First, this is the most reading I’ve ever done for a class. Or at least it seems that way because of the short time period. Either way, it was an intense amount of reading, but I feel most of it did have a lot of value – even the older articles or studies I disagreed with.

One of the biggest takeaways for me is some basis for the faith and conviction I have in my thoughts and opinions. I believe Twitter is the most valuable tool journalists can use. I believe things should be free (and that we shouldn’t bitch and moan when they occasionally don’t work). I believe in niche storytelling, that crime isn’t the only thing that deserves air time in television newscasts. I believe raw data is a great source of potential story ideas for journalists. So it’s nice to know people much smarter than I also subscribe to these ideas.

Also, this quick summer session allowed me to finally come to an informed decision about net neutrality. I didn’t quite understand the concept when we briefly discussed it in previous classes, but this Daily Show clip really made it make sense. And now I have a solid footing in arguing why net neutrality is important and vital.

Finally, I am fully pumped up for next year’s SXSWi conference. It’s exciting to know that I will meet many of the people whose work we have read and it’s exciting to even think about what will change between now and March 2011.

First, most local newsrooms – especially TV newsrooms – hardly have a web person, much less someone who can mine through page after page of documents and make it useful. Right now, that duty falls on a reporter or producer, who are usually in such a rush that they pull out the key nuggets and toss the rest of the data off to the side. It would be nice to make it into flashy infographics that help tell the story like the NY Times does, but the staffing just isn’t there at the local level.

Secondly, I am of the belief that local newsrooms don’t feel data are important. Sure, they don’t mind getting comments to stories (it drums up pageviews), but no one responds to those comments. They do nothing with those comments. Local news, as it is right now, could never pull off something like the Emotion Chain – even if they had the proper staffing. It’s not a priority at the local level and that is one thing that needs to change…soon.

To figure this out, I created a Twitter account and followed every news person from San Antonio with a Twitter account. The number stands at 66, but I will likely eliminate station employees who do not work in the newsroom and also non-active accounts (anyone who hasn’t tweeted in the past month). The biggest pain in this has been finding the proper coding categories for the tweets. Luckily, I found a blog on the AEJMC website which I hope will provide the parameters.

Once tweets are coded, I should be able to focus on a category that notes alerts and updates as the key category. This will show that news is being released on Twitter before it hits airwaves, or even the stations’ websites. I will then conduct interviews with newsroom employees about Twitter and use my own experience to determine how gate keeping plays a role in all this.

I know this may not seem like it has anything at all to do with Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail,” but I think it helps explain Anderson’s thoughts as they pertain to the news business. You never know what people will be interested in when they go to a news station website. So you need a lot of information to be there…and to cover a lot of topics. Some of them unusual.

It’s the long tail of news…in a world of abundant information.

As Anderson said, the more we explore, the more we are drawn to things. News, like most businesses, is fighting for money. Money in the sense of readers and viewers to pitch to advertisers. A friend of mine is a sports producer in San Antonio. He says you would be amazed at how many women write and thank his station for covering the WNBA. They’ve become loyal customers of a station because of a niche topic that no other station covers.

It’s the long tail of news…and, in this case, sports.

In “The Long Tail,” Anderson lays out an idea that everything should be made available to the general public. You have to have some level of popular content to get people in the door – but once they’re there, they can dig around and find other stuff. Stuff they didn’t know about that is probably obscure. Every niche can find an audience. In turn, every niche can turn a profit.

Anderson spends a lot of time on the music business, which is a perfect example of the long tail. However, I immediately thought in terms of movies. Several of my favorite films – “Swingers” and “Office Space” in particular – were not successful at the box office. However they eventually found an audience on DVD. That audience developed over time by strong word of mouth. When Vince Vaughn hit it big in “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” people started to look up his past work. “Swingers” then had an even bigger audience. “The Lost World” got people in the door and led them straight down the long tail to “Swingers.”

If a business has any sense, they would adapt to the long tail. First, the Internet makes it very easy to offer everything you have to the public. Whether it’s books, paintings, pens or peanuts. Think big. Even if your painting didn’t sell in your hometown and others sold better, keep it available. You never know what will find an audience. In terms of marketing, the long tail shows the importance of social interaction. Much of it is driven by the reactions to your peers. We saw this with Amazon recommendations and continue to see it today. Earlier this morning, two of my Twitter friends said they were going to “give in” and finally go see “Inception” because people couldn’t quit talking about it. “Inception” likely wouldn’t be on the long tail (it’s a hit), but seeing Leo’s performance may inspire you to watch some of his other movies you may have missed. And finally, businesses subscribing to the long tail need to change their approach. A business needs to be flexible and creative. I was willing to try Google Buzz and Wave because I love Chrome and Gmail. Buzz and Wave sucked, but it hasn’t hurt my love of Google. I will try the next product it comes out with, as well. Who knows…my exploration may eventually lead me to another Google app I never heard about.

