“Every day, 350,00 babies are born at risk of not knowing that Bob Barker was the host of The Price is Right. Pop Literate is dedicated to doing something about that.
This is a place for you to find parenting tools you need to turn out healthy, well-adjusted children. Children who won’t be shunned by their peers because they believe David Copperfield is only a Charles Dickens character.”
The blog died long ago, alas. A good idea.
Tony Messenger (@tonymess) tweets us to this lament by St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan who confesses to being “proud of knowing nothing about the Internet.”
“But all around me the Others, with their secret knowledge, are gaining power. I got another e-mail today about optimizing search engines. Also, a note that an editor will be helping us refine our blogging, social networking and sub-channel pages.
Like a student who feels an increasing sense of panic as he hears the teacher talk in gibberish about an upcoming test, I realize that none of the terms mean anything to me.”
I know quite a few people who share Mr. McClellan’s views/pain. Most seem to resent being expected to know how to use the Internet and computers and such. I’m grateful I’m not in a position of “forcing” anyone to learn these skills and happy that I am able to help those who want to.
I was searching Wikipedia for something last month and noticed a big banner at the top of the page, asking for contributions to keep the site going. I didn’t give much but readily hit the PayPal button. Apparently a lot of folks did:
Huffington Post:
“Since November 5, the organization has raised $4.5 million, though the bulk of that came in late December when founder Jimmy Wales posted his annual appeal to the Wikipedia community. Add that to the $2 million in foundation grants and major gifts they’d received since July, and their entire $6 million annual operating budget has been met. The achievement would be remarkable in ordinary times, but it’s all the more impressive given the grim economic climate.”
Wikipedia Fundraising By The Numbers
136,000: number of donors
$35: average donation
16: number of currencies in which people donated
150: number of countries from which people donated
$6.5 million: total amount raised thus far
$3 million: amount raised in ten days in late December
I really like the idea of lots of people kicking in a few dollars to support something they believe is worthwhile.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the plight of newspapers:
“They don’t have a problem of demand for their product, the news. People love the news. They love reading, discussing it, adding to it, annotating it. The Internet has made the news more accessible. There’s a problem with advertising, classifieds and the cost itself of a newspaper: physical printing, delivery and so on. And so the business model gets squeezed.”
And what if the newspaper industry does go down?
“To me this presents a real tragedy in the sense that journalism is a central part of democracy. And if it can’t be funded because of these business problems, then that’s a real loss in terms of voices and diversity. And I don’t think bloggers make up the difference. The historic model of investigative journalists in any industry is something that is very fundamental. So the question is, what can you do about this? And a fair statement is, we’re still looking for the right answer.”
We’d be in deep doo doo if we had to rely on bloggers from the news. I wish we could get a tax credit for contributions to news organizations. A much better use of my money than funding campaigns.
“I wonder what people mean when they say the economy will recover in 2010. The only way that can happen is if another irrational bubble forms thus creating an illusion of wealth similar to our previous illusions. If you take illusions out of the equation, there isn’t anything to get “back” to. The wealth was never there in the first place.”
“I said before that I think we’re on the cusp of a change as fundamental as the industrial revolution. But this time the change will be on the consumption side, not the production side. As a society we have dabbled with recycling and such, but it has always been fairly optional. There was no real penalty for waste.”
“The coming consumption revolution won’t be strictly for the benefit of the environment. It will be an economic necessity, driven largely by the huge numbers of retired poor. There simply won’t be enough stuff for everyone if waste is allowed.”
He goes on to share some thoughts on the Internet and home schooling. My nephews and niece were home schooled and they are very well educated and socially well adjusted. The post is worth a read.
I have not felt my age for years. I’ve always felt (and acted?) much younger. Or so it seems to me. You might recall that I turned 60 back in March and I sure as hell don’t feel 60.
And on January 1st, 2009, I will no longer BE “sixty.” My new –more accurate age– will be i20 (“I” for Internet). My new “doi” (date of Internet) is 1/1/89:
“CompuServe was the first online service to offer Internet connectivity, albeit limited access, as early as 1989 when it connected its proprietary e-mail service to allow incoming and outgoing messages to other Internet e-mail addresses.” – Wikipedia
No presents, please.
Chuck at AgWired points to some stats on net use by age demo (eMarketer):
“Although Internet penetration within the 40-and-over crowd is lower than among younger demographic groups, boomers and seniors outnumber younger adults in the general population—so that lower Internet penetration still translates into greater numbers of older Internet users, according to comScore Media Metrix.”
