cobWeb covered crystal ball (or how computer/internet related predictions don't work well) and more!

Somehow I fixated on this part of the article "Online Salvation" article:

Predictions about where the Internet is headed are, of course, hazardous. A dozen or so years after it began to become a fixture in American life, the Internet is still in a formative stage, subject to periodic earthquakes and lightning strikes. Google didn't exist a decade ago. Five years ago, no one had heard of MySpace. Facebook is just four years old, and YouTube is not quite three. Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. compares the current state of the Internet to television in the age of "Howdy Doody."

I don't really get that last line. Maybe it's a generational thing? Too far before my time? Does this mean the internet is still young?

Anyway, I was reminded of the now infamous quote from a tech company worker about how eventually there might be a market for a dozen or so computers in the world. Today, of course, there are billions. (Apologies for not finding the quote and quoting it verbatim.)

I basically live on the web. (I know a web developer whose business cards, rather than having a physical address, say "I come from the internet.") I like keeping up with the latest gadgets, newest sites, etc. It is also interesting to hear what people predict. But somehow I never place too much emphasis on or faith in it. Odds are they won't pan out. It's like Howdy Doody trying to envision MTV.

In a December 2006 blog entry, for example, an expert on ZDNet predicted:

Vista is going to raise the bar for experiences across the board. When Vista goes out to regular consumers in January it's going to set a new level for what they expect their applications to be. The subtleties of the UI and overall focus on a better experience is going to affect how those consumers see the web. When you think about the kind of applications that will be built for Vista using Windows Presentation Foundation, an even higher level if rich interactivity and media integration is going to be expected by Joe user.

In retrospect, this prediction was very off target. It's almost funny. Vista is hated by many, even techies. I've heard many a story about people forcibly jury rigging new laptops to work with older operating systems.

Need more of a fix? Check out Imagining the Internet Prediction Database for ideas that will make us giggle in a few years.

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From later on in the same AJR piece:

These dynamics could change, perhaps as stronger news sources emerge on the Web and weaker ones disappear. But even if the newspaper industry continued to lose about 8 percent of its print ad revenue a year and online revenue continued to grow at 20 percent a year – the pace of the first half of 2007 – it would take more than a decade for online revenue to catch up to print.

Journalists, or indeed anyone with an interest in journalism, had better pray that doesn't happen. Because online revenue is still relatively small and will remain so even at its current pace, this scenario implies years of financial decline for the newspaper industry. Even a 5 percent decline in print revenue year after year might look something like Armageddon. Newspapers were already cutting their staffs before this year's advertising downturns. A sustained frost of similar intensity would likely lead to even more devastating slashing. The cuts could take on their own vicious momentum, with each one prompting a few more readers to drop their subscriptions, which would prompt still more cuts. Some daily papers would undoubtedly fold.

I had issues with this assertion. The implication seems to me that the only real form of journalism is the newspaper industry. This seems like a very closed minded worldview. Yes, industries change. Newspapers in the States have undoubtedly changed significantly during their tenure.

If the author was concerned about some untouchable form of high journalism, why isn't he concerned about the fact that many newspapers have been getting lazy because they have had a virtual monopoly on their print market?

Competition with other forms of media is a good thing. It helps keep newspapers on target and give readers/buyers/etc what they want. In a one newspaper per town era, the internet has also helped locals have multiple news sources.

auto-confirm@amazon.com Your Order with Amazon.com 8:58 pm... aka OMG this post is long. apologies.

Okay, yes. I went and bought the book from Amazon before I came here to post this. I bought it with my Amazon Prime account, so it'll get here in two days. Delivered to my front door.

I am Rob Lippincott. Well, at least as much like Rob Lippincott as a graduate student who has never had a real full time job, barring internships and summer jobs, can be. I'm an editor of two graduate publications. I have two side companies with a single partner. I intern for a group downtown. (I'll go into a little more detail about that later.) My only sister is getting married in a month and two days. My grandmother's health is in such a state that I have lots of family emergencies. Oh yeah, and I take more than the full load of graduate classes every semester. I'm a busy lady. And that's why I use Amazon Prime.

Who has the time to drive to a bookstore and purchase a book? I'd rather pay more to get it delivered to me. (In this case, you get free 2 day shipping on any purchase for $80/year.) I usually don't have time to look at anything more quickly than 2 business days later anyway. I've also tried an organic grocery delivery service here in town. They were pricey and I don't really care if food is organic or not. But I needed one less thing on my to do list. Ultimately, I stopped using them because their UI was too high maintenance after they went through a redesign. I started getting deliveries that I hadn't thought I'd ordered and I canceled the service. The reps when I sent them frantic emails were not very understanding or accommodating. I guess they had too many people competing for their attention too.