It’s the long tail.

• • •

Earlier today, I got pretty upset that the Twitter Fail Whale made another appearance in my life. I sat back, took a deep breath and moved on to something else. But I was still kinda irked. “The World Cup is over,” I thought, “so why is Twitter still screwing up?”

As Cindy frequently points out, we get awfully angry at these great, free tools that Web 2.0 provides. Key word there is free.

In “Free,” Anderson says, “Free has emerged as a full fledged economy.” Anderson argues that free has become the norm. And much of that is because of the web. So much of the web content is free, it’s become expected.

Anderson lays out six broad categories of free. “Freemium” means a basic version of something is free and a better version is available to buy. Advertising often supports free stuff, like Google. Cross-subsidies is the third category. In other words, a restaurant that offers a free drink with dinner, knowing you’ll drop $30 on the meal. Anderson talks about music exclusively when talking about zero marginal cost. He points to recent examples of bands giving up on people paying for music. Instead, they try and get them to come to concerts and buy shirts. The final two categories are labor exchange (you help make something better) and gift economy (like Wikipedia, everything is free. No strings attached).

I think it’s hard for businesses to wrap their minds around this notion of free. Everything has always been about money, so how does it make sense to give stuff away? I’m lucky enough to work for a guy who does get this. He’s fine with giving away a $500 “prize” if it means interacting with potential customers through social media. He’s fine not charging for a service call, hoping it leads to something down the line. Oh…and guess how much he’s had to spend in advertising in the past year? $0…as in free.

To pull off this approach, companies have to be willing to give and take. Not every free venture is going to be a hit. They may lose a little money along the way. But eventually, it should come back in spades with brand loyalty. The change in scale is however big they choose to make it. Some companies can afford to offer products at no cost, others can’t. But even the ones who can’t can likely find ways to make something work. Finally, I saved the best for last. When marketing their products, companies have a new asset – social media. Guess what? It’s free! Companies like the one I work for can survive and thrive on $0 marketing budgets.

As Anderson said, free has a psychological aspect to it, as well. People like getting something for nothing. It’s up to business to like giving away something for nothing.

]]> http://daleblasingame.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/the-long-tail-and-free/feed/ 0 daleblasingame http://daleblasingame.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/how-to-search-on-twitter/ http://daleblasingame.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/how-to-search-on-twitter/#comments Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:00:49 +0000 Dale Blasingame http://daleblasingame.wordpress.com/?p=48 ]]> I’m really glad Cindy played that “Twitter in Plain English” video in class the other day. Not because I don’t know how to use Twitter, which some would argue is true, but because I had never heard of Common Craft. I’ve just spent the past hour going through the group’s plain English videos and, for the most part, think it’s some remarkable work.

In particular, I thought the Twitter search video was great for people who are having a hard time understanding the value of real-time news and information.

The videos are easy to understand for anyone, whether they are two or 52. In this search video, I think Common Craft truly captures the power of real-time search by breaking it down to the most simple level. Another great thing about these videos is the length. They are a few minutes long in each case – just enough information to make you understand, but not too much information to bog you down and confuse you.

Now we just need a Common Craft video to explain Justin Bieber.

I’ll start with Twitter because it is one of my favorite things in the world. As mentioned in many of the articles, Twitter is, much like location-based services, truly one of those things you have to try before dismissing it. I get really frustrated by comments like, “I don’t care what you ate for breakfast!” If that’s all you get out of Twitter, then you’ve failed.

Carr correctly pointed out that Twitter has quickly become a news platform. My thesis is looking at how Twitter has changed the news gathering process. Gone are the days of stuff happening, news outlets covering said events and you finding out about it at 5, 6 or 10. It just doesn’t happen that way anymore. Twitter allows for a real-time exposure to news (and sometimes even potential breaking news that turns out to be a false alarm) that has never before been possible. Journalists have been quick to flock to Twitter, as Arceneaux and Weiss pointed out, because journalists work in real time. We are under constant deadlines and must keep our stories short and concise. What better platform for us than one that literally changes every second and requires brevity?

