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November 07, 2003

Teddy White's blog
: Chris Lydon invites bloggers to write The Making of the President (Blog) 2004.

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Postmodern media
: I just read this on Terry Heaton's very good essay about postmodern video news from the people. It fits the discussion about music below (as well as yesterday's from AlwaysOn).

Postmodernism is the Age of Participation. The need to learn has been replaced by the need to apply, and that means all of the rules of our culture are being rewritten, including those for television news. Postmoderns (Pomos) trust their experiences, and if they've not experienced it, they want to hear it from somebody who has. This means information that is up close and personal and that includes many perspectives, not that which is provided by arms-length experts or delivered in some hyped manner that's a mile wide and an inch deep. Pomos also don't want their information sanitized, because they don't trust the sanitation workers. Part of that distrust is based on Postmodernism's rejection of hierarchy and elitism and a desire for control over their own lives.
Pomos also want to talk to each other and share the "news" that's relevant to them, and this is already occurring on the Internet through blogs and social networking. In the expanding circles of what's important to me, that which is closest and those who are closest are most relevant. The Net facilitates that need like nothing since the telephone. Who would argue that the news of my loved ones is more important to me than the news of my nation?
In the end, we'll see that the whole top-down media culture, whereby information is trickled down to the masses through institutional channels, is replaced by one that is much more user-centric and connected. Involvement in all of life at the local level will increase, including participation in the political process.
These are, indeed, exciting times.

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A plug
: The smart folks at Marketing Wonk have issued a report/book on business blogs, the why and how. I got to peek at it. It's good. You can buy it here.

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Speak to power
: Next week, I'm going to the Online News Association (man, I've been to more confabs in a month than I went to in the last nine years) to be the growly noncomformist on the panel on weblogging. I'll share my notes later.
But I want to hear from you, fellow bloggers. What would you say to these people who run newspaper-affiliated web services if you were sitting there instead of me (which is what they should have done, by the way)?
What advice do you have for them?
What do you think they should be doing with weblogs?
Comment away, please....

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The Democracy Doctrine

: President Bush didn't go quite far enough in his very good speech that called upon Arab nations to move to democracy.
I say the time has come to establish a Democracy Doctrine.
It is time to say that it is unacceptable for people to be governed without democratic rights.
No, this doesn't mean that we will invade and reform the world's undemocratic lands -- though, when there is a need to respond militarily in a nation because of tyranny or threat, what is left afterwards must be a democracy.
What this does mean is that we set a standard of democracy throughout the world. We set an expectation that all nations and all peoples should live in democracies.
Undemocratic regimes rob their citizens of their inherent rights of self-government and their inherent respect as human beings.
As Bush quoted Ronald Reagan yesterday: "He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights."
This means that we should give democracies greater privileges in their dealings with us.
This means that we should expect other democracies to stand with us to support and expect the spread of democracy through the rest of the world.
It's a simple doctrine but the best and clearest doctrines are quite simple, for they give context to so much more:
We expect every human on earth to have the right to participate equally in the selection of his or her government and we will not rest until we see all our fellow man live in peace and democracy.

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Free what?
: Penn State announced today that it did a deal with Napster to give students free music to stop them from illegally downloading it. VC Fred Wilson cheered the school's "stroke of brilliance." At first, I agreed.
But then I thought about it and wondered: If a university is going to give away copyrighted intellectual property and performance, shouldn't they start with, oh, say, books?

[This post was going to end there but then it grew like a stream of consciousness after the spring thaw into a larger look at the fate of music and content. Put on your life jacket, let's go for a ride....]

: Meanwhile, over at PaidContent.org, Chris Kitze, CEO of Yaga, presaged the Penn State deal when he argued in an email to Rafat Ali that music should be bundled (note my bold):

"Just like airline seats, a few suckers will pay full boat retail just so everyone can establish the "value" of music.... And just like airline seats, you can "earn" a free seat by using your credit card, buying products or services, etc.
Look at their revenue model and except for business travel and consumers too stupid or lazy to play the games, lots of people use miles to travel for free...most people will get their music bundled with other things...university tuition, soft drinks and hamburgers, etc. Music companies will make more money from these kinds of licensing deals because there are virtually zero selling costs and (net of royalties) pure margin."

: Actually, Coca Cola CEO Steve Heyer (an ex CNN exec) pushed for just this model in a groundbreaking speech for an Ad Age event earlier this year. He lectured ad agencies and entertainment executives, telling the Madison Avenue tribe that they need to cooperate with content creators and telling the content creators that marketers will enable them to create "emotional capital" together.
There are a few odd and funny lines in this complex speech, for example: "Coca-Cola isn't a drink. It's an idea. Like great movies, like great music. Coca-Cola is a feeling."
But get past the brand hubris and what he's really saying is that a brand is experience and entertainment is experience and life is experience. Pop the top on these intriguing quotes:

We will use a diverse array of entertainment assets to break into people's hearts and minds. In that order. For this is the way to their wallets. Always has been. Always will be. This much hasn't changed.
We're moving to ideas that elicit emotion and create connections. And this speeds the convergence of Madison and Vine. Because the ideas which have always sat at the heart of the stories you've told and the content you've sold... whether movies or music or television... are no longer just intellectual property, they're emotional capital....

