This has been in the pipeline for some time, especially as I began my career in publishing. Eventually I slid seamlessly into writing full-time, but always intended to start my own publishing company at some stage.

The publishing arm is also called Syntagma Media, so melds seamlessly with existing online publishing.

The idea is to use modern technology to the full and to blend it in with the blogging side of the business. So, that strangely underrated form of publishing, on-demand print production (POD), will be the basis of the operation. Traditionalists find POD a bit odd because it’s often associated with the worst type of vanity publishing. But, in actual fact, it’s just an example of brilliant modern technology that enhances what is sometimes called Personal Media, the kind of new ground opened up by blogging.

When on-demand printing is used by a professional publisher, the results are always excellent. And, where books need constant updating, as with tech or blogging titles, on-demand is crucial. You can update the computer files before each single volume is printed. How up to the minute is that?

The first two books from Syntagma Media will be by yours truly. These have been hanging around for a while, and it’s time I got them published.

First : Nirvaneans. Jan/Feb 2006. This covers my extensive research over many years into the concept of Nirvana, and the people who have experienced it. It contains a number of shortish biographies of Nirvaneans from various cultures, and charts their lives and work in respect of the Nirvanic path.

Second : COSMOSITY. Apr/May 2006. A book that started out as Mind Beyond Brain and shows how the “extended mind”, or Nirvanoception operates in normal life in the West as well as the East. The book suggests that many legends of immortality around the world, including the Holy Grail and the Philosophers’ Stone, relate to a particular state in which the nature of reality is shown to the experiencer. This state is a lot more common than many, including scientists, believe. It is described in detail in the book.

Further titles will be announced later.

Microsoft Future Watch Logo

Syntagma Media’s newest blog, Microsoft Future Watch, has been launched today, without fanfare, as is our way.

It will cover all aspects of that wonderfully ripe tech niche, the battle between desktop software and Web 2.0 services. Microsoft is now in the front line of this “war” after declaring its determination to pursue Web services supported by advertising, even if it deflects revenue from its cash cows, Windows and the Office suite. The full text of Bill Gates’s leaked memo on this new policy appears on Microsoft Future Watch (MFW).

MFW opens with a juicy story from Feedster founder, Scott Johnson, urging the Redmond brigade to poach Open Source developers as a means of protecting its proprietary software. A bit dodgy, one might think, especially as he believes Open Source to be lagging way behind on the desktop. Still, a bit of controversy never hurt a blog, particularly on its first day blinking into a new world.

Yes, folks, another Syntagma Media blog launches on Monday, our fifth.

It’s called, Microsoft Future Watch, and deals with the monumental battle going on between desktop software and Web services, what some call, Web 2.0.

It’s still being built, but you can see the outlines at : http://www.microsoftfuturewatch.com

This is a fascinating, up to the minute topic raging online that you’ll hardly see mentioned offline. Mainstream media is far too conservative to deal comprehensively with such cutting-edge subjects.

Stay tuned for more information.

It’s possible to get so caught up in blogging and the blogosphere that the rest of existence becomes filtered out, like the view when a mist drops silently onto a landscape. I’ve become conscious of this phenomenon recently as I’ve simultaneously tackled two blog-related projects : the launch of Syntagma Media, and writing three blogs for b5media. I call the effect “Blost”, or lost in blogs.

The effect is a narrowing of focus, and an increase in superfical attention. Real attention includes awareness of the world around you. The result is a loss of counterbalancing channels of information, and an increasingly eccentric outlook on the world.

The symptoms of Blost are :

1. An obsession with blogging as lifestyle as well as work.
2. A belief that something called Web 2.0 is changing history ~ it’s not, it’s just being driven by portable communication devices and is therefore part of the driven universe, like the Blost.
3. A conviction that there’s a moneymaking bonanza somewhere out there if only you can get enough Google juice to light its fire.
4. A determined insistence that blogging is easy and has no downside.

Having said all that, most writers will recognize the tunnel-vision syndrome from the last time they wrote a book. Where blogging differs is that it doesn’t have a cut-off point; a moment when the work unit is finished. It goes on forever, Blost in space and time.

Conclusions :

1. Bloggers should get out of the blogorium at frequent intervals to escape the damnation of the Blost.
2. They should retain other channels of news and information to avoid the idee fixe of the geek mentality.
3. Trim, clip, slice and cut the contents of feed readers. They will eat you alive if you let them. They’re not called “feeds” for nothing.
4. Cull email notifiers. You just have to reply to every white box that rises compellingly from the bottom of the screen.

Actions to take :

1. Write letters occasionally, walk to the Post Office, buy a postage stamp and stick it in the top right-hand corner of the envelope. Place the whole in the slot provided.
2. Read a newspaper offline. You’ll be surprised what’s left out from the screen version.
3. Beg, swipe or borrow a “book”, a bound swatch of paper containing extended arguments and narratives.
4. Re-engage in romantic interludes with that familiar ghost who wanders around the house saying, “Are you still on that computer? I thought we were going out.”
5. Be a better blogger. That mean never spending more than four hours a day online.

If you look up “Blogorium” and “Blexercise” in the search tool of this blog, there are lots more tips on how to avoid being Blost. It may be your last chance. Ever.

Syntagma Media

For immediate release
8 November 2005

Contact : John Evans
John AT syntagmamedia DOT com

Syntagma Media is officially launched today with four blogs providing unusual coverage of popular niche topics. The network will build slowly through 2006 and may start taking on other bloggers in Q2 next year.