I did the sign-on shift for most of my time on the radio. And on days that it snowed (not that often in southeast Missouri), the phone would ring off the hook from parents (and students) asking about school closings. The superintendent would get out early to check the roads and then call the radio stations.
Even though we gave the closings every 5 minutes, the phone never stopped ringing. It was madness.
We got a little snow here in Jefferson City overnight and while Shawna was bringing me my oatmeal, she got a text message from the Jefferson City school system, alerting her there would be no school today.
The school uses texting to communicate a variety of things, even providing updates throughout the day.
I assume the local radio stations still get a call and many people rely heavily on the on-air reports. This is just one more instance of disintermediation. The people with the information (schools) communicating directly to the people who want/need the information (students/parents).
I’m guessing most folks don’t give their mobile numbers to just anybody. And how valuable is it to the schools to have the mobile number of every “customer?”
Do most radio stations have the mobile numbers of the listeners? I would hope so. And are they using those numbers to provide something as valuable as school closing information?
My recent visit to Central Methodist University included a tour of the campus which wound up in the studios of what was –I believe– the student radio station. I’m not sure when or why the station went off the air but the plan is to bring it back as an internet station.
During the few minutes I chatted with a couple of instructors and students about the project, I got the impression the approach will be… traditional, for lack of a better term. By that I mean, they’ll have a control room and studios with the usual assortment of recording and mixing hardware. Instead of pumping it all out to a transmitter and tower… they’ll stream it.
As for programming, they plan to do what we used to call “block programming.” An interview program followed by a news program followed by… Music licensing issues prevent them from programming music.
The way college radio stations have always been programmed. I don’t doubt the students can learn some useful skills and gain some valuable experience doing this but I’m not sure it will prepare them for the future that is already here.
So what would I do if they put me in charge of the program for a semester?
I’d start by dropping the term “radio” and go with “media.” Not “new media,” just media.
I’d assemble production teams made up of a producer and host (and co-host?). These teams would be responsible for one 25 minute program a week. Can be any topic (more on that in a moment)
A Senior Producer and Managing Editor would coordinate these teams (using Basescamp or some similar online collaboration tool) and insure quality standards and deadlines were being met.
All or most of these programs would be produced as live feeds and podcasts. Instead of a “college radio station” (Internet or otherwise), you’d have a portal site (I hate that term) that featured each of the individual programs with a link to that programs blog (where the hosts and producer interact with listener/viewers). Show notes, comments, etc.
The central feature of the portal page would be a video section. It could be a live stream of one of the shows being recorded or some live event on campus. Or just a live webcam from the student center.
Equipment. Each team would have a laptop, a digital camera (video capable) and a small webcam. All shows would be produced on location. No reason to schlep back to a studio jammed with expensive equipment.
I wouldn’t limit this project to just students. I’d open it up to the community as well, but with students producing.
Once these podcasts are up, it’s an easy matter to track which ones produce a following. If nobody downloads, you fix the podcast or replace it. But you aren’t limited to the 24 hours of a real-time station. You can have as many programs as you have people to produce and watch/listen.
So what are the students learning here?
…and so on and so forth. I’m not an educator so there could be lots of things wrong with this approach. I’m pretty sure it would cost a lot less than a more traditional approach while involving many more students (in and out of the communications program). If you have suggestions on this mythical program, please include them in the comments. Or, if you see flaws, post those as well.
PS: I think this might be a powerful recruitment tool, as well.
UPDATE/12.08.08: On a recent edition of NPR’s Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep interviewed journalist Sreenath Sreenivasan who, within an hour of the attacks in Mubai, began hosting a web radio call-in show with other Indian journalists, relaying what they knew. Sreenivasan used a service called Blog TalkRadio:
“BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers.”
We relaunched our corporate website today. Same content, just a fresh coat of digital paint provided by Caffeinated Studio in Dallas. Much thanks to Trent, Brad and Rob for the design and to Joel, Phil and Andy for all the under the hood stuff.
We’ll be fixing broken links and such for days but it’s it good to have finally thrown the switch. We ripped off the previous design from GE back when a company website wasn’t all that big a deal (“Yeah, sure, go ahead. As long as it doesn’t cost much.”)
Today our company has lots of web pages “out there.” Internet, intranet, extranet, blogs, etc etc. Thousands of pages. This “Internet thing” has caught on and I no longer have to sell the idea of the web et al. Even blogs and podcasts have become part of our company culture.
I used to say I was an EMT frantically giving CPR to the Internet patient in the back of the ambulance as it meandered toward the hospital. Today, our online patient is feeling much better. Drinking apple juice and watching Oprah. I’m so glad to see him feeling better.