86 Comments

1. AlanC:

Roger,

I certainly defer to the afore mentioned bright folk among your commenters, but, there is one area that I think you should touch upon vis a vis your “How do we raise the blogosphere to the next level while maintaining the openness that is the hallmark of new media?”

From my perspective the most engaging thing about the blogosphere AND the biggest difference between it and the MSM is the ability for instant feedback. The recognition that humans will have biases can be mitigated in the media by the ability of “the other” to question and expand on the subject. Rathergate provides the perfect example with the almost instaneous development of a rich body of work with many expert contributors that was constantly being tested by questions and additions from around the world.

In systems analysis and design there is the concept of rapid prototyping. Contrary to popular understanding this is not meant to develop a design more quickly; but rather to develop a BETTER design by the use of a rapid feedback loop.

That is what PJ Media needs to maintain, the rapid feedback available to most anyone.

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:11 am 2. ex-democrat:

roger

perhaps you could use your presentation to demonstrate the radically different power of the blogosphere in real time – say by establishing a live feed and incorporating real-time comments into your presentation? you could throw out an observation and then read (or display) the resulting dialog. if you could incorporate an ability to link across and drill down as well that would be terrific.

this would be edgy, of course, but isn’t the talking head yammering a bit played out?

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:13 am 3. Roger:

Super idea, ex-dem. Will explore.

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:15 am 4. AlanC:

Ex-dem has provided a great way to exemplify the idea that I babbled on about. A short statement, a high impact REAL demonstration, great teachablel moment.

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:35 am 5. thibaud:

If you take as your main subject, “delighting the customer,” then you’ll be a lot more likely to say something fresh. Focus more on the user’s experience than on the news provider’s perspective. Format, not content, is the key to raising the blogosphere to the next level.

Worst approach would be to repeat what Jeff Jarvis has beeen saying ad nauseam, or to revisit, for the gazillionth time, Rathergate.

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:58 am 6. Lola:

Here’s a couple points that I’d suggest that you touch on:

Don’t underestimate the public. A lot of them actually do what you (the MSM) are writing about, and they don’t like to be treated as if they’re robots who have no clue of what they’re being paid to do.

There are a lot of smart people who’ve never gone to college, and lead ordinary lives, and have gone through the school of hard knocks. They deserve the golden treatment just as much as those who’ve graduated from “progressive” universities and accumulated credentials in their professed fields.

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:01 am 7. AlanC:

Re: Lola & thibaud

Question for you, Roger.

What is YOUR expected audience for this speech? Who do you want to reach? I checked the link and it seems like the traditional all things to all people which doesn’t narrow down the answer.

The problem is that there IS, as Lola points out, a huge spread of knowledge and expertise. In my presentations to C-suite types about technology, I’ve usually had to “dumb down” the material since they don’t know much, AND tailor it to their specific interests if I’m going to get anywhere. This invariably bores the initiated, but there it is.

So, let’s assume you’re aiming at those C-suiters, while thibaud is correct about the gazillionith time for Rathergate, it IS one of the things that they probably heard about AND it’s one they probably DIDN’T hear from the bloggers perspective! Mary Mapes’ latest provides an uptodated hook. This is also the audience for the “delighting the customer” pitch because customer = sales = profit. BUT, can you define the customer?

If you assume that you’re aiming for the blogging literate, than Rathergate is trite and boring. This audience probably wants to hear how the new media will recognize and deal with Lola’s point about the “smart people” who aren’t in the elite.

This group has been at best condescended to or ignored by the MSM. Explain how and why the new media will do better.

Since you’re the keynoter, take 2 hours and address everyone! ;^)

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:22 am 8. flenser:

ALanC

According to the description in the link the intended audience is as follows;

C-suite executives, senior management, directors,

bloggers and industry leaders from the media,

communications, technology, entertainment, and financial services sectors.

In other words, pretty internet savvy people.

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:31 am 9. Knucklehead:

Roger,

Since you mentioned him I believe it would not be impolite to link to a related discussion that Flenser is attempting to provoke. With some luck and attention good ideas and commentary will be added.

Since you have a deadline you need, of course, to get your thoughts quickly organized and developed. There is not enough time to wait for discussion to develop fully.

Some questions I would begin asking myself were I a luminary recruited to speak on this topic (and for which I suspect you have some developed some answers):

What is the role of we expect of “media”?

- inform, explore, investigate, expose, entertain…

What is the “old media”?

- commercial enterprises

Does the “old media” still fulfill the role of “media”?

Why does the “old media” fail at some portion of the role we expect of it?

- profit motive, lack of subject matter expertise and feedback loop

What is the “new media”?

- a bajillion relatively ordinary people ranging from folks who enjoy talking to themselves to startup/experimental commercial enterprises

Can the new medial fulfill the role of “media”?

How does the “new media” address those areas where the “old media” fails?

- “surging” subject matter expertise, feedback loop

Can the “new media” survive and, if so, is it in danger of eventually repeating the failures of the “old media”?

JMO, but as Flenser touches on, the biggest obstacle for the “new media” at the moment is credibility. People, in general considering the whole of us, tend to view the “blogosphere” as a bunch of bloviating nutballs. While there is surely some accuracy in that there is also an astonishing level and diversity of real expertise (and sometimes some non-expert but cogent thought). New media has, somehow, to overcome the lack of credibility. The next biggest problem, perhaps, is lack of access – a lot of people do not use the the internet for the things they seek from the “media” or couldn’t even if they would because they are not connected. That latter problem will fade as did non-access to telephony and even electricity. But there are two parts to the “access” problem. The ability to access and, then, the inclination to do so.

Oh well, enough bloviating. I hope some of that was remotely helpful. I sincerely wish you success in this endeavor (well, all your endeavors).

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:33 am 10. flenser:

Time to demonstrate some of that real time correction stuff. Knuck, your link is bad.

Roger, I thought your link to me worked earlier, but its not working now.

Back on topic. You are required I think to open with a joke. After that, definition of terms. What the heck is this “blogosphere” thing anyway?

This place is a pure blog, but what about sites like DailyKos? What about NRO, an arm of an established print publicaton? Or the online edition of the NYT? Is the blogosphere simply shorthand for all online content, regardless of origin?

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:45 am 11. Charlie (Colorado):

You know what has struck me about the blogosphere vs the MSM? The fact that people in the blog sworld tend to actually know something outside their punditry. Mary Mapes is still confounded by the fact that the people who responded to the Rathergate stuff were able to make substantive criticisms of the typographical issues on their own

In effect, what we’re seeing in the blogosphere is the re-appearance of people who are writing about something they understand, and doing it for a wide audience.

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:48 am 12. AlanC:

Flenser said: “C-suite executives, senior management, directors,…internet savvy”

I would guess from this that your experiences are different than mine about the savvyness of these folks. Since this is a self-selected group, it’s possible that those in attendance are more savvy than normal, but, my experience is otherwise for the top levels vis a vis technology.

PS Seriously, what IS a respectful way to address you?

Just Flenser seems rude, Dear Sir/Madam seems pompous and silly. I’ve a great deal of respect for virtually ALL the commenters here, but, addressing the anonymous politely doesn’t seem to compute. (probably my old fart manners)

Cheers

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:49 am 13. johnedko:

Roger-

I like ex-dem’s idea and I think you can take it one step further. At the start of your presentation, ask the assembled multitudes for a question, a difficult question. Post it on your website and let the bloggers develop an answer while you give your talk. At the conclusion of your talk you can provide the answer.

This provides the benefit of being a clear example of the speed with which the blog-o-sphere can do/research things, as the question will come at us cold, with no prompting. As you are speaking maybe you can designate another blog as being the “lead”?

Sort of a re-enactment of the Memogate affair in real time?

The built-in assumption here is that the key advantage of the blogosphere over MSM is not that they have better writers (well, they do…) but that the blog-o-sphere acts as a kind of neural network to solve problems, drawing on the knowledge and judgement of all who participate. While individual nodes might be able to see part of the picture, the overall group can come up with the full masterpiece.

-Johnedko

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:02 am 14. ex-democrat:

on the substantive side, i see the emergence of new media as akin to the emergence of open markets at the fall of the soviet union. for ivan and ekaterina, (generalization alert) the world suddenly changed from one where you got what you were given to one where you could choose – and there were things to choose between. even more amazing, you could become a supplier too.

as a consumer of information in the age of the blog, i sample 10 or 12 different sources each day (from an ongoing choice of thousands), i read what takes my interest and pass over what doesn’t – including the entire source perhaps.

for those i read, if necessary, i will drill down painlessly to the sources of the piece and to the sources of those sources. i will also read what others think of the piece in almost real time, and may even respond to one or more of those thoughts. some of those thoughts mnay also inspire a visit to their sources etc.

and as a producer – describing that change to you would be like teaching my grandma to suck eggs, wouldn’t it? ;o)

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:04 am 15. flenser:

AlanC

I think “Lord Flenser” should be sufficiently respectful.

Seriously, the convention is to just use the handle as given. It does get odd in some cases, for sure. I know this guy who goes by “Knucklehead”, for example. And over at the Corner they have a “Jonah Goldberg”. How made up is that?