All four blogs are currently written by John Evans, an experienced blogger who also writes three Microsoft blogs for b5media. John Evans is a full-time professional author and journalist who lives in England.

Syntagma Media intends to have an original personality, standing out from other networks by not covering the usual cash cow subjects, like gadgets, digital photography and gaming. The network will concentrate on less tangible, but nevertheless popular, issues. The newest blog, Paranormal Watch is a case in point.

Syntagma Media will monetize progressively, especially after we achieve PageRank. Advertisers who would like to be early adopters are welcome to get in touch, but should bear in mind we will favour relevance in the advertising served on our niche blogs. The policy is to grow gradually and steadily through 2006 and try to be different in what we do.

The network will be ready to innovate with groundbreaking content and ideas and will seek out partners ready to do the same. This will not be like any other blog network you’ve known before. In a very real sense Syntagma will be the Paranormal Network.

The first four blogs are :

1. Syntagma :: http://www.syntagmamedia.com
Technology and the Tertiary Blogosphere from a Writer’s Viewpoint.

2. Royal Anecdotes :: http://www.royalanecdotes.com
Tales of Royalty, Past and Present.

3. Spiritual Nirvana :: http://www.spiritual-nirvana.com
Spiritual Warriors :: Esoteric Paths to Enlightenment.

4. Paranormal Watch :: http://www.paranormalwatch.com
The World of Extended Mind, Morphic Fields and the Paranormal.

I’ve been forced into a new schedule for my blogging, just so I can get round my eight blogs and do justice to them. I’m particularly aware of this with the three b5media blogs, because others are involved and I’m working as part of a team.

Until now, I had been working up to 5 hours a day, seven days a week on the b5 blogs. But that couldn’t be sustained for long. Now I devote the morning to b5, part of the afternoon to Syntagma Media, and the rest to my paid writing. Naturally, it’s all a bit tight, so if I haven’t visited your blog lately, you’ll know why.

I’ve done a bit of what used to be called O&M on my blogging work. Nowadays, it would come under “consultancy” or modus operandi, or some such jargon. Basically, it means monitoring how I go about the task. I discovered I spend far too much time in the feed readers, especially Bloglines. Like Scoble, I’m a Memeorandum fanatic and spend far too much time plotting assaults on their pages.

Today, under the new schedule, I’ve actually posted on all eight blogs for the first time. This is the last, and it’s now ten-to-nine pm. I’m hoping to watch Panorama at nine, so you’ll excuse me if I rush this post. Well, I’m not going to get a Pulitzer Prize for it, so what the heck!

In blogging, you must use your time wisely, or the day just disappears under a welter of interesting stuff that contributes nothing to your material. Currently, I’m fighting with a Windows Update that keeps pressing me to restart the computer. O happy days! They are sooo insistent. Roll on Windows Vista

And good night, wherever you are.

The extraordinary rise of b5media continues as both Problogger and the Blog Herald become part of the new network. Add in the absorption of About Weblogs, a women’s network run by Shai Coggins, giving b5 around 50 active blogs, and you have something close to lift-off.

In general, blog networks need two ingredients to succeed : authority and numbers. In my book, authority is the prime quality. With the addition of Problogger, Blog Herald and About Weblogs, it’s hard to see the network failing in its goal of being the WeblogsInc of 2006.

I have to declare an interest, as, in addition to Syntagma Media, I also write three blogs at b5. The whole blog network scene is incredibly interesting just now, especially since AOL bought out WeblogsInc for a reported $25 million. There’s a bull market in blog networks that will last as long as the bears are kept at bay.

It’s hard to see where blogging can fail in this Web 2.0 climate, unless there’s a world depression of major proportions. The immense potential of blogging will continue to grow business for quite some time to come.

Success lies in building virtual real estate rapidly, and selling out at precisely the right moment, as Jason Calacanis did. Cynical? No, just worldly wise.

Syntagma Media will have a new WebPlace up and running tomorrow, Monday. It’s called Paranormal Watch and will deal with all aspects of the extended mind, morphic fields and paranormality in general.

This is a field I’ve always taken a lot of interest in, particularly through the works of C.G. Jung and Rupert Sheldrake, the former Oxford biologist. The idea was pitched by someone else as a b5media blog, but with the avalanche of suggestions hitting them over there, I doubt that 10% of them will make it online. So, since this is “one of my subjects” I thought I’d make it work. Luckily, the perfect domain name was available : http://www.paranormalwatch.com. This won’t be visible till late tomorrow.

Come on over and have a look. As they say in this game ~ more in hope than expectation ~ “Make it your Home Page”. Why do I always laugh when I see that. It’s usually the website of the electricity utility, or something like that. Maybe they have a superior sense of humour.

As that’s all I’m launching this year, I’ll be issuing a Press / Media Release later in the week. Collectors of flyers and ephemera of literary merit, may apply for copies without a press pass.

We’re switching servers today, so everything is not what it seems. This may well be on the old server, in which case it won’t register on the version transferred to the new server. So I’m not going to write much in this post.

The reason we’re moving servers is because Syntagma Media is expanding and needs a more unified space. Its still with site5.com, which is a new, impressive outfit, but on an upgraded account.

Sorry for the disruption, but it’s only temporary … and we’re all philosophers here