Rest stop reflections
Tuesday, July 12th, 2005Every once in awhile, something inside me forces a halt to all activity, so that I can step back a bit and gather a hundred different thoughts. I don’t plan this, but these rest areas on the new media highway are essential for me, ‘lest my attention be drawn to a new exit or a wreck. I’m in one of those periods right now. My gut is telling me to pause and take a really good look around.
I came across a great quote from Napoleon Bonaparte yesterday: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” I think there are a lot of mistakes being made “out there,” and I want to make sure my clients aren’t a part of them. The business world likes to adopt the slogans of great war generals, because there are a lot of similarities. The word “enemy,” in business lexicon, means competition.
There is so much being written today about new media that it’s impossible to keep up. Everybody is jumping on bandwagons I was writing about two years ago, and the media industry is absolutely awash in efforts to capitalize (literally) on every idea that comes down the pike. It kind of reminds me of ten years ago in the tech world, and this, too, gives me pause. When everybody jumps on the same idea at once, a bubble follows, and after losing my shirt (literally) five years ago, I’m a wee bit sensitive to bubbles.
And so, I’m conscious of this “mistake” thing, and I want to make sure that my competitors are making them, not me.
So here’s what I’m thinking in terms of things I can trust in the weeks, months and years ahead:
- We are now well inside the era of the empowered customer. As Starcom’s Rishad Tobaccowala noted two years ago, “The customer is now God. How will you approach God?” People with Weblogs are taking on big corporations, simply by writing about their customer experience, and this is re-writing the rules of both customer service and public relations. This impacts media more than we care to admit, for audiences are armed with weaponry far beyond the remote control. Those who don’t accept this — and act upon it — are making a mistake.
- The personal media revolution will continue to challenge all media, but next in line is television. I just saw another “TV station in a box” technology that, for $5,000, gives anybody the capability of switching a multi-camera TV program. Watching the top while the bottom is creating television is a serious mistake.
- Embracing the local citizens media community is no longer an option. The media in general has responded to this by attempting to create their own, closed-network citizen media entities, and this is a mistake both in terms of resources and vision. The blogosphere already exists, thank you very much. And here’s the thing: it’s growing dramatically without your help. In Nashville, where my client WKRN-TV hosts the aggregator Website Nashville is Talking, we sent invitations to approximately 50 bloggers for a meet-up in February. There are now 190 blogs in the Nashville is Talking blogroll, and we add approximately ten a week. Ignoring this growing entity in your community is a mistake, as are any attempts to harness or control it.
- The portal Website concept for local media is dead. Put a fork in it. Content delivery via subscription (RSS, etc.) is where it’s at, and everybody except the TV industry seems to know this. Building fancy “one stop shopping” portals is so twentieth century, and I’m more convinced of this every day. Any site that isn’t fully customizable is a very big mistake.
RSS is very much a geek term, and it only needs a marketing campaign to become widespread. And there are some very smart players deeply invested in this, including the major portals, so we all need to be thinking about HOW we deliver our goods via subscription. This IS the future, and those who ignore it are making a mistake.
- The video journalist movement is (finally) coming to America, and I believe it will explode for local TV in the next 12-24 months. A handful of news executives are beginning to understand that it isn’t about cost-cutting (although it IS much more cost-effective) or typical “one-man band” news coverage; VJ news can be an entirely new way to make television news, one that is vastly more flexible than two-person crews make possible. Moreover, the new newsroom systems that it requires make it far easier to incorporate the local community into the newsgathering process, something that I think is absolutely necessary to be successful downstream.
Podcasting for traditional media is one of the items that concerns me a bit, so it’s not on my list. I recently participated in a discussion on the viability of podcasting, and I came away skeptical. I hate that I feel that way, because all my friends seem to think this is the next big thing. The bandwagon is already loaded and more are climbing on board every day. My issue with it is that it is a one-to-many form of communication. One-to-many is another phrase for “top-down,” and my fear is that — because they’re familiar with this form of communicating — local media will see it as their salvation, when it could, in fact, only be a diversion. That would be a mistake, so I can’t openly embrace it for my clients.
As I am quick to tell all of my clients, revenue isn’t the problem — audience is the problem. Fix the problem. Fixing it, however, is a complicated and tricky proposition, and one that requires vision and commitment.
And an occasional rest stop.
(Cross-posted at The Media Center’s Morph Blog.)
Happy birthday to me!
Saturday, July 9th, 2005
See blog shoot
Saturday, July 9th, 2005| WKRN-TV here in Nashville (disclosure: my client) held the first ever video training session for bloggers this afternoon at the station. Twenty local bloggers had signed up for the event, which included classroom and field work. | |
WKRN’s Joe Gregory and Mitch Jordan teach |
The obligatory overhead shot |
The Hammocks listen |
Donald Sensing in the middle |
Shooting the assignment |
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WKRN’s Dirk Mooth sets up a live shot |
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Interviewing Dirk |
Getting good B-roll |
The front of the T-shirt |
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The back of the commemorative T-shirt |
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Wishful thinking in a headline
Friday, July 8th, 2005Shankar Gupta at Mediapost’s Online Media Daily wrote a nice piece today on the arrangement between Salon, AOL, and Technorati that provides Salon and AOL users with links to blogger posts relevant to the stories they’re reading.
The story quotes Technorati founder and CEO David Sifry as saying the development marks a major step in the media world’s acceptance of Weblogs. I agree that this is an important story, but what about the headline?
- exploit the power of;
- control and direct with or as if by reins;
- rule: keep in check;
Yeah, right.
An American media exec reports from London
Thursday, July 7th, 2005Eric Braun, Vice President for News and Convergence with Raycom Media is in London attending a conference and writes with this report.
I wasn’t really close enough to anything to offer any really salient observations on local media coverage, save two points.Some of the most profoundly memorable pictures of this tragic event were not shot by professionals, but rather by folks with cell phone cameras.
London has a very robust 3G phone network, and the carriers here market cameras on virtually every phone handset. As a result, there were lots of phones in the hands of people who were nearly themselves victims. So, we may journalistically define 7/7/05 as an urban tragedy that was a watershed for cellular coverage capabilities in the hands of the people.
All of the local media outlets have been using lots of images from eyewitnesses to supplement the eyewitness accounts. Tonight, “Eyewitness News,” is truly that.
Point two, also related to cellular technology. The London public cell network was shut down by the authorities for much of the day. Partly to conserve bandwidth for public safety forces’ handhelds, but also out of concern that there were more bombs and that they might be triggered by cell phone (as in the Madrid train bombing).
We’re going to take a hard look at our newsrooms’ reliance on cell phones. Those “old fashioned” two-way radios worked pretty well today.
And, our cellular communications are ultimately at the mercy of “powers that be.”
BBC Website crushed by traffic, but not RSS feeds
Thursday, July 7th, 2005Here is a very important lesson for all media. The BBC’s Website, with its considerable bandwidth, couldn’t withstand the onslaught of traffic earlier today, and it went down. However, its RSS feeds continued, because, I’m told, they run off a different server.
This is important, I think, and it makes another case for full text RSS feeds. If you want to reduce the bandwidth demand on your Website, push the material out via RSS.
UPDATE: Vin Crosbie notes in the comments that reports of the BBC Website going down are erroneous. Thanks, Vin.
European VJs rush to the scene
Thursday, July 7th, 2005In what could either be described as good or bad timing, Michael Rosenblum reports from London:
Ironically we were running a pan-European VJ conference here in Entland, with reps from BBC, Dutch TV, Belgian, Swedish and German. All of them use VJs and all were here, both management and representative VJs. We had just started the conference, the room was full, and suddenly the first reports of the bombings came in. In a matter of minutes, everyone was on their cell phones, first with their respective newsrooms in Europe or in London and in a few more minutes, there were literally out the door with their camera kits on their backs.We will wait to see their work on the news tonight.
Another view on the jailing of a journalist
Thursday, July 7th, 2005Don Wycliff, the public editor of The Chicago Tribune, offers the most significant contribution that I’ve read to date on the Judith Miller/Matt Cooper “press freedom” argument. I highly recommend reading it. Specifically, Wycliff disagrees with all the weeping and gnashing of teeth over this in journalistic circles, and I think he’s spot on in his reading of the bigger picture.
I think that even journalists bear that obligation of citizenship, and that if we don’t want to get caught up in situations like hers and Time magazine’s Matt Cooper’s, we need to become far more discriminating about when and to whom we promise anonymity.More fundamentally, I think we need to become far more realistic about the 1st Amendment, quit talking about it as if it were some ultimate trump card that puts journalists above the law and beyond accountability, and recognize it for what it is: a constitutional tool that belongs to all the people for the protection of the right of all the people to be informed about the working of their government.
Most important, I think we need to rethink our current headlong rush to trade away the 1st Amendment in its fullness for the protection that a federal “shield law” would confer upon some tiny fraction of “the people” who call themselves journalists.
I’m involved in a discussion group that’s talking about the idea of professional standards for blogging. Here’s a part of one of my contributions:
I assume I have (First Amendment freedom) simply because I can publish. If I lie and deceive, I have enough faith in people to collectively spit me out, and this is the core difference between the blogosphere and the mainstream press. Walter Lippmann and his cronies believed people were stupid and needed to be informed by a professional class, the pedestals of which are crumbling now under the weight of such arrogance. We’re not a protected class and shouldn’t be. We are a government of the people only as long as the people have a voice, and that voice shouldn’t be required to comply with any so-called “professional” standards. If that’s the case, only the elite voices will be heard.
News organizations now rely on the blogosphere
Thursday, July 7th, 2005The murderous London terrorist attack is further evidence of the evolving role of the blogosphere in the coverage of spot news. Jeff Jarvis has an excellent round-up from the U.K. blogosphere, as does Glenn Reynolds. I also think it’s evidence that participatory media is not only relevant but a necessary part of the fabric of “the media” in today’s world.
Jarvis adds his own perspective:
BEEN THERE: As I came toward New York this morning, I looked over at the skyline, as I always do now. This morning, I made sure there was no smoke. I was nervous about taking the train into the city and decided not to go to the World Trade Center today. I also decided to get into the city before 9am, which seems to be the murderers’ witching hour. And when I got to the city, I called my wife to let her know I had arrived safely; she expects that. That is life anywhere in the world in a world of terrorism.
It’s probably spam
Wednesday, July 6th, 2005If the e-mail comes from a guy named Midshipman L. Returnable or Polytheist H. Communicators, it’s probably spam.
If you’ve won anything, it’s probably spam.
Unless it comes from your sweetie, any e-mail that begins “Hi Sweetie” is probably spam.
If it involves any account anywhere, it’s probably spam.
If the English in the e-mail appears to have been written by a monkey with a typewriter, it’s probably spam.
If the e-mail is dated three months ago, it’s probably spam.
Only plastic surgery will make your Johnson bigger. It’s probably spam.
If anybody identifies themselves as “Barrister” in an e-mail, it’s probably spam.
Buy your drugs at the drug store. It’s probably spam.
The horny women in your neighborhood aren’t waiting for you on a Website in Denmark. It’s probably spam.
Your PayPal account doesn’t need upgrading. It’s probably spam.
The widow of an African diamond merchant isn’t likely to have your e-mail address. It’s probably spam.
?????? in the “From” box is probably spam.
Chinese banks don’t usually mine for credit card applicants in the U.S. It’s probably spam.
If the “Subject” line says something like, “In fit my obdurate kerosene,” it’s probably spam.
There is no such thing as an “OEM SOFTWARE NEWSLETTER,” and if there was, why would they send it to you? It’s probably spam.
Your computer isn’t a “selling machine,” so the e-mail telling you to make it one is probably spam.
Your home doesn’t need refinancing. It’s probably spam.
Your BIOS doesn’t need updating. It’s probably spam.
And nobody from the dating site told Kristen about you. It’s probably spam.
The Elevation of Experience
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005Here is the latest essay in the ongoing series, TV News in a Postmodern World. This one deals more with Postmodernism than TV News, but I believe the news is inescapably connected to our culture. Postmodernism provides a framework within which to study the many changes we see happening around us today, and while faith and reason will always be a part of my own life, I can’t deny certain realities of this new era.
One of those is how a person’s personal experience increasingly is trumping faith and/or reason. This is a vital factor for us in media to understand for two reasons. One, it’ll help us move away from the black and white nature of the deception of objectivity, and, two, it’ll help us make programs that are more relevant to viewers — especially those who are younger.
The Elevation of Experience
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005Here is the latest essay in the ongoing series, TV News in a Postmodern World. This one deals more with Postmodernism than TV News, but I believe the news is inescapably connected to our culture. Postmodernism provides a framework within which to study the many changes we see happening around us today, and while faith and reason will always be a part of my own life, I can’t deny certain realities of this new era.
One of those is how a person’s personal experience increasingly is trumping faith and/or reason. This is a vital factor for us in media to understand for two reasons. One, it’ll help us move away from the black and white nature of the deception of objectivity, and, two, it’ll help us make programs that are more relevant to viewers — especially those who are younger.
Blog software fubar continues
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005The technical community continues to scramble resources in efforts to provide a permanent “fix” for the problems encountered by thousands of bloggers over the holiday weekend. As reported below, the creators of the most popular site management tool for hosting companies, CPanel, moved an update overnight on June 30th. This was automatically installed at most hosting locations, but two of the modules didn’t work with Movable Type, one of the most popular software tools for making blogs. The result was disastrous.
To temporarily solve the problem, hosting companies were forced to downgrade the modules. Now that the holiday is over, I suspect the problem will be resolved quickly.
While some may be wringing their hands over this event, I was witness to the marvel of the behind-the-scenes resolution. Even on a holiday weekend, the tech community scrambled to provide a fix. The ability of this to occur — without any organized effort — is one of the remarkable things about the Internet and its people. My hat is certainly off to you.
Only in America…
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005BCBeat reports that the paper American flags given out to people attending PBS’s annual Fourth of July Concert in Washington were made in…
…China.
Oh, the humanity. Where’s Lou Dobbs when you need him?
Somebody had taken a magic marker to the flags, hoping nobody would notice the source. Somebody did.
Can we burn American flags made in China?
Attention Movable Type users
Sunday, July 3rd, 2005There’s been quite a kafluffle this holiday weekend in tech circles involving blogs that use Movable Type. I have no hard data on this, but it’s possible hundreds of thousands of blogs have been affected.
My clients use Movable Type, so this has been a bit of a 3-day nightmare. Internal Server Errors (500) kept showing up when updating certain files. In the beginning, we couldn’t post new entries and comments were all screwed up.
After considerable investigation, it turns out not to be a Movable Type problem but one that originates with Cpanel, the most widely used webhosting front end management tool for hosting companies. The company moved an automatic update of two modules overnight on the 30th that Movable Type was not able to handle. Throughout the weekend, geeks all over the place have been downgrading the modules to rescue the blogs.
This is, of course, fine for bloggers with dedicated servers or with a friendly hosting company, but not so with others. Most hosting companies would rather keep the upgrade than mess with it for the sake of a few bloggers. In the end, Six Apart will have to come up with a patch of some sort, because the same thing will happen again when Cpanel moves another upgrade.
For anybody who cares, here’s the solution.
Don’t let the significance of this escape you
Friday, July 1st, 2005Staci Kramer at Paid Content reports on the creation of RSS Ventures, a new venture capital company devoted completely to syndication. Here’s the money quote from one of the founders, John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law:
“Of course, this fund will be a business intended to result in a return on investment. In the process, I have high hopes that such a fund can further the tremendous movement in citizens’ media underway and will promote the growth of global freedom of expression, creativity, and innovation.”
Also noteworthy is Palfrey’s statement about advancing citizens media and the “global freedom of expression,” because that’s a lot of money to support a revolution.
(Good stuff, Staci)
A short rant on the separation of powers
Friday, July 1st, 2005I was thinking about this today even before word came down about Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement. There is no separation of powers in our government anymore, because the public sector is ruled by political ideology. What differentiates the Executive, Judiciary and Legislative branches, if they’re all wrapped together in an ideological cloak — whether right or left? Nothing.
Frankly, I believe in the separation of powers as a safeguard for the little guy (me). Without that, the haves — a.k.a. the ruling class — will always be in charge, and we will no longer be a government of the people.
This is why we so badly need the democratization of media and why postmodernism is so critical to understand.
Semantics as rebellion
Friday, July 1st, 2005Fellow Nashville blogger Bill Hobbs has decided to close his blog at midnight and “relaunch” it as an online magazine to avoid the long arm of the Federal Election Commission. Pretty funny, methinks.