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:06 am 16. David Burge:

Point out to your audience that leading internet computer-blogging areas, such as “Iowahawk,” are America’s top advertising value.

Then, to reinforce this important point, distribute money-saving introductory advertising coupons for top internet sites, such as “Iowahawk.”

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:08 am 17. Knucklehead:

Flenser,

Time for some of that rapid feedback loop. My link seems fine. Click on it and then click on “Show original post”.

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:17 am 18. David Burge:

Also, during the ‘Q&A’ session, if some wise aleck from the audience tries to stump you, zing them back by questioning their agenda. For example:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So, Mr. Simon, if these newfangled “blogs” like “Iowahawk” are such a ding-dang hifalutin’ advertising value, why are you handing out coupons?

ROGER SIMON: What exactly is your agenda?

If that doesn’t shut up the wise-aleck, I guess I would probably announce a pastry break and call for security.

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:23 am 19. Charlie (Colorado):

Point out to your audience that leading internet computer-blogging areas, such as “Iowahawk,” are America’s top advertising value.

Then, to reinforce this important point, distribute money-saving introductory advertising coupons for top internet sites, such as “Iowahawk.”

Not to mention the product-placement opportunities.

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:23 am 20. Patrick Tyson:

I was curious as to where the

flenser, chuck and Knucklehead. Or more real ones like Rick Ballard, Jamie Irons and David Thomson.

link would take me, and, perfect:

This is your custom 404 “Not found” Error page.

…

Ex-democrat’s idea reminded me of the WKRP in Cincinnati episode inwhich

Mr. Carlson hires legendary baseball manager Sparky Anderson as the host of a new sports interview show.

Nobody calls in. Not a classic like Turkeys Away, but still memorable. Make sure you have some commentators lined up.

…

The last time I sat in on such a meeting it was being explained to me why cable was the place to be. I’d already given notice after spending six years providing technical support to cable advertising. The guy I thought knew the subject best had just been ousted (very well compensated) after a buyout. He builds houses now. I repeat: Good luck.

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:23 am 21. Roger:

Sorry about that, Patrick. Link fixed.

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:35 am 22. Retread:

It may seem an obvious point that with blogs the individual user can search out the information wanted rather than settling for what the TV news decides to show, but this is one of the strengths of blogs that MSM can’t match. For example, during and just after Rita I was interested in finding out how Galveston made out since I have friends and relatives on the island. MSM was busily covering the areas hit by the eye and not saying alot about Galveston, so I turned to the blogs and found a fair amount of detail about damage (or the lack of it) in about an hour.

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:38 am 23. Knucklehead:

Charlie,

The fact that people in the blog sworld tend to actually know something outside their punditry.

In addition to the remarkable ability to “surge” subject matter expertise the blogosphere is very good at giving “voice” to people who are good at, or at least have build the habit of, doing rudimentary analysis of things for which they don’t have any particular depth of expertise. People who can look at something about which they would immediately admit having no expertise yet be able to ask reasonable questions, register potentially legitimate scepticism, or point to obvious errors of technique or presentation. They can smell when it doesn’t seem to add up.

Mary Mapes is still confounded by the fact that the people who responded to the Rathergate stuff were able to make substantive criticisms of the typographical issues on their own.

I laughed aloud when I read her comments about this. She said something about how CBS’s “experts” found nothing worth mentioning about typography and seemed to believe that was some sort of point to be made in her defense. The reality is that CBS, and Mary Mapes, needs some better “experts”.

If the case about whether or not the documents were “authentic” had ever been placed in front of a jury it would have been easily made clear to every member of that jury that they were not authentic. No contest. Rather and Mapes, and CBS, would have been reduced to using a Johnny Cochran defense of “If you can’t see the bits you must aquit!”

But it didn’t require that. All it required were some people who’d lived in the world of the late 60’s, early 70’s military – world of well-worn typewriters and carbon paper memos to register ample scepticism. After that surging the experts about modern word processing, typography, and typewriters pounded the Mapes Case into dust.

In effect, what we’re seeing in the blogosphere is the re-appearance of people who are writing about something they understand, and doing it for a wide audience.

Somehow the general public has to learn to give it the credibility it deserves. I’m somewhat baffled by why this is taking so long and, conversely, why the MSM maintains any level of credibility.

If one takes virtually anything produced by the MSM, say the NYT, about which one has expertise the reaction is nearly invariably that, at best, the MSM treatment is so shallow as to render it nearly useless for information purposes. And it is at least as likely that when we actually have expertise in the topic at hand we can easily spot factual inaccuracies and biased presentation. This is common knowledge. It can be tested and repeated quite easily.

Yet for some reason we tend to give the MSM credibility when they present something outside our expertise.

When I ask people about this, and I do from time to time, their reaction is remarkable. They readily admit, if they are net users, that they can easily find knowledgable and accurate discussioin of topics for which they have expertise (which they cannot normally do for the MSM). Yet for some reason when the topic is outside their expertise they claim that they have nothing on which to base the assignment of credibility to the blogosphere.

I don’t get it. If you know from experience that the MSM is not credible in those areas where you have expertise, and you know that you can easily find credible discussion of those areas on the net, why implicitly “trust” the MSM for areas outside your expertise while explicitly “distrusting” the net?

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:05 am 24. Pamela aka "Atlas":

Are the tickets up at ticketmaster yet?

I wanna go!

No General Seating! The leftards do not behave during general seating…………….

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:05 am 25. Knucklehead:

AlanC,

Very valid point. The higher the exec the more likely it is that they don’t spend much time pounding away at a keyboard. It is still pretty common to see execs with great stacks of paper – their emails printed out by some assistant.

They tend to be savvy about what the analysts have to say about the net. Not necessarily the same as being internet savvy.

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:09 am 26. thibaud:

The leftards do not behave during general seating

The above, um, contribution is a pretty good example of what your audience imagines the blogosphere to be: fringe activists flinging insults across a far-right/far-left political divide. Against which the MSM elite consider themselves to be champions of restraint, decency, fairmindedness, professionalism.

So a word to the wise: be extremely careful about whom you invite or give access to your open comments session, should you go down that path for your presentation.

The larger point is that the blogosphere is not and will not become a business so long as it remains dominated by political activists, ranters, axe-grinders. OTOH it will become exceptionally interesting if/when it moves toward teh About.com model of spontaneously-generated but intelligently-aggregated communities of experts offering “news you can use,” ie not political rants but incisive analysis and recommendations concerning critical life decisions (about health, safety, insurance, finance, education, home purchases/improvement, etc).

This is the kind of crucial, often time-sensitive, info that is valued by millions (think NYT’s 29 million unique daily visitors, not Kos’s x00,000) and that leads to big-ticket purchases of the kind and scale that can generate a billion in annual revenue for a site or portal instead of $5k in monthly tip-dish revenues for blogger #117. Only when the blogosphere shifts away from political chat/activism/rants toward major life decision areas– health, real estate, finance/insurance etc– will it become more than just a pasing curiosity for the C-level execs.

Speaking of which, are you scheduled to talk just before or after lunch? If so, then you need to lead off with a bang, the bigger the better, and end likewise.

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:27 am 27. Syl:

First, my POV is as a blog reader and commenter, not a blogger. My own website deals with another area of interest entirely.

So, though my overall analysis and understanding of the blogosphere itself may mesh with that of most bloggers, the relationship between bloggers and their commenters is of more importance to me than the relationship between bloggers or even the relationship between bloggers and the MSM.

Comment sections are the real conversation among the public at large. Or, can be. Fact checking and error correction, yes. But more than that, comment sections can distill or modify the basic thrust of the addressed blog article.

And comment sections are not just for commenters, they can be useful for those who only read as well. Comments can give alternate points of view, can give links to other articles which themselves expand understanding, can teach

how to argue points, and can satisfy the need for schadenfreud or cheering…which at times is just as necessary to one’s intellectual life as reasoned logic.

But the technology for comments is lacking in many ways. They’re like an afterthought and completely inconsistent from one blog to another. Do you have to log in? Will your email address show? How do you format a link? How the hell do you keep track of which blogs you commented at today so you can go back and see if there are any responses?

Typekey helps in that one log-in will suffice for many blogs. But the two-week log-in is a joke and a lie. And the timeout is ridiculous. And the necessity for bloggers to control spam in comments creates many hardships for regular commenters.

I could go on and on. But my point is that more attention has to be paid to the technology involved in commenting than has been given so far.

Second, I just want to point out that Instapundit is the blogs answer to the old MSM news anchors.

We could use a few more sites like that. Links to what the blogger feels is important today, but without much commentary to get in the way.

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:30 am 28. thibaud:

What syl said.

Format, Benjamin. Improvements to format, not content, are the key to the next level.

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:32 am 29. triticale:

“Anonymous names” is an oymoron. It gives me a perfect opening to tout my neologism. Flenser, Knucklehead and I are all posting nicknonymously, and all have established identities associated with our nicknonymity.

