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Sanford › Comments
Need help in naming an event - got some ideas? - http://sanford.blogspot.com/2009...
Craig Alberino liked this
Out of the ones you listed * unpaidjobfair.com * cultivatenewyork.org * positionaudition.com * linkupnyc.org, I like linkupnyc.org. Sweat4Startups.org? JK
- Craig Alberino
Thanks Craig - great idea.
- Sanford
Ever wake up and wonder how to change the world? My morning feels like this.
Did you put on your blue spandex suit and a red cape before you went out? LOL.
- Elaine Lee
ROFL. Not sure where you changed into the costume but we don't have a phone booth here in NYC for you to do that.
- Elaine Lee
News flash, liberals: McCain will win OH, PA, VA, and FL. If you don't see it you're nutso.
Umm - what makes you think this?
- Sanford
Sad to say the energy from earlier this year has completely dissipated. We have to get it back before November. Let us web nerds help Obama?
Brett Nordquist, Trisha, jeneane sessum and Alexander Carlill liked this
Dave - I have been looking into it - but remember, BSD is running the development effort - and the model has always been a relatively tight control around the campaign.
- Sanford
Who is BSD?
- Dave Winer
Election 2008 :: Karl Rove - http://www.Rove.com/election
Mike Reynolds, Chris Rivait, Alex Scoble and Susan Beebe liked this
Really? Is that *really* the state of the map? Seems like wishful thinking to me. But maybe Karl Rove knows something I don't.
- Chris Messina
from Mento
There are a few differences with this other electoral map. Most notably in the Great Lakes region. http://www.electoral-vote.com/. It appears Rove lopped of 30-40 electoral votes in McCain's favor...
- tagami
Way too funny...
- Sanford
funny? I'd say dangerous. A lot of people vote for the candidate they think is going to win because they don't want to feel as though they backed the loser.
- Robin Barooah
Yeah it's fairly accurate when compared to the fivethirtyeight map
- Alex Scoble
electoral-vote.com has really old polls for the state level data.
- Brian Newman
@brian do you have a recommendation for more accurate poll data that is mapped like this? Would really like to have a good sense of where the fight will be. I understand MI, OH, FL.
- tagami
yeah 538 is the most updated
- Brian Newman
@Alex @Brian thanks!
- tagami
@greensmith But the beauty of Coworking is that there isn't 'one' right way to do it. There are as many manifestations as spaces.
Tara - was this being discussed at #gnomedex08?
- Sanford
Just saw a guy crossing himself before heading down into the subway. Hmmm.
Eitan Burcat, David Steven, linkman77 and Kfir Pravda liked this
Jeff - something he knows that we do not?
- Sanford
How do we save journalism? Since newspapers' business model is just disappearing very quickly, and advertising money is moving away from TV too, how do we fund journalism that we all need? Living off of $1 CPMs isn't gonna be it (that won't fund serious journalism).
Gavin, Jay Neff, Cedric Chee and 68 other people liked this
Craig: I saw something yesterday that makes me think affiliate marketing is going to be a BIG deal in about four years. But will it be in time to save newspapers? We're going to lose quite a few in the next four years.
- Robert Scoble
There's two issues here: one is that the product of journalism is so easily distributed now, it makes the purchase of its artifacts (the physical paper) unnecessary and even unseemly.
- Jim Benson
Interesting. I don't think that funding of journalism ala carte like that will work that well. It might here and there, but the real problem is we don't know what kind of journalism we need until after we see it. Would anyone have done ala carte funding to break open Watergate, for instance? No. Not before the fact. Not very sexy for anyone. After the fact? Yes.
- Robert Scoble
The second is that advertising was never quantifiable and never worked very well even in a highly regimented economy. Now, with a more distributed economy, blanket advertising is totally ineffective. -- To solve this we need to solve both problems. (1) dealing with a diffused distribution model and (2) dealing with a diffused economy.
- Jim Benson
Jim: the second part (that advertising isn't quantifiable) is what is killing newspaper business models. If you're a business, where would you rather put your ad budget? The local newspaper or Google? I know where I would rather spend my money.
- Robert Scoble
Value used to be assigned to two things (1) the object and (2) bulk eyeballs. Repackaging the assumptions of media is key here. They are no longer making a broadcast or a paper (a single big sellable object), but, rather, a lot of diffused things which is monetized in different - but not entirely dissimilar ways. What's funny is ... for news ... context sensitive ads are not applicable. At a school shooting story you don't want adds for automatic weapons, for example.
- Jim Benson
Regarding ala carte: I'm going to do another week in Washington DC. It costs about $10,000 to take a video crew there and get media done for a week. If it weren't for a serious sponsor I'd never get to do that. But that's not even serious journalism. To really chew on a story like Watergate you need months of investigative and relationship-building work. Maybe even years. I doubt it could be done by an outsider. That means having millions to fund that kind of work. Ala carte just ain't gonna do that.
- Robert Scoble
Jim: good point, the packaging and distribution of news is totally changing. Local news is moving to sights like Topix, too.
- Robert Scoble
here's one idea via spot.us: "If the public has a freelance budget, reporters don’t have to wait for an editor to approve their story. Now they can seize the day and pitch the public." http://blog.spot.us/2008... for example, crowdfunding Scoble-like reporters/bloggers. something like a PBS for the blogosphere.
