Recently Mark Cuban found himself once again amidst controversy. No, he was not being fined by David Stern for bashing officials. No, it did not have anything to do with his major involvement in the controversial rise of mixed martial arts. In fact, it was over a blog — and moreover, how little stock he puts into them.

Cuban discovered that one of the media permitted into the locker room during post game was actually a blogger, albeit for a legitimate news source– the Dallas Morning News. Mark decided not to allow him into the locker room because he felt bloggers should not have the same special privileges that traditional media have. In essence, why should the blogger from the news be allowed into the locker room but not any of the other millions of bloggers in America?

Why do people blog? To make money? Because they want to start a discussion? Because it is a wide ranging device to communicate with people? Because it’s a medium to tell the world what’s on your mind? Or something different altogether.

The point that Cuban is making, and I agree with him a million % — a blog is a blog is a blog. You can call yourself a reporter, or a columnist, or a webmaster, or whatever whatever. Blogger, TypePad, WordPress…all just blogs. If you’re trying to be credible on a blog, it’s an oxymoron.

Blogs are informal and lack credibility. And the best blogs are those that realize the informal nature of their blog and utilize it as so. Blogs should be used on a personal basis to keep the world updated to your happenings, a modern Public Relation device for small companies that want to save on outsourcing to PR firms, or another relative use, considering that it remains informal. The point of a blog is that the blogger needs to acknowledge that a blog is a blog is a blog.

If mainstream news is going to start blogging, as more and more are everyday, they need to rebrand the very idea idea of blogging — and get away from the world itself. Call it NewsNow or something. The idea of blogging is an overweight 35 year old taking a break from his World of Warcraft guild to spill his thoughts on why Ron Paul is such a revolutionary and the rest of the country are sheep.

I don’t even read through blogs for grammar or spelling errors. The idea that they should be taken seriously is absurd. Most blogs suck. They lack value. They don’t have advice, humor, ideas, jokes, informative content, etc. Want to be formal? Start a formal newsletter.

The Dallas Morning News, and all of you, should remember from now on that nothing can be deemed credible if you can log in and type your shit in five minutes. A blog is a blog is a blog. It is not a homepage. It is not a product or service. It is a voice mechanism in an increasing virtual world.

I don’t know if our Commander in Chief is a stupid man. I don’t know if he’s just a ‘regular guy’. I don’t know if he’s funny, boring, insightful, or creative. I have never met him.

Here’s what I do know.

President Bush is not the best speaker in the world, as he often acknowledges. President Bush has one of the consistently worst approval ratings since the statistic was made. President Bush prepares to leave our highest office with a crumbling dollar, a economy on the brink of disastrous recession, a lost respect from many of the world’s developed countries, and a nation of citizens worried. Worried about their pensions being cut, worried about losing their lifelong jobs, worried about healthcare, and worried about friends and family serving overseas.

President Bush has always been a people’s President. Someone you would like to throw back a few pints with at a Yankee game. For someone that’s been to Yale, a state Governor, and United States President…how can we afford to dismiss the highest official in all our land as just a ‘regular guy’ when he clearly is not such. How can I say that he’s a not your average dude? Average dudes around the country and cutting back grocery bills, utilities, and costly hobbies so fill up their gas tanks as oil seems to set a record close each day. With gas prices continually driving into record highs approaching $4 a gallon, our President certainly must know about these daily strifes among ‘regular people’ right?

Who are your role models? Or more specific, who inspires you professionally? Common question. I imagine for most the answer changes often.
When I was 6 or 7, I would have said Ricky Watters, Notre Dame Fightin Irish Running Back. This was a point in my life when I still thought 100% that I could be a hugely successful college football star.

When I was 14 or 15, I probably idolized someone in a profession that was slightly more realistic, someone like a James Cameron or even a William Jefferson Clinton.

So now that I’m old and wise I can pick my more relative professional role models, and I encourage you to think about this yourself. Most of my peers are entering that, “What in the hell am I going to do for a living for the next 40 years stage”, so professional motivators are important. I boosted my theory from a popular company slogan….Who’s in your Fave 5?

