Open Sores

We've been watching the story develop for over a month, waiting in anticipation for this day when pajama bloggers get into bed with mainstream media.

Open Source Media they call it. huh?

We weren't invited to the flesh presser in New York City, but we did follow along with live bloggers and dead beat reporters so we could bring our audience here in the Situation Room the immediate reaction of the blogosphere to the new name for these pajama bloggers.

Let's check in with our Internet reporter Abbi Tatton. She's continuing to watch the situation for us as well. What are your picking up on your blog search, Abby?

Well, at Open Source, a public radio show with Christopher Lydon, Brendan says:

In May we named our show "Open Source" and we named our non-profit production company "Open Source Media." ...

Hm. A company that used to call itself Pajamas Media now calls itself Open Source Media, which is — scroll down to our legal notice — kind of exactly what we call ourselves. They’ve collected $3.5 million in venture capital, and, to celebrate their re-naming of our already-named name, they’re holding an event at the Rainbow Room.

So what to do. A couple of blogs — Atrios, Stephen den Beste, Dennis the Peasant, Begging to Differ, Homocon — have picked up on this already, unprompted, perhaps because if you Google "open source media", we’re the third result. Presumably the new "Open Source Media" Googled their new name before they settled on it?

LP at fbihop says, "Let's get one thing straight right off the bat - Open Source Media is not open source."

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine seems to be getting mixed messages:

Now I’m even more confused about Pajamas Open Source Media. I just tuned in from Munich to their Rockefeller Center event and they’re into a panel about fashion. The first person says she doesn’t blog and thinks blogging is absurd and never reads them and is liberal and feels like Ann Coulter in a room of Democrats. What is it with the fashion? How is this going to be open source? What did they need $3.5 million for once the lunch is paid for? Oh, and by the way, are they paying Judy Miller to speak? What’s it all about, Alfie?

Kos, at the Daily Kos, a well-regarded political blog, weighs in:

Now, I've refrained from criticizing Pajamas Media, since it's hard to criticize something which is still so dramatically undefined. But I've got to say, given the context on the "open source" label I've sketched out above, their new name "OSM" is hilariously wrong.

Roger Jacobs, at 8763 Wonderland, blogs it best: "Paint a Stupid Button on Open Source Media."

And a friend who wishes to remain anonymous writes:

I don’t wanna get into the comments fray, but I was thinking…

"Os Media" suggests the mouth of a uterus. Cross that with this "Open Sores" meme that’s spreading like, well, herpes, and you have some rather unsavory connotations at the outset. I wish they’d put the PJs back on!

Heh, indeed. Read the whole thing.

Update: Monday, November 21, 2005

Excuse us while we change back into our pajamas

Charles Johnson & Roger L. Simon

Once upon a time, some friends who met in the casual atmosphere of the blogosphere (us) got together and decided it would be groovy to start a blog company. "We could call it Pajamas Media," we said, referring to the now-famous quote by whatshisface, who disparaged bloggers as a bunch of guys sitting around in their sleepwear. Well, we were as surprised as anyone when we managed to raise a significant amount of capital to form said company.

At our swanky launch party in the Rainbow Room at New York’s Rockefeller Center on November 16, we changed out of our "pajamas" both literally and figuratively. We went from being www.pajamasmedia.com to OSM™ Media, LLC, the OSM being short for Open Source Media. And oh, what a drubbing we took. Many, many readers pointed out to us that OSM™ was an oxymoron; the open source tech community expressed concern; and a very fine gentleman named Christopher Lydon at Open Source (www.radioopensource.org) politely pointed out that we might be trampling on his space. (We’re sending him a pair of warm, fuzzy slippers, a heartfelt apology, and his name back, as we speak.)

All of which, as it turns out, has led us to make a change for the better. We are re-assuming our identity as Pajamas Media. (Just give us a few days to sort the technical issues out.) In short, the whole experience of being caught with our pajamas down has been a bit embarrassing, but in the end, when we realized we could get our beloved name back, we were overjoyed. So a warm, hearty thanks to all of you who expressed your displeasure with our phony identity.

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.

Excerpted at length to present a good explanation in context.