Can Smart Aggregators Save Mainstream Media
Now Playing: Frou Frou - Let Go
Topic: Web 2.0
Finally, a follow-up to last week's post on the future of the MSM.

I finally sent feedback and comments to WAMC's The Media Project, a great radio show that examines the mainstream media (MSM). Stumbled upon the show driving back from a Nantucket wedding two years ago and have been a faithful internet listener ever since. Never having written them before, I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from Alan Chartock, the professor and head of WAMC.

The Media Project always has a discussion on the current state of the MSM, including the newspaper industry, which has been losing readers and struggling financially for the last 5-7 years, conservatively. A lot of that comes from the rise of the internet and the ability to filter what you want to receive as your news. It's the long-touted rip, mix, burn culture coming to fruition, especially since RSS feeds and news readers are starting to become so popular. What does all of this mean for the newspaper industry, which has traditionally been a physical good requiring substantial production and distribution costs (covered by an advertiser-dependent revenue model)?

The internet severally reduces the costs of production and distribution but a newspaper (besides its online edition) has always been viewed as a single, discreet commodity that derives its full value from the whole of the content, not from its disparate pieces. Fred Wilson has suggested (as have others) that the future of media involves these four criteria:

microchunk it

freeing it

syndicate it

monetize it

* I added remixing to my email to Alan, Lydia, and Rex.

Rex liked the perspective but had a great counterpoint which deserves attention: while microchunks and remixing may work for electronic content, what about the publicly-traded companies that demand shareholder returns while the idea of microchunks dictates that web information remain free? Newspapers' revenue streams are circulation and advertising (the former pays for the newsroom) and a paper can't sustain a big staff and strong reporting (which creates the valuable content) without the circulation revenue.

It seems like a catch-22: how do newspapers maintain the creation of valuable content while trying to embrace the trends of New Media that dictate freeing (microchunking and remixing) that very content that makes a newspaper valuable (great reporters and strong reporting)?

Rex has undoubtedly been, and will continue, grappling with this formidable challenge. I'm not sure that I have a great answer but let's try: Smart Aggregators. Wait just a sec before you say, oh here we go, more Web2.0 mumbo jumbo. The economic or business concept of an aggregator has been well established, and not just within the pre- and post-Dot Com Eras. Following the microchink concept, Umair at Bubblegeneration discusses the idea of a smart aggregator in his mediaeconomics presentations (PPT file):

Aggregation-- ‘Rebundling of content from fragmented platforms & formats, re-purposing, & delivery across new platforms & standards’ (Slide 53)

Smart Aggregators don't just rebundle content from diverse platforms/standards, they rebundle content, information about that content (e.g. tags) and about the network, application, device, etc. (Slide 55)

Can newspaper act as smart aggregators more efficiently than web-based tools? When it comes to local and regional news, they probably stand a chance. But ask the NY Times how it approaches the power or reach of Google News or other news aggregators for national or world news and the papers may have a different answer.

Aggregations add value to exchange process rather than to the goods themselves. (Digital Capital, pg. 50)

Are newspapers valuable because of the content that they amass, consolidate, and distribute (exchange) or from the news reporting and news stories that they create? Certainly, it's the former but I agree w/ Rex that newspapers' value comes from strong reporting and good journalists (content creators). Is the Huffington Post, which was chided at its inception but has become quite popular and seemingly successful since starting in May, a quasi-newspaper or just an aggregator, adding value by bringing together different authors onto a common space where their combined voices are stronger than if they stood alone on their sites/blogs?

The real costs of producing a newspaper article is sunk into the first copy; the marginal costs of printing and distribution greatly influence the paper's price. (Digital Capital, pg. 77). The internet changes the rules for information goods because their marginal distribution costs tend toward zero (Information Rules).


Food for thought-but I'm tired now, so post some comments if you have answer to the newspaper's catch-22 when it comes to microchunking and remixing.

Just so you thought I wasn't being too serious, thanks to Mike for telling about the hilarious Secular Central clip from the Daily Show. I can hear Alan saying it now, "Bill O'Reilly, him I do not like."

Posted by cph19 at 12:43 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 9 December 2005 1:07 AM EST

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Rodney Mullen is Still a God
Now Playing: Coldplay - Speed of Sound
Topic: Personal or Reflective
Thanks to Justin for this amazing video clip: Rodney Mullen is Still a God

Every snowboarder wishes that they were a good skateboarder; every great skateboarder wishes that they were as good as Rodney Mullen.

Last.fm + Flickr = ?
Now Playing: Foo Fighters - Everlong (KROQ acoustic)
Topic: Web 2.0

+

www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from cherbert. Make your own badge here.

=

?

Unfulfilled Promises
Now Playing: Postal Service - Clark Gable
Topic: Globalization
I promise, a follow-up to last week's post on the future of MSM: how microchunking and remixing is the future of media. Rex Smith emailed me back with positive feedback and good counter-point that I started addressing but will finish tomorrow. I also have some nuggets from my pre-Thanksgiving decompression session at Barnes & Noble that I'd like to mention: Briefly, they include:

China's influence on the humanitarian crisis/genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan (via The Economist, try BugMeNot.com for access)
      #1) "Chinese opposition made it difficult last year to take up Sudan's Darfur crisis at the UN Security Council. Similarly, China is not keen to allow the council to take up the issue of Iran's nuclear activities."
      #2) "To make a point about human rights in China, he met the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader-in-exile, at the White House on November 9th—but without press photographers, in apparent deference to Chinese sensitivities."

the Flickr-ization of Yahoo

the future of music sharing is mp3 blog aggregators (forget P2P)

notes on what the Semantic Web really means

Currently Playing: The Avalanches - Since I Left You

Posted by cph19 at 11:37 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 7 December 2005 9:50 PM EST

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Good News
Now Playing: My Morning Jacket - Wordless Chorus
Topic: Personal or Reflective
Good news today...and an ad banner from Last.fm page that made me chuckle:

I'm loving the new single, "Wordless Chorus," from My Morning Jacket, what a great sound. And there's this:

( the NYT covers Shaun White )

Resisting the Pull of MySpace
Now Playing: The Flaming Lips - Mr. Ambulance Driver
Topic: Web 2.0
I resisted MySpace for a long time; I remembered something about it from my Hawai'i trip last March when Mike's friends took me surfing and kept talking about this MySpace thing. It made me feel old and out of touch, not knowing anything about an internet trend, which is supposedly my expertise. Then it came up again within the last few months and I decided even if I wasn't into the social networking bug (LinkedIn is different, that's business networking) I needed to understand the subject. Begrudgingly, I got sucked into MySpace, but I keep a healthy distance.

It's hitting the mainstream now and here is Wired's a great article from November 2005 on the MySpace phenomena. Now here's Business Week's stab at the topic:

Currently Listening: The Flaming Lips - Mr. Ambulance Driver (iTunes link)

Correlating Amazon and Your Local Library
Now Playing: KCRW
Topic: Web 2.0
Thanks to Reddit's post on Greasemokey extensions, there's a solution to a question I posed a couple months back. I was a little slow to this and found that Jon Udell had already solved the Amazon-Public Library correlation challenge: how to link Amazon's search results through their API to your local public library.

I don't have the Rochester Public Library's LIBRA system working yet but RIT's works well. Drag this bookmarklet, RIT Libraries, to your link toolbar in Firefox or IE (screenshot here).

Here's the bookmarklet text (what the hell is a bookmarklet?): javascript:var%20re=/([\/-]|is[bs]n=)(\d{7,9}[\dX])/i;if(re.test(location.href)==true){var%20isbn=RegExp.$2;void(win=window.open('http://albert.rit.edu'+'/search/i='+isbn,'LibraryLookup','scrollbars=1,resizable=1,location=1,width=575,height=500'))}

Do your regular Amazon search for a book and when you're found it, click on the bookmarklet in your browser and will automatically query the RIT Library (in a new browser window). It's as easy as that so spread the word.

Kenya Photos
Now Playing: Plej - Lay of the Land (vocal version)
From Bert and Meg's recent Kenya trip:

Currently Listening: Plej - Lay of the Land (vocal version); My Morning Jacket - Wordless Chorus

Funny Shirts as Christmas Gifts
Topic: Personal or Reflective

Thanks Snowboarder Magazine, where I first read/heard about this phenomena a couple years ago.

The Grey Album --> Q-Unit Greatest Hits
Now Playing: Q-Unit - Bohemian Wanksta
Topic: Personal or Reflective
As part of my mp3 blog search engines, Steroegum had this awesome post

(mp3s here)

UPDATE 12/7/05: Couldn't (forgot to) publish the post until today. But knowing that I scooped BoingBoing by a couple of days feels good.

In keeping with the music theme, read Slate's great diatribe againist the Black Eyed Peas newest single, "My Hump." I first heard the BEP's freshman album in 1998, a Mack Dawg or Standard Films snowboard video used a few tracks. But ever since, the BEPs have gone extremely mainstream:

" "My Humps" is a moment that reminds us that categories such as "good" and "bad" still matter. Relativism be damned! There are bad songs that offend our sensibilities but can still be enjoyed, and then there are the songs that are just really bad?transcendentally bad, objectively bad."

And I'm so out of it when it comes to pop culture (the no TV thing) that I was amazed to see tons of Broken Social Scene albums at BestBuy (I went for CD-Rs, I know a rip but I need them stat). Here I was thinking that BSS was still this cool, underground music secret that the rest of the world hadn't discovered. Be damned, I still like them.

Why I Love the Internet
Now Playing: Feist - Inside and Out
Topic: Personal or Reflective
Just when I think that things are going wrong, I receive some confirmation that I'm doing the right things. Yes, I spend a lot of time reading, writing, researching on the internet but I love it. Here's why:

HBS's Working Knowledge acknowledging the Web2.0 topic (albeit a little late but remember their audience, business leaders, not the first adopters who have been talking/blogging about the subject for awhile now)

As Jonathan Schwartz has predicted that all CEOs will eventually blog just as naturally as they presently use email, HBS's Working Knowledge asks, "Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?"- does Scoble agree

How musicians have harnessed the internet (nothing profound but it's from the MSM)

The 10th anniversary show of This American Life, which included a powerful story on the former editor of Wired, Kevin Kelly

Being able to play mp3s files directly on your blog- no plug-ins necessary (thanks del.icio.us)

Sent some comments/feedback on this WaPo experiment to The Media Project and they liked it (more on this later in the week)

Currently Playing: Feist - Inside and Out (iTunes link)

Posted by cph19 at 10:35 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 28 November 2005 10:37 PM EST

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The Fire Through
Now Playing: The Fire Through - A Slight Numb
Topic: Music
I don't get a lot of traffic here but if I can spread the word about a buddy's new band, I'm more than happy to help.

"Rochester, NY based band looking to form something solid and truthful. Currently in the process of recording with a total of 8 original tracks layed down, The Fire Through is Evan Wormwood (drums/bass/singer) and Dennis Gaebel (Lead/Rhytm Guitar/Singer)."

Give a listen to their two tracks, "A Slight Numb" and "Funktion Sober" via The Fire Through on MySpace.

Great Radio
Now Playing: Hidden Kitchens - NPR via WXXI
Topic: Personal or Reflective
What a great way to end Thanksgiving, relaxing and listening to Hidden Kitchens, a NPR series exploring hidden kitchens across the country.

I'm no epicure at this point in my life and don't get into cooking either. My Dad read that the sign of a person who loves to cook is someone that looks forward to cooking even when they're not hungry. He and brother do love to cook, and though I enjoy eating, a love of cooking hasn't rubbed off. But there's more to cooking than just slaving away in the kitchen. As the amazing Hidden Kitchens stories portray, "its food and fellowship."

In addition to Hidden Kitchens, Jay Allison produces the great radio series, "This I Believe." I heard Penn Jillette's essay on Monday morning while driving to work and it reminded me of this series. Check out the list of contributors, it's an eclectic and inspirational group of people, from Bill Gates to John McCain to Dave Brubeck to Brian Greene.

Eloquence in Simplicity
Now Playing: Engadget Podcast - 11/22/05
Topic: Personal or Reflective
I couldn't have said it better myself.

Old news but here's why my apartment has been so cold (and why my mail is now in danger). In chronological and incresing magnitude of eloquent BS (left-->right), from my otherwise excellent landlord:

Last.fm + LivePlasma
Now Playing: Bloc Party - This Modern Love
Topic: Web 2.0
LivePlasma + Last.fm = a visual, mashed up way to explore your musical tastes

(based on a search for Broken Social Scene)

Snowboarding Circa '90/'91
Now Playing: Guster - Two Points for Honesty
Topic: Personal or Reflective
Thanks to Wired for the hat tip on First Descent, a snowboard movie coming out on Dec. 2nd (trailer here). There's been a long list of cheesy mainstream snowboard films (I don't even want to name them) but the five riders in this film, including Farmer, Nick Perata, and Terje are formidable. (If you haven’t heard of the first two, keep reading; if you haven’t heard of Terje then you’re not a snowboarder). The riding includes AK and hopefully very little jibbing so I'm reserving judgment on this movie.

I'm not opposed to jibbing but it's not what snowboarding is about. People ask me about snowboarding and I say that I love it. When they ask me if I'm good, I usually shrug my shoulders because that's the way I am. Go watch Damien Sanders and Farmer in Critical Condition and learn where snowboarding originated. It was anti-establishment and all about pissing off people (skiers and the ski patrol).

If you haven't heard of the movie of those two riders, go pour through old snowboard magazines (like Transworld and Snowboarder) and then read Susanna Howe's book, (Sick) : A Cultural History of Snowboarding.

You owe it to yourself and to the sport to know snowboarding's roots. Were you riding back in '90/'91? Do you remember the first jib revolution, epitomized by the Snow Summit scene and the Ride crew? How about that famous Division 23 ad with Peter Line and his favorite magazine? I used to read the new snowboard magazine issues religiously, calling them my bibles and treating them as such.

The snow has started falling here in western NY and I can't wait.

Support Bloggers' Rights!
Now Playing: The Cure - Mint Car
Topic: Personal or Reflective
I owe a lot of my interest and passion on the future of the internet, technology, and culture to Lessig so this is the least I can do:

Support Bloggers' Rights!

For more Lessig fun, see him in the video of the recent debate on the Google Print Library project.

Currently Playing: The Cure - Mint Car

The Most Difficult Week of My Life
Now Playing: Lemon Jelly - Come
Topic: Creative Class
There's not much more to say than it was a difficult week. There was no flow this past week but I'm looking forward to finding it- "the feeling people get when their activities require focus and concentration but are also incredibly enjoyable and rewarding" (HBR pdf link).

It's been three years since hearing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talk about flow but I had tucked away in the back on my mind. It came up in the HBR quoted article above and it was another one of those ah-hah moments that I love so much.

With some free time now, check out Flickr Explore and Last.fm (which Fred posted about recently) but I never delved into until now.

Currently Listening: Lemon Jelly - Come

Sweet Virginia

Currently listening: Gomez - Sweet Virginia

Presentation style inspiration for Wed. night

As Cool As It Gets
Now Playing: Imogen Heap - Goodnight and Go

UPDATE (11/18/05): Oops, forgot that I had already posted this photo.