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:36 am 30. thibaud:

For your real-time blogging demo, why not link to blogs with breaking local news/info related to Hurricane Rita’s aftermath (ie from citizen journalists located in Galveston or Port Arthur or Biloxi etc), and point out where and when that reliable, credible, breaking news contradicts MSM accounts?

Perhaps you could first present examples of an MSM Rita/Katrina uber-meme– eg, Racist America! (city X, or state Y eg Texas is full of racists packing guns and seeking to send the refugees back where they came from)– and then show the credible local blogger’s debunking with solid evidence….

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:38 am 31. Alley Fox:

Roger,

On the issue of the public’s perception of the blogosphere as unreliable, I think the point needs to be emphasized that blogs are only a medium – like newspapers, TV and books. There are well-researched books as well as poorly researched ones. Nobody condemns the reliability of books because of the poorly written dime novels. Just as there are great documentaries on tv along with the trash, blogs are merely a new, powerful and rapid medium for the transmission of information.

As with all mediums, readers must use their best judgment to identify the blogs with credibility in the same way they would identify a credible book or newscast – by looking at the quality of their arguments, the sophistication of their reasoning and their historical accuracy. Why do so many people underdstand that the public discriminates in this way with every other medium, but believe we can’t or won’t exercise our critical faculties in the blogosphere?

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:47 am 32. Roger:

Syl, you may be pleased to hear that PJMedia is addressing the question about blog comments you discuss above. But please give us time. There are myriad technical considerations.

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:50 am 33. Syl:

Roger

Great to hear!!!

Sep 28, 2005 - 11:05 am 34. Knucklehead:

While I’d enjoy discussing with him some of the specifics of his posts I need to thank Thibaud for exposing the sheer knuckleheadedness of my original comment here.

Audience is, as always, the key. The audience for this conference is not likely to be the least bit interested in hearing about the war of the old and new media worlds. What they want to hear about is how money can be made from, and existing revenues protected against, the blogosphere. Talks about how to pick impending “winners” from “losers” would also most likely be welcomed. They don’t care if the MSM is a biased piece of crap – it makes money and the intended audience is interested in that topic.

Sep 28, 2005 - 11:20 am 35. Rick Ballard:

“How do we raise the blogosphere to the next level while maintaining the openness that is the hallmark of new media?”

Engendering the trust that is necessary to build and maintain a viable business in new media necessitates a ruthless honesty concerning errors made and constant attention to the reader/commenter feedback loop in order to assure that trust is maintained. The current media model masks feedback fairly effectively – until subscriptions are canceled or ratings drop. Agility in response to the consumers who are, in fact, part of the product may prove to be the most critical aspect of new media.

It ain’t a one way street or a pipeline anymore and old media just doesn’t want to recognize that fact. I’m not sure that they could actually do anything about it even if they did. “How to effectively respond to criticism – 101″ is probably not to be found in J-school catalogues any more than is “Publicly acknowledging errors and making corrections – 101″.

Sep 28, 2005 - 11:27 am 36. Baron Bodissey:

Roger, my main concern over the long haul is that PJMedia and its component bloggers might end up being constrained by pressure from advertisers over sensitive topics. “Suppress this story! It’s too controversial!” If it happens to TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines, why not to aggregated blogs?

I don’t know if there’s any way you can bring it into your discussion, but I figure that this is an issue that will eventually emerge on our horizon. A strategy to deal with it might be an interesting topic.

Sep 28, 2005 - 11:29 am 37. thibaud:

Roger,

1) What’s your objective? Other than general PR for PJM, what specific actions or outcomes do you seek as a result of your talk?

2) What’s your audience’s objective? Other than the usual networking opportunities, why are they gathered at this conference? What specific insights or information are they seeking?

To follow on Knuck’s more concise, and thus more eloquent, phrasing of my point: I suspect the answer to question #2 has to do with increasing the quality and quantity of MSM corporations’ revenue streams. For these folks, anything else is a waste of time.

Sep 28, 2005 - 11:38 am 38. Johnny:

Use lot’s of examples! Generalities are easy. Make a point, follow with an example.

Much more impact.

Good luck!

Sep 28, 2005 - 11:54 am 39. Peg Kaplan:

The blogosphere is a true marketplace. If you build it – and it is good – they will come. The blogosphere doesn’t demand “membership” – that is, unlike the MSM, you don’t have to have a journalism degree, or a job at a big city paper. If you have something worthwile to say, you can say it free of encumbrances.

Particularly in contrast to print, the blogosphere can react immediately. When I get my lump of newsprint and birdie cage material on the front doorstep every a.m., at least 50% of it is no longer news; its history. Broadcast can compete with the blogsphere this way; but not our dailies.

The blogosphere has far more freedom than the MSM. I’ve written loads of letters to the editor – but my paper’s editorial board slants sideways to the left, so my stuff never gets in. (Oddly enough, several years ago someone falsely used MY name and address to get THEIR liberal views printed – and, of course, the paper didn’t check and printed that! Geesh…)

Anyway – many blogs allow open commenting, thus presenting readers with a vastly more diverse marketplace of ideas and viewpoints.

Tell ‘em that the blogosphere is an opportunity for everyone – irrespective of their nationality, religion, race, sex, political leaning, education, class to participate. (Did I leave anything out?!?)

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:08 pm 40. Dymphna:

As Peter Drucker said (don’t roll your eyes, Baron), “communication is the act of the recipient.” Thus, it doesn’t matter much what you want to say if you haven’t figured out who your audience is ahead of time.

Only after knowing what they are capable of hearing are you able to move on to consider what it is you want to tell them and how much you’re invested in how they choose to receive it.

The revoluntionary strength of the blogosphere is that it has removed the gatekeepers: the newspapers, the book publishers, the magazines,the film industry, etc. can no longer prevent what they consider worthless from appearing and attracting people. No wonder it feels like the Wild West circus sometimes. No wonder Mary Mapes feels as though the world has moved on without her.

What has become the world of the internet was not dreamed of by its originators, many of whom look with contempt upon the unwashed and untutored who have taken up the tools of the geeky anointed.

Ah, well…we get it from all sides. Good thing we have such thick skins.

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:12 pm 41. chris_m:

Roger,

You also have suggestions piling up here:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=17691_Interactive_Speechifying#comments

fyi….and good luck!

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:16 pm 42. David:

Roger you are the keynote, not a presenter. Talk about what you know, be funny, be light, and be direct. Maybe discuss how you came into blogging, why you blog, admit to the dumbest thing you ever said on your blog, why others blog, talk about things you know for sure, avoid the important issues unless you are directly involved in one of the issues and are well versed in that issue. But if that is the case you should be a presenter. You are bluntly the entertainment. Do talk a little about mystery writing and hollywood.

When I went to supercomputing 99 (?, 98?) the keynote was a director of animation at Disney. He had been animating in the era of pens and cells. He couldn’t really get into the supercomputing and setting up networks etc. But he was hilarious, and he could talk about all the things that people under him were doing, etc. Then we marched off to the sections and discused stuff we were into.

If you try to sound like the people you are talking to you will come off as a twit.

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:21 pm 43. Andy Freeman:

> Roger, my main concern over the long haul is that PJMedia and its component bloggers might end up being constrained by pressure from advertisers over sensitive topics.

Since most of them have day jobs to pay the rent and they have even less contact with said advertisers than does MSM, this should be less of a concern. Moreover, since there is more competition in PJMedia, there are more chances for the “not constrained” to come out.

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:24 pm 44. Ed:

Roger,

I think David is right: You’re doing a keynote, not a “session track,” so just speak from the heart and from the gut.

As someone who sits through way too many “session tracks” and keynotes:

1) Avoid Powerpoints. Sweet heaven above, avoid powerpoints. Takes attention away from you and half the audience would have to put on reading glasses.

2) High tech demos can crash, and they even crash for people like Bill Gates. And then when the keynote is over, that’s what people remember: “Hey. The demo crashed.”

You’re in a unique position to tell an audience where all the opportunity is in blogging, but at the same time let them know that it’s not a “get rich quick” or “get famous quick” scheme. It takes the same amount of work, risk, time and investment to be a successful blogger as just about anything else. It’s just that in blogging, the old gatekeepers are powerless.

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:45 pm 45. Political Calculations:

Roger,

The following is a work in progress from an upcoming post on the rising influence of blogs – please feel free to draw anything you find interesting from it:

One of the great things about regularly using blogs for reviewing news and events, at least as compared to mainstream news outlets, is that you will eventually find yourself well ahead of the information curve. This is especially true for the televised broadcast and print versions of MSM news outlets, which can lag by weeks in coverage of items of interest (if ever), but less so for radio broadcast outlets which range from being current to lagging by several days. Compared to the lumbering of a TV news-gathering operation or the medieval pace of a modern newspaper newsroom, radio has an immediacy the others lack, plus the advantage of being able to be absorbed while the audience is engaged in other activities (such as driving a car), but still, even radio doesn’t compare to what blogs have achieved in disseminating complex information to a wide and influential audience over their short existence.

