from cnn.com,

AOL makes it's own internet reality show (AKA BLOGBROTHER!!!)

Hoping to capitalize on the sensational buzz around NBC's hit reality show, AOL is launching an online feature that will follow the travails of four small-business owners for their first 12 months.

"The Startup" will be featured on America Online's customized service for small-business owners, but it will also be available for any of AOL's 24 million subscribers.

The feature, which is being done in cooperation with Entrepreneur Magazine, goes live on Thursday.

Sarah Bernard, the head of AOL for Small Business, said the feature was not modeled specifically on the hit NBC show, and had been in the works for some time. But she said its debut was adjusted to capitalize on the buzz around "The Apprentice," whose final episode airs next week.

"The Startup" will follow the ups and downs of four businesses: an adventure park in Colorado Springs, Colorado; a spa in New Orleans; a gourmet salsa company based in Vermont and a teenage clothing store in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Bernard said the business were chosen for geographical diversity, among other factors. "We wanted businesses our users could relate to -- not someone who started with $50 million in seed money," Bernard said.

The site will feature weekly updates on online journals, or "blogs," from the business owners, monthly stories written by staffers from Entrepreneur, as well as weekly video vignettes from the business.

As for not firing people, Bernard said: "It's not a contest, it's not who's going to win. It's real-life experiences."

Time Warner is parent company of both AOL and CNN.com.

i am now a moderator of blogbrother.  I'm not all that internet literite but i have been around enough to recognize names like administrator or moderator, but truth be told i have no idea what they mean...

what is an administrator on a message board?  what is a moderator of weblog or teamblog for that matter.  I really want to get in on this "teamblog" stuff.  the tech support jargon lingo is a little over my head but i'd lovo to get a 3 year old's understanding of how this works...

any help?

near the end of the blog brother he hosted a thread all about  answering questions from commenters like a call in show.  That's really smart and i'm gonna do the same thing next week some time.  I'll also like to host interviews with contestants and maybe jojo, all scheduled events of course... we'll see how it works out.  there are a lot of different time zones. 

I need to quit blogging... at least for a minute.

I'm going out later tonight but i have a little while before i do and there's a shitty movie (runaway jury) that i don't feel like paying attention to.  I read that newspaper article about the bodies of american contractors being dragged through the streets and it suprised me to learn that american networks were the only networks not displaying the tv footage. 

But then it made perfect sense.  they want to sheild us from how much our military presance is unwelcome to the local citizens of iraq.  the news media does not want us standard americans to know how much the iraquis hate this war, and now, how much they hate us.  I don't know why i didn't see that before but it's pretty clear to me.

It's pretty cool that i read it in a newspaper though.  at least the message is out there.