Sips from the Firehose
A blog that seeks to filter the internet into a refreshing, easily-gulped beverage
Jul 19
Posted: under Uncategorized.
More articles about the noxious effect of curmudgeons on the newspaper industry. This meme has really taken off in the last couple of weeks; I sense a great deal of pent-up frustration on both sides of this ideological debate. If this were an ABC Afterschool Special, the solution would come when both sides reach a [...] [...more]
More articles about the noxious effect of curmudgeons on the newspaper industry. This meme has really taken off in the last couple of weeks; I sense a great deal of pent-up frustration on both sides of this ideological debate. If this were an ABC Afterschool Special, the solution would come when both sides reach a crisis point where they realize that the other side isn’t all wrong, and at about minute :58, we’d have a wide-angle of the warring camps laughing and hugging it out.
I’m not sure that kind of cliched happy ending is possible, or even desireable here.
Vickey Williams of the Readership Institute tries to come up with the “Can’t we all just get along?” moment in a recent blog post, first defending the Millennials:
The bad press turned nasty with the recent release of a book by Emory
Professor Mark Bauerlein speculating that this could be the Dumbest Generation.
But
I think there’s much more to this generation, and that they can offer
traditional news organizations invaluable help as they try, in chaotic
times, to invent the future. The question is, will existing newspaper
culture let them?
And then, to be even-handed, wags a finger in the Millennials’ direction, basically advising them to work with the clueless old coots in the newsroom, in some Digital-to-Deadtree intellectual barter system, wherein the plugged-in 1337 kidz teach gramps how to use Twitter in exchange for the key to bribing Sgt. Schulz with some strudel to bring in the big story that blows the lid off this here town…
Partner with a younger staffer for mutual benefit: In every newsroom
I’ve been in, veterans said they have certain skills knowledge that
goes untapped – often in topics where younger staff, when polled, said
they want help. Tips on storytelling in trade for a Twitter orientation? It could work.
Ouch.
Maybe my early career experiences have too strongly soured me on the toxic effects of the newsroom sourpusses. But I spent way too long a time at the mercy of some deeply damaged individuals who had inhuman drive and persistence – but used it to claw their way to a position where they could drain their radiators all over everyone and everything they came into contact with. I’ve walked dogs with weak bladders & overactive territorial imperatives that peed on less landscape than those curmudgeons. Every new idea of expression of belief in New Media … splat. Mocked, run down, soaked in cynicism and discarded as being not worth the time, and doomed to fail.
Jeff Jarvis over at Buzzmachine points out that not all salty old newshounds are clueless about technology (I sense a harrumph from the greybearded pundit), nor are all apple-cheeked interns free from the instinct to protect tradition at all costs. OK, fine, perhaps the blanket generalizations are not warranted, and yeah, I’m sure there are always exceptions to the rules everywhere. But Christ, can’t we just try to get away from the Old Media thinking that we have to try to do a he-said she-said on every contentious issue? Isn’t that one of the things that’s brought us to this situation in the first place – wishy-washiness?
I have to agree with both of them on their core premise, though – they both point out how the time is past that the newspaper industry could afford to coddle the voices crying out against real, core, fundamental, daring changes. Of insisting on the half-hearted half-measures as a means of mollifying the curmudgeons. Of reflexive caution, playing it safe, trying to be prudent.
We’ve come to the part of the movie where the hero is pointing out to the frightened civilians that there is no alternative to crossing the rickety rope bridge over the crevasse, because everything on that side of the gorge is on fire/blown up/overrun by bloodthirsty Martians. In the next year, papers will either start to invest in really radical re-inventions of themselves, or they will gutter out into messy puddles like a bunch of burnt-out candles. Candles that once proudly provided illumination to their communities … existing only as twice-weekly direct-mail supermarket flyers and loose agglomerations of desperately underpaid semi-pro bloggers.