Earlier I'd mentioned the erosion of mass markets. Markets are giving way to networks. In a networked economy, ideas, concepts, and images are the items of real value - you know, marketing....

We view your content as "new media"... a new way to reach and motivate our consumer... it's your movies, your music, your video games that become a component part of our communications strategy and plan. You should view us the same way. As a partner and a resource, not just a source of new revenues. The Universal Music Group does. Jimmy Iovine understands the power of our network and we appreciate his skills and ability to tap into popular culture. What does he get? That we can help break new acts, support new releases, and help sell, not just give away, music. And he understands that it's a collaboration. Our advertising creative becomes his FM Radio. His artists become our way of connecting with audiences and contemporizing our brands....

As we move to an experience-based economy, the effective use of relevant and powerful cultural references takes a front seat. Each person's life becomes a commercial market. And any ad agency that thinks a jingle connects like real music, or a powerful movie, and doesn't collaborate is lost.

An "experience-based economy." Hmm.

: Now add in this: At last year's Foursquare conference, ad genius Donny Deutsch bragged with good cause about how he is managing to break new music and new acts in his car commercials (you know the latest, the one with the hot young woman practically dancing in the passenger seat: she sells the music, the music sells the car, the car sells her...).
Media, marketing, and entertainment become a chicken-egg-and-omelet question: What comes first, the content or the brand or the marketing? They all woosh together.

: And don't forget this: Pepsi and now McDonald's are getting ready to give away millions of cuts of music via iTunes.

: Oops, one more: I won't quote from the music panel at Foursquare but I will tell you the reaction of the execs I spoke with afterwards: They said the music guys are doing the ostrich dance, fooling themselves about their value and their fate.

: Finally, add Fred Wilson's pronouncement yesterday that "the push model of advertising is over... It's toast."
And while you're at it, go read Cluetrain Manifesto -- markets are conversations -- and then Gonzo Marketing, in which Chris Locke argues that a wise marketer will join the community to which he is marketing before he starts marketing.

: And so where do we land?
If you look at it simplistically, you could say simply that the music business is in deep doodoo and it's going to get worse now that everybody -- from soft drinks to burger flippers to frigging universities -- is giving away its product.
You could say that when music becomes value added to everything else, it loses its value.
You could ask how the hell we run an economy in which everything we create is only the free gift to get you to want something else, which is, in turn, a free gift to get you to want something else... When will we actually end up paying for anything with real money?
You could ask whether all content follows music down this drain.
And you could be right.
But all this adds up to another message:
It's all about creating connections that matter to us. Whether that's the music we like or the TV we TiVo (see the link to Teachout below) or the weblogs we read or the friends we make (see the writeup of the AlwaysOn confab yesterday), this combination of the networked world and the experience economy is about connections.
Music has value because it makes connections and marketers are willing to buy it for us to also connect with us.
Penn State recognizes the power of the connection and wants to keep itself out of court and its students out of jail and so it says, OK, we'll give it to you.
Fred Wilson and Steve Heyer and Donny Deutsch -- very smart guys, all -- get excited about these connections because they can see they are the basis of a new marketing economy.
Connections are relationships and relationships are trust and trust is the most valuable commodity of all.
I also see a generational trend here in the overarching value of free. But that will be the subject of another flood of consciousness later.
Where, exactly, all this water flows, it's too soon to know. But it's a fun ride. Enjoy the soundtrack.

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In the fields of the Lord
: The National Council of Churches announces a boycott -- its first since 1988 against Royal Dutch Shell fighting apartheid. And who's the big, bad target this time? Taco Bell because of the nonunion tomatoes they use. Well, I'll just have to ask them to leave the salsa off my chicken grilled stuff burrito tomorrow.

: But here's the great part, the New York Times report on the move:

The National Council of Churches voted at its general assembly meeting to join a boycott against Taco Bell and Mount Olive Pickle to protest conditions for farmworkers who pick tomatoes and pickles. The council represents 36 Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant denominations. It last endorsed a boycott 15 years ago. Laurie Goodstein (NYT)

Yes, those poor migrant workers, stooping in the vats of brine to pick those pickles. A peck of them, they had to pick.
Y'know, when Howard Stern wants to make strippers look dumb -- which, speaking of barrels, is like shooting a fish in one -- he asks them what you use to make pickles.
Maybe instead of the stripper game, Howard should start the New York Times reporter and copyeditor game.

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996 to go
: We're another blogger closer to 1,000 Salam Paxes. There's another new voice from Iraq at The Messopotamian. It's another very human, very personal voice.
He gets this comment from an American reader:

On the personal side, my son ships out the end of Nov for his tour in Iraq. He'll be leaving behind his family and their little 9 month old daughter. I have alot at stake in your land now too.
Chuck T | Email | 11.06.03 - 3:48 pm | #

And he replies:

Dear Chuck: Your son and my sons will be in the same boat, may god preserve him and them from evil. My heart goes out to you and all the families of servicemen.
Each time I hear of a casualty, a hand squeezes my heart with pain. This has to stop. They were not bad these boys. We never saw anything bad from them.

