The Seattle Planning Commission and Neighborhood Planning Advisory Committee is soliciting your input on a mysterious creature called a "neighborhood plan." They want to know how they're doing, so the first thing you'll want to tell them is that they've done a fantastic job of keeping the existence of neighborhood plans under wraps. After a series of in-person, town hall meetings failed to gather crowds outnumbering staff, they've decided to try this online thing and it's going like gangbusters. That being the case, they've extended the comment period until August 21, so jump in. more ›

The Seattle P-I has an interesting article on the escalating war of online words between Amanda Knox supporters and those who think she's guilty. We wrote a short post about this back in January, but things have apparently radically escalated since the first salvos were fired. more ›

Speaking of Mike Davidson, the Seattle PostGlobe posse, and all-digital news platforms, tomorrow night is round two of No News Is Bad News: "Making It Work" (7-9 p.m., Bertha Landes Room, City Hall). The focus is on current and near-term models in the post-newspaper ecosystem, and Cory Bergman (MSNBC, LostRemote.com, MyBallard.com) moderates a panel that includes WSB's Tracy Record, Penny Arcade's Robert Khoo, Newsvine's Davidson, Instivate's Scott Durham, Seattle PostGlobe's Kerry Murakami, and InvestigationsWest's Rita Hibbard. You can reserve your free ticket here. more ›

Back in '06, Seattlest James mentioned that the library let you scope the difference online between active and inactive holds, which made us pine for a "Netflix queue" for hold requests, not realizing that active/inactive was a big step in that direction. more ›

We keep rubbing our eyes but it still reads the same: "For its first 30 days, the revamped Seattlepi.com will receive 'consulting and transition services' from The Times as part of an accord terminating the joint-operating agreement (JOA) that had linked the two newspapers for 26 years." What's next? VHS consulting on Blu-Ray? more ›

Online media is ready to eat its young, we see. Paul Constant, Glenn Nelson, and Chuck Taylor have reviews in on the new, online-only Seattle P-I and it's mostly thumbs down. Each of them seems to think the move to an online platform was a planned transition, and that there should have been some "reinvention" to wow everyone on Day One. Our sense was that thanks to Hearst's poker skills, no one at the P-I was sure until a few days ago that they even had jobs, let alone what they were. Someone was working on a simple, clean mobile interface, but a site redesign had to be out of the question. more ›

It probably means something that we just heard about the last print day of the P-I on Twitter. Publisher Roger Oglesby just made the announcement on behalf of will-they-won't-they Hearst corporate. Over the weekend, the P-I's web address simplified itself to seattlepi.com, and the word is, the online-only version is a go. The P-I is dead, long live the P-I! [UPDATE: P-I Executive Producer Michelle Nicolosi expounds on plans for the online-only version.] more ›

Microsoft-owned Razorfish, one of the largest digital ad buyers in the world, has a new virtual book out, the 2009 Digital Outlook Report. These reports are very much documents of their moment--as Forbes points out, two years ago Razorfish was announcing that portals were back from the dead; this year portals have an icy gray hand clutching their ankles again. more ›

We've now "observed" two future of news media via Twitter (the City Club and ONA events) and watched the Seattle City Council and "No News Is Bad News" events go down via their live stream (while eyeing the #nnbn Twitter channel). One caveat before we recap: what we've learned is mostly useless in practical terms. more ›

Since at initial glance this latest news reflects in a potentially negative manner upon the good people of Seattle, we'll spin it right round, baby. The Seattle market may have had the lowest inauguration ceremony viewership in the country yesterday, but it's because we were all watching online or gathered in large groups at bars to celebrate Obama's message of unity in practice as well as in spirit. We're very tech-savvy in this part of the world, don't you know, so it was nothing to us to click 'play' on MSNBC's streaming video of the occasion. We also like to drink, and it's been depressingly foggy here lately, which was all the more reason to head to a bar at 8 a.m. The Raleigh-Durham folks are clearly haters of love and fun and fellowship, as they had the highest viewership in the country. more ›

According to a brief post we caught over at "The Blotter," the 's comically named crime blog, friends of Amanda Knox, the UW student accused of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007, have taken to the web. more ›

Probably the first question P-I staffers need to ask themselves is, How badly do they want it? more ›

Yesterday we posted about Metro's route status updates and suggested you check their adverse weather page for the latest news. Funny story there. We'd walked past a rerouted 10 bus on Broadway--a big branch fell on the bus lines on 15th Avenue East on Sunday night--on the way in to work, but when we checked Metro's page, there was no mention of that reroute. Maybe they already fixed the lines, we thought. But after lunch we spied a 10 bus on Broadway again, so we asked the driver how long his Broadway holiday excursion was going to last. "You know, I haven't heard anything at all on the radio all morning," he told us. "I'm just going to keep driving until someone tells me something." more ›

If you're reading this, we have the ability to post. You don't have the ability to comment...yet. Hang in there. Once the backend shenanigans are finished, there's a new "look" for Seattlest that's going to come online as well. Along with some other holiday goodies. For one thing, if we're reading the instructions correctly--lessee, flange A goes to socket B---you'll be able to type link URLs into comments and we'll convert 'em to live hyperlinks on the fly. Is that cutting edge of 2003 or what! Anyway, it's very exciting, so stay right there on the edge of your seat. more ›

