BRO and the face of it, Newell Nussbaumer, were becoming players in the local media scene and in the city as a whole.
Building upon that success, George and Newell brought in a business partner, Barry Heneghan of Think Financial, a local private student loan company. With an influx of angel investment cash, Hyperlocal Media opened swanky new offices in the Cobblestone District, launched BRO_3.0, and switched from a quarterly magazine to a monthly tabloid with a style borrowed from European alternative newspapers.
One thing that seemed obvious to observers was that the loyal cadre of contributors who joined Newell and George at the start of the company were no longer part of the new, capitalized Buffalo Rising. Most of the original contributors, designers, graphic artists, and supporters were replaced by an initial wave of new hires. Now, most of the members of that initial wave of new hires have been replaced – for the most part – by unpaid interns who are in it for the resume boost, not the mission.
While the magazine was “down for upgrades”, there was a renewed focus on building revenue from the website. In order to build revenue online, ad sales needed to increase and one way to ensure that happens is to increase traffic numbers. Which is not a small task when you are already established.
So, how does one obtain a general uptick in traffic? Optimizing your website for search engines and utilizing social networking sites like Digg, Facebook, Reddit, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and MySpace would be a pretty good place to start.
A recent tour of Digg.com, the 97th most visited site on the web and the leading social networking and news linking site for creative young professionals, paints a pretty interesting picture.
Since at least mid-June, BRO has been posting negative stories about Buffalo that are saved to a hidden cache page and not posted to or made mention of on the main pages that we are all familiar with.
I didn’t read about the YWCA heroin-at-daycare case on BRO, did you? Yet here it is, and it was Dugg by nearly two thousand users. Which put it on the frontpage of one of the web’s most visited pages, seen in the neighborhood of 200,000 times.
Here’s a story BRO didn’t post (but did) about the man who was beaten with his own prosthetic leg. I especially love the accompanying graphic. It’s been posted to Digg.
To top it off, BRO has even posted stories from way outside city limits – Lockport, County of Niagara, is representing on BRO’s cache site, with sodomizing pitbulls galore. Digg? Check. Over 1,000 Diggs, to be precise.
The stories were submitted to Digg by “Diggleague”, who is identified only as “Alex B.” While it is not obvious that Alex is an employee or intern at BuffaloRising, the fact that he knew the location of these hidden pages would indicate that he is.
When asked about the issue, George Johnson responded, but it wasn’t on the record and I’m not willing to post the details. However, I will say that he didn’t deny the effort to bump traffic numbers.
Also, after being contacted by WNYMedia.net, the original articles were removed from the cached pages on BRO and replaced by new ones with a caption that reads, “Discover up-beat stories, events, and more about Buffalo, NY anytime. Morning. Noon. Night.”
So, while promoting the wonders of Buffalo to the local audience, Buffalo Rising is perfectly content to promote some very ugly, very negative stories about Buffalo (and Lockport, County of Niagara), to a separate worldwide audience in order to artificially inflate web statistics.
Buffalo Rising was founded on core principles of hyperlocal city-only puffery. That it would betray those principles for an artificially manipulated bump in traffic is truly disappointing for those of us who thought that BRO’s principles were founded in ideals, not ad sales.
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Pundit
Before you run for office educate yourself on the true cost of sprawl as the metro population shrinks.
Please don’t put words in my mouth. That is the lowest form of debate. I have NEVER denigrated any of the sites you mentioned.
You have been snitting about BRO well before this issue came up. By the way are you going to respond to the URL issue brought up a few comments ago? If that is true I think you should climb on down from that high horse. If it is not true that please stay up there I am not defending BRO over the practices alleged by WNYM.
I don’t mind if someone takes an intelligent swipe at me. Bring it on. I am placing my thoughts out in public so they are fair game. Your site just seems to have an abundance of commenters and writers that have a big problem with BRO and its readers and writers., I am say that is the tone you are setting here. Again, why is it a problem for BRO to be city centric. By the way Torke does not write about the suburbs either.
I’d like to echo, to an extent, the thoughts of “intern” posted above.
Mr. Smith comments, “Now, most of the members of that initial wave of new hires have been replaced – for the most part – by unpaid interns who are in it for the resume boost, not the mission.”
