Director Kirby Dick’s This Film Is Not Yet Rated looks at the motion picture ratings system created and run by the MPAA. He submitted the film for rating in November and specifically requested that the MPAA not make copies of the movie.
After receiving the movie, it seems the MPAA subsequently made copies without Dick’s permission.
I wonder if the MPAA is planning on filing suit against itself.
Dan Gillmor posted today about his experiences creating and trying to grow Bayosphere. He talks very frankly about the beginnings of Bayosphere, its successes, its failures and the conclusion that this well conceived and executed citizen media blog/website simply hasn’t worked as well as he’d hoped.
This is a must read for those who still believe I am wrong about the steep uphill climb faced by new blogs in 2006. I’m not saying this proves my point- it’s not about being right or wrong. I’m simply saying that if someone as well known and connected as Dan Gillmor can create something as good as Bayosphere, get the traffic Bayosphere gets and still conclude that it’s “obvious to anyone who’s paid attention, the site didn’t take off,” what does that say about the chances of a new blog created by some anonymous blogger without Dan’s reputation and experience?
Dan talked about his approach to community building:
We envisioned Bayosphere as a place where people in the San Francisco Bay Area community could learn about and discuss the regional scene, with a focus on technology, the main economic driver. My tech and policy blogging would be an anchor, hopefully attracting some readers and, crucially, some self-selected citizen journalists who’d join a wider conversation.
And the lack of collaboration:
Many fewer citizens participated, they were less interested in collaborating with one another, and the response to our initiatives was underwhelming. I would do things differently if I was starting over.
And, finally, the conclusion that I believe is telling for the potential new blogger:
The evidence strongly suggested early on that this was not likely to be a viable publishing venture for some considerable period without partnerships to bring in both readers and contributors.
Dan makes a lot of other excellent points about community building. Since any successful blog has to be, at least in part, a community, these comments are spot on for blog building.
He also talks about the tension between writing to communicate and the compromises that are required in the search for a profit. Again, all of this is part and parcel of the blogging vs business stuff I am so interested in.
Does this mean that growing a new blog is impossible? No, but it is an object lesson in how hard it is. And if it’s hard for Dan, it’s going to be harder for the rest of us.
More Discussion:
Darwinian Web
SiliconBeat
The Bay Area is Talking
JLuster.Org
David Isenberg has a good post on the network neutrality issue, that started out as a letter to one of the old media gatekeepers, on the battle for the future of the internet I talked about this past weekend.
He makes some very good points, but the one that really grabbed me is the following question: [Is] internet access a freedom, like freedom of the press, or a privilege that may be granted or withheld?
Clearly, the telcos want to couch it as a privilege they can parcel out (for a fee of course) to whichever web site will pay them the most money. The telcos want to play the role of traffic cop, directing people like you and me to certain websites by controlling the speed at which we go from where we want to go (slow) to where they are paid to direct us (fast).
The telecos (the same ones who want to ban municipal wi-fi in Texas) want the right to charge web sites and other bandwidth users for using their internet lines and infrastructure. We, the customers, have already paid our ISP for internet access. The telcos now want to charge our internet destinations for bringing us to them. Of course any destination that capitulates to this ludicrous demand will find some way to pass that cost through to us. So ultimately, we’ll all pay twice.
The answer, of course, is legislation requiring network neutrality. We need to nip this sort of thing in the bud. Here’s a list of email addresses for the members of Congress and other elected representatives (I don’t support the web site where this list is located, but it’s the best list I could find).
Otherwise, the internet, which has become central to our way of life, will become a privilege- and a more expensive one at that.
More recent discussion by:
Christopher Stern has an article at the Washington Post today about the telephone companies’ unbelievable new customer screw-job disguised as a business plan whereby the telephone companies, who control a lot of the pipes that carry internet traffic, want to sell faster throughput to certain websites. In other words, Google or Yahoo might pay the telephone companies money in exchange for faster speed through the pipes. Stated simply, if this insane plan is allowed to continue, the website of the company that pays the money will appear faster and more responsive than the company who doesn’t.
