Happy New Year: I’ll be off-line until Monday, the third anniversary of this weblog. (Despite setting it up on August 28, 2000, I didn’t start blogging until Jan. 3, 2002.)

Response update: As of 4:44 EST, the Red Cross tsunami relief fund collection page set up by Amazon has raised $9,306,583.11 from nearly 124,000 contributions. At midnight last night, the total was approaching $7 million. That means that $2.3 million has been raised in the past 16 hours, 44 minutes, or around $137,300 an hour.

Evaluating charities: The website Charity Navigator provides some good advice on what to consider when choosing a charity to support in response to the tsunami tragedy. The website also provides an “evaluator” service that compares and reviews 3,400 different charities.

Program note: Jeff Jarvis will be on MSNBC tomorrow following the online response to the tsunami tragedy. He has posted a great list of tsunami-related personal accounts and resources. There are lots of great blogs, including the volunteer group-blog that already has a nickname, SEA-EAT, short for The Southeast Asia Earthquake and Tusnami. And the (glowing adjectives fail me here) definitive example of the potential of wiki-based citizen’s journalism (or corporate knowledge management, or collaborative project development) can be viewed at this entry on the earthquake, tsunami and aftermath that is being created at Wikipedia. Truly, incredible.

Update: Jeff was kind enough to mention this weblog on air. Thanks.

Red Cross will direct all funds collected to tsunami relief: Heading off any controversy like one it was involved in regarding the handling of contributions after September 11, the Red Cross has issued a press release assuring contributors that funds contributed for tsunami relief will be used for just that. “The American Red Cross will be as transparent as possible. I want to assure donors that their intent will be honored and their contributions to the International Response Fund will be used to meet the needs of earthquake victims in the days, week and months ahead,” American Red Cross President and CEO Marsha J. Evans said in a press release earlier today.

In the days following the September 11 attack, over one-half billion dollars was contributed to the Red Cross’ “Liberty Fund.” After first indicating that not all of the funds would go to the victims’ and their families, but rather would be used to prepare for future terrorist attacks, a public outcry led to a change in plans by the Red Cross.

In the first three days after the earthquake, the Red Cross said it had received $18 million in contributions. As of 11:55 p.m. tonight, the Amazon.com-customer Red Cross contribution page was within $50,000 of $7 million from over 103,000 contributors.

Stuff-geist: Unfortunately, one hundred years from now, when historians are trying to figure us out, they’ll be analyzing the weekly trends on the new eBay Pulse, a “what stuff is selling” version of Google Zeitgeist.

(via: Gary Price, ResourceShelf, who suggests you check out the most-watched items in the “everything else” category. However, I suggest you not.)

When Amazon.com affiliate store participants sign on to their accounts, they are encouraged to display this box on their website, another great example of quick-response fundraising.

Tsunami response: It is rather astonishing to see in near real-time, the people, as individuals and as stockholders and managers of big and small corporations, responding so quickly and dramatically to the vast needs caused by the south Asian tsunami.

It’s amazing to watch the Amazon.com ticker grow (at 6:48 EST, the total is $6.1 million, apparently growing at a clip of $200,000+ an hour.) And to watch more and more major-traffic websites devoting prominent real estate to encourage contributions to various relief efforts. And this report on CNN.com outlines tens of millions of dollars that corporations are contributing.

This is all inspiring. And while something very new is happening here, it has the feel of something that’s been around for quite a while: the telethon. Yet this is a telethon without the host and the phone banks and the visiting celebrities (however, despite this unfortunately-written headline making it sound like they were merely inconvenienced, some celebrities narrowly escaped death and had loved-ones killed). It’s as if the reports on CNN and Fox News and on the Internet are touching viewers (many of us who are on vacation this week) like an instant ad hoc telethon. As the TV reports reveal each new horror of the tsunami’s aftermath, the tally board grows. It is quite interesting how people are responding to what they are seeing on TV by jumping on the Internet to do something, anything, to help.

Magazine companies & blogging: Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has a good point: The biggest “blogging operation” in the world is not who you think it might be, not be a long, long shot. It’s About.com. When viewed only in the current context and change the word “guide” to Blogger and you’ve go a 700 blogger operation running on top of a Moveable Type platform. The bloggers are getting a minimum of $500 per month and their sites are being monitized by a “premium publisher” deal with Google.

I guess it’s only people who witnessed the cliff-diving of Primedia’s stock (that dates nearly exactly from the moment it purchased About.com) who will find it, what’s the word?, ironic. Also, I don’t have time to google it, but I recall back in earlier days, there was a class action lawsuit brought by some of the “guides” regarding the compensation relationship. I have no idea how the case ended up, but it may be of interest to review for those who are drawing up business plans that depend on the work of an army of bloggers.

Has magazine readership topped out? Okay. We all know that I think journalism’s dirty little secret is that journalists don’t know how to use statistics. So it should come as no surprise that I reject the statistical basis for the argument made in this article in DM News today that “magazine readership is hitting a brick wall.”

Here is the basis for the writer’s conclusions:

Based on this statistic of magazines measured by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, U.S. magazines grew very nicely from 245 million copies in 1970 to 366 million in 1990. Then they stopped dead. The year 1991 saw 365 million. In 1992 it was 362 million. Year 2000 showed an up-blip to 379 million. But the last number we have is for 2003 — a miserable 353 million.