The idea is to think of three people that your contact with will probably be non-existent, three super idols that have achieved just about the pinnacle of their specific profession. For the remaining two, I urge you to think of two people with ties to your area. People you could probably email tonight and get a response from within a day or two. They should also be very highly successful within your professional interest.

Warren Buffett
CEO & Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

“The Oracle of Omaha”presides over the Berkshire conglomerate with the same gentle demeanor that he had starting out. Warren still lives in a modest home, gives out stock at Christmas, and recently became the richest man in the world. Why is Warren in my Fave 5? Wisdom. Mr. Buffett commands absolute attention when he speaks, because everyone knows that what he has to say is too valuable to not hear. I have watched countless speeches, read numerous interviews, and studied his investment methods in various books. Sure he is very wealthy. In fact, he is the only billionaire in the world to have amassed his fortune strictly from stock investing. Mr. Buffett is also the world’s greatest philanthropist, haven given away the bulk of his billions to the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation, of which he is good friends. I respect Warren because of his sometimes outspoken views on the US economy, his gentle and humorous nature, his keen eye for investment opportunity, and his stances on estate and death taxes. I think he’d be a hell of a Fed Chairman.

Steve Jobs
Co-founder, CEO, and Chairman, Apple, Inc.

Brilliant, insane, innovator, bully…all have been used to describe His Steveness. Built Apple Computer along with Woz, was ousted from his own company, started a new company that was bought by Apple, resumed role as CEO, started Pixar, took AAPL from $7/share to $200/share, changed the music industry forever, reinvented entertainment retail, and changes the mobile industry with each passing day….and that’s not even the half of it. Why is Steve Jobs in my Fave 5? Vision. When Woz went to Hewlett-Packard to present the personal computer, they told him that ordinary people would never want to use computers. Jobs saw the PC as it is today. When Jobs released the iPod and iTunes, many people said it would never catch on. Today the iPod is well, the iPod, and iTunes is the #2 music retailer in the country…and rising. When Jobs released the iPhone, Verizon said no thanks Steve. The iPhone garners more market share everyday while Verizon’s new cell plan sign-ups declined last quarter for the first time. The man is 100% vision, and 100% passion. Steve often talks of ‘making a dent in the universe’ and truly captivating the essence of life. This is a man who lived in India learning Buddhism. This is a man who when diagnosed with a very rare treatable pancreatic cancer, decided not to go forth with treatment for almost a year because of his skepticism with modern medicine. Insane? Genius? Maybe both. I wish I could pick his brain for 15 minutes, and just listen to him talk about passion, innovation, and vision.

Mark Cuban
Owner, Dallas Mavericks

Mark Cuban was just another dude. A 23 year old kid sleeping on the floor in a house with 5 of his friends. He spent nights going out drinking and mornings sleeping in. To save money, he’d buy a cheap bottle of champagne and put an expensive label on it at the bar. Mark finally got a decent job doing sales, and got quite a client list. One day his boss asked him to come in the shop early to mop the floors. Mark was scheduled to sign a contract with a client that morning, and instead of going to mop the floors, he went to meet his client and landed the contract. When he got back to the shop, he was fired. Why is Mark Cuban in my Fave 5? Perseverance. Mark took his client list and started his own company Microsolutions Inc. After the obvious scary slow start, he was able to sell it seven years later and take some time off to travel. He then day traded tech stocks successfully until he got bored with that. Projects came along and one little dandy was Broadcast.com. In theory it was designed to stream college athletics over the internet live. Seemed like a hell of an idea at the time, making TV almost futile in the future possibly. It went public. Mark and friends sat in a Wall St bar watching CNN all day. Everytime Broadcast.com’s IPO was mentioned they would do a shot. As Mark said, “It turned into a really long day.” Then Mark struck oil when Yahoo acquired Broadcats.com for billions, making Mark one of the world’s wealthier men. He has gone on to buy the Dallas Mavericks and up their value tremendously, is interested in buying the MLB Chicago Cubs, runs HDnet, is taking a big role in the rise of MMA, is a big investor in Mahalo, and various ventures along the way. A lot writeoff Mark’s success to luck, that he was able to cashout right before the tech bubble burst. Was Mark called lucky when he was sitting at home reading software manuals or Cisco Router manuals? Was he lucky when he started his own bar freshman year at Indiana and had to deal with drunken kids everyday while going to school full-time? The cliche rings true, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Colleen Wegman
President, Wegmans Food Markets, Inc.

