August 07, 2008

Exposed: Blogging's Secret Next Generation

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Identi.ca/FriendFeed)

I'm afraid to admit it, and feel ashamed for the Stay family name, but I can't take all the credit for my last article on Facebook removing features and the confusing nature of the new design. Yes, it's a shame, but I'm going to have to tell you the real story behind us guest bloggers on LouisGray.com. You see, it's not really us blogging most of the time. Louis Gray has an entire army of baby guest bloggers that post for him regularly. Louis recruits us, but in reality he really is looking for the amazing talents of our babies.

I'm going to come clean on this one though. I'm going to have to blame most of my last article about Facebook on my 4 month old son, Jesse III, who has recently been recruited as a new guest blogger for LouisGray.com. It appears we got the II's (from my name) and III's (from his name) mixed up as we were entering our logins that night and he very easily and mistakenly posted as myself that night.

I caught the mistake the next day and was able to quickly correct it, showing that Facebook's new design was definitely not easy enough for a baby to use. I mean, if he couldn't figure out the new Facebook redesign, how could I? I have since docked his allowance and limited him to just one binky per day for the incident, and it will never happen again. Coincidently, it was also him who posted on my blog awhile back, under his own name, saying he was on hiatus from Twitter. He didn't tell me beforehand and I was stuck eating his words as people thought it was actually me leaving Twitter. I mean, why couldn't Twitter allow suffix meta tags so we didn't have to share the same username? I have since found his counsel quite comforting though, as Identi.ca and FriendFeed seem to be working out pretty well for me so far. He certainly knows how to cause a stir though!

Louis Gray, in his open, family-oriented format, is no stranger to baby-blogging. After all, it was his baby Matthew that recently was the center (no pun intended) of the Gray Family/CenterNetworks controversy, and after much heartache and emotions he is now back blogging so I hear for his Dad when his Dad is too busy with work. You often wonder how Louis does it, following everything on FriendFeed, posting sometimes multiple times a day to this blog, and now on SocialMedian. Well, the answer is, so I hear, he doesn't - this is a family establishment here on LouisGray.com and Matthew is as much a part of the family as the rest of our babies are.

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira is also a welcomed guest blogger on LouisGray.com. What you may not know is that her 2-year old daughter, Pete, has been moonlighting on the side of her job with CenterNetworks.com to occasionally help out her mom on LouisGray.com. Yes, while Matthew has been criticized by Allen Stern for slacking on the job, sweet little Pete has also been spending a little time over here helping out in her spare time. We certainly appreciate the help! In fact, Cyndy's first post to LouisGray.com was actually a Seesmic video from her daughter, Pete. Cyndy does such great posts, it's hard to tell which ones her daughter may actually be helping her out on and which ones are actually Cyndy. Thank goodness they don't have the same name!

Next time you read a LouisGray.com guest post, think of the babies behind those posts. We may put our names in front of them, but in reality, our babies are the true reason behind Louis Gray's success. Louis wasn't joking when he said he is an "early adopter".

Jesse III's next post will be on Facebook privacy, for babies.