This may be the most consumer-unfriendly idea I have ever heard.
No one, from computer nerd to emailing granny, wants some dude in the sales department of some stock-price-falling, 20th century, former monopoly telephone company trying to direct them to particular websites by making them faster (and, as a result, making others slower).
This would be like the federal government allowing a state to sell lots of wide, fast roads to Target while leaving Walmart (not to mention all the mom and pop stores) at the end of old, crowded roads. People want to decide for themselves where to shop and where to surf.
Plus, once this happens, you can be sure these telephone companies will find other similar ways to make easy money. Toll pipes would probably be next- if they can make the website pay for speed, wouldn’t they naturally wonder if they can make the user pay a little too? One telephone representative already talked about “charging Apple five or 10 cents extra each time a customer downloaded a song using iTunes.” Charging Apple is one half-step away from charging the buyer.
No one, and I mean no one, wins here. If these companies don’t have a plan to pay for all this new (money making) infrastructure then simply don’t build it. That’s the way it works. You can’t change the game just because you aren’t winning.
Consumer groups, Yahoo, Google and anyone else with a brain cell to dangle have lined up to lobby Congress (why does grammar dictate that we capitalize that word- I don’t get it) for a “network neutrality law” that will prevent this nonsense.
On the other side are AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.
Who do you think has our best interest at heart?
I’m pulling for network neutrality.
MobHappy asks the question– will people accept ads in exchange for free content.
In general, I think the answer is absolutely not. Here are the 3 reasons why not:
People want less ads and will go to great lengths to avoid them.
Just about every piece of media equipment I have is designed to avoid ads. TIVO, DVD Player; XM Radio; DirecTV satellite service; anonymous call blocker on my phone, caller ID on my cell phone; email spam filters; voice mail at the office. Almost everyone I know has a similar fortress protecting them from people who want to sell them something. Large companies are founded on the basis of protecting privacy, which for purposes of this conversation means…no ads.
There will always be too much other similar content available without ads.
Even if you have to pay for it, it will be deemed worth it. I can’t imagine what sort of content it would take to get me to agree to hear or see ads to get it. Just about everything I want to see or hear is available to somewhere without ads. I may have to pay a little more, but I am happy to pay for an ad-free life and so is almost everyone I know. After having XM Radio for a few years I literally cannot imagine listing to one second of ad-infested, over the air radio. I’d rather listen to nothing.
Even if we would accept ads, it would be the ineffective kind.
I don’t mind unobtrusive ads on web pages. But I have never, once clicked on an ad banner that wasn’t on a page I owned. Never, ever. Not one single time. And I bet there are a lot of others who could say the same thing. So if you want to put an AdSense ad or a banner on a web page, I don’t care. I won’t notice it and you’ll get very few clickthroughs. Add pop-ups or unders or, even worse, those irritating mouse traps and I’ll never return to your page.
The bottom line is that the cost to get permission from people to bombard them with ads would be more than any realistic revenue model could absorb. Pay for my gas for a year, and you can send me a few ads while I drive to and from work. Give me a top of the line Treo and service for a year and you can send me text message ads. Nothing that will fit in your pro-formas will be enough.
Advertising in its traditional sense is dying along with its original home- the printed newspaper. People don’t like ads and people don’t like other people dreaming up new ways to force advertising on them.
So if you really want to make some enemies, start tracking people via GPS and spamming their cell phones.
Every time I turn around, somebody else is trying to stuff the cat back into the bag, make the world stop turning, hold back the tide, stop the evolution of media distribution. That sort of thing.
Now it’s the National Association of Theater Owners (a new kind of NATO), who show the movies made by the constituents of the other famous cat stuffer, the MPAA. This NATO is all a tither because Steven Soderbergh’s new movie, Bubble, is being released in the theaters, to cable and satellite and on DVD at the same time. The horror!
I suppose this NATO is compelled by its charter to join the fray since the MPAA, the RIAA and all sorts of other AA’s are engaged in a full fledged war against all sorts of enemies of their long-standing monopoly on how we receive our media.