In my consulting work, I’ve seen newsrooms completely at war with each other. Newsrooms where the mossbacked conservatives hold up their years of service holding others accountable for their actions – as reasons that they should be exempt from the changes sweeping the industry. I’ve tried to control meetings where the New and Old Media stood on either side of the room, hurling insults at each other, screaming and shouting out charges and counter-charges, trying to pin the blame for failures on the other faction(s).
Such newsrooms are not happy places. And yeah, given the options available to content producers with multimedia expertise, this kind of warring over very basic concepts is indeed chasing away the very people that the industry needs most if it is to survive.
Convergence is no longer optional.
The curmudgeons – and maybe we should come up with some other appropriate terminology – cannot be allowed to take this entire industry down with them – no “Media empire makes a good shroud.”
Jul 18
Posted: under Digital Migration, journalism, Lemmings, new media, Newspaper Deathwatch, Newspapers, Web Tech.
More articles about the noxious effect of curmudgeons on the newspaper industry. This meme has really taken off in the last couple of weeks; I sense a great deal of pent-up frustration on both sides of this ideological debate. If this were an ABC Afterschool Special, the solution would come when both sides reach a [...] [...more]
More articles about the noxious effect of curmudgeons on the newspaper industry. This meme has really taken off in the last couple of weeks; I sense a great deal of pent-up frustration on both sides of this ideological debate. If this were an ABC Afterschool Special, the solution would come when both sides reach a crisis point where they realize that the other side isn’t all wrong, and at about minute :58, we’d have a wide-angle of the warring camps laughing and hugging it out.
I’m not sure that kind of cliched happy ending is possible, or even desireable here.
Vickey Williams of the Readership Institute tries to come up with the “Can’t we all just get along?” moment in a recent blog post, first defending the Millennials:
The bad press turned nasty with the recent release of a book by Emory
Professor Mark Bauerlein speculating that this could be the Dumbest Generation.
But
I think there’s much more to this generation, and that they can offer
traditional news organizations invaluable help as they try, in chaotic
times, to invent the future. The question is, will existing newspaper
culture let them?
And then, to be even-handed, wags a finger in the Millennials’ direction, basically advising them to work with the clueless old coots in the newsroom, in some Digital-to-Deadtree intellectual barter system, wherein the plugged-in 1337 kidz teach gramps how to use Twitter in exchange for the key to bribing Sgt. Schulz with some strudel to bring in the big story that blows the lid off this here town…
Partner with a younger staffer for mutual benefit: In every newsroom
I’ve been in, veterans said they have certain skills knowledge that
goes untapped – often in topics where younger staff, when polled, said
they want help. Tips on storytelling in trade for a Twitter orientation? It could work.
Ouch.
Maybe my early career experiences have too strongly soured me on the toxic effects of the newsroom sourpusses. But I spent way too long a time at the mercy of some deeply damaged individuals who had inhuman drive and persistence – but used it to claw their way to a position where they could drain their radiators all over everyone and everything they came into contact with. I’ve walked dogs with weak bladders & overactive territorial imperatives that peed on less landscape than those curmudgeons. Every new idea of expression of belief in New Media … splat. Mocked, run down, soaked in cynicism and discarded as being not worth the time, and doomed to fail.
Jeff Jarvis over at Buzzmachine points out that not all salty old newshounds are clueless about technology (I sense a harrumph from the greybearded pundit), nor are all apple-cheeked interns free from the instinct to protect tradition at all costs. OK, fine, perhaps the blanket generalizations are not warranted, and yeah, I’m sure there are always exceptions to the rules everywhere. But Christ, can’t we just try to get away from the Old Media thinking that we have to try to do a he-said she-said on every contentious issue? Isn’t that one of the things that’s brought us to this situation in the first place – wishy-washiness?
I have to agree with both of them on their core premise, though – they both point out how the time is past that the newspaper industry could afford to coddle the voices crying out against real, core, fundamental, daring changes. Of insisting on the half-hearted half-measures as a means of mollifying the curmudgeons. Of reflexive caution, playing it safe, trying to be prudent.