In short, you can get a better, more accurate picture of current events through blogs and other online sources faster than you can through the old MSM outlets. Better, in that you can get perspective from a multitude of discrete witnesses of the events in question, rather than just a handful filtered by the bureaucratic layers that dominate MSM newsrooms. More accurate, in that the information cycle is fast enough in the blogosphere to allow for corrections of mistakes to be noted and disseminated to a wide audience in minutes and hours, and not the days or weeks later typical of major MSM news outlets, if they even acknowledge the errors.

For those blogging about current events, this advantage in information provides a unique platform for being able to influence decisions. Some examples:

InstaPundit’s Glenn Reynolds, a law-school professor, can ignite a campaign to strike pork-barrel spending from the federal budget to free up funding to support disaster relief efforts with just handful of keystrokes.

A blog about shoes can influence purchasing decisions, and catapult the otherwise anonymous blogger into a six-figure income.

Heck, even a simple question asked by a little read blog might change people’s driving habits.

The world of information is changing, and those who blog, along with those who read them, are changing it through the competitive advantage that comes from being ahead of the information curve. Today, they’re reshaping the market for information – turning it away from the long-established outlets of the old media to the new information markets of the blogosphere. The only guarantee is that tomorrow’s market for information will look very different from what we see today.

Sep 28, 2005 - 12:59 pm 46. WichitaBoy:

Well.

I have seen you on TV, Roger, and you’re a darned fine public speaker and quite debonair to boot. You’re very funny and very eloquent. There’s no advice I could possibly give you on that front.

I agree very much with Syl and thibaud that a huge part of the value of this new medium is the feedback loop. Syl’s criticism of “comments” as they currently exist is spot on. Something like PJMedia has the potential to lift this new thing to a much higher level. It will require new software which hasn’t been written yet. It will require fresh thinking about the interface. A possible stab at a new paradigm can be found at Kitchen Table Math, a “blooki”.

Methinks the blogosphere gives itself too many airs. The very name “blogosphere” is a piece of techno-pretention which is probably best avoided. Mostly the “blogosphere” is just a bunch of opinionated you-know-whats spewing their opinions. Reading people’s opinions from time to time certainly has value, particularly if they’re elegant and enlightening, and a comments section is a superior form of the letters to the editor section of the newspaper, but the real meat of the newspaper world is the news, and we get very little of that in blogoland.

Granted, the presence of the blogosphere has made the inadequacies of the TV news and newspaper news rather painfully apparent to some of us at least. That the blogosphere was able to turn up expertise quickly in the Rathergate case is interesting but not definitive.

Worse, the blogosphere is almost completely split down the middle between two warring groups who neither read nor link to the other group. This tends to vitiate it’s presumptuous claim to being some sort of “watcher of the watchers”.

I believe there’s great potential here to agglomerate many consciousnesses in a way which could indeed be world-transforming, but I’m afraid we remain a long way from that goal.

Sep 28, 2005 - 1:02 pm 47. srlucado:

== I have held forth at numerous writers conferences on such deep philosophical questions as “How do I get an agent?” ==

Cool! So how *do* I get an agent?

Sep 28, 2005 - 1:09 pm 48. Bill Peschel:

This occured to me; I don’t know if it’s accurate, but see what you think.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in the ’60s, we said that the revolution will be televised. It wasn’t; but now, in 2005, it’s being blogged.”

Sep 28, 2005 - 1:10 pm 49. truepeers:

Just a few scattered thoughts on professionals and amateurs. There is no way that the world of the future, barring civilizational collapse, is going to make do without an ever-inreasing occupational differentiation. Ongoing professional, but also consumer, differentiation is the basis of our social order. If we imagine the consumer to be a kind of generalist, lording over his own wide domain of knowledge and things, the tension and exchange between the specialist and the generalist ever grows without ever going away.

However, we are living in an interesting moment, given the self-hating urge to civilizational suicide on the part of many media, academic and political professionals (and no, I don

Sep 28, 2005 - 1:17 pm 50. Porkopolis:

Roger:

A contrarian, unintended consequence of blogging, approach may make for an interesting topic.

Every new development is a two-edged sword.

Examples: What’s the consequence of an unsubstantiated rumor getting out on the blogsphere just before a major election.

How do we ‘police’ (I know…bad word…but necessary in any true civilized organization, no matter how well intentioned) ourselves?

Sep 28, 2005 - 1:18 pm 51. Lan Nguyen:

“Our summit will begin with a discussion of the great hidden tech boom, how new media is ransforming old media, revenue maximization for media, communications & entertainment companies, and improving the value of publishing businesses… Then we will reveal how some telecommunications and entertainment companies are leapfrogging competitors by using innovative technology, how to promote the entrepreneurial spirit within large companies, and the state of technology & social change.”

You will have their ears and eyes wide open if you can deliver the message of how you can capitalize your market and move it beyond the blog. My opinion is to move beyond 6 digits number of unique hits, the blog has to become a media center catering to the mass. Talk about your dream of how to transcend blogosphere into media center where level of participation and instant feedback of the mass guarantee fact checking instanneously, hence gaining trust and attract returning crowd. Talk about blog of movies, music, real estate buy/sell, finance center, blogs of everythings media center. It’s easier to become blogosphere evangelist and let technical & business people worry about implementing it. But you have to believe it first.

Sep 28, 2005 - 1:29 pm 52. Knucklehead:

Witchita,

but the real meat of the newspaper world is the news, and we get very little of that in blogoland.

Is there some inherent reason this is, or must, be true? Newspapers – and TV and radio news – use wire services and stringers and send people hither and yon with, notebooks, cameras, and microphones.

It seems to me that it is entirely possible to tap into the potential omnipresence of “netizens”. It would also seem to me there’s some huge potential for reduced costs. Use the resources at the scene, and tap into expertise elsewhere for whatever additional analysis is required, nearly instantaneously. Just find some way to qualify and compensate those who chose to participate. You can always dispatch the talking head if no “netizens” step up, but why dispatch the talking head or generic scribbler when resources may already be available and onsite and expertise can be gathered electronically with the push of a button.

Granted, the presence of the blogosphere has made the inadequacies of the TV news and newspaper news rather painfully apparent to some of us at least. That the blogosphere was able to turn up expertise quickly in the Rathergate case is interesting but not definitive.

Rathergate is probably the most well known example but it is hardly isolated. As just one other example that jumps to mind from the same general period, the Swiftvets stirred up a ton of expertise that did some pretty good analysis.

I see know good reason that the MSM, both the news and other media, cannot avail itself of the “surge of expertise” and “feedback loop”. They just need to expand their horizons and look beyond their tired old methods.

Sep 28, 2005 - 1:54 pm 53. jeff:

Roger,

I found David Gelernter’s Weekly Standard piece on redesigning the newspaper for electronic media very suggestive (link below). Not sure it’s exactly what you need, but might spark something if you haven’t previously seen it. Best of luck!

Jeff Peterson

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/797bppbw.asp

Sep 28, 2005 - 2:35 pm 54. Jay Rice:

“How do we raise the blogosphere to the next level while maintaining the openness that is the hallmark of new media?”

Continue to engage readers. With well-written, thoughtful posts and well-documented sources. Continue feedback with comment opportunity and make timely corrections and acknowledgements. Disagreement doesn’t have to be disagreeable. Keep our self-evident truths transparent and, when proven incorrect, apologize, heartily thank the reader, and learn.

Add authority. PowerLine News has added Michael Barone who is respected and a recognized authority who combines clarity of thought and great writing skills. Other equally well-known and respected authorities who exhibit the same openness and eagerness to learn are available. The blog isn’t news. It is an educational experience.

What the blogosphere does best is allow us to share information from a wider base than the MSM. What old media does badly is claim that a journalist — with limited and mostly self-selected and self-serving sources — knows it all. The media produces stories; the blogosphere explores them and engages the reader in a search for truth. Which method serves democracy and an informed public? Which method engages the reader?

Sep 28, 2005 - 2:46 pm 55. DestX:

The thing that is killing MSM is loss of credibility.

The more MSM becomes incredible, the more the news audience seeks alternative sources.

Honesty+sincerity+humility=Credibility

credibility+[(merit of content+entertainment value) / resume]/time = the next level

technology will take care of itself. See Ray Kurzweil.

Sep 28, 2005 - 3:06 pm 56. mulder:

So the audience can focus on your remarks: do not wear a salmon colored tie, do NOT talk too long, be prepared to improvise if your presentation equipment malfunctions (including the microphone), when you practice your remarks have someone video tape you so you know if you have some distracting mannerism that you’ll need to suppress. Best Wishes.

Sep 28, 2005 - 3:11 pm 57. Ed Minchau:

I cannot stress enough how important comments are to the success of the blogosphere. By reading the comments that follow a blog post and commenting themselves, the readers become part of the discussion.

It is an extension of McLuhan’s contention that “the medium is the message”. In the blogosphere, because of user comments, the customer is the product.

Sep 28, 2005 - 3:31 pm 58. Bill Schumm:

Roger,

A couple of things that I would point out to the folks:

1. Compared to the Old Media, the Blogs are alive and pulsating. The comments are rolling in constantly and the blogs themselves are endlessly being added to, updated, corrected.

2. The blog writers are (usually) experts in their field, whereas the OM writers are expert in nothing. Compare Volokh’s page with the NYT articles on legal matters, for example.

