BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

February 12, 2004

Isolation
: Boy, I take a flight across the country and I miss a presidential affair. Damn. I hate being unconnected.

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Fast
: I don't understand the practical and revolutionary import of the Intel laser chip announcement and John Markoff in the Times didb't seen to, either. Tim Oren: help.
(Sorry for no link. On the plane now.)

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NY Times unblog
: NYTimes Digital editor Len Apcar is interviewed by Jonathan Dube and says:

"We thought that there were a lot of blogs out there, political blogs out there, but we didn’t necessarily think that the quality was very good. We thought that there was a lot of rumor out there, a lot of wild opinion being bandied about, but we also thought that there was a vehicle here for short-form information, continuous updating, some development observations, insights, that might not rise to a full article but are worthy of reporting....I looked at many blogs and I came away thinking I was not interested in creating a blog, but I was interested in creating something completely different. "

Problem is, he didn't start something completely different. He put up newspaper reports under bylines without links and interactivity.

: Later... I messed up and posted this when I meant to save it as a draft as I dashed onto the plane this morning. What I meant to say at the end is that the Times effort has links on the right-hand column but it has no links or interaction in the reports themselves, which still keeps the reports isolated from other information -- other, diverse sources and viewpoints -- and from the audience.

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Internet content: A gigantic 99-cent store
: The Internet took off when AT&T created flat-rate pricing of $19.99/month and suddenly, that set the price for everybody.
John Robb finds Dominic Basulto saying to declare that 99 cents is now the price for all Internet comment.

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e, the conference
: ETech has shown the way by adding a day on digital democracy to a conference that is otherwise devoted to Internet technology. I think it's time for somebody to to split off and spawn another conference devoted to the impact of Internet technology on our lives: e, the conference.
Day 1: Media. How citizens' media is complementing and competing with (depending on your perspective and wisdom) established media. The people take over the media.
Day 2: Marketing: Tim O'Reilly said success in the future will depend on user contributions; how do smart companies relate to customers in the future? Now the customers are in control.
Day 3: Politics: ETech's day was a good start. But at this conference, it's important to get more perspectives -- right and left.
Day 4: The world. I was going to add this onto day 3 but making the list of what's possible, it became clear this is worth a day. We need to bring together experience from the impact of the Internet on life all over the world. Pedram will bring in Iranian bloggers to teach the next teach-in; Joi will bring in folks from Japan, I'm sure; Loic will import them from the EU; Ethan will bring them from Africa.
Day 5: Education. Is the book still the best way to learn or is the screen? We've not even begun to mine the educational gold in this networked world.
Add in some BOF sessions on religion and such. Make technology, business models, and social implications a part of every day. Get plenty of bandwidth. Invite smart people. And, voila, you have a window on the future.
That's the conference I want to sign up for.

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Haunted by archives
: Drudge links to a 1970 Harvard Crimson interview with John Kerry.
Frequently at ETech, people were wondering what the impact of blog archives will be decades from now when some 17-year-old Xanga blogger today runs for President tomorrow and has her teenage blatherings brought out.
Should there be a right to kill the archives we create? Or should we all just get used to the idea that times change and so do we?

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The Beltway Taliban
: Watch out, First Amendment. Congress is now shooting to censor not only the public airwaves, they're now aiming at cable. And if they aim at cable, they can aim at books and magazines and the Internet. They regulate broadcast under the (outmoded) doctrine that the airwaves are a government resource. But cable most certainly is not. Still, at the Congressional hearings about Janice Jackson's breast, lawmakers lusted after further regulation -- and censorship:

But lawmakers also heard that federal power to enforce decency standards on subscription cable and satellite service was limited compared to material on the public broadcast airwaves.
"It seems interesting that we say ... if it's on just a higher channel number, which you can get just by clicking your channel changer, we're going to ignore it and not pay attention to it," Sen. John Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat, said.
"We ought to look at the whole spectrum of what we get over our televisions," he said.

Well, Breaux is an idiot, for, of course, the channel number has nothing to do with it. Still, if they succeed to pander to the prudes, they'll cross the line and -- mark my words -- there is nothing to stop them from deciding that we shouldn't have indecent Internet sites ... and magazines .... and books. Who's to say what's indecent? Who's to say what we can say? Who's going to trust Breaux and his ilk? Who's going to start the book burning? Who's going to douse it.
To the barricades, people.

: I should have said there is nothing -- except the Supreme Court and the people -- that can stop them. Thanks, commenter.

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Nya-nya
: Michael Eisner is a more intensely hated corporate chairman than Bill Gates or Ken Lay. Fewer people may hate him but they hate him more. People in the entertainment industry, investors, copyright foes, and media folks can't stand him and they're waiting in line to thumb their noses at him as Disney is taken over by Comcast... or somebody.
First in line, media. Get a load of these gleeful slaps in this morning's LA Times:

Increasingly isolated in his corporate redoubt, Michael Eisner must be contemplating the strategy to pursue when you've got a reputation as a cold, imperious leader with an uneven track record, a host of alienated ex-associates and a well-financed opponent determined to place your management style and fiscal stewardship under the microscope....
Eisner's reluctance to delegate authority, much less to set a date for his own retirement after two decades at the helm and to groom a successor, has driven off enough talented executives to fill the corporate dining rooms at entertainment conglomerates all over town. His taste for adolescent infighting has led him into a series of embarrassing public feuds, and it doesn't say much for his judgment that he seems to lose most of them — at a huge cost to the company.
In recent years, Eisner's Disney has ceded its domination of its core businesses to others. Children's entertainment is now identified as much with Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon as with Disney. The company has kept its position atop the filmed animation business largely by renting the creativity of its soon-to-be ex-partner Pixar Animation Studios. Its theme parks have lost their reputation as spotless and safe family havens. (On Wednesday, a Disney employee at its Orlando, Fla., theme park was killed when he was run over by a float.)
In an ideal world, a responsible board of directors would have long since hooked a leash to a chief executive who performed this way....
If the board seems cowed, that might be because Eisner has ruled it like a willful despot, evicting those who challenged his authority and often, according to some sources, seeing them out the door with a foul-mouthed valedictory.

And his own foul-mouthed valedictory begns now. (And that's not a typo in "begns" -- I can't use that finger to type because I'm holding it up to him right now.)

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Oh, crap
: Well, I was just about to post that posting would be light because I'll be in the air today. But I just heard on the news that security concerns are canceling flights again. So posting will be light as I start to walk from San Diego to New York.

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Clay Shirky's shortest post ever
: Making your own social network: Announcing a new Shirky.

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Friend of a....
: With teh crappy connectivity, I fell down on blogging ETech today. Loic has good links on FOAF.

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