matt weighs in

Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler got pummeled during and in the 24 hours after the NFC Championship game on Sunday against the Green Bay Packers, because he didn’t finish the game due to injury. We all know how it played out: Cutler was horrible in the first half, showed bad body language, which isn’t new, played one series of the second half, then showed more bad body language on the sideline the rest of the game.

Even before the third quarter was over, Cutler was getting blasted on Twitter by fans and former and current players. The Bears rallied, but couldn’t complete the comeback after the final interception inside the Packers red zone, losing 14-21.

During the game, I didn’t call out Cutler for quitting on his team. I went after his body language, questioned his reputation for being a “tough” quarterback (regardless of the injury), and agreed with others who said that Cutler and Brett Favre showed an interesting contrast in playing with pain in a game to go to the Super Bowl. When one person wrote this, I hedged my agreement by saying, “Depends on [his] injury, but yes.”

I think that the people who found it so easy to blast him during the game didn’t think the whole scenario through and may have forgotten that he played in the second half after the injury occurred. Until reports surfaced on Monday that Cutler sprained his MCL, he had been labeled “Jay Quit-ler.”

It’s the NFL, an unbelievably important game, and Cutler was the best chance on offense for the Bears to come back, despite his performance. He gave it a go, but couldn’t. Why do those who ripped him think he would just give up so easy? It is because he hasn’t earned respect or the benefit of the doubt from his peers or the media, so it was easy for people to rush to judgement without any facts.

Since his knee was hurt in the first half, I have to believe that Cutler spent time with the Bears’ medical team in the locker room at halftime and probably did some tests to see how sturdy the knee was. My guess is that it didn’t respond how he and they hoped, but they decided to give it a try, since, you know, they were playing to go to the Super Bowl. The Bears went three-and-out to begin the second half, with Cutler attempting one pass on third down, and his day was done.

I am more troubled by how the Bears organization handled this than how Cutler handled himself. After the game, he, along with Head Coach Lovie Smith, talked about speaking with the medical staff and decided he shouldn’t continue to play. But their explanation stopped there. Bears players, including leader Brian Urlacher, were left to vehemently defend Cutler to the media.

No one bought it. And didn’t for 24 hours, which is a lifetime when there are 24/7 sports maniacs like ESPN, Yahoo, CBSsports, SI.com, etc. After a game of that significance, the Bears needed to come out with something more definitive to take the pressure off Cutler as soon as possible, if for no other reason than to keep us from hearing that people are also questioning his decision to go to dinner after the game with family and friends.

If the game on Sunday was a regular season game, I have my doubts that Cutler would have returned for that first series of the second half. I think the Bears’ medical team, trainers and coaches would have had him in the locker room for further tests (it was a knee injury, after all), and I think the only reason he stayed on the sideline was to support his teammates, which he did a poor job of doing, based on television camera views.

I think I would have acted differently, if I was in his place, but how do I know? He had to be dejected with what was going on in the game and his performance. It’s not like he could have bounced around slapping guys on the shoulder pads with the injured knee – that would have been even worse.

He probably should have shown he was more involved on the sidelines during the game. He didn’t, but people should get over it. I guarantee that PR people for athletes in every sport are using this as a lesson for their clients, telling them that they are always on. Even if they aren’t on the field or court of play, they are on, and people are watching. Which I think is one of the reasons so many who ripped Cutler have started to backpedal from their criticism.

As we found out, when people are watching, they are reacting and commenting for the world to read and see. It’s Twitter’s world, and, for better or worse, we’re all just watching our timeline’s in it.

[Each week, usually on Monday, I'll weigh in on a topic that I feel is worth your time and might introduce you to something new. It might not always be something you have been interested in before, but hopefully what I write might convince you to take a closer look on your own.]

I was probably pretty late to the game, but I started reading Mashable in early 2009. Mashable is a blog that dubs itself a “Social Media Guide,” as you will see in their heading if you visit their web site, but they do so much more. They are one of the leading blogs on the web discussing social media, new web sites and services, and keeping readers updated on what is going on on the internet and other technologies at any given time.

I have been using Twitter and Facebook more and more over the last couple months, and whenever something doesn’t look right on either site, whether updates aren’t coming through properly or I get the dreaded “Fail Whale,” Mashable is usually my first stop to see if anything is wrong. Their writers, including founder Peter Cashmore, seem to have the ear e-mail of the top people around the web, and will let you know where things stand. They were right on top of the story earlier in November when T-Mobile’s cell phone service was out for a few hours.

One of my favorite features of the site is the “News Channel” listed right at the top of their pages. It is kind of like a pre-filled search box, in that it lists popular categories for people who might visit their site looking for information. There’s Twitter, Google, Facebook, YouTube iPhone, and more. Click on one, and it takes you to a page that displays all the stories posted on Mashable related to that topic. The Mashable team stays on top of them all, so you know you’re getting the latest information if you go searching for answers on how to use a particular service.

Other features I find useful are their “Top 5 Social Media Stories of the Week” links, their weekly guide to social media conferences or webinars, their “How To” guides for people who might just be starting out using different social media services, and since we are a Wordpress blog, I check out their List for Wordpress for information on what we might want to use on CatNamedPig. Also, since Mashable has done so well in their four years, they love to inform us of others in the online community who are doing innovative things. They do this through their weekly Spark of Genius series, where they introduce a software company who is doing things a little bit different and a little bit better than their competition. The cool thing is that the companies they spotlight are fairly new with little revenue up to that point of recognition, so Mashable gives them a big boost by mentioning them.

The last thing I will mention about Mashable that I am impressed by is their annual Open Web Awards, which just finished weeks of voting at midnight Sunday night. The awards allow internet users from around the world to vote online for their favorite innovations in web technology and, this year in particular, social media. At last count, the 50 categories we could vote in had over 408,000 nominations by over 76,000 individuals. Results should be out soon, so I’ll be waiting with baited breath to see if I won Twitter User of the Year or Best TwitPic.

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Mashable on Twitter
Mashable fan page on Facebook
Another resource to keep informed of the changing social media landscape is Sociable Blog.

I should mention that the weekly “Spark of Genius” series on Mashable is sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, a program that gives startups access to Microsoft tools at no cost to help them build their business. I just think this is a really cool way for Microsoft to spend their billions of dollars.

Finally, just to be safe, since the (FTC) Federal Trade Commission recently passed new rules regarding disclosure of freebies or financial interests by bloggers, I should mention that I and Mashable have no relationship, and I received nothing for writing about them in this Weekly Weight. If, however, Mashable would like to have a relationship in the future, I have people they can talk to.

On Tuesday night, Laura and I attended the fourth Bloginar event put on by WCCO in downtown Minneapolis. It was our first one, so we weren’t exactly sure what to expect, except they promised free food, a chance to network with other bloggers and social media folks in the Twin Cities, and door prizes. Oh my, the door prizes, which Laura and I both came away from as winners. More below.

The Bloginar (name change in the future?) was led by John Daenzer, the Director of New Media for WCCO-TV and WCCO.com. He seemed comfortable in front of the group and did a fine job as MC for the evening. We were invited by Laura’s childhood friend, Crystal, so we sat with her, devouring take-out pizza and cookies from Davanni’s as we waited and caught up. The agenda for the evening was short, which is nice for us folks who don’t want to keep the babysitters out too late on a weeknight. There was a Q&A session with TinyURL founder Kevin Gilbertson, and then John introduced WCCO’s The Wire, their soon-to-be-unveiled online interactive news community.

The interview session with Kevin was ok, as John asked him expected questions, such as how did he come up with the idea, what are the plans for the future, and what avenues they’re pursuing to make money amd keep it viable. All good questions, in my opinion, but the answers left a little to be desired. Kevin responded woth short answers with not much elaboration. I gathered that he came up with TinyURL as a way to shorten URLs first in newsgroups back around 2000, so they weren’t broken up on two lines, that they would like to use analytics more to track how people are using the service to redirect traffic (RickRoll, anyone?), that he had a meeting in New York in February with the folks at bit.ly to most likely discuss a buyout, and that he may have plans for a new URL shortening service that would shorten TinyURL. And then he talked about his love of unicycling. I’m leaving out details, but only because it wasn’t the easiest Q&A to listen to, despite John’s and participants’ best attempts to get more out of Kevin. TinyUrl is a great service for any of you that have used it before, but I hope his business pitches to potential partners come across better than his Q&A. Interesting, but I hoped he would have opened up a little bit more.

Next was the introduction of The Wire. John led us through a quick Powerpoint showing the features of the new online interactive news community, showed a six-minute video they will use for potential advertisers, and finally a working demo.

The simplist way I can describe The Wire is that it combines a news service, comment section, and story updates all in one interactive timeline. It’s real-time, so as news or some other event is happening, people can keep up-to-date with the latest info. As a story becomes more popular in the community, it’s bubble grows bigger. People can move from story to story with a click of the mouse or by dragging the timeline side-to-side. You can zoom in-and-out, too, depending on how much of the day you wish to view in the timeline. You’ll b able to see the day before and the day after in normal view, but could also search for any three day period.

Maybe the coolest feature is that it won’t just be WCCO people posting updates, keeping others informed. Anyone will be able to post on a news story, as long as it keeps the story moving forward. And WCCO will track good ideas or tips, which could be used online elsewhere or on the air.

An example we discussed was the balloon boy fiasco from a couple weeks ago. Someone mentioned that after a while, it seemed that something was off about the story. Of course, later it came out that it was a hoax and that the family previously had been on Wife Swap and that they had been shopping a reality show idea for the family. If this story would have been live on The Wire, someone might have recognized the family from the show and posted video from their time on Wife Swap or a link to a story that they were shopping around the reality show. The Wire would, as John made clear, allow links to competing news media, if what was posted was relevant to the conversation.

There were some questions about how to keep misinformation out of the conversation. While they have some decisions to be made, he said that there would have to be some level of moderation, and that anything posted would be something they would stand by. He mentioned “talk with their lawyers” more than once, so I got the feeling that they are making an effort to not turn this into an open message board to which just anyone can post their feelings. There would be levels of contributors, most likely, so WCCO employees could probably post at any time, other users might be eventually be trusted to do the same, and that the general population would be the most moderated. I believe he said they’ve been moving Producers and Editors around in anticipation of the time needed to devote to the project once it goes live.

One of the first questions asked by a fellow attendee was about going mobile. It’s new, so there doesn’t seem to be anything in the works now. However, I would suggest they move on it quickly. I see The Wire being very useful on-the-go for people to stay informed, especially with local events and news. It seems people are so schizophrenic on the web, that I wonder how long people would stick to this one source when they have Facebook and Twitter to get back to. It will be great for getting a snapshot of what is going on at any given time, their goal will be for people to stay and contribute. For people at work, who usually don’t have great freedom to sit and surf the web from site to site, I think it could be a great one-stop news shop during the day. And for a nominal fee, companies, organizations, or venues will be able to advertise their events, which will appear in the timeline as well. I like that they have developed a couple different embeddable widgets for people to use, as well.

As mentioned, Laura and I both won door prizes. Laura won a very nice WCCO Television coffee mug. And I won what was probably considered the grand door prize, which is the opportunity to appear and be interviewed by Jason DeRusha on a future JasonCam on wcco.com. Jason does the very popular “Good Question” segments for WCCO news. We’ll have to figure out the time, and I’ll be sure to let you know when it is. I spoke briefly with Jason after the event and he seems easy to talk to, so it should be a fun conversation. Maybe I can get Siena and Elliot in front of his webcam to show off their dance moves if I freeze up.

These are my (not so brief) observations on the event. Overall, a good time. I was hoping to hear where others had come from to attend, but there were some very savvy social media folks in attendance who asked good questions to make John think about what final features to include in The Wire. I did find some attendees on Twitter who had wriiten about being there, too. I think we’ll go again (the Bloginars are held every 2-3 months). Maybe you’ll see one of us on the 6:00 news as another door prize winner

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* You can read Crystal’s adventures with food at Cafe Cyan and on WCCO’s Bite of MN food blog.
* Find out more about the Bloginar event by searching #bloginar on Twitter.
* And here’s another article about The Wire.

Okay, I’m back at it. You can stop holding your breath in anticipation now. I hope you have noticed some additions in the sidebar of the main page – Twitter (or tweets), which we love and force ourselves not to update every hour and our Flickr pictures, which we have to do better to update more often. We can even send our tweets by text message, which we did Friday night from Chino Latino in Uptown. You’ve been warned. I’m working on a few other things that may or may not screw up the sight if I mess them up, but I’ll try to keep that to a minimum, or at least contact my friend Dave, who’s recently been experiencing some updating pains. That’s the joy of the interweb.

A few thoughts on a Sunday night to catch up:

1. We could get some closure to the Democratic race on Tuesday. Most polls show Hillary with only a slight edge in Pennsylvania (down from earlier in the month), but nowhere near significant enough to make up much ground in delegates. I didn’t see the most recent debate last week, but most accounts were fairly disgusted with ABC’s lines of questioning. Two different recaps are here and here. I have thoughts on what Obama said at the private fundraiser in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, but he looks to have weathered the ridiculous reactions to it (hint as to how I feel about those reactions).

2. The NCAA basketball tournament was exciting as advertised. I have to admit that I fully jumped on the Davidson bandwagon after they disposed of Georgetown, who, most unfortunately, was my pick to win the whole damn thing. I had G’town in my pool with Laura’s family, who mostly live on the West Coast and had a predictably strong UCLA bias. Congrats to those in Missouri who were biased to Kansas, and, therefore, came out on top in the pool.

3. The NBA playoffs have started, and they are living up to their billing, as expected. I watched about 52 of the 58 minutes in Game 1 between San Antonio and Phoenix. The Suns were ahead most of the game and should have won, but were in foul trouble when it mattered – I’m not a big fan of refs and usually tell whoever will listen that I know I could do better in stripes.

The game was almost unwatchable for two reasons: every ref call was followed by players whining about it (this grows tiresome) and THE PA ANNOUNCER AND THE MUSIC WERE SO LOUD THROUGHOUT THE GAME THAT I ALMOST TURNED DOWN THE SOUND ON THE TV (bet you want to stop reading after I just screamed at you for five seconds). They do this at MN Timberwolves games, too. Music plays while the game is going on, and the game announcer thinks it’s his job to get the crowd going. The game should be exciting enough to keep the fans in it. This was evident during last year’s playoff games between Golden State and Dallas. GS’s crowd was so amped that they drowned out the music. I can’t imagine the next time that might happen at Target Center.

4. Elliot is walking. I can’t tell you the non-stop joy this is to watch him keep his balance on grass, dirt and sand. It’s great comedy, and I may start taking bets with people as to whether or not he can stay on his feet for more than five seconds on different terrain. I would take the over every time.

5. I miss Johan.

6. I watched three of the six MN Wild games and listened to two others on the radio. They only led for about four minutes in the six games played (about 380 minutes total), but with my limited hockey knowledge, they controlled play for most of the series. They ran into a Colorado Avalanche team whose goalie won the series for them (you can’t overlook their overall defense, though). I think the Wild were done in by a team that played their game better than they did in the series. The Wild are coached to be defensive minded first and take advantage of opportunities to score when the opponents give it to them. This series they lost, they were the aggressive team the majority of the time, and Colorado scored when they had the chance. Only one goalie was MVP in this series.