I loved how Johnson touched on the topic of the national experience via Twitter. Gone are the days of you calling a friend and saying, “Did you just see that?” Instead, you can discuss it in real time with millions of others who are watching the very same event. It’s why Twitter kept crashing during the World Cup. This is the same topic discussed in the SXSW article. Twitter allows you to figure out where you SHOULD be at conferences like that, instead of where you are. I personally got up and left sessions to attend different ones because people I trust said I was missing out.

As for Facebook, I’ll be honest – I’m pretty down on it these days. For me, Facebook has become a great way to store photos and keep track of people’s birthdays. I still update my page every once in a while and there are obvious positives about the site, but I’m almost at the stage where I’m over Facebook. I simply prefer my Twitter community. It’s really that simple.

Saying that, the success of Facebook is nothing short of astounding. Levy talked about the goal of having everyone on Facebook by 2012. We’re about a year away and almost halfway to that goal. I thought it was interesting that Zuckerberg mentioned in the Time piece that Facebook isn’t a social networking system, it’s an information tool. Much like its main rival, Google, Facebook considers itself something completely different that what the majority of people assume it to be. Speaking of Google, it was hilarious to hear Zuckerberg in the Vogelstein piece criticize Google for security and privacy concerns. Bet he wishes that little bit of hypocrisy back.

These articles also pointed out a few other miserable failures by Yahoo. It’s almost at the point where you pity Yahoo. Either that, or it’s a dying horse that needs to be put down. Maybe we can take out Myspace with it.

•          •          •

I’ve never been much of a big-idea guy, unfortunately. When people at my former news station needed some innovation, I usually wasn’t of much use (and it really does bum me to say that). Instead, I was very happy to be one of the people to carry out said idea. It’s just how I work. So I may not be the most qualified person to try and predict the next big thing in social media. However, it is fairly easy to spot trends. Right now, the hottest things going (in my opinion) are Twitter and location-based services.

I have limited experiences with foursquare (I’ve used it for a couple of months) or Gowalla (never used it), so I fully admit that some of the stuff I am about to mention may already be happening. But wouldn’t it be great if a service could incorporate all the things we love about the social media we already use? One that could not only let people know where you are (with a map included), but allow for live chat and live video? With a real-time search feed? I think it would be cool to stand on 6th Street in Austin (or wherever) and be able to watch live (or very recent) video feeds of concerts going on in a one-mile radius…before you determine where you are going to pay cover. Sure, you can just walk bar to bar and listen in and I know people can tweet a link to a UStream account, but I’m talking about an interactive map on your phone where you click the bar to see what’s going on inside. Wouldn’t it be great to see that there are only four people inside before you pay $10 cover? Oh, and those four people…they’re all guys. No thanks.

Of course, a system like this would require access to cameras inside if no one is streaming on their phones. But we’ll worry about that when the venture capitalists send me a tweet.

It’s a good question. The answer, when you really get to the heart of the issue, is Google makes money off of every single one of us, without ever charging us a dime.

In his article on Googlenomics, Wired magazine’s Steven Levy lays out the basic process Google uses to make money. Sponsored links are sold to companies via an auction – with the highest bidder getting the best placement in relation to the search. The price depends on the popularity of the search. In other words, buying a sponsored link for the keywords “New York Yankees” will obviously cost you more than “San Marcos Little League.”

And that’s where we come in.

Google is essentially using the data you and I provide free of charge to its wonderful search engine every single day to make a killing. It tracks our habits, interests and curiosities and literally sells them to the highest bidder. According to Levy, Google made $21 billion in 2008. Not too shabby.

My boss is very familiar with the AdWords program at Google. He pays big bucks to be the top search – and says it is worth every penny.

So why don’t other media use this same method? As the readings pointed out, Yahoo has tried…and failed. Miserably. It is still in catch up mode, waiting for Google to stumble. Twitter could also utilize this with its real-time searches. If you look up “Inception,” the movie times at the theater in your neighborhood would be a really effective ad. This process would also make a lot of sense for newspapers and television stations. Most news stories on the web these days have what’s called “pre-roll.” It’s a 15 second spot that airs before the news story you selected. It airs before, and not after, so you have to actually watch it to see the story. Wouldn’t it be ideal for an ad for a diabetes medication to be the pre-roll selection when a story about a diabetes breakthrough is selected? Same idea could be applied to newspaper websites. They could personalize the advertising within each story based on the content.

Sure, that sounds simple enough in theory – but there’s a HUGE problem in getting newspaper and television websites to adopt technology like this. I don’t mean this as a slam against my former cohorts in the news business, but we ain’t no Google. Hell, we’re not even a Yahoo. It takes engineers to master technology like this, and that’s just something mass media outlets don’t invest in. It’s unfortunate, but true. Who knows though – maybe Google will one day sell its ad system to other media institutions.

One last thing about the readings: I thought it was very interesting that Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Wired magazine that his company should first be thought of as an advertising system. I think it is safe to assume if you asked Joe Blow what Google is, he or she would respond with “a search website.” Those few words Schmidt responded with are an interesting insight into the company and its focus on the future. Not everything Google does is gold – Buzz and Wave are very recent examples of Google failures – but the company isn’t resting on any laurels. While Google is perfecting its ad-auction system, its competitors are trying to figure out how the heck Google’s search engine works so well. Then while Google is creating university programs to teach cloud computing, its competitors are scrambling to catch up to Google’s ad-auction system. Etc., etc., etc. Google is constantly one step ahead and it’s going to take a collapse of monumental proportions (or an even more kick-ass search engine) to change that.

Here is just a smattering of definitions from the Downes/McMillan and Kiousis essays.

Interactivity is…

…the relationship between two more people who, in a given situation, mutually adapt their behavior and actions to each other.

…an expression of the extent that, in a give series of communication exchanges, any third (or later) transmission (or message) is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred to even earlier transmissions.

…the extent to which messages in a sequence relate to each other, and especially the extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier messages.

…the degree to which participants in a communication process can exchange roles in and have control over their mutual discourse.

…the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time.

…transferring control to the user.

…a measure of a media’s potential ability to let the user exert an influence on the content and/or form of the mediated communication.

…the extent to which the communicator and the audience respond to, or are willing to facilitate each other’s communication needs.

…the processes of communication that take on some of the characteristics of interpersonal communication.

…the relationship between text and the reader, but also to reciprocal human actions and communication associated with the use of media as well as (para-social) interaction via a medium.

…the aptitude of users to modify, interact and respond to media which, in turn, transform the mediated environment being experienced.

…the ability of systems to simulate interpersonal communication, although the features and components of it change with authors.

…the capacity for a system to mimic interpersonal communication.

…the degree to which a communication technology can create a mediated environment in which participants can communicate (one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many), both synchronously and asynchronously, and participate in reciprocal message exchanges (third-order dependency).

…the users’ ability to perceive the experience as a simulation of interpersonal communication and increase their awareness of telepresence.

…when you either feel yourself to be participating in the ongoing action of the representation or you don’t.

That last definition reminds me of the Supreme Court justice’s line we already discussed this semester: “I know it when I see it.”

Given those definitions, it’s clear to see interactivity is one of those terms that simply just depends. Everyone has a different opinion, a different perception and a different set of guidelines for using it. As for me personally, I tend to agree more with Dennis’ explanation in the Downes/McMillan essay.

Interactivity is changing the way you can do or should do business because the opportunity now exists to put control in the hands of the user.

Actually, I should re-phrase a bit. That’s my content definition of interactivity. I do believe there is a separate communication definition, as well. I agree with Rice that interactive media involve interchangeable roles of sender and receiver.

Allow me to explain. In terms of communication, I believe interactivity is the ability to share ideas with others and learn from them, as well. Sometimes you are providing the information and/or opinion, sometimes you are on the receiving end. Then, you pass along the information to someone else, who may share a different thought or opinion with you. It can be a never-ending cycle of information sharing, depending on how much time you have in the day. This obviously applies to social media like Twitter and Facebook. Those social media in turn also help people who used to be exclusively users of media become possible content providers for traditional media outlets, like TV stations and newspapers. Things like submitting pictures of a snow storm or sending a tweet to inform a station that information is wrong never used to happen. If it did, it was in the form of a phone call to an answering service or writing a letter and mailing it. Those days have long since changed.

As for content, I believe interactivity is taking available information and conforming it to your needs and interests. This is where my thesis topic of gate keeping comes in. Before “new media,” users of traditional media had to wait until 5 p.m. to find out what happened in their city and across the country. They were limited to the stories deemed relevant and important by a handful of journalists. Now, entire newscasts are put online where you can pick and choose which stories you want to see. Newspaper stories are put on the web first, so you can read what is important to you and skip what is not. Interactive databases make the learning process more tactile. In other words, the information is delivered and now the user is the gate keeper, not someone sitting inside a newsroom.

Saying all of that, one could argue that journalists are still the ultimate gate keepers, deciding which information is put on the web so the user can decide what he or she wants to see.

Here I am arguing with myself over my own definition of interactivity. Guess I’m no better.

It is pretty amazing to read Bush and Engelbart’s work, considering they were written in 1945 and 1962 respectively. Both men see technology as a great opportunity to enhance human intellect. Bush was mainly focused on preserving research and said he feared that much of the great thought and information being created would be lost because there was no way to archive it or find it:

“There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his synthesis are not likely to keep up with the current scene.”

Bush then goes on to talk about how the human mind organizes information, much like we’ve talked about in class. We skip around, check out something here, go back to the original point, get distracted, check out something else, etc. He calls his proposal an associated trail and begins to describe a machine called the Memex, which would house books, articles and the like. Essentially – he was talking about the web.

You can tell Engelbart was heavily influenced by Bush’s work. Hell, the first ten pages of Part 3 of his study are direct quotes from Bush. Engelbart also believed technology would have a positive influence on human intellect. Whereas Bush described the future web, Engelbart talks about what would eventually become hypertext:

“An associative trail scheme similar to that outlined by Bush for his Memex could conceivably be implemented with these cards to meet this need (of linking ideas together to form a train of thought that can be backtracked if needed) and add a valuable new symbol structuring process to the system.”

A couple of other interesting things about Engelbart’s work. First of all, he just about word-for-word outlines the future word processors. There is also a paragraph that I found really interesting:

“He showed you how he could call up the dictionary definition to any word he had typed in, with but a few quick flicks on the keyset. Synonyms or antonyms could just as easily be brought forth.”

Is that not the definition of “Googling” a word?

McLuhan has a completely different tone from Bush and Engelbart, however. He’s not as upbeat and cheery. I gotta be honest, McLuhan is a tough read. This was my first time to try and tackle it, considering we barely blew through it in my theory class. Of course, I’ve heard the phrase “The medium is the message.” I can honestly say I didn’t know what it meant though. So here’s my best shot at it.

I believe McLuhan was more interested in the effects of technology on people, rather than the content technology produced. If I understand him correctly, the message is the effect the media have.

“The message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.”

He has a nice example of how railroads affected towns across the country and it didn’t matter what materials or products the trains were carrying. If I am understanding correctly, then it doesn’t matter if you study the effects of cartoons on kids or violent movies on teens. Instead, study the effects of TV on kids and teens.

McLuhan also talks about how the “unwary” are more susceptible to being affected by media. This goes along with what Dr. Grimes writes about. He believes media have greater effect on people who are unstable than they do on “normal” people. It might be comparing apples to oranges, but I talked with Dr. Grimes this morning and he agreed that his thinking is along the lines of McLuhan’s – even though he admitted it is not the “popular” theory these days.

A couple of things I didn’t mention in class – I am the senior writer for a travel magazine called The Hotel Guide, where I cover Las Vegas. (Tough gig, I know.) I also do social media for Champion AC, an air conditioning company in San Antonio. It’s been a challenge and very rewarding at the same time. Social media and air conditioning don’t seem like a perfect match, but it’s been great finding ways to make them all mesh, to use a phrase from Tim Berners-Lee. I run a blog called Normal Guy Guide, which I don’t update as much as I should. Problem is I spend most of my free time on Twitter. I also am a loyal fan of Top Chef and Project Runway.

Okay, enough about me. The challenge issued in class tonight was to come up with our own personal definition of new media. I gotta be honest, I hadn’t really ever thought of defining it. But after the assigned readings, I think I have a pretty good handle on what it means – to me, at least. For me, the phrase “new media” means taking the legacy media – things like TV, radio, newspaper – and integrating the computer and Internet to allow for interaction. It blows my mind at how many TV stations and newspapers to this day have no way to interact with their viewers or readers – other than a comment number or an email address to the news director. Much like Baron talked about in the Pencils to Pixels essay, I witnessed first hand that traditional media organizations are not always the quickest at adapting to new technologies. Fortunately, though, there are stations that get it.

In Manovich’s “New Media User’s Guide,” I really liked one particular line and think it sums up my definition of new media. He said, “Media and computer merge into one.” The lines between media have become so blurred – and I think that’s a good thing. TV stations are capable of producing excellent web pieces if they want to. Newspapers can produce great video narratives if they want to. So what if it’s not the normal roles they have traditionally played. It’s about connecting and interacting with viewers and readers. To me, that defines new media.