Sunday, August 23, 2009

One last thing (Continued Continuation)

On the subject of media's transormation, and my recent paranoid rants, well apparantly the subject at hand is called Net Neutrality and has been a big deal fer a while now, and as we suspected (me and my other selves), its all coming to a head.

see the following from our comrades at tech liberation.com:

http://techliberation.com/2009/04/19/internet-openness-net-neutrality-and-beyond-event-in-nyc-april-21/

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Knock On Wood - for the internet (a continuation of yesterday's rant)


I've been thinking about the whole media-convergence thing all day, and I have to put it out there, just so I can get it off my paranoid mind. This TV merger between our two local stations has got me thinking about the shift from TV to the internet. The bottom line is, that marketing geniuses are collecting data on our clicks, and following the channels that we follow online, in an effort to see where and when they can effectively advertise, thereby increasing the effectiveness of online media Monetization.

Before, there were less obvious ways to follow our consumption habits (TV ratings and surveys), but there were also less options. Even with the 300 + channels to choose from, content on TV was geared much more linearly, than say the surfing habits of a web driven consumer. The reason online media may be so hard to predict, is the 'openness' of it all. The kind of openness that network television is probably VERY freaked out about right now. Imagine having an ad for the Simpsons during a prime-time show on NBC. never gonna happen. Or a view of other news perspectives on a network news broadcast? silly right? That's just the kind of thing that drives us to Google news, or You Tube for that matter, what makes them so much more engaging, thorough, and well, maybe self-destructive.

We can look at our own internet surfing habits as the new 'channels' that advertisers are desperate to try to find. They need to know where their consumers are, and now that we are so diverse, so 'free,' that makes things very sticky for media providers that depend on these advertiser's success to keep producing the information we need them to produce. What's the reaction?

Don't be suprised if we see more restrictions on the internet. The easiest way to find us as consumers, is to keep us somewhere. That means exclusivity to links, the very foundation of the world wide web. The idea (for them) is to keep us on 'channels' or 'structured surfing habbits' that the media can control in an effort to get advertisers to maximize their returns. More legislation, and less freedom is what I fear. Kiss google news goodbye, and look forward to the linear browsing style of of MSN.

IDK just a thought.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A Map to the Cave?

Well it seems that times have been pretty tough for 'old school' journalism. Media as we know it is going through some incredibly tough growing pains as it attempts embrace the digital era, and it's becoming more and more obvious, that analog anything is dead. first music, then newspapers, the print media, and today, like a scene out of a sci-fi movie, broadcast television.

If you haven't read or seen on the news (which apparently maybe we haven't), local broadcast journalism has started what could be interpreted to a political observer, as the beginnings of a socialist environment. In an effort to survive the economic downturn and avoid total shut down on a larger scale, KFVE, KGMB and KHNL are merging stations to deliver one MASSIVE media outlet here in the islands. This is good for TV news media's survival, but could be interpreted as bad, to those who may fear that a lack in competition in news journalism, will no doubt lead to 'newsy' journalism which in turn of course means we are a few paces away from a complete and total political propaganda machine. Goodbye free speech, hello Kim Jong Il.


I know that sounds worrisome. Maybe even downright bad. The fact is though, that as the media voice of traditional outlets like newspapers, periodicals, and broadcast television begin to shrink into one small whisper, the digital media outlets continue to grow, diversify, and expand into screams. Google, Twitter and even Blogs (mine excluded) have all proven to be as or more effective than the status quo, in delivering useful and relevant content to knowledge hungry users. We are in the midst of a media renaissance.

The only question then, Is what are we saying? And maybe more importantly, what are we listening to?? Where cable-fed media had us for a full 30 minutes, covering all subjects of a front page index, the bookmarks on a web browser lead users to subject-specific content as determined by that user. Netscape had it right, in that NAVIGATOR is the position we assume for our own news content. That could mean MANY different things in terms of the shaping of our information world. Will we take the opportunity the internet has to offer us to thrive in critical thinking? Will we season ourselves with the cornucopia of perspectives out there to become better informed? Or will we simply retreat to a more specific perspective, sheltering ourselves in in a cave decorated with video clips of dogs peeing on themselves, fat folks breaking furniture, and musically talented toddlers?

One thing is for sure: the dynamics of between the general public and 'journalsim' as we know it is about to become a whole lot more complicated. You excited?
Mee tube.