Friday, June 05, 2009
What will you do if your local newspaper shuts down?
I first heard about the dire straits of central Connecticut's newspapers when I attended a journalism conference at Central Connecticut State University last November. The story wasn't making the national news, but the consequences--the threatened closing of several central Connecticut newspapers that are the "only games in town"--were potentially devastating. By January, lawmakers met with state officials to discuss what might save some of the papers in the Journal Register chain. The Bristol Press and the New Britain Herald were saved when a new owner stepped up. But other newspapers around the country haven't been as lucky.....
The Ann Arbor News, a paper in the massive Advance/Newhouse chain is slated to cease daily publication and focus mainly on their web presence, AnnArbor.com with a twice-weekly print publication starting in July. Other papers in large urban areas, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocky Mountain News closed up print-shop altogether and are now web-only.
That's not to mention the huge numbers of weeklies all over the country that have closed up shop altogether.
So, what if legislators don't step in? What if it's not cost-effective to shut down the print product and go web-only? I asked Placebloggers about the newspaper-death watch in their regions and what they might be doing about it....
Barry Rafkind of SomervilleVoices.org , a "new media collaborative" of Somerville, MA residents, wrote about what's going on in Boston, where the GateHouse New England papers have experienced major cutbacks, and the situation between The Boston Globe and its parent company (NYTimes Co.) remains precarious. Barry told our Placeblogger group: "These cutbacks motivate our team behind SomervilleVoices.org to work harder and faster on setting up our own community-funded journalism similar to Spot.Us but using ThePoint instead. We have solicited story ideas on the blog and are looking for fiscal sponsorship from a non-profit to allow us to collect donations. "
Ross Nunamaker in Nazareth, PA, whose placeblog NewsOverCoffe is a "one and a half person show" that currently doesn't make money, said that his community " is situated in the 'overlap' area of two daily publications and gets more recognition than it probably should in the fight for subscriptions. My placeblog benefits from this because both work well with me and I recognize their coverage for potential subscribers.
"One is more 'bloated' and the other 'leaner', needless to say bloat is getting cut and lean is doing as well as can be expected."
Steve Thurston who keeps the Buckingham Herald Tribblog in Arlington, VA noted that the weekly Arlington Connection may be in "bad shape," as it is the smallest paper in a 19-paper chain, and may be treading water with a small staff of seven.
On the other hand, Steve observed some interesting things going in back in his hometown of Glens Falls, NY with its local weekly, The Chronicle: "They've always been a lean corporation and have never had a website of any real value. Everyone up there reads the Chronicle, and they run almost exclusively the ads of small, local businesses. They have I think one car dealership and occasionally an insert for a pharmacy or grocery chain. Mostly it's the local roofers, law offices, business supplies, boutiques of whatever type, restaurants, etc. "
Perhaps the solution to the problem with local newspapers isn't a singular solution. It could be that each paper has to take into consideration not just how to help it run "leaner and meaner" but also must consider the cultural landscape that it exists within. The solutions to the survival of local papers may be as distinct as local cuisine. And in that mix, placebloggers can come in and add their own particular spice to the mix to help maintain a vibrant and vital news community.
Further reading: Ross Nunamaker has created some great lenses on Squidoo on starting and maintaining a placeblog. Check out his Placeblogging 101 "Connect Neighbors to Build better Communities" lens and Placeblogging 201: "Technical and Legal Considerations" lens for some great info.
This post originally published at Placeblogger.com
Stumble It!
The Ann Arbor News, a paper in the massive Advance/Newhouse chain is slated to cease daily publication and focus mainly on their web presence, AnnArbor.com with a twice-weekly print publication starting in July. Other papers in large urban areas, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocky Mountain News closed up print-shop altogether and are now web-only.
That's not to mention the huge numbers of weeklies all over the country that have closed up shop altogether.
So, what if legislators don't step in? What if it's not cost-effective to shut down the print product and go web-only? I asked Placebloggers about the newspaper-death watch in their regions and what they might be doing about it....
Barry Rafkind of SomervilleVoices.org , a "new media collaborative" of Somerville, MA residents, wrote about what's going on in Boston, where the GateHouse New England papers have experienced major cutbacks, and the situation between The Boston Globe and its parent company (NYTimes Co.) remains precarious. Barry told our Placeblogger group: "These cutbacks motivate our team behind SomervilleVoices.org to work harder and faster on setting up our own community-funded journalism similar to Spot.Us but using ThePoint instead. We have solicited story ideas on the blog and are looking for fiscal sponsorship from a non-profit to allow us to collect donations. "
Ross Nunamaker in Nazareth, PA, whose placeblog NewsOverCoffe is a "one and a half person show" that currently doesn't make money, said that his community " is situated in the 'overlap' area of two daily publications and gets more recognition than it probably should in the fight for subscriptions. My placeblog benefits from this because both work well with me and I recognize their coverage for potential subscribers.
"One is more 'bloated' and the other 'leaner', needless to say bloat is getting cut and lean is doing as well as can be expected."
Steve Thurston who keeps the Buckingham Herald Tribblog in Arlington, VA noted that the weekly Arlington Connection may be in "bad shape," as it is the smallest paper in a 19-paper chain, and may be treading water with a small staff of seven.
On the other hand, Steve observed some interesting things going in back in his hometown of Glens Falls, NY with its local weekly, The Chronicle: "They've always been a lean corporation and have never had a website of any real value. Everyone up there reads the Chronicle, and they run almost exclusively the ads of small, local businesses. They have I think one car dealership and occasionally an insert for a pharmacy or grocery chain. Mostly it's the local roofers, law offices, business supplies, boutiques of whatever type, restaurants, etc. "
Perhaps the solution to the problem with local newspapers isn't a singular solution. It could be that each paper has to take into consideration not just how to help it run "leaner and meaner" but also must consider the cultural landscape that it exists within. The solutions to the survival of local papers may be as distinct as local cuisine. And in that mix, placebloggers can come in and add their own particular spice to the mix to help maintain a vibrant and vital news community.
Further reading: Ross Nunamaker has created some great lenses on Squidoo on starting and maintaining a placeblog. Check out his Placeblogging 101 "Connect Neighbors to Build better Communities" lens and Placeblogging 201: "Technical and Legal Considerations" lens for some great info.
This post originally published at Placeblogger.com
Stumble It! 
Saturday, May 30, 2009
On Knowing the Rare Circumstance of Falling in Love
This a.m., @agahran tweeted a link to a story in the NYTimes by Louise Rafkin on Rafkin's work interviewing couples on how they met. Amy was a bit peeved that Rafkin's assignment didn't include polyamourous couples. Yet poliamory aside, Rafkin's meditation on her work, (as it is more than an essay) and her own troubles with finding love, struck a chord with me on so many levels....
I, too, have often found myself on the outside of love, looking in at the relationships of others, trying to discern what it is that makes their relationships work over the long haul. It's true that some are in a "staying together for the kids" kind of thing, but some of the couples that I've known over 20-odd years have gone thru that and come to the other side with many becoming stronger for what they went through.
Granted, a few have divorced--mostly because one or the other partner realized that she/he had "outgrown" the other. In other words, that their lives and values had changed so dramatically that they were no longer on the same page.
That's the thing--sometimes our values do indeed change from 20-somethings to Middle-Agers. We want more children or less children. One emerges a raging conservative, while the other slides into born-again liberalism. One 'fesses up, finally, that he's gay, while she decides she needs some younger stuff to keep up with her sex drive. One can no longer deal with the penny-wise, pound-foolishness or paranoid thriftyness of the other.
Life happens and changes us, this is true. But what of the whole "love" thing? Rafkin, like me, wonders how we know when we've found it, if so many people have such odd and unconventional falling in love stories.
Some of us just never had a good template to begin with. Like Rafkin, I didn't have good home role models to understand what love looked like in action, let alone what it might feel like. When I did fall in love, with my first husband, as I now know I was in retrospect, I didn't believe it nor did I understand what I was feeling. There was all this fear, all the time--this butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling. We shared so many interests, taught each other so much about art and music and all sorts of things at such a young age (I was 19, he was 21 when we met)but had no clue how to take all this love and build it into something that would sustain us over the long haul.
There weren't any parents to help. In fact, the parents were more willing to break us up than help us stay together....
How could love feel like fear? Well, when you've never really known love, or have seen something that was pretty horrid, and told it was love, then you can easily have a bellyfull of fear when love comes into your life. At least that's what I've figured out about my life in relation to love.
