Archive for October, 2005

All I really need to know I learned in the blogosphere

Posted Monday, October 17th, 2005
  • As a whole, people are smarter than you. It’s okay. Turn the page.

  • The best way to get attention is to give it.

  • Manipulation is the currency of fools.

  • Never underestimate the capacity of fools to act accordingly.

  • If you really need help, ask for it.

  • Anonymity isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

  • Admitting when you’re wrong helps you more than the other guy.

  • Writing every day is good for the soul.

  • Sharing your insides helps others share theirs.

  • You’re not nearly as important as you think you are.

  • What other people think of you isn’t nearly as important as what you think of yourself.

  • People are like snowflakes, all different, yet all the same.

  • Take what you need for yourself, but leave something behind for the other guy.

  • Never, ever underestimate your right to freedom or the gift of freedom that you have.

  • It’s better to be happy than right.

  • Technology’s greatest gift to humankind is the spellchecker.

  • Standing up for your beliefs “come what may” is better than sitting down in comfort with somebody else’s.

  • Respecting yourself begins with respecting others.

  • If you gain from something somebody else says, tell them.

  • You can’t be a part of something unless you participate.

  • Meeting people at core enhances the sweetness of meeting them in person.

  • Walk away once in awhile, so you always have the energy to come back.

  • Nobody is better than you, but neither is anybody worse.

  • Yesterday’s successes or failures don’t matter much today.

  • Laugh and laugh again, especially at yourself.

  • Nobody’s perfect, not even you. It’s okay. Turn the page.

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More on the video iPod deal

Posted Monday, October 17th, 2005

The Wall St. Journal offers an excellent summary of the brewing conflict between ABC and its affiliates in the wake of the Disney/Apple announcement last week.

With that, Apple may have helped open a Pandora’s box for the media business. The Cupertino, Calif., company and its first TV partner — Walt Disney Co., the parent of ABC — have taken a potentially significant step in the dismantling of a decades-old system for distributing TV programming to viewers, a move that could have profound long-term consequences for broadcasters, cable systems and satellite companies if more users download shows instead of watching them the old-fashioned way.
(Thanks to I Want Media)

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We’ll see more of this downstream

Posted Monday, October 17th, 2005

According to the Indiana Business Journal, Emmis Communications Corp. CEO Jeff Smulyan might be taking his company private in the near future. The paper sites Wall Street analysts as sources.

Smulyan took Emmis public in 1994 and enjoyed years of prosperity. At their peak in 1999, just before the market crashed, company shares topped $60.

Since then, Smulyan has struggled to persuade investors radio is still a great business, despite increasing competition from digital-music players and satellite radio. Perhaps he’ll finally decide it’s not worth the trouble.

One of my predictions for 2006 will be that a few broadcasters will take their companies private, because they can be much more flexible than they can in trying to please shareholders. And if there’s one thing broadcasters need in this day and age, it’s flexibility. Most people don’t realize how much the Sarbanes-Oxley bill has handcuffed public companies.

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Broadcasters need to hire Geeks

Posted Monday, October 17th, 2005

The longer I work in this emerging media world, the more I’m convinced that old media thinkers won’t have a place at the table in the not-too-distant future. David Kirkpatrick at Fortune puts it this way:

The mainstream media–or MSM as the bloggers call it–has a big problem. Innovative software is going to become an essential component for distributing media on the web, but the MSM has little software competence. I agree with Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, who said last week at the Web 2.0 Internet conference in San Francisco: “To be a media company…tech is what you must excel at.”
In a nutshell, Mr. Kirkpatrick has elegantly stated what I’ve been trying to tell local broadcasters for years — that they must get away from turn-key, third-party Internet providers, so that they can bring new technology into their own operating models. You can’t play in the new world unless you understand the technology. Handing that over to third-party providers in the mid-90s was a grave tactical error that cannot be corrected today without a lot of pain. But that’s a small price to pay for a seat at the table.

But even if old media types get the technology, there’s reason to wonder what they’ll do with it. Consider this article from cNet about Verizon’s fiber optic experiments in the creation of interactive TV. What are they experimenting with?

One of the new services currently being tested here is an interactive fantasy sports application that lets viewers compare statistics and keep track of points on their TVs while they’re watching games.

…In the kitchen, for example, someone watching Jamie Oliver’s “The Naked Chef” on The Food Network may want to pull up the recipe on the TV screen as they cook along with the program.

