A Dangerous Law
Here comes another Modernist attempt to control information. The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act of 2003 is being considered by 2 House committees. The bill is supported by companies with a lot to gain and opposed by those who see danger in the shadows. Essentially, it grants copyright-like protection to databases, such as LexisNexis (which includes things like information on all court cases). The potential consequences of the Act, according to opponents like NetCoalition, the ACLU, and several libraries, go far beyond the its intent and include such things as liability for search engines, which routinely search databases to fulfill search requests. This is one of those cases where the age-old “law of unintended consequences” is sufficient to label it a bad idea. Technology is certainly capable of making database theft very difficult. Greed is the issue here. These companies want the legislation to give them protected status and reduce their need to protect resources on their own. Postmodernism rejects this kind of thinking as elitism. It’s a terrible idea and a dangerous law.

Fiber optic FTTP in homes
In 1986, while working as News Director of KLTV in Tyler, Texas, I originated the first live coverage of an event via fiber optics. We didn’t have a satellite truck, and there was a big trial in San Antonio that demanded live coverage. 3 phone companies worked with us and the result was magnificent (and widely covered in the trades). During that time, I got to know many fiber experts, and we all agreed that one day the copper wire leading into your home would be replaced by the infinite bandwidth of fiber. “Too expensive,” came the cries of realists. Ah, but what about this? The local cooperative telephony company in Bascom, Ohio (outside Toledo) is deploying FTTP (Fiber To The Premises) in the area surrounding Fostoria and Tiffin, Ohio. “We can’t live on dial tone alone,” says Bascom Mutual Telephone General Manager Dennis Depinet in an article in Broadband Reports that has some joyful comments from readers. It’ll be decades before fiber is available in homes throughout the country, but ultimately the market will force it to happen. It boggles the imagination, for with FTTP, it’s possible to have a recording session with a drummer in London, a keyboardist in New Orleans, guitar players from Nashville and Los Angeles, and singers in Toronto, Seattle and Miami all doing their thing in real-time with no delay. Light speed. The only way to fly.

Bundled Services - Vying for your business
“Bundling is the holy grail,” said Brahm Eiley, president of Convergence Consulting Group Ltd (CCG) in Toronto. He’s talking about combining cable, Internet and telephone service into homes. CCG is releasing a major study, “The Battle for the North American Couch Potato,” a sweeping report that looks at the data and strategies of Canada and the United States’ largest cable, telecommunications, technology, games and music providers. The report suggests TV will remain “the center of the universe” of bundled services but that high-speed Internet access and PVRs are a part of the new bundled mix. By the way, broadband in Canada has a 60% reach.

Fan Fiction: Interacting with TV shows
Much has been written in this space about Postmodernism being the Age of Participation, and now comes a new fan craze based on interacting with favorite television programs. It’s called Fan Fiction, Websites that invite fans to write their own endings to their favorite shows. And they are hot, hot, hot! “In a way, it’s a form of making the show interactive. They’ve gone from being spectators to being creators,” said J.R. Orci, a writer for Alias. “It creates a community where people give each other feedback and some people must go on to be published writers.” Programs with the most avid fan fiction writers tend to be dramas like “24,” “CSI,” and “Without a Trace,” but people also write about sitcoms like “Friends.” Orci said he isn’t allowed to view the sites because of potential lawsuits if a script he writes is similar to fan stories.

“Let me decide for myself.”
This is the mantra of Postmoderns (Pomos), who resist authority and what they view as the elitism of the media. They don’t like it when somebody else (the media) determines what they can or can’t see or read. The phrase popped up Sunday in a fascinating (and important) article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about gruesome news video that’s showing up on the Internet. Video that’s “spiked” by producers and editors — because it’s too offensive for general viewing — routinely winds up on sites like ogrish.com. First amendment lawyer, Lawrence G. Walters, represents the site and is quoted in the article. “They get most of the extremely graphic news footage that other news stations refuse to air,” Walters said. “There is legitimate interest in seeing what’s really happening out there in the world. A lot of people say, ‘Let me decide for myself.’” Frankly, it’s not for me, but then I’m just a Modernist guy with a weak stomach.

Queer Eye, the product placement magnet
I was asked at a seminar recently to describe the term “product placement” to the audience. I was making the point that the decline of the 30-second commercial was imminent and that advertisers were searching for new ways to display their wares. Hence, the effort to place products within the programming itself. AdAge reports today that the hit show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, has become the textbook model for product placement. Watch the show sometime with this in mind. The program features 5 gay men who help some hapless straight guy with a complete living-space-and-personal makeover prior to some important life event, most often involving the opposite sex. Paint, make-up, and liquor companies have already paid to have the Fab-5, as they’re known, use their products during the makeover. Many others have sent out feelers. There’s a line, I think, that a program producer can cross using the product placement model where it becomes a Saturday Night Live skit. It’s heretofore been a no-no for the news business, although I clearly remember a time when the weather was “brought to you by” and the weather guy did live commercials. We shall see.

The new advertising metric.
Madison Avenue must be reading my essays. According to a report today in Television Week, the new advertising metric is “involvement.” The idea is that the more involved a user is in the media, the greater the return for advertisers. Hence, ROI becomes “return on involvement” instead of “return on investment.” This concept fits beautifully into a Postmodern world, where mass audience is passé and users/viewers/readers/listeners have an escalating number of choices. The idea uses data from the Internet and DVRs to provide the measurement for advertising performance. Bet on this one, folks.

The New Cool
Those who study Postmodernism have dubbed it the Age of Participation, because one of its central tenets is the belief that knowledge acquired through experience gives one understanding. This is demonstrated through a number of alternative magazines that cater to the young. In a fascinating article by New York journalist Tim Wilson for MSNBC, these magazines are described as a “confluence of conservative and porn cultures.” This article is excellent reading for those news people trying to figure out what appeals to Pomos.

Bernstein: Newspapers will adapt
Watergate reporter, Carl Bernstein, told an audience at Eureka College this week that 24 hour news and the Internet have been good for journalism, although the 24 hour news format challenges reporters to be accurate and thorough. He said the Internet has given people the chance to explore various sides of issues. Despite these threats, Bernstein said newspapers will survive, because they’ll adapt and change. I think he’s right. Newspapers have done a better job of adjusting to New Media than have TV stations.

My strongest warning for broadcasters
I’ve been saying this for a long time. Your future enemy is not your television competitor across the street, it’s your local newspaper. Incoming Associated Press chief, Tom Curley, says the A.P. will be working hard to turn newspapers into broadcasters by providing video for them to use online. “It’s not my decision,” Curley said. “It’s a marketplace reality. I’ve heard from publishers of 30,000-circulation newspapers who believe they have to have video for their Websites. That’s an indication of a profound change.” Video News On Demand (VNOD) will be the way people get their video news in a Postmodern world. The news war of the 21st century is online, and TV stations who’re content to provide text-only news services to their constituencies are giving up ground to smart print counterparts, who’re more experienced with the Web and see where it’s really going.

Multi-tasking (Postmodern) teens
It comes as a surprise to no one that teenagers and kids involve themselves in more than one form of media at the same time. The extent of this multi-tasking has gotten a lot of press this week. A report presented at an Advertising Research Foundation workshop stated that 80 percent of teens regularly use more than one media type at a given time. You can read the details here, but I don’t view this with the same alarm the advertising industry does. Why? Modernists, whose entire view of life is based on order and logic, automatically assume that young people who do more than one thing at a time can’t possibly assimilate information while so doing. They define attention as undivided, but Pomos are different, and it’s vastly more than just “kids being kids,” because these teenagers have grown up with the technology that makes divided attention possible. How many Modernists, for example, are comfortable chatting simultaneously in seven different Instant Message conversations? It is foolish to underestimate the capacity of Postmoderns to function amid chaos, because it, not order, is their foundational perspective.

Reporters need the Web to cover politics
The Internet has thrown a big wrench into the political machinery of campaigns and political coverage as 2004 looms, according to an article in today’s issue of Editor and Publisher.

“There is hardly an event that I cover that I am not, in some way, making use of the Web,” says Dan Balz, veteran political writer for The Washington Post. John Wildermuth, senior political correspondent at the San Francisco Chronicle, agrees. “It has absolutely exploded,” he says of the Internet’s campaign impact. “Newspapers are having to pay a lot more attention to it.”

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