- ~C4Chaos
What's interesting to me is that I'm now in a VERY small town, & the TV broadcast doesn't cover what happens up here in this tiny hamlet. So I'm more dependent on the local rag then I ever was back in the Bay Area. Perhaps creating newspapers that that focus on smaller geographical areas or "types" of people (SAHM moms, environments advocates, etc.) - which is, of course, what bloggers have been able to do with microniching.
- Michelle MacPhearson
By thee way, it's interesting that FriendFeed is good for a topic that can be settled in about 20 back and forth messages, but isn't good for longer topics that need a longer effort. We could build an entire conference for a few days around this topic. It's important for our society to figure this out, yet putting all the pieces and all the thinking together on this is very difficult. Admob, for instance, has one tiny piece (really great ads for iPhone) that can play a part in saving journalism.
- Robert Scoble
Unfortunately people are getting too used to free everything and seem to be surprised when people need to put food on the table. My wife is a magazine editor so I know first hand how the magazine industry is basically going downhill fast. People are getting laid off daily and taking pay cuts. I would have to say that the current magazine business model will be done soon after newspapers. Not even by virtue of sales and subs but by the reallocation and sheer lack of advertising dollars in this economy.
- Scott Lockhart
C4Chaos: let's be honest, though, a crowd-sourced journalism is going to give us all the news we already get. Celebrities and sports. Who will fund some geek to do investigative journalism that sounds really boring? I just don't believe in the masses. I think we need a better idea for how to fund this stuff. And, there's a lot working against you. The people with audiences are too busy to tear themselves away from what they are doing.
- Robert Scoble
I still think the key word is Quality. If institutionalized journalist will be able to bring good quality stories the people will buy their paper. In areas like army and politics the veteran publicist have the advantage since having better sources to deliver the stories, in other spaces like tech there's an advantage for internet journalists. Conducting profound inquiries that lead to...
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- Nir Ben Yona
Nir: I'm never buying a newspaper again, no matter how good the journalism is inside. Neither is my son. So, bad assumption there. Second of all, the $.50 you pay for the newspaper does NOT pay for the content inside. The advertising does. So, if the advertising disappears the great journalism disappears too (which is happening VERY rapidly in the Bay Area as the newspapers have laid off hundreds of journalists recently).
- Robert Scoble
I might be coming across as a Kevin Kelly fanboi today but here http://bit.ly/3aAu3e he suggests that people like to pay because it is; "1) A way of connecting. 2) A sign of approval. 3) A vote. 4) It indicates an alligence with the maker. 5) It feels good to the payer, to support." Hopefully this model might work for journalism, music, and other forms of digital art and expression
- jeremy ettinghausen
Nir: I can tell you with a very straight face that good journalism does NOT get readers. What does get readers? Comedy, celebrity, and sports and small, bite-sized news nuggets.
- Robert Scoble
Nir: also, we live in a Google World: a world of niches. Some niches pay better than others. Great journalism about digital cameras or cars pays MUCH better than good journalism about world peace, for instance. Why? Because Google's advertising system is biased toward transactional audiences and rewards the creation of content that feeds those audiences.
- Robert Scoble
Nir: I would have to disagree with you and agree with Robert - it's ALL about the advertising. That's why magazines give away subscriptions at ridiculous prices compared to their newsstand cost - guaranteed eyeballs to sell ads against. Even if readers were still reading newspapers and magazines at the same rate as they did in the 80s, if the advertising $ today were being diverted to more directed internet campaigns (Google, etc) the industry would still be in decline.
- Scott Lockhart
good point on crowdfunding, Robert. but i was thinking more of a PBS model. (also been reading stuff on this topic on http://www.pbs.org/idealab/). the PBS model had been successful for a long time now so its a good place to start. isn't that similar to crowdfunding but without the crowd necessarily dictating what stories to cover? speaking of media and journalism, maybe we can get Danny Schechter (aka "News Dissector" who produced Weapons of Mass Deception) pitch his two cents on this topic.
- ~C4Chaos
Seems to me there are two problems at work: producing paper is quite costly on the expense side (big fixed costs, typically union labor, etc.). And on the revenue-generating side, there seems to be not enough of what folks want to read (not enough local, overreliance on AP wire, etc.). I'd argue that papers' reporting isn't local enough/specialized enough to have value. With the right local/specialized content -- some professionally reported, some user-generated -- why wouldn't PPC work for the papers?
- Eric Johnson
Oddly I was just thinking about this subject. Unfortunately I came up with very little. One possibility is to create an Xprize type mechanisms so people are richly rewarded for the often unrewarding work of journalism. The key isn't newspapers per say, but supporting the idealism of those who take on the sacred work of providing societies' mirror of truth. This is a distributed people's journalism rather than one organized around artificial organizations like a paper.
- Todd Hoff
The PBS model will not work on the web. Why? Because the web decentralizes and disaggregates things. PBS worked because of the bundling of things together. Yanni raises more money for them than Nova does. But on Web bundling Yanni with Nova makes no sense.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I'm the founder of Spot.Us (mentioned above). I agree that Water Gate wouldn't have been pre-funded, but reporting like this http://wiki.spot.us/election could merit pledges. Right now spot.us is in a VERY early stage (pre-alpha really) - but I do think it's a potentially new revenue stream. Not a silver bullet (I don't think there are any silver bullets), but it can't hurt to try ;) No matter what: I want to thank you for bringing the topic up - it's incredibly important.