He talks about the campaign of terror in Iraq:

People are afraid to drive or step over mines and improvised explosives and the like. A terror campaign, the like of which we have never seen is directed against the public. What do they want ? Is going about one's daily business called collaboration? Is a Doctor going to his job in a hospital a collaborator, because the CPA may send some medicine or help to the hospitals? They want us all dead, they want us to stop living. They can barely hide their spite and hatred. They send their suicide maniacs, so full of hatred, so full of spite that they are willing to blow themselves to smithereen against whom; against the Red Cross, the RED CROSS !! immagine that. No organisation has helped the iraqi people more than the Red Cross, throu'out the Iran-Iraq war, the 90 Gulf war, the years of Sanctions. Mr. Barri Attwan, Editor of Al-Kuds paper in London, is this your valiant resistance ?
Well we have news for you. We, the majority of the Iraqi people, are all going to be collaborators. Yes we will collaborate with the american people to rebuild our country. And not only the Shia people, not only the the Kurdish people, not only the christian people of Iraq, but even those misguided individuals of the "Sunni Triangle", whom you seem to count upon so much, we will win them back.
That is not to say the Coalition forces have not made mistakes, they have and big mistakes too. My own personal view is that this situation could have averted with wisdom. But it is not too late, it must not be too late, because we have to live, we have to rise from the ashes.

And he talks about the images we see of people dancing at the death of American soldiers:

But people: don't forget, the mob also danced as Jesus ( PBU ) bore the Cross. The mob is the mob. All we can say of any "spontaneous" manifestations is exactly what Jesus ( PBU)said : " Lord forgive them for they know not what they are doing "

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Choice, control, and power
: Terry Teachout gets a new PVR (read: TiVo) in his cable box and waxes political -- to his own surprise -- about the deeper meaning of it:

I don’t care for the word "empowerment," but I can’t think of a better way to describe what it feels like to use a DVR for the first time. I wrote the other day about how CBS’s decision to scrap The Reagans was really a new-media story that demonstrated the declining ability of Big Media to unilaterally shape the cultural conversation. Digital video recording is not a new medium per se, merely a technology, but it does have a quintessential new-media effect: it gives the viewer greater power to control the way he experiences network TV. In that sense, you might compare it to the way bloggers use links to cherry-pick the contents of Big Media Web sites, reshaping them into new on-line information packages over which the original publishers have no control—save by shifting to subscription-only access models, and thus taking themselves out of the new-media loop altogether.

I was going to send Terry an email just saying that it was a good post. But I -- to my surprise -- went on and waxed myself:

Terry...
Good post and true. (And I'm so damned jealous; Cablevision is a decade behind.)
This traces back to other devices that gave the viewer/consumer/voter/user/citizen/whatever-we-are choice and thus control: the VCR, scores of cable channels, and the remote control.
The remote control caused a populist revolution, I've long said, because once we had choice, we proved that we had taste. (I mark the golden age of TV, the real golden age, not the nostalgic vaudeville age, from the mid-80s, when viewers had choice, watched the good stuff, and let the bad stuff die; the age of the Beverly Hillbillies died; the age of Hill St. Blues emerged thanks to our control.) Seeing that is what made me such a populist; it gave me faith in the taste, judgment, and intelligence of the people.
Now take this to the web and politics and, whatever one thinks about him, Dean et al have learned this message. As Glenn Reynolds said, they have learned that you have to give up control to gain power.
Entertainment has to learn that. Media has to learn that. Politics has to learn that. Business has to learn that....

Choice is an important component of this populist evo/revolution. Choice gives us the power to choose. The more voices there are to choose from, the more power we have to make that choice.
I don't want to keep this Reagan thing going because I'm bored with the topic; I've said what I have to say; the commenters have said what they have to say (a few times over); I have a life and job and want to move on. But I'll risk extending this endless discussion by adding this: Having that probably crappy movie on the air and rejecting it and what it says is a more powerful choice on behalf of the audience/voters than getting it pulled off the air before anyone can see it. That is the essence of this populist formula, the essence of the marketplace, the essence of democracy. I'd bet you that movie would have gotten lousy reviews and crappy ratings and a bad return on investment for its producers and network and that would have sent a much stronger message to the moguls of entertainment, business, and politics than the power play of a few thousand of the loud and the spineless move of a CBS exec. Those few thousand and that exec robbed the rest of the people their chance to choose and thus their chance to speak; they robbed them of their power.
But my point here isn't Reagan. My point, like Terry's, is that every technology that gives us choice gives us power.
The remote control is an invention that had more impact on society than the Internet has.

: UPDATE: Dan Gillmore responds well to my response to his response to the CBS decision.
: And Jay Rosen pipes in on outrage.

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