3. Blogs have the ability to marshal their forces instantly and draw on the relevant experts that can explain anything. The fast swarm of expertise in the Rather affair is an excellent example of this.

In addition, I really like johnedko’s suggestion to live-post a question at first and then watch the responses roll in during the presentation. Just don’t forget to let us know what time to be watching for you.

Good Luck !!

Bill Schumm

Falmouth, Va.

Sep 28, 2005 - 3:47 pm 59. RebeccaH:

I’m not one of the experts on politics or the blogosphere, or even the MSM, but I am one of those ordinary citizens who just want to be told the truth about what is happening in the world, without someone’s agenda intruding on the facts. So I guess, in plain language, what I want is a message to be given to the mainstream “old” media that I do not care about the political attitudes of wealthy people who live on the coasts, just give me the facts and let me draw my own conclusions. I am not stupid, I am not uneducated, I am not a “gap-toothed hayseed from the trailer park” in Matt Taibbi’s words, and most people who live in my world are not either. Stop condescending to us. Give us the facts. Or risk being ignored for the rest of time, while we search for the facts elsewhere.

Sep 28, 2005 - 4:28 pm 60. MisterSnitch:

Here’s your theme:

Sep 28, 2005 - 4:30 pm 61. truckie:

Point out how the MSM assumed this communications field was not of their caliber. Stress that the bloggers are overtaking the msm and pointing out their certain bias as to their reporting and slanting of the news. There are not people sitting around in PJ’S with nothing to do for the most part the are well educated people with full time careers in well respected fields. Q’s Are the bloggers hurting the MSM?, Are MSM media paper sales down? Are MSM TV news media down? Is advertising in MSM overall down? The answer to all of the above is yes. But ask do you think the MSM get the picture? Ans. NO. Cite; the stupidity of Rather with Kalb & Maples with her new book on the same subject.

Sep 28, 2005 - 4:56 pm 62. Syl:

Ed Minchau

“In the blogosphere, because of user comments, the customer is the product.”

Love it!

Sep 28, 2005 - 4:57 pm 63. madawaskan:

Roger,

I get sweaty palms just thinking about you having to do this. One good thing about having a comments section is you have your own “peanut gallery “pulling for you. Someone else says you have a good speaking voice and a lot of the battle is unfortunately, not what you say but how you say it-with a live audience anyways. Heh-that gets neutralized in the blogosphere -but not in real life.

I “stole” this from a commenter “Durman” who stole it from someone else on another blog-heh- but for some reason I think it seems to fit or describe a blog with a comments section-because someone will always let you know what you don’t know-

Someone once shared with me an interesting illustration on our limited capacity to truly ?know? or comprehend something.

1. First draw a circle representing the sum total of all knowledge as you would imagine it. (Most of the time, a person would draw a circle that would encompass the entire drawing surface.)

2. Next, draw within that large circle a circle that represents what you believe to be your comprehension of that sum total of all knowledge. Or if you?d rather, draw a circle that represents the total of knowledge that is actually known to man. (Hopefully your circle is smaller than the first one. If not, then you really are an arrogant SOB).

I like that end part and you could probably pull it off.

It would be interesting if you could do your speech the way your blog works.

Talk for some of the time and then say-”I’d like to open it up to comments or questions from the audience-heck if you want you can also question one of the audience members that went before you or challenge one of their assertions…”

Then at the end of it do a conclusion and say something to the effect that-what makes the blogosphere more viable and exciting is that the audience gets a greater sense of participation and feels more engaged/invested. Trust me they’ll probably enjoy it and they probably have questions they want to ask you.

What were your best and worst moments blogging?

What was the one thing you wrote about and were surprised by the reaction?

Did you ever change your opinion about something after having blogged/stated a differing opinion?

Good luck Roger.

Sep 28, 2005 - 5:15 pm 64. madawaskan:

Shoot maybe that end of that comment-

(Hopefully your circle is smaller than the first one. If not, then you really are an arrogant SOB).

-applies to the MSM.

Sep 28, 2005 - 5:18 pm 65. AST:

I share Patrick’s skepticism of conferences like this. I’d probably say, “If you have to have a conference about it, you’ll never get it.”

The best way to get it is to read blogs, follow links, post comments and try it. A good approach might be to discuss how bloggers are different from most professional journalists.

1. They don’t try to pretend they’re objective or even-handed, much less believe it.

2. They understand that journalism is not a true profession the way law or medicine are and that a journalism school diploma makes you a good journalist in the same way.

3. They believe in democracy, freedom of speech for themselves, not just the press, and in the right of the people to participate in the debate. That adds up to th kind of journalism that the drafters had in mind when they created the phrase, “Freedom of the Press.”

4. They cut through B.S. like Dan Rather’s phony documents and the pretensions and arrogance of people who expect us to believe them because they’re celebrities.

5. They don’t write to minimum word counts. Often, they can say more in a couple of sentences than an entire column by Maureen Dowd.

6. They have MSM liberals running scared, but attempts to participate, like CBS’s Public Eye, show that the old media still don’t understand what’s going on. Who cares about transparency when the “eye” is blind and CBS is deaf?

Sep 28, 2005 - 6:53 pm 66. Bill Schumm:

One more thing that I’d like to add to my comment above. Your final product might be too narrow to include it, but you might consider pointing out the obvious: Put your column in two places, a newspaper and your blog. Very few people who buy the paper will read your column, but everybody who logs onto your site will read it. A lot can be extrapolated from that.

Bill Schumm

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:10 pm 67. Vulgorilla:

Roger,

The one thing that the new media (blogosphere) has, that the old media lost, is credibility, and the reporting of the facts as accurately as possible. That’s why almost everyone I know doesn’t watch the network news, nor subscribe to newspapers, or news magazines anymore. We really don’t care if the true facts are for, or against, our own political beliefs…what we do care about is getting the factual information without embellishment, fabrications, or intentional ommissions. We can make our own decisions if we have the facts. I don’t need someone to tell me what it means to me. What I need is honest, objective reporting – Nothing more.

“Fake but accurate” is the same as saying “Stuck on Stupid”, and the old media hasn’t figured that out yet, and probably never will.

Thanks for asking

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:17 pm 68. thibaud:

I’ll pass on the Kool-Aid that produces statements like this:

The Drudges and Instapundits continue to gain audience. By definition, they are becoming mainstream media

No they aren’t. The NYTimes each month has something like 30 million unique visitors to its website. The TV and cable networks have audiences in the tens of millions for their major news broadcasts. Instapundit gets barely 1/100th of that audience.

And no, the blogosphere does not scale. 100 or even 1,000 or even 10,000 other wannabe Glenn Reynoldses does not sum to the equal of the NYT, in part because the readers overlap, and also because when you go below the REynolds/Drudge/Kos level, the next tier’s audience is 1/100th smaller than that of those worthies. I doubt that hardcore, daily blog-surfers amount to more than a 1-2 million total viewers. Again, this is more than an order of magnitude smaller than the audience for Dowd, Krugman et al or for Fox, CNN, NBC etc.

So please, let’s not delude ourselves that an audience full of hardcore media execs– who eat, sleep and breathe audience/market metrics like the snippets put forth above– will be at all impressed by The Little Bloggers That Could. Bloggers can’t, and don’t, and probably never will. Make money on any scale worth paying attention, that is.

Roger’s audience is a group of media guys. Media as in multi-billion dollar media corporations. These people are serious money men who are paid enormous sums to generate enormous profits each quarter, and to them the likes of Instapundit and drudge and LGF and Kos are, as a business proposition, about as convincing as Pets.com. The execs’ interest in blogs is similar to, say, Ford or GM’s interest in solar technology: worth some attention, but not anything that will turn around their business.

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:44 pm 69. thibaud:

hybrid technology

Sep 28, 2005 - 7:57 pm 70. thibaud:

David,

Roger you are the keynote, not a presenter. …be funny, be light, and be direct…. You are bluntly the entertainment

If Roger must entertain, let’s hope he doesn’t entertain bluntly.

Seriously speaking, keynotes for audiences of key decisionmakers at publicly-traded companies are never “entertainment”. At every technology and business conference I’ve been to, the keynote speaker is a major industry figure who has either

–made tons of money himself, or

–a corporate purse with many millions of dollars for technology purchases, or

–a recognized expert in the field who can show the audience a path toward, you guessed it, big money.

Money is what these conferences are all about. Even the entertainers, when they make their appearance (usually after cocktails on the first and last days), joke about… money.

Does that sound crass? Welcome to the big leagues, folks. They throw curveballs up there. Spitballs, too.

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:11 pm 71. thibaud:

To be clear about my allegiances, I’m on the side of the Citizens and Citizens’ Media. But just because Dan Rather is a pathetic figure and Eason Jordan and Jonathan Klein of CNN repellent ones does not mean that Viacom and Time Warner are patsies.

