I saw the news last night: Dave Sifry announced on his blog that he's leaving the top post at Technorati...and if y'all are like me, you've been reading all the other posts on this...but what's bugging me right now is how the heck am I going to track any links to my blog???
Several blogs--including Business Week and others see more potential in Google's
blog search--even Matt Ingram has said that Google is eating Technorati's lunch. But the thing is Google blog search is awful for find out who's linking to your blog
In a term, Google sucks for this. Google doesn't go deep enough into the blogosphere to find links to blogs. It also doesn't care all that much about blogs if their not high-ranking, so it doesn't aggregate them for "Google alerts" nor for search.
Icerocket's been suggested as another alternative. It's okay, but I usually end up finding more splog links than blog links. That's helpful if I want to get peeved. Icerocket simply doesn't go as deep into lower-traffic blogs as Technorati.
Google's also done some very awful things to bloggers like me, who didn't want to lose access to the template HTML in the Google/Blogger turnover. If one didn't convert, Google's bots immediately assumed your blog to be a splog, and put NOFOLLOW tags in your metadata. This was an automated process--not a person-determined process. This stopped any bots from crawling and adding your blog to their results, thus making you a Blogger non grata. There were two steps to getting back into Google search and getting bots to follow--first, send an email to Google/Blogger about it, where, supposedly, a person reviewed your blog. Then, you have to petition the automated Google Indext to re-index your blog. Which could take from 4-8 weeks. Meanwhile, you lost any search traffic that you may have been building because Google de-indexed even all your old, legitimate blog entries!
Still, in many cases, one has to go into one's metadata and manually remove the NOFOLLOW stuff. This hasn't stopped sploggers. They've just used other blog software or did their own hacking. The majority of people who got zinged were legit bloggers.
Okay, so you're probably asking Why do you need to know who's linking to you? Well, it's a social thing! When I know who's linking to me, I know whom to go take a look at, whom I might want to leave a comment for, and who I might want to either add to my blogroll or RSS reader. This way I create social capital that can later lead to more traffic and other opportunities. FWIW, maybe I've even just made a nice blog-friend. For some of us, blogging is as much social as it is professional. It's a fine line and one that is sometimes defined differently by different people. But for me, the friendships have been very important.
So, I am sincerely hoping that Technorati can diversify enough with their other ventures to generate enough income so that and they can continue their blog search--and perhaps tout its superiority to other search features for finding blog links. The folks involved in Technorati, I believe, know the blogosphere (and bloggers) better than anybody, and that's something that a fully automated Google cannot replicate.
Note: when I worked on Assignment Zero, daily searches on Technorati for buzz were incredibly important. Technorati was one of several blog search tools that I used. Because I'm familiar with its level of accuracy and its ability to dig pretty deeply, I started there, then used other search to find overlap or other entries. Google was never used because it never gave me anything going on in the blogs that was related to AZ.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Lights are On, but Nobody's Home: USA Today Sees Soc Networking Slowdown
Social networking isn't for everybody--and social networking around news is an even rarer bird than what some newshounds may believe. Techcrunch takes a look at some signs, signals and graphs that indicate a slow-down in USA Today's experiment in social networking....but while the slowdown can be demonstrated by facts and figures, the more important questions of why cannot be answered by facts and figures...
The most undervalued, and perhaps most important questions for social networking, esp. around news are:
1) Why do people want to get social with news?
and
2)What will motivate people to stay involved?
Hint: it's got a little to do with the software's usability and a lot to do with who's interacting with The People.
Far too often in social networking projects launched by Big Media outlets is the assumption that The People will just come in because the content is so cracking, and will feel an overwhelmingly desperate need to leave comments--and create profiles so everyone will know who they are and desire to communicate with them.
Well, not really. The People nowadays have many ways to comment on the news as well as ways to build community and interact with others who are interested in the News. We've got Digg, and Newsvine and NewsTrust (among othes)...of course, we still have our own blogs, where we can profusely comment and draw in others by linking and other strategies....and if we want to we can even use our Facebook and MySpace pages to leave snippets of our opinions for our friends to see and to leave comments.
So, perhaps the social networking and news combination doesn't fit for Big Media--especially if Big Media (like USA Today) sees itself only as the Provider of the Platform--a Big Daddy overseer that expects The People to mix and mingle while keeping a safe, objective distance from the goings-on.
Now, Steve Yelvington's learned with Bluffton Today that in some small towns in certain parts of the country, people do indeed like to come onto the site of a small local paper, put up profiles, and network with one another, sometimes around the news, sometimes while writing their own....
And at Assignment Zero, we learned that even if you have a site that's got some seriously user un-friendly features, that People will become passionate if they know there are other People with whom they can interact--when there are folks involved with the publication or project where ideas and thoughts and concerns can be exchanged.
There has to be a kind of editorial involvement as Howard Owens put together for the Bakersfield.com.
Editorial direction--a clear stated purpose for People to leave information about themselves on a site, and for the content that outlets want people to talk about--is more important than some thing. As we saw with Backfence.com, adequate community outreach is difficult to maintain, as well as it is difficult to create strong editorial direction in an open participation environment.
Take a look at Jonathan Weber's NewWest site to see how strong editorial direction helps build community involvement.
So, the implementation of good social news by a newspaper isn't about sitting back dispassionately, providing cracking soc. networking software, and just letting folks have a go at it without any direction or committed staff can potentially lead to nothing happening. People now expect folks involved with a project that incorporates social networking to be involved with the community--not just be traffic cops monitoring for nasties. That means leaving comments, answering emails, moderating boards and communicating. That's what's gone on with Newstrust, and Newsvine, and even sometimes at NowPublic and Digg and even Netscape's not-as-successful social news feature.
If the lights are on and nobody's home, you can bet that people will be curious...but they'll eventually say "that's nice" and move along....
And maybe that's what we're seeing in this graph comparison of USA Today, NewYork Times, and the Washington Post...
An explanation of the figures from Techcrunch: Here’s the Compete.com data, showing monthly visitors down from 14 million in March to about 10 million today, a 29% drop in unique visitors. I added in the New York Times and Washington Post for comparison purposes - both are at about even levels with March....
But nobody asks People to be as involved with NYT and WaPo as was being asked with USAT. Some have speculated that it's a content-quality problem. The only way to tell if that's a valid consideration would be to see a graph of the three outlets before social networking/news was implemented at USAT. I'd still hedge, though, from the troubles with Backfence and the successes of Bakotopia and BlufftonToday, that there's much more to my theory about editorial team involvement (and to editorial direction of the social side as well) than there is to the type of content and software.
Just my $.02
Update: Mark Potts has an excellent post on the Shorenstein Center's look at web metrics (and their flaws) and makes this important point:In the end, uninspired Web sites face the same fate as uninspired print products: irrelevancy and disappearing readership and advertising. If newspaper Web sites are to be the future of the industry, they need to get truly serious about their local focus and step up and take advantage of the latest technologies to deliver what readers expect from a Web site in 2007...
and Webomatica adds his casual user's perspective on some of the problems with USAT's site (not just with the lack of people-presence over there.) Jason also point to an instance when someone from USAT got involved in a conversation--and, yes, USAT could use more folks like that!
The most undervalued, and perhaps most important questions for social networking, esp. around news are:
and
Hint: it's got a little to do with the software's usability and a lot to do with who's interacting with The People.
Far too often in social networking projects launched by Big Media outlets is the assumption that The People will just come in because the content is so cracking, and will feel an overwhelmingly desperate need to leave comments--and create profiles so everyone will know who they are and desire to communicate with them.
Well, not really. The People nowadays have many ways to comment on the news as well as ways to build community and interact with others who are interested in the News. We've got Digg, and Newsvine and NewsTrust (among othes)...of course, we still have our own blogs, where we can profusely comment and draw in others by linking and other strategies....and if we want to we can even use our Facebook and MySpace pages to leave snippets of our opinions for our friends to see and to leave comments.
So, perhaps the social networking and news combination doesn't fit for Big Media--especially if Big Media (like USA Today) sees itself only as the Provider of the Platform--a Big Daddy overseer that expects The People to mix and mingle while keeping a safe, objective distance from the goings-on.
Now, Steve Yelvington's learned with Bluffton Today that in some small towns in certain parts of the country, people do indeed like to come onto the site of a small local paper, put up profiles, and network with one another, sometimes around the news, sometimes while writing their own....
And at Assignment Zero, we learned that even if you have a site that's got some seriously user un-friendly features, that People will become passionate if they know there are other People with whom they can interact--when there are folks involved with the publication or project where ideas and thoughts and concerns can be exchanged.
There has to be a kind of editorial involvement as Howard Owens put together for the Bakersfield.com.
Editorial direction--a clear stated purpose for People to leave information about themselves on a site, and for the content that outlets want people to talk about--is more important than some thing. As we saw with Backfence.com, adequate community outreach is difficult to maintain, as well as it is difficult to create strong editorial direction in an open participation environment.
Take a look at Jonathan Weber's NewWest site to see how strong editorial direction helps build community involvement.
So, the implementation of good social news by a newspaper isn't about sitting back dispassionately, providing cracking soc. networking software, and just letting folks have a go at it without any direction or committed staff can potentially lead to nothing happening. People now expect folks involved with a project that incorporates social networking to be involved with the community--not just be traffic cops monitoring for nasties. That means leaving comments, answering emails, moderating boards and communicating. That's what's gone on with Newstrust, and Newsvine, and even sometimes at NowPublic and Digg and even Netscape's not-as-successful social news feature.
If the lights are on and nobody's home, you can bet that people will be curious...but they'll eventually say "that's nice" and move along....
And maybe that's what we're seeing in this graph comparison of USA Today, NewYork Times, and the Washington Post...
An explanation of the figures from Techcrunch: Here’s the Compete.com data, showing monthly visitors down from 14 million in March to about 10 million today, a 29% drop in unique visitors. I added in the New York Times and Washington Post for comparison purposes - both are at about even levels with March....
But nobody asks People to be as involved with NYT and WaPo as was being asked with USAT. Some have speculated that it's a content-quality problem. The only way to tell if that's a valid consideration would be to see a graph of the three outlets before social networking/news was implemented at USAT. I'd still hedge, though, from the troubles with Backfence and the successes of Bakotopia and BlufftonToday, that there's much more to my theory about editorial team involvement (and to editorial direction of the social side as well) than there is to the type of content and software.
Just my $.02
Update: Mark Potts has an excellent post on the Shorenstein Center's look at web metrics (and their flaws) and makes this important point:In the end, uninspired Web sites face the same fate as uninspired print products: irrelevancy and disappearing readership and advertising. If newspaper Web sites are to be the future of the industry, they need to get truly serious about their local focus and step up and take advantage of the latest technologies to deliver what readers expect from a Web site in 2007...
and Webomatica adds his casual user's perspective on some of the problems with USAT's site (not just with the lack of people-presence over there.) Jason also point to an instance when someone from USAT got involved in a conversation--and, yes, USAT could use more folks like that!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Will telecoms put the kaibosh on muni WiFi? (and could this seriously hurt W. Mass...)
Well, if we go by a recent story in BusinessWeek, telecoms are at least getting cold feet:
Impacting this is what's gone on in the city of San Francisco, possible the most wired city in the U.S. A 15%-30% sign up rate is needed for muni wifi to be feasible--right now only 1%-2% have signed up (says Glenn Fleishman, editor of Wifinetnews.com)Om Malik gives the inside scoop on SF's muni wifi woes.
What's getting to the potential subscribers? Competition and weak signal (a real killer). According to BusinessWeek, Lompoc, California (a wifi'd city) has about 422 subscribers, but ideally needs a total of 4,000 subscribers to cover costs. Muni wifi is about $16 a month, but folks can get super-speedy broadband for about $33--double, but better. Esp. when considering that the wifi is great downtown, but the signal isn't as reliable when going indoors.
Telecoms would like cities to foot most of the bill for muni wifi--thing is, cities sometimes can't do it alone
And there's *lots* of reasons why governments don't want to get involved in providing money for muni wifi...
So, what does that mean for a place like Western Massachusetts--not a very wired place, where many towns aren't even within shouting distance to a major metropolitan area, and in desperate need of good broadband to help education and economic growth. In fact, a major metropolitan area within our state, Boston, for many years didn't even know we were part of the state (and some still prefer to think of us as Northern Connecticut or Southern Vermont.) Pioneer Valley Connect, a combined effort between Hamden, Hampshire and Franklin counties, since 2003 had been making concerted effort to get through to our state government the need for better connectivity in this part of the state (from the FAQ):
Another great boon for the state has been the election of Governor Deval Patrick. Unlike Mitt Romney, who, I don't think, ever set foot out here (being one of those who may have preferred to view us as CT's stepchild) Patrick's been very involved, has visited Springfiled, many of the hilltowns, as well as Pittsfield (which some think of as a suburb of Albany.) Patrick's office recently (8/2/07) unveiled an $25 Million Broadband Incentive Fund (pdf) and appointed Sharon E. Gillett to the post of commissioner in the Department of Telecommunications and Cable (recently Q&A'd in the Boston Globe:
So, it appears that, at least in Massachusetts, there will be some funds to help assist with the build-out in different ways (towers, fiber, etc) which will then help smaller, community- centered companies, like Crocker Communications, to finish up and spread the service around (although Crocker's done a fairly decent job of things so far. There are other companies in some of the hilltowns that will most certainly benefit from this initiative.)
So, while the issue of money and muni wifi are inseparable, the issue may play out differently in rural areas such as Western Mass than they do out in high-tech, high-stakes places like San Francisco and Boston (which, I believe has its own issues with wiring places like Roxbury.)
I always say, the issues of the Country are far different from the issues of the City and its suburbs, and the solutions needed are different as well. Let's see if W. Mass can float the best solution for itself and get high-speed broadband to its people (perhaps, in some places, via WiMAX?) without falling under the long shadows of its far off urban cousins.
