Dec. 20 2011

The View From Nowhere

excellent modern media critique.

undoubtedly, in an effort to foster non-opinion, thought leaders move to voice leaders and we’re left with a majority that no longer is rooted in any form of critical thinking.

Apr. 10 2011

Do we detect a note of disapproval in your analysis of the growing sexual freedom?
McLUHAN: No, I neither approve nor disapprove. I merely try to understand. Sexual freedom is as natural to newly tribalized youth as drugs.
PLAYBOY: What’s natural about drugs?
McLUHAN: They’re natural means of smoothing cultural transitions, and also a short cut into the electric vortex. The upsurge in drug taking is intimately related to the impact of the electric media. Look at the metaphor for getting high: turning on. One turns on his consciousness through drugs just as he opens up all his senses to a total depth involvement by turning on the TV dial. Drug taking is stimulated by today’s pervasive environment of instant information, with its feedback mechanism of the inner trip. The inner trip is not the sole prerogative of the LSD traveler; it’s the universal experience of TV watchers. LSD is a way of miming the invisible electronic world; it releases a person from acquired verbal and visual habits and reactions, and gives the potential of instant and total involvement, both all-at-onceness and all-at-oneness, which are the basic needs of people translated by electric extensions of their central nervous systems out of the old rational, sequential value system. The attraction to hallucinogenic drugs is a means of achieving empathy with our penetrating electric environment, an environment that in itself is a drugless inner trip. Drug taking is also a means of expressing rejection of the obsolescent mechanical world and values. And drugs often stimulate a fresh interest in artistic expression, which is primarily of the audile-tactile world. The hallucinogenic drugs, as chemical simulations of our electric environment, thus revive senses long atrophied by the overwhelmingly visual orientation of the mechanical culture. LSD and related hallucinogenic drugs, furthermore, breed a highly tribal and communally oriented subculture, so it’s understandable why the retribalized young take to drugs like a duck to water.
PLAYBOY: A Columbia coed was recently quoted in Newsweek as equating you and LSD. “LSD doesn’t mean anything until you consume it,” she said. “Likewise McLuhan.” Do you see any similarities?
McLUHAN: I’m flattered to hear my work described as hallucinogenic, but I suspect that some of my academic critics find me a bad trip.

Marshall McLuhan « NextNature.net (via neo-psychedelia)

“LSD doesn’t mean anything until you consume it,”

Feb. 07 2011

Nick Denton: What I Read

When people talk too much of the “revolutionary” impact of blogs, I’ll always mention one progenitor. The conversational style in news media started with the Daily Show, not with Gawker and the blogs.

all hail new jersey.

Jan. 07 2011

Why Wasn't I Consulted?

all of this.

Jun. 01 2010

How Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Is Crowdsourcing Done Right

peer deep into the eyes of NPR, they know all.  actually, they might - they’re tasked with creating programming that engages people and works well on budgets much smaller than most in today’s media world.

there is also a small argument for crappy programming on major networks.  there is no skin in the game anymore.

May. 13 2010

Putting a Price on Words

That’s precisely the problem: the sheer volume of words has overwhelmed a business model that was once based on scarcity and limited choice.

andrew does a great job of breaking down the business predicament surrounding digital journalism.  the greater publishing industry of yesterday didn’t understand the value of their content in relation to the new technology driving advertising’s evolution.  so, set that aside for a minute.

his piece goes on to imply that tomorrow will look just like we think it will look.  sites like gawker essentially playing “red rover” with revenue and profit until something shakes out and sticks.  the issue i have with all of this is that everyone, both traditional publishing & mr. denton, are showing their hand.  the majority of the revenue might sit within a common denominator of audience but what happens when we reach the point of scraping the bottom of a big barrel for 1/80th of a cent?  i don’t even want to imagine what kind of stuff you’ll be reading then.

