Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Open Source Media Moguls Change Back into Pajamas

You read it here first as mere speculation; now Charles Johnson confirms the hypothesis on his OSM Media website--Republicans in suits ruined Pajamas Media. Apparently, the name was so un-original that it was already being used by another website run by Boston radio host Christopher Lydon, called Open Source. So dumb, dull and unoriginal to copy a bad idea from Public Broadcasting, that only Republicans would do it--and did:
So how did this happen in the first place? Back at the beginning, certain, shall we say, paternalistically minded parties (i.e., the guys in suits) decided that we should act like grownups, and being as yet somewhat immature—at least as businesspeople--we did as we were told.

Which is how, one day, we ended up sitting around a conference table listening to representatives from a "branding" company. What followed is still a bit of a nightmarish blur, but it involved a PowerPoint presentation on the history of names, and such probing questions as, "If you were an animal, what animal would you be?" (Which is how we almost ended up as Jellyfish Media.)

Enough said. So, in the spirit of "open source," we thought we’d tell you the real story behind the reason for our name change. And hope that our corporate parents will be satisfied with good grades and healthy revenue.


IMHO, I'd think about stopping trying to please your corporate parents, and instead try to please yourselves and your readers, if I were Charles Johnson and the OSM/Pajamas bloggers...