While 415 U.S. cities and counties are now building or planning to build municipal Wi-Fi networks, "deployments are slowing down slightly," says Esme Vos, founder of consultancy MuniWireless.com. Vos's tally still marks a nearly 70% jump from mid-2006, when there were 247 muni Wi-Fi projects on tap, but that's down from the torrid pace of a year earlier, when deployment plans doubled.
Perhaps the clearest hint of trouble ahead is that some of the companies partnering with cities on these projects, including EarthLink (ELNK) and AT&T (T), are having second thoughts about remaining in the municipal Wi-Fi business.
Impacting this is what's gone on in the city of San Francisco, possible the most wired city in the U.S. A 15%-30% sign up rate is needed for muni wifi to be feasible--right now only 1%-2% have signed up (says Glenn Fleishman, editor of Wifinetnews.com)Om Malik gives the inside scoop on SF's muni wifi woes.
What's getting to the potential subscribers? Competition and weak signal (a real killer). According to BusinessWeek, Lompoc, California (a wifi'd city) has about 422 subscribers, but ideally needs a total of 4,000 subscribers to cover costs. Muni wifi is about $16 a month, but folks can get super-speedy broadband for about $33--double, but better. Esp. when considering that the wifi is great downtown, but the signal isn't as reliable when going indoors.
Telecoms would like cities to foot most of the bill for muni wifi--thing is, cities sometimes can't do it alone
Similarly, cities that have deals that don't currently require a government investment are being asked to renegotiate existing muni Wi-Fi contracts. In Portland, Ore., MetroFi says it is pushing the city for a formal commitment to buy network services. Thus far the network is about 20% complete, and serves the downtown area
And there's *lots* of reasons why governments don't want to get involved in providing money for muni wifi...
So, what does that mean for a place like Western Massachusetts--not a very wired place, where many towns aren't even within shouting distance to a major metropolitan area, and in desperate need of good broadband to help education and economic growth. In fact, a major metropolitan area within our state, Boston, for many years didn't even know we were part of the state (and some still prefer to think of us as Northern Connecticut or Southern Vermont.) Pioneer Valley Connect, a combined effort between Hamden, Hampshire and Franklin counties, since 2003 had been making concerted effort to get through to our state government the need for better connectivity in this part of the state (from the FAQ):
"Pioneer Valley Connect is a regional initiative to create a more competitive and robust telecommunications landscape in the three counties of the Pioneer Valley region. The purpose for greater access to broadband in traditionally, underserved areas is to encourage economic development as well as promote improved communication systems for education, health care and public safety purposes. The effort is led by business and community leaders from Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden Counties.
Another great boon for the state has been the election of Governor Deval Patrick. Unlike Mitt Romney, who, I don't think, ever set foot out here (being one of those who may have preferred to view us as CT's stepchild) Patrick's been very involved, has visited Springfiled, many of the hilltowns, as well as Pittsfield (which some think of as a suburb of Albany.) Patrick's office recently (8/2/07) unveiled an $25 Million Broadband Incentive Fund (pdf) and appointed Sharon E. Gillett to the post of commissioner in the Department of Telecommunications and Cable (recently Q&A'd in the Boston Globe:
Q The big news is the state's $25 million broadband incentive fund, which will help bring broadband access to 32 towns that don't have high-speed Internet. What are the details?
A [The fund] is to be used to invest in hard capital assets with long lives -- things like conduits, fiber, wireless towers. Those are big parts of the up-front capital required to serve communities, and the idea is having the state invest in those assets lowers the cost for private companies to come in and do the rest of the job. The state is not a service provider . . . We're also technology neutral -- whatever works
So, it appears that, at least in Massachusetts, there will be some funds to help assist with the build-out in different ways (towers, fiber, etc) which will then help smaller, community- centered companies, like Crocker Communications, to finish up and spread the service around (although Crocker's done a fairly decent job of things so far. There are other companies in some of the hilltowns that will most certainly benefit from this initiative.)
So, while the issue of money and muni wifi are inseparable, the issue may play out differently in rural areas such as Western Mass than they do out in high-tech, high-stakes places like San Francisco and Boston (which, I believe has its own issues with wiring places like Roxbury.)
I always say, the issues of the Country are far different from the issues of the City and its suburbs, and the solutions needed are different as well. Let's see if W. Mass can float the best solution for itself and get high-speed broadband to its people (perhaps, in some places, via WiMAX?) without falling under the long shadows of its far off urban cousins.
Karp and Co. launch social networking for journalists and those who love them ;-)
Best of luck to Scott Karp (and partners), who's just introduced Publish2 a new social network for journalists--as broadly defined as "independent “news bloggers,” “citizen” journalists, student journalists, i.e. ALL journalists" More than doing anything for "social news" (we've got lots of that) I'm hoping that it will lead to better networking.
Scott's been at times a bit hot under the collar about using Facebook for business networking (I don't think it's the greatest for that either)so perhaps he's constructively channeled that ire in Publish2. We are, I think, coming to a point where publishers/journalists need to be able to find quality, experienced bloggers to help them with interacting--and that's something some of us online interacting veterans can certainly do. It's not a one-way street either. For me, I've always learned great stuff from the journalists I've encountered and have worked with, and welcome the opportunity to work with more of them.
Perhaps Publish2 can be of good service to this particular (and sometimes prickly) community.
Scott's been at times a bit hot under the collar about using Facebook for business networking (I don't think it's the greatest for that either)so perhaps he's constructively channeled that ire in Publish2. We are, I think, coming to a point where publishers/journalists need to be able to find quality, experienced bloggers to help them with interacting--and that's something some of us online interacting veterans can certainly do. It's not a one-way street either. For me, I've always learned great stuff from the journalists I've encountered and have worked with, and welcome the opportunity to work with more of them.
Perhaps Publish2 can be of good service to this particular (and sometimes prickly) community.
The Better Half of BlogHer2007
Lest all y'all think that all I have is harsh critique of a small slice of the women I encountered at BlogHer (as Anonymous feels in a comment on this post) I had planned yesterday to acknowledge today the number of great bloggers and non-blogges I met or renewed connections with in Chicago (and in no particular order)....
Peace activist N.F. Hill--it takes great courage to be a peace activist these days....
Sannon McKarney who blogged the panel I was on, and did a really great job...(the session was also blogged by Beryl Burns, Pepplady, and a couple of others I can't find now...)
Farm owner Julia Wiley who blogs about running a small farm and sustainable agriculture....
Lisa Williams, who found a number of great women placebloggers to add to her collection (in hindsight, I should have gone to the sessions Lisa attended...they sounded great...)
Amy Gahran, my editor over at Poynter.org's E-media Tidbits (who I owe a column...argh...)
The wonderful and amazingly knowledgable Susan Mernit--I always love catching up with Susan and all her adventures...
Viviane of Viviane's Sex Carnival--a tasteful erotica blogger. She also blogs at Perverts' Saloon. She's got the grace that only comes with being older and wiser...
Renee Blodgett who I met at the first Blogher, and seem to run into at a number of conferences....
My great roomie Stephanie Cockerl probably one of the hardest working women in the blogoshpere...
DaringYoungMom's Kathryn Thompson who's dealt very gracefully with criticisms of her beliefs (she's LDS) and wrote a great post about the panel and some post-panel stuff...
Laina Dawes who keeps an excellent blog that covers topics of race...including an incident at a restaurant in Chicago that should not be happening in this day and age...
The irrepressible Liz Henry--with too many blogs to link to! I met Liz at the first BlogHer--and am really amazed at all the stuff she's doing now (which I get to follow over at Facebook.) Guess none of us knew what would happen with our blogging careers...(and it seems like lots of us had parties in rooms...)
and I missed Grace Davis...
There was also Beth Kanter who I admire for the work she's done in Cambodia and the money she's raised through her blog....
Fabulous marketing blogger Susan Getgood who did something great with her hair, and who I also didn't get a chance to talk with. We really need to catch up...
And Barb Dybwad--we've kinda known each other off and on since the first BlogHer without knowing each other, and found out we have odd, similar sense of humor on some things...
Photoshop queen Jan Kabili--another one of those women I've crossed paths with over the years and finally got to say "hi" to--and love what she's doing with the pod and video casts...
Andy Sernovitz darned great, smart guy, CEO of Gaspedal.com, former CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and author of "Word of Mouth Marketing" (if you get the chance, read it...great book)
Super-liveblogger/consultant/conference organizer Josh Hallett who I always love to run into at these things...like seeing an old friend...
Scrapblog.com's Alex de Carvalho who I met at We Media Miami--it was just great seeing him again!
Liz Rizzo and Celeste Liddel whom I've both known from the first BlogHer--always great to run into them. So much has changed for all of us!
Mur Lafferty of Lulu.tv who I shared a lunch and great conversation about videocasting and what's going on with Lulu (in general...)
Adele Stan of National Women's Editorial Forum--something I need to dig into further...
Maureen Caplan Grey at Grey Consulting who's also writing these days for ZDNet--not a small feat for a woman, but she's got the experience and the chops to do it. Wish'd I'd had more time to talk with her...
Filmmaker Laurie Kahn-Leavitt, who's made a great film on the people who made Tupperware into a multi-million dollar corporation. A great story about a time when there were very little opportunities for women...
and Paula Bruno of Golden Seeds a VC firm that focuses on women entrepreneurs....
And Elisa, Lisa, and Jory--who make the thing happen every year...
I know I've left some folks out--sometimes it gets tough to keep track of people and business cards. Who knows...in a couple of months, everything may surface again...
You never know....
Peace activist N.F. Hill--it takes great courage to be a peace activist these days....
Sannon McKarney who blogged the panel I was on, and did a really great job...(the session was also blogged by Beryl Burns, Pepplady, and a couple of others I can't find now...)
Farm owner Julia Wiley who blogs about running a small farm and sustainable agriculture....
Lisa Williams, who found a number of great women placebloggers to add to her collection (in hindsight, I should have gone to the sessions Lisa attended...they sounded great...)
Amy Gahran, my editor over at Poynter.org's E-media Tidbits (who I owe a column...argh...)
The wonderful and amazingly knowledgable Susan Mernit--I always love catching up with Susan and all her adventures...
Viviane of Viviane's Sex Carnival--a tasteful erotica blogger. She also blogs at Perverts' Saloon. She's got the grace that only comes with being older and wiser...
Renee Blodgett who I met at the first Blogher, and seem to run into at a number of conferences....
My great roomie Stephanie Cockerl probably one of the hardest working women in the blogoshpere...
DaringYoungMom's Kathryn Thompson who's dealt very gracefully with criticisms of her beliefs (she's LDS) and wrote a great post about the panel and some post-panel stuff...
Laina Dawes who keeps an excellent blog that covers topics of race...including an incident at a restaurant in Chicago that should not be happening in this day and age...
The irrepressible Liz Henry--with too many blogs to link to! I met Liz at the first BlogHer--and am really amazed at all the stuff she's doing now (which I get to follow over at Facebook.) Guess none of us knew what would happen with our blogging careers...(and it seems like lots of us had parties in rooms...)
and I missed Grace Davis...
There was also Beth Kanter who I admire for the work she's done in Cambodia and the money she's raised through her blog....
Fabulous marketing blogger Susan Getgood who did something great with her hair, and who I also didn't get a chance to talk with. We really need to catch up...
And Barb Dybwad--we've kinda known each other off and on since the first BlogHer without knowing each other, and found out we have odd, similar sense of humor on some things...
Photoshop queen Jan Kabili--another one of those women I've crossed paths with over the years and finally got to say "hi" to--and love what she's doing with the pod and video casts...
Andy Sernovitz darned great, smart guy, CEO of Gaspedal.com, former CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and author of "Word of Mouth Marketing" (if you get the chance, read it...great book)
Super-liveblogger/consultant/conference organizer Josh Hallett who I always love to run into at these things...like seeing an old friend...
Scrapblog.com's Alex de Carvalho who I met at We Media Miami--it was just great seeing him again!
Liz Rizzo and Celeste Liddel whom I've both known from the first BlogHer--always great to run into them. So much has changed for all of us!
Mur Lafferty of Lulu.tv who I shared a lunch and great conversation about videocasting and what's going on with Lulu (in general...)
Adele Stan of National Women's Editorial Forum--something I need to dig into further...
Maureen Caplan Grey at Grey Consulting who's also writing these days for ZDNet--not a small feat for a woman, but she's got the experience and the chops to do it. Wish'd I'd had more time to talk with her...
Filmmaker Laurie Kahn-Leavitt, who's made a great film on the people who made Tupperware into a multi-million dollar corporation. A great story about a time when there were very little opportunities for women...
and Paula Bruno of Golden Seeds a VC firm that focuses on women entrepreneurs....
And Elisa, Lisa, and Jory--who make the thing happen every year...
I know I've left some folks out--sometimes it gets tough to keep track of people and business cards. Who knows...in a couple of months, everything may surface again...
You never know....
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Rude! Rude! Rude!: today I received yet *another* email from another BlogHer alumna offering me her business blogging consulting services! I continue to be horrified by the over-zealous marketing in which some fellow BlogHers are engaging. Had this woman read my blog, she'd seen the link to the Business West article where I was interviewed about business blogging.
I imagine that, because I'm not on the list of latter-day blogging gurus (mostly connected to Wordpress) nor am I on any other certified blogging guru du jour list, that I can't *possibly* know a whit about business blogging and that I obviously need this person's services.
Good Networking Tip: when you get home, check out the urls on the business cards you picked up that day. Find out who the people are that you spoke to. And *don't* stick us all on your crappy email lists if you've slotted us into your "unworthy" pile.
Sheesh!
I imagine that, because I'm not on the list of latter-day blogging gurus (mostly connected to Wordpress) nor am I on any other certified blogging guru du jour list, that I can't *possibly* know a whit about business blogging and that I obviously need this person's services.
Good Networking Tip: when you get home, check out the urls on the business cards you picked up that day. Find out who the people are that you spoke to. And *don't* stick us all on your crappy email lists if you've slotted us into your "unworthy" pile.