denton is right, the delivery mechanism (“blog posts”) are a commodity - the money is made in building empires based on attention.  oh man, wait a minute, attention?  that - to me - is the golden ticket.  it’s the end game and is best captured not by vague click-through traps, rapid-fire posts within a 24hr period but by the stuff that sticks to the wall long after you’ve walked away from it.

the stuff that gets you to read the entire article, entice a desire to share publicly and even offer my own point of view on.  think about where you find stuff like that and who is producing it (more so, who is capable).  at the end of the day, you have to eat the food that is going to satisfy you the most and focusing on delivery mechanisms might keep you afloat for now, but what happens when someone does it better?

sustainability in our society’s intellectual culture isn’t built on the traps we set but instead the meals we make.  i’m convinced the day will come when people turn and walk back towards whence they came - the thirst not for “scarcity” or “limited choice” but a thirst for quality and concise editorial.

May. 11 2010

This seemingly nothing little slide actually reveals huge truths about the newspaper industry. Which is that subscription numbers—while they’re the backbone of what newspapers can sell against!—bring in basically negligible income. It also shows the number one mistake of newspapers. If editorial costs are a mere 14% of revenue, then the hugest mistake of the last 5 years has been the brutal hollowing out of editorial staff, which results in less content to sell and, indirectly, in less good content to sell against.
Google Believes Online Ads Could Be Worth More Than Print Ads by 2012 - The Awl

Showroulette

When people talk about serendipity, they’re not always talking about discovering some thing that’s totally brand-new. In fact, I’d hazard that they’re USUALLY talking about randomly unearthing some thing that’s comforting and familiar.

this is why TBS has been so successful.

Apr. 25 2010

Take Down

mikehudack:

heyitsnoah:

I do like it when people intelligently pick apart an argument that gets passed around the echo chamber. Over at his blog Whimsley, Tom Slee was kind enough to do just that to Clay Shirkey’s “Collapse of Complex Business Models” essay. The money quote comes towards the end, “Complexity is not going away. It’s just moving to a different spot in the production chain, and as it moves so does the balance of power.”

Also, interestingly, the essay kills an argument I’ve made myself: Pointing out that the “Charlie bit me” video no longer tops the YouTube all-time most watched list. That spot is now held by none other than Lady Gaga. “The most watched video made in the last five years shows Lady Gaga and a group of hired models dancing on an elaborate set in a video that embodies complex production methods, that is part of the Vevo channel (a joint venture between Google and major record labels) and that features product placements by Nemiroff Vodka, Parrot by Starck, Carerra sunglasses, and HP Envy.” So there’s that.

Via: Take Down // NoahBrier.com

The Lady Gaga example isn’t meaningful unless it’s part of a larger trend. The larger trend at the moment is towards simplicity, as Shirky points out. But nothing is ever as clear cut as pundits would have us believe. Articles that acknowledge the complexity of the real world are uninteresting, droll and unconvincing. So Shirky’s article on simplicity must make it all seem so simple. Which it is not. But overall I think he’s generally correct.

trying to figure out where i fall on this.

Apr. 08 2010

peterwknox:

pleaseshowmehowtolive:kissdistinctlyamerican:jasencomstock:savingpaper:

Kevin Drum on “one of the great under-told media success stories of the past decade,” the growth of NPR in contrast to the decline of other traditional media outlets:

NPR’s listenership has nearly doubled since 1999, even as newspaper circulation dropped off a cliff. Its programming now reaches 26.4 million listeners weekly — far more than USA Today’s 2.3 million daily circ or Fox News’ 2.8 million prime-time audience. When newspapers were closing bureaus, NPR was opening them, and now runs 38 around the world, better than CNN. It has 860 member stations — “boots on the ground in every town” that no newspaper or TV network can claim.

NPR FTW.  i’m a huge public radio advocate.  i was raised on it but there was a distinct switch from listening on circumstance (it being the channel on in my mom’s car) to seeking it out on my dial.  score one for staying the course and producing solid, engaging, valuable and in-depth programming.  see what happens when you’re not chasing ads?