…Verizon believes people will be sharing their photos on their television screens…”People love to share pictures,” (David Philbin, a senior member of Verizon’s technical staff) said. “But no one wants to stand crowded around the PC in the home office to see them. They’d rather be on the couch.”

This is interactive TV? Call me a nut, but if this is the best they can come up with, I won’t be buying any Verizon stock soon.

Philbin noted in the article that Verizon has learned that people want interactivity, but they don’t want to “work for it.” Their research also shows some things are best left to the PC. I completely agree with those findings, but my point is that they are experimenting with ways to “involve” people in passive entertainment, instead of playing with new concepts altogether.

Somewhere in my past, some scholar opined that the Japanese lost in World War II, because all they could do was copy great strategies and tactics. This left them vulnerable to the creative Americans, who weren’t afraid to think outside the box (including, I guess, blowing two entire cities to smithereens). I don’t know if that’s true, but the analogy is appropriate here, because there’s a whole group of extremely talented and creative people (okay, “Geeks”) that would love to get their hands on Verizon’s fiber and create this thing called interactive TV.

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Tip jar for my surgery

Posted Sunday, October 16th, 2005

At the urging of Jeff Jarvis — the fastest talking man in the whole blogosphere — I have put a tip jar up for anybody who wishes to participate in helping me with surgery expenses. All I can offer in return is my undying appreciation.

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Facing surgery without insurance

Posted Sunday, October 16th, 2005

I’ve struggled with writing about this, because it is intensely personal. Self pity isn’t my aim; I wish only to inform.

When the Internet company I was running (and in which I’d invested my life’s savings) finally went belly-up in 2001, and I lost my shirt, I found myself in the unenviable position of living in this country without health insurance. This was difficult for a prideful man, especially one who is getting up there in age and needs health care.

It’s a good news/bad news kind of a thing, and I want to share a few things that you might not be aware of. First, the bad news. I have a lump in my left breast that needs to be removed, and I’m having surgery on Thursday. I’ll find out Friday if it’s cancer, although I must say that’s pretty darned rare. It is, however, breast cancer awareness month, and you’d better believe I’m aware. Facing something like this without insurance isn’t fun.

But there is good news.

Did you know that nearly every heath care provider in the country offers deep discounts, if you pay cash? The minimum discount I’ve encountered these past few years is 30%. A doctor’s visit that costs you $20 and your insurance company $80, costs me $70. You want to cut health care costs in the U.S. by 30%? Eliminate 3rd-party payers.

I’ve also discovered that most doctors and health care providers really do care about people. When you get into that insurance mill thing, the human aspects sometimes to get pushed to the side, because it’s all about money. When you walk into a place and announce that you’re “self-pay,” it’s amazing what can happen.

Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I have the greatest doctor on the planet. She knows that I’m building a business and don’t have a lot of money, so she helps me by sharing samples that the drug companies give her. The surgeon who’ll be doing the work on Thursday didn’t charge me for the consultation ($100) and is going to ridiculously discount the operation. He also promised to speak with the anesthesiologist and pathologist on their charges. The outpatient surgery center is discounting the use of their facility by 75%. That’s SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT! In all, I’ll end up paying about one-third (or less) of what this would’ve cost via the 3rd-party insurance method. And best of all, a dear friend is lending me the money to pay for this. I’ll pay him back; you can bet on that, but his help comforts my soul.

All of this gives me pause. As a student of human nature and a professional observer of life, it’s easy to get jaded in this day and age. As Pogo said, “I have seen the enemy, and he is us.” But there is something at core in people that — if given a chance — is begging to come out and make itself known.

We are not a culture of automatons, driven only by logic and reason. We have an emotional side that’s every bit as important, and this is why secular Modernism is failing. We are spiritual beings on a human journey. That, and our unrelenting curiosity, is what gives me hope for the future.

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Google, stop the spam blogs or else!

Posted Sunday, October 16th, 2005

Like many people in the emerging media business, I track certain keywords via the blog search engine Technorati. It’s easy. All you have to do is enter a keyword, and their software will provide an RSS feed based on that word or words. Among other things, it’s a helpful way to keep up with what people are saying about you in the blogosphere.

I subscribe to an RSS feed on “Terry Heaton.” It used to produce a couple of items a day, but the feed is now inundated with what can kindly be described as junk. Creative spamming assholes have begun using my name and stealing quotes about me to create links — and, therefore, Google placement — via blogs that aren’t really blogs. They’re simply platforms to generate links for their clients. Scores of these fake entries are populating my RSS reader daily, thanks to these leeches masquerading as human beings.

Nothing illegal, though, eh? Gee, that’s comforting.

Chris Pirillo is calling it like it is, because 99% of these spam blogs are generated by Google’s own (too) easy-to-use blog software, Blogger.com. And his warning for Google is spot-on:

Blogspot has become nothing but a crapfarm, and your brand is going to go down with it. If your motto truly is to do no evil, then you need to start putting some resources behind an effort to curb this train wreck.
As a person who believes profoundly in the personal media revolution, this REALLY pisses me off, as I’m sure it’s doing to a lot of those important “early adopters” that Google needs to help move its business model forward. It’s truly astonishing that a company with such an apparently user-benefit-driven “business think” would sit by and let this happen.

Oh, and have you ever tried commenting on a Blogger blog? If the company can restrict that, why can’t it come up with a way to block these frauds?

I agree with Chris that this is a MAJOR problem for Google, its Achilles’ Heel in the war for search (and media) supremacy. After all, your enemies don’t need nearly as much ammunition, if you’re busy shooting yourself in the foot.

Fix it, Google, and do it fast!

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The disappearing dial-up modem

Posted Friday, October 14th, 2005

Holy broadband world! Dan Gillmor notes the passing of the pre-installed modem in Apple’s new iMac G5. The company is now only offering an external modem. Like the internal floppy and the tube television set, dail-up modems are assigned to the century from which they came and now appear headed for the junk heap.

Having served us well for a season, may they rest in peace.

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Video iPod, day three

Posted Friday, October 14th, 2005

Pete Rojas at Engadget offers his educated opinion on the whys of the Apple iPod. It’s worthwhile reading, imo, because there always seems to be more than meets the eye with Steve Jobs, et al.

Make no bones about it — there’s a reason this thing isn’t called the Video iPod. Above all, the new iPod is, well, an iPod.

So why include video at all? Steve Jobs has long maintained that a video iPod wasn’t a good idea. He’s firmly dismissed the market for such a player. Why backpedal now? Could it be that this is Apple’s attempt to steer the still nascent market right to their front door?

Rojas offers what he believes is a four-step plan by Apple that includes legitimizing the Bit Torrent industry, and in so doing, bringing new revenues to video producers just as the iPod has done for music downloading.

I’m not suggesting I believe all of this; I just think it’s helpful to read the opinions of guys like Rojas, whose purpose in life is to analyze gadgetry and the business models behind them.

Meanwhile, Lost Remote’s Steve Safran thinks it’s a “reasonable, incremental move by Apple to add video playback to an iPod” but that it’s “just not going to be that big a deal.” He offers eight reasons why, including that, for television, size matters.

Steve’s view is similar to that of TV consultant and prognosticator Philip Swann (a.k.a. Swanni), who predicts the video iPod will “fail miserably,” because there is simply no demand for portable video.

The video iPod was born from arrogance. Apple has been so successful with the audio iPod that it thinks it can’t go wrong. But it will this time. This is an example of a technology that is being launched only because it can be, not because anybody wants it.
I don’t disagree with either Steve or Swanni, but I think they’re missing the real point here, and that’s the deal with ABC. It’s one thing for consumers to create their own time-shifting through DVRs, but it’s quite another when the creators of the programming begin dealing their work directly to consumers, regardless of the size of the screen. This is a watershed moment in the history of broadcasting, for it undercuts the network/affiliate relationship.

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ABC’s deal with Apple begins to sink in

Posted Thursday, October 13th, 2005

ABC’s deal with Apple to provide its hit shows for two bucks a pop via the new video iPod should be a significant concern for all broadcasters, not just ABC affiliates. A day after the announcement, stories are popping up that hint at the obvious: this is a threat to the status quo. It’s a threat, because it undercuts the essential value proposition for a network affiliate — exclusive delivery of original programming, including reruns.

What’s really happening is that in today’s distributed media world, middlemen are increasingly unnecessary. It is inevitable that program producers will distribute directly to consumers, and that’s true of all forms of media. Not only is this a threat to network affiliates, it also attacks the cable distribution model as well. Here’s a terribly important piece of insight from Rafat Ali at PaidContent:

To protect its turf, cable giant Comcast has 400 software engineers building what amounts to a TV version of the Internet, stocked with movies, archived TV programs and other interactive features, including a search function. This is where talks with Google and AOL fit in…
Now that ABC has broken the mold, the others will follow suit. And once it’s discovered that people will pay a couple of bucks for programs on demand, other “sizes” of the programs will follow as well. Only the distribution method remains in question, and technology will take care of that.