Mark Cuban posts a great rebuttal to the gyrations of John Fithian, Commander in Chief of this NATO, who basically said western civilization would crumble if someone got to watch a new movie at home without paying $7.99 for popcorn and $5.99 for a coke.
Mark’s nail on the head comment was:
How sad is it when the President of the National Assoc of Theater Owners doesn’t think his members can create a better movie going experience than what we can see in our houses and apartments ?
That’s just it. When you control the distribution channels, you don’t have to worry about the experience. If you want to see a movie, you have to go to the theater. That’s why so many theaters, at least around my neck of the woods, have fallen into a mild state of disrepair. And of course it’s also the reason why popcorn is priced like caviar.
Mark also pointed out most pro sports games are on TV (live, not 6 months later); that even good cooks like to eat out; and that people still buy stuff from bricks and mortar stores. Great points all.
Mark sums up the difference in his approach and the one this NATO is trying so hard to hold onto:
It didn’t take me long to realize that the business of the Mavericks was not selling basketball, it was selling a fun night out and creating a favorable brand identification with our team and our players, with the hope that people would be excited to buy merchandise, products and services from us.
Mark then tells this NATO, in fine detail, exactly how to fix their problems before home theaters and Netflix put them out of business (basically by picking movies that appeal to your demographics and creating a better experience, but read his post because it is very well reasoned and enlightening).
Will this NATO do it? Not likely as long as they keep obsessing on the catless bag.
There is a long and thoughtful post at Mister Snitch about the citizen media movement which, combined with all the venture capital money out there chasing deals, might just make the About.Com-inspired, Wikipedia-be-damned, bloggers-come-a-runnin’ model proposed by Gather work.
Maybe. Let’s take a closer look.
There’s a Lot of Money Chasing Deals
This is absolutely true. For the time being. A market disruption, Steve Rubel’s predicted Web 2.0 crash and any number of other things could change that. But for now, there is no arguing that there’s mad money out there. Candidly, I believe the Gather funding that kick-started this conversation is proof positive of this.
Mister Snitch compares the Gather plan with the current structure of Blogcritics, where contributors get paid in “attention and swag” as opposed to dollars. Yes, we can all agree that dollars are better (with all due respect to Steve Miller), but all those writers posting at Blogcritics (which is a cool site, by the way), can also post their material on their own blogs and (drum roll please) make money there to go with the attention and swag.
Bottom line: I doubt Eric is all that worried about Gather.
Will the Reporters Come, Even if the Bloggers Don’t?
Another point Mister Snitch makes is that all the soon to be unemployed reporters at all of the dying on the vine newspapers may turn to Gather in the hopes it will enable them to make an independent living by blogging on local events.
I agree that newspapers are dying and that there will be a local trend to the news reporting of the future (in whatever form it takes).
But what I don’t agree with is the idea that somehow Gather will be a better platform for these local bloggers (nee beat writers). Why not just do your own blog or some sort of loosely based blog network with a shared AdSense account. Again, where is the value Gather will add that warrants a share of the revenue?
I’m not trying to pick on Gather. To the contrary, I think it will be an ideal outlet for a select number of (likely not technically savvy) writers, who don’t want to fool with the whole blog thing. I just don’t think it represents some evolutionary advance in the writing, attracting readers and generating ad revenue arena. At best it will be a leading online newspaper, hiring reporters (via a revenue share) the same way traditional newspapers hire writers now. There’s not a thing wrong with that, but it’s not a stop the presses moment (to borrow a phrase) in the development of the blogosphere.
Mad Money Accelerates the Demise of the Traditional Newspaper
Mister Snitch also talks a lot about the acceleration of the end of traditional print media in the face of wild spending on these move to the edge, citizen media driven, online sources.
Clearly, I agree with this. Like many other areas, the movement to the edge will result in the banishment of the traditional gatekeepers, be they record labels, radio stations or newspapers. As Mister Snitch correctly points out, Craigslist, Monster and eBay have already taken a lot of the traditional revenue sources away from the traditional newspapers.