Sheesh!
Fabulous Links! 8/14/07
Found some great stuff today and want to pass it along....
Why Full Text Feeds Actually Increase Page Views (The Freakonomics Explanation) From the TechDirt guys--a pretty compelling argument. I've had a full feed for awhile now...but since I never had a short feed, I'd be interested to see if the TechDirt guys are right
Blogging is IT, not Journalism? from Adam, who works for a business publication. So funny! yet so true! When tell folks I'm a professional blogger, I'm always asked IT questions, too. Adam's also got a great sense of irony :-) (via Mark Hamilton)
The Story of O Mark Hamilton baits the perverty-search crowd and gets them to read a very good piece on how journalist's views on "objectivity" are outdated.
First Amendment Protects Posting of Unlawful Video: The court ruled that the First Amendment prevents law enforcement officials from interfering with an individual's Internet posting of an audio and video recording of an arrest and warrantless search of a private residence, even though the individual had reason to know the recording was made illegally. the case involved is Jean vs. Massachusetts State Police who got very upset when Worcester political activist Mary T. Jean posted an incrminating video on her site (Jean's been openly critical of former Worcester d.a. John Conte.)Sometimes it's only through "illegally" recording something that one can find the truth. This is an important decision and will more than likely impact all sorts of video, going all the way up to YouTube.
Why Full Text Feeds Actually Increase Page Views (The Freakonomics Explanation) From the TechDirt guys--a pretty compelling argument. I've had a full feed for awhile now...but since I never had a short feed, I'd be interested to see if the TechDirt guys are right
Blogging is IT, not Journalism? from Adam, who works for a business publication. So funny! yet so true! When tell folks I'm a professional blogger, I'm always asked IT questions, too. Adam's also got a great sense of irony :-) (via Mark Hamilton)
The Story of O Mark Hamilton baits the perverty-search crowd and gets them to read a very good piece on how journalist's views on "objectivity" are outdated.
First Amendment Protects Posting of Unlawful Video: The court ruled that the First Amendment prevents law enforcement officials from interfering with an individual's Internet posting of an audio and video recording of an arrest and warrantless search of a private residence, even though the individual had reason to know the recording was made illegally. the case involved is Jean vs. Massachusetts State Police who got very upset when Worcester political activist Mary T. Jean posted an incrminating video on her site (Jean's been openly critical of former Worcester d.a. John Conte.)Sometimes it's only through "illegally" recording something that one can find the truth. This is an important decision and will more than likely impact all sorts of video, going all the way up to YouTube.
Maybe it's just not the same A-list anymore
Something's been sticking in my craw since I got back from BlogHer a couple of weeks ago...and,a post from Hugh MacLeod ("Why We're All Blogging Less) combined with a rather cockeyed view of comments posted at the BlogHerald has just pushed me to right into looking at what's changed since I started blogging.
Let's start with Hugh (who obviously cracked me up)...one of his reasons why folks might be blogging less is "We got busy" And that's true for lots of folks I know. Not to mention that lots of folks are also using Twitter, and Facebook, and all sorts of other stuff that make blogging a supplemental form of social media, something you get to when you have the time. me? I've had lots of time recently as I sit around waiting to hear on interviews and such. and I don't Twitter. even though I use Facebook. So, we're busy--and we've got other nifty doo-dads to use to keep in touch.
But Hugh was talking about "veteran bloggers"--I'm not sure I actually qualify for "veteran blogger" status. And I know I don't qualify under A-list blogger status (although some of my friends are A-listers...) This, however, got me thinking about some of the arrogance I encountered at BlogHer--which was so NOT evident at the much smaller, first BlogHer. At the first BlogHer, there were loads of A-listers (I mean, serious A-listers. People like Mary Hodder, danah boyd, Mena Trott, Halley Suitt, and Charlene Li...) and they were perhaps some of the nicest people I'd ever met. There were no pretensions, even though they had been the ones blazing a trail for women bloggers....
This year, I was just bowled over by the arrogance of so many women bloggers. Women who'd been blogging less than a year, worrying about trademarking their blog titles, copywriting all their posts (it's implicit), and incorporating. One woman telling me about ALL the cocktail parties she'd been invited to (hmm..I didn't get any invites. I spent a really fun evening with Amy Gahran, Lisa Williams and Beth Kanter--we've just done some cool stuff, like raise over $100 grand for charity (Beth) or won Knight foundation challenge grants (Lisa and Amy) but what do we know? I later found out that some--don't know which-- of the cocktail parties may have been thrown to woo women bloggers into giving free content to various corporate concerns....so we weren't missing much. My content may be free on my blogs, but it ain't free for some multi-billion dollar publishing corporation.)
But the thing that absolutely pushed me over the edge and, thank god I was leaving early, or I would have just walked out in disgust, was an encounter with a young woman and her friend in the ladies' room. The young woman--some tall blond 20 something thing--who was bemoaning that she needed more "attention" at her blog. So I said, rather jokingly "Flame an A-lister." I don't know...I did it and it worked for me ;-) But I was absolutely stunned when she said, not jokingly, "Oh, I'm considered an A-lister, so that won't work."
Considered an A-lister? wow. I'd been on a panel at BlogHer, with a bunch of great women, and I've had a bunch of speaking engagements over the past year, and worked on a pretty significant project that's been recognized by the Knight Foundation, I wouldn't consider myself an A-lister. I don't think of myself as a "-lister" of any kind. Further, none of the A-listers I know would *ever* say that they're "considered" an A-lister. Some don't even want the label. We do what we do. We blog for lots of reasons, but those reasons aren't for A-lister bragging rights.
Sheesh. (I realize however, that this may have been a joke--which kind of indicates that the person making the comment doesn't know who's considered an A-lister. Then again, she could also have been doing the old female thing of complaining without wanting a solution. I encountered a lot of that at BlogHer this time--and when a soluciton was offered, a filp response "oh, I know" was given. I felt like the token guy in the room--hard to imagine with my shape...)
But this kind of blatant arrogance *must* be being bolstered *somewhere,* and in an article in the BlogHerald on "Legal Issues With Comments" highlighted some of the thinking that just may be fueling some of the community-adverse, ego-centric stuff I'm seeing lately. Jonathan Bailey first says how allowing comments is "easily one of the most important decisions that any new blogger will be face[d]." Hmm...I thought comments were about conversing with the blogger. I thought comments were about community and that we actually *want* comments on our blogs. I thought it was comments that separated a blog from a static website. And that it isn't this gut-wrenching consideration...
Jonathan continues: "Giving strangers free reign to post information to your site, without any editorial oversight, is a scary thing, especially in today’s legal climate on the Web." wow. we're just all inundated with *so* many comments that we can't control what others say! Also, look at the tone: "strangers" and "information"--heaven forbid anyone read our blogs other than people we know! oh my gosh! those horrid strangers! If a blogger's so concerned about strangers reading and perhaps commenting, go to LiveJournal, where you can easily regulate who reads you. Or spend some time in other online social milieu to understand how things work out here. The statement assumes malice aforethought on the part of commenters--which most people aren't going to have to deal with. Or at least not deal with on a regular basis enough to have their kinckers all bunchy...
But it's not that comments could be left in the spirit of good will and a desire to connect--rather, comments are "an excellent opportunity for free content." wow. again. So anything I do to interact with another blogger is really giving him/her "free content." wow....what can be said about that?
So, it seems to me that there's been a number of changes in the blogosphere--great people getting really busy with other projects, a ton of arrogance, and a certain level of detachment from community that makes some bloggers see others as "strangers" giving them "free content" (beware of strangers offering free content???) The tone and language about blogging has changed as much as the attitude about where one sits in relation to other bloggers has also changed. And I'm just not sure if these are attitudes that will sustain blogging as a form of conversation and community building(over a business proposition.)
Maybe in the long run, I should just get more busy.....or use Twitter....where I'm surrounded by strangers telling me all sorts of little things about their lives all the time....
who knows...
Note: this a.m. I received an email from another BlogHer alumn offering me her course in business blogging--complete with setting up a Wordpress blog! Apparently, she hasn't read my blog. Yet once again, I am taken by the sheer arrogance of offering everyone from whom you received a business card your particular services without even finding out something about the business card giver. It's not just arrogant, but not really conducive to making friends.
Let's start with Hugh (who obviously cracked me up)...one of his reasons why folks might be blogging less is "We got busy" And that's true for lots of folks I know. Not to mention that lots of folks are also using Twitter, and Facebook, and all sorts of other stuff that make blogging a supplemental form of social media, something you get to when you have the time. me? I've had lots of time recently as I sit around waiting to hear on interviews and such. and I don't Twitter. even though I use Facebook. So, we're busy--and we've got other nifty doo-dads to use to keep in touch.
But Hugh was talking about "veteran bloggers"--I'm not sure I actually qualify for "veteran blogger" status. And I know I don't qualify under A-list blogger status (although some of my friends are A-listers...) This, however, got me thinking about some of the arrogance I encountered at BlogHer--which was so NOT evident at the much smaller, first BlogHer. At the first BlogHer, there were loads of A-listers (I mean, serious A-listers. People like Mary Hodder, danah boyd, Mena Trott, Halley Suitt, and Charlene Li...) and they were perhaps some of the nicest people I'd ever met. There were no pretensions, even though they had been the ones blazing a trail for women bloggers....
This year, I was just bowled over by the arrogance of so many women bloggers. Women who'd been blogging less than a year, worrying about trademarking their blog titles, copywriting all their posts (it's implicit), and incorporating. One woman telling me about ALL the cocktail parties she'd been invited to (hmm..I didn't get any invites. I spent a really fun evening with Amy Gahran, Lisa Williams and Beth Kanter--we've just done some cool stuff, like raise over $100 grand for charity (Beth) or won Knight foundation challenge grants (Lisa and Amy) but what do we know? I later found out that some--don't know which-- of the cocktail parties may have been thrown to woo women bloggers into giving free content to various corporate concerns....so we weren't missing much. My content may be free on my blogs, but it ain't free for some multi-billion dollar publishing corporation.)
But the thing that absolutely pushed me over the edge and, thank god I was leaving early, or I would have just walked out in disgust, was an encounter with a young woman and her friend in the ladies' room. The young woman--some tall blond 20 something thing--who was bemoaning that she needed more "attention" at her blog. So I said, rather jokingly "Flame an A-lister." I don't know...I did it and it worked for me ;-) But I was absolutely stunned when she said, not jokingly, "Oh, I'm considered an A-lister, so that won't work."
Considered an A-lister? wow. I'd been on a panel at BlogHer, with a bunch of great women, and I've had a bunch of speaking engagements over the past year, and worked on a pretty significant project that's been recognized by the Knight Foundation, I wouldn't consider myself an A-lister. I don't think of myself as a "-lister" of any kind. Further, none of the A-listers I know would *ever* say that they're "considered" an A-lister. Some don't even want the label. We do what we do. We blog for lots of reasons, but those reasons aren't for A-lister bragging rights.
Sheesh. (I realize however, that this may have been a joke--which kind of indicates that the person making the comment doesn't know who's considered an A-lister. Then again, she could also have been doing the old female thing of complaining without wanting a solution. I encountered a lot of that at BlogHer this time--and when a soluciton was offered, a filp response "oh, I know" was given. I felt like the token guy in the room--hard to imagine with my shape...)
But this kind of blatant arrogance *must* be being bolstered *somewhere,* and in an article in the BlogHerald on "Legal Issues With Comments" highlighted some of the thinking that just may be fueling some of the community-adverse, ego-centric stuff I'm seeing lately. Jonathan Bailey first says how allowing comments is "easily one of the most important decisions that any new blogger will be face[d]." Hmm...I thought comments were about conversing with the blogger. I thought comments were about community and that we actually *want* comments on our blogs. I thought it was comments that separated a blog from a static website. And that it isn't this gut-wrenching consideration...
Jonathan continues: "Giving strangers free reign to post information to your site, without any editorial oversight, is a scary thing, especially in today’s legal climate on the Web." wow. we're just all inundated with *so* many comments that we can't control what others say! Also, look at the tone: "strangers" and "information"--heaven forbid anyone read our blogs other than people we know! oh my gosh! those horrid strangers! If a blogger's so concerned about strangers reading and perhaps commenting, go to LiveJournal, where you can easily regulate who reads you. Or spend some time in other online social milieu to understand how things work out here. The statement assumes malice aforethought on the part of commenters--which most people aren't going to have to deal with. Or at least not deal with on a regular basis enough to have their kinckers all bunchy...
But it's not that comments could be left in the spirit of good will and a desire to connect--rather, comments are "an excellent opportunity for free content." wow. again. So anything I do to interact with another blogger is really giving him/her "free content." wow....what can be said about that?
So, it seems to me that there's been a number of changes in the blogosphere--great people getting really busy with other projects, a ton of arrogance, and a certain level of detachment from community that makes some bloggers see others as "strangers" giving them "free content" (beware of strangers offering free content???) The tone and language about blogging has changed as much as the attitude about where one sits in relation to other bloggers has also changed. And I'm just not sure if these are attitudes that will sustain blogging as a form of conversation and community building(over a business proposition.)
Maybe in the long run, I should just get more busy.....or use Twitter....where I'm surrounded by strangers telling me all sorts of little things about their lives all the time....
who knows...
Note: this a.m. I received an email from another BlogHer alumn offering me her course in business blogging--complete with setting up a Wordpress blog! Apparently, she hasn't read my blog. Yet once again, I am taken by the sheer arrogance of offering everyone from whom you received a business card your particular services without even finding out something about the business card giver. It's not just arrogant, but not really conducive to making friends.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Why does journalism education lag behind in new media offerings?