I was stunned by the initial reaction of the current ABC affiliates board chairman, WLOX-TV GM Leon Long. He said that given the choice of watching a program on a two and a half inch screen and a 50-inch HDTV with surround sound, people will choose the latter. This misses the point completely.

The prebundled media model is dead. Broadcasters can slow its demise, but it cannot put the genie back in the bottle.

Video on Demand (VOD) is the new model, and the advertising community is already talking about how to approach such a model. Cory Treffiletti wrote in yesterday’s MediaPost Online Spin that one possibility is an uninterruptible “pod” of ads at the beginning of a VOD product. Look for this down-the-road, even on items that are paid. We’ve already been conditioned to sit through such in movie theatres.

One other note about ABC. I’ve been told that the network is offering zero network compensation as it renews affiliate agreements this year. That’s an important piece of the puzzle to me, because it telegraphs downstream intent. I wouldn’t be surprised if the net comp position is reversed one day, and affiliates are required to pay for the original programming, much as they do for syndicated programs. This might even be a good thing for local television, because one has to assume they would have access to more ad inventory.

Meanwhile, I will continue to hammer home the reality that local media companies will not survive unless they aggressively pursue unfamiliar business models available to them via the same disruption that threatens their old model. It’s a time of incredible opportunity, and that’s the truth.

USAToday | PaidContent | Hollywood Reporter

NEW: Jeff Jarvis asks the biggie: “Will vloggers and other independent producers of video bits, like podcasters, be able to use this as a channel of distribution, free or paid?” Hmm…

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At long last, the video iPod is here

Posted Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

Apple ended months of speculation today when it unveiled a new iPod capable of playing videos on its two and a half inch screen. The new iPods are slimmer than their predecessors, but they have considerably greater disk capacity. A 30 gig iPod capable of holding 75 hours of video sells for $299, and $399 will get you a 60 gig unit and 150 hours of video.

This heralds a whole new chapter in the disruptive challenges to broadcasters, because, for example, ABC has already cut a deal with Apple to provide hit shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives for $1.99 each WITHOUT commercials. The shows will be available the day after they’ve aired.

Ryan over at Engadget gives it high marks.

The video iPod won’t disappoint. It feels slim and easy to hold even after two weeks spent with my nano. Video playback is solid. They’re not kidding about 30 fps without sputtering. You can’t fast forward, but you can scroll back and forth on a progress bar–just as you do with music–to jump forward and back in the video. Oh, and the black model is going to be hot. Without the U2 model’s red wheel it’s less of an acquired taste.
The notion of a generation of people watching video on a hand-held device is already generating some fun thoughts. Nashville is Talking’s Brittney Gilbert thinks the new iPod is pretty cool but adds, “The first time I walk up on some creep watching porn at the library I’m gonna revolt.” The Broadcasting and Cable blog (BCBeat) noted that the announcement was “followed by an unceremonial severing of the last threads of face-to-face communication left in our society” and said the device “will allow you to watch TV — and ignore other human beings — anywhere a lithium battery can be recharged.”

This announcement has been expected, and I think it moves the challenges facing broadcasters to a whole new level. Video on Demand (VOD), whether it’s through Tivo, your cable company, or now downloading and time-shifting to an iPod, is the one thing that the concept of network affiliates simply can’t overcome. Local broadcasters need to rethink everything now. Consumers may find it easy to pay two bucks for an episode of Lost, but will they feel the same way about local news and local programming? Will there be enough people downloading one of these network shows to impact broadcast ratings?

These are trying times for broadcasting, and today’s announcement is further evidence that only those with an aggressive new media model will survive long term.

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What do we expect anyway?

Posted Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

History teaches that the scent of victory — not victory itself — is what kills social movements, and that’s why I smile when I read things like Republican Senator Richard Lugar telling the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Monday that bloggers would “probably not” be considered journalists under the proposed federal shield law. Lugar is a co-sponsor, so his comments — as reported in Editor & Publisher — carry weight.

There are two stories here. Firstly, this shield law is a bad idea from the get-go, and even Lugar knows it.