General Electric, Viacom, Fox: these are hugely profitable major corporate franchises run by some of the best and (certainly in GE’s case) toughest businessmen in the world. These men are not buggy-whip makers. Neither are they comparable to the incompetents, bureaucrats and dimwitted family scions running Ford Motor Company. It’s sheer folly to address such an audience with swagger and bravado about how the blogosphere claimed Rather’s scalp and it’s a-gonna claim yours too, if ya don’t watch out.

A cautionary tale: just after the internet craze developed, Bill Gates began saying that money-center banks like Citibank, Chase and UBS were “dinosaurs” that would be replaced by nimble web-based businesses. Citibank today has over a trillion dollars in assets, and the others aren’t far behind.

Humility’s a good thing. Realism’s even better.

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:24 pm 72. kenmc:

Here’s what I’d say -

MSM has lost their way. The only question now is how much it is going to cost them before they wake up and change their ways. The longer they avoid confronting their problem – the more it will cost them – in downsizing, rightsizing, or just plain failure.

It may be naive, but the news reading/viewing public demands accuracy and objectivity from their news sources. The blog gives the public a tool to confirm accuracy and objectivity.

Historians will probably point back to Rathergate as a turning point in media history. A point where media arrogance had reached a fever pitch. Not only for the single reporter who attempted the fraud, but for the rest of the media that couldn’t find the stomach to run him to ground. They didn’t even seem to recognize what a fundamental violation of their own vested interests had occurred.

The media entities that are wise enough to recognize their blind spot – and use the blogsphere to get back on track – may get through this period with only small pain and minimal scarring.

Thanks for the opportunity to voice my comments. Good luck with your presentation. Hope you post a copy of it.

Sep 28, 2005 - 8:49 pm 73. Luther McLeod:

Sorry that I cannot contribute in a positive way. It must be a previously unknown streak of ‘latent marxism’ that causes me to say this.

But, “money tends to corrupt, absolute money, corrupts absolutely.”

My two cents (NPI) is that the most successful bloggers are the most independent. Independent of outside sources of income. Dare I say that altruism as a motivator and protector of how and what they say may be a major component of the trust that I pass to them? In other words, its not just the beans. For me, blogs became pertinent after 9/11. They were the only place that I could get uncensored news. Quite honestly, if money becomes the denominator, I may split, even to my own detriment.

Yes, I know, talented and smart writers deserve to be compensated. I just naively thought that there were higher goals in mind.

Sep 28, 2005 - 9:05 pm 74. john:

Intellectually drafted article. seems to grab attention at once.The writer has a good knowledge of the subject and makes reading interesting.

Sep 28, 2005 - 10:40 pm 75. HA:

Roger,

In the spirit of John Lennon’s “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”

To make Lennon’s comment more topical, you could point out that MEDIA is what USED to happen while we were busing making other plans.

Media used to be a priesthood comprised of the Big Three Networks and the Major Metropolitan Dailies. Every day this priesthood would issue its decree about what was important, deciding for us what we needed to know and what we didn’t need to know. If you weren’t a member of the priesthood you were shut out of the process.

Those days are over. Now, for those who are interested, media participation is open to all. People now have the means and the power to include participation in the media as part of their “other” plans. The point of Lennon’s comment is that to a large extent our lives are determined by forces outside our control and over which we have no influence. With new media technology, ordinary people have gained control over a part of their lives they never had before.

Sep 29, 2005 - 3:36 am 76. Vasily:

The CBS, and anyone else’s Nightly News with any coiffed face is all structure and packaging. Language and meaning are cross-threaded by quick edits and voice overs. The windblown hair media man walks squarely towards the camera with the palms-facing,hands cleaving down emphasis, speaking in the sonorous land of the lotus eaters voice, all the scene implies, this is serious stuff, and says, “I’m so and so, reporting from nowhere.” Cut to the unknown expert. “Smith! You’re not exercising!” Irrefutable,inviolable, adamantine, and bludgeoning. It is force feeding.

By contrast the internet and blogosphere are vast free for alls, an Indra’s net where each drop of dew on a multi-dimensional web reflects every other drop of dew. One can cross check and verify any expert, back off the jammed nut with ease. Walk backwards from the waving hands into several other landscapes for a look at the terrain; how does it differ from Brian Williams’ map? And what does this say about his map reading skills? Does he even have a map? A compass? A sense of direction? The former is scripted, packaged, linear and tedious. The latter multi-dimensional, simultaneous and distrbutive. I think the character of the two approaches to information might be compared to the early stages of flight versus aircraft and air travel today. An enormous gulf between information land masses has opened up. It remains to be seen how the continents will configure.

Sep 29, 2005 - 6:02 am 77. Ed Minchau:

Thibaud wrote: The NYTimes each month has something like 30 million unique visitors to its website. The TV and cable networks have audiences in the tens of millions for their major news broadcasts. Instapundit gets barely 1/100th of that audience.

Here is Instapundit’s sitemeter:

http://www.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=stats&site=s11instapundit

At 162000 hits a day, that’s about 5 million a month. He’s one guy, and yet he pulls in 1/6th of the readership of the New York Times.

Sep 29, 2005 - 9:16 am 78. Yeshooroon:

I guess the first obvious thing to say is the blogosphere needs to humble itself. I see mistakes every single day on these blogs, many just due to the quick nature of the blog with immediate commentary and no true “detective” work, just hearsay and opinions based upon presuppositional viewpoints.

Put more bluntly, the blogosphere is great at negative feedback on MSM, but it has no self-reliant checks and balances due to the nature of its very independent nature. If Pajama Media is an attempt to be more self regulatory with editorial reviews and oversight as well as profitable, then its well received.

I think Pajamama Media is a very apt name considering this medium only just got out of bed, whereas print media has been here for over 2000 years, ‘evovled’ and distributed into the newspapers, magazines, and books we see today with oversight and editorial staffs, reviews and sophisticated levels of peer-reviewed specialties. I’m not saying we don’t have tabloid journalism, but the print media is well adapted over the years at least some self-regulation and management.

TV while still a teenager in some aspects has very much the same oversight aspects in place for serious journalism and reporting.

I enjoy many of the blogs, but we need to face the truth as well about the utilization of such media. There is very little oversight or editorial reviews and much the reason I read certain blogs is to re-establish one’s on viewpoint. My opinions tend to be more conservative these days, therefore I go to conservative blogs, rarely do I entertain the left position in the blogosphere. Prior to the net, the blogs, one had newspaper, magazines, and TV on the local and national levels. But many cities and towns are one horse towns with regards to the printed word. The internet and now the blogs obliterated this uncomfortable boundary and opened up the world to those seeking like minded opinions, as well as reopened many eyes to the fact that there are other intelligent opinions other than those of the well established print media.

There is this hear like mentality in the blogs however. With the left-right blogosphere attitudes and gang-like turf atmosphere of roving opinions from one blog to another. If an outside opinion does appear, with ferocity and usually of one accord the gang-members attack the unwanted entry into their turf. This happens on both left and right blogs.

The exception to the rule is like for example your post on Intelligent Design(ID) where the subject broaches an area not covered by the usual gang-leader and where members then find differences among themselves heretofore unknown. Then the ease of subject matter agreement is lost and members turn their vitriol on each other.

Typically the feedback of letters to the editor or reporter in general are ‘fed back’ to just those few people. Many never read or just with a cursory quick review and no action taken. But as many have already pointed out on here, the blogosphere with instant feedback changes the feedback loop and intangles all readers together within the conversational bounds of positive and negative feedback to the original story. Insults are thrown about more freely at each other as opposed to say just directed at one person. Personalities are more easily discovered and readily earmarked for future confrontations. Emotional involvement is more at stake with interactive feedback than a simple letter to the editor. The most one can hope for in the letter phase to a newspaper was a possible printing of the letter, but there is no guarrantee for the reader that he knows if his letter was even read.

Today, the reader becomes interactive immediately which then becomes the writer, the automatic sound-wall and feedback generator allowing the original report generator/writer to gauge and engage his readers much like that of talk radio and TV.

This amounts to more robust tracking of opinions and narrowing of subject matter agreement in some cases dependent upon the writers knowledge and need for agreeable readership. It tends to provide a tunnerling effect and limited scope of opinions.

This is all to say, some good and some bad comes out of this. People when exercising their opinion rome around in packs on the net to a large extent, whereas few will buck the trend or a right or left blog. Instead, much like turf warfare in gangland, you’ll see a link-to-writers-piece, saying go check this out and the ‘member gangs’ will then all hoard onto the other blog turfdom with quick opionionated attacks and slurs agaisnt the other blog. So, instead of ‘intelligent debate’ and considered opinion, what you end up with in many instances is just a gangland like turf war with no one really listening to the other.

What is interesting to find out is if the ‘new media’ will become respectable journalism in that it will allow different opinions with a conceivable notion of fair-play and less insult oriented hacker opinions. This problem is not just one of the blog, it resonates throughout the entire web sphere.

One observation that is very interesting is the fact that within the blogosphere, the right does not ‘appear’ to have the upperhand over the left in shear numbers of participants. I have no idea if this is accurate – just a gut feeling I have based upon my browsing the web. I think this would be an area of research in regards to say comparison of talk radio which is predominately right-oriented and the left is licking its wounds with institutionalized attempts at programs such as Air America. Talk Radio came from grass roots movements of conservative individuals frustrated and angry at a media which would never show, view or hear their opinion.