Even at the age of 40-something, I still think about grad school. And when I think about grad school, I wonder if I should go to journo school (hence, I'd become a journalist) or if I should do an MS in communications (hence, lend some credibility to what I already know about communicating online) or if I should do something in marketing or IT or....so I was *very* interested to read New Media Meets Campus Media from today's Inside Higher Ed....
and it confirmed a bit of what I've had a notion of about journo and higher ed: that something's not getting thru to academia about the importance of knowing about new media. Bryan Murley (who I've corresponded with) says:
The easiest target to blame are the profs: they don't understand new media. They can't shoot video or do a podcast. They're all newspaper guys who hate bloggers. yadda-yadda-yadda. Yet David Wendelken, an assoc prof of journo at James Madison University, sees there's a bit of student culpability in this. Says Wendelken: "A lot of college students select their medium in high school. When they come onto campus, they’re already a TV person or a radio person or a newspaper person. . ." yep, I've heard this before, and oddly enough, from journo prof friends who *don't* hate bloggers.
So, in some sense, it may be that the people coming into programs have aspirations that are rooted in an old worldview of how the news business works. and maybe they're meeting up with profs who can't challenge that worldview, don't have the tenure to challenge that world view, or really don't want to deal with the hoo-ha they'd get if they challenged that worldview. (I wonder what Mindy McAdams and Dan Kennedy might say about this...hint, hint...)
I can attest a bit to this, based on a conversation I had with a UMass journo student at New England News Forum meeting in the spring. Now, I think Mike's a great kid, but I was a little stunned on his viewpoint of blogs and online interaction. He was a dyed-in-the-wool budding hardcore print journalist, who appeared, to me anyway, to not really have considered what he might have to do with new media once he got a job (and that includes interacting with people.) He'd bought a lot of the line that bloggers are pretty bad folks who distort the news and create echo chambers--esp. when it comes to politics.
So, I worried a bit about Mike--and hoped he'd be going to a good j-school for grad work, and hoping that some news org might actually push him to look at what's going on outside of his j-school classes...
And speaking of j-school classes, I was contacted about two weeks ago by Philip Meyer who's running a grad seminar out at the University of No. Carolina, who on a referral from Jay Rosen, asked me to come down and talk about Assignment Zero--which is an amazing honor considering Meyer's career. In talking with him, though, I found something that I've also found in talking to other pre-corporate owned and independent journo guys: a real desire, and knowledge about, connecting with people! Guys like Meyer, who spent years in the pre-corp trenches, really get how, if journalism's going to survive, it has to start talking with people again--not just observing them from afar, like lower life forms. And part of that talking may involve talking online....as Dan Rubin learned from Blinq....
So it goes...journo education has to move forward and find constructive ways to get the kids to think outside the box. Journo educators and newspaper editors can't rely on demonizing life online and referring to it as a lesser form of journalism as a viable strategy for keeping journalism education pure. It's too late for that. And if the kids don't catch up, they may find themselves outsourced before they even get started.
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, Blogging,
and it confirmed a bit of what I've had a notion of about journo and higher ed: that something's not getting thru to academia about the importance of knowing about new media. Bryan Murley (who I've corresponded with) says:
“We don’t face the same problems economically that the industry is facing. . .” Murley, who found in a survey of college newspaper advisers that 58.7 percent in 2006, and 53 percent in 2007, thought campus media had not kept pace with the advances in commercial media. “But the industry is requiring reporters to have different skill sets.”
The easiest target to blame are the profs: they don't understand new media. They can't shoot video or do a podcast. They're all newspaper guys who hate bloggers. yadda-yadda-yadda. Yet David Wendelken, an assoc prof of journo at James Madison University, sees there's a bit of student culpability in this. Says Wendelken: "A lot of college students select their medium in high school. When they come onto campus, they’re already a TV person or a radio person or a newspaper person. . ." yep, I've heard this before, and oddly enough, from journo prof friends who *don't* hate bloggers.
So, in some sense, it may be that the people coming into programs have aspirations that are rooted in an old worldview of how the news business works. and maybe they're meeting up with profs who can't challenge that worldview, don't have the tenure to challenge that world view, or really don't want to deal with the hoo-ha they'd get if they challenged that worldview. (I wonder what Mindy McAdams and Dan Kennedy might say about this...hint, hint...)
I can attest a bit to this, based on a conversation I had with a UMass journo student at New England News Forum meeting in the spring. Now, I think Mike's a great kid, but I was a little stunned on his viewpoint of blogs and online interaction. He was a dyed-in-the-wool budding hardcore print journalist, who appeared, to me anyway, to not really have considered what he might have to do with new media once he got a job (and that includes interacting with people.) He'd bought a lot of the line that bloggers are pretty bad folks who distort the news and create echo chambers--esp. when it comes to politics.
So, I worried a bit about Mike--and hoped he'd be going to a good j-school for grad work, and hoping that some news org might actually push him to look at what's going on outside of his j-school classes...
And speaking of j-school classes, I was contacted about two weeks ago by Philip Meyer who's running a grad seminar out at the University of No. Carolina, who on a referral from Jay Rosen, asked me to come down and talk about Assignment Zero--which is an amazing honor considering Meyer's career. In talking with him, though, I found something that I've also found in talking to other pre-corporate owned and independent journo guys: a real desire, and knowledge about, connecting with people! Guys like Meyer, who spent years in the pre-corp trenches, really get how, if journalism's going to survive, it has to start talking with people again--not just observing them from afar, like lower life forms. And part of that talking may involve talking online....as Dan Rubin learned from Blinq....
So it goes...journo education has to move forward and find constructive ways to get the kids to think outside the box. Journo educators and newspaper editors can't rely on demonizing life online and referring to it as a lesser form of journalism as a viable strategy for keeping journalism education pure. It's too late for that. And if the kids don't catch up, they may find themselves outsourced before they even get started.
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, Blogging,
NBC & iVillage: Can old and new media live together without driving each other crazy?
I kept hearing the Odd Couple theme when I read Henry Blodget's post on iVillage and NBC and how their dreams are yet "unfulfilled": like Felix (NBC-staid old media) and Oscar (iVillage--savvy but messy new media) these are still learning how to peacfully co-exist...
And Henry makes some excellent points--but there's some reasons why NBC made the decisions it did..well, at least some I could see....to Henry's points:
Henry's #1 point sez: "Viewers don't visit web sites just because you promote them on TV." But the thing is if you look at how PBS's sites get all sorts of traffic during and after shows are broadcast, it might lead a broadcaster to think they can do it too (wish I could find the stats/report on this. if I do, I'll repost link). But what may work well for PBS and independent producers like ITVS may not work for lots of MSM sites because of....
...Henry's #3 point: "Don't create bad TV shows to promote web sites--viewers hate bad TV shows. Excellent and compelling programming will keep people comming back and engaging in conversation (although maybe more with each other than with the content.) If you have wan, somewhat lifeless, pop-y content, that a site may not be known for, then you could, in all likelihood, kiss your community good-bye.
Which raises the notion of disgruntled communities--both in-house and online. These matters are addressed in Herny's points #2 ("Don't decide to move Manhattan staff to New Jersey. " and #4 Don't panic and buy web properties just because Rupert Murdoch hit a home run with MySpace To point #2: just because people can work virtually, doesn't mean they want to be pushed to the other side of the river and made to work virtually. This also forces a disconnect within the main office--what is out of sight (or is it site??) is out of mind. Which it shouldn't be.
And to point #4: if you as a main portal have trouble understanding social networking and social networks, by all means DO NOT try to Be Like Rupe! Rupe's an exception--also, I'm not sure how much Rupe tried to steer the MySpace guys' editorial direction after he bought the site. So, the MySpace guys had a direction, Rupe let them run with it via a huge cash infusion, and really didn't monkey with it by trying to incorporate it into any main Fox Network portal in the manner that NBC tried with iVillage. iVillage had a very good reputation for being a nice community as much as for its content, and sometimes to switch ownership can cause a downturn in the community. It's a loyalty thing for some people who play in online communities. And if you don't have an iron-clad strategy for re-building that community (as Rupe did with marketing MySpace to a much-younger than average MySpace demographic) you could get the downturn with no upswing.
So, there's always much more to a disappointment than meets the eye...still, with a little bit of reflection, all isn't necessarily lost in the NBC/iVillage merger. Depends on if NBC is willing to invest in good content to propell comments and create community, and if it's willing to find other strategies to building loyalty among those community members.
just a thought...
Update: At MediaPost, Seana Mulcahy reviews habits of teen-agers as to how they relate to TV content...this could give NBC some insight....maybe...
And Henry makes some excellent points--but there's some reasons why NBC made the decisions it did..well, at least some I could see....to Henry's points:
Henry's #1 point sez: "Viewers don't visit web sites just because you promote them on TV." But the thing is if you look at how PBS's sites get all sorts of traffic during and after shows are broadcast, it might lead a broadcaster to think they can do it too (wish I could find the stats/report on this. if I do, I'll repost link). But what may work well for PBS and independent producers like ITVS may not work for lots of MSM sites because of....
...Henry's #3 point: "Don't create bad TV shows to promote web sites--viewers hate bad TV shows. Excellent and compelling programming will keep people comming back and engaging in conversation (although maybe more with each other than with the content.) If you have wan, somewhat lifeless, pop-y content, that a site may not be known for, then you could, in all likelihood, kiss your community good-bye.
Which raises the notion of disgruntled communities--both in-house and online. These matters are addressed in Herny's points #2 ("Don't decide to move Manhattan staff to New Jersey. " and #4 Don't panic and buy web properties just because Rupert Murdoch hit a home run with MySpace To point #2: just because people can work virtually, doesn't mean they want to be pushed to the other side of the river and made to work virtually. This also forces a disconnect within the main office--what is out of sight (or is it site??) is out of mind. Which it shouldn't be.
And to point #4: if you as a main portal have trouble understanding social networking and social networks, by all means DO NOT try to Be Like Rupe! Rupe's an exception--also, I'm not sure how much Rupe tried to steer the MySpace guys' editorial direction after he bought the site. So, the MySpace guys had a direction, Rupe let them run with it via a huge cash infusion, and really didn't monkey with it by trying to incorporate it into any main Fox Network portal in the manner that NBC tried with iVillage. iVillage had a very good reputation for being a nice community as much as for its content, and sometimes to switch ownership can cause a downturn in the community. It's a loyalty thing for some people who play in online communities. And if you don't have an iron-clad strategy for re-building that community (as Rupe did with marketing MySpace to a much-younger than average MySpace demographic) you could get the downturn with no upswing.
So, there's always much more to a disappointment than meets the eye...still, with a little bit of reflection, all isn't necessarily lost in the NBC/iVillage merger. Depends on if NBC is willing to invest in good content to propell comments and create community, and if it's willing to find other strategies to building loyalty among those community members.
just a thought...
Update: At MediaPost, Seana Mulcahy reviews habits of teen-agers as to how they relate to TV content...this could give NBC some insight....maybe...
Do women want Glam? or does it take an iVillage?
In the dating-and-mating game, women learn to conceal as much as they reveal...so it's been quite interesting to follow the conversation at TechCrunch re the Glam ad network--with Arrington's concluding (after revealing some of the numbers): "Glam is an advertising network, and runs a very good SEO operation, but they are not the no. 1 destination site on the Internet for women."
I spent some quality time with Glam this a.m. and wasn't all that impressed--lots of ads confronting me, with content buried somewhere within. I had to click around and click around before I was able access anything that resembled original content. Even then, I wasn't sure of who the authors were of the original content--for all I could tell, they might be "character" content producers (a single name covering up for a couple of people.) All I could think of was "hmm, easy way to keep women on the site--make them click through everything before they find something to read..."
Still, in Arrington's comments, there are two from Glam "publishers"--yet neither of them links to whatever it is that they "publish" either on or for Glam. So, I can't take what they say too seriously....it's a transparency thing...
In looking at the Glam Network, I find a number of blogs that haven't been updated in recent memory: such as "Ageing Fabulous" (which hasn't been updated in 66 days, 3 hours, 22 minutes--thank god. The last condescending post was on age spots...) I did come across "Stiletto Jungle," which also has a blogspot blog (and may get a whole bunch of links from the feitsh community--that's one quick way to boost your SEO!) But once again I'm troubled by a site that has blog with no discernible author. (sorry, no links. the link to Glam was enough...)
So, perhaps it's that Glam isn't about providing information at all--and thus just an ad network.
Still...why must there be preponderance of no-name anonymous blogs? Is it that the blogs are simply there to shill product rather than provide content? Perhaps...
Which, for this woman, makes Glam one big yawn...
Aaron Wall looks at the Google/SEO side of the story...
Oddly related to this is a piece in the NYTimes on NBC's troubles with iVillage. iVillage was, and could still be, the #1 destination site for women. Part of that had to do with iVillage's communities (which were very popular.) The Times makes a salient comment: "But NBC Universal’s struggles with the online property underscore the snags that can arise when trying to bolt a new media operation onto an old one. " and most definitely there were back-end problems trying to put the two together (no minimizing that aspect) but there also may have been some trouble understanding iVillage's community. As in what women who used iVillage were looking for and why they kept coming back. This could be two things: they could have come in for the content, and later stayed for the community("iVillage survived the dot-com collapse partly because of its devoted user base and experienced sales staff".) iVillage has always had a good level of transparency as well--so an ad network can also provide credible content.
So, a lot remains to be seen out of Glam...but the lack of transparency is something that doesn't engender a lot of trust or loyalty. Maybe it will end up being one of those bursting bubble 2.0 things. will be interesting to watch....
Important Update: The WSJ published Web Network offers Reebok Flexibility from 4/25/07 describing the ad campaign that Glam.com did for Reebok:
I spent some quality time with Glam this a.m. and wasn't all that impressed--lots of ads confronting me, with content buried somewhere within. I had to click around and click around before I was able access anything that resembled original content. Even then, I wasn't sure of who the authors were of the original content--for all I could tell, they might be "character" content producers (a single name covering up for a couple of people.) All I could think of was "hmm, easy way to keep women on the site--make them click through everything before they find something to read..."
Still, in Arrington's comments, there are two from Glam "publishers"--yet neither of them links to whatever it is that they "publish" either on or for Glam. So, I can't take what they say too seriously....it's a transparency thing...