We’ve come to the part of the movie where the hero is pointing out to the frightened civilians that there is no alternative to crossing the rickety rope bridge over the crevasse, because everything on that side of the gorge is on fire/blown up/overrun by bloodthirsty Martians. In the next year, papers will either start to invest in really radical re-inventions of themselves, or they will gutter out into messy puddles like a bunch of burnt-out candles. Candles that once proudly provided illumination to their communities … existing only as twice-weekly direct-mail supermarket flyers and loose agglomerations of desperately underpaid semi-pro bloggers.
In my consulting work, I’ve seen newsrooms completely at war with each other. Newsrooms where the mossbacked conservatives hold up their years of service holding others accountable for their actions – as reasons that they should be exempt from the changes sweeping the industry. I’ve tried to control meetings where the New and Old Media stood on either side of the room, hurling insults at each other, screaming and shouting out charges and counter-charges, trying to pin the blame for failures on the other faction(s).
Such newsrooms are not happy places. And yeah, given the options available to content producers with multimedia expertise, this kind of warring over very basic concepts is indeed chasing away the very people that the industry needs most if it is to survive.
Convergence is no longer optional.
The curmudgeons – and maybe we should come up with some other appropriate terminology – cannot be allowed to take this entire industry down with them – no “Media empire makes a good shroud.”
Jul 16
Posted: under Uncategorized.
This is going to have to be another “quick hit” because I’m struggling with Premiere Pro’s shakiness on the Mac platform – and yeah, I know, I should be using Final Cut Pro, but I’m trying to once again use myself as a guinea pig to see what problems crop up when you try to [...] [...more]
This is going to have to be another “quick hit” because I’m struggling with
Premiere Pro’s shakiness on the Mac platform – and yeah, I know, I should be using Final Cut Pro, but I’m trying to once again use myself as a guinea pig to see what problems crop up when you try to migrate footage from one platform to another. Which is not without its little surprises.
Anyway, I like to keep an eye on what advertisers are saying, and this little article in AdAge caught my eye: it’s ostensibly about what the auto industry can learn from how Apple has revitalized its brand with the iPhone and other portable gadgets in recent years. Check out these grafs:
Functionality: Auto execs pondering how to replicate the iPhone’s commercial and cultural success would be wise to note that the iPhone is not simply a marketing phenomenon. The iPhone is a breakthrough product. It revolutionized the mobile phone business through design, features and functionality.
One way for auto companies to create breakthrough products may be to begin thinking like a consumer-electronics brand. Technology brands are the new car. Throughout the last century, the automobile stood for freedom, mobility and joy. Cars represented modern life at its best. Today that role is served by each new smart phone, gaming system, wafer-thin laptop or home theater that joyfully proclaims that the present is better than the past. An automaker should commit to creating a truly modern car, a car that democratizes the latest technologies; a car that liberates us from tired compromises by proving that design and performance go hand in hand with safety and environmental responsibility; a car that is an extension of the personal technologies we use to make our lives more efficient, organized and entertaining. Create a car that joyfully proclaims that today is better than yesterday.
I think you see where I’m going with this already. Both the auto industry and the newspaper industry are in dire straits these days because they stubbornly cling to the products 
and business models that made them so much money for so long. And instead of really re-tooling to confront the threats that they’ve long been warned were coming, both industries still seem mired in pointing fingers at the competition – the Big 3 automakers and their fans once again bitching about competition from Japan, and newspapers having hissy fits about Google and blaming Craigslist for the imminent collapse of Western Civilization As We Know It.
The article goes on to tout Apple’s limiting supply and thus creating demand – the way that the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii did – which really doesn’t apply to newspapers. But the bit on coming up with new distribution models … now THAT is a fat pitch right down the strike zone.
And I especially like the recognition that the iPhone is a product that looks towards the future; that rejects “tired compromises.” I think that a lot of the pessimism and anger in the newsrooms has leaked over and tainted the news coverage. One of the places where this might be happening is in the news about the economy. I’m not saying that everything is wine & roses out there – I’ll leave that to Phil Gramm – but perhaps when you look around the newsroom and see nothing but empty desks and sad, echoing offices full of junked-out computer equipment, it becomes easier to believe that the entire economy is in in rock-bottom shitsville.