The blogosphere is not limited per say to one area of frustration and opinion on the right such as talk radio and is much more diverse in political opinions. If this leads in the future to both sides of the issues being aired fairly and people willingly able to ratchet down their attacks, insults and inuendos, then maybe a more informed public will emerge that is not so extreme in nature. One can only hope, but then some avenues of this are very entertaining in and of themselves.

Back to the talk-radio and blogoshpere differences. Why is it? Education? Conservatives are more apt to a verbal feedback? Interesting to look into.

And finally back to the top of this post with observations on quick hits and no research. The blogosphere tends to be a quick hit mentality in many instances. Boom, for example – “clap trap”, “psuedo-science”, without any knowledge shared of the subject matter, of material read, of opposing material reviewed. The question then becomes one of trust of the blogger. Is it just opinion and how much can one trust the opinion of a detective novel writer who has no expertise in geology, biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics or scientific methodology and statistical analysis. How does one go from sharing an opinion on the Iraq war and Israel from a conservative opinion to that of expert on all things scientific? Obviously it does not and it while it is an individuals right to comment on all facets of life and the blogosphere gives the person the ability to do so, merely stating ones opinion does not make it so.

This calls into question the accountability of the blogosphere and the attempt I am guessing at relationships such as the ‘new media’ of Pajama Media to establish itself as credible sources of information.

If one is to be credible and accountable in journalism, one must focus on specific areas of expertise, just like anyone in a related job becomes skilled and knowledgable must do. Quick opinions thrown out in a blog without any true balanced research only serve to spur membership talking points and discussion. And while I like the interactive aspects of such discussions. The original piece lacks any credibility if the Blogger does not actually research the subject upon which they opine.

It also calls into question whether or not many blogs are not just indivdually glorified opinionated ego-centric diatribes on skewered subject matter open to a vast public.

Agree with Evolution – go here, Disagree – go here. The blogoshpere still has much growing up to do if it is to be taken seriously on subject matters that call for research and not just barbed comments to the fawning fans of a particular blog. Blogs like most things these days seem to focus on the extreme opinions these days. There is no discussion per say, just agreement on left and right. Honestly I do not know if the blogosphere is helping the country come together and discuss issues or polarising it even more into smaller junks of agreeability(word?).

Nevertheless, the medium is to rich and open to advancement to be ignored and it will change how our news is generated and understood. Plus as already known – its ability to nail down the truth on important matters previously and possibly overlooked by the larger media’s funneled gate approach. Still, one has to imagine that the blogoshpere itself will somehow have to funnel and order information. Can it do in the long-term any better job than that of traditional media today?

I think that question is still up for grabs, but from a technological perspective, it is easily more doable as histrionics, database searches and programmable subject matter become more avialable to an ever increasingly demanding intellectual membership base. No longer are high paid options of database research enabled to just the few media conglomerates as more and more articles are organized by subject matter, tabulated by dates, keywords and authorship, archived and available for massive online query mechanizms which allow for immediate feedback, questioning, and review for accuracy in support of factual reporting.

This will open up new avenues of ratings heretofore unrealized such as statistical ratings on areas such as reliability, truth factors, short and long term accuracy. Reporters and even bloggers will no longer be able to just state something without having statistical analysis relayed real time to a viewing audience on accurate data.

For example – ID is not psuedo-science. That’s just an opinion. A program can detect such word usage, determine the false logic implied by such a remark and then rate it on a scale of reliable sources and data previously published online and in scientific articles by PhD’s at top universities across the nation who disagree with certain aspects of evolution, are published in peer-reviewed journals and have the scholastic background to defend such a theory as ID.

Or lets simplify things down to the New Orleans disaster and media reporting there. Online programs will detect false reporting by the simple search and addition of the statistics reported by a police report or governmental agency report of deaths by murder, natural causes and actual death by flooding and hurrican Katrina. This is being done by individuals now but can and will be programmable in the future.

Will there be differences of opinion on the truth factors as seen by the statistical analysis of research media outlets? Or course, that’s why individual opinion and the blogosphere will still have differing opinions on how things work with regards to government, politics, science and whether or not color matters as a proof of evolution.

But, the blogosphere like any other medium will eventually have to provide internal oversight and editorial review processes for any serious consideration for a broader public base which trust it as a new legitimate source of news.

It is one thing to criticize MSM. It is another entirely to replace it. It is one thing to point out bad journalism and even false evidence, such as in the case of ‘proportional’ fonts and yet another entirely to adhere to a higher standard within the blogoshpere itself. I see just as many big ego’s online now as there are in the MSM. Blogging does not a humble pie make. Nor does it insure factual reliability or reduce bias. It only insures feedback if the blogger is mostly credible. It does seem to focus the readership actually in many cases toward a bias consensus, whereby everyone slaps each others back and protects their turf.

Balanced Blogging? Can it be done? Is it being done? Examples?

These I hope are good topics, issues and areas at which to look at for your speech in New York.

I apologize up front for the rambling nature of this post, unorganized as it might be, hope it helps.

Sep 29, 2005 - 9:19 am 79. thibaud:

Ed – those aren’t unique visitors (I myself hit instapundit about 3-4x per day on average, which equates to ~100 per month). Assuming that I’m somewhere close to the mean for Glenn’s readers, your 5 million figure is off by two orders of magnitude.

Alternatively, try this reality check: If your numbers were correct, then Glenn’s site would be worth something on the order of, I’m guessing, $50m-$100m, that is, $10-$20 per unique monthly visitor. (The NYTimes recently bought About.com and its IIRC 20 million unique monthly visitors for ca $500m, ie $25 per visitor).

Somehow I doubt that a one-man site of this financial value would long have escaped the notice of Draper Fisher, Kleiner Perkins, or Murdoch, Yahoo, or the Times. Or that Glenn would have passed on an offer from one or more of those firms to cash out to the tune of $50 million+.

In reality, Glenn’s audience is worth maybe a couple of million dollars at most. Not chump change but also of no interest to any financial or strategic investor.

Sep 29, 2005 - 9:32 am 80. eretzgo:

Let me suggest that you talk about what bloggers do every morning. We get up and flip through news sources, which we link to together with commentary. We are great consumers and disseminators of news, kind of the way birds carry fruit seeds around.

I imagine that the old media representatives who are present want secretly in their hearts to fit into the new and coming, um, order. Everyone wants to fit in. Show them how.

What they need to be doing is organizing themselves the way pajama media presumably is. And they particularly need to be information sources only, helpful to and appreciated by bloggers, not in the arena players, whom bloggers will chew up and spit out.

Stick to your knitting, you can tell them, and you’ll do fine.

Sep 29, 2005 - 9:48 am 81. Yeshooroon:

List of questions:

Does blogging reading/writing lead to isolationist viewpoints? I realize to a large degree it depends upon the individuals involved, but if I were to just stay within the narrow bandwidth of blogrolls on most sites would I ever get a mixture of opinion?

How does this compare to print and TV media?

Is bloggin and media technology today facillitating a spread between left and right views, or is it helping in any legitimate discussions which are fruitful between the left and the right?

Is there a great middle which will come together or is red/blue our only colors? Purple?

Will technology as I tried to explain in my post above allow for more integrity in the field of factual reporting? Or, will it just lead to more misleading comments on statistical averages and polls?

Will technology and media converge to find aboslute truths that are acceptable for viewing how media sources report on the news?

Will media technology allow a statistical IQ rating of reporters in the future?

Will media technology report the background and bias level or reporter in the future?

Will media technology lead to Truth in Accuracy ratings of reporters and media sites?

I think the answers are all yes to some degree.

Will there eventually be a ReporterWatch.org? ding, ding, ding – search confirms reporterwatch.com is already taken.

Will this convergence of technology, media and individuals lead to a higher level of trust if news is held more accountable to the public?

Will this step lead to more accurate knowledge of governmental decisions on the micor and macro level?

Will people actually be interested to know details or will they just want to see simpler forms of technological judgements in the forms of ‘altruistic ratings’?

Will there be esatblished a reporter indexing trust rating system to rate accuracy of each individual and media outlet?

Will this line of logic scare the PJ’s off ya?

I’d think so… because technologically, this is all doable to a certain extent today.

HonestyinReporting, MediaWatch, MEMRI are all examples of showing truth from different angles, but as of yet without a TRUTH INDEX.

I’m sure however it will spring up as well as lawsuits…

Sep 29, 2005 - 11:30 am 82. MisterSnitch:

“I’ll pass on the Kool-Aid that produces statements like this:”

And I’ll pass on the short-sightedness of statements such as yours.

The press continues to lose readers. The ‘net gains them. Same with income. You read TODAY’S numbers, fella? Good for you. Of course, we all know that the world today is exactly what we will see in ten years. Nothiing changes.

Reynolds gets 1/100th of the Times’ audience today. How many writers and editors does the Times have? Hundreds? Thousands? How long has the Times been in business? How long has Instapundit been published? How many people are involved in its manufacture? Where are the younger readers going? What happens if a number of such efforts consolidate and gain funding?