I've sat for a lot of tarot card readings in my life. Growing up with a lot of superstitions and a weird kind of Sicilian Catholicism married with oddbal Fundamentalist Doctrine of Predestination, the idea of fortune tellers as true seers of our life paths was presented as more plausible than the ideas of free will and mastery over one's own life. I've had a lot of fortune tellers tell me I'd have multiple soul mates. That idea doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. And makes me wonder about the veracity of fortune tellers anyway.
Esp. since I believe that if I can figure out what's "wrong" with my decision making on the mate thing that I'd find the right one.
But, like Rafkin, when I hear other people's stories, I'm not so sure that tactic will work any more than listening to fortune tellers.
I'm thinking more about this these days because I've decided to get out there and start dating again--because while I'm very independent and like my own space, I'd really like to share some of my secrets with someone who will understand, and will go crazy wild places with me, who knows pop culture, and may even find rollerball and Blade Runner to be his favorite movies as well. I've had a relationship for about 8 years, but we are a City Mouse, Country Mouse temperament combination that just will not work over the long haul. Lovely man, really, but as I become more comfortable with my essential adventure-geek nature, I see how we can't work unless we're living separate lives, with him on the mountains, observing me appreciatively when I cruise into his world from a drive on Adventure Road.
I've wondered about this, too. If I'm not being too shallow and wanting someone who shares what some might think are "superficial interests." So many of the long-term loving couples I've known share a foundation of religious beliefs, attend a church, and all that. While I studied religion in college, and have a love of it, I'm not a church attender. Church, no matter the denomination, isn't all that welcoming to single folk. And yes, there's the whole church-lady-with-single-son thing, but that doesn't mean he's going to be the kind of guy who can spend hours in funky comic book shops looking for British horror novels and enjoy art books with titles like "Robots and Donuts."
Doesn't mean he's going to go for a good martini and pizza dinner either.
One good thing though that I've learned in all my examination of myself and my reactions is that when I meet certain types of guys, I hear bells. Literally. Now, most of y'all might think that this means I've found that True Love Soul Mate. Hardly. As I've recently discovered about my relationship with my Dad, the bells are really alarms, telling me I've met a guy like my Dad, who's very charming on the outside and very messed up on the inside. The bells mean "stay away!"
At least I know now.
Character is something I know more about, too. I can tell a guy's values through conversation--if he's hard-working and has empathy, or is superficial and judging me by superficials rather than listening to what I'm saying. So, it's a combination of senses and observations....
Knowing all this, and no longer apologizing for who I am and the geeky things I like (although IMO, in some ways, by saying the things I like are "geeky" or "weird", I may still be apologizing) I'm looking at different things. I'm looking at cues of character. I remember meeting my first husband, and there weren't huge clanging bells at first (as there was with the second, which I now know was a big warning.) I thought he was cute, and we liked the same kind of music. It grew from there. (caveat: that doesn't mean it was all peaches and cream and other people's fault that we split up. he had a pot-smoking problem, and I had some other issues, too. marriage was too much for us. so much that love couldn't conquer all.)
So, like Rafkin, I'm wondering if love will ever happen (again) and not when. I wonder if I've examined things too well, and if I'm expecting some kind of perfection. Not really. I'm not looking for a 1970's Robert Redford look-alike who's got a shelf full of collector SpiderMan comics and works as an art restoration specialist, has never been married and exudes empathy. No, not at all. Prince Charming doesn't necessarily exist, and waiting for him is a living death. I also know that, as I slowly careen towards 50 (it's two years away) that the pool is getting more and more shallow (boy! is it shallow in W. Mass), or the baggage is getting larger and larger. We all have baggage, just as long as it's reasonable and not held together with emotional duct tape, then we're good.
Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I have to get out more. That's something that's very different from when I was younger. I used to be out and about a lot, which made it easier to meet guys. I used to yell at my friend Marge that she wasn't going to meet anyone sitting on her couch in her fuzzy slippers watching a Yankee game with her cats in her lap. Well, I'm not going to meet anyone in sweat pants flip-flops, eating a stake and drinking leftover wine while watching CSI. There's fear of getting out and about, for sure, as I'm not the slimmest or cutest any more (as I once was, trust me on that.) But unless I'm perfectly happy alone, and I'm not, I can't settle for a life of books, tv, and good friends.
There is more to me than that, and I want more.
I have to stop observing. I'm not like Rafkin, where observing and writing is her SF Chron assignment. It's not mine.
I'll never know if I don't jump in.
I have to jump in, no matter how fearful I am, and no matter how much the despair of being "too old" and never finding anyone might grab me by the throat and throttle me into senselessness.
I've got to shake that off like Chev Chelios and keep going...
I have to find my heart too.
That's all there is to it.... Stumble It!
I, too, have often found myself on the outside of love, looking in at the relationships of others, trying to discern what it is that makes their relationships work over the long haul. It's true that some are in a "staying together for the kids" kind of thing, but some of the couples that I've known over 20-odd years have gone thru that and come to the other side with many becoming stronger for what they went through.
Granted, a few have divorced--mostly because one or the other partner realized that she/he had "outgrown" the other. In other words, that their lives and values had changed so dramatically that they were no longer on the same page.
That's the thing--sometimes our values do indeed change from 20-somethings to Middle-Agers. We want more children or less children. One emerges a raging conservative, while the other slides into born-again liberalism. One 'fesses up, finally, that he's gay, while she decides she needs some younger stuff to keep up with her sex drive. One can no longer deal with the penny-wise, pound-foolishness or paranoid thriftyness of the other.
Life happens and changes us, this is true. But what of the whole "love" thing? Rafkin, like me, wonders how we know when we've found it, if so many people have such odd and unconventional falling in love stories.
Some of us just never had a good template to begin with. Like Rafkin, I didn't have good home role models to understand what love looked like in action, let alone what it might feel like. When I did fall in love, with my first husband, as I now know I was in retrospect, I didn't believe it nor did I understand what I was feeling. There was all this fear, all the time--this butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling. We shared so many interests, taught each other so much about art and music and all sorts of things at such a young age (I was 19, he was 21 when we met)but had no clue how to take all this love and build it into something that would sustain us over the long haul.
There weren't any parents to help. In fact, the parents were more willing to break us up than help us stay together....
How could love feel like fear? Well, when you've never really known love, or have seen something that was pretty horrid, and told it was love, then you can easily have a bellyfull of fear when love comes into your life. At least that's what I've figured out about my life in relation to love.
I've sat for a lot of tarot card readings in my life. Growing up with a lot of superstitions and a weird kind of Sicilian Catholicism married with oddbal Fundamentalist Doctrine of Predestination, the idea of fortune tellers as true seers of our life paths was presented as more plausible than the ideas of free will and mastery over one's own life. I've had a lot of fortune tellers tell me I'd have multiple soul mates. That idea doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. And makes me wonder about the veracity of fortune tellers anyway.
Esp. since I believe that if I can figure out what's "wrong" with my decision making on the mate thing that I'd find the right one.
But, like Rafkin, when I hear other people's stories, I'm not so sure that tactic will work any more than listening to fortune tellers.
I'm thinking more about this these days because I've decided to get out there and start dating again--because while I'm very independent and like my own space, I'd really like to share some of my secrets with someone who will understand, and will go crazy wild places with me, who knows pop culture, and may even find rollerball and Blade Runner to be his favorite movies as well. I've had a relationship for about 8 years, but we are a City Mouse, Country Mouse temperament combination that just will not work over the long haul. Lovely man, really, but as I become more comfortable with my essential adventure-geek nature, I see how we can't work unless we're living separate lives, with him on the mountains, observing me appreciatively when I cruise into his world from a drive on Adventure Road.
I've wondered about this, too. If I'm not being too shallow and wanting someone who shares what some might think are "superficial interests." So many of the long-term loving couples I've known share a foundation of religious beliefs, attend a church, and all that. While I studied religion in college, and have a love of it, I'm not a church attender. Church, no matter the denomination, isn't all that welcoming to single folk. And yes, there's the whole church-lady-with-single-son thing, but that doesn't mean he's going to be the kind of guy who can spend hours in funky comic book shops looking for British horror novels and enjoy art books with titles like "Robots and Donuts."
Doesn't mean he's going to go for a good martini and pizza dinner either.
One good thing though that I've learned in all my examination of myself and my reactions is that when I meet certain types of guys, I hear bells. Literally. Now, most of y'all might think that this means I've found that True Love Soul Mate. Hardly. As I've recently discovered about my relationship with my Dad, the bells are really alarms, telling me I've met a guy like my Dad, who's very charming on the outside and very messed up on the inside. The bells mean "stay away!"
At least I know now.
Character is something I know more about, too. I can tell a guy's values through conversation--if he's hard-working and has empathy, or is superficial and judging me by superficials rather than listening to what I'm saying. So, it's a combination of senses and observations....