Apple was in similar straits about 10 years ago. They had to take money from Microsoft (i.e. The Evil Empire) just to survive. They were irrelevant, except to a hard core of graphic designers and photographers, and their notebooks kept catching on fire. They came up with the iPod and the entire music business was changed forever.
There are proposals out there for what newspapers could do. What they could become.
The U.S. is not yet ready to adopt some of the things that I’ve seen working elsewhere. Things that could cause the kind of “buzz” and speculation here about what newspapers are doing. That would bring back that “give ‘em hell” sense of daring that is sadly missing from Big Corporate America.
In about a year, after the election-year ad spike really bottoms out, newspapers may just be desperate enough to try these radical re-thinkings of their core products and business methods. I just hope by that time, it is still possible to turn this industry around.
Technorati Tags: newspaper crisis, iphone teaches, suvs, gm, ford, chrysler
Jul 16
Posted: under Catching a Falling Knife, Digital Migration, journalism, Lemmings, Newspaper Deathwatch, Newspapers, Web Tech.
This is going to have to be another “quick hit” because I’m struggling with Premiere Pro’s shakiness on the Mac platform – and yeah, I know, I should be using Final Cut Pro, but I’m trying to once again use myself as a guinea pig to see what problems crop up when you try to [...] [...more]
This is going to have to be another “quick hit” because I’m struggling with
Premiere Pro’s shakiness on the Mac platform – and yeah, I know, I should be using Final Cut Pro, but I’m trying to once again use myself as a guinea pig to see what problems crop up when you try to migrate footage from one platform to another. Which is not without its little surprises.
Anyway, I like to keep an eye on what advertisers are saying, and this little article in AdAge caught my eye: it’s ostensibly about what the auto industry can learn from how Apple has revitalized its brand with the iPhone and other portable gadgets in recent years. Check out these grafs:
Functionality: Auto execs pondering how to replicate the iPhone’s commercial and cultural success would be wise to note that the iPhone is not simply a marketing phenomenon. The iPhone is a breakthrough product. It revolutionized the mobile phone business through design, features and functionality.
One way for auto companies to create breakthrough products may be to begin thinking like a consumer-electronics brand. Technology brands are the new car. Throughout the last century, the automobile stood for freedom, mobility and joy. Cars represented modern life at its best. Today that role is served by each new smart phone, gaming system, wafer-thin laptop or home theater that joyfully proclaims that the present is better than the past. An automaker should commit to creating a truly modern car, a car that democratizes the latest technologies; a car that liberates us from tired compromises by proving that design and performance go hand in hand with safety and environmental responsibility; a car that is an extension of the personal technologies we use to make our lives more efficient, organized and entertaining. Create a car that joyfully proclaims that today is better than yesterday.
I think you see where I’m going with this already. Both the auto industry and the newspaper industry are in dire straits these days because they stubbornly cling to the products and business models that made them so much money for so long. And instead of really re-tooling to confront the threats that they’ve long been warned were coming, both industries still seem mired in pointing fingers at the competition – the Big 3 automakers and their fans once again bitching about competition from Japan, and newspapers having hissy fits about Google and blaming Craigslist for the imminent collapse of Western Civilization As We Know It.
The article goes on to tout Apple’s limiting supply and thus creating demand – the way that the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii did – which really doesn’t apply to newspapers. But the bit on coming up with new distribution models … now THAT is a fat pitch right down the strike zone.
And I especially like the recognition that the iPhone is a product that looks towards the future; that rejects “tired compromises.” I think that a lot of the pessimism and anger in the newsrooms has leaked over and tainted the news coverage. One of the places where this might be happening is in the news about the economy. I’m not saying that everything is wine & roses out there – I’ll leave that to Phil Gramm – but perhaps when you look around the newsroom and see nothing but empty desks and sad, echoing offices full of junked-out computer equipment, it becomes easier to believe that the entire economy is in in rock-bottom shitsville.
Apple was in similar straits about 10 years ago. They had to take money from Microsoft (i.e. The Evil Empire) just to survive. They were irrelevant, except to a hard core of graphic designers and photographers, and their notebooks kept catching on fire. They came up with the iPod and the entire music business was changed forever.
There are proposals out there for what newspapers could do. What they could become.
The U.S. is not yet ready to adopt some of the things that I’ve seen working elsewhere. Things that could cause the kind of “buzz” and speculation here about what newspapers are doing. That would bring back that “give ‘em hell” sense of daring that is sadly missing from Big Corporate America.
In about a year, after the election-year ad spike really bottoms out, newspapers may just be desperate enough to try these radical re-thinkings of their core products and business methods. I just hope by that time, it is still possible to turn this industry around.
Technorati Tags: newspaper crisis, iphone teaches, suvs, gm, ford, chrysler
Jul 12
Posted: under Uncategorized.
The exact numbers are somewhat fluid, but most analysts agree that only 1-5 people out of every thousand that visit a UGC site will actually contribute something. That works out to between 0.1 and 0.5% That is a very small group to base the success of your community site on. Small, fragile, fickle and easily [...] [...more]
The exact numbers are somewhat fluid, but most analysts agree that only 1-5 people out of every thousand that visit a UGC site will actually contribute something. That works out to between 0.1 and 0.5%
That is a very small group to base the success of your community site on. Small, fragile, fickle and easily discouraged by trolling and flaming.
The Guardian had this take:
you shouldn’t expect too much online. Certainly, to echo Field of
Dreams, if you build it, they will come. The trouble, as in real life,
is finding the builders.
I come to this question because of a recent screed by Paul Gillin on Newspaper Death Watch, micturating on the idea that newspapers should be concerned with building a community. Gillin is skeptical about communities (H/T to Amy Gahran at Poynter for bringing this to my attention) because, he says, “the question came up about what publications can do to build community.
I responded that they can’t do much and they shouldn’t even try
because, with few exceptions, readers aren’t a community.”
Apparently, Yelvington has beaten me to the punch here, with this post “Bzzzzzt! Wrong! Community should be job #1″
This is just thoroughly, thoroughly wrong, utterly self-defeating.
Failure to build community is one of the many reasons so many
newspapers are in so much trouble right now. Yeah, the Internet this
and the economy that and television blah blah blah, but don’t overlook
“failure to lead.” Far too many newspapers have either intentionally
abandoned or simply lost interest and wandered away from the mission.
[snip]
Community doesn’t scale. I’ve previously written about the Dunbar Number.
Each of us has hard-wired limits, so don’t go looking for nationwide
“USA Today” community around general news. That’s clearly the wrong
place to look.
Because of the scale issue, community flourishes in the niches, and
geography happens to be one. But as I’ve said before, this whole notion
of “hyperlocal” seems to be sailing over most journalists’ heads. Or
beneath their noses.
Oh yeah. Yelvington says that when you do research, you find that newspaper readers are seeking some kind of connection. Since, to my knowledge, newspaper readers are, in fact human beings, rather than thin-sliceable demographically segmented consumerbots, yeah, that would follow. 
So here’s my research. It was my first story for OJR, and still the foundation of a lot of my thinking about what newspapers + New Media are capable of, and why the old-school values that we’ve lost along the way are the keys to survival.
The nut grafs from the interview I did with Bob Cauthorn are as relevant today as they were three years ago, when I first did them:
Looping back to Point Reyes, what you see there, and I do think
there is a metaphysical story in there – not metaphysical as in magical
– but deeply emotionally compelling. And that’s why I’m delighted that
you’re bringing this story to light. Because what this tells you in no
uncertain terms, with a kind of heat and passion that I wish existed in
the normal newsroom, that our public wants us to succeed.
Our
public wants us to survive. Our public wants us to thrive. Our public
wants newspapers that matter. Our public is leaving us because we are
chasing them away with a stick.
Folks, the core purpose of a newspaper is to allow a community to have a discussion with itself.