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I recently had a conversation with the big boss at my internship. My internship, I should mention, without using actual names that will pop up in searches, is for the state office of a national organization for older people.

Anyway, the state boss, while not the most technologically inclined person, also likes to play devil's advocate. I had long conversation, in which he lamented having to deal with 100+ emails a day that actually required some type of action or response. He also often had to respond to staff members' queries after hours. How, he asked, is this manageable? How is this reasonable?

Ever the technological optimist, I argued that an equilibrium point would be reached in the next 10 or 20 years. Otherwise, execs and managers would have to begin to be compensated accordingly; if they're spending more hours working, they should be paid for it.

My direct boss, I think, sees some generational differences. He recognizes that I don't feel obligated to respond to every single email if it doesn't warrant it or to people who I'm not responsible or beholden to.

In this way, I think many people in my generation-- or perhaps just uber geeky/dorky (I know there's a difference to some people, but I can't keep them straight) techie people like me-- are a little more savvy in managing info flow in this way. While many people at the organization that I'm interning for have hundreds or even thousands of emails (unread or not) in their inboxes, I use mine as a to do list. I intentionally keep my work outlook and my student/personal/student organizational/freelance gmail inboxes under 20 emails. I quickly address issues that need to be address and funnel emails into some sort of filing system away from the inbox.

Is this the wave of the future? How do y'all operating?

Should managers and execs be given trainings on managing information and incoming calls/emails/etc and work flow?

Making money on the Web

This really is the BIG QUESTION of Web economics: How do you make money? (or, to use Web 2.0 parlance, how do you "monetize"?)

A couple of thoughts came to mind as we read the piece "Cooking Pot Markets" piece by Ghosh. Consider this a stream of consciousness ....

One, as for journalism and online news, there might not be a business model. Period. It becomes free forever.

Two, I'm not sure that I totally agree with Ghosh's central argument: "money is not the prime motivator of most producers of the Internet's free goods, and neither is altruism." Oh, really? I think can think of some instances when the primary motivators are either of those two — more often money, but altruism as well. (Think of Yochai Benkler's notion of "sharing nicely.")

Third, much of the monetary value to be made via the Web comes offline ... as in the case of Jeff Jarvis, who leveraged his online blogging to enhance his offline opportunities to speak, write books, teach, and consult. I like how he puts it here in this column for The Guardian:

Some people think I'm nuts for blogging when I could be doing real work (as if writing newspaper columns were the only real work). They ask me how much money I make directly from my blog and the answer is: not much. But to me, the blog is worth a million dollars - or more - for it brings me value in many other ways. So I thought I'd give you an accounting of that worth.

Last year, Buzzmachine.com, which has been in business, loosely speaking, since 2001, made $9,315 (£4,655) from two blog ad networks, $1,866 from ads on my RSS feeds, and $2,674 from Google ads, for a total of $13,855. Though I've written many a blog post and column lamenting that there aren't better, richer ad networks to support grassroots media, when I add that up, I'd say it's not too shabby. Nonetheless, you'd still be forgiven for thinking I shouldn't have quit my day job.

When I did quit that day job - as president of an online division of Condé Nast's parent company, which I left in 2005 - I got my next job thanks to the blog. If I hadn't been pontificating about the state of the news in the internet era, I wouldn't have come to the attention of the City University of New York, which appointed me to the faculty of its journalism school - a job I love. But I must confess that my teaching post pays a fraction of my prior salary. So you may still think me a fool.

To make the money I don't make teaching, I consult and speak for various media companies and brands. The only reason I get those gigs is because companies read the ideas I discuss at Buzzmachine and ask me to come and repeat them in PowerPoint form and explore them with their staff. I've also been asked to teach executives how to blog (a class that should, by rights, take about two minutes). That work and the teaching get me to a nice income in six figures. So I'm not looking quite as idiotic now, I hope.

It was also because of the blog that I got this column. The MediaGuardian editors asked me to take some of the topics I write about online and turn them into columns; the newspaper is an aftermarket for the blog. It pays a bit, a few hundred dollars a column, but that's not why I do it. I enjoy the discipline of taking the lumpy clay of a blog post and moulding it into a column. I like discussing column ideas with my community before I write them. And I quite like having you readers as an audience. So please don't tell my editors that I like doing this so much I would do it for free.

I just got a book contract because of a notion that began in the blog and that I kneaded over and over for about a year. As I write What Would Google Do?, I continue to explore ideas on my blog, helping me to think them through. The US contract roughly doubled my consulting income last year; international contracts may add more.