In looking at the Glam Network, I find a number of blogs that haven't been updated in recent memory: such as "Ageing Fabulous" (which hasn't been updated in 66 days, 3 hours, 22 minutes--thank god. The last condescending post was on age spots...) I did come across "Stiletto Jungle," which also has a blogspot blog (and may get a whole bunch of links from the feitsh community--that's one quick way to boost your SEO!) But once again I'm troubled by a site that has blog with no discernible author. (sorry, no links. the link to Glam was enough...)
So, perhaps it's that Glam isn't about providing information at all--and thus just an ad network.
Still...why must there be preponderance of no-name anonymous blogs? Is it that the blogs are simply there to shill product rather than provide content? Perhaps...
Which, for this woman, makes Glam one big yawn...
Aaron Wall looks at the Google/SEO side of the story...
Oddly related to this is a piece in the NYTimes on NBC's troubles with iVillage. iVillage was, and could still be, the #1 destination site for women. Part of that had to do with iVillage's communities (which were very popular.) The Times makes a salient comment: "But NBC Universal’s struggles with the online property underscore the snags that can arise when trying to bolt a new media operation onto an old one. " and most definitely there were back-end problems trying to put the two together (no minimizing that aspect) but there also may have been some trouble understanding iVillage's community. As in what women who used iVillage were looking for and why they kept coming back. This could be two things: they could have come in for the content, and later stayed for the community("iVillage survived the dot-com collapse partly because of its devoted user base and experienced sales staff".) iVillage has always had a good level of transparency as well--so an ad network can also provide credible content.
So, a lot remains to be seen out of Glam...but the lack of transparency is something that doesn't engender a lot of trust or loyalty. Maybe it will end up being one of those bursting bubble 2.0 things. will be interesting to watch....
Important Update: The WSJ published Web Network offers Reebok Flexibility from 4/25/07 describing the ad campaign that Glam.com did for Reebok:
Glam Media is one of several emerging Web networks that offers advertisers the chance to run narrowly targeted and heavily customized ad campaigns -- with customized the operative word. Lots of Web firms, of course, help advertisers target specific groups of people on different sites. What makes Glam and other networks, including female-oriented properties SheKnows and Sugar Publishing, stand out is their willingness to devise new marketing formats, ad executives say.So, in a sense, Glam has duplicated what many fashion magazines are all about--loads of advertising with no one really caring about who's writing the copy in between. So, it doesn't hurt that the copy is anonymous. It's just fluff between the ads. I didn't think that was the reason for blog networks...(disclosure: WSJ linked to this post before this update appeared...in fact, that's how I found it the article. who knew? thanks WSJ!)
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Just say no to giving free content-- Garnter's virtual yellow flag--NBC "allowing" debate video
If you're like me, you've probably had loads of groups asking you to provide them with free content. Mark Hamilton draws the line on companies that want to use our content, hold all the rights, and not pay us: As someone who creates and publishes on the ‘net, I don’t mind sharing. I’ve allowed a number of bloggers and web publishers — none of them big money-makers — to use my photos. But I’ve freelanced enough and bought enough from freelancers to have a good idea what the legal broilerplate means, and what lines I draw. If you’re making money off my stuff, I want some. And I can’t think of a situation where I would sign away moral rights or rights in perpetuity.
Also cited Casey McKinnon on the issue:What we web video producers need to do is to ground ourselves as small businesses and micro production companies. Like any company, we need a lawyer to look over our contracts to make sure that we retain our rights. Or we could have a lawyer help us to write our own contract to send to the broadcasters as a way of outlining what’s acceptable.
This should go for all those corporations that are now besieging bloggers (like me) to "contribute" our content to their efforts in exchange for "traffic." That's like getting paid in "copies"--nice to have, but not of much value. If my content's that desirable, and you've got significant income coming in, then pay me.
And in other imporant news....
It may not be a total red flag, but it's definitely the yellow-caution flag: research firm Garter [Inc.]Urges Caution on Virtual-World Business Reasons run from IT-related security risks (no surprise there), to possible confidentiality problems--like when your employees go AWOL somewhere on Sexy Beach...
NBC "allows" bloggers to use debate footage (Ars Technica):The announcement represents a reversal of NBC's previous policy and a victory for the coalition of Internet activists that has been pushing to make the debates more widely available for several months. Saw Lessig argue for this at the PDF a couple of months ago...and, not surprisingly, Fox News is the one hold-out on debate content. Not surprising, giving their use of IntelliTXT ads on aggregated content...
Also cited Casey McKinnon on the issue:What we web video producers need to do is to ground ourselves as small businesses and micro production companies. Like any company, we need a lawyer to look over our contracts to make sure that we retain our rights. Or we could have a lawyer help us to write our own contract to send to the broadcasters as a way of outlining what’s acceptable.
This should go for all those corporations that are now besieging bloggers (like me) to "contribute" our content to their efforts in exchange for "traffic." That's like getting paid in "copies"--nice to have, but not of much value. If my content's that desirable, and you've got significant income coming in, then pay me.
And in other imporant news....
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Assignment Zero Wins Honorable Mention for '07 Knight-Batten Awards
It's official: Assignment Zero has won Honorable Mention in the 2007 Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism. Our blurb reads:
An intriguing open-source experiment by NewAssignment.net and Wired News to harness the collective wisdom and expertise of members of the public under the guidance of professional journalists in reporting and writing stories.
I'm more than proud of this, and would love to attend the symposium and luncheon--but don't know if the funds are there to do it....(heavy sigh.) That's just life sometimes. AZ will, though, be presented under the "Unleashing the Unconventional" section of the symposium. Well, yes, it was indeed unconventional...:-)
Kristin Gorski, who worked on the Crowdsourced Novels project, posts about the project here
Update my friend Rory O'Connor just informed me that NewsTrust received recognition by Knight-Batten in the Notable Entries:Aggregators category! Here's there description:
A nonprofit social news network providing Web review tools that allow citizens to make informed decisions using a quality news filter and media literacy tools. Users rate news articles by filling out an online form that prompts them to answer questions about how interesting, trustworthy, fair, balanced, important and accurate the story is.
I keep telling Rory that they're on to something over there (go check out NewsTrust) and that they're going to see some amazing things happen in the next year. I just know it!
Journalism, citizen journalism, media
Google News' original content is behind a wall? Who knew GN was producing original content? apparently Gabe Rivera of Techmeme knew, and Mike Arrington extrapolates....But the thing is, who can find Google News' original content??? Going to the main GN page, nothing appears to point to original content...and what's really behind the Comment comments??
Then again, take a look at the Q&A between Josh Cohen, Google News' Business Manager, and Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land....The most confusing exchange is as follows:
So, this is about adding more comments? It's about making journalism better--perfecting it, somehow? As things stand now with blogs, we've got loads of news commentary, and there are, even with news outlets, ample opportunity for those who are in articles to add to the articles--somewhere in my memory I seem to remember whole bunches of editorials in the New York Times that refuted what had been reported in various articles. Maybe it's that news outlets don't necessarily want to print out glowing revisions produced by propaganda machines--and there's no guarantee that this won't happen with GN....
So, what stories--tech, political, local?--are in need of additional original source material? Right now we're having some problems with an Administration that seems to be strangling the press, but I don't think that Google News is all that concerned about the political scene. Rather, perhaps, there may be more concern about negative reports about corporations (Google is, after all, a corporation) and a need to have statements about corporations made *the right way*--as in nothing negative about particularly powerful corporations that may be in the middle of making big deals that transgress serious legal and privacy boundaries. We Americans sometimes fret over political censorship, but we rarely worry about corporate censorship--which may actually be a much bigger, more insidious and pervasive problem. The tech industry is pretty powerful--more than perhaps most Americans realize. And its desire to correct or append unfavorable articles--perhaps via comments in Google News-- is a possibility that should be considered....
Update The Wall St. Journal is, ironically, commenting from behind its own walled garden on GN's walled garden....
Then again, take a look at the Q&A between Josh Cohen, Google News' Business Manager, and Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land....The most confusing exchange is as follows:
What motivated the launch of this feature? In particular, Google's cofounders have both expressed concerns in the past that news articles don't often tell the full story, with Larry Page cited [page 297] in John Battelle's book The Search that journalism was "extremely flawed" and Eric Schmidt talking recently that false rumors are less likely to happen if more "original source material" is online. Is this in reaction to those types of things?
It's not really a comment on news reporting but more how do you get more comments out there. We're not reporting on stories ourselves. This is just another perspective. It's pretty consistent with what we've tried to do with Google News in general, tried to offer many perspectives on the news. We do that today.
So, this is about adding more comments? It's about making journalism better--perfecting it, somehow? As things stand now with blogs, we've got loads of news commentary, and there are, even with news outlets, ample opportunity for those who are in articles to add to the articles--somewhere in my memory I seem to remember whole bunches of editorials in the New York Times that refuted what had been reported in various articles. Maybe it's that news outlets don't necessarily want to print out glowing revisions produced by propaganda machines--and there's no guarantee that this won't happen with GN....
So, what stories--tech, political, local?--are in need of additional original source material? Right now we're having some problems with an Administration that seems to be strangling the press, but I don't think that Google News is all that concerned about the political scene. Rather, perhaps, there may be more concern about negative reports about corporations (Google is, after all, a corporation) and a need to have statements about corporations made *the right way*--as in nothing negative about particularly powerful corporations that may be in the middle of making big deals that transgress serious legal and privacy boundaries. We Americans sometimes fret over political censorship, but we rarely worry about corporate censorship--which may actually be a much bigger, more insidious and pervasive problem. The tech industry is pretty powerful--more than perhaps most Americans realize. And its desire to correct or append unfavorable articles--perhaps via comments in Google News-- is a possibility that should be considered....
Update The Wall St. Journal is, ironically, commenting from behind its own walled garden on GN's walled garden....
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Google News Adds Reader Comments! (well, kinda, but not really...)
Update: you can also find this article--slightly edited--at Poynter.org
This morning, I wake up to the headlines screaming how GoogleNews will now take "reader" comments. Well, not really. GoogleNews says it will now add "perspectives about the news from people in the news..."
This is a far cry from "reader" comments...as Google explains:
Well now, isn't that playing it a bit safe??
Mashable raises the questions: who decides what comments get published? Are ill-informed rants acceptable? What about propaganda? Could be very tricky indeed. "Tricky" certainly is an understatement, Pete!
Google isn't talking just yet about how they're going to allow comments from their "special subset of readers" (which assumes those it writes about are its readers) but what they may have to do is allow for registration and verification before posting. Google may also need to employ some people (novel concept!) to do the editorial/moderation tasks that will be needed to ensure they're not spammed by ranty trolls or inundated with p/r flacks looking to "correct" misrepresentations (Steve Rubellooks at the p/r side of things.)
Yet when even big-time newspapers of record (WaPo, NYT, etc.) don't hire enough experienced moderators to do the tasks on their own comments sections, how can we expect a company that's famous for its stunning lack of customer service (see the Mobile Jones' Google writes a bad check) and its pride in automated everything, to hire actual humans to do some kind of editing/moderating? Jack Schofield @ GU wonders this too.)
But, you say, GoogleNews isn't really *known* for writing stories. True! Very true! Google's post continues:
Ok...so what it sounds like is that people who have, perhaps, been written up in an AP story that's aggregated by Google will now be able to, by some means (email, I think) contact Google to add a bit to the story. Ok. So those stories are out there already, probably on different portals (AP stories turn up everywhere from your local paper to FoxNews to Yahoo and back again.) And what exactly is the compelling reason for people to write in to Google to add/correct/append to an AP story? Perhaps a misquote, yes. But this also means that every person out there who is written up is searching through news stories about them (maybe this will mean an increase in employment in p.r. firms?) to correct or add to the stories. But how often does this happen to the types of stuff that Google's aggregating? And won't people want to go back to the source vs. contacting Google, which had nothing to do with the original reporting of the story in the first place?
Or is this really some sort of move on Google's part to have others create free original content for them?
I don't know...but the whole thing raises a boatload more questions than the enigmatic Google is willing to answer right now...my bet's on the free original content thing (which seems to be pretty big nowadays...)
Further: Seth cracks me up with his remark about p.r. flacks! ha!
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, pr, google,
This morning, I wake up to the headlines screaming how GoogleNews will now take "reader" comments. Well, not really. GoogleNews says it will now add "perspectives about the news from people in the news..."
This is a far cry from "reader" comments...as Google explains:
We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.
Well now, isn't that playing it a bit safe??
Mashable raises the questions: who decides what comments get published? Are ill-informed rants acceptable? What about propaganda? Could be very tricky indeed. "Tricky" certainly is an understatement, Pete!
Google isn't talking just yet about how they're going to allow comments from their "special subset of readers" (which assumes those it writes about are its readers) but what they may have to do is allow for registration and verification before posting. Google may also need to employ some people (novel concept!) to do the editorial/moderation tasks that will be needed to ensure they're not spammed by ranty trolls or inundated with p/r flacks looking to "correct" misrepresentations (Steve Rubellooks at the p/r side of things.)
Yet when even big-time newspapers of record (WaPo, NYT, etc.) don't hire enough experienced moderators to do the tasks on their own comments sections, how can we expect a company that's famous for its stunning lack of customer service (see the Mobile Jones' Google writes a bad check) and its pride in automated everything, to hire actual humans to do some kind of editing/moderating? Jack Schofield @ GU wonders this too.)
But, you say, GoogleNews isn't really *known* for writing stories. True! Very true! Google's post continues:
As always, Google News will direct readers to the professionally-written articles and news sources our algorithms have determined are relevant for a topic. From bloggers to mainstream journalists, the journalists who help create the news we read every day occupy a critical place in the information age. But we're hoping that by adding this feature, we can help enhance the news experience for readers, testing the hypothesis that -- whether they're penguin researchers or presidential candidates-- a personal view can sometimes add a whole new dimension to the story.
Ok...so what it sounds like is that people who have, perhaps, been written up in an AP story that's aggregated by Google will now be able to, by some means (email, I think) contact Google to add a bit to the story. Ok. So those stories are out there already, probably on different portals (AP stories turn up everywhere from your local paper to FoxNews to Yahoo and back again.) And what exactly is the compelling reason for people to write in to Google to add/correct/append to an AP story? Perhaps a misquote, yes. But this also means that every person out there who is written up is searching through news stories about them (maybe this will mean an increase in employment in p.r. firms?) to correct or add to the stories. But how often does this happen to the types of stuff that Google's aggregating? And won't people want to go back to the source vs. contacting Google, which had nothing to do with the original reporting of the story in the first place?
Or is this really some sort of move on Google's part to have others create free original content for them?
I don't know...but the whole thing raises a boatload more questions than the enigmatic Google is willing to answer right now...my bet's on the free original content thing (which seems to be pretty big nowadays...)
Further: Seth cracks me up with his remark about p.r. flacks! ha!
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, pr, google,
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Falling Costs for Online Ads--Headches for AOL, Yahoo and Newspapers
Just what I thought would happen, is happening a price-war is brewing over online ads....and a lot of that has to do with the cheapness of online ads...
As reported in the NYPost, Web advertisers are spreading their online ad dollars across more sites and are paying lower rates in many cases... this is a total no-brainer. if you have more places where companies can put more ads, the premium ad places are going to be adversely affected. and, with all the talk of the importance of the long tail, the long tail may be loooking like the most desirable place to put lots of cheap ads to reach lots of specialized niches vs. spending big money on an big ad in a broad niche. If you, the ad buyer, thinks the specialized niches will target your market better, you'll go for the specialized niche--and the cheapness of the niches makes them a better bang for a company's buck...
So, what can we expect? More and more little ads in more and more places--and most newspapers/magazines/portals/people making significantly less from their ads than they did in the past. The whole idea of supporting a site (website/blog/whatever) with ads will become even more of a ridiculous idea than it has been. Sites will be so ad-loaded that they will become even more difficult to read (not to mention load on anything but broadband.)
The Financial Times reports on the rise of online ads over newspaper ads, thus even more bad news for the newspaper industry.
Not just lines crossing, but, perhaps, reaching critical mass to where no outlet can afford to support itself via ads alone.
Frightening indeed...
As reported in the NYPost, Web advertisers are spreading their online ad dollars across more sites and are paying lower rates in many cases... this is a total no-brainer. if you have more places where companies can put more ads, the premium ad places are going to be adversely affected. and, with all the talk of the importance of the long tail, the long tail may be loooking like the most desirable place to put lots of cheap ads to reach lots of specialized niches vs. spending big money on an big ad in a broad niche. If you, the ad buyer, thinks the specialized niches will target your market better, you'll go for the specialized niche--and the cheapness of the niches makes them a better bang for a company's buck...
It used to be that if an advertiser wanted to reach a lot of potential car buyers, their options were limited to buying the homepage of a portal like Yahoo! or a car review site like Edmunds. com.
Now, technology has made it easier to deliver ads to the right person at the right time across a multitude of Web sites.
Ad networks, for instance, aggregate Web publishers and allow advertisers to buy ads on hundreds of sites and target users based on location and other characteristics. There are also ad exchanges that automatically pair buyers with sellers.
Both give advertisers easy access to tons of cheap ad inventory that might otherwise have gone unsold.
"Advertisers have shown a willingness to embrace ad exchanges and ad networks offering inventory at lower rates," said Darren Chervitz, an analyst for the Jacob Internet Fund.
So, what can we expect? More and more little ads in more and more places--and most newspapers/magazines/portals/people making significantly less from their ads than they did in the past. The whole idea of supporting a site (website/blog/whatever) with ads will become even more of a ridiculous idea than it has been. Sites will be so ad-loaded that they will become even more difficult to read (not to mention load on anything but broadband.)
The Financial Times reports on the rise of online ads over newspaper ads, thus even more bad news for the newspaper industry.
Broadcast television and cable and satellite television combined will continue to take the biggest share of advertising dollars, and are forecast to reach $86bn in 2011. “The path of online advertising and newspaper advertising is a continuation of what we’ve been observing for many years, but it is finally getting to the point where the lines will cross,” said James Rutherfurd, managing director at VSS
Not just lines crossing, but, perhaps, reaching critical mass to where no outlet can afford to support itself via ads alone.
Frightening indeed...
Monday, August 06, 2007
That's Not LinkLove: Fox News Adds IntelliTXT to AP story, Shuns Bloggers
As I was checking for news stories on the "blogger's union" proposition, I came across the AP story, retooled and ad-optimized for FoxNews--with IntelliTXT ads and, as per most news org policies, no links to any of the blogs of the quoted bloggers...
Now, if you don't know what IntelliTXT ads are, they're the odd-looking, double underlined, green links in posts. If the company using them has added that Snap feature, you can tell you're going to be pushed over into an ad before you click the link. However, if you're unfamiliar with IntelliTXT ads, you may think that you're clicking a link to another blog.
And once you click an ad, you've made someone a bit of money.
There are many small blogging networks and ad-revenue happy individuals who are using IntelliTXT ads as a way to boost their income. So are many online B2B publications (Paul Conley blogs often on the ethical implications of IntelliTXT ads in online B2B pubs.) But there's something rather hinkey about FoxNews, which I'm sure already makes a boatload in revenue, retooling AP copy with IntelliTXT ads--and not linking out additional information sources.
Yes, I know it's common policy in most news orgs NOT to link to outside sources, but if you're going to use a hallmark of social capital among bloggers--the link--as just another way to serve advertising, and not to give people links to main sources or more information, then there's really some nasty ethical stuff. It's fine, then, to lead your readers to advertisements, but NOT to give them additional information that's directly connected to, and part of, the story.
Well, just another low-ball tactic from Rupe Murdoch and friends. I'm sure once the WSJ's content is freed from beyond the pay wall, we'll see some IntelliTXT there, too--but we sure won't see any link love from them!
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, linklove, advertising,
Now, if you don't know what IntelliTXT ads are, they're the odd-looking, double underlined, green links in posts. If the company using them has added that Snap feature, you can tell you're going to be pushed over into an ad before you click the link. However, if you're unfamiliar with IntelliTXT ads, you may think that you're clicking a link to another blog.
And once you click an ad, you've made someone a bit of money.
There are many small blogging networks and ad-revenue happy individuals who are using IntelliTXT ads as a way to boost their income. So are many online B2B publications (Paul Conley blogs often on the ethical implications of IntelliTXT ads in online B2B pubs.) But there's something rather hinkey about FoxNews, which I'm sure already makes a boatload in revenue, retooling AP copy with IntelliTXT ads--and not linking out additional information sources.
Yes, I know it's common policy in most news orgs NOT to link to outside sources, but if you're going to use a hallmark of social capital among bloggers--the link--as just another way to serve advertising, and not to give people links to main sources or more information, then there's really some nasty ethical stuff. It's fine, then, to lead your readers to advertisements, but NOT to give them additional information that's directly connected to, and part of, the story.
Well, just another low-ball tactic from Rupe Murdoch and friends. I'm sure once the WSJ's content is freed from beyond the pay wall, we'll see some IntelliTXT there, too--but we sure won't see any link love from them!
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, linklove, advertising,
Today is Blogging-Free Monday over here--but check out Is Blogging Ready for a Unionized Workforce? at TechCrunch...my feelings: no. We do, however, need to stop being our own worst enemies by cutting out the "blog evangelist" thing (that is, unless being paid to do so) and make sure that corproarte folks start paying us for our advice as much as for our writing. Yes, that means being paid to consult with them. Right now, some corporate people are descending on conferences where bloggers are known, and trying to get info out of them (more on this in a later post)...which is highly unethical. We should also insist that we be paid just like any other freelancer for content created for corporate projects. That is, unless what we're blogging is going to a 'zine of some sort--and, in that case, we may, just like freelancers, take the same kind of pay (free copies) for our content.
That's just me---what do you think??
Update just remembered...there's the Media Bloggers Association that's something like a union. They helped bloggers get credtials to cover the Scooter Libby Trial. Nothing about money negotiations--that's up to us, as most of us are freelancers. But, when we think of a union, we should be thinking of more than just wages. If we consider how many tech conferences are getting much, must tighter with regard to whom they give press credentials (mostly to what they consider "working journalists" and NOT bloggers) we might need an org that credentials us more than one that negotiates our wages.
That's just me---what do you think??
Update just remembered...there's the Media Bloggers Association that's something like a union. They helped bloggers get credtials to cover the Scooter Libby Trial. Nothing about money negotiations--that's up to us, as most of us are freelancers. But, when we think of a union, we should be thinking of more than just wages. If we consider how many tech conferences are getting much, must tighter with regard to whom they give press credentials (mostly to what they consider "working journalists" and NOT bloggers) we might need an org that credentials us more than one that negotiates our wages.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Ethical lapses raise musical question: That's Info-Tainment?
The latest lapses in journalistic integrity make me wonder just how much more blurry the line between info and 'tainment can get....XXL magazine editor-in-chiefElliott Wilson is depicted in an ad for RocaWear. Does this cross an ethical line? Wilson in Folio magazine sez:
Paul Conley (a friend from my Corante days, and a real ethics watchdog)blogged about the ad in question and notes the reaction of ASME executive director Marlene Kahan: "No person on an editorial staff should ever be involved in producing or participating in advertising." Conley also notes how the ASME still won't weigh in on the IntelleTXT ad issue...
But it all raises the question as to why Wilson might pose in a RocaWear ad....because his presence in the ad would be visually read as an endorsement of the product vs. perhaps a "thank you" for RocaWear's support of XXL...
Meanwhile, on the Left Coast, Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa 'fessed up to having an affair with Telemundo journalist Mirthala Salinas...who *then* reported on the confession on her Telemundo broadcast! Wow! talk about ovarios! Salinas was then suspended(well, duh!)....
And in another wonderful case of reverse gotcha! journalism, NBC Dateline reporter Michelle Madigan is busted trying to get the goods on hackers at DefCon 15....
Dateline's also being sued by the relatives of a Texas prosecuter who committed suicide by getting caught up in one of their "To Catch A Preditor" stings. I don't know about you, but after the first "To Catch a Preditor" the whole thing began to sound an awful lot like Kevin Costner in JFK saying "back...and to the left" over and over again....I just wanted to scream "make it stop! make it stop!" There didn't seem to be any merit to what Dateline was doing week after week, and it called into question the role of journalism in capturing criminals, if journalism should *ever* have a role in these acts--and if journalists could possibly be compelled by overzealous law enforcement to comply with "sting" operations. We've heard about this on the national level with Washington, but Dateline's "stings" showed journalism being used by local law enforcement. How long could it be before local journalists are compelled by overzealous local law enforcement to comply "for the public good"? That, IMO, is darned scary...
So, think about it: how far are we willing to go for info-tainment? Where's the line? It seems clear in the Salinas case, not so clear in the Wilson case, and perhaps we're finally seeing a bit of just desserts in the Dateline case. Ah, if it were that easy....not while FoxNews is still on the air...
“Bottom line, this is a one-time only ad. I’m not wearing Rocawear clothes in it and I wasn’t compensated for it,” Wilson says in an interview with Folio:. “While other ads in their campaign will be all over the place, this one will only be seen on the cover of XXL.”
Paul Conley (a friend from my Corante days, and a real ethics watchdog)blogged about the ad in question and notes the reaction of ASME executive director Marlene Kahan: "No person on an editorial staff should ever be involved in producing or participating in advertising." Conley also notes how the ASME still won't weigh in on the IntelleTXT ad issue...
But it all raises the question as to why Wilson might pose in a RocaWear ad....because his presence in the ad would be visually read as an endorsement of the product vs. perhaps a "thank you" for RocaWear's support of XXL...
Meanwhile, on the Left Coast, Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa 'fessed up to having an affair with Telemundo journalist Mirthala Salinas...who *then* reported on the confession on her Telemundo broadcast! Wow! talk about ovarios! Salinas was then suspended(well, duh!)....
And in another wonderful case of reverse gotcha! journalism, NBC Dateline reporter Michelle Madigan is busted trying to get the goods on hackers at DefCon 15....
Dateline's also being sued by the relatives of a Texas prosecuter who committed suicide by getting caught up in one of their "To Catch A Preditor" stings. I don't know about you, but after the first "To Catch a Preditor" the whole thing began to sound an awful lot like Kevin Costner in JFK saying "back...and to the left" over and over again....I just wanted to scream "make it stop! make it stop!" There didn't seem to be any merit to what Dateline was doing week after week, and it called into question the role of journalism in capturing criminals, if journalism should *ever* have a role in these acts--and if journalists could possibly be compelled by overzealous law enforcement to comply with "sting" operations. We've heard about this on the national level with Washington, but Dateline's "stings" showed journalism being used by local law enforcement. How long could it be before local journalists are compelled by overzealous local law enforcement to comply "for the public good"? That, IMO, is darned scary...
So, think about it: how far are we willing to go for info-tainment? Where's the line? It seems clear in the Salinas case, not so clear in the Wilson case, and perhaps we're finally seeing a bit of just desserts in the Dateline case. Ah, if it were that easy....not while FoxNews is still on the air...
Can't Buy Me Love...Silicon Valley Style
Pity the poor S.V. millionaires profiled in the NYTimes today--who, even with a couple of mil in the bank don't seem to have enough money.
Sounds like a workaholic to me....
Yet, for awhile now I've maintained that the Silly Valley is an amazing bubble, out of touch with the rest of the world--yet for some reason is dictating to the rest of us what sorts of amazingnewproduct! we just *have* to have, lest we be consider lesser beings. It sounds as if it's full of workaholics, some perhaps with various forms of other personality disorders (like workaholism, poor sense of self, self-definition from material goods) that keep them ignoring the richness of human affection for the slavery of TheNextBigThing (Webomatica agrees on this...we've agreed on lots of stuff re Silly Valley...and I love his comparison of the SV to Second Life...)
Dave Winer's take on it "Don't live in the shadow of this place. There's nothing there but people trying to make money, without a good idea why." (he left in '03 and prefers Berkeley--for the climate--if you like that kind of climate)
Frighteningly, and sadly, earlier this week in Penelope Trunk's Yahoo column, she gives 10 new workplace etiquette tips that reflect S.V. insanity--such as calling co-workers about work over the weekend,("The best way to get a life is to stop being so rigid about the distinction between time for work and time for life."--she must be smoking something really good, and I wish she'd share),
invite your boss to be your "friend" on Facebook (no, she's drinking the kool-aid actually) and to NOT blog pseudonymously (now our blogs are also our work.) Penelope calls herself a "brazen careerist"--I call her a nutty workaholic with no boundaries. Turn the cell phone off, girl, and enjoy the movie...
Perhaps, though, it's time for more folks to live where they want and to work virtually--travelling from time to time for good old f2f with work compadres, but spending time where their money and their lives are much better. We should not give in to the rah-rah hype-hype that we all have to live without healthy boundaries between our work lives and our home lives. WinExtra echoes the need for a balanced life...amen!)
work, tech, web 2.0
Mr. [Hal]Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States.
Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for a technology start-up company, still striving for his big strike. Most mornings, he can be found at his desk by 7. He typically works 12 hours a day and logs an extra 10 hours over the weekend
Sounds like a workaholic to me....
Yet, for awhile now I've maintained that the Silly Valley is an amazing bubble, out of touch with the rest of the world--yet for some reason is dictating to the rest of us what sorts of amazingnewproduct! we just *have* to have, lest we be consider lesser beings. It sounds as if it's full of workaholics, some perhaps with various forms of other personality disorders (like workaholism, poor sense of self, self-definition from material goods) that keep them ignoring the richness of human affection for the slavery of TheNextBigThing (Webomatica agrees on this...we've agreed on lots of stuff re Silly Valley...and I love his comparison of the SV to Second Life...)
Dave Winer's take on it "Don't live in the shadow of this place. There's nothing there but people trying to make money, without a good idea why." (he left in '03 and prefers Berkeley--for the climate--if you like that kind of climate)
Frighteningly, and sadly, earlier this week in Penelope Trunk's Yahoo column, she gives 10 new workplace etiquette tips that reflect S.V. insanity--such as calling co-workers about work over the weekend,("The best way to get a life is to stop being so rigid about the distinction between time for work and time for life."--she must be smoking something really good, and I wish she'd share),
invite your boss to be your "friend" on Facebook (no, she's drinking the kool-aid actually) and to NOT blog pseudonymously (now our blogs are also our work.) Penelope calls herself a "brazen careerist"--I call her a nutty workaholic with no boundaries. Turn the cell phone off, girl, and enjoy the movie...
Perhaps, though, it's time for more folks to live where they want and to work virtually--travelling from time to time for good old f2f with work compadres, but spending time where their money and their lives are much better. We should not give in to the rah-rah hype-hype that we all have to live without healthy boundaries between our work lives and our home lives. WinExtra echoes the need for a balanced life...amen!)
work, tech, web 2.0
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Five Fatal Business Networking Errors
When I first heard of the concept of "networking" back when I graduated from Smith College in '01, I had nothing less than a terrifically violent reaction to the concept (WTF!?!) Since then, however, networking has become a significant part of what I do when I go to blogging-related coferences--I've even done a bit of it locally with some of the Chambers and other business clubs. Networking is how the job-thing these days (or so I'm told.) But what I find most distressing is the number of networking nitwits that are out there--people who commit some of the worst social and networking faux pas ever, and think that it's just peachy-keen okay...
So, here's a short list of Five Fatal Networking Errors--stuff guaranteed to make the person you're talking with think you're either an amateur or a complete turd (depending)....
1) The Dead Fish handshake: it's one thing to have a "ladylike" handshake (esp. if you consider yourself a "lady") another to be a dead fish. Here's the difference: the "ladylike" handshake is when the hand is presented downward, rather than forward. The grip is not all that strong, by you can tell there's an arm at the end, and a person, who will usually meet your gaze and smile. Some women prefer to shake hands like this--maybe it's a cultural thing. The dead fish, however, is something totally different. The dead fish kinda flops into your hand. There's no strength, no acknowledgement that you're there--kind of like being presented with a mitt full of melted chocolate. If you put a little pressure on a dead fish, there's nothing back. Like you're squeezing air. The person usually also doesn't make eye contact--sometimes even heavy sighs like this handshaking thing is all such a passe bore and even if he/she did desire to deign to shake hands with someone, it wouldn't be with you. Often after a dead fish handshake, I like to wipe my hand on something, just to re-invigorate the cooties...
2) No eye contact. Excuse me, my eyes are NOT below my collarbone, nor are they over my shoulder where that 20-something drunken chick in the stilettos is falling over herself. You can bet that if there's no eye contact, the person's not going to be all that interested in what you do for a living--the usual response is "That's nice," in a well-rehearsed, smarmy tone.
3)Rude conversation. As if "That's nice" wasn't enough...how about "So, what do you really do for a living?" in a sort of leering wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of tone. Frankly, if I'm telling you I'm a professional blogger, and it's on my business card, you can bet that at some time or another someone's actually paid me to blog for them. Personally, I'm beginning to feel like I should be wearing a button that says "Ask me about my projects!" to sort of direct the questions to something less offensive. Then again, I'm thinking the approriate answers to that ultra-rude question could be "If I told you, I'd have to kill you" (recommended by a friend) or the slightly less confrontational "Wow, sorry you didn't know my Dad's Rupert Murdoch. Dad's a bit potty, you know..." Which leads me to...
4)Business cards boasting urls to nowhere. Lately, I've gotten a ton of these. People advertising marketing consulting services or that they're writers or other ventures--and when I get back and type in the url to their web presence, I get....NOTHING. A placeholder, maybe. An old blog that they haven't posted on since March 2006 (started in January 2006.) Often I try to give the person the benefit of the doubt and re-type the url, or do a search to see if maybe the business card was printed wrong or if he/she has a web presence somewhere else. But that's a heck of a lot of work for someone who I may never see again. So, if you've got a url, but no website by the time you're going to a networking event, don't put the url on your business card. Have only a small amount of cards printed for the event, and then work on the website.
5)Signing me up to your newsletter without even an email. (this is post-networking, but just as annoying) Okay...so you're a good little self-marketer, and you've got all the bells and whistles connected to your website or blog, including a newsletter subscription sign-up. And, as you've been advised by a few networking professionals, who I'm so sure you've heard at a number of networking events (because I've heard them too) that when you get home with your stack of business cards, you split everyone up into categories, and the lesser creatures in your stack get assigned to your newsletter mailing list. I've got two words for you, sweetheart: BITE ME. I'm glad you think so highly of yourself that I want your pithy musings, but I'm really sorry I even gave you a business card in the first place. I'm not one of your lesser beings--in fact, I just might be a tad higher up on the food chain than you even realize. And even if I'm not (you'll never know now, will you?) maybe I don't like being bumped to your "consolation prize" list. So, piss off, baby--I'm unsubscribing.
And there you have it. If you'd seriously like to piss off the folks you are networking with, or who are networking with you, then do just these five things, and I guarantee you'll never hear from them ever again.
So, here's a short list of Five Fatal Networking Errors--stuff guaranteed to make the person you're talking with think you're either an amateur or a complete turd (depending)....
1) The Dead Fish handshake: it's one thing to have a "ladylike" handshake (esp. if you consider yourself a "lady") another to be a dead fish. Here's the difference: the "ladylike" handshake is when the hand is presented downward, rather than forward. The grip is not all that strong, by you can tell there's an arm at the end, and a person, who will usually meet your gaze and smile. Some women prefer to shake hands like this--maybe it's a cultural thing. The dead fish, however, is something totally different. The dead fish kinda flops into your hand. There's no strength, no acknowledgement that you're there--kind of like being presented with a mitt full of melted chocolate. If you put a little pressure on a dead fish, there's nothing back. Like you're squeezing air. The person usually also doesn't make eye contact--sometimes even heavy sighs like this handshaking thing is all such a passe bore and even if he/she did desire to deign to shake hands with someone, it wouldn't be with you. Often after a dead fish handshake, I like to wipe my hand on something, just to re-invigorate the cooties...
2) No eye contact. Excuse me, my eyes are NOT below my collarbone, nor are they over my shoulder where that 20-something drunken chick in the stilettos is falling over herself. You can bet that if there's no eye contact, the person's not going to be all that interested in what you do for a living--the usual response is "That's nice," in a well-rehearsed, smarmy tone.
3)Rude conversation. As if "That's nice" wasn't enough...how about "So, what do you really do for a living?" in a sort of leering wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of tone. Frankly, if I'm telling you I'm a professional blogger, and it's on my business card, you can bet that at some time or another someone's actually paid me to blog for them. Personally, I'm beginning to feel like I should be wearing a button that says "Ask me about my projects!" to sort of direct the questions to something less offensive. Then again, I'm thinking the approriate answers to that ultra-rude question could be "If I told you, I'd have to kill you" (recommended by a friend) or the slightly less confrontational "Wow, sorry you didn't know my Dad's Rupert Murdoch. Dad's a bit potty, you know..." Which leads me to...
4)Business cards boasting urls to nowhere. Lately, I've gotten a ton of these. People advertising marketing consulting services or that they're writers or other ventures--and when I get back and type in the url to their web presence, I get....NOTHING. A placeholder, maybe. An old blog that they haven't posted on since March 2006 (started in January 2006.) Often I try to give the person the benefit of the doubt and re-type the url, or do a search to see if maybe the business card was printed wrong or if he/she has a web presence somewhere else. But that's a heck of a lot of work for someone who I may never see again. So, if you've got a url, but no website by the time you're going to a networking event, don't put the url on your business card. Have only a small amount of cards printed for the event, and then work on the website.
5)Signing me up to your newsletter without even an email. (this is post-networking, but just as annoying) Okay...so you're a good little self-marketer, and you've got all the bells and whistles connected to your website or blog, including a newsletter subscription sign-up. And, as you've been advised by a few networking professionals, who I'm so sure you've heard at a number of networking events (because I've heard them too) that when you get home with your stack of business cards, you split everyone up into categories, and the lesser creatures in your stack get assigned to your newsletter mailing list. I've got two words for you, sweetheart: BITE ME. I'm glad you think so highly of yourself that I want your pithy musings, but I'm really sorry I even gave you a business card in the first place. I'm not one of your lesser beings--in fact, I just might be a tad higher up on the food chain than you even realize. And even if I'm not (you'll never know now, will you?) maybe I don't like being bumped to your "consolation prize" list. So, piss off, baby--I'm unsubscribing.
And there you have it. If you'd seriously like to piss off the folks you are networking with, or who are networking with you, then do just these five things, and I guarantee you'll never hear from them ever again.
Tim Wilson of PCMagazine wonders if public WiFi is past its prime, and if WiMAX is the way to go...but there's no discussion as to whether or not security is better on WiMAX. And security is a far more serious issue than lots of us who use public WiFi ever thought: the BBCgives a great report from the Black Hat Hacking con in Las Vegas highlighting just how easy it is to hack into someone's email at a public WiFi hotspot. That makes me think twice about using airport wifi for sure....
Update: apparently, it's not just email but also social networking sites vulnerable to hackers (Jordan Robertson of AP reports) So, perhaps we all need to be more careful about how much info we put on social networking sites--and not just because employers might zing us, but because hackers might steal us. Creepy.
Update: apparently, it's not just email but also social networking sites vulnerable to hackers (Jordan Robertson of AP reports) So, perhaps we all need to be more careful about how much info we put on social networking sites--and not just because employers might zing us, but because hackers might steal us. Creepy.
For one brief, shining moment, I was #1 in Technorati's Top 100--even if I have absolutely no blogs linking....must be something goofy going on with Technorati. But, hey, thanks for the big LOL :-)
UpdateRobert Gorell continues to share the love (and LOLs) in "If rank meant everything..." Well, at least we're not all getting our knickers in a bunch about it!
UpdateRobert Gorell continues to share the love (and LOLs) in "If rank meant everything..." Well, at least we're not all getting our knickers in a bunch about it!
Friday, August 03, 2007
Check out Jay Rosen's incredible post on the significance of Yearly Kos I don't particularly care for political blogging, but to have amassed 1500 people for YK is pretty amazing.
Facebook Widget Wars: Netvibes Strikes Back!
I have been compulsively checking my Facebook account ever since I started using Facebook. It wasn't my idea to join Facebook, so it's not my fault that I can't seem to stay away from the darned thing. So, I blame my friends.
And since I'm compulsively addicted to Facebook because of them, I'm now following the Facebook hype stories.
Facebook is to the tech world what Paris Hilton is to the tabloids. A day does not go by with at least one Facebook commentary or story or commentary on story...And today's big Facebook bomb is how Netvibes has launched a Facebook widget!(from Mashable) Now, you can get *most* of your Facebook fix on your Netvibes home page (that is, if you use Netvibes. It's what I would call a bit "busy"--although quite clean. kind of like the guys I've dated ;-) )
But there is a problem--you can't view Facebook news feeds in Netvibes...ah, me! Pete Cashmore sums up the obvious "well, duh!" reason for this:
they’re [aggregators] all motivated to keep you on their own platforms for as long as possible, rather than giving you absolute freedom to take your identity wherever you like. Right now, it’s hard to make money without owning the user’s identity in some way; user lock-in remains the strongest business model, even though superficially they exist to hand more control to you
Hey, aggregators and social networks are in the business of making money! And if they have to hold your identity hostage to do it, then by gum! they're going to do just that! (which lead Pramit Singh to say Meanwhile, all you platform owners rejoice! Your platform is just a widget on mine)
Fred Wilson, whose very good blog is overloaded with so many ads and widgets that it crashed my browser, stated the obvious about Facebook's content grabbing policies: that most of the users, like his daughters, don't quite care about what happens to their Facebook content.