Knowing all this, and no longer apologizing for who I am and the geeky things I like (although IMO, in some ways, by saying the things I like are "geeky" or "weird", I may still be apologizing) I'm looking at different things. I'm looking at cues of character. I remember meeting my first husband, and there weren't huge clanging bells at first (as there was with the second, which I now know was a big warning.) I thought he was cute, and we liked the same kind of music. It grew from there. (caveat: that doesn't mean it was all peaches and cream and other people's fault that we split up. he had a pot-smoking problem, and I had some other issues, too. marriage was too much for us. so much that love couldn't conquer all.)
So, like Rafkin, I'm wondering if love will ever happen (again) and not when. I wonder if I've examined things too well, and if I'm expecting some kind of perfection. Not really. I'm not looking for a 1970's Robert Redford look-alike who's got a shelf full of collector SpiderMan comics and works as an art restoration specialist, has never been married and exudes empathy. No, not at all. Prince Charming doesn't necessarily exist, and waiting for him is a living death. I also know that, as I slowly careen towards 50 (it's two years away) that the pool is getting more and more shallow (boy! is it shallow in W. Mass), or the baggage is getting larger and larger. We all have baggage, just as long as it's reasonable and not held together with emotional duct tape, then we're good.
Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I have to get out more. That's something that's very different from when I was younger. I used to be out and about a lot, which made it easier to meet guys. I used to yell at my friend Marge that she wasn't going to meet anyone sitting on her couch in her fuzzy slippers watching a Yankee game with her cats in her lap. Well, I'm not going to meet anyone in sweat pants flip-flops, eating a stake and drinking leftover wine while watching CSI. There's fear of getting out and about, for sure, as I'm not the slimmest or cutest any more (as I once was, trust me on that.) But unless I'm perfectly happy alone, and I'm not, I can't settle for a life of books, tv, and good friends.
There is more to me than that, and I want more.
I have to stop observing. I'm not like Rafkin, where observing and writing is her SF Chron assignment. It's not mine.
I'll never know if I don't jump in.
I have to jump in, no matter how fearful I am, and no matter how much the despair of being "too old" and never finding anyone might grab me by the throat and throttle me into senselessness.
I've got to shake that off like Chev Chelios and keep going...
I have to find my heart too.
That's all there is to it....
Stumble It! Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Busy, Busy, Busy (and then some)
From time to time I have to take a blogging hiatus. It usually happens because I'm up to my eyeballs in things and can't seem to dig myself out...and that I need to engage more in the f2f world....
Well, it's one of those times again.
I seem to be quite busy with a number of projects, including some teaching about social media--from which I've learned that I absolutely love teaching about social media and new media. It's actually fun to convey my love of all this great stuff to a bunch of people who want to learn about it.
Recently, I had something of a work-vacation. Was out in L.A., S.F. and New Orleans. While I was on the road, I realized I really like being on the road. I like being able to take a day and see a city, and I'm learning, that if I'm staying in a good hotel, to go to the bar and find out from the bartender the cool places (I don't have to know all of this in advance.)
Here I am, on a rare off-day vacation day, standing in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theater in L.A. I was tired, but I felt good. I was where I wanted to be, exploring Hollywood Boulevard, being myself for a change.
It's been a very long time since I've taken a vacation to places where I've wanted to go (not where someone else wants to go), it's been a long time since I've met interesting people who were artists and musicians and bouncers and tattoo artists. A long time since I met guys who found me attractive(yes, that's been an issue for awhile, believe it or not.) It's been a long time since I've had fun for any length of time, that wasn't punctuated with some sort of media.
I'm talking about the kinds of fun I like to have: art shows and good movies in incredible theaters and music and friendship. Even maybe dating again at some point...
And it's been a long time since I've been really, really me.
I had to go on a long journey to find me. In that journey, I had to come inside this space of social media, feel it out, make connections, re-form me, start something of a career in here, one that would be in tune with me. I have, in many ways, done that and on my terms...
So, in some way, the break from blogging is because there are other places for me to be in the social media space. There are also other places for me to be in the f2f world, where there are experiences that delight all of my senses, and people who want to talk with me and hear my voice, not just thru a device of some kind.
What may result is some re-branding. A new look, a new image, a new something. Maybe I'll come back to this. I don't know.
We'll just have to wait and see. Stumble It!
Well, it's one of those times again.
I seem to be quite busy with a number of projects, including some teaching about social media--from which I've learned that I absolutely love teaching about social media and new media. It's actually fun to convey my love of all this great stuff to a bunch of people who want to learn about it.
Recently, I had something of a work-vacation. Was out in L.A., S.F. and New Orleans. While I was on the road, I realized I really like being on the road. I like being able to take a day and see a city, and I'm learning, that if I'm staying in a good hotel, to go to the bar and find out from the bartender the cool places (I don't have to know all of this in advance.)
Here I am, on a rare off-day vacation day, standing in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theater in L.A. I was tired, but I felt good. I was where I wanted to be, exploring Hollywood Boulevard, being myself for a change.
It's been a very long time since I've taken a vacation to places where I've wanted to go (not where someone else wants to go), it's been a long time since I've met interesting people who were artists and musicians and bouncers and tattoo artists. A long time since I met guys who found me attractive(yes, that's been an issue for awhile, believe it or not.) It's been a long time since I've had fun for any length of time, that wasn't punctuated with some sort of media.
I'm talking about the kinds of fun I like to have: art shows and good movies in incredible theaters and music and friendship. Even maybe dating again at some point...
And it's been a long time since I've been really, really me.
I had to go on a long journey to find me. In that journey, I had to come inside this space of social media, feel it out, make connections, re-form me, start something of a career in here, one that would be in tune with me. I have, in many ways, done that and on my terms...
So, in some way, the break from blogging is because there are other places for me to be in the social media space. There are also other places for me to be in the f2f world, where there are experiences that delight all of my senses, and people who want to talk with me and hear my voice, not just thru a device of some kind.
What may result is some re-branding. A new look, a new image, a new something. Maybe I'll come back to this. I don't know.
We'll just have to wait and see.
Stumble It! Monday, May 04, 2009
SIIA Afternoon Keynote: Brewster Kahle on Universal access to knowledge
This afternoon at the SIIA NetGain Convergence of Content and Technology conference, Brewster Kahle, the Founder & Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive is speaking. I am most interested in hearing what Kahle has to say, esp. with regard to the work that's done at Placeblogger, and with numbers of sites that simply vanished when web hosting services like Geocities have been shut down.
I asked Kahle about this before he spoke, and he and I agreed that, unfortunately, a lot of it will just go away. Some is archived and could be found via the WayBack Machine. Still, some is lost forever.
Kahle begins that we could indeed have universal access to all knowledge. He's going to show how technological, copyright, etc issues are coming together...
Looking at Text, if we try to put everything online, how much is there already? and what needs to be added? the 26million books in the Library of Congress? and how hard is that to get online. One book is about 1MB. It would cost too much to put all of the Library of Congress online. But what would you get for it and would anyone care??
We're starting to get print on demand services, as well as things that let you read online in a manner similar to turning pages in a book. So, we can go from digital to print, and then from print back to digital.
When print on demand went to countries such as Egypt, they found they had lots of old books, but not a lot of new books...
Amazon does much print on demand--we just don't know it!
One Laptop Per Child devices can be used like Kindle. Kahle shows us one used in this manner.
How do we get all those books online? Shipped to India and China, but found that scan-your-own was better. Robots broke down. Created a special scanner with two mirrors that, while looking primitive, is highly effective at $0.10 per page! It takes about 12 hours for the computer to do the processing to a PDF (very time consuming but effective.)
There are 18 scanning centers across the U.S., with 200 people working for the Internet Archive and 50 scanning books. They get about 1,000 books scanned a day!
There are about 1 million books in 8 collections. All are out-of-copyright books. Copyright raises issues.
Audio: how much audio is there? and how does it get processed? About 2-3 million. and could be easily put online, but it is highly litigious. So, they stay away from highly commercial works.
One big success is among rock musicians. Greatful Dead in particular. Allows for trading of music as long as *no money is made from the activity!* But as stuff got online, trading became harder. Internet Archive offered unlimited storage, bandwidth for free. Turns out there are other bands that do what the Dead does. One to three bands a day signed up, and now there's 3,000 plus bands and their live recordings. Some communities can be helped and supported, like this community, in open ways.
Internet Archive has 200,000 audio items in over 100 collections!