The Light survived because it was such a part of its community that the whole town banded together and refused to let it die. The ongoing saga up in Point Reyes only proves this point – since Mitchell sold the paper, it has strayed from its purpose of providing the community with a place to have a conversation with itself. The community has reacted like an organism, stricken with a particularly noxious infection; it has isolated the Light and formed antibodies (the West Marin Citizen) to combat the toxic intruder. Feel free to chime in the comment section with your own similes involving raw sewage, surgical waste, etc.
So here’s how I tie this together. The reason that so many newspapers are getting things wrong is that they seem to expect to just set up a “Community” section and have every reader show up and eagerly start shoveling stories, photos, videos, etc. into their CMS. Oh, if only. Newspapers, as Yelvington noted, have been bought up by “giant, faceless corporate chains” which has cost them their connection to the community, and thus their position of leadership in the community’s conversation with itself. Which is why our civic sense of decency has become necrotic & foul.
The problem, as I see it, is that newspapers haven’t quite gotten that even on the most successful UGC site, the percentage of people actually contributing content is miniscule. The commenters (latter-day letters to the editor) run about 10%. And to even get that, you have to:
- Actually reach out to the readers – make them aware your community site exists.
- Care about them – as more than just stats that allow you to gouge advertisers for more money.
- Know what they care about, and what they want to see.
- Give them a good reason to respond and reward them when they do something right.
- Have provocative content – rather than he-said she-said stories that make the corporate lawyers happy.
- Have sysops, board leaders and wizops that monitor the conversations and spice things up when they get moribund.
- And … aw hell, just read the goddam Cluetrain Manifesto again. It tells you how to do this far more eloquently and effectively than I ever could.
It’s not time to dismiss “Community Building” as yet another Web 2.0 consultant meaningless buzzword. Community is the frickin’ core mission of the newspaper – or indeed any local media. It’s just that to do so, newspapers are going to have to disaggregate, along the lines of what Bakotopia has done; split into niche groups that allow people to actually talk to their neighbors about things that are geographically significant/interesting/infuriating/delightful. You know – the way that newspapers used to do, before they got so self-important, pretentious and serious…
Jul 12
Posted: under Art, Design, Multimedia, new media, Online Video, visual storytelling.
The exact numbers are somewhat fluid, but most analysts agree that only 1-5 people out of every thousand that visit a UGC site will actually contribute something. That works out to between 0.1 and 0.5% That is a very small group to base the success of your community site on. Small, fragile, fickle and easily [...] [...more]
The exact numbers are somewhat fluid, but most analysts agree that only 1-5 people out of every thousand that visit a UGC site will actually contribute something. That works out to between 0.1 and 0.5%
That is a very small group to base the success of your community site on. Small, fragile, fickle and easily discouraged by trolling and flaming.
The Guardian had this take:
you shouldn’t expect too much online. Certainly, to echo Field of
Dreams, if you build it, they will come. The trouble, as in real life,
is finding the builders.
I come to this question because of a recent screed by Paul Gillin on Newspaper Death Watch, micturating on the idea that newspapers should be concerned with building a community. Gillin is skeptical about communities (H/T to Amy Gahran at Poynter for bringing this to my attention) because, he says, “the question came up about what publications can do to build community.
I responded that they can’t do much and they shouldn’t even try
because, with few exceptions, readers aren’t a community.”
Apparently, Yelvington has beaten me to the punch here, with this post “Bzzzzzt! Wrong! Community should be job #1″
This is just thoroughly, thoroughly wrong, utterly self-defeating.
Failure to build community is one of the many reasons so many
newspapers are in so much trouble right now. Yeah, the Internet this
and the economy that and television blah blah blah, but don’t overlook
“failure to lead.” Far too many newspapers have either intentionally
abandoned or simply lost interest and wandered away from the mission.
[snip]
Community doesn’t scale. I’ve previously written about the Dunbar Number.
Each of us has hard-wired limits, so don’t go looking for nationwide
“USA Today” community around general news. That’s clearly the wrong
place to look.
