Dec. 29 2011

A new medium: neither rare nor well-done

Most commentary on social media ignores an obvious truth—that the value of things is largely determined by their rarity. The more people tweet, the less attention people will pay to any individual tweet. The more people “friend” even passing acquaintances, the less meaning such connections have. As communication grows ever easier, the important thing is detecting whispers of useful information in a howling hurricane of noise. For speakers, the new world will be expensive. Companies will have to invest in ever more channels to capture the same number of ears. For listeners, it will be baffling. Everyone will need better filters—editors, analysts, middle managers and so on—to help them extract meaning from the blizzard of buzz.

 Economist, found via Matthew. (via wearethedigitalkids)

sigh.

Dec. 15 2011

Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to make their mark on the world, but have no other way to do it than literally making a mark on the world.
Paul Graham, in 2008 via Trolls.

Apr. 06 2011

In Which, Finally, I Understand Facebook

What Facebook offers advertisers that other news organizations do not, says Gans, is a quality he calls magnetism – limited content of high value, frequently renewed. Few readers remain on the site for very long. But they return to it regularly: they are faithful. And this creates a proposition that advertisers may find compelling. If they want to reach a large fraction of the US population over the next few days, Facebook may be the way to do it. The alternative is to purchase multiple digital impressions in many media, hoping to find the right eyeballs.

Roughly speaking, this is what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has done. He has assembled readers in order to sell their attention to advertisers – it’s a classic two-sided market, just like a newspaper or a television show, except that before Facebook, Gans says, “No one had figured out how to sell ads while your friends and family were talking to you.”

yup.

(Source: azspot)

Mar. 19 2011

An Important $7.60

the first home delivery.

while a pretty small decision, i think this is a relatively important one:  i’ve subscribed to get my first newspaper delivered.  it’ll be the new york times weekender (friday through sunday of each week.  first drop comes tomorrow).  i had planned to do this for a year now but nothing really pushed me, until this week.

growing up, my mom would always have three papers coming to the house.  the times, the wall street journal and our local paper, the herald news (part of north jersey media group and a version of the well-known bergen record).  i’ve written a lot about how much i prefer not living with “tv” (quotes denote the fact that it’s more about always-on programming vs. having a television as a machine) and i’m sure to have mentioned mom’s affinity for newspapers as well.  the papers, radio and extra time spent online (my aol profile was baller) was how i learned about the world around me for the majority of my adolescence.

now?  i try to minimize using paper in general, to reduce clutter.  i read the times via its app on my iphone and RSS is critical for most everything else.  i have tv in my apartment but, lots of times, i wish i didn’t.

lots of folks are scrambling the jets to make sense of the times plans to initiate a pay wall at the end of this month.  from khoi vinh:

Whether the pay wall succeeds or not is an open question and I won’t pretend to know the answer. To be completely frank I was never a proponent of this concept and it was among the reasons I decided to leave my job there last year. Now that it’s upon us I hope it does succeed, actually, because The Times generates tremendous value for the public good and it would be terrific if we could find a way to continue to reward its talented journalists and staff for their hard work. Still, I can’t help but look at the effort that went into constructing this new revenue model and think that it has exacted an unfortunate opportunity cost on the company.

khoi goes on to make a valid point that instead of striking out to build something new, they “shuttered” what was left.  in addition to this, there is lots of other mania around the web.  the grubers and those crunchy tech-ers all swinging from their chandeliers, screaming, wishing and projecting certain death.  ”why are they charging x instead of y for z?”  ”how can i get around it?”  ”why it sucks.”  ”why it’s awesome.”  ”why it’s the end of the world.”  all opinion that could very well be short-sighted.  no one knows the answer.  not even sulz himself.  

i’m going to stand in the stream, facing the other way.  i was raised on this news institution and i’m supposed to be part of the demographic that is abandoning it.  running, jumping and stampeding towards the 140 characters that are supposed to sustain my intellect.  sorry, but my appetite is slightly larger than that.  do i think innovation and technology won’t be defining human communication moving forward?  hell no.  but, look in a mirror.  why are we all sitting here waxing poetic and taking our saturday mornings to write in-depth about a fucking newspaper?  because there hasn’t been something that brings the depth and context we deserve to the table yet.  khoi talks about building something new.  how there is flipboard and the daily.  well, let’s do it then.  let’s push the chips to the middle of the table and provide for an organization who has the strength to move us all forward.

here’s why the need to generate revenue on a digital platform has caused me to invest in a non-digital platform:

  • first, and foremost, i want to support an institution who’s committed to delivering high-value reporting.  i’m old enough to understand that my time and attention is no longer disposable and the freedom technology has granted us isn’t about breaking down walls and more about fine-tuning the specific ways we consume information.  guard this, closely.  it will surely be one of your largest regrets.
  • reading something on a screen and reading something physical, in your hands, is a completely different experience.  what “apps” and “web sites” don’t afford us anymore is physical context.  every article is weighted the same.  design influence is lost a bit on a digital spectrum.  wading through a magazine and newspaper helps us understand relationships and context, that words support, between the articles.  this is a building block of education and understanding.  often overlooked, how you arrange and design communication equally forms opinion.  the medium is the message, right?
  • nostalgia and aesthetic:  reading a newspaper represents and cues many great memories for me.  it was ritual in the home that i was raised.  i don’t want to lose this.  while becoming connected, society has become disconnected from what has built us.  i’m also part of a generation who is rushing back to the very basics.  and, hey, who doesn’t like cracking open all the windows on a warm spring morning, making a fresh cup of coffee and catching up on the week behind and the week ahead?  it’s an aesthetic that is also a ritual.
  • print doesn’t need to buffer.
  • human need to break up our physical environments - physical interaction with different types of physical and mental signals keep our minds sharp.  this is why we go to the gym.  why we like being outside.  why people get “cabin fever.”  the same can be said for info consumption.  i don’t want to become a monkey who just taps everything.  faced with personal choices about media.  not only is choice available, we are burdened with it.  there will always be a fire hose that can pin you down and never help you understand the world, just feed you the world.

if my soap box rallying cry doesn’t do it for you, here is some continued reading:

  1. The Newsonomics of The New York Times’ pay fence

a final note and a subtle suggestion for mr. sulzberger:  the online registration process for home delivery of your newspaper doesn’t permit hyphens in the name field.  instead of confusing your wonderful staff into thinking that part of my last name might be my middle name, i decided to use my grandfather’s name - john ratcliffe.

i hope, one day, for both me and your publication - i’ll be able to update this to use my own name.

Jan. 21 2011

Harry Potter and the Farmer’s Market

If you’re somebody who’s interested in communicating big ideas, food is one of the most powerful tools you’ve got. It’s a universal, irresistible hook—the most common denominator. You can get people to think about economics, sociology, physiology, psychogeography (?!)—anything you want, really—if you simply connect it back to food. Not food policy!—I mean the real, tactile experience of food in the field and food on the plate.

good read.

Oct. 16 2010

Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
Conway’s Law (via kevintwohy)

Jan. 30 2010

hellloooo, mcfly!

Jan. 05 2010

Ideas cannot become shared ideas without some awareness of those ideas. You and others will not share beliefs and behaviors regarding water ice in comets without first having awareness. But, in an age of markets, networks and organizations, we all can and do become aware of ideas without regard to their accuracy. Our understanding —even if completely inaccurate and wrong — can and does lead to shared ideas and shared values. When this happens, truth deviates from accuracy. We share ideas and accept them as truth even though they are inaccurate. All of which suggests that our future and the future of our children and others around the globe will become more sustainable when our markets, networks, organizations, friends and families put more effort into the shared idea of accuracy than the shared idea of truth.

Accuracy and Truth (via azspot)

as the atlantic says, “think.  again.”

Dec. 29 2009

Most user-generated content is created as communication in small groups, but since we’re so unused to communications media and broadcast media being mixed together, we think that everyone is now broadcasting. This is a mistake. If we listened in on other people’s phone calls, we’d know to expect small talk, inside jokes, and the like, but people’s phone calls aren’t out in the open. One of the driving forces behind much user-generated content is that conversation is no longer limited to social cul-de-sacs like the phone.

Clay Shirky (via azspot)

This is actually something we’ve always acknowledged at Vimeo. We even had an awkwardly-worded tag line for a while, “not everyone should see everything,” that was meant to convey the closed nature of some interactions on the site. I like how Clay has expressed the ideas here.

(via dalasverdugo)

exactly.

man, that’s it.

Nov. 10 2009

Untangling brand and customer experience, in 10 minutes or less

Does the brand define the customer experience, or is the customer experience the brand? Your work may involve both, but you probably attack problems with a bias for one or the other.

a common business problem is not understanding how this works, what makes sense and what is appropriate.  not just from a communications stand-point but, really, how you operate and engage across the board.

this is a great video that distills the issue, misconceptions and proper solutions.  watch it and you’ll probably want to start reverse engineering your business.

daunting?  well, if you can’t take the heat then get out of the kitchen.

(via alex)