The clock is ticking for traditional newspapers. Once our parents’ generation passes, the clock will stop. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
The Continuing Interest in Local News
I also agree Mister Snitch that the failing health of the traditional newspapers has nothing whatsoever to do with a lack of interest in local news. Sadly, however, the local newspapers don’t have the same talents and resources to reposition themselves as the leaders in local online news as their new born-online competitors do. For one, they move too slowly, as the Digg/Google Pack story indicates.
Additionally, the move to the edge will benefit citizen media (bloggers and aggregated blogs) first and foremost. Old media was the gatekeeper for a long time and once that wall is knocked down, human nature will dictate a change in the parties responsible for distribution of news and other content.
I do think that the one and only chance traditional newspapers have is to go online completely by putting it all out there for free and trying to move their ad sales online. One thing newspapers know how to do is sell ads. But every day that passes makes this transformation harder and less likely.
The Counter Arguments
Mister Snitch then examines and makes the counter-argument against a couple of the arguments posed by myself and others over the past couple of days.
In general, the rebuttal to these argument is that a lot of the existing networks and mega-blogs are brands themselves- such that anyone who leaves can be quickly replaced. And that Gather is trying to be a platform where the writers are the brand, not the website. OK, but that’s true of any blog created and manned by these writers. Other than the fact Gather seems to plan on selling ads directly, what’s different about this and an AdSense supported blog or blog network?
The other argument, which we all know is dear to my heart, is that it would take too long for one of these displaced writers, acting independently, to build an audience. Certainly I agree with that, but as a lot of people have explained to me in the comments here and in cross-blog conversations, it can be done. Any “A-List” writer would have an audience that would follow him or her to the new location. Others could slug it out like I do or create or join a blog network. Again, what’s the Gather advantage here?
Then Mister Snitch goes into the “best of the best in one place” argument, which sounds an awful lot like an attempt to be the online gatekeeper. Maybe that will work, but there are two problems with it: one, the implication that Gather will choose the best of the best (surely not everyone can write there) implies a troubling subjective element; two, the best writers will find an audience, whether they write at Gather, at their own blog or on subway walls.
My Conclusions
Mad money will allow the rise of a few of these print media to online content websites and a few of them will become major players in the blogosphere, but Steve is right, the party won’t last forever. Additionally, my extensive experience in the blogosphere’s forefather, the internet message boards, taught me that the best, most popular writers will eventually want to own their platform. So eventually the money will move on and the writers will jump ship. Like the demise of the traditional newspaper, the only question is when.
The Boston Globe has an article today about a newish web site called Gather that says it wants to be the eBay for online writers. The idea seems to be that Gather will host your blog for free, sell ads to the presumably thousands of advertisers who want to get next to all your great content and then share with you the ad revenue generated by those ads.
This is going to fly like a lead balloon for about a hundred reasons. Here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head:
1) There are about a million other web sites out there right now that will host your blog for free. As I’ve said many times before, there generally needs to be an evolutionary advance to get people to change from the technology they are using and know how to use to one they don’t. Will this be evolutionary? Clearly the spin is that it’s the revenue share that makes it so.
2) But lots of blogs have ads. So I see the sharing more as the blogger sharing with Gather as opposed to the other way around. Yes, I share revenue at ACCBoards.Com with my network partner, but my partner does all of the ad-related work: selling, placing, collecting, etc. If I wanted to put ads on my blog, I’d just sign up for an Adsense account.
3) Ah, but Gather is going to sell ads directly. This seems a little odd until you realize it has to. Otherwise, there’s nothing different about their structure and every other blog with ads out there (other than the fact they get a share of your ad revenue).
I suppose this may be a new spin on the blog network, chase the almighty dollar and try to get rich by writing an online journal thing that I find so optimistically naive. I suppose if you throw in a good marketing staff who can sell ads directly, there might be an argument to be made. But other than the fact some smart people are involved with Gather, I don’t get it- not even a little bit. In fact, Gather looks much more like another try at an About.Com than a true blogging platform. The thing is, the web is full of About.Coms and About.Com wannabes. And then, of course, there’s the About.Com-killer, Wikipedia.