No matter how many new magazines launch, the number of them sold, as an aggregate, has not changed for nearly 14 years. We have run out of magazine readers, and publishers are just stealing them from each other. Keep that in mind when you rent your next list and when you settle in with a glossy, new magazine to read.

So, therefore, the “magazines hits wall” argument is for those magazines measured by ABC. What this does not account for are the (as estimated by the industry newsletter, Publications Management) over 100,000 magazines that are not audited by ABC. This does not reflect the proliferation of custom magazines that have been launched in the time frame measured, the vast majority of which are not audited. This does not reflect those institutional and association magazines that do not carry advertising and, therefore, have no reason to be audited by ABC or BPA.

So, when the writer argues the following…

The reason this should concern you is a dirty little secret the magazine industry doesn’t want you to know: We have run out of readers in this country. You may have heard about the recent, mind-blowing study by the National Endowment for the Arts in which it found that book reading has decreased 10 percent since 1982. Fewer than 47 percent read any form of literature in the previous 12 months. A similar statistic exists in the magazine world, but it is usually tucked in among other, more palatable facts. It is called the “Annual Combined Paid Circulation Per Issue,” and it hasn’t moved since 1990.

…she is totally ignoring the point that “Annual Combined Paid Circulation Per Issue” can’t be used as an argument for the conclusion that “we’ve run out of readers.” It can only be used as an argument that the “Annual Combined Paid Circulation Per Issue” of the fraction of the universe of magazines subjected to the audit hasn’t moved since 1990. Unless she can (and this is something any person who has taken a statistics course should know) display some correlation between that number and the readership of all magazines published, then, well, her argument just doesn’t add up.

Response: In the past 24 hours, the Amazon.com-powered contributions to the International Response Fund of the American Red Cross have grown to nearly $3.7 million in over 60,000 payments. CNN has a list of other aid groups, as well. I have received several e-mails from individuals who have indicated they made contributions via the link I provided. I was so moved by that and have been so overwhelmed by the TV coverage of this horrific tragedy, I made another contribution.

Update The Washington Post suggests this web-based outpouring of giving (nearly $4.1 million at 9:30 a.m. EST) represents a “fundamental shift” in how people give (actually, my hero Paul Saffo is the person being quoted). I believe the compelling aspect of what Amazon.com’s page offers is the feeling that one is sharing the experience with others: The ever-changing amount of money contributed and the number of contributors is the key learned from the Dean Campaign and the Home Shopping Channel and those United Way billboards that I used to see each year in my hometown.

(via: BuzzMachine)

Welcome Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl Presented by Bridgestone (GHMCBPBB) Fans: As hard as it may be for the seven readers of this weblog to believe, on New Years Eve (the day after tomorrow) a near sell-out crowd of over 60,000 fans will crowd into the Nashville Coliseum to attend a college football game that has a name too long to fit on the scoreboard, the GHMCBPBB. Don’t worry. If you can’t make it to Nashville, you can view it on ESPN at noon (EST - 11 a.m., local time).

I thought I would mention the GHMCBPBB so that anyone googling words like “what to do in Nashville on new years eve” could be directed to a couple of “what to do in Nashville” posts I made in the past: here and here (see comments).

Also, I wanted to invite the GHMCBPBB fans to a fairly recent Music City New Year’s Eve-nt, a downtown mini-festival twangfest. It includes a Gaylord Entertainment Center arena concert by Toby Keith (I think the highlight is a laser light show in which he kicks the Dixie Chicks through the roof). And this year the Wild Horse Saloon has a big party featuring a new country music star whose name sounds confusingly like a big superstar, I think it’s Shania Twainlette or something.

But wait: there’s more. A block away, at Riverfront Park, you can attend the Korbel All-American New Years Eve Bash which is featuring a giant guitar dropping ala “Times Square ball” at midnight and a lineup that includes Lee Greenwood, Ronnie Milsap, Chely Wright (fresh from slappin down the Clear Channel man) and (reality TV show star) Brad Cotter. (Just to prove I’m not making this stuff up, you can watch it on Fox News’ special coverage called “A Red State, Redneck New Years”).

I know you’re asking, “But what are you, Rex, going to do this New Year’s Eve?” (You were, weren’t you?) Unlike the typical New Year’s Eve on which I try to be in bed by 9:30, this year I am actually heading downtown to the twangfest with family and friends to what I consider the coolest possible way ever to spend the evening: At the Ryman Auditorium with The Del McCoury Band & Friends. For the record, some of the “friends,” King Wilkie, are also friends of mine.

Realizing that the downtown twangfest is not everyone’s cut of tee-bone, I’m sending out a plea for some suggestions to Music City (and Memphis) nightlife blogger of the year (a new award from the rexblog), Mr. Roboto of Thursday Night Fever. Okay, Mr. R. (and others), what should the GHMCBPBB fans do who aren’t into the twang scene? (Note: From a post he just made on his weblog, I see that Mr. Roboto is so tired of all this crazy-wild GHMCPBB scene, he is spending New Year’s Eve in a calmer spot this year, New Orleans.)

Update: Mr. Roboto came through with his list of things to do. He also pointed to the Nashville Rage’s comprehensive listing of things to do.

A limit on giving? When one of the seven readers of this weblog tried to make a generous contribution to the Red Cross tsunami relief fund via the links here, she received the following Amazon.com message:