Down at Pacific Place, just about every store has been visited by the "Two for One" fairy, which is upmarket speak for 50-percent-off, a phrasing that smells of downmarket desperation. That would never do for Seattle's internet jewelers Blue Nile, so they're offering a Bill Me Later Plan (a six-month, no-interest loan) for purchases of over $500 (h/t to TechFlash); the only issue there is whether the relationship will outlast the six months. Once we're well past keeping up appearances, then we'll probably turn to the holiday season's new savior: layaway plans. MSNBC says layaway can turn your red ink into the new black; KMart, TJ Maxx Corp., Goody’s Family Clothing Inc., Marshalls Inc., and Burlington Coat Factory Direct are reportedly jumping on the installment bandwagon. more ›

Thursday, November 15 at 9 p.m. to Friday, November 16 at 6a.m.For those of you on foot or otherwise transportable, here's the non-specific but relevant info in that case:

SDOT’s contractor will provide a shuttle service for pedestrians and bicyclists from 9 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. between the north and south ends of the bridge (from roughly North 34th Street and Fremont Avenue North to roughly Nickerson and Fourth Avenue North) making the loop approximately every 20 to 30 minutes. Signs will be placed noting the pick up and drop off locations. Buses will be rerouted during these closures. As the date approaches, see Metro Online at http://transit.metrokc.gov or call Rider Information, 553-3000.

Dishin’ doesn’t typically do fast food, but we did and we offer you a fast review. more ›

--Online airfare soothsayer Farecast sheds that pesky "beta" label. more ›

Finally, someone else sees things our way. Like peanut butter and jelly, there has been one natural combination longing to be put together: having a beer and thinking about your favorite insurance company. Thank God Online providers Esurance have stepped up to the plate. Meshing together insurance needs with scenester whoredom, that's right, this year it's the Esurance Capitol Hill Block Party. more ›

Writing on The New Republic Online in November, 2006, James Kirchick snarkily commented, "Of all the subjects for a 90-minute, one-woman show, Rachel Corrie ought to have been at the bottom of the list." Rachel Corrie was an Olympia native and Evergreen State College student who, in March 2003, while working with the International Solidarity Movement, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer destroying Palestinian homes. And frankly, before seeing Seattle Rep's production of My Name is Rachel Corrie, we tended to agree with Kirchick, albeit for completely different reasons. more ›

Last night, Parent Map, a "Monthly Newsmagazine and Online Resource for Puget Sound Parents", hosted UW Emeritus Professor of Psychology Dr. John Gottman for a talk called "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work," as part of their Pathways lecture series for parents. New parents can check this site out. more ›

*mp3: S.O.S. more ›

For our money, there's bigger news than the city's suicide hotline putting people on hold (which made the Slog's morning round-up). more ›

Who delivers the best customer service in the country? Amazon.com: According to the National Retail Federation/American Express survey gauging consumer attitudes toward retailers' customer service, which was released Thursday, Amazon topped a number of venerable retailers for best meeting consumer needs. Who came in second? Nordstrom. Seventh? REI. That's right: local companies took 3 of the top 10 spots on the survey. A nationwide survey. "Online consumers are completely changing the definition of service," said... more ›

Today, Seattlest presents a new feature: Ask a Dot-Commer. Today's dot-commer is Dave Epstein, who's dot-commed it for AOL, United Online, and others since 1998. more ›

Courtesy of Boing Boing (it's this little blog you should check out sometime), we discovered that Radar Online -- a.k.a. the magazine that refuses to die -- has an interview with Winter, a 34-year-old freelance computer programmer who has made it his life's mission to visit every Starbucks in the world. That's 12,000 and counting. An excerpt:

The primary rule is I have to drink at least one four-ounce sample of caffeinated coffee from each store. The store has to have actually opened for business; I can't get there the day before, when they have friends-and-family day and they're giving drinks away—in many ways that's kind of arbitrary. It has to be a company-owned store, not a licensed store. I have to drink the coffee, but there is no time limit on when I have to drink the coffee. But the longer I go without drinking it, the greater the risk that I might lose it. There are two stores I need to go back to in Washington State because I didn't finish the coffee—I lost it. I took it out of the store, I had it in a cup, and in the middle of the night I forgot I hadn't drank it all and I used the cup to relieve myself. more ›

Love Bumbershoot, but wish it were more elitist? You're in luck. more ›

Online communities are a tricky thing. They're notoriously difficult to manage, but once things get settled into a groove -even if it's an odd little groove with rules and mores known only to its participants and opaque to the outside world- things tend to move along more or less smoothly. And then someone comes along and fires all the volunteer moderators and things go haywire. more ›

The Western Washington chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists retreated to their hidden bat cave this weekend, probably performed some elaborate initiation rituals for new members involving chalices, robes and candles and then handed out some lucite. We covered this last year and blah blah blah it costs money to be considered for awards so a lot of people don't submit and it's hardly the Pulitzers anyway. We weren't going to say anything about it at all, but a few things are noteworthy regardless, particularly in the Online Media arena. more ›

Local technology super-user and former Seattlest interview subject Chris Pirillo is in the midst of a GoogleFast; that is, he's refusing to use Google for anything (save the ad programs they run on his sites) for a period of one week. No Google search, no Google maps, no Gmail, no Groups, no News, No Google Your Entire Online Life, no Google nothing. And this is a guy who uses the internet for more different activities in a day than Seattlest has since 1998. Pirillo's whole thing is that he uses the internet hard, and, increasingly, using the internet hard means using Google hard. He's trying Yahoo, MSN and his own search tool gada.be as replacements for that which cannot be replaced. more ›