A key reason some journalists oppose the popular federal shield proposal is fear that giving Congress the power to define who is and isn’t a journalist could lead effectively to the licensing of journalists.

In other remarks about the legislation at IAPA’s 61st General Assembly, Lugar acknowledged that the legislation could amount to a “privilege” for reporters over other Americans.

“I think, very frankly, you can make a case that this is a special boon for reporters, and certainly for their role in freedom of the press,” he said. “At the end of the day what we will come out with says there is something privileged about being a reporter, and being able to report on something without being thrown into jail.”

Privileged? Now there’s a sought-after modernist invention. On the merits of the concept alone, this will be defeated, but we should never underestimate the capacity of Washington to get it wrong. We certainly don’t need “licensed” journalists dancing around pretending to have the best interests of the underprivileged in mind.

But let’s assume this does pass. It will only strengthen the citizens media movement (a.k.a. personal media revolution), because all movements contain an element of counterculture. Every new attempt to defend itself against the movement puts the culture in a more vulnerable position. This is not Terry; this is history. We need to view the personal media revolution as a part of the bigger cultural shift to postmodernism. It will continue regardless of what the rulers of the culture think, because it’s simply bigger than most people care to admit.

“I experience (participate), therefore I understand” trumps “I think (reason), therefore I understand.”

So now let’s look at the other story here — that bloggers wouldn’t be considered journalists under this proposed law. Gosh, wouldn’t that make the mainstream feel good! The truth is it’s irrelevant, and while the new privileged would be celebrating, the revolution would march forward. The energy behind self-publishing has much more to do with empowerment than it does practice, and the power to practice journalism at the grass roots level doesn’t require a shield law OR the blessing of the status quo. And every movement has its martyrs. This law eliminates that for the mainstream while opening the door wide for bloggers (or any other participant in the citizens media movement).

What will privileged journalists do when an underprivileged journalist gets tossed in jail?

I’ve written many times before that the status quo won’t sit still while the bottom levels the playing field. Our whole way of life is changing, and the haves of that way of life desperately wish to protect their inflated share of the fatted calf. The genie is out of the bottle, and there is no way to put it back.

The personal media revolution, I believe, is chasing the dream of a more equitable life for all. As we share our experiences with each other, we increasingly see that Reason has spread the Monarchy to only a few, and as more of us find access to The Jewel of the Elites, the clearer that becomes. This dream is insatiable, at least for now, and nothing short of closing the Internet (and trust me, they’ll try) will slow the movement.

In a culture war, the old will always fight the new. It must. What do we expect anyway?

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The podcasting buzz continues

Posted Tuesday, October 11th, 2005

The headline from the Wall Street Journal article ought to tell you something. After all — with a few exceptions noted — big media hasn’t been quick to jump on anything new media.

As Podcasts Boom,
Big Media Rushes
To Stake a Claim

Why would big media rush to stake a claim in THIS particular form of new media when it looks with disdain on others? The article says they’re afraid of getting blindsided:

Like many new technologies, podcasting may be snubbed by the wider public or fail to spawn a profitable business model. But the media industry’s scramble signals its determination to avoid a repeat of earlier debacles when companies were slow to deal with new technologies.

…For traditional media companies, one danger of promoting podcasts is cannibalization: People who are listening to podcasts on their iPods aren’t sitting in front of the TV or listening to a regular radio station. But executives say if they don’t push their podcasts, somebody else will and they’ll lose these listeners altogether.

I think there’s another reason you’re seeing big media jump on this particular bandwagon: while the delivery mechanism may be new media (auto-download via RSS), the medium itself is old media. Time-shifting is an audience-driven response to a one-to-many (Media 1.0) model. Big Media understands one-to-many; it’s their lifeblood. And so they look at podcasting and easily understand what’s going on.

My advice for broadcasters is that they need to make podcasts available for two reasons. One, they need to understand the technology and how to move unbundled media around via RSS. Two, they’ll appear behind-the-times if they don’t.

That said, I don’t think podcasting will ever be a serious form of revenue, so I wouldn’t expend a lot of resources on it.

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Pump up the volume

Posted Tuesday, October 11th, 2005

The networks — especially NBC — have figured out one of my key TV viewing quirks. You see, I like to crank the volume ALL THE WAY UP during the commercial breaks and turn it WAY, WAY DOWN during the shows themselves. I don’t know about you, but I like to sit back and enjoy my commercials. Nothing like ‘em. A broad smile adorns my face, as my eardrums throb to the music and sound effects of all that selling. But then, when the programs are on — with all that dialog that I don’t really care about — I like to strain to hear. It’s especially good when the air conditioner is running, because background noise enhances the experience of not hearing the programs.