If I add all that up over the past five years and the five to come, to me the blog is worth a few million (dollars, not pounds, sadly). But it's worth even more than that. Buzzmachine has taught me about the new architecture of media; I wouldn't have learned that without jumping into the new world myself. The blog has stoked my ego, getting me on TV and on conference stages to blather to audiences far and wide.

It has also checked my ego, as my readers never hesitate to challenge and correct me. It has forced me to be more open to new ideas. It has given me a second career playing with new toys; professionally, it keeps me young. Personally, it has made me countless new friends and reconnected me with old ones, owing to a blog's ability to give a person a strong identity in Google searches.

People ask how I have the time to blog on top of everything else. But the real question is, how could I not blog when it leads to so much more? Finally, for a proper accounting, I should also give you the other side of the ledger: the blog costs me $327 a year for hosting. So this is one web 2.0 venture that is profitable.

cooking ideas and reputation, is it enough?

In our hypothetical tribe, however, people give what they have into the pot with no guarantee that they’re getting a fair exchange, which smacks of altruism……. But on the Net, a cooking-pot market is far from altruistic…… Your effort is limited to creating one – the original – copy of your product…… but millions of unique goods made by others!

I guess the cooking pot markets make sense to me in that this is what I see on the Internet, especially through my everyday life. The model makes sense, but probably not enough for media companies who wish to make money, or cash in reputation. Each individual on the Internet might be producing their work for fun, only asking for ideas in exchange or gain some reputation, but media firms want to find a fast way to convert bits and bytes into real world currency. Subscription model does not work and online advertising is increasing, but uncertain where it is going.

Google creates new ways for ad methods, such as AdSense, with complicated equations, but what else? Cumulating reputation and then cash in the reputation is similar to your cash return credit card: before you reach a certain amount of credit (reputation), it cannot be cashed in (maybe a little with advertising). But if you cumulate enough reputation, one day you can cash in whatever you have at hand for millions or billions, if lucky enough.

So media companies buy Web sites that already have a good reputation and a good audience base, such as Google bought YouTube. In addition to this, after investing in a Web site and since nothing can be cashed in immediately, how can media companies survive if the cash flow keeps being negative? Media companies cannot just do it for fun, can they? (so far I guess only Google say they do?)

web 2.0 and online newspapers

After reading Gauntlett’s article called “Media Studies 2.0,” I was wondering how web 2.0 could change online newspapers in future. Web 2.0 emphasizes the interactive feature between internet users. For example, it is very easy to see many comments posted by readers under news articles on online newspapers. In fact, these comments are my favorite feature of online newspapers. I always read users’ comments after reading an article. It is very interesting to see how people react to certain issues taking advantage of their anonymity.

In fact, this became kind of serious problem in South Korea in recent years. Internet users sometimes post very offensive comments to some controversial articles to attack reporters and sources. These comments, which are really the direct product of web 2.0, became so powerful in Korea that online newspapers started to censor many of its comments. Some major newspapers in Korea started to force internet users to use their real names when posting comments, not nicknames. What’s ironic about these comments is that many online newspapers also started to put these comments into news articles as valid sources for stories. Reporters often times put these internet users’ ID and comments to reflect what public thinks about certain issues. I find this very controversial. I don’t know if I can consider these random users as valid sources. But then, these comments are indeed what people are honestly thinking, so I can’t ignore these comments either. Is there similar issue like this in America, too? If not, do you ever think these comments will be used in online news article just like Korea?

the future of media landscape?

I really like the article in terms of how it can be related to what we are doing here: having a blog and act/write as bloggers. We are a small group indeed, but “such small number is common in participatory media.” We have similar interest (at least to some degree?) and exchange thoughts and opinions here. Each of us benefit from this blog by reading others’ posts and comments.

Having a personal/group blog is more common now than three or five years ago, and just as the reading suggested, maybe in five years, everyone is going to have a blog, just like everyone has (at least) an email account now. How many email accounts do you have? How many blogs do you have? Compare with what you had five years ago, what is the percentage of growth? So where does this technological development or growth take us to?

Of course I cannot foresee the future, but somehow I believe in the potential of mobile devices. Something similar to iPhone or GPhone. I do not mean mobile devices will replace our desktop or laptop computers (even though it is possible), but I think a great amount of people want to be connected, either by phone or by the Internet, or both. They might not want to talk to a real person all the time, but they want to be connected to the (cyber?) world more often, especially those who grew up with broadband Internet and their sidekicks.

Here's a blog post of the next Internet.

How the “head” survive in the economics of long tail?

Two comments from the Economist article intrigued me to think: what will be the traditional media’s strategy to survive in the era of participatory media?