I am an intern at Buffalo Rising. Do you know me? Are you aware of my area of study? Have I informed you of my interests, passions, and career aspirations? You certainly haven’t asked me, so how you are knowledgeable enough to make such a strong assertion regarding my personal motivations for the things I do is quite amazing.
At best, your statement is ill-informed. At worst, it is inflammatory, demeaning, and quite frankly, personally insulting. Whatever your personal beef is, I would prefer it if you left me out of it.
Jon Splett,
Call me a “hipster” all you want- or you could come play pickup hockey with me 3x a week. Hell, you could come join my roller hockey league in (SHHHH) West Seneca. How about participating in my fantasy football league?
Your statements come across as naive, xenophobic generalizations. Placing labels on people you don’t know is rarely good for much else other than making them mad.
Guys, this is the classic reason why it takes forever to get anything done in Western New York. We are more concerned with being right and winning the argument rather than finding out where we all agree and moving forward. That’s why we are still waiting on Bass Pro, the waterfront the Peace Bridge, you name it. This is classic “Old Buffalo” in today’s lingo. And that’s exactly why I hate that label and the label “New Buffalo”.
Apparently, nothing has changed. That really depresses me.
So, are the people who are assailing geek for posting this simply upset that he pointed out that another media outlet did something naughty?
Geek and other writers here have criticized The Buffalo News, Artvoice, Bee Group, etc over the years. Should BRO be excluded for some reason? Why does pointing out that BRO did something shady result in such vitriol? The tone of the original article seemed to be one of disappointment, not nastiness.
It’s a pretty straightforward story and the commenters seem to be the ones throwing around rumors and accusations.
Since this is the first thread I’ve read here about BRO, I guess it’s dragging their anonymous enemies out of the woodwork.
Do you live in my district? Is this a campaign website? No? Then keep my campaign out of it. Incidentally – Chicago has loads of sprawl, no? How’s the population out there doing? Is it seeing as rapid a decline as Buffalo’s?
They speak for themselves. You accused there of being no one writing positive things about the city before BRO came along and opened everyone’s eyes. That was false, and I called you on it. You backpedaled, and continue to do so. But your initial comment about there being no one out there being positive about Buffalo is false, condescending, and derogatory.
I have no clue about the url issue, and if it exists I had nothing to do with it. Cybersquatting is not something I’m particularly fond of. But it’s apples and oranges, since any alleged cybersquatting does not unfairly boost WNYM’s traffic numbers.
Hey, Adam Fix. Who’s Alex B.? You know – the one who posted those negative cached stories to Digg? Maybe he’d care to comment.
Hey former bro fan, I guess the world would be a better place if geek pretended he didn’t see this nonsense on digg, or at least that’s what the loyal bro readers would have you believe.
Why should anyone sit on a factual story? As Andrew said earlier, if bro is allowed to be deceptive, it hurts everyone.
I think it was courageous for geek to write this post as he probably won’t be too welcome in the Buffalo Old Home Week circles anymore. Whatever mojo he had going as an activist will take a hit now that he’s dared to question King Newell.
Buffalopundit: How about responding to Adam Fix’s quite justified anger at being called a resume-boosting intern rather than prodding him for information about something he likely knows nothing about? He’s come on this site, used his real name, and expressed concern about how interns were characterized in this article. That seems like a very upfront move, one that you should be applauding rather than ignoring, given your stated concerns about the divisions between BRO and the WNYM online communities.
Buffalopundit,
I don’t know who that is. “Maybe he’d care to comment”? Does that have any relevance to my post?
I commented because I was being referred to, and had an issue with what was being said about me personally. That is all. I speak for no one but myself.
i shouldn’t jump into this malay as it were, but as a side note, geek was one of the directors of old home week this year – buffalo rising/newell was not involved with old home week. yes, a couple of posts went up on the br website, but that’s where their participation ended. it was always an event supported by newell/br, but there was never actual participation from them…
I think your website is taking cheap shots at BRO and Newell. We all have to pay our bills, and Newell has done an awful lot for this city pro bono. The fact that his team might be using risky tactics to drive folks to their site does not undermine all the positive things Newell has done for countless people in WNY. Publishing newsworthy stories” Man bites Dog ” on the hidden pages of their website to drive traffic is brilliant, and yes a little risky. But WNY has already suffered enough from its risk adverse behaivor. When you are at the top …which Newell and George clearly are, people will do whatever it takes to pull you down. The old saying “Misery loves company” seems to apply here. Don’t let these wannabes deflate your enthusiasm Newell. You could be one of the most important people to Buffalo’s positive self image.
Thanks for the kind sentiments, Alan. The feeling has always been mutual for you, for my fellow WNYM family members and for BRO. I’ve been an occasional contributer there and have a friendly relationship with Newell, who did something no one else was willing to do at the time: advertise the Central Terminal. And that partnership continues to this day. I will always be grateful to them for that.
My point here is that there is enough work to do in Western New York and there’s room for all of us to play our parts. This debate is going to leave hard feelings long after this thread is forgotten. Is it worth it?
Everybody’s judgment falters at times and we all make mistakes. We need to learn the practice of “benefit of the doubt” more often and treat people as we’d like to be treated, if we screwed up. Let’s judge people by what’s in their hearts, their minds and their intentions.
Better yet, let’s try not judge at all.
Pundit,
What does Chicago sprawl have to do with Buffalo? When have I ever defended Chicago sprawl, or any sprawl for that matter? Chicago Metro area is growing. Buffalo is shrinking. At least in Chicago there are new people coming in to pay for it (though not at its true full cost) Who in metro Buffalo is paying for the added infrastructure to support the new sprawl? Do you actually think it is all free of charge?
By the way stop pretending that you have no responsibility for your organization. You started WNYM and you set its tone. WNYM is more than just Pundit. To pretend you are a simple blogger is silly.
By the way I have never been censored by BRO.
As for the URL thing I think you should find out if it was true or not since you are a WNYM founder and you have very high standards. I would think you would want root out this kind of thing. To say that look-alike URLs are not meant to drive traffic is dishonest. Stop making excuses.
As far as BRO taking swipes at the burbs (swipe being pejorative in the sense of being unfounded or unfair) I don’t see where that has ever been done. When has BRO ever made a negative statement about the suburbs that was unfounded?
rdominguez: I didn’t call Adam Fix a resume booster, so I have no need or compulsion whatsoever to respond to him on that. Also, I’m not so sure what you’re getting at in terms of my “stated concerns about the divisions between BRO and the WNYM online communities”.
Adam: I didn’t say you spoke for anyone else. I just figured since, you know, you identified yourself as a BRO intern you might actually know who did this. If you don’t, that’s fine. It was a suggestion that if _anyone_ should be posting in response to this story, it is he. It was a suggestion, not an accusation.
I guess I should have used a more direct leading question instead. So, is there an intern or employee at BRO who is named Alex with a last name that starts with a “B”?
Rory Allen:
It wasn’t “man bites dog”. It was “dog rapes toddler”. And it happened in Lockport. Glad you found that “brilliant”.
Right. Chicago has, as the kids like to say, hella sprawl. Yet its Metro Area is growing in spite of it. Therefore, it is not, as you suggested, sprawl that is keeping Buffalo down.
Absolutely not. I’m unaware of any new county roads being built at taxpayer expense in recent years. I do know that in Clarence, at least, when a new subdivision is built, it is the developer’s responsibility to build it. When (and if) it subsequently becomes a public road, maintenance becomes the town’s responsibility.
No. You are incorrect. I did not “start” WNYM. Marc Odien did. It took quite a long time after he did so for me to start a brand new blog on WNYM – in April 2005, to be exact. It has always been Marc’s company, and I don’t set anyone’s tone but my own. Stop making up stuff and do a bit of homework.
Have I ever said differently?
You’re right. I try to do a lot more than just blog in order to help my community and expand discussion about things that matter here.
Great. I look forward to an upcoming story about, perhaps, the preservation of East Aurora’s Main Street, or maybe the gorgeous treed lanes of Snyder, or ways to improve the walkability of Williamsville’s Main Street.
As for the URL thing I think you should find out if it was true or not since you are a WNYM founder and you have very high standards. I would think you would want root out this kind of thing. To say that look-alike URLs are not meant to drive traffic is dishonest. Stop making excuses.
As far as BRO taking swipes at the burbs (swipe being pejorative in the sense of being unfounded or unfair) I don’t see where that has ever been done. When has BRO ever made a negative statement about the suburbs that was unfounded?