But the good folks at NBC have apparently heard my prayers, and they now do it for me. What a nice bunch of folks.

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The OJR gets it wrong on citizens media

Posted Friday, October 7th, 2005

Tom Grubisich at the increasingly detached (IMO) Online Journalism Review takes a tour of ten grassroots journalism efforts, a.k.a. citizen journalism, a.k.a. community news sites, and decides he’s not very hopeful about the future of the idea.

Many Internet prophets now see their early vision being fulfilled. And so it seems on the surface. But when you take a closer look, what you see, apart from a couple of honorable exceptions, is the Internet equivalent of Potemkin villages — an elaborate facade with little substance behind it.
This article is an insult to the people working — often with no payback — to develop new concepts for journalism using the disruptive technologies of the personal media revolution. Rather than asking for the creators’ criteria for success, Mr. Grubisich uses his own barometer to judge the value of the ten efforts he chose. And you can’t get a more pejorative reference than Potemkin villages.

The sad thing about this kind of “story” is that it presupposes the motivation of citizens media efforts is the same as those of the mainstream. Moreover, people who think this way are stuck on the idea that these efforts seek to somehow replace the mainstream, and that is simply untrue.

The jury’s still out, Tom. Go look down your nose at somebody else.

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New SPJ president is a new media guy

Posted Thursday, October 6th, 2005

He’s University of Florida journalism professor David E. Carlson, 54, and he’ll be sworn into office on October 18th in Las Vegas. He’s the first journalism professor ever to become head of the Society of Professional Journalists, and his new media background should make for informed leadership.

Carlson is a UF professor of new media journalism and director of the Interactive Media Lab in the College of Journalism and Communications.

More. (Thanks, Mike)

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Let media consolidation happen

Posted Thursday, October 6th, 2005

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told a group at the University of Iowa last night that media consolidation hurts small communities, where local broadcast news dries up. “I want to make sure that what we do serves the public interest and not the interest of corporations that seek to profit,” Adelstein said. How nice.

I say let consolidation run its course, because there isn’t a top-down media entity possible that can alter what people are able to do now from the bottom-up. Media is being reinvented as we speak, and the citizens in small towns are as capable of creating and distributing their own media as people in big cities. As newspapers and radio stations and television stations are lumped into the pot of sameness, it only incentivizes people who are hungry for something different. I say let it happen.

It won’t be a bad thing for anybody — except big media.

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The accelerating disruption

Posted Thursday, October 6th, 2005

I’m feeling rather reflective this morning, so I’m going to just ramble and hope that this makes sense.

I don’t know whether I’m more excited about the cultural changes underway among us or the continued advancement of disruptive innovations brought about by technology. These two events aren’t’ disconnected, and I remain convinced that it is culture driving the advancements in technology, not the other way around.

I just read about Steve Case’s “Revolution” over at PaidContent, so I went exploring. Case is the guy who built AOL, and he has a lot of money. One of his first projects under the Revolution brand is Revolution Health Group, a company with a lot of Postmodern potential. The company announced the acquisition of four new companies that will help accelerate its growth.

“With these initial investments, we are on our way to building a company that puts patients back in control of their health care decisions,” said Steve Case, Chairman of RHG. “We’ve made so much progress so quickly, and I’m excited about what we will be bringing to market in the months ahead. Still, the work has just begun on what is a long-term project that will take years to reach its full potential.”
The company plans to launch a health portal Website next year, and it shows promise. One of the acquisitions is Wondir, a search engine linking users with others who may have answers to their health-care problems. This suggests to me that Case and his board understand where the culture is going, and that one of the best health care resources we have is the collective experiences of human beings. This is quite exciting to me, because it encapsulates the thoughts about which I’ve been writing for years (and most recently expressed in this week’s essay, The Jewel of the Elites).

In reading through the summaries of the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco (Jeff Jarvis has a wonderful report on new technologies) and the We Media conference in New York, I’m struck by how far behind the curve the mainstream is in things Internet. It’s clear to me that the opportunity exists for any mainstream media company to leapfrog competitors by YEARS, if they would only get involved in media 2.0 concepts. Look around. Mainstream companies are just now adopting technologies that myself and others have been talking about for years, while the leading edge of technological advancements are taking everything in a personal-empowerment direction. There is a HUGE window of opportunity for somebody, but I see no one stepping up to the plate. This is troubling, for one day — and I mean this with all my heart — the media industry will awaken to find that the goose that laid the golden egg is dead, and that they have been abandoned completely.