Wegmans. A Rochester staple. When people leave the area, Wegmans is often the #1 aspect of our area that they miss the most. Wegmans isn’t a grocery store, it’s a retail experience. I have been fortunate enough to work at Wegmans since I was 15, learning something from everyone along the way. Most importantly the business fundamentals of having a superior product coupled with outstanding customer service. Why is Colleen Wegman in my Fave 5? Growth. Wegmans will be the nation’s premier grocer sooner than later. Most in the industry already view Wegmans as the leader, trend-setter, and rising star. Customers can buy canned corn anywhere, but Wegmans makes grocery shopping an experience and not a chore. When Wegmans cut their Buy One Get One sales and went to consistent low prices, sales went down a lot. When Wal-Mart opens in the area, sales go down. But Wegmans knows that you can only go to Wal-Mart so many times and ask where a product is and have the employee not know. At Wegmans, you ask where an item is, they walk you to the item, tell you about it, what other products go with it, how to cook the item, and how to present it at your next dinner party. Wegmans gets thousands upon thousands of requests from all over the country begging for news stores. Having being privately held, Colleen leads the helm of controlled growth, without having to deal with investors demanding more, more, more! I think Wegmans will be one of the larger of all American companies in the future.

David Koretz
Founder & CEO, Bluetie Inc.

I have always been interested in business. I was probably one of the few 11 year olds that read the paper’s business section thoroughly. I made up fake businesses: Business plans, logo design, headquarter layout, quarterly profits, the whole nine yards. I had a lot of free time on my hands. Anyway, everything I learned about business led me to think my professional life would not be in Rochester, NY or upstate NY in general. That is until I read an article on Mr. Koretz when I was in High School. It struck a chord. Here was this guy only a few years older than me, running a business (Tech at that!) in Rochester, NY and doing it proudly. He didn’t hop on a plane to Palo Alto and start sending out resumes to startups…Nope, he secured his own funding rounds and started his business here. That gave me great hope, and I will be making my professional life in this area. Why is David Koretz in my Face 5? Application. Here’s a normal kid like me from a town right next door…running numerous companies successfully and being mentored by Tom Golisano. Ideas are a just that, ideas. Implementation is usually the problem. Inaction cripples people, and Dave is the exact opposite of inaction. He has given me sound advice and exceptional reading lists and is a great role model for any young professional in this area. Check it out his blog for more of in-depth look.

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My Fave 5 are all very successful people. But you notice I didn’t mention someone like a Donald Trump or Robert Kiyosaki…these five are people I would want to have over for dinner.

I encourage you to think of who’s in your fave 5 and research what makes them so admirable and attempt to actively implement their tactics into your life, so you’re not the one picking professional role models anymore, and instead, become one.

~ Reflections are the new drop shadows. Drop shadows used to dominate the graphic design spectrum, but as Apple goes, so goes the followers. When Apple started to use reflections in their OS, website, iTunes, etc…copycats have sprung up everywhere! Windows Vista utilized reflections, Obama’s campaign uses them heavily, in the last five minutes on TV it was used by Alltel Wireless, Coca-Cola, E-Trade, T-Mobile, and TD-Ameritrade. Keep an eye out for reflection overkill coming to a business near you!

~The Buffalo Sabres are hurting my soul. They’re up and then they’re down. They get hot and look to move back into the playoff picture and then play flat. There is not much heart left without Briere, Drury, and Campbell. Vanek has been disapointing, Miller has not been what he’s been in the past (And may end up the latest star Free Agent departure from Buffalo), and there isn’t any magic that made last season so great. Best outlook is they squeak into the playoffs and get hot at the right time to make a run at Lord Stanley’s Cup. But I don’t know if they have the determination to do so.