I’ve had a hard time figuring out what, if anything, I want to say about this- especially since the comments have veered far afield from the point of Geek’s post.
Ultimately, I haven’t yet heard anyone defend what I can only characterize as duplicitous behavior on the part of BR.O. Posting quite negative stories about the area in a hidden part of the site only accessible from somewhere else on the web and not from the front page- that’s the “big” issue. It’s amazingly disappointing, to me. It indicates that BR.O is willing to throw Buffalo and the WNY area “under the bus”, so to speak, in order to get traffic. They submitted completely neutral-to-interesting stories to Digg as well, like the photos of the storm coming in… stories that were also on the front page of the site. There’s nothing especially wrong with the use of Digg in this way, and WNYMedia has done it too. The point, the only point that matters to me, is that BR.O felt it was ok to be Janus-faced and to betray the mission that attracted so many–myself included–to them.
So, please… Newell… can you defend (or apologize for) doing it? Has or will the responsible parties stepped up? Will they face any kind of reprimand? As a number of people have pointed out, that BR.O is keeping utterly silent on this truly aggravates the negative perception of them which seems to characterize many of the comments here.
First of all, I’d like to give some credit to the BRO guys for doing an awesome job of steering the debate way off topic and distracting everyone from the fact their company is such an influential force in the community that the only way they can figure out how to bump their traffic numbers is to post secret stories to Digg they don’t want their readers to see. I mean, I knew you guys were awesome public relations writers after reading those great advertisements (oh I’m sorry, ‘articles’) for any restaurant with a wine list but your spin control is also exceptional. Kudos.
Secondly, I speak for myself, not my outlet. I called you hipsters no one else at WNYM did. (Well maybe they did. That’s a lot of comments above me and I’m not about to go over them with a fine tooth comb.) This instantly brought out the victim complex in you trying to defend how your ‘totally unique’ and I ‘don’t even know you’ to make such generalizations. You’re completely correct. I don’t know you. What I do know is what you print, and you print pretentious hipster bullshit. I may be making generalizations but I’m making them based off things you write and I didn’t create your public personas, you did. Don’t want to be labeled a hipster, stop writing about Elmwood Avenue and anything within a 4 block radius of it as if it was the cultural center of the world.
One of you’re defenders proved my point perfectly when they posted about houses on Richmond looking ’so much nicer’ and how that was a sign the city was ‘coming back’. Gee, houses in the Elmwood area cut their grass, that must mean the entire city is perfect! Let’s write about how pretty our gardens are! I’m sure what happens on Richmond carries over to the east side right? Everything off Bailey Avenue is sharing in Elmwood’s success because eliminating all that negative news fixed everyone’s problems!
If you can’t see why your reputation in this town is ‘urban hipster self congratulatory masturbation session’, then anything I say isn’t going to get through because the group think has taken hold.
former BRO fan had a great point. If this was a post on the Buffalo News doing something backhanded and shady, you’d be applauding it but because you report ‘the positive news’ you think you’re somehow immune to criticism. It’s funny how I didn’t see any commenters piling on the sports blogs when they buried Bucky Gleason for being a general douchebag. According to your logic, they must have a personal vendetta against the Buffalo News because they dared questioned the way they go about things.
Seriously hipsters. Get over yourselves.
There is really only way to settle this. All of the interns from Buffalo Rising arms themselves with tube socks full of matchbox cars, all of the interns at wnymedia.net grab cans of aqua-net and bic lighters.
We meet at Thursday In The Sqaure tonight and rumble like men! This bickering has gone on long enough without bloodshed or burnt flesh.
Time to put up or shut up, buffalo rising!
Pundit,
So I don’t see negative comments about WNYMedia on BRO because they’re not a blog? Not making much sense there.
Also, I’d really like someone to address my multiple comments about BRO covering suburban developments.
Pundit
I have to believe you are not that naive to think that all those roads (paid for by a developer or not) are free to the taxpayers of Erie county. And you also know that I am not just talking about Erie county government taxes. All those new sewer lines all those new phone lines, all those new power lines. The road widening, the abandonment in Buffalo, the start of abandonment in Cheektowaga. Who is going to pay the reported $100 M cost to move the thruway toll barrier further east so that people living in sprawl areas can commute toll free? Who pays for the infrastructure left behind while your developers build their free roads? Don’t be so simplistic.