First, Rupert Murdoch said,"[the newspaper] have to become the place for conversation. The digital native doesn't send a letter to the editor any more. She goes online and starts a blog. We need to be the destination for those bloggers.

Second, “it's not content until it's linked,” said Jeff Jarvis, a former journalist and newspaper consultant, “and bloggers will not link to articles that require logins and subscriptions to be viewed.”

Those ideas are related to the long tail rationale, which argues that the creation and consumption of the large continuum of niche content can become a successful business model in the new media environment. As seen on the graph that shows “links from blogs to sites”, the mainstream media as the “head” in an economics of long tail still much needed as the source of information especially with its expertise in terms of gathering and packaging the news. I think the “head” have a chance to success only if it finds a good way to connect with the long tail or even become origin of the long tail.

Another thought I have is that the long tail argument may solve the mystery that we saw from the readership data Dr. Chyi presented in class. Why would Yahoo become such a hot place to get news? Maybe because the portal sites offer so much things to do, which create a long tail of audience with diverse reasons to be there. And this long tail happens to contribute to the news viewing for the site. However, the news viewing may just be a by product of something more fun to do.

Redefining media economics in an era of participatory media

For class discussion Monday, I'm pulling out some key points made in the Economist chapter that asks, "So what is a media company?"

... unlike in television, say—“you don't need hits”. Many small audiences are as good for advertisers as few large audiences, and indeed may be better. This has huge implications for content, turning it into one long continuum—from professional to amateur, from blockbuster to subculture niche. Chris Anderson of Wired magazine calls this stretched statistical distribution “the long tail”. In his forthcoming book of the same title, Mr Anderson argues that old-media economics, which are biased toward the hits at the “head” of this distribution, are being replaced by new-media economics, which allow creation and consumption along the entirety of a much longer content tail.

(Speaking of Chris Anderson, he was quoted in this series talking about the importance of having "liquidity" in the marketplace of ideas online ... and in other places we saw hints of this notion of "liquid life" (think: Zygmunt Bauman) ... just found that interesting, that the defining way in which we talk about this era of participatory media is to emphasize its instability and uneasiness.

The analogy to marketplaces has another important implication: network effects. The value of networks (such as the telephone or postal systems) and exchanges (such as eBay or the New York Stock Exchange) increases dramatically as the number of participants rises. Once achieved, network effects also become barriers to entry by rivals. If they are looking for an exchange, for instance, both buyers and sellers will gravitate towards the market with the greatest liquidity in a given share or bond.

This is why a lot of new-media companies are now hurrying to create marketplaces with network effects before somebody else does. YouTube, a start-up launched about a year ago, lets people upload and share their own videos. It already transfers more data each day than the equivalent of an entire Blockbuster video-rental outlet. It goes without saying that Time Warner's AOL, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and other internet companies are also working to exploit network effects.

This race to become the most liquid media marketplace has just started, and the winners are not yet obvious. But the giants, Yahoo! and Google, do have a head start. They already have network effects in their advertising, and emerging network effects in some types of media (text-based blogging, say) that can be transferred to other types (such as video). That is because the distinctions between different types of digital files are becoming increasingly unimportant (assuming a good broadband connection). To savvy teenagers, it's all just stuff passed around among friends.

Also, I thought this was an interesting concluding statement:

Some people worry about what the new media will do not only to democracy but also to brains, thoughts, grammar and attention spans. These concerns usually arise out of encounters with teenagers in their native habitat—ie, in front of screens with several simultaneous instant-messaging “threads” (“cu2nite bfz4evr”—“see you tonight and best friends forever”), besides iTunes and a video game running in the background, blogs in the foreground, and homework in the small window to the bottom right.

Other people are not worried at all. Steven Johnson, the author of “Everything Bad is Good for You”, argues that the very things about new-media culture that scare older generations actually make younger generations smarter, because participatory media train kids from an early age to sift through and discard clutter, thus “enhancing our cognitive abilities, not dumbing them down”.

Linda Stone, a former executive at both Apple Computer and Microsoft and now a consultant, argues that the affliction of “continuous partial attention” is in fact a hallmark of the era that is now ending, not the one that is starting. For the past two decades, Ms Stone thinks, many people have felt overwhelmed and anxious, constantly afraid that they could miss out on social opportunities if they concentrate on any one thing. This is now producing its own backlash, Ms Stone argues, because as people “long for protection and meaningful connections, quality over quantity”, they are “discovering the joy of focusing”.

Many new-media companies understand this, she says. Just as Google calms the chaos of the web with a clean white page, other companies are working on the filtering technologies that could—counter-intuitively, perhaps—make the era of participatory media more serene than the era of mass media.