Category Archives: Internet

We’re gonna need a bigger dial

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Mark Ramsey points us to this LA Times story about Chrysler’s plans to offer wireless Internet in its 2009 models. Something we all knew was coming. As always, Mr. Ramsey asks the good questions. Here’s one of them:

“What does it mean to be “radio” in a world where audio is fully integrated into an experience that includes video, text, interactivity, and personalization? The attraction to these services will not only be that they’re supplemental to radio, but that they expand the definition of radio. And that expansion will benefit only those broadcasters and their partners smart enough to recognize that the advantage of a broadcast tower is non-existent in this context.”

Or a satellite channel?

Inside the Beltway

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Dave Winer shares a thoughtful post on whether Barack Obama will turn into an Inside The Beltway guy if he gets elected. Dave, like the rest of us, has seen bright young idealistic people get taken over by the systems they proposed to dismantle.

"I don’t want to be an insider, I don’t want the insiders to rule, I don’t want there to be insiders at all. I want to distribute opportunity and acknowledge intelligence and goodness where ever it appears."

"The Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts. It erases every barrier to entry. The only way to win is to point off-site, in every way you can think of. Win by offering better value, not by locking users in. People will become instant refugees to escape your clutches. Think you’re immune? Think again."

I’ve long thought –but could not put into words– that the Internet might somehow be our salvation. I still think that. 

Old dogs and new tricks

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Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism) always seems to have fresh insight into the state of journalism:

“I see a few people in almost every newsroom (usually less than one-quarter of the staff) embracing the new ways of communication and trying to spread their journalism and enhance their organization’s outputs via new channels and techniques. I see a lot more people who are worried, even frightened, that there will be no place for them in this new world.

The latter group interests me a lot more than the small number of chained-to-the-barricades dinosaurs (who also exist in every newsroom) — because they are very different from the dinosaurs. They are not resistant because they think the Internet is a short-lived fad, or because they fail to see its potential, or because they are in love with the smell of ink on paper. Rather, they are resistant because they don’t know how to train themselves — they are waiting for someone to hand them a tool and show them how to use it.”

This is a point I tend to overlook. And journos –if I may generalize– aren’t the type to admit they don’t know how to do something and ask for help.

New report calls podcasting growth “massive”

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The guys at Podcasting News share highlights from a new report by Universal McCann that suggests new media is becoming mainstream media. Among the research highlights:

“Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and a collective rival to traditional media (184m bloggers world-wide, China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers) – 73% have read a blog, 45% have started a blog.”

Key social platforms mentioned in the report: Blogging; Micro Blogging; RSS; Widgets; Chat Rooms; Message Boards; Podcasts; Video Sharing; Photo Sharing.

If you’re in media now and these terms are foreign to you, or seem silly and pointless, the Cluetrain doesn’t stop here anymore.

A blogging case study, close to home

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I’m always on the lookout for good (or bad) blogging stories. I found one in our own back yard during the last few days. The story isn’t complicated but I think our corporate blog tells it better than I can. Just read the original post and the comments. It’s all there.

I’m really proud of how our company and our CEO has used the blog to explain a difficult decision, and allow interested parties to tell us how they feel about it. I’ve been thinking about how this would have been handled pre-blog.

We might or might not have put out a news release. This had to do with an unpleasant decision. If the public wanted to tell us how they felt about it, they could write a letter or send an email, to which we might or might not have responded.

Whatever communication took place, it would have been slow and not very public. With a well-established corporate blog, our CEO just put it out there. The reasons for the action we took… comments… and his response to some of those comments.

Not everybody is happy with the outcome but nobody can say we haven’t been open about it. As an employee –and blogger– I’m proud of how this was handled.

Full disclosure: My wife works for a law firm that represents one of the companies mentioned in the post and comments.

“If it’s relevant, I’ll read about it on Twitter”

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Chris Pirillo was –and remains– an early thought-leader for me. Blogging, RSS, video… Chris was always out there on the front edge. So, when he says Twitter has become one of his primary sources of information, I’m inclined to listen.

“Back in ‘the day’, we used to have to visit web pages to get our information. Those pages didn’t tell us when they updated, so we had to find out manually. Then, along came RSS. The idea was you could subscribe to something, and it would tell you when there was a new update. Now comes Twitter, with its flood of information that allows me to spot trends in general. Twitter has supplanted the information I used to receive in my news aggregator. I don’t follow many websites anymore, and don’t really ’subscribe’ to anything. For me, if something is going to be relevant, I’m going to read about it on Twitter. With Twitter, I’m able to follow people much easier. As disorganized as it is, it’s easier for me to learn about personalities. You can understand thoughts and feelings much easier than you could with a simple RSS feed.”

I’m not quite there yet, in part because I don’t “follow” as many people as Chris does. But I’m starting to see what he’s talking about.  A few of the folks I follow on Twitter are very plugged in and I can count on a line or two with a link when something in their area of interest breaks.

CNN: Student Twitters way out of Egyptian jail

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“James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone. Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10.

On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The message only had one word. “Arrested.”

Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted he was being held.” [CNN]

 

When is it time to unplug?

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From a Reuters story about a new grass-roots movement in which tech geeks, Internet addicts, BlackBerry thumbers and compulsive IMers are unplugging (if only for a day)

“I realized it was a problem when I would sit down to check my email and it was almost like I would wake up six hours later and find I was watching videos of puppies on YouTube.

“I’d try and think what I had been doing for the past two hours and I had no idea. I associate that kind of time loss with blackouts when you’re drunk.”

“I have dream blogged. I have surfed the Internet in my dreams sometimes. If I start hearing imaginary incoming message chimes on my computer when I am out in the back yard, it tells me I have spent too much time online.”

I’ve posted before that I can’t quite remember what I did before I started blogging. And it’s even harder to recall what I did before the Internet captured my attention (and time). That’s probably not a good sign. But what was I doing with my time before I got my first computer, sometime around ’85 or ’86?

Perhaps I’m just rationalizing, but I think the time I’ve spent online, blogging or reading blogs (and news), has been positive for me.

I’m less argumentative. Perhaps because I dump my views and opinions here and, somehow, feel less need to yak about them. I’m better informed about many more topics. I watch less television.

Some of my best friends are people I’ve met online.

But the greatest personal benefit has been the creative outlet. Bearing mind that “creative” is relative.

[Thanks, Chuck]

How long to lose your blog readers?

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The J-Walk Blog is very popular. For all the usual reasons. He writes well about interesting stuff and he posts every day. Usually several times a day. John Walkenbach (Mr. J-Walk) was called away to a meeting and didn’t post for a week. Upon his return, he checked his stats and did a little trending to determine he would lose all of his many readers in 17 days if he stopped posting altogether. One assumes it would take less time for blogs with fewer readers. I wonder how long –if at all- it would take for visitors to return. And why would they?