As far as sprawl goes I actually I said “sprawl is destructive and expensive”. It eats up countryside. It intensifies our need for fossil fuels and adds pollution. In the case of Buffalo it makes everything more expensive because there are fewer and fewer people in the area to pay for it. Why is that so hard to understand?
Since you are not in control of WNYMedia I will direct the URL question to Geek. Is this issue true about the look-alike URL? If so how are you dealing with it? If it is true do you condone this type of URL mimicry? Pundit does not think it is meant to deceive users and drive up numbers. What do you think?
The URL issue really isn’t hard to check out but I guess I shouldn’t expect someone working for an online media outlet to know how to use the internet.
I just checked, we do in fact own it.
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=buffalorisin.com
I didn’t register it so I can’t comment on it but how we’re ‘dealing’ with it is pretty straight forward. We aren’t using it and from what I can tell, haven’t since at least the relaunch. If you go to it now, you get a 404 error so how exactly thats ’stealing traffic for us’ is beyond me but keep reaching for those straws.
The BRO philosophy is much like when I lived in Mahattan. When I told people I lived on W 87th the response was “if I go above 14th I get a nose bleed”.
It’s the same idea here. When I moved back to Buffalo from Manhattan I ran into an old friend at Rondezvous & told them I lived in Kenmore. You would not believe the look I got. What a loser I am for not being part of the revitalization. I live less than a mile from the city limits & spend most of my entertainment dollars in city limits. Negative comments about BR are not coming from Geek’s finding alone, I think they have sucked for a long time.
I think the Digg findings are indeed pretty serious and if you don’t think so do a little research about online advertising to see how it works. What a scam.
It ain’t pretty dresses and canapes that will bring people back into the city limits to live. It’s good schools. Period. You can’t guilt people into making that choice because of the detrimental affects of sprawl.
The NYS Thruway Authority and the taxpayers of the state of New York who own it. Part of that is so they can commute to Buffalo toll free.
Left behind?
Because sprawl is the effect – not the cause. People moved away from the city, and don’t move into the city, for a reason. I don’t know if you have kids or not, but the choice of where to live to make a good life for them and to give them a good education is not one taken lightly, and doesn’t lend itself to “macro” considerations like sprawl or pollution.
Also, some people have perfectly valid reasons for not living in the city and living where they do. Reasons that have nothing to do with schools or sprawl or neighborhoods or anything else. Your attitude paints all suburbanites with a broad brush that is oversimplistic and unfair.
Jon
I do not work for an online media outlet so your derogatory tone is unnecessary
So now we know that WNYMedia in fact does use at least this one less than upfront tactics to drive numbers. Pundit and Geek can no step down from the high horse. Look-alike URLs, in my opinion, are one of the lowest forms of Internet abuse. Tricking people to your site s not cool
That fact that it is not used now does not excuse the fact that it was created by WNYMedia and was used by WNYMedia. Jon i find it odd that you can be so outraged by BRO’s tactics but not those employed by WNYM.
That being said I have made my piece with the world and will move on.
Pundit
Its not just the city being impacted by sprawl it is Cheektowaga, Kenmore, Lackawana. And by the way Sprawl does not improve education. You have not answered my question. Who is paying for all the new infrastructure as the region shrinks?
Ok now I have said my piece
edit
That is “peace”
“404 File not found” is the most visited site on the internets.
Pundit had nothing to do with it, so Pundit’s horse is high up.
I look forward to the next Lockport-based “dog rapes toddler in perfect urban environment” story on BRO.
Places that don’t exist in the BRO-o-sphere.
Never said it did. It just so happens that the best overall school districts in the county are out in sprawlsville.
Not you.
Your responses say a lot!
enough already. don’t you people have jobs?
But I thought it was the not just the act itself, but the cynicism behind the act that has you all so disturbed about BR.
If you go to it NOW, you get a 404 error, but you can’t deny that at some earlier point (could even be yesterday) someone at this bastion of honesty and truth set up a look-alike URL traffic to bounce people looking for BR to this site.
The longer this goes on, the more you damage whatever credibility you’ve built up. From the outside you all look petty, self-involved, and self-important.
What is the source of your obsession with the “hipsters”? Do you feel that they get attention that you deserve? Do you resent their successes and revel in their failures because they are taken seriously by some, when it should be obvious to any thinking person that it is you and your select group of friends that see reality clearly.
Why can’t the hipsters and their groupthinking followers understand that the truth about Buffalo (and the world, for that matter) can only be found here at this blog?
Why do people think that Newell is cool? You’re just as cool as he is…COOLER!…because you aren’t pretentious like him and his BROs.
c.r. ibby – WTF are you talking about?
kris: scroll up….take some time…you’ll piece it together, I’m sure.
I am very sad to hear that Buffalo Rising has done this. I am even more sad that this post was made and the comments that have followed it. I guess I’m sad about a lot things, like spending an hour that I should have been working to read things that make me sad.
Anyway, I read a lot of blogs and my favorites when it comes to WNY are Buffalo Rising, Buffalo Pundit, and Albanys Insanity. I read others on and off but not as frequently or as consistently as those three. It’s strange because when I first started reading Buffalo Rising it some how in some way, which I can’t recall, led me to Pundits page which directed me to everything else. I’m not sure what that makes me, a 20-something-hipster-conservative-suburban:nuetral-antiGItoll-stategovhating-whatever else people have been stereo typing with person? I am unsure.
I like beer and hate wine. So I end up reading WNYMedia more in such regards. I like art, events, and food found in the city, so I read BR more for that. I like to read about people that I don’t know lives and relate with them so I read WNYMedia. I mean really there are few conflictions between the two, and very little impeding on each others turf. That is until BR started posting in outlets like Digg.
What BR did, which was to go against their motto of promoting the city, was wrong. There isn’t any if ands or buts about it. Will I stop reading BR? No, because I enjoy reading up on possible things that I might be interested in doing. Will I stop reading WNYMedia and its array of blogs because Jon pissed me off with all his “bro is all hipster bullshit” comments. Not at all. I think BR should just fess up and come out with it.
I wonder what the total number of man-hours spent (wasted) on this blog roll has been. Imagine if we all took that time and worked on some falling apart house, or delivered food to needy people. If only………
Actually I think the whole domain forwarding thing is pretty bush league on our part. I don’t know who registered it here but chances are it was registered when WNYM was in it’s infancy and when we got organized and added a bit of structure to what the site was going to be, someone realized it was bush league and killed the forward. Regardless, the amount of traffic generated by a typo of a domain name is laughably small compared to the traffic Digg is going to give you. It doesn’t make it right to do but trying to pretend they’re equal in the world of traffic manipulation is just stupid. And say what you want but we’ve acknowledged we own the domain. BRO scrambled to delete any evidence of what they did, while we posted it for all to see.
And c.r. ibby, my beef with hipsters isn’t that they’re more ‘cool’ then me or I want my ‘vision for Buffalo’ to be recognized. I’m a fucking baseball blogger. The only cause I’m pushing for is VORP to become more widely accepted as an evaluation of talent than batting average.
My beef with hipsters because they are to the left what the fundamentalists are to the right. Preachy, self-righteous and smug about how smart they think they are and any value their message has gets buried under their douchebaggery. If hipsters weren’t such cocks, I might actually give a fuck what they have to say but their general attitude alienates the rest of us.
> Great. I look forward to an upcoming story about, perhaps, the
> preservation of East Aurora’s Main Street, or maybe the gorgeous
> treed lanes of Snyder, or ways to improve the walkability of
> Williamsville’s Main Street.
There was an article a while back on the proposed lifestyle center proposed for Maple Road in A*****t.
http://www.buffalorising.com/story/urban_mirage_proposed_for_amhe
Instead of praise for the development, which breaks the mold of the usual 1970s-style commercial development in Buffalo’s ‘burbs, and brings some walkability to what is otherwise a vehicle-dominanted landscape, the article — and the bulk of responses — is predictably negative.
If there were more article about progressive development trends in the ‘burbs — commercial strip retrofitting, traffic calming, mixed use redevelopment of older shopping plazas, New Urbanism, architectural and design regulations, and so on — the response will in all likelihood be the usual “it’s fake”, “it’s not authentic”, “it should be in the city instead”, and “stop posting about the suburbs”.
Seems like some would rather hear about Danish hitchhikers stopping in the city for the night, a new donut shop, the sighting of a car with Pennsylvania plates in front of a meter on Elmwood, or a new poetry ‘zine with a circulation of 20.
Jon Splett
It is apparent that you don’t even know what a hipster is so choose another label; self proclaimed hipsters would not be happy.
For All
Why does it anger people that BRO doesn’t talk about “your thing” or “your cause”? They have their own, get over it! I don’t post complaining about too few articles on my neighborhood (Hamlin Park).
Time out….!! I come out of my hole to bring you the following message:
“So now we know that WNYMedia in fact does use at least this one less than upfront tactics to drive numbers.”
its like comparing apples to oranges… are you really serious?? Digging negative stories about Buffalo and buying up unused domain names??
For the Record….
The reason it was done in the first place was because of other dirty slimy business tactics from Buffalo Rising headquarters brought on back in early March, which, against my better judgment, were never discussed publicly on the intertubes… So at the time, we thought a little subtle retaliation was in order and we bought a few un purchased domains for future enjoyment ( oh how minds will wander)
We also own Buffalorising.tv and politicswny.net which i’m willing to part with for a price… interested?? I hear the politicswny domain is going for a million and half these days…
And for full disclosure, i think the only visit or traffic spike ever gotten from either of those two BRO domains was when George found it by accident and at the time … laughed about it!!
My how times and attitudes change in Buffalo isn’t it?
Game On……
I am really sad after reading this thread.
Don’t you understand that both sides of the WNYmedia/BRO squabble are on the same team? See when intelligent people fight it opens the door to morons running the show.
I am a fan of both of these outlets. I choose not to choose. Both outlets COMBINED, and some side blogs like fixbuffalo, provide me the info I need on the west coast.
Remember it takes friction to polish the stone. I just hope we can get a spake and light a fire under the asses of the so called “leadership” in Buffalo, Erie County, WNY and NY.
I find arrogant and egocentric people on both outlets. MOST SMART PEOPLE ARE. We really need to stop “one upping” and focus on the inmates running the asylum in my opinion.
I have been directed to phony URLs before. I don’t find it funny when one site pretends to be another( the usual purpose of which is to steal your money). Who cares how many hits WNYM got off the deceptive practice. It is still deceptive. Too make excuses for it is the hight of hypocrisy while calling BRO out on the carpet for its practices.
Let he who is without sin…..
thats the thing Steel my boy! There is nothing deceptive about it. I just told you we did it. They don’t come to our domain, therefore how are we being deceptive?
We didn;t pretend to be anybody… We bought a few domain names that aren’t forwarded anywhere
But thanks for wrapping up this thread nicely by stating the main point of the post at hand… Deceit!
From HLM website:
“Buffalo Rising uses hyperlocal content produced by a team of contributors to market the city — to remind people why they live there.”
Yeah… Doggy rape and 5 year old Heroin addicts is exactly why I choose Buffalo!! How bout you Steel?
Oh thats right… you don’t chose Buffalo at all…
Damn, I always forget…
Whatchdog
As a commenter noted earlier they were deceptively directed to WNYM by the phony look-alike URL. I really don’t see how you can excuse that while condemning BRO. I doubt that WNYM bought the URL by accident and then acidentaly linked it to a WNYmedia page.
You can be an apologist for deception if you like but don’t be all offended by others missteps at the same time.
When is the GEEK explanation going to be published exposing WNYM’s deceptive practices? URL misdirection is the same tactic used by internet thieves and at least 2 WNYM people think that is funny. Not funny in my book!
In response to the question posed by Adam Fix…
You take umbrage with the following statement:
You are an intern who, in the end, will get a resume boost from writing for BuffaloRising, n’est pas? As an intern, you did replace familiar writers and the initial wave of hires, correct?
If you are most upset about the idea that I claimed that you were there for the resume boost, not the mission…well, I’m sorry that you were offended.
Interns are typically brought on to get real world experience in a company so that they can move on to bigger and better things upon graduation. Why my statement about the purpose of internships seems to upset you, I’m not sure.
Wow, quite the list of people commenting. Probably just about everyone else who reads blogs has checked in and read almost all the comments – 20, 60, 100, 145. It’s a bit hard to know where one left off without numbered comments or time stamps, but after a while they all run together anyway.
Everyone take a deep breath or two, reach back inside yourselves and try to remember only the things you liked about it other – concentrate.
Now say one positive – meaning “nice” and constructive – thing about the other. Then do it again.
Any thing negative and you’ll get electrocuted when you hit “Submit”.
I liked BR better when George had an opinion and comment wars like this would break out all the time. But BRO isn’t better or worse, IMO, now – it’s different than it was, and people enjoy it. I like the architecture & history stuff best, but something for everyone.
Most of the blogs I read fall under the WNYMedia heading. I don’t like all of them, and more than a few rank near the top of what I like to read, even if I disagree at times with points made. Making me think, even if I don’t comment about it, is never a bad thing.
So peace guys – you’ve really aired this out, and it’s time to move on.
Make a positive construction, now…please.
This blog is where I write about things that matter to me personally. It’s where I write about how I’d like to accomplish change in my hometown and occasionally have a little fun. In the two years that I have been writing, I have criticized many, been criticized and ridiculed myself, and I like to think I’ve generally made the city a better place to live and work. All of that is why I gave a lot of thought as to whether or not to publish this post about BuffaloRising.
On one hand, I knew it would provide an equal and opposite reaction from Buffalo Rising supporters and on the other hand, it would demonstrate my disappointment in a business I once respected.
Anyhow, I digress…
I had a lot of respect for the guys at BRO when they launched their company. They seemed like they were high minded, progressive, and a nice addition to a growing media market. After some time, I came to see what they wrote about as being counterproductive and a continual celebration of mediocrity. I mean, is it really noteworthy when a new ATM opens up on Allen St? A lot of things that they write about are completely unworthy of discussion and make us look pretty pathetic as a community as Dan from Cyburbia mentioned earlier in this long thread.
However, I rarely commented about it publicly (until now) and kept my comments to myself.
I decided that an organized regional outlet for discussion about neighborhood events, politics, activism, and general buffoonery was needed. So, a couple of us got together and loosely organized the web community that Marc Odien had built over several years. Our goals were small, our motives genuine, and we hoped to make a nice little local business that employed a few people and made a difference in sponsoring community forums. We’re doing that. It’s not easy, but we’re doing alright.
We’ve never seen ourselves as competitors to Buffalo Rising, we have a wider audience and talk about completely different things. Sure, they’re a website, but it’s not like ours in content, design, direction, or goals.
So, when we started our business, we had some issues with BR as they saw us as competitors. We kept all of that off the site (until now) and went about our business.
When I came across the information referenced in the original post, I thought it was worthy of an aricle. I asked my partners here what they thought about it and there was not unanimity about whether to post. In the end, they decided to trust my judgment. I wrote what I thought was an even handed post about something that I thought was personally disappointing. It’s not “expose” journalism and it’s not investigative in any way. It’s all on the web for the world to see.
Unfortunately, this post has given a lot of people the opportunity to bring to light some unflattering things in regards to their dealings with Buffalo Rising. I won’t speak to the veracity of those claims nor will I say I agree or disagree with the posting of them. In the end, it’s up to Newell or George to handle that issue either here or on their own site.
As to the hipster/non-hipster debate, the whole thing is absolutely tired and completely subjective. That is why I have never said one word about it. The pro-city/anti-suburb thing? Don’t care. Live where you want, just make it a better place.
In the end, this story served to point out something I saw as hypocritical. I’ve never claimed that I’m the cleanest guy alive, nor should it be at issue. What is at issue were the facts in the original post.
It’s a shame that this thread, like most on the Internet, devolves into personal attacks and general stupidity while taking away from the initial intent of the post.
But, that’s life in the shrinking city…
To beat a dead horse:
No mention of the look-alike URL put out by WNYM?
And the ATM story was about more than the ATM. Don’t pretend all the stuff on WNYM is ultra relevant. It just is not
OK now I have really got to go!
Why does pointing out the lack of relevance in BRO posts automatically result in a comment about relevance in WNYM posts? Geek didn’t say that WNYM was the embodiment of integrity or relevance. Immediately turning around an accusation is really lame.
It’s cute reading about websites who argue between themselves. Real Productive.
Now for a shameless plug
We are talking about you here
http://forums.speakupwny.com/showthread.php?p=221250&posted=1#post221250