“Media as in multi-billion dollar media corporations.”

Oh, future projections are all about who makes money NOW. What a visionary, forward-looking persepective! Like IBM sneering at Microsoft because software would never drive profits. And IBM was ‘right’ because IBM was a multi-billion dollar company. And when Bill Gates surpassed IBM, pundits like you told everyone he had built an unsurpassable software system. Because he had built a multi-billion dollar company. Two guys running a search engine out of their dorm room called “Google” could never challenge him 7 years later.

Kool Aid. Yum.

Sep 29, 2005 - 12:44 pm 83. MisterSnitch:

Went to go fetch this link:

http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/

Great audio/visual presentation, re what happens to the NYT less than ten years out, and what becomes of printed and online news media generally. Entertaining, worthwhile, and probably as accurate as such a projection can be.

BTW: The Kool Aid remark – rude AND clich

Sep 29, 2005 - 1:25 pm 84. Stephen M. St. Onge:

Roger:

        I find the question hard to answer, because I don’t know the audience, what they might be interested in, or just what kind of thing they’re really interested in.  But after reading the “Program Highlights,” the following occurs:

        One feature of new technology is what I call “cropdusters.”  Even before the Wrights flew, lots of people saw that airplanes would be useful for military purposes, mail transport, and passenger carrying.  But who saw that airplanes would be used to dump chemicals on farmers’ fields?  Who foresaw skydiving?

        Another point I’d make is the importance of a wide diverisity of ideas for new technology and new markets.  Another aviation example: in the Great War, scouts might fly over someone and drop them a message, assuming what was being dropped wasn’t too fragile, but getting one into the plane required landing the aircraft.  This was a major drawback to using airplanes as messengers.  Then, in the fifties, (I think), the problem was solved.  Using WWI technology.  By a missionary, of all people.

        Want to put things on a plane, and take them off, without landing or dropping?  Attach a bag to a rope or cable; lower the bag out of the plane; have the pilot fly in fixed radius circles around a person on the ground.  The person on the ground can open the bag, take things out, and put stuff back in, all without doing anything but slowly turning in a circle.

        There are probably lots of revenue increasing ways of using the ‘Net that just haven’t thought of yet.  So companies need to get suggestions from lots of people.

        One example of a possible cropduster is the use Universal Pictures is making of bloggers to promote their new movie Serenity.  I saw the flick for free Tuesday night.  This probably cost the studio seven or eight bucks in foregone revenue.  In return, they got a review from me that would have cost them three or four times as much if they’d paid me minimum wage for time spent watching it (and they still would have had to show me the film).  My review and additonal thoughts are on my blog.  I mailed a copy to Glenn Reynolds, he linked to me, and in the last two days I’ve had over two thousand more viewers than I’d normally get.  That works out to less than half a cent per view, and almost certainly better for Universal than clicks on a banner add.

        In fact, even if I don’t influence a single person to see Serenity, Universal will profit.  I was reluctant to see the movie, fearing that Joss Whedon’s camera technique would make me vomit (literally; I have problems with induced motion sickness in some films).  The opportunity to see it free told me I could tolerate it, so Saturday I’ll see it again, with my wife.  Two tickets sales secured by one free pass.

        Another possible point: ‘It ain’t what you don’t know that hurts you, its all them things you know that just ain’t so.’  Why did nuclear power fail commercially?  Well, the people who were designing and building nuclear power plants thought of them as “just another way to boil water.”  It didn’t occur to them that association of nuclear reactors with nuclear weapons would cause widespread anxiety among the public.  And most of the designers managed to forget that there was a difference to boiling water with a fire, which can be turned off almost instantly, and whose ashes are inert, and boiling water with a nuclear chain reaction, which keeps giving off heat for years.  The utility managers also forgot that, since the power plants were new, nobody really knew what it would cost to design and build the plants, what percentage of the time they’d generate electricity (vs. being down for maintainence and repair).  Instead, the utilities swallowed the “too cheap to meter” snake oil, and it ended up costing them a bundle.

        One probable example of this concern over “media piracy.”  Drop in at Baen Books’ Free Library.  Baen put an electronic copy of a certain science-fiction novel, and the sales went up!  It turns out that a lot of people, after reading some or all of a book online, end up wanting a paper copy anyway.  Baen also sells electronic copies of every book in their catalog, with absolutely no copy protection.  You want to download it multiple times?  Go ahead.  You want to make copies for use on other media?  No problem.  Baen just asks that you not rip him off.  His bottom line is doing very well.

        Nor is this unique to science fiction.  James Randi put his book “Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural,” up online, http://www.randi.org/, complete, and the sales have increased.  .  A publisher of technical works (name forgotten, alas) put their entire catalog on the web, and watched sales increase.

        Yet the same publishers who distribute free review copies and advanced reader copies, knowing they’ll have no control of them, are somehow convinced that everyone on earth is dying to rip off their latest volume.  Too bad it’s not true.  If everyone on earth stole an electronic copy of “Turgid Prose, by A. Hack,” one in a thousand would like it so much that they’d buy all Hack’s other works.  Six million sales of Hack’s “More Turgid Prose,” later, the author and publisher would be much richer.

        Again, we have a deficiency of greed, and an excess of emotion.  “Those bastids are stealing my work!”  Yes, annoying, but ask yourself how many of thieves would have bought the work in question if they hadn’t been able to steal it?  Hardly any, probably.  And how much will it be offset by the free publicity?  Most likely, more than the lost sales of the “media pirates.”

        Finally (”At last,” Simon muttered), I’d emphasize that some problems can’t be solved technologically.  To do anything new, you have to DO SOMETHING YOU AREN’T DOING NOW.  At most companies, institutional barriers are in place to stifle new ideas, and prevent new actions.

        My ironworker father told me, with great amusement, of some owner at place my father had worked at, who hired a business consultant.  The owner was angry, because the consultant was “telling my how to run my business.”  Well yes, that’s what a consultant is for.  And when a consultant is listened to, where do you think he or she gets his ideas?  Frequently, from the firm’s employees.  But no listened to their opinions, which could have been had for free.

        The reasons for ignoring such good, free advice is an excess of ego, and a deficiency of greed.  Someone really interested in revenue maximization would constantly bug his employees for more suggestions.

  Another example: when I was a fast food manager, I was periodically called to meetings about improving training.  I participated, took notes, and then went back to the store and whatever they’d said.  You see, every day, I had to report sales per manhour and dollar of labor, and I was judged on how high that ration was.  During training, neither the trainer nor trainees are producing any sales.  So I only trained when I either couldn’t avoid it, or when the trainer and trainee were going to be on the clock anyway.

        I would have been glad to train more, and do it personally (I enjoy being a trainer and being trained).  But I wasn’t about to be fired.  In order to REALLY increase training, the company would have had to allow me to deduct the time and pay of the trainer and trainee from the daily figures.  But that’s the one thing the bosses never considered.

        Well, I hope this was of some use to you.

The House of Saud Must Be Destroyed!

Sep 29, 2005 - 1:55 pm 85. Cal:

Originally, I was with Thibaud, Koolaid and all. However, I just read the conference link, and these guys all have pink mustaches and grinning glass pitchers.

However, I still would avoid a media talk. Isn’t Jay Rosen going to be there, or did I misread? You don’t want to give the same talks.

On the demo: I doubt even grandmas, much less executives, will be wowed by the idea of (gasp) interactive feedback during a presentation. The audience will not be thrilled by the commenters’ acumen. Online questions and real-time answers have been demoed for at least 15 years, probably longer–well before the web (which is not the same as the internet, for those who get them confused).

I suppose you could do the “mainstream media just doesn’t get it” pitch, or the miracle of bloggers getting the “real” news out to the .00001% of the population who gives a damn, but really, if they’d wanted that they could have gotten Hugh Hewitt.

Why not talk about the low barrier to entry, the ability to set up a blog almost immediately when need demands and grab an audience instantly? Example: Times Picayune blog, which had great traffic during Katrina, I imagine, and even the weird goofy dude who was blogging from his ISP office.

Or why not talk about the advantages of being able to watch interest gather and place ads accordingly? Ask them to think of the day when a marketer can place an ad, select the desired criteria (traffic, interest, subject), and have the ad move automatically to the active sites. Transaction costs: next to nothing. Efficient ads, at least in terms of audience. Maybe we shouldn’t think about building an audience over the long-term. Maybe a blogger should dream of getting three or four big hits a year that generate thousands of dollars and get pennies for post the rest of the year.

Why not talk about the need for investment dollars to build a business infrastructure to deliver things like ads more effectively?

Why not talk about the threat of adblocking software (which is, or will be, a significant hit to your revenue stream)?

I think you are uniquely positioned to present yourself not as just another blogger bitching about the media, but as a publisher.

Not really on point, but it was annoying:

“There are a lot of smart people who’ve never gone to college.”

No, there aren’t.

Oct 1, 2005 - 11:05 pm 86. Cal:

And if I hadn’t been tired, I swear I would have edited out a “however” here or there.

Oct 1, 2005 - 11:06 pm

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: