San Francisco News Blog

You should do that anyway, but these two will probably blog about you if they catch you in the act. They write the popular Muni Manners blog that acts as a kind of etiquette guide for Bay Area public transportation riders. Previously they were known only as the mysterious Muni Lady 1 and Muni Lady 2, but recently discarded their secret identities to soak up some attention on KTUV 2. May their visages now strike fear into the hearts of those who believe their messenger bags deserve a seat on a crowded train.

Article and video here.

--Andy Wright

Every Tuesday, SF Weekly's news blog, The Snitch, profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a series we call BetterKnowanSFBlog! This week, San Francisco-based music company Fuzz launches its new blog-style publication.

By Tyler Callister

Fuzz, whose slogan is "music uprising," is one of those provocative companies that only emerges when a situation is really fucked up. Such is the case with the music industry. Statistically, CD sales are down 22 percent since 1999, and Rolling Stone says, "More than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000." Anecdotally, we've been hearing for years about major labels' myopic business models, failure to embrace digital music, and reckless treatment of artists. As the Dallas Observer put it, the music industry has been, "bleeding like a hemophiliac with a razor fetish."

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Gridskipper's Dianne de Guzman engaging in some hard-nosed city journalism.

Every Tuesday morning, SF Weekly's news blog The Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week, we talk to Dianne de Guzman from the blog Gridskipper, exploring the subtleties of making-out and gentrifying in San Francisco.

By Tyler Callister

One of my favorite posts by Gridskipper contributor Dianne de Guzman lists the "Best Make-Out Spots in San Francisco." The urban travel blog suggests Coit Tower, Twin Peaks, and several other places to play tonsil hockey. Sure, Gridskipper did do another post called the "Best Handjobs in San Francisco" which listed several of the top escort services, but why would I pay just to get to third base?

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Every Tuesday morning, SF Weekly's news blog The Snitch profiles one the Bay's many cool blogs or bloggers in a segment we call, BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week, we revisit San Francisco blog celebrity Matt Mullenweg.

By Tyler Callister

Matt Mullenweg, the computer code developer whom PC World listed as #16 on its 50 Most Important People on the Web, has only taken one computer science class in his entire life — and he hated it.

He told me that the rest of his tech knowledge he taught himself, using books and the Internet. He never finished college, but he managed to become the lead developer of WordPress -- one of the most influential blog publishing platforms in the world. If you've ever read a blog, there's a good chance you've seen WordPress in action. In January, the company behind WordPress, Automattic, sealed $29.5 million in funding, with The New York Times Co. among the investors.

Every Tuesday morning, The Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call BetterKnowanSFBlog! This week: quit your day job and become almost famous!

By Tyler Callister

Music blogger Nate Seltenrich used to intern at Zero Magazine where he got to interview big names like The Killers, Hot Hot Heat, Modest Mouse, and Social Distortion. But as a young aspiring music journalist, Seltenrich was frustrated by impersonal interviews with big artists who were already swamped by the media. "You get slammed into an interview slot for thirty minutes. And they're kind of withdrawn and don't have a lot invested in what you're trying to talk to them about," he says.

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Every Tuesday, SF Weekly's news blog The Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call... BetterKnowanSFBlog! This week, it's really more of a website than a blog, but anyways, we've got the scoop on San Francisco's freshest art gallery!

(Photo courtesy of fecalface.com)

By Tyler Callister

San Francisco's top art website Fecal Face will open a real life art gallery in Hayes Valley on Saturday, featuring the artists Kill Pixie, Jay Howell, Jeremy Fish, Kelsey Brookes, Andrew Schoultz, Hilary Pecis, Tara Foley, and Maya Hayuk. "It's nice to see work online but having a physical space to show and support artists is going to be great," Fecal Face founder and editor John Trippe says. "You can appreciate the work much better when it's seen in person." (Click "more" to continue reading)

Every Tuesday, SF Weekly's news blog The Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in segment we call BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week, we fuck you in the eye with photos.

By Tyler Callister

This is one of my favorite pictures on the photo blog What I'm Seeing:

"Every once in a while, when the inner-city pressure is getting to be a bit much, you see something like this and have to crack a smile," they write on the blog. It kind of makes you happy that Clo the Cow roams the streets of San Francisco. Then they drop a picture like this:

Local music blogs ipickmynose and The Bay Bridged will host a show at Berkeley's Starry Plough on Saturday, featuring folk acts BeatBeat Whisper, Or, The Whale, and Emily Jane White. We caught up with ipickmynose's Adrian Bischoff to discuss his thoughts about the show and the Bay Area music scene at large.

By Tyler Callister

On Adrian Bischoff's flagship site, ipickmynose.com, he takes a poll, asking you whether or not you pick your nose. According to the results page, roughly 69% of those polled pick their nose and 31% do not.

Clearly, 31% of the population are liars.

Every Tuesday morning we profile one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week: real estate just got more real.

By Tyler Callister

Curbed SF is San Francisco's premier blog of structural phenomena. "Instead of being generalists, we are very focused on neighborhoods, on real estate, on the built environment, on architecture," Curbed SF editor Sarah Hromack said in a telephone interview from her home in the Upper Market Castro area. "We're interested in looking at San Francisco in its changing urban landscape."

In case you haven't noticed, every Tuesday we profile one of the Bay's rockin' blogs in a segment we call BetterKnowanSFBlog. If you don't know what a blog is, you're obviously spending too much time on that antiquated machine you call a TV.

So these are some of the most popular articles in the BetterKnowanSFBlog series, in no particular order because we don't believe in hierarchies ... or something like that.

If, by the end of this tumble through the blogosphere, you feel inspired to join this here SF Weekly blog community, get your own SF Weekly screen name which you can use to leave comments on our articles, build up a reputation on SFWeekly.com, and get to know other commenters.

Mother Jones, American labor activist and namesake of Mother Jones Magazine.

By Tyler Callister

There's nothing like an old woman to inspire a young journalist in his crusade for blogospheric glory. My inspiration is my grandma. For others, it's Madonna. And, for a select few, it's Mother Jones.

San Francisco indie music blog and podcast The Bay Bridged will present a showcase of exclusively San Francisco bands at the SXSW Music Festival in March. We caught up with the guys from The Bay Bridged to discuss their excitement about the showcase, their blog and podcast, and the state of the SF music scene.

Story and photos by Tyler Callister

No self-respecting San Franciscan visits Texas, for fear of being hanged, shot, or forced to attend a hoedown. The one and only exception is the SXSW Music Conference and Festival in Austin. That's where hundreds of bands and music industry insiders converge for five days in one of the most important events in the industry, and that's where The Bay Bridged, in collaboration with Bay Area labels Three Ring Records and Tricycle Records, will host San Francisco bands-to-watch like Scissors For Lefty, Film School, Social Studies, Birds and Batteries, and Von Iva.

In an interview at their podcasting headquarters in the Mission District, The Bay Bridged editors Ben Van Houten and Christian Cunningham sipped on a couple beers and spoke passionately about their work in the thriving SF music scene.

Every Tuesday morning we profile one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week: thoughts from LiveJournal's Kimmy Nguyen and Krissy Teegerstrom.

Photo of LiveJournal's Krissy Teegerstrom courtesy of mattdork on Flickr.

By Tyler Callister

In 1999, LiveJournal helped pioneer both the blogging revolution and the social networking revolution. It predates blog services like WordPress and Moveable Type, and it predates social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook. Some LiveJournal users have been at it for close to a decade.

As we reported a few weeks ago...

Every Tuesday morning we profile one of the bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week: Your New Year's resolution is to quit your day job and start a band.

By Tyler Callister

Local music can be an amorphous thing. It’s not that hard to start a “band” (i.e., a kid with a guitar, a drum machine, and a MySpace account), a “record label” (i.e., a kid in his garage writing on burned CDs with a Sharpie) or a “venue” (i.e., a dive bar that keeps a hundred-dollar PA and karaoke mic in the back). But beyond the DIY stylings, there needs to be something that brings all the bands together — a sound, a fashion, a cause, or, perhaps, a kickass Web site.

Enter The Deli SF, one of …

Every Tuesday morning, we profile one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week: I want to ride my bicycle!

By Tyler Callister

Blogger Rob Anderson is an “antibike activist.” At least that’s how the Bay Guardian recently described him. ...

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog The Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week: Laughing Squid unites art and gadgetry.

By Tyler Callister

The San Francisco Bay Guardian dubbed Laughing Squid the “Best Pipeline to the Underground” in 1998. But Laughing Squid founder Scott Beale says that he’s since taken the word “underground” off the website. “’Underground’ is a really strange term now,” he says. “I mean, nothing’s underground unless it’s truly underground and that means that no one’s talking about it.”

Beale has a point...

By Tyler Callister

Bay Area company Six Apart announced on Sunday that it has sold LiveJournal to Russian media company SUP (pronounced “soup”). The sale stirs up old questions about LiveJournal’s ability to stay afloat as it competes with massive social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

Launched in 1999 by then-19-year-old Brad Fitzpatrick, LiveJournal pre-dates MySpace and Facebook, and is partially responsible for initiating both the blogging revolution and social networking revolution. Now, according to the Associated Press, comScore statistics show 72 million U.S. users visited MySpace in October, 32.9 million visited FaceBook, and just 3.9 million visited LiveJournal.

In a telephone interview, Six Apart CEO Chris Alden said that the sale of LiveJournal was...

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog The Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week: SFist.

By Tyler Callister

In contrast to bloggers like Gizmodo's Brian Lam, Brock Keeling doesn’t seem too attached to gadgets. That’s probably why Keeling, editor of the popular city blog SFist, accidentally left his cell phone at a bar the other day. Luckily, he’s also got enough old school flavor to have a landline, so he was able to speak to me from his SoMa District home in San Francisco.

Keeling, who's 33, got his start in print media as an editor for SF Weekly, but with his new job he's discovered that...

Photo of Metroblogging co-founder Jason DeFillippo courtesy of Joi Ito.

By Tyler Callister

In case you haven’t heard, the Pakistani people are not exactly rockin’ in the free world right now.

As part of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of so-called “Emergency Rule,” many TV news networks have been shut down and the government has threatened to fine or imprison members of the media who criticize Musharraf.

But never fear, the mighty blogs are here!

Metroblogging (affectionately called “Metblogs”) is a network of city blogs representing 54 cities across the world, three of which are Pakistani cities — Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore. Volunteer Pakistani residents write these Metblogs, providing first person coverage of and reactions to the nation’s current crisis. These blogs depict a Pakistan that’s shaken but still intact — adrenaline pumping but not in total chaos.

Zainub Razvi, a Metblogger in Karachi, Pakistan, wrote a recent blog post in which she praises...

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog The Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week, it's actually a blog software program called WordPress.

By Tyler Callister

If you live in China, you probably can’t access this article.

That’s because the Chinese government censors its citizens' internet access, keeping tight watch over controversial words and phrases like “democracy,” “freedom of speech,” and “Tiananmen Square,” as well as blocking access to many popular web sites.

Known best for their blog publishing software, WordPress is one of the most popular sites on the Internet. So when the developers of WordPress woke up one morning and found that a quarter of their site traffic had disappeared, they knew what had happened — the Chinese government had blocked their site. WordPress helps make blogs, blogs help make free speech, and the Chinese government is not a big fan.

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog The Snitch profiles one of the bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week, no silly gadgets allowed.

By Tyler Callister

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga was born in the United States, but he spent five years of his childhood in El Salvador (1976-1980), right smack in the middle of a civil war. When communist guerrillas threatened Moulitsas’ family, they fled back to the U.S.

“From a very early age I learned that politics could be a matter of life and death,” he says. So it’s no surprise that Moulitsas did not grow up and start a blog about ...

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog The Snitch profiles one of the bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week: Gadgets gone wild.

By Tyler Callister
Photo courtesy of 37˚C on Flickr

In the middle of my phone interview with Brian Lam (the editor of Steve Jobs’ favorite blog Gizmodo and an all around blog guru who has appeared everywhere from Wired to The Daily Show) his fucking iPhone dropped the call. He called me back and said that happens a lot.

While Lam loves gadgets, he’s not afraid to bluntly point out their flaws. That’s probably why he got the job as editor of the second most popular gadget blog on the internet (right below Engadget and right above Boing Boing, as ranked by Technorati). After growing up in New Jersey and moving to San Francisco “for the weather,” Lam worked as an assistant editor for Wired magazine before finally becoming editor of Gizmodo a year and half ago. He now runs the blog from his home in the Twin Peaks neighborhood.

Photo of Valleywag's Owen Thomas courtesy of Benjamin Tice Smith

Story by Ty Callister

Valleywag, the self-proclaimed “gossip rag” of Silicon Valley, has covered such tabloid-esque news as Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s love affair with former Google PR rep Marcy Simon. And they don’t just hassle the big shots — if you work in Silicon Valley you might have been in Valleywag’s 2006 geek beauty contest called “Snacky or Flacky”.

So does this put Valleywag on par with trashy tabloid news?

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Valleywag editor Owen Thomas said in an interview via AOL Instant Messenger.

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog the Snitch profiles one of the bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week, BoingBoing blows up. -ed

By Ty Callister

What does BoingBoing.net, the blog that has the attention of 7.5 million readers a day, which rakes in more than a million dollars a year in advertising, which arguably informs more Internet users about the world than The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, and which is largely recognized as an icon of Web 2.0 culture, publish in its award-winning and world-famous media outlet?

Basically, whatever ...

Christ almightey. 7.5 million uniques a day! For a bunch of gadgets! You mean to tell me people would rather read about a LED belt buckle than another dead Darfur-ian? No way! Either this is the most depressing journalism news of the year, or we need to redefine journalism to include geeky posts about vintage pinball machines.

From the NYT:

Boing Boing has become one of the five most visited blogs on the Web, according to Comscore, with a monthly traffic of about 7.5 million page views a month.

Which outranks:
The Los Angeles Times - 5.4 million
The Wall Street Journal -- 5.1 million
and rivals the Washington Post - 9 million.

So you tell me, SF.
Which is more important: issues or stuff?
I know you will all say, "issues," but you're full of shit.
The analytics don't lie. You say you're into issues you believe you're into issues, but you spend your time and attention on STUFF. We're FARKed as a culture.
Nothing wrong with that. Just stop lying to yourselves about it.

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog the Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. This week, our loser Niners get some love. -ed

By Ty Callister
Perhaps you’ve read our feature section RaidersSuckNinersSuck. It’s all about how sucky our Bay Area football teams are. Well, it turns out there are some fans who are willing to mine through all the suckage and find that 49er gold.

Meet David Fucillo, the man behind the popular 49ers blog, Niners Nation. Fucillo grew up in Las Vegas but moved to San Francisco five years ago (he didn’t say why, so I’m assuming it was because there are better strippers here). Now, Fucillo is a 28-year-old Niner blogger and a full-time law student.

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog the Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs in a segment we call -- BetterKnowanSFBlog. -ed

By Ty Callister

Ted Leibowitz is most famed for his DJ’ing at indie rock station BAGeL Radio, but he’s also a blog guru of sorts. He teaches a San Francisco State class on blogging, writes for the blog State of the Day, and, of course, runs the official BAGeL Radio blog.

Leibowitz, who wears spiky hair, sharp sideburns, and a total of four earrings, is the quintessential home studio impresario. Walk to the end of the hall in his apartment and you’ll find a spare room lit by the sunny fog of the Richmond District. You’ll probably see one of his cats sniffing around the desk full of computer screens and mixing boards. To the side of the desk you’ll see hundreds of CD’s stacked and a little scratching post for the cats. And you’ll see Leibowitz at the mic, sipping from a red sports bottle, informing his listeners about the various news and events of the indie music scene.

The BAGeL Radio blog arose in 2005 when ...

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog the Snitch profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs. This week, it's more of a list than a blog, but anyways, here's where to find things like strippers on dramamine! -d2

Thrillist Offers Frat Boi Cheat Sheet to SF
By Ty Callister
Twenty-seven year old Patrick Heig is the editor of what claims to be the manliest online publication in this hippie-ass city, other than you know, 100 Percent Beef.

The brand new media property Thrillist purports to be your pal at the bar stool, you know, one who sends you e-mails with cool stuff to do.

“We try to think of it as one buddy telling another buddy about something cool,” Heig says.

Prime example: Thrillist told their audience about The Mermaids Cruise, a tiny cruise ship on which the main entertainment is strippers. (They have never served the Minnesota Vikings). As The Mermaids Cruise website says, strippers on a boat is “the other San Francisco treat.”

Throughout the week, Thrillist e-mails many little treats to various ...

Every Tuesday morning, the SF Weekly news blog All Shook Down profiles one of the Bay's many cool blogs. This week, Go As! -d2
From Fan to 'the Man'
How an A's superfan with no tech experience built a million-reader empire
By Ty Callister

One day in 2003, Athletics Nation founder Tyler Bleszinski decided to drive through the Central Valley heat towards L.A. The sun sapped sweat from his brow and he began to wish he were back in the cool Bay Area wind. Longing for that Bay spirit, Bleszinski switched the radio to the beloved Bay Area AM station KNBR-680.

“I anxiously awaited hearing some discussion or lamenting about the A's failure that post-season,” Bleszinski recalls in his blog’s FAQ section. “I heard nothing but discussion about the hated San Francisco Giants.”

Maybe it was the Central Valley heat, maybe it was the hypnotic flatness, or maybe it was the baseball gods speaking to him that day, but Bleszinski had an epiphany. He knew he was destined to create a blog so dedicated to the Oakland A’s that it would give readers green and gold nosebleeds. It would be called “Athletics Nation” and people from all around the na—well, Oakland—would flock to read it.

He was right.

Despite the fact that the A’s are a low budget team, Athletics Nation is now one of the most popular sports blogs on the Internet. Bleszinski has been featured in ...