And isn't that the thing that makes Facebook great--that it's all pretty much disposable (like your college LiveJournal page from 1998?)
Which has also lead Max Kalehoff (who've shared conference attendance with--although haven't met yet, so not a "friend") to cry both "foul!" and "uncle" when it comes to all the compulsive friending going on:
We’re experiencing friends overload, and it’s a tragedy of the commons. The practice of friending has morphed way beyond the term’s original intention and utility. And that is why I declare friends — at least in the social-networking context — passé.(Note: I haven't "friended" Max. Although we have friends in common...)
But is getting "friended" worse, or just as bad, as getting signed up for someone's email newsletter just because you gave that person a business card and shook hands with her at a conference??? Yes, all good little marketers know to sign folks up for their newsletters asap. If you can't send me a "it was great meeting you!" email, then don't stick me on your email list. That's kind of like having sex without getting kissed...
And you can always refuse the "friend." Sure, you risk offending someone, but if they're not your "friend" even in the very loose sense, why be worried about offending? (Scott Karp's even more peeved than I could ever get about Facebook not being for business--then again, he's addicted to Twitter....and used to be all joyous about MyBlogLog, which doesn't seem to be on his blog any more...hmmm...???)
So, it's been a fascinating day in hypeland...but it's okay. Without hype, we'd probably have to talk about literature or something...;-)
web 2.0, media, tech,facebook, netvibes
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Bursting Bubble 2.0: Who's got it right?
(I'm on a tech kick this week...so bear with me....) John Dvorak has a fascinating kvetch about "bubble 2.0" and when the bottom will all fall out of all the "web 2.0" feel-goodness that bathes every hot young developer in the Silicon Valley. Some of the stuff that's floating the bubble (in John's view) and will eventually burst are: neo-networking (too much social networking), video mania, user generated content, mobile everything, ad-leveraged search, and widgets and toolbars.....(Fred Wilson's less cranky but still cautious
yep. pretty much everything that everyone's screaming about that constitutes an AMAZINGNEWPRODUCT!
Marshall Kirkpatrick (yes, we all know he's a very smart young man) thinks John's a cranky and wrong old coot. "Ubiquitous broadband and the clear utility of the Internet is changing the world and all our lives." sez Marshall. Yes, I'd like to introduce him to some of the more remote regions of rural New England, where the ubiquity of broadband is a dubious concept...."Millions of people are using MySpace and YouTube and they are never going back" that is, until they grow up, get bored, or are denied employment because of those ancient pics of a frat-house beer bust or wet t-shirt contest...
Okay...so here's what a high-level, early adopter, who is not filtering social media/web 2.0 thru the eyes of her teen-agers (I don't have them--have to do it myself) thinks of the Curmudgeon and the Kid--Curmudgeon's right on some level. I'm not sure how much of a "bubble" there is, as there seems to be a lot of developing going on, but a lot of the developers not necessarily quitting their day jobs and selling stock options out of the box. So, maybe there's a bit of safety there--as to when it all bursts, people won't all be out of jobs. We'll just see a lot of abandoned social networks--similar to place holders but just a bit sadder....
and the two biggest bottom-outs: social networking sites and widgets and toolbars. From a user perspective: if I put one more toolbar on my toolbar I won't have much of a browser window to view any content that might be marked by the features in said toolbar. And have you ever seen duelling toolbars? as in one toolbar cancelling out another toolbar, or the security of one toolbar monkeying with the other one hundred or so security features of other features? It's simply a waste of time to install and delete all these different toolbars that, more often than not, have come from (you guessed it) social networking applications....
Speaking of which, I'm receiving regular email invites from new and struggling social networking sites on a daily basis--sometimes one, sometimes two or more. I seem to be a pretty popular kid--and have even received post-email phone calls designed to help me negotiate or set up my account on a particular social networking site. Yes, I joined Facebook after being bothered by three of my friends. And only did it because I got bugged by three friends AND saw some possible employment benefits to it (a la LinkedIn.) As for "friends": on Facebook, I have a number of friends I've met IRL. On the other sites? Well, it's kind of dubious as to who my "friends" really are (esp. when the guy who developed whatever it is, whom I've never met, is immediately my "friend". Dude, I don't even know you!) Jemima Kiss (one of my friends--and on Facebook) recently wrote about receiving an email that notified her that she was already signed up for a particular "reputation ranking" site (another kind of soc. networking site.) The developers went and did it *for* her. argh! And I signed up for something called Doostang because I got an invite from someone--and the criteria to be a fully-vested part of Doostang is to invite (read:spam) a bunch of other people that I know! argh!
As for widgets: well, if they're all web-based, and we all don't have all that extra-flowing goodness of (not)ubiquitous broadband, lots of sites will slow down. And once widgets get regular advertising, they're going to be ripe for sploggers. We won't see "citizen syndicators" as TACODA's Dave Morgan said in a piece at MediaPost--because "citizens" aren't really going to care. Dave, and many others, seem to think that when people read personal blogs, they really want all sorts of stuff to let people know what they're reading/doing/what the weather is in Kuala Lampour...but the thing is, when people read personal blogs, they're reading for what the person is saying about her life, not necessarily what she's doing in her spare time (this is esp. true with mommybloggers--who often have high traffic and low Google Page Rank--where most of the readers assume the mommy is doing lots of things non-web related when she's not online and really aren't all that concerned with the sidebars.) The only "citizen syndicators" we'll see are sploggers with huge bandwidth who will be able to load up their splogs with all kinds of widgets along with their ads....
So, yes there's a bubble going on--and it's being manufactured in the great bubble maker/hype market of Silicon Valley, without much of an understanding of how folks outside of urban and well-wired regions of the U.S. use the Internet. It's growing in part due to hype without much of an understanding of how much time people have to spend social networking and reputation building and marking things from their toolbars and tweeting each other. And, we don't know what's going to happen when the hyperactive high school and college age folks finally go to work, get married, throw baby showers, have kids, and join bowling leagues (yes, they still do that here.) That part of the equation has yet to be tested. There are many assumptions based on the habits of young well-connecteds like Marshall, but those folks may be the exception and not the norm.
Worse yet, we don't know how much time it will take to adequately connect rural (and some poor urban) regions that are still on dial-up. My sense is that it will take government intervention to compel the various companies that controll the parsing out of broadband infrastructure to fully wire the U.S. (something like the Tennessee Valley Authority.) But at this point, that's still a dream...
Bubble on, Silicon Valley...bubble on....
Upate: Webomatica talks about thefinancial consequences of Web 2.0 much more succinctly than I do: namely the money in it is VC money, not your parent's money. So, those who may get burned won't lose life-savings. There's much more there, so read the post.
web 2.0, media, tech,
yep. pretty much everything that everyone's screaming about that constitutes an AMAZINGNEWPRODUCT!
Marshall Kirkpatrick (yes, we all know he's a very smart young man) thinks John's a cranky and wrong old coot. "Ubiquitous broadband and the clear utility of the Internet is changing the world and all our lives." sez Marshall. Yes, I'd like to introduce him to some of the more remote regions of rural New England, where the ubiquity of broadband is a dubious concept...."Millions of people are using MySpace and YouTube and they are never going back" that is, until they grow up, get bored, or are denied employment because of those ancient pics of a frat-house beer bust or wet t-shirt contest...
Okay...so here's what a high-level, early adopter, who is not filtering social media/web 2.0 thru the eyes of her teen-agers (I don't have them--have to do it myself) thinks of the Curmudgeon and the Kid--Curmudgeon's right on some level. I'm not sure how much of a "bubble" there is, as there seems to be a lot of developing going on, but a lot of the developers not necessarily quitting their day jobs and selling stock options out of the box. So, maybe there's a bit of safety there--as to when it all bursts, people won't all be out of jobs. We'll just see a lot of abandoned social networks--similar to place holders but just a bit sadder....
and the two biggest bottom-outs: social networking sites and widgets and toolbars. From a user perspective: if I put one more toolbar on my toolbar I won't have much of a browser window to view any content that might be marked by the features in said toolbar. And have you ever seen duelling toolbars? as in one toolbar cancelling out another toolbar, or the security of one toolbar monkeying with the other one hundred or so security features of other features? It's simply a waste of time to install and delete all these different toolbars that, more often than not, have come from (you guessed it) social networking applications....
Speaking of which, I'm receiving regular email invites from new and struggling social networking sites on a daily basis--sometimes one, sometimes two or more. I seem to be a pretty popular kid--and have even received post-email phone calls designed to help me negotiate or set up my account on a particular social networking site. Yes, I joined Facebook after being bothered by three of my friends. And only did it because I got bugged by three friends AND saw some possible employment benefits to it (a la LinkedIn.) As for "friends": on Facebook, I have a number of friends I've met IRL. On the other sites? Well, it's kind of dubious as to who my "friends" really are (esp. when the guy who developed whatever it is, whom I've never met, is immediately my "friend". Dude, I don't even know you!) Jemima Kiss (one of my friends--and on Facebook) recently wrote about receiving an email that notified her that she was already signed up for a particular "reputation ranking" site (another kind of soc. networking site.) The developers went and did it *for* her. argh! And I signed up for something called Doostang because I got an invite from someone--and the criteria to be a fully-vested part of Doostang is to invite (read:spam) a bunch of other people that I know! argh!
As for widgets: well, if they're all web-based, and we all don't have all that extra-flowing goodness of (not)ubiquitous broadband, lots of sites will slow down. And once widgets get regular advertising, they're going to be ripe for sploggers. We won't see "citizen syndicators" as TACODA's Dave Morgan said in a piece at MediaPost--because "citizens" aren't really going to care. Dave, and many others, seem to think that when people read personal blogs, they really want all sorts of stuff to let people know what they're reading/doing/what the weather is in Kuala Lampour...but the thing is, when people read personal blogs, they're reading for what the person is saying about her life, not necessarily what she's doing in her spare time (this is esp. true with mommybloggers--who often have high traffic and low Google Page Rank--where most of the readers assume the mommy is doing lots of things non-web related when she's not online and really aren't all that concerned with the sidebars.) The only "citizen syndicators" we'll see are sploggers with huge bandwidth who will be able to load up their splogs with all kinds of widgets along with their ads....
So, yes there's a bubble going on--and it's being manufactured in the great bubble maker/hype market of Silicon Valley, without much of an understanding of how folks outside of urban and well-wired regions of the U.S. use the Internet. It's growing in part due to hype without much of an understanding of how much time people have to spend social networking and reputation building and marking things from their toolbars and tweeting each other. And, we don't know what's going to happen when the hyperactive high school and college age folks finally go to work, get married, throw baby showers, have kids, and join bowling leagues (yes, they still do that here.) That part of the equation has yet to be tested. There are many assumptions based on the habits of young well-connecteds like Marshall, but those folks may be the exception and not the norm.
Worse yet, we don't know how much time it will take to adequately connect rural (and some poor urban) regions that are still on dial-up. My sense is that it will take government intervention to compel the various companies that controll the parsing out of broadband infrastructure to fully wire the U.S. (something like the Tennessee Valley Authority.) But at this point, that's still a dream...
Bubble on, Silicon Valley...bubble on....
Upate: Webomatica talks about thefinancial consequences of Web 2.0 much more succinctly than I do: namely the money in it is VC money, not your parent's money. So, those who may get burned won't lose life-savings. There's much more there, so read the post.
web 2.0, media, tech,
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Dvorak and Malik take on "Blogging vs. Journalism"
The most intelligent conversation yet on the blogger/journalist dichotomy took place between John C.Dvorak and Om Malik at Wordcamp on 7/21.
some points Dvorak starts with a point about newspapers co-opting blogs that are then "overseen by the man" (written by reporters under the auspices of the paper.) And points out that many newspaper blogs do not get comments--that there's a lack of sincerity on the part of the bloggers (and mentions a significant comment made by someone at the New York Times...)(note: sometimes a lack of comments has to do with the 10% rule: only 10% of people reading anything online will comment. 90% are lurkers.)
Malik mentions blogger's passion--and that blogs are a different kind of media with a different dynamic than newspapers. New media doesn't necessarily replace old media.
Dvorak mentions how Forbes would not let him link out to sources. This is still a problem on the part of many newspapers that just don't get the importance of links--which Dvorak explains.
On moderating comments: a young man from the NYTimes speaks up about the difficulties of mmoderating comments--that it's time cosuming and that filters don't work well. Maintains that a filter could keep Dick Cheney from posting a comment. Dvorak thinks this is bull: "If your filtersare worth a shit, you wil not filter Dick Cheney." True. The argument that filtering is time-consuming is irrelevant if comments are important to a newspaper, and the money must be spent in either moderating or in good filtering software.
Malik maintains (as many experienced bloggers do) that "you [the writer] set the tone." It's up to you to create civility--and he uses my favorite bar analogy: each blog is like a bar. You, the blogger, are the bartender. It's up to you to keep the discourse polite and to the point. You set the attitude for the comments.
Finally, Malik makes the important point that newspapers shouldn't absorb blogs (which goes along with the point about newspaper reporters creating blogs for sites) Malik advocates newspapers aggregate local blogs
(with much thanks to John Pozadzies of One Man's Blog for shooting and sharing this great vid-- John's post also gives pointers on the equip he used to shoot this.)
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, blogging
some points
Malik mentions blogger's passion--and that blogs are a different kind of media with a different dynamic than newspapers. New media doesn't necessarily replace old media.
Malik maintains (as many experienced bloggers do) that "you [the writer] set the tone." It's up to you to create civility--and he uses my favorite bar analogy: each blog is like a bar. You, the blogger, are the bartender. It's up to you to keep the discourse polite and to the point. You set the attitude for the comments.
(with much thanks to John Pozadzies of One Man's Blog for shooting and sharing this great vid-- John's post also gives pointers on the equip he used to shoot this.)
Journalism, citizen journalism, media, blogging
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