It's smaller than text and different legally, so not handled the same as text
Moving Images There are about 150,000 around, and about 1,000 that are not copyrighted. 50 percent of the 150,000 are from India (!?!?!) Formats of moving images keep changing. Movies that are in IA were converted and re-coded to make it easier to find. There's maintenance of moving image archiving.
The Internet Archive has tons of old public service films and educational films that are out of copyright and uploaded regularly. But, however, IA doesn't know why people would want these films ;-)
Moving Images also include television programs. Tons of TV programs are recorded daily. See the Television ArchiveS
On site staff at the Presidio (where the IA is localted) is about 35 people. That's very small
Software has lots of difficulties in archiving. Copyright, platforms, etc. Lots of the storage of this is difficult becuase of these issues.
Started collecting the WWW around 1980's Nowadays, 4 billiion pages are archived.
Want to see your old website: go to the WayBack machine to find old sites.
If you're doing something to help people, they won't get angry at what you do with content online. If you do something wrong, you'll get in trouble.
If we're working to create the Library of Alexandria 1, might not be a great idea.If we build this thing up, what should be do differently: MAKE COPIES! Digital copies are easy to make.
They designed their own computer! (I'm very impressed)
So, we can collect up, and preserve all kinds of media over the long haul
But the library industry is imploding like many other industries. Monopolies forming--which isn't good. Libraries are getting to be central controlled, not local controlled. They are ruled by contract now, raterh than ruled by Law. They aer for-profit and not non profit.
What about the future of books? Books play a different role in our lives than other forms of media. They are like the mind. They are written by one person and are one person's idea.
What's going on with books: Book publishers having trouble making money. A couple of big players are controlling aggregation of works, as well as distribution in order to try to control the distribution on media. Google is aggregating libraries (public domain works) and putting restrictions on what they aggregate! (how awful!)
Class action law that was used to control digitizing of content--so that Google can lock up content. To Kahle, it doesn't seem right that literary "orphan" books should. Class action settlements are making changes in content. Secretly negotiated class actions effective in making legislative decisions without legislating.
What we need is a set of standards. We're also missing distance lending of copyright.
If we keep our eye on the ball (on the potential monopolies), we can have all this knowledge at our disposal.
At the end, someone confuses Kahle with the digital utopians who believe all content should be free. That's not what he was saying. What he said was how we should be careful that content doesn't get owned and monetized by monopolies--esp. "orphan" books, which no one has made money off of for a very long time. But he is not against paid-for content. Just that the payment goes to the right people Stumble It!
I asked Kahle about this before he spoke, and he and I agreed that, unfortunately, a lot of it will just go away. Some is archived and could be found via the WayBack Machine. Still, some is lost forever.
Kahle begins that we could indeed have universal access to all knowledge. He's going to show how technological, copyright, etc issues are coming together...
Looking at Text, if we try to put everything online, how much is there already? and what needs to be added? the 26million books in the Library of Congress? and how hard is that to get online. One book is about 1MB. It would cost too much to put all of the Library of Congress online. But what would you get for it and would anyone care??
We're starting to get print on demand services, as well as things that let you read online in a manner similar to turning pages in a book. So, we can go from digital to print, and then from print back to digital.
When print on demand went to countries such as Egypt, they found they had lots of old books, but not a lot of new books...
Amazon does much print on demand--we just don't know it!
One Laptop Per Child devices can be used like Kindle. Kahle shows us one used in this manner.
How do we get all those books online? Shipped to India and China, but found that scan-your-own was better. Robots broke down. Created a special scanner with two mirrors that, while looking primitive, is highly effective at $0.10 per page! It takes about 12 hours for the computer to do the processing to a PDF (very time consuming but effective.)
There are 18 scanning centers across the U.S., with 200 people working for the Internet Archive and 50 scanning books. They get about 1,000 books scanned a day!
There are about 1 million books in 8 collections. All are out-of-copyright books. Copyright raises issues.
Audio: how much audio is there? and how does it get processed? About 2-3 million. and could be easily put online, but it is highly litigious. So, they stay away from highly commercial works.
One big success is among rock musicians. Greatful Dead in particular. Allows for trading of music as long as *no money is made from the activity!* But as stuff got online, trading became harder. Internet Archive offered unlimited storage, bandwidth for free. Turns out there are other bands that do what the Dead does. One to three bands a day signed up, and now there's 3,000 plus bands and their live recordings. Some communities can be helped and supported, like this community, in open ways.
Internet Archive has 200,000 audio items in over 100 collections!
It's smaller than text and different legally, so not handled the same as text
Moving Images There are about 150,000 around, and about 1,000 that are not copyrighted. 50 percent of the 150,000 are from India (!?!?!) Formats of moving images keep changing. Movies that are in IA were converted and re-coded to make it easier to find. There's maintenance of moving image archiving.
The Internet Archive has tons of old public service films and educational films that are out of copyright and uploaded regularly. But, however, IA doesn't know why people would want these films ;-)
Moving Images also include television programs. Tons of TV programs are recorded daily. See the Television ArchiveS
On site staff at the Presidio (where the IA is localted) is about 35 people. That's very small
Software has lots of difficulties in archiving. Copyright, platforms, etc. Lots of the storage of this is difficult becuase of these issues.
Started collecting the WWW around 1980's Nowadays, 4 billiion pages are archived.
Want to see your old website: go to the WayBack machine to find old sites.
If you're doing something to help people, they won't get angry at what you do with content online. If you do something wrong, you'll get in trouble.
If we're working to create the Library of Alexandria 1, might not be a great idea.If we build this thing up, what should be do differently: MAKE COPIES! Digital copies are easy to make.
They designed their own computer! (I'm very impressed)
So, we can collect up, and preserve all kinds of media over the long haul
But the library industry is imploding like many other industries. Monopolies forming--which isn't good. Libraries are getting to be central controlled, not local controlled. They are ruled by contract now, raterh than ruled by Law. They aer for-profit and not non profit.
What about the future of books? Books play a different role in our lives than other forms of media. They are like the mind. They are written by one person and are one person's idea.
What's going on with books: Book publishers having trouble making money. A couple of big players are controlling aggregation of works, as well as distribution in order to try to control the distribution on media. Google is aggregating libraries (public domain works) and putting restrictions on what they aggregate! (how awful!)
Class action law that was used to control digitizing of content--so that Google can lock up content. To Kahle, it doesn't seem right that literary "orphan" books should. Class action settlements are making changes in content. Secretly negotiated class actions effective in making legislative decisions without legislating.
What we need is a set of standards. We're also missing distance lending of copyright.
If we keep our eye on the ball (on the potential monopolies), we can have all this knowledge at our disposal.
At the end, someone confuses Kahle with the digital utopians who believe all content should be free. That's not what he was saying. What he said was how we should be careful that content doesn't get owned and monetized by monopolies--esp. "orphan" books, which no one has made money off of for a very long time. But he is not against paid-for content. Just that the payment goes to the right people
Stumble It! Wednesday, April 22, 2009
It takes more than a village to protect kids online
Every now and then I get to talk with college-age students about social media and all the stuff going with privacy, identity, and security on the Internet (most recently at Smith College, my Alma Mater.) More often than not, I find that they really don't know too much about how to protect themselves from fraud, let alone how to construct online identities that won't hurt their job chances. Yet, the assumption continues among lazy adults that "kids know it all" about the Internet....
Well, finally, the Government and tech giants have realized the inanity of believing "kids know it all" and have teamed up in an new program that will teach kids not just how to handle cyber bullies, but also how to deal with online frauds and scam artists.
Now, I'm not thrilled that this is coming out of the Department of Homeland Security, but, when I think about it, what goes on in our little machines on our desks or in our laps could impact the larger network of computers out there.
We're never really alone with our machines, if you think about it.
The program will be administered by the non-profit National Cyber Security Alliance, has a curriculum, and will send to the schools volunteers from companies such as EMC and Science Applications International Corp. Support will come from Symantec, Cisco, and Microsoft, to name a few of the companies involved.
Apparently, one of the motivators for starting the program was the results of a study done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project which found that only 3 percent of state school curriculums instructed students on proper use of social networks and chat rooms. Yet schools are often giving assignments that require Internet use.
I guess the assumption was that kids were getting taught *something* about the Internet at home. But think about it: how many of us have heard stories of parents who plop computers in kids' rooms, and then allow the kids to just close the bedroom door? How many of us have heard parents say how they want to "spy" on their kids' activities online, rather than find out how things work or what's going on in the greater world of life online?
So, I'd hazard a guess that there are indeed bigtime security reasons that may go beyond "identity theft" and "stalkers" that have become reasons for the government to create a program like this to teach kids the things they're not getting taught anywhere else.
Think about it. Stumble It!