- David Cohn
To continue the idea of support create a legal fund to help fight the battles. Lobbying groups to help fight the muzzle. Organize like a church or non-profit so people could contribute to a support network for journalists. Driving journalism solely through profits may not make sense. Journalism a higher social good packaged like spam. Maybe it should be organized more like other higher callings we appreciate?
- Todd Hoff
Private and public funding seems like a more likely avenue to save journalism. Paper press though is all but dead.
- Todd Jordan
I'll go along with Robert, where does an advertiser put his funds? Naturally they want to market to people in their market and not just splash an ad out for people who are not in their market to see To survive the newspaper industry will have to start going further into targeting their ads to a market instead of the the shotgun effect.
- Scot Duke
I know nothing about journalism, I'm just a professional code monkey. But I have a crazy idea - what about something like similar to kiva.org to fund journalism?
- imabonehead
Gregory: I think you would be surprised at how much news that is spread on the web was first broken by paid journalists, even today. I think the real issue is that the method of information delivery is secondary. It is more about having a free and independent "press" (or wordpress) that holds us all accountable and can provide its contributors a living. So losing newsprint itself is not a loss, but losing the 1000s of reporters and writers that are able to do what they do because of it, is...
- Scott Lockhart
@imabonehead Kiva.org is a BIG inspiration for my project: spot.us - in fact, I often just explain it to people as Kiva.org or Donors Choose for journalism.
- David Cohn
David, cool. Didn't see the url mentioned earlier by other posters. It's still an early Saturday for me. :)
- imabonehead
Robert & Scott: I totally understand your point and i do agree when it comes to day-by-day journalism. After all, it is a lose-lose situation for the institutionalized papers, they can't fight the speed and accessibility of internet news and info, especially for busy people like us who have no time for long articles reading while working. On the other hand i do find niche journals like Science Magazine or Nature for example, able to maintain worldwide readers with quality publication and pro debriefing.
- Nir Ben Yona
Nir: I would have to say that I be surprised if they are doing well... Magazines and newspapers are fairly different, yet similar in a lot of ways too. The magazine format with its combination of design and short and long form journalism is a little harder to replicate online and hasn't been done all that well to this point. If you want to see what is happening at least in magazines, even with very niche titles: check out http://magazinedeadpool.com/ There's a whole blog devoted to publications going under
- Scott Lockhart
<continue> with experts sharing their thoughts and researches. That is a quality journalism that attracts readers. Robert, i'm sure your 14 years son won't mind getting a monthly pro car magazine or a "PC Mag" alike version if he's into tech or gadgets. My point is that there is a place for quality and somehow (maybe naively) i'd like to think some people do go after interesting stories and not just "Celeb Gossip". Maybe it is the same as after the bubble burst, sort of a cleaning occurrence...
- Nir Ben Yona
in an ideal world there would be a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for journalism where journalists could practice their craft free (or almost free) of corruption. a combination of philanthropy/non-profit/donation and subscription model as opposed to journalism run as a for-profit business would save journalism standards. for example, The Nation (see http://www.thenation.com/) is running on a combination of subscriptions, advertising, and donations.
- ~C4Chaos
<continue> to let the good prevail. In my vision, in 10 years, the big newspapers will have a weekly internet edition threw their website and a weekend edition with more investigative stories.
- Nir Ben Yona
This year in magazines these are the losses in advertising revenues for some very established US magazines. What were are seeing here is just destroying their already small profit margins: Entertainment Weekly (-16.8%), Kiplingers Personal Finance (-15.3%), US News & World Report (-30.3%), Home (-30.9%), and Scientific American (-20.3%) Lucky (-12.2%), The New Yorker (-20.1%), and ESPN The Magazine (-14.8%)
- Scott Lockhart
sorry for possibly over-commenting this thread, but it is a subject close to my heart and my shared back account. :) Cheers!
- Scott Lockhart
Nir: you're wrong. My son thinks magazines are pretty worthless. He reads MacRumors and Engadget, both of which bring him much better and more timely news than any magazine can (and more of it, too). FastCompany is actually doing very well compared to the magazine industry, which is interesting (it grew last year). But the category it is in lost several competitors, so overall the trend is right and probably will catch up with FastCompany at some point which is why we're investing online more and more.
- Robert Scoble
Scott: but maybe it is part of the global recession that has dropped margins everywhere, not just in journalism.
- Nir Ben Yona
I'm interested in saving journalism, but the question posed here seems to be about funding. Guess it's a chicken-and-egg thing. Seems like the distance between the reader and the writer has knocked a lot of the middle folks out of the picture, and it's harder to justify the kind of money they're asking for. When it comes to value in journalism, however, I still prefer hard facts over style, design, even spelling and sometimes grammar (and I'm a picky art director). Trust costs more than packaging?
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
Here's the process: 1. End of newspaper advertising ends artificial subsidy funding of "quality" journalism; 2. Supply & demand takes effect; 3. We start to get our first picture of what value people will put on different types of information.
- Dan Conover
We'll know an awful lot more about the future shape of journalism about a year or so after the 20th century metro newspaper system collapses/goes on life support (I'm guessing by summer of 2009, but that's a guess). But the one thing I'm pretty sure about is this: There won't be one way of funding journalism, and we won't lump everything that gets reported under that one heading anymore.The fundamental idea: There should be a logical connection between the info you produce & its supporting revenue streams.
- Dan Conover
Robert: i guess i'm a dope concerning nowadays kiddies. As for FastCompany, i do hope you will keep delivering the good stuff as long as possible. BTW, do you agree with my conjecture of a daily internet edition and weekly hard-copy version, coming up in few years?
- Nir Ben Yona
I think you will get a mixture of rich corporations and individuals trying to fill the gap, like Google. But pushed out from the security of the newsroom, there will also be a flurry of entrepreneurship among the journalists who are displaced. Don't assume that subscription won't work in the future, either. It may well be that newspapers have actually been obscuring the need and opportunity for a higher quality journalism. I believe The Economist has achieved impressive growth against the secular trend.
- Tim Penn
journalism doesn't necessarily imply newspapers, does it?
- Adri Munier
No, but about 90% of what "A-List" blogs do is NOT journalism. I'm no authority, but I'm beginning to see why people say there is a difference. "Editorial Discretion" Oh, @Tim, you're absolutely right. Online and print content can thrive in a subscription model if there is value. The mistake newspapers made was giving it away in the first place.
- Andrew Feinberg
And the general newspaper model makes zero sense now. A daily packaged product can work for niche content, but who reads the entire newspaper? I use the big paper websites for different reasons (local, national, international, etc). Political news? Niche publications. I buy (or sometimes expense) Roll Call, CQ and CongressDaily. People in the Cable/Internet/Telecoms buy CommDaily and WID. There are tons of other niche trade pubs that are thriving. It's the blob of daily newspapers that needs to be split up
- Andrew Feinberg
It's important to realize that journalism is a process, not a product. Newspapers might not survive but the craft of Journalism will. The question is... how? There are no concrete answers right now - but I do think that practicing journalists are earnestly trying to figure that out (for the first time). @Robert - I don't think Ala cart funding for journalism will lead to Brittany Spears stories. There are ways around that - I'll try and write a blog post at blog.spot.us with more details.
- David Cohn
Since there is no known answer to this question, the most important thing to do right now is launch as many possible experiments in as many possible directions, increasing the likelihood that we will find good answers a little faster. But it's vital to understand that this is essentially *research* -- practical research, but research nonetheless. And in research, the dead ends are...
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- Scott Rosenberg
This is currently an unsolved problem, a hard concept for some to grasp. Every possible answer--rich people! foundations! internet advertising! crowdfunding!--has some pretty glaring defects. No one has the solution yet. Right now the most promising developments are Talking Points Memo (http://is.gd/1cVX), funded by ads and reader support and doing investigative journalism of the kind we want; Pro Publica, funded by rich people (http://is.gd/uLu) and spot.us, which is crowd funding.
- Jay Rosen
Jay lists 3 good funding sources. Also consider: Nonprofit corporation (supported by pledge drives, sponsorships, foundations, etc.); true-cost intelligence subscriptions (as with STRATFOR) and smart amalgams of keyword/display/classifieds/and various affiliate-type programs. And where I think it gets REALLY interesting is when you start creating information tools that have specific value to the end user. You add value, you take profit.
- Dan Conover
The trick? In Web journalism, you're paying for people costs. You're not paying for trucks and paper and ink and presses. So when people say "The Web can't pay for journalism" what they're REALLY saying is "The Web can't support newspapers and TV stations."
- Dan Conover
The thing I'm really looking forward to putting my energy into is developing some kind of smart, shared business infrastructure that would connect individuals who make content to all the reliable services that a new-media businesses will need to make money. You might be able to make some money writing useful articles and selling your own ads and doing your own site, but that's not a bright long-term prognosis. And yes, I'm a newspaper guy who signed up for a buyout last week.
- Dan Conover
Won't journalism always win Pulitzers? Which brings a sort of global cache and prestige... which is what newspapers hope to gain, such that the world will pay attention, right? That's at the highest level. There can always be prestige and prize for journalism at all levels... even if it has to come from new sources.
- Christopher Galtenberg
it's so easy... just do as in Italy, where crap newspapers (most all of them) are financed by the government!
- Luigi Centenaro
Newspapers are thriving in the ethnic market, primarily at the local level. The reason for the success is that their readership is starving for intl/local ethnic information. Weeklies are the way; most papers are run by journalists from their respective countries-it is extremely streamlined. Journalists need to take the initiative with sales professionals and open up local, weekly newspapers that serve specific niches/markets/topics. Also, home delivery is a must, as is a strong grass-roots component.
- Harold Cabezas
Robert, I think you could ask a different question here, too. Was there a journalistic failure running through the housing bubble and its aftermath? In his new book, Robert Shiller suggests there was, but he made the arguments clearly before about the tech bubble. Given the scale of importance of this story, if we ask what might journalism have done differently, the answer might also suggest useful commercial or funding structures.
- Tim Penn
Altrustic funding isn't the answer. Newspapers will have to stand on their own merits just like any capitalist enterprise. I'd like to more Nritish style
- Hutch Carpenter
British style that is. More point of view included in the reporting. You win on your point of view.
- Hutch Carpenter
Journalism needs a couple of things (1) a lower distribution cost structure and a lower news acquisition cost structure. If you look at online news folks (like Scoble, others) they've found an effective way to lower the distribution costs of their journalism. To lower news acquisition cost you need to look for alternatives to collecting news, whether it's UGC or leveraging a freelance network like Beet.tv is doing with TurnHere (disclosure - I work for TurnHere).
- Morgan
<continued morgan> (2) the big media companies need to move quickly into diversified news outlets (as has been mentioned above) reducing the number of pages in newspapers, moving from trying to bash the mass over the head and instead move towards aggregating the long-tail of news consumers to roll up in to a critical mass not through one communication vehicle (i.e. a paper) but through many diverse channels. Finally they need to go for more sponsorship money and less ad money as we've seen in other biz.
- Morgan
whatever it is can't be based on lame-O advertising cuz i NEVER click those.
- Susan Beebe
I haven't commented on this yet because I really don't have anything substantial to contribute yet. But it's had me thinking for 24 hours. I guess that's not a bad thing.
- Chris Baskind
One of the things implied in all this (at least for me) is the idea of completely self-selected news. It's an exciting development to be able to do that, but what are we missing? Scoble hits it on the head when he says Watergate reporting wouldn't get done under this model. If we're going away from news bundlers like newspapers, can we find a new business model to finance serious journalism? And what does a society without serious journalism look like?
- Tom Landini
I don't like that I can't tell when these comments occurred. I have no idea if I should bother to comment. Has the conversation moved on or do people come back and talk more?? And what's with not being able to use paragraphs? Lots of text is a pain to read.
- Dawn
Lots of interesting thoughts here. I have to say that this very subject is on my mind daily as I personally aggregate Hispanic news and have done so for 3 years to the tune of 40k+ posts. Just one niche among many but I worry about the loss of journalists especially since at least within the Hispanic community it is perceived that there aren't enough journalists covering issues...
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- Tomas
Dawn: yeah, time stamps on comments would be very cool. Generally I find a conversation on FriendFeed can go on for about a day. Same with this one. it's pretty much died out, even though a few interesting comments have trickled in today.
- Robert Scoble
Then FF will never go mainstream. "Non-passionates" don't want to have to be plugged in 24/7 in order to be able to participate. Thanks for the clarification.
- Dawn
I'm actually doing a three-post series on how the internet has changed the economics behind the publishing business this week on Eat Sleep Publish. I'm also doing an event (a mini mini version of what Robert suggested above) in Seattle this Septermber to get smart ppl together to round-table about what the business model is. Robert - you going to be in town?
- Jason Preston
All I can say is - I hope newspapers will not go away - since I enjoy the print medium and the ability to carry my paper without having to plug it in every time. One of the reasons why i pay for my Economist is the convenience of having it, rolling it up and enjoying it without having to wait for XP or MaxOS to boot and show it. And even with always-on OSes (like Palm and iPhone), still enjoy the feel of paper.
- Sanford
Further to my comment about Robert Shiller and the role of the press in positive and negative feedback loops, a full review of the book is here http://bit.ly/1IFiZb, with further links out.
- Tim Penn
Question: WHY do we want to save journalism in the first place? Why not let it die its own death like fax machines and pagers.
- Mukund
In the UK we have something that will buck the trend: the BBC. It's funded by a "licence fee', which you have to own BY LAW to have a television in your house. I.e. If you don't have a licence, you're busted. Sure, the BBC has to justify the fee annually, but the UK population seems, on the whole, happy with what it gets: unique, high quality local and national TV, Radio and web uninterrupted by advertisers. A place where in depth "Because it's important" type journalism may still be able to flourish?
- Tom Beardshaw
First, get the facts on ad revenue for newspapers. Yes, ad revenue is shrinking for papers and they have had to shed bureaus and reporters. But they still get more money for their paper ads than their online ads. And they aren't standing still, they are evolving as well, the pressure of all the blogs and podcasters has forced all the major news sites to completely transform with all kinds of user-friendly features. And you still find the Murdochs of the world buying papers. This story is far from over yet.
- Prokofy Neva
I cover Bakersfield City Hall. It is not big and glamorous enough for these national-oriented projects like ProPublica. Yet I doubt I could be funded by donations because the crowd who would donate is similar to the crowd that runs for office -- politically slanted. I could get funding from one of the conservative camps by being sympathetic to them. But how does that serve the community?
- James Geluso
The REAL problem is there really isn't much "legitmate" journalism out there anymore anyway. As a former reporter, what newgatherers are putting out there for average citizens day in and day out is absolutely pathetic and, many times, inaccurate. With reporters having to do more with less, the problem continues to grow. Advertisers should "buy" with more caution than ever...or not at all!!!
- Jennifer Windrum
Newspapers as we know them are doomed because they're no longer a sustainable product in the era of the internet. The question is why should the whole industry (journalism/publishing) die because of the medium (paper). They must figure out a way to become profitable through the new medium (the internet). I think The Wall Street Journal has the right formula. Not so much the The New York Times.
- moncef b
Mark Cuban was onto something with sharesleuth: http://sharesleuth.com/about.... The company funds good investigative journalism by trading on the information in the financial markets first, publishing second. Barring that, I believe it may be time for public journalism as ~C4Chaos argues. If people really want good journalism, they should be willing to pay for it.
- David Pennock
Shel Israel no longer on Fast Company. This is no surprise considering how boring the videos were: http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008...
Eban Crawford, Diana Valerini, Fats Leroy and 10 other people liked this
I suppose it wasn't Shel's fault though. I think Robert set himself and Shel up for failure on the Fast Company Network. Two very bright guys who's work doesn't really translate that well to video. We all know what Robert is thinking because he thinks out loud all day long, and in all of that time spent, he's not really thinking about video. Its hard to be an expert at everything.
- Andrew Baron
Bjorn, ironically it wasn't a public firing. That was my point. There are two views on whether a company should announce the departure of a person, and in this case FastCompany chose not to publicly announce the departure. Robert Scoble has stated his reasons for not doing so.
- Ontario Emperor
But obviously it was public. They knew people would talk about it and then Robert chimed in with his public comments on a blog post and then reblogged that link on friendfeed.
- Andrew Baron
And btw, "boring" is not a criticism to Shel who is not at all boring in my opinion, but rather that he didnt get the production support that he needed to create a buzz around the information that he was bringing to the table.
- Andrew Baron
The problem was not getting Shel a producer to begin with.
- Andrew Feinberg
I guess Shel is being quiet for a reason, i wouldn't like to have all this aired without having a say :\
- Chris Jones
from twhirl
Andrew - did you at least like ours? http://tinyurl.com/work-fa...
- Sanford
I never saw any of the FC stuff. Any of it actually worth 3 minutes of my time?
- Sean-Michael Robinson
@Sanford, visually? I was glad to see you all sitting there but I dont believe the show did anything to take advantage of the visual medium. As I said in my tweet, very boring to watch. This was just an audio podcast, really.
- Andrew Baron
Revision3 does the production and is paid a lot to do the video parts of the show. I spend a lot of time thinking about our shows along with the team at Revision3 and we will continue tweaking this. One reason we hired Revision3 is because I know I don't know how to do a good studio show. I thought we would have more than five shows to get to be ultra-high quality, but that was my mistake and it won't be repeated again.
- Robert Scoble
its odd to see Shel or Scooble on FastCompany anyways, I mean why do i care about FastCompany, tradtional media mag dead, next
- Dan Rockwell
from twhirl
Sean: I have learned a lot from every guest on the show. Amazing no one talks about that. Sanford's show will teach you a lot about co-working. On this Friday's show will be David Allen who has started a productivity cult around his Getting Things Done book and methodology. That won't be boring, no matter how badly I suck.
- Robert Scoble
Robert, its not about you sucking. It's about the lack of visual value. Take the video linked to above by Sanford for instance. That video is weak on the visuals. And it takes SO LONG to get the info across. When watching the video, and listening to what you and your guests are saying, try to imagine what could go on top of their voice-overs in post to add another layer of depth and value to the experience. There is a moment of website b-roll for example. What else can you imagine visually from the video?
- Andrew Baron
How many hours a day do you spend on Rocketboom? I heard you once say it is 12 hours a day for a few minutes of video. WorkFast is a live interview show like Charlie Rose. You don't see him doing lots of graphics either.. My guests can only give me an hour of their time. That is one reason I get such extraordinary guests. I don't ask for a lot of their time. I agree that such a...
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- Robert Scoble
As a filmmaker I can tell you 1) yes the visual element is important and 2) maybe not in the way you think. Just having someone on camera for a while gives you a very good sense of who they are. Scoble's video's are fine and what makes them valuable is the immediacy. Maybe they get cut together someday by a doc filmmaker or Scoble himself but that's a different media object. My own interviews for the next film I'm putting up raw w/out editing for all to see. I think there's value in that.
- Dean Terry
There is value in that for sure Dean. I think my suggestion does not exclude this value. 30 minutes of watching 2 or three guys sit in a chair talk is a lot like watching a reading for a play. But usually, when you add the set and enhance the work with sound and bring more visual stimulation to the scene, you wind up with a real opportunity to get the human element across, as well as showing and emphasizing visually the subject matter that is being discussed.
- Andrew Baron
I quite enjoy the style the Robert produces. After all this is an interview with the people behind the technologies, not a PowerPoint presentation. Lots of visuals are not always a good thing, especially when the audio content is the major thing of intrest.
- Johnny Worthington
@john It certainly fits in the long tail. No questioning that there is a value for some people.
- Andrew Baron
Wasn't I seeing tweets from others raving about how fucking "brilliant" or "funny" Shel was? Now he's yesterdays Web 2.0 trash? Man you guys are fucking fickle.
- Daniel Spisak
from twhirl
Andrew: understood. I'm sure you would agree there are meaningful added media elements and there are b.s. ones. Canned music and flying text are useless and zombie inducing. What would be interesting, but would take much more time in editing, is to spend a whole day with Scoble's subjects. Get them eating breakfast, driving to work, on conference calls, with their dog, etc. Then you get a more full portrait of the person, in addition to the ideas. (OK I'm biased, this is my approach)
- Dean Terry
Andrew-Don't beat around the bush. Scoble is not a video guy. Not everyone is. Just because he has a zillion fanboys (and girls) here no reason not to speak your mind openly. Seems to me that Scoble's appeal is to geeks that think everything he fixates on for 5 seconds is the 2nd coming of Apple or to the CEO's that are getting a nice infomercial from the Scobleizer.
- Mark Forman
@Dean, but what about the topic of conversation? Getting to know the person and what they eat for breakfast is one thing, but what about when they are talking about the things that are important to them? Like their work? Maybe some of that time visual information could be used to provide more depth and make the information more clear.
- Andrew Baron
Mark: I never claimed to be a video guy. I am a conversation guy. I have conversations. Tomorrow with a couple of famous architects. The video is just so you can come along too. Not everyone will like what I am doing. That comes with doing media. Star Wars was given awful critiques, yet I still love it. I haven't seen anyone else do more than 1,000 video interviews online, though. There is a reason: criticism is easy: having extraordinary conversations is hard.
- Robert Scoble
@Andrew agreed, but it would push production time ever further. I'm sitting watching (in ambient fashion) a History Channel production that took months to create. My last film took 3 yrs. All OK if timeliness is not an issue. Many tech interviews get stale very fast unless they are about very big picture issues (which, sadly, aren't as interesting to many). Personally I try and get people to talk about larger social issues, often just out of their comfort zone. These seem to have some lasting value.
- Dean Terry
Andrew: I agree. It is why we do different kinds of shows. The one I am doing tomorrow with an architect that designed Los Angeles stadium will have visuals. But that is more like Rocketboom since it will be edited. WorkFast is a live conversation and putting in visuals is much tougher.
- Robert Scoble
I agree with Andrew. I tried to watch several shows but it was like watching the radio. I think it's possible to be visually more interesting without a lot of work. And isn't that Rev. 3's job?
- chartreuse
Realizing that I have not watched any scoble videos in a long time. I wish that I could add that upcoming GTD Video to my queue.
- Christian Burns
Honestly, I am not a video guy and really don't know anything. But I was watching an old Charlie Rose episode on YouTube last night. For those that do know what they are talking about, is that not a two-camera show? If so, Robert - if you got two cameras on there for coverage, would you not be able to cut more together (without all the whiz-bang graphics stuff) but at least you could get some tight shots, etc... Again, I really have no clue about video, so this may be irrelevant.
- Adam Bullied
shel israel let go by fastcompany. No longer involved due to the continued trainwreck.
Larry Kless, Helen Sventitsky, chartreuse and 11 other people liked this
...most of which you caused? Comments, Loren?
- Ben Metcalfe
from twhirl
Source?
- Ontario Emperor
from fftogo
Thanks, I gave at the office.
- Jim Stanger
I got people in SAP and FastCompany kinda like a Tyler Durden thing. Anyway SAP was livid at last weeks show, demanded that Shel is gone. He was hated at Fast Company so no one really cares there. Scoble needs to step it up or he's finished as well. Ed Sussman is not doing a very good job. He's put a team of real losers together with no apparent skills in their chosen fields. Lynne Johnson -Social Media? Shel Israel - Journalist?, and the best, Scoble to run video?
- loren feldman
ouch!
- Susan Beebe
The 4 hour work week interview was a car-crash. Scoble looks out of place with that awful suit. What a terrible, just painful, set of videos.
- MarkFromIreland
I can't bring myself to watch.
- Donna Mugavero
Timber!
- Rob Safuto
yikes!
- Helen Sventitsky
Robert Scoble has confirmed Shel Israel's departure. http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Ontario Emperor
Ontario, Im blocked. LOL
- loren feldman
@1938media: Man, sounds like they'd be better off hiring a nobody like me who has demonstrable technical skills, a clear voice, but no group baggage, let me assemble my own team, and be ahead of the train-wreck curve. I'm not, y'know, sayin', I'm just sayin'.
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
@markcooper: Note to Self: Use pictures of squid or octopi instead of my own image if supposed to be on camera ...
- Alexander Williams
from NoiseRiver
and how many weeks to finally find out the shows are bad? shaking head
- Fred Grott
Alexander Williams, putting his tentacles into social media.
- Ontario Emperor
I'm blocked to by Shitbag Scoble but I saw he confirmed that Shel was gone and it seems like that "friendship" ended quick, nice job sucking at life Scoble and Shel
- Andrew Fielding
FYI, the Scobleizer.tv production is pretty damn good. Not sure why everyone blames Robert for WorkFast. That's all done at Revision3.
- Andrew Feinberg
Andrew Fielding - isn't Scoble (& FastCompany) damned if he did, and damned if he didn't? If Shel stayed, everyone would rag on Scoble for retaining Shel, and when Shel was let go, people will rag on Scoble for jettisoning a friend. Seems he loses either way.
- Ontario Emperor
Hey - Robert looked good in the suit - and Shel provided good-natured comic relief. Please - take it easy...
- Sanford
Shel has zero personality. His forced delivery and reading off cue cards hurt the show. The guy needed makeup to cover his scorched skin. A guy his age should really use sunblock. Scoble needs to start buying tailored suits. Off the rack suits always look terrible on guys who are overweight.
- Rob Safuto
"a Tyler Durden thing". Great line!
- chartreuse
Really f-ing sick of Twitter not working.
Brett Kelly, Robyn Miller, Dobromir Hadzhiev and 21 other people liked this
ditto.
- Sanford
It's like AA: "Hi, I'm Chris Brogan, and I'm really f-ing sick of Twitter not working." Everyone: "Hi, Chris!"
- Louis Gray
Yep. I've had two days now on FF exclusively and I occasionally poke my head back into Twitter to see if it's up. Another day or two of this and who knows...
- Kevin Cearns
Yeah, it's hard to believe they are having this many problems. I'm a developer and I konw it's tough sometimes... but seriiously figure something out here since they have a great opportunity...
- Adrian Nadeau
LOL - Chris is frustrated like the rest of us!! twitter outages are sooo annoyingly old hat it is become the laughing stock of all social media sites...sad!
- Susan Beebe
Yeah, me too re twitter not working. I'm liking friendfeed more and more too. It works.
- jjprojects
Funny how we're all here, though, eh? I mean, really. Nuts.
- Chris Brogan
I only *really* like FriendFeed when Twitter *really* isn't working.
- Ryan MF
Entirely f-ing sick of it. Went to my first tweet-up last night, and was really stoked to get up this morning and play/talk/interact/etc. -- FAIL :|
- Brad McCrorey
Hi I'm Peter and I am a twitter Addict - I have not been on twitter for the day. Oh Lord, grant me the serenity to know that twitter is undependable and give me the strength to find other platforms to sustain my daily life one day at a time !!
- Peter Dawson
Just as we need a backup but not identical laptop, we need a backup, but not identical Twitter.
- Attila Csordas
I think I have to eat crow, I said FF couldn't possibly be a Twitter killer...but this is ridiculous, and I'm starting to see that is very realistic that we all end up on FF and just post here
- Jennifer Van Grove
from twhirl
I need that link for the importer from twitter to friendfeed
- Brad McCrorey
ohhh... there's an importer for twitter to friendfeed? yes please..
- Sean McDonald
from Alert Thingy
If ff had DMs and mobile version, it might be a good alternative that actually works.
- jjprojects
Time for a one week boycott
- Todd Cochrane
from twhirl
Wow. I hadn't thought about DMs. That's a good point. FF doesn't facilitate that. Does it?
- Chris Brogan
Since I mostly use twitter via twhirl or IM, it really has not been noticeable. Maybe Twitter should only allow historical information through the API, not the web interface and be done with it.
- Jauder Ho
No. No DMs on FF.
- Jennifer Leggio
If FF had all the traffic that twitter gets, would it be any more stable
- Seth Gottlieb
This is nuts that you're all here. Is there a follow-back automagically for FF yet? I'm um, a little behind.
- Chris Brogan
Here's the T-->FF link - I just did it, works great. http://internetducttape.com/2008...
- anniebinns
Seth - someone asked that earlier and the response was that its aggregating more content than Twitter now and that yes, it's still stable. Not sure I buy it. FF is great but it's not yet the solution we need.
- Jennifer Leggio
I can stand the outages with FriendFeed doing it's thing. I have no doubts in my mind that Twitter will clean up its act soon as it continues to expand.
- Ryne Nelson
How do you "like" a comment? What Seth Gottlieb said. It's like Apple always bragging about having no viruses. If they were as ubiquitous as PCs chances are they'd have a few more viruses. (I know, not the same thing: an Apple's an Apple; a PC's a ... any number of brands.)
- Robert Stribley
@ ron k jeffries: Really? You can't think of at least *one* way Twitter is better on your own? How about the lack of the @ function, or any individual notification of replies to your content. Just a few days ago I made a comment on Twitter (actually about the Twitter vs FF debate), Scoble replied on FriendFeed, and a discussion sprung up around it on FF that I couldn't participate in because I wasn't glued to FF at the time. If it were on Twitter I would have received a notification on my cell immediately.
- Ryan MF
This is becoming a seriously long thread/ decent conversation. ftw.
- jjprojects
Really hard to follow discussions on here
- Jennifer Leggio
I just blogged about this, too. But you know that, because you're watching FriendFeed.
- Chris Brogan
Hi everybody...this is amazing! wow, I am seeing more and more of my twitter buddies over here!! yeah!!! @smbeebe loves you guys! ;-)
- Susan Beebe
it is very true that it is hard to keep up with conversations here over time... and once you are subscribed to quite a few people, you're really combing -- through new posts, through friends of friends... unless you are "glued," as Ryan MF said
- edythe
@edythe big trick with FF is to learn the hide feature fast
- Philip Evans
from twhirl
It would be nice if FF comments had paragraphs. FF is extremely aggressive at caching where it is possible to observe variances between the web and API interface. On a different note, I wish FriendFeed was called something else or had a different acronym. FF = FriendFeed = Firefox in different contexts.
- Jauder Ho
You'd think that they would have really fixed things by now. This constant tinkering is a joke. It is like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. It just isn't working!
- Jacob Burke
I just wish FF was a bit more threaded in discussion, instead of just a single thread under first post
- Philip Evans
from twhirl
nicely put
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
Well, with Twitter down, I get more work done! :)
- Julio F ~ @SocialJulio
Or maybe God's way of saying,"Get your asses to work!" :)
- Mark Forman
to bad you can't comment on comments - if you know what I mean ... create instant comment tree ... likely this has been said already
- Robert Stribley
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