I was one of the editors at Suite101.Com, an early About.Com competitor, many years ago. And while I enjoyed it for a while, I never made a dime and the stock options turned out to be upside down. Ultimately, I decided the right to control my content and the presentation thereof outweighed the potential to get a check for tens of dollars once in a while. That was a long time ago, before the move to the edge and before Wikipedia.
Here’s another troubling thing I noticed on the About Gather page (the bold edits are my commentary):
It just seems fair that we share our advertising revenue with you [[[well, actually it would be my revenue since it would be generated by my content]]] based on the quality and popularity of the content you contribute on Gather [[[this sounds like a secret formula that results in a lot of discretion on Gather’s part; I would be very interested in seeing, for example, how “quality” is determined.]]]. We will also share some of our revenue with you if you choose to use the site actively, exploring content that others write, searching on Gather and on the web [[[so they are going to hold out the payment carrot to get me to use the site and drive up the ad revenue a little; smart, but it makes it sound more like a frequent flyer club than a content partnership]]], and inviting your friends, family, and colleagues to use the site [[[as a general rule my friends and family like it when I suggest they do something for reasons other than the fact I get paid to do it; I don’t want to turn my family dinner into an infomercial]]]. We will pay occasional users in points that you will be able to use to purchase goods and services from Gather partners in a few months [[[I get these wonderful opportunities with my credit card bills already; for only $14 shipping and handling, I can buy a $20 transistor radio for $12]]] . We will pay frequent users, who write great content consistently, in cash if they choose. [[[again, “great” is in the eye of the revenue holder]]]
I will be very interested to see how well Gather gathers.
More discussion on Gather at:
Changing Way
Micro Persuasion
instaBLOKE
Jason Calacanis
Google issued a press release today about its forthcoming Video Marketplace.
I’m going to resist examining the question of why anyone would want to watch a TV show on their computer, as opposed to on their HDTV via TIVO or some other recording device and just assume for a second that there are actually people who are dying to pay a lot of money to watch on their computers in standard definition what they could be watching in HDTV for free.
What I find interesting in that press release is that NBA games will be part of the available videos. That’s what I want to talk about.
Does anyone over 20 care about the NBA anymore? I honestly do not know one single person who is a rabid NBA fan. Not one, and because I have wondered about this for a while, I have walked the halls at my office asking this question. People I know go to games- I went to the opening game this year. But everyone I know uses corporate tickets for client development and treats the game as some sort of live, big screen sports bar. Maybe the NBA is the new polo and I’m just not rich and sophisticated enough to get it, but I don’t get it.
When I was a kid, I was a huge NBA fan- first of the Bucks with Jabbar, Dandridge, the Big O, Lucius Allen and Jon McGlocklin. Later it was Portland and my then favorite player Bill Walton. Even later, after I moved to Texas, I went to a ton of games and saw Jabbar, Bird, Magic, Jordan and others play.
Now? I’d honestly rather stare at a blank TV than watch an NBA game. I watch a ton of college basketball. But I find the NBA to be boring and mercenary.
I guess what I’m saying about the big announcement that we’ll soon be able to buy downloads of otherwise free TV shows and boring NBA games is: is there anyone who is genuinely excited about this?
Along the lines of the “move to the edge” we’ve been talking about recently, Business Week has an article today describing the newspaper of tomorrow.
One of the themes of the article is a more local focus and the use of readers to create and promote content. Techdirt sums it up by saying the newpaper of tomorrow will look like the web of today.
This is all very consistent with the movement away from the gatekeeper status long enjoyed by the mainstream media towards locally focused, community based content sites. The great thing about it is that since most of this stuff will be online, it will be possible to create overlapping communities based on interests, expertise and affiliation as well as by geography.
The move to the edge will localize things, but not solely by geography. Another thing to like about the move to the edge.
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media, newspapers
Newsome.Org 