Well, finally, the Government and tech giants have realized the inanity of believing "kids know it all" and have teamed up in an new program that will teach kids not just how to handle cyber bullies, but also how to deal with online frauds and scam artists.
Now, I'm not thrilled that this is coming out of the Department of Homeland Security, but, when I think about it, what goes on in our little machines on our desks or in our laps could impact the larger network of computers out there.
We're never really alone with our machines, if you think about it.
The program will be administered by the non-profit National Cyber Security Alliance, has a curriculum, and will send to the schools volunteers from companies such as EMC and Science Applications International Corp. Support will come from Symantec, Cisco, and Microsoft, to name a few of the companies involved.
Apparently, one of the motivators for starting the program was the results of a study done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project which found that only 3 percent of state school curriculums instructed students on proper use of social networks and chat rooms. Yet schools are often giving assignments that require Internet use.
I guess the assumption was that kids were getting taught *something* about the Internet at home. But think about it: how many of us have heard stories of parents who plop computers in kids' rooms, and then allow the kids to just close the bedroom door? How many of us have heard parents say how they want to "spy" on their kids' activities online, rather than find out how things work or what's going on in the greater world of life online?
So, I'd hazard a guess that there are indeed bigtime security reasons that may go beyond "identity theft" and "stalkers" that have become reasons for the government to create a program like this to teach kids the things they're not getting taught anywhere else.
Think about it.
Stumble It! Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Never Ask a Teen-Ager How To Use Twitter
Update 6/1/09 A new study from Pace University and the Participatory Marketing Project shows that only 22 percent of Gen Y (The Millenials) are using Twitter The blurb on the study goes on to say that Gen Y has to be convinced of the value of Twitter Um, if you have to convince them so hard, then maybe it's a medium that they don't need right now--they may need it as they get older and can't text from their workplace. Sheesh! Apps, though, are hot for everyone Thanx C-Net for the link end
Ask a middle-aged early adopter! Seriously....
In a post today on the Comscore blog, blogger Sarah Radwanik notes how Comscore has observed a huge spike in Twitter traffic over the past months including an increase in U.S. traffic, with users reaching 4 million...
Comscore hasn't released their official analysis of the Twitter numbers, but Radwanik points to a post by Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic who recently posted about the demographics of Twitter users. Radwanik extrapolated on Oreskovic's bare-bones figures and found that "18-24 year olds, the traditional social media early adopters, are actually 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter (Index of 88). It is the 25-54 year old crowd that is actually driving this trend. More specifically, 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely." Check out the following two graphs showing the rise in traffic and rise in age demographic usage:
So, when Joe Blundo of The Columbus Dispatch asked his teen-aged daughter about Twitter and she told him he wouldn't like it, he should have gone to the more tech savvy folks he (maybe doesn't) know and ask one of them about Twitter.
He would have gotten a far better answer about it, and perhaps wouldn't be still scratching his head over it.
Ian Paul at PC World suggests that "[T]his means the concept of the technologically inclined "early adopter" as a young, predominately male demographic may have to be revisited."
MAY HAVE TO BE REVISITED!?!? My god! I've been screaming about this one for some time now. This just goes to show me so many in mainstream media are so in love with the hype around the youth demographic that they have failed to see what is happening right under their noses among people their own age.
How bloody insulting!
What might account for the rise of Twitter use among a not-so-youthful demographic? As a constant and continual observer of patters in online use among the marketing and journalism communities I've seen how the message of Twitter's effectiveness has not gone unheeded. And while there are many great, fun, and not overbearing uses of Twitter in marketing like @DaveTheShoeGuy, there are also a cadre of dorky, dimwitted, and egotistical multi-level-marketers and other assorted snake-oil salespeople spamming us daily with their "follows." Among journalists--many of them middle-aged--there is a high, and highly effective, use of Twitter. The journalists who use it are so good at it, I had to write a post about it.
My observations have lead me to conclude that a good understanding of how to use Twitter comes from the adept use of both online and face to face communication. Far from being the closeted geeks of old, the middle-aged Early Adopter crowd are the people who have those skills down pat. Is it any wonder that they're doing so well on Twitter (when you tease out the dorks, that is.)? Perhaps only to those dazzled by youth--but not to the truly social media savvy of us out there. Stumble It!
Ask a middle-aged early adopter! Seriously....
In a post today on the Comscore blog, blogger Sarah Radwanik notes how Comscore has observed a huge spike in Twitter traffic over the past months including an increase in U.S. traffic, with users reaching 4 million...
Comscore hasn't released their official analysis of the Twitter numbers, but Radwanik points to a post by Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic who recently posted about the demographics of Twitter users. Radwanik extrapolated on Oreskovic's bare-bones figures and found that "18-24 year olds, the traditional social media early adopters, are actually 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter (Index of 88). It is the 25-54 year old crowd that is actually driving this trend. More specifically, 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely." Check out the following two graphs showing the rise in traffic and rise in age demographic usage:
So, when Joe Blundo of The Columbus Dispatch asked his teen-aged daughter about Twitter and she told him he wouldn't like it, he should have gone to the more tech savvy folks he (maybe doesn't) know and ask one of them about Twitter.
He would have gotten a far better answer about it, and perhaps wouldn't be still scratching his head over it.
Ian Paul at PC World suggests that "[T]his means the concept of the technologically inclined "early adopter" as a young, predominately male demographic may have to be revisited."
MAY HAVE TO BE REVISITED!?!? My god! I've been screaming about this one for some time now. This just goes to show me so many in mainstream media are so in love with the hype around the youth demographic that they have failed to see what is happening right under their noses among people their own age.
How bloody insulting!
What might account for the rise of Twitter use among a not-so-youthful demographic? As a constant and continual observer of patters in online use among the marketing and journalism communities I've seen how the message of Twitter's effectiveness has not gone unheeded. And while there are many great, fun, and not overbearing uses of Twitter in marketing like @DaveTheShoeGuy, there are also a cadre of dorky, dimwitted, and egotistical multi-level-marketers and other assorted snake-oil salespeople spamming us daily with their "follows." Among journalists--many of them middle-aged--there is a high, and highly effective, use of Twitter. The journalists who use it are so good at it, I had to write a post about it.
My observations have lead me to conclude that a good understanding of how to use Twitter comes from the adept use of both online and face to face communication. Far from being the closeted geeks of old, the middle-aged Early Adopter crowd are the people who have those skills down pat. Is it any wonder that they're doing so well on Twitter (when you tease out the dorks, that is.)? Perhaps only to those dazzled by youth--but not to the truly social media savvy of us out there.
Stumble It! Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Blockbuster's Woes are Local DVD Rental's Potential Gain
As more old-school media business models fail, and retail takes a nosedive in our crappy enconomy, is it any wonder that Blockbuster--the company that gobbled up the local video rental business-- is facing the prospect of bankruptcy?
Some of this, as Ed Oswald points out in his post, has to do with the pricing war between Blockbuster and Netflix, which also did some damage to Netflix. Netflix, however, doesn't have Blockbuster's retail space overhead, so, while impacted, didn't get totally destroyed.
There's more to it than the ascendancy of Netflix--although Netflix's community and convenience features speak boatloads about the service's value to its customers. There's also been the rise in DVR use. I'm sure lots of folks don't use TiVo just to tape the latest episode of Gray's Anatomy or Hannah Montana. They're also hooking it up to HBO and other networks, TiVo'ing movies as well as premium content series like Six Feet Under.
Yet there's opportunity in the death of Blockbuster to bring back something vital to neighborhoods: the local DVD rental store. We used to call them "video stores" and often they were run by a cast of characters that knew something about movies. And I don't mean like the condescending jerks in Kevin Smith's "Clerks." Some of my best memories were of when, in the '80's, I worked for a local "video store," where the movie geek in me got to talk with customers about movies. I could recommend movies because I'd seen most of them (a benefit from working there.) Seeing a regular group of customers, I got to know their likes and dislikes and could help them choose. I'll never forget being able to help a harried Father with a bratty son pick out something comparable to "Ghostbusters" or help someone's wife pick the best of "sword and sorcery" b-flicks (yeah, I used to watch those. Liam Neeson was in a bunch of them) for her husband.
We even used to have an old guy who used to keep a notebook of reviews of porn flicks. He had a whole system, with recommendations! His notebook was amazing, and his info, believe it or not, quite valuable to our business (Saturday night was big for couples renting porno.)
Local video rental stores were replaced by Blockbuster because of the sheer volume of new releases that Blockbuster stores could keep in stock at any given time. That, however, was easily countered when Netflix, with its almost-endless supply, could mail 'em quicker than Blockbuster could rent 'em. What Blockbuster couldn't replace, and what people are beginning to value again, is the interaction with other film afficionados. Netflix does this online through its various rating and sharing mechanisms, while stores like Pick Your Flick, the DVD rental store up the street from where I live, does it through face to face community building and interaction.