Consider the truth of marketing guru Tom Hespos’ vision as expressed in Tuesday’s MediaPost Online Spin, Consumer-Generated Content Should Fill Garfield’s Void. In this insightful piece, Hespos continues Bob Garfield’s “Chaos Scenario” argument that there just isn’t enough content generated by mass media to fill advertiser demands online.

It would be nice to see consumer-generated content fill the Garfield-identified void. Not only would it facilitate the flow of more dollars into the medium, but it would also produce successful results for clients. Still another terrific side effect — brand advertisers would be drawn closer to the conversations relating to their brands and product categories.
This is where we’re headed, folks, and in the next 24 months, the personal media revolution will begin sucking money from all forms of media, and when that happens, it’ll be over for many.

On Monday, Jarvis Coffin of Burst! Media will be in Nashville speaking to local bloggers who’ve expressed an interest in monetizing their content. These people don’t generate enough page views themselves to be on the radar of a guy like Coffin, but together — and especially because of the diversity of their pages — they make a sizeable group with which to experiment in the Hespos-envisioned world. In facilitating this ad network, WKRN-TV and Young Broadcasting are creating a genuinely New Media revenue stream for themselves. They will be selling local ads across the network and sharing revenue with the bloggers.

My friend, J.D. Lasica, led me to a profound quote this morning from the Web 2.0 conference. It’s from Esther Dyson, Chairman of EDventure:

“You can no longer tell people about your brand; you have to let them experience it.”
This marvelous quote describes the cultural changes taking place in our world moreso than technological disruptions, and takes me back to the beginning.

These are amazing times in which we live. Hold onto your hats.

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How to promote citizens media efforts

Posted Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

This is a WKRN ad for Nashville Is Talking, and I encourage you to take a look. The beauty of it is that it says nothing about the station and everything about the bloggers. This is counterintuitive and seems crazy to broadcasters, but it is the law of attraction that works online, not the law of promotion (boasting). It’s not about the station — except indirectly — anyway. It’s about the bloggers. Ultimately, it’s about influence and making money — for everybody.

Yeah, we know about it being all white guys. That’ll change.

Nashville is Talking is doing terrific numbers for a site that has only been marketed virally so far. As I’ve written previously, the site has incredible street creds with the local blogosphere, and we’re about to launch an ad network that will provide revenue for the bloggers and extend the reach of the station’s Internet sales efforts.

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Another top drama tainted by product placement

Posted Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

Last night’s “Law and Order: SVU” on NBC contained another poorly and obviously-inserted product placement advertisement, the kind of which is hammering the final nail in the coffin of prime time television. SVU is one of the best dramas on TV, and the episode was gripping and intense, and that made the ad — for the Broadway hit “Monty Python’s Spamalot” — even more obnoxious.

For those who didn’t see the episode — called 911 — here’s the scenario:

Mariska Hargitay’s character (Detective Benson) was dressed to the nines and about to enter a limo on a date, when the head of her unit (Captain Cragen) comes running outside to say they have an emergency. For the next 40 minutes, she engages a nine year old child pornography victim on the telephone, as the SVU gang attempts to locate her whereabouts and rescue her from the bad guy. It was powerful drama and well-written and acted.

When the perp returns and hangs up the phone, the squad knows she’s going to die, so they focus on porn pictures of her taken in the room that the girl described to a heartbroken Benson. Benson has changed clothes and is sitting at a table with Detective Munch, when Munch — out of nowhere — says:

“So you had a date?”

“Yup, even had show tickets.”

“What were you going to see?”

“Spamalot.”

“I hear that’s funny.”

Then Munch finds the clue they were seeking, which leads to the girl and a happy ending.

This mention of the play wasn’t an accident, nor was it a clever attempt to humanize the drama. It was an awful product placement ad. How do I know this?

  • It stood out like a sore thumb.

  • It occurred at the height of the script.

  • It was meaningless to the story.

But the biggest reason is that SVU is one of the best-written dramas on television. There is no way these people could’ve created those five lines without coercion.

There is good product placement and there is bad product placement. This was the latter.

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