I don’t think I’ve come across the term “web think” before I saw it on a post by Terry Heaton. It describes a way of looking at information and media and, frankly, the world.
“Those who influence my thinking do not come from a media background, but are pioneers in “web think” and the running of web businesses. This puts me in almost constant conflict with the world I’m actually trying to serve and help and fuels the rolling of eyes I often witness in conference rooms or sense over the phone.”
My theory is “web think” is like learning a second language. You’re really “there” when you start thinking (dreaming?) in the new language. You internalize it.
Amy Gahran points to (and comments on) an essay by news industry consultant Vin Crosbie (Transforming American Newspapers.) that includes some dooms-day predictions:
“More than half of the 1,439 daily newspapers in the U.S. won’t exist in print, e-paper, or Web formats by the end of next decade. They will go out of business. The few national dailies… will have diminished but continuing existences via the Web and e-paper, but not in print. The first dailies to expire will be the regional dailies, which have already begun to implode. Those plus a very many smaller dailies, most of whose circulations are steadily evaporating, will decline to levels at which they will no longer be economically viable to publish daily.”
Ms. Gahran sees a somewhat brighter future:
“I think that people who want news will still get it through other means, possibly less directly, probably more collaboratively. It may not look like what journalists think news “should” look like. It may include a strongly automated, algorithmic component layered with human insight. It may look more like bullet points than stories. It’ll probably be strongly focused on mobile and social delivery channels. It may not even call itself journalism. But will it offer people the benefits they currently seek from news orgs? I think it could — maybe even better, in some cases.”
I stopped buying/reading newspapers a long time ago. But there are times –breakfast, for example– when it is inconvenient or impractical to open the MacBook. My solution has been to print articles I find online and take them with me.
I’d really love to have a pair of reading “glasses” with some flash memory to which I could Blue Tooth these articles, including photos and video. I don’t see why that would be technically difficult and damned handy. This is close but likely to get my ass kicked at the local diner where I have breakfast. I’m thinking more along the lines of Clark Kent glasses.
No, I don’t need wifi access. That would be cool but would add a lot of cost. And, yes, I know there are all kinds of portable readers out there but I don’t want to tote around even a book size device.
What I haven’t tried is saving the text to my iPod. Not a great reading experience on the nano but it would work fine on the Touch. Hmmm. And if wifi was available… I suspect this wheel has already been invented.
This New York Times story wonders if Jon Stewart is the most trusted man in America?
“When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN.
Offices for “The Daily Show” occupy a sprawling loftlike space that combines the energy of a newsroom with the laid-back vibe of an Internet start-up: many staff members wear jeans and flip-flops, and two amiable dogs wander the hallways. The day begins with a morning meeting where material harvested from 15 TiVos and even more newspapers, magazines and Web sites is reviewed. That meeting, Mr. Stewart said, “would be very unpleasant for most people to watch: it’s really a gathering of curmudgeons expressing frustration and upset, and the rest of the day is spent trying to mask or repress that through whatever creative devices we can find.”
After reading the full story I took a moment to try to come up with some public figure I trust more… and coud not.
“Forbes.com reports that the number of journalists covering the conventions this fall will remain at the same level as 2004 and 2000: 15,000 of them. What a waste. The outcome of the conventions is known. There will be no news. Why are these news organizations sending so many staffers there?
Ego. That’s it, pure ad simple: Our man in Denver. Instead of your woman. It’s for bylines, bylines the public couldn’t care less about. The coverage will be no different outlet to outlet. We can watch it all ourselves on C-SPAN.
The conventions aren’t news. Anymore they are only staged events to get media coverage. And it works. But it’s not for the public good that they’re covered.
Don’t try to feed me that line about how they’ll be covering their local delegations. Their local delegations never make news — not since 1968 anyway — and their actions couldn’t be more predictable, less newsworthy. If you want to cover the locals, cover them at home — before the event. But you still won’t get any news from them.” — BuzzMachine
Ouch. That’s a little close to home. Each of our networks send reporters to the Big Show. I’ll leave it to the real journalists to argue Jarvis’ point.
I will offer one other rational for sending a reporter to the convention. It’s kind of cool. I know, I know… it’s a hell of a lot of work… certainly no vacation. But for reporters below the national level, getting to go to a Big Event like this is something of a spiff. There I said it. Now where did I put my Shit Storm helmet?
“No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.” –Arthur C. Clarke
When I was a little boy, I would sometime go with my dad to the radio station where he worked. I was fascinated by the Associate Press teletype. I would stand before it, watching the words clatter across the page. I didn’t pay much attention to the news… it was the mechanics of the process. A big box of fan-fold paper fed the thing and every so often someone would come by, rip off a long strip and take it away.
Years later, when I got a job at that same station, I became more familiar with the AP teletype. It was the primary source of non-local news we relied on to fill newscasts and sports reports. If it broke –and it broke often– we were screwed. The nearest tech was in St. Louis and they did NOT like driving to Kennett-bumfuck-Missouri to fix the things. So they got pretty good at phone support.
As I hop from link to link, web page to web page, I sometimes think of the endless sheet of paper that streamed from that old teletype. And how dependent we –and our listeners– were on the reporters, editors and technology of the Associated Press.
And how much of the news that spewed from the machine was never used and thrown away. Maybe 80 percent? No doubt we had listeners that would have loved to hear (read?) every story that came down the wire. But we had no way to give it to them in a 24 hour day.
If you work at a radio station today, you have immediate access to… well, everything. News, images, video. And, increasingly, so do your listeners.
All of this just reminds me how completely distribution defined what we were doing. AP reporters fed stories to bureaus where editors fed them down wires to radio stations, newspapers and TV stations… who “fed” them to their listeners/readers/viewers.
As I look around the coffee shop where I’m writing this, there are several laptops, open to an ocean of information far richer than the trickle that came out of those teletype machines. We’re “feeding” ourselves these days and the menu is rich indeed.
“Janet Coats, editor of the Tampa Tribune, sat down in her newsroom to tell the staff about layoffs, reorganizations, new ways of doing business, and harsh realities and an intern named Jessica DaSilva recorded the event with appropriate admiration.
My favorite bomb: “People need to stop looking at TBO.com [the newspaper’s affiliated web site] as an add on to The Tampa Tribune. The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.” — Jeff Jarvis’ Buzz Machine
If this is true for newspapers today, will it be equally true for TV and radio tomorrow? And when that day comes, what will it mean for networks and others who provide programming (content?) for those stations.
Springfield Mayor Tom Carlson got all Rottweiler’y on the local press recently and among his complaints, anonymous bloggers:
“On top of that, we have this Internet thing that’s going on now, this blogging stuff. Used to be, if you wanted to say something, you had to put your name it … now, there’s this anonymous character assassination that’s encouraged, in order to sell newspapers or other media outlets.”
It’s been a while since I heard/saw “this Internet thing.” One of my favorite expressions. But His Honor and I do agree on the anonymous blogging issue. He has no way of knowing if the blogger who is ripping him a new one is his opponent. And we have know way of knowing if the blogger who supports his every action is his press secretary.
The Kansas Audio-Reader Network is “a reading and information service for blind, visually impaired, and print disabled individuals in Kansas and western Missouri. Services are offered free of charge to anyone in our listening area who is unable to read normal printed material.”
This would seem to be an invaluable service for those who cannot read a newspaper. I wonder what impact, if any, the Internet is having on services like this. I understand that not everyone has a computer and access to the web but that number is shrinking daily.
I assume the blind or visually impaired can have the text on any web page translated to spoken audio. While this would give the user more control over the information she consumes, it might be more… entertaining? …to have a human read it aloud. Or why not have both.
I’d really love to have a pair of reading “glasses” with some flash memory to which I could Blue Tooth these articles, including photos and video. I don’t see why that would be technically difficult and damned handy.