~With downtown’s Renaissance Square proposals being shot down, I can finally applaud the city of Rochester. I’m not saying Renaissance Square can’t be reinvigorated or flourish with new funding, but a little due diligence is long overdue with the Fast Ferry and Paetec Park fiascos. Speaking of Paetec Park and the Rhinos, I think Dan Williams was the man for the job to revitalize a once great franchise. Demolishing local housed to make room for parking and upscale residences would have gone a long way to bringing back the 13,000 person crowds the team once had. I don’t know if Soccer Sam is going to get the chance to takeover the team with his $2-4M offer from his investor group, but he’d at least be passionate about bringing the team back to it’s glory years. Doug Miller should have an executive role with the team regardless of its future owners.

~The Apple iPhone’s SDK press conference was finally today. We learned about a bunch of features long requested. Also integration with Microsoft’s Exchange. A bunch of app support releases and just generally another big step forward for Apple’s foray into mobile.

~Warren Buffett is now the world’s richest man at an estimated value of ~$63 billion. He leads Carlos Slim Helu who stands at ~$60B from his success in Latin American telecom, and Bill Gates who falls to third at a measly $58B, probably because MSFT’s hit after their unsuccessful unsolicited bid to buy YHOO.

~As for politics, what can you say. McCain finally locks up his nomination, let the VP guessing begin. Donkey side, there is just so much talent between these two that its tough to figure out. Either would have been a runaway winner over John Kerry in ’04, and both would be great Presidents IMHO. Mathematically, it is very unlikely that she can’t catch him in pledged delegates. Her wins the other night look pretty, but she only earned 4 delegates over Obama. Her choice is to accept defeat going into the convention or go ahead and take it to super delegates and subsequently rip apart the Democratic party. I hope she bows out graciously, but the Clintons are ferocious politicians that are not used to losing. Not to mention if she does become the nominee on super delegates, the backlash she will face from the younger generation will be catastrophic. For a movement like Obama’s campaign to be derailed, even as he won in pledged delegates would cause an entire generation to be disillusioned with politics and become completely apathetic. Your move Sen. Clinton.

Every week we hear that this paper or this newsletter is formally endorsing one of the remaining candidates for President. Why? Aren’t newspapers and all media for that matter, in theory, supposed to remain independent in their reporting?

In 1936, the Chicago Tribune endorsed Republican Alf Landon for President of the United States. The paper’s ultra-conservative owner, Colonel Robert McCormick, wholeheartedly despised the democratic FDR. The paper went as far to answer all calls with, “Hello, Chicago Tribune. Only 10 days left to save the American way of life.”

Newspapers were often tied closely to political parties in the 18th and 19th centuries, so propaganda and backroom dealing were obviously prevalent practices. I’d like to believe those days of shady dealings are behind us, but are they? Even as cable news stations clearly tend to favor one of the political parties, at least they are not publicly saying it. They all clearly define that their judgment is equal on both parties and they report evenly about each. Clearly false, but at least they aren’t endorsing candidates! At a time when media respectability is at an all-time low, when old media is being squeezed and downsized everyday to make room for the technological certainties that loom with mobile news, Digg, Buzz, etc, shouldn’t publications ignore the historical traditions and stop this practice?

The Times endorsed John McCain and then a month later wrote up a nasty smear article about an alleged romantic affair he was having with a female lobbyist. Why endorse someone and then blatantly trash them?

As Tuesday looms like the ominous cloud of impending danger for what was once the heavily favored Clinton campaign, both candidates, pundits, advisers, journalists, and more importantly, voters, are looking toward their local newspapers for endorsements. Instead of being told who to vote for, report on the facts more decisively to educate undecided voters on who they’d prefer as President, not who has better hair from the 20 minutes of the one replayed debate they saw.