Let me tell you something about Pick Your Flick: there's *people* there. It's owned by Tim and Liz Jenks, who used to be neighbors of mine. Both Tim and Liz are huge movie lovers. They have a great sensibility about film--any kind of film. They get the reasons why Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" is a great chick flick, as much as they get how "Atonement" was kinda boring....
Tim and Liz bring to their store a relationship to their customers that continues to be sorely lacking amongst the blue shirted, khaki wearing worker bees of Blockbuster.
I'll never forget when a chick at Blockbuster recommended "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" to a customer. I wouldn't have recommended that turkey without a serious caveat and a recommendation to have a stiff cup of coffee first. And Tim and Liz wouldn't recommend it either without a raised eyebrow and a possible suggestion of something better--or a cheeky comment about Sean Connery. And on their MySpace page, they've put together a list of Top Ten Reasons why Pick Your Flick is better than Netflix
So, while another big corporate movie rental business goes bust, there just might be a very good opportunity for the small local movie rental place to boom.
Think about it. Stumble It!
Some of this, as Ed Oswald points out in his post, has to do with the pricing war between Blockbuster and Netflix, which also did some damage to Netflix. Netflix, however, doesn't have Blockbuster's retail space overhead, so, while impacted, didn't get totally destroyed.
There's more to it than the ascendancy of Netflix--although Netflix's community and convenience features speak boatloads about the service's value to its customers. There's also been the rise in DVR use. I'm sure lots of folks don't use TiVo just to tape the latest episode of Gray's Anatomy or Hannah Montana. They're also hooking it up to HBO and other networks, TiVo'ing movies as well as premium content series like Six Feet Under.
Yet there's opportunity in the death of Blockbuster to bring back something vital to neighborhoods: the local DVD rental store. We used to call them "video stores" and often they were run by a cast of characters that knew something about movies. And I don't mean like the condescending jerks in Kevin Smith's "Clerks." Some of my best memories were of when, in the '80's, I worked for a local "video store," where the movie geek in me got to talk with customers about movies. I could recommend movies because I'd seen most of them (a benefit from working there.) Seeing a regular group of customers, I got to know their likes and dislikes and could help them choose. I'll never forget being able to help a harried Father with a bratty son pick out something comparable to "Ghostbusters" or help someone's wife pick the best of "sword and sorcery" b-flicks (yeah, I used to watch those. Liam Neeson was in a bunch of them) for her husband.
We even used to have an old guy who used to keep a notebook of reviews of porn flicks. He had a whole system, with recommendations! His notebook was amazing, and his info, believe it or not, quite valuable to our business (Saturday night was big for couples renting porno.)
Local video rental stores were replaced by Blockbuster because of the sheer volume of new releases that Blockbuster stores could keep in stock at any given time. That, however, was easily countered when Netflix, with its almost-endless supply, could mail 'em quicker than Blockbuster could rent 'em. What Blockbuster couldn't replace, and what people are beginning to value again, is the interaction with other film afficionados. Netflix does this online through its various rating and sharing mechanisms, while stores like Pick Your Flick, the DVD rental store up the street from where I live, does it through face to face community building and interaction.
Let me tell you something about Pick Your Flick: there's *people* there. It's owned by Tim and Liz Jenks, who used to be neighbors of mine. Both Tim and Liz are huge movie lovers. They have a great sensibility about film--any kind of film. They get the reasons why Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" is a great chick flick, as much as they get how "Atonement" was kinda boring....
Tim and Liz bring to their store a relationship to their customers that continues to be sorely lacking amongst the blue shirted, khaki wearing worker bees of Blockbuster.
I'll never forget when a chick at Blockbuster recommended "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" to a customer. I wouldn't have recommended that turkey without a serious caveat and a recommendation to have a stiff cup of coffee first. And Tim and Liz wouldn't recommend it either without a raised eyebrow and a possible suggestion of something better--or a cheeky comment about Sean Connery. And on their MySpace page, they've put together a list of Top Ten Reasons why Pick Your Flick is better than Netflix
So, while another big corporate movie rental business goes bust, there just might be a very good opportunity for the small local movie rental place to boom.
Think about it.
Stumble It! The death of User Generated Content may be greatly exaggerated
I wonder sometimes about Sarah Lacey. On TechCrunch, she goes into great detail about how "user generated content" doesn't make money, and how its promise to help talented people hasn't come to fruition....
Oh, really? Lacey's analysis doesn't make sense in that its view of UGC comes through a lens filtered by the old-school media's judgment of value based on currently failing business models.
The thing about UGC is that what one expects from it is far broader than Lacey's claim that it must make money or lead directly to some fairy tale of overnight success. That's not what most UGC producers think of their work, and not what most UGC producers get from their efforts.
Now, I've been in the UGC business for a bit here, with my blog and various contributions to publications like Huffington Post and Silicon Alley Insider and syndication through Newtex. I'm not looking to make money from any of these ventures, although I do make a small bit from Newstex. What I get from this is influence and jobs. And had I been a bit wiser, and really liked doing journalism of some form, I'd probably be writing a column like Lacey's by now. In one respect, that's maybe where I wasn't so smart, but who knows what the future holds.
The true value of UGC is determined by the creator, and not necessarily by those curating it. The value of UGC is not determined by how much money YouTube makes, or what Twitter's business model happens to be. The value of UGC is determined by the "user" who is creating it, at any point in time, in any medium that person chooses.
The value of UGC cannot be determined by externals--but only by the ones who are creating. It may shatter some dreams if it isn't creating the overnight success, but it is also helping those who want to actualize realistic dreams and goals, as well as those who are overqualified and under-employed who simply want to share content with others.
However, in a recent conversation with Mark Ranalli of Helium.com, I've seen how properly managed UGC (he hates the term too) can create value for both the UGC producer and the site that curates UGC. And I'm working on a new venture that has a strong UGC component to it (can't say much more now.) What I can say is that if UGC is managed properly by a "broker" or third-party, it can make money. The key is to understand why it is produced, and to reward UGC that is of value--the value to be determined by the community. Most who've been in the MSM, who are looking at the outside of the UGC busienss, really don't get it, don't get the reasons why people do it, how to filter it, the value of community in helping to determine value, and then how to turn the filtered content around to the benefit of everyone involved.
Mainstream media just doesn't get the process of creating value from UGC. Perhaps it's because it's swallowed its own hype and Horatio Alger stories, and has a need to create value *right away* to shore up sagging profit margins. Maybe the creation of media isn't meant to make a big profit for a bunch of other people who have nothing to do with it.
I'm just sayin'....
A note about Steve Outing's UGC venture: yes, Steve's venture didn't make money. IMO, it was a bit ahead of its time, and may not have reached the right niche audience. There are so many variables to the UGC equation and its hard to know where communities that produce strong content will congregate, as well as the time it will take to create that community. We're only seeing some of the answers to those variables now and on small scales. Stumble It!
Oh, really? Lacey's analysis doesn't make sense in that its view of UGC comes through a lens filtered by the old-school media's judgment of value based on currently failing business models.
The thing about UGC is that what one expects from it is far broader than Lacey's claim that it must make money or lead directly to some fairy tale of overnight success. That's not what most UGC producers think of their work, and not what most UGC producers get from their efforts.
Now, I've been in the UGC business for a bit here, with my blog and various contributions to publications like Huffington Post and Silicon Alley Insider and syndication through Newtex. I'm not looking to make money from any of these ventures, although I do make a small bit from Newstex. What I get from this is influence and jobs. And had I been a bit wiser, and really liked doing journalism of some form, I'd probably be writing a column like Lacey's by now. In one respect, that's maybe where I wasn't so smart, but who knows what the future holds.
The true value of UGC is determined by the creator, and not necessarily by those curating it. The value of UGC is not determined by how much money YouTube makes, or what Twitter's business model happens to be. The value of UGC is determined by the "user" who is creating it, at any point in time, in any medium that person chooses.
The value of UGC cannot be determined by externals--but only by the ones who are creating. It may shatter some dreams if it isn't creating the overnight success, but it is also helping those who want to actualize realistic dreams and goals, as well as those who are overqualified and under-employed who simply want to share content with others.
However, in a recent conversation with Mark Ranalli of Helium.com, I've seen how properly managed UGC (he hates the term too) can create value for both the UGC producer and the site that curates UGC. And I'm working on a new venture that has a strong UGC component to it (can't say much more now.) What I can say is that if UGC is managed properly by a "broker" or third-party, it can make money. The key is to understand why it is produced, and to reward UGC that is of value--the value to be determined by the community. Most who've been in the MSM, who are looking at the outside of the UGC busienss, really don't get it, don't get the reasons why people do it, how to filter it, the value of community in helping to determine value, and then how to turn the filtered content around to the benefit of everyone involved.
Mainstream media just doesn't get the process of creating value from UGC. Perhaps it's because it's swallowed its own hype and Horatio Alger stories, and has a need to create value *right away* to shore up sagging profit margins. Maybe the creation of media isn't meant to make a big profit for a bunch of other people who have nothing to do with it.
I'm just sayin'....
A note about Steve Outing's UGC venture: yes, Steve's venture didn't make money. IMO, it was a bit ahead of its time, and may not have reached the right niche audience. There are so many variables to the UGC equation and its hard to know where communities that produce strong content will congregate, as well as the time it will take to create that community. We're only seeing some of the answers to those variables now and on small scales.
Stumble It! Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Small is Beautiful: PodCamp Western Mass
Who said it couldn't happen in Western Mass?? Last Saturday (3/28), Morriss Partee, Jacklyn Stevenson Archer, yours truly, and a group of about 36-or-so cool folk pulled together and made the first PodCamp Western Mass happen at Open Square in Holyoke, MA.
And it was a great success! Check the PCWM Flickr stream to see all the happy PodCampers....
If there's one thing I kept hearing from folks was how much they were getting out of each and every session. Sessions were small (that's the great thing about a small PodCamp) which allowed for lots of questions and cross-talk. None of this top-down stuff.
Here are what were important highlights for me:
Bill Dusty of Springfield Intruder, a hyperlocal site for Springfield MA and Mike Dodds, managing editor for Reminder Publications (a hyperlocal newspaper) and blogger at Out of the Inkwell came and sat in on they hyperlocal journalism session I conducted. It was good to have some non-marketing folks at a PodCamp! IMO, the journalism community has to get out and breathe the air in other spaces besides those where the ink resides, and no better place is a PodCamp. Mike and Bill got to meet my friend Aldon Hynes who told them about CT Newswire, a project down in CT that pulls in all the press releases and distributes them on a Google group to those signed up on the group list. Aldon said that the reason for starting this group was that communications depts in local government have lost connection with the folks they should be sending press releases to, and with this group, it is easier to get information out to those who not only want it, but need it.
This is extremely important for hyperlocals like the Springfield Intruder, that are sometimes more on-the-ball (so to say) then the local newspaper.
I hope that Bill and Mike can get a list like this going for Western Mass! All three of them sat down after the session and did some serious talking.
IMO, the only way the news is going to change is by getting in touch with the grassroots--and the grassroots aren't necessarily going to come to the news, in special journalism gatherings. It's got to be the other way for new ideas to get into the stuffy old newsroom.
And Mike's a great guy! He really, really understands online community--how it functions, what it takes to do it right and maintain civility. He also gets that it is the responsibility of editorial staff or whoever is in charge of the community to enforce policies and NOT administer them according to who they do or don't like.
And a big, super-special shout-out to Steve Sherlock, blogger at Franklin Matters (and other sites), who came out from the eastern part of the state to help us with registration (and who helped us with Eventbrite when we got all throw-up-our-hands frustrated with it.) I've known Steve for a couple of years now, from seeing him at a number of events out Boston way. And now he's an honorary Western Mass'er!!
I had great conversations with Jeff Rutherford, who was/is a journalist now doing p.r. and related stuff. Jeff gets social media. Really gets it. And John Elder Robison, Asperger's researcher and author of "Look Me in the Eye"--who I had a very interesting conversation with about mommybloggers and geneology. Seems that John and I see different sides of the mommyblogger spectrum. He sees women looking to help their children with Asperger's. I see women who are interested in using their mommyblogger status to promote themselves. Ah, there are all kinds in this fascinating blogosphere!
Another great take-away was how many people are interested in bringing PodCamps to other parts of Mass. There was some talk of one out in the Berkshires and AuctionWally and I got to talking about doing one out in Barre, MA.
And that's the great thing about PodCamps. They don't need to be in major cities, with crowds of hundreds. They can be small. And small is beautiful! Stumble It!
And it was a great success! Check the PCWM Flickr stream to see all the happy PodCampers....
If there's one thing I kept hearing from folks was how much they were getting out of each and every session. Sessions were small (that's the great thing about a small PodCamp) which allowed for lots of questions and cross-talk. None of this top-down stuff.
Here are what were important highlights for me:
Bill Dusty of Springfield Intruder, a hyperlocal site for Springfield MA and Mike Dodds, managing editor for Reminder Publications (a hyperlocal newspaper) and blogger at Out of the Inkwell came and sat in on they hyperlocal journalism session I conducted. It was good to have some non-marketing folks at a PodCamp! IMO, the journalism community has to get out and breathe the air in other spaces besides those where the ink resides, and no better place is a PodCamp. Mike and Bill got to meet my friend Aldon Hynes who told them about CT Newswire, a project down in CT that pulls in all the press releases and distributes them on a Google group to those signed up on the group list. Aldon said that the reason for starting this group was that communications depts in local government have lost connection with the folks they should be sending press releases to, and with this group, it is easier to get information out to those who not only want it, but need it.
This is extremely important for hyperlocals like the Springfield Intruder, that are sometimes more on-the-ball (so to say) then the local newspaper.
I hope that Bill and Mike can get a list like this going for Western Mass! All three of them sat down after the session and did some serious talking.
IMO, the only way the news is going to change is by getting in touch with the grassroots--and the grassroots aren't necessarily going to come to the news, in special journalism gatherings. It's got to be the other way for new ideas to get into the stuffy old newsroom.
And Mike's a great guy! He really, really understands online community--how it functions, what it takes to do it right and maintain civility. He also gets that it is the responsibility of editorial staff or whoever is in charge of the community to enforce policies and NOT administer them according to who they do or don't like.
And a big, super-special shout-out to Steve Sherlock, blogger at Franklin Matters (and other sites), who came out from the eastern part of the state to help us with registration (and who helped us with Eventbrite when we got all throw-up-our-hands frustrated with it.) I've known Steve for a couple of years now, from seeing him at a number of events out Boston way. And now he's an honorary Western Mass'er!!
I had great conversations with Jeff Rutherford, who was/is a journalist now doing p.r. and related stuff. Jeff gets social media. Really gets it. And John Elder Robison, Asperger's researcher and author of "Look Me in the Eye"--who I had a very interesting conversation with about mommybloggers and geneology. Seems that John and I see different sides of the mommyblogger spectrum. He sees women looking to help their children with Asperger's. I see women who are interested in using their mommyblogger status to promote themselves. Ah, there are all kinds in this fascinating blogosphere!
Another great take-away was how many people are interested in bringing PodCamps to other parts of Mass. There was some talk of one out in the Berkshires and AuctionWally and I got to talking about doing one out in Barre, MA.
And that's the great thing about PodCamps. They don't need to be in major cities, with crowds of hundreds. They can be small. And small is beautiful!
Stumble It! Friday, March 27, 2009
Social Media as the Virtual Ten-Foot Pole
Lots of folks on Twitter this morning seemed to be shocked by this story in the New York Times informing us that not everyone is who they say they are on Twitter--esp. high profile celebrities....Well, duh!
I've known for a very long time that many company blogs, and celebrity blogs, and micro-blogs, were being ghost-written. I've also known for a long time that many "blog" aren't being kept by who they say is keeping them--and that the faux bloggers are pretty darned proud that they can be, oh, say, a 26-year old consultant blogging as 60 year old grandmother or teen-age boy.
I've also known for some time that ghost writers are routinely hired to keep social networking profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook for their clients or bosses.
A month or so ago, I was at a social media conference in NYC, where a young consultant yammered on and on about how she managed her D-list celebrity client's social media persona. It was annoying, to say the least. Esp. since she didn't even acknowledge that some of those fans could cross the line into stalker-dom. The consultant had never heard of a troll either....
As Tameka Kee wrote in Paid Content, there's an "erosion of Twitter's perceived authenticity." But do the celebrities really care?? Probably not.
As the young consultant said over and over,fans *crave* interaction with their celebrities. That's totally pathetic, but that's the way some fans are....although I think they'd get over their *craving* after awhile....
So, while many of us agree that there's nothing wrong with one person in a company doing the blogging or tweeting for the company, there's something really jerky/phony/creepy/insincere about ghosting....
The funny--or, maybe not so funny--thing in the Times piece was what 50Cent's web manager had to say about his client's (non)use of Twitter "He doesn’t actually use Twitter,” Mr. Romero said of 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson III, “but the energy of it is all him.”
The energy. Wow. To be able to channel one's "energy" thru another person, from a distance, and have it "touch" one's fans....
wow. isn't that the old ten-foot pole?? Stumble It!
I've known for a very long time that many company blogs, and celebrity blogs, and micro-blogs, were being ghost-written. I've also known for a long time that many "blog" aren't being kept by who they say is keeping them--and that the faux bloggers are pretty darned proud that they can be, oh, say, a 26-year old consultant blogging as 60 year old grandmother or teen-age boy.
I've also known for some time that ghost writers are routinely hired to keep social networking profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook for their clients or bosses.
A month or so ago, I was at a social media conference in NYC, where a young consultant yammered on and on about how she managed her D-list celebrity client's social media persona. It was annoying, to say the least. Esp. since she didn't even acknowledge that some of those fans could cross the line into stalker-dom. The consultant had never heard of a troll either....
As Tameka Kee wrote in Paid Content, there's an "erosion of Twitter's perceived authenticity." But do the celebrities really care?? Probably not.
As the young consultant said over and over,fans *crave* interaction with their celebrities. That's totally pathetic, but that's the way some fans are....although I think they'd get over their *craving* after awhile....
So, while many of us agree that there's nothing wrong with one person in a company doing the blogging or tweeting for the company, there's something really jerky/phony/creepy/insincere about ghosting....
The funny--or, maybe not so funny--thing in the Times piece was what 50Cent's web manager had to say about his client's (non)use of Twitter "He doesn’t actually use Twitter,” Mr. Romero said of 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson III, “but the energy of it is all him.”
The energy. Wow. To be able to channel one's "energy" thru another person, from a distance, and have it "touch" one's fans....
wow. isn't that the old ten-foot pole??
Stumble It! Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Senator Proposes Newspapers Re-Structure, Become Non-Profits
Apparently, U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin(D-Maryland) has proposed something called the "Newspaper Revitalization Act"....
According to a post on the Editor's Weblog, under the Newspaper Revitalization Act, newspapers would be organizations eligible for 501(c)(3) status, the same status public radio and television have now, and could adopt the Low Profit Limited Liability Company business model (L3C).
The new legislation would make advertising and subscription revenue tax exempt and contributions to newspapers tax deductible. Cardin says the bill is to help local newspapers, not big conglomerates...and does not apply to radio or other media (this means *you* New Media interlopers!)
OK...so what sort of "local newspaper" would fit Cardin's definition? Since most newspapers are owned by corporations of some sort, what are the qualificaitons for a a newspaper corporation to be considered a "big conglomerate"? There are some obvious ones, like Tribune, McClatchy, NYTCo. and Gannett. But what about Advance? What about some of the other regionals? And what if your local newspaper--your only local newspaper--is controlled by a conglomerate? Or are we talking small local papers with very limited ownership--like the Journal Register Co., which closed several papers in Connecticut because buyers could not be sought for them.
Over at the Boston Globe, readers had some rather irate comments to the bill. Says one commenter:"Newspapers aren't failing because of incompentence. Would you say that horse-drawn carriage manufacuturers were incompetent because they couldn't compete with Ford automobiles? Newspapers are failing because they have to adjust to completely new business model, customer base, and production.
According to an AP report John Sturn, President and chief executive officer of the Newspaper Association of America voiced support for the bill, saying it "recognizes changes in the law might be necessary to provide a boost to newspapers trying to weather this difficult economic period."
Yes, newspapers *may* be vital for democracy--but what about the massive incompetence that allowed them to run up huge debit? Perhaps before a bill is passed, what needs to be looked at is exactly why smaller newspapers are failing. Is it because of huge amounts of debit--like at some of the conglomo-papers? or is it some form of financial mis-management, or an inability to monetize web offerings, or some other reason?
Nobody wants to see newspapers close, that's for sure, but is a piece of legislation necessary to help another ailing business? And what sorts of give-backs will be asked from newspaper employees (the way that they were asked from GM employees)? What about newspaper profit margins? Perhaps before doling out money, legislators should look at what's going on with profit margins, with debit, and other aspects of the business model before being so certain that government intervention is needed to keep them in business.
Although, Cardin's proposal makes a bit more sense than Nancy Pelosi's proposed legislation which would allow for relaxing of anti-trust laws, and thus favor the large conglomerates.
Still, to rely on government intervention at this point is perhaps a bit premature. Yes, small regional dailies are closing, and some larger papers (like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News) have moved completely online. But what would throwing government money at newspapers do for them, if there have been no substantial changes in the business model and just a lot of wishful thinking that we'll simply go back to our pre-internet days of relying on the presses?
And then there's the idea of state-owned newspapers....can you say Pravda??
'Nuff said.
(hat tip to Techmeme!)
Update 3/26/09 For some time, I had an inkling that there was something fundamentally wrong with the way the journalism establishment has been whining and moaning about how the death of newspapers will be the sure death of democracy. David Eaves excellent post posits the notion that it's Free Speech that's protected by the Constitution, not newspapers or journalism. Eaves goes on to speak about how newspapers themselves are not democratic (very good point)and that the "Diversity of content and access to it, made possible by the internet, has strengthened our civic engagement." Bravo, Mr. Eaves! Bravo! Stumble It!
According to a post on the Editor's Weblog, under the Newspaper Revitalization Act, newspapers would be organizations eligible for 501(c)(3) status, the same status public radio and television have now, and could adopt the Low Profit Limited Liability Company business model (L3C).
"We are losing our newspaper industry," Cardin said in a statement. "The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.
The new legislation would make advertising and subscription revenue tax exempt and contributions to newspapers tax deductible. Cardin says the bill is to help local newspapers, not big conglomerates...and does not apply to radio or other media (this means *you* New Media interlopers!)
OK...so what sort of "local newspaper" would fit Cardin's definition? Since most newspapers are owned by corporations of some sort, what are the qualificaitons for a a newspaper corporation to be considered a "big conglomerate"? There are some obvious ones, like Tribune, McClatchy, NYTCo. and Gannett. But what about Advance? What about some of the other regionals? And what if your local newspaper--your only local newspaper--is controlled by a conglomerate? Or are we talking small local papers with very limited ownership--like the Journal Register Co., which closed several papers in Connecticut because buyers could not be sought for them.
Over at the Boston Globe, readers had some rather irate comments to the bill. Says one commenter:"Newspapers aren't failing because of incompentence. Would you say that horse-drawn carriage manufacuturers were incompetent because they couldn't compete with Ford automobiles? Newspapers are failing because they have to adjust to completely new business model, customer base, and production.
According to an AP report John Sturn, President and chief executive officer of the Newspaper Association of America voiced support for the bill, saying it "recognizes changes in the law might be necessary to provide a boost to newspapers trying to weather this difficult economic period."
Yes, newspapers *may* be vital for democracy--but what about the massive incompetence that allowed them to run up huge debit? Perhaps before a bill is passed, what needs to be looked at is exactly why smaller newspapers are failing. Is it because of huge amounts of debit--like at some of the conglomo-papers? or is it some form of financial mis-management, or an inability to monetize web offerings, or some other reason?
Nobody wants to see newspapers close, that's for sure, but is a piece of legislation necessary to help another ailing business? And what sorts of give-backs will be asked from newspaper employees (the way that they were asked from GM employees)? What about newspaper profit margins? Perhaps before doling out money, legislators should look at what's going on with profit margins, with debit, and other aspects of the business model before being so certain that government intervention is needed to keep them in business.
Although, Cardin's proposal makes a bit more sense than Nancy Pelosi's proposed legislation which would allow for relaxing of anti-trust laws, and thus favor the large conglomerates.
Still, to rely on government intervention at this point is perhaps a bit premature. Yes, small regional dailies are closing, and some larger papers (like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News) have moved completely online. But what would throwing government money at newspapers do for them, if there have been no substantial changes in the business model and just a lot of wishful thinking that we'll simply go back to our pre-internet days of relying on the presses?
And then there's the idea of state-owned newspapers....can you say Pravda??
'Nuff said.
(hat tip to Techmeme!)
Update 3/26/09 For some time, I had an inkling that there was something fundamentally wrong with the way the journalism establishment has been whining and moaning about how the death of newspapers will be the sure death of democracy. David Eaves excellent post posits the notion that it's Free Speech that's protected by the Constitution, not newspapers or journalism. Eaves goes on to speak about how newspapers themselves are not democratic (very good point)and that the "Diversity of content and access to it, made possible by the internet, has strengthened our civic engagement." Bravo, Mr. Eaves! Bravo!
Stumble It! 