Because of the scale issue, community flourishes in the niches, and
geography happens to be one. But as I’ve said before, this whole notion
of “hyperlocal” seems to be sailing over most journalists’ heads. Or
beneath their noses.
Oh yeah. Yelvington says that when you do research, you find that newspaper readers are seeking some kind of connection. Since, to my knowledge, newspaper readers are, in fact human beings, rather than thin-sliceable demographically segmented consumerbots, yeah, that would follow.
So here’s my research. It was my first story for OJR, and still the foundation of a lot of my thinking about what newspapers + New Media are capable of, and why the old-school values that we’ve lost along the way are the keys to survival.
The nut grafs from the interview I did with Bob Cauthorn are as relevant today as they were three years ago, when I first did them:
Looping back to Point Reyes, what you see there, and I do think
there is a metaphysical story in there – not metaphysical as in magical
– but deeply emotionally compelling. And that’s why I’m delighted that
you’re bringing this story to light. Because what this tells you in no
uncertain terms, with a kind of heat and passion that I wish existed in
the normal newsroom, that our public wants us to succeed.
Our
public wants us to survive. Our public wants us to thrive. Our public
wants newspapers that matter. Our public is leaving us because we are
chasing them away with a stick.
Folks, the core purpose of a newspaper is to allow a community to have a discussion with itself.
The Light survived because it was such a part of its community that the whole town banded together and refused to let it die. The ongoing saga up in Point Reyes only proves this point – since Mitchell sold the paper, it has strayed from its purpose of providing the community with a place to have a conversation with itself. The community has reacted like an organism, stricken with a particularly noxious infection; it has isolated the Light and formed antibodies (the West Marin Citizen) to combat the toxic intruder. Feel free to chime in the comment section with your own similes involving raw sewage, surgical waste, etc.
So here’s how I tie this together. The reason that so many newspapers are getting things wrong is that they seem to expect to just set up a “Community” section and have every reader show up and eagerly start shoveling stories, photos, videos, etc. into their CMS. Oh, if only. Newspapers, as Yelvington noted, have been bought up by “giant, faceless corporate chains” which has cost them their connection to the community, and thus their position of leadership in the community’s conversation with itself. Which is why our civic sense of decency has become necrotic & foul.
The problem, as I see it, is that newspapers haven’t quite gotten that even on the most successful UGC site, the percentage of people actually contributing content is miniscule. The commenters (latter-day letters to the editor) run about 10%. And to even get that, you have to:
- Actually reach out to the readers – make them aware your community site exists.
- Care about them – as more than just stats that allow you to gouge advertisers for more money.
- Know what they care about, and what they want to see.
- Give them a good reason to respond and reward them when they do something right.
- Have provocative content – rather than he-said she-said stories that make the corporate lawyers happy.
- Have sysops, board leaders and wizops that monitor the conversations and spice things up when they get moribund.
- And … aw hell, just read the goddam Cluetrain Manifesto again. It tells you how to do this far more eloquently and effectively than I ever could.
It’s not time to dismiss “Community Building” as yet another Web 2.0 consultant meaningless buzzword. Community is the frickin’ core mission of the newspaper – or indeed any local media. It’s just that to do so, newspapers are going to have to disaggregate, along the lines of what Bakotopia has done; split into niche groups that allow people to actually talk to their neighbors about things that are geographically significant/interesting/infuriating/delightful. You know – the way that newspapers used to do, before they got so self-important, pretentious and serious…
Jul 12
Posted: under Uncategorized.
Ran across this on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, where he had it intriguingly titled as “Mental Health Break.” I found this very affecting; the creativity and dedication displayed here are humbling. A preview: Robbie Dingo, an alias for a resident of Second Life was a fan of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night” painting, and decided [...] [...more]
Ran across this on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, where he had it intriguingly titled as “Mental Health Break.”
I found this very affecting; the creativity and dedication displayed here are humbling. A preview: Robbie Dingo, an alias for a resident of Second Life was a fan of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night” painting, and decided to do a homage to it in 3-D using the Second Life world-building tools. Watching the video, the process is speeded up; you see all the CAD architecture, lighting/shading, texture mapping, etc. tools employed to make that vision a reality, all set to Don McLean’s touching song.
I often say when I run across something that stands out, that shows that the creator was after something more than just satisfying a client or chasing a buck, that “Someone loved that [fill in the blank].” That love shows through here, and I encourage you to take a few minutes out of the day, lean back in the chair and just experience this. Also, the higher-res version is available here, if you have the bandwidth.
Technorati Tags: Starry Night, Van Gogh, Second Life, 3-D art, art
Jul 12
Posted: under Art, Design, Machinimation, Multimedia, new media, Online Video, Second Life, visual storytelling.
Ran across this on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, where he had it intriguingly titled as “Mental Health Break.” I found this very affecting; the creativity and dedication displayed here are humbling. A preview: Robbie Dingo, an alias for a resident of Second Life was a fan of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night” painting, and decided [...] [...more]
Ran across this on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, where he had it intriguingly titled as “Mental Health Break.”
I found this very affecting; the creativity and dedication displayed here are humbling. A preview: Robbie Dingo, an alias for a resident of Second Life was a fan of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night” painting, and decided to do a homage to it in 3-D using the Second Life world-building tools. Watching the video, the process is speeded up; you see all the CAD architecture, lighting/shading, texture mapping, etc. tools employed to make that vision a reality, all set to Don McLean’s touching song.
I often say when I run across something that stands out, that shows that the creator was after something more than just satisfying a client or chasing a buck, that “Someone loved that [fill in the blank].” That love shows through here, and I encourage you to take a few minutes out of the day, lean back in the chair and just experience this. Also, the higher-res version is available here, if you have the bandwidth.
Technorati Tags: Starry Night, Van Gogh, Second Life, 3-D art, art
Jul 09
Posted: under Uncategorized.
A brief respite from the yammering about curmudgeons, interns, naivete vs. nihilism and all the rest of the debate over whether or not newspapers will be considered a curiosity in less than 2 years’ time… I got to this thru a post on the Poynter site, and man, is this ever addicting. I’m a big [...] [...more]
A brief respite from the yammering about curmudgeons, interns, naivete vs. nihilism and all the rest of the debate over whether or not newspapers will be considered a curiosity in less than 2 years’ time…
I got to this thru a post on the Poynter site, and man, is this ever addicting.
I’m a big fan of any tool that helps the user filter, organize and digest data according to his/her needs, and this one definitely shows promise. It’s
an IBM tool called “many eyes” and what it does is form graphic representations of complex data in ways that allow you to click through and follow from a central starting point thread, where it leads… The visualization of the salmonella outbreak does what a great infographic should do – it presents complex data in an easily grasped visual way, and shows the relationships between various data streams.
I typed in my own search string to the tool – check out the results:
Jul 09
Posted: under Design, Digital Migration, infographic, Iraq, journalism, Multimedia, new media, Newspapers, visual storytelling, Web Tech.
Tags: infographic
A brief respite from the yammering about curmudgeons, interns, naivete vs. nihilism and all the rest of the debate over whether or not newspapers will be considered a curiosity in less than 2 years’ time… I got to this thru a post on the Poynter site, and man, is this ever addicting. I’m a big [...] [...more]
A brief respite from the yammering about curmudgeons, interns, naivete vs. nihilism and all the rest of the debate over whether or not newspapers will be considered a curiosity in less than 2 years’ time…
I got to this thru a post on the Poynter site, and man, is this ever addicting.
I’m a big fan of any tool that helps the user filter, organize and digest data according to his/her needs, and this one definitely shows promise. It’s an IBM tool called “many eyes” and what it does is form graphic representations of complex data in ways that allow you to click through and follow from a central starting point thread, where it leads… The visualization of the salmonella outbreak does what a great infographic should do – it presents complex data in an easily grasped visual way, and shows the relationships between various data streams.
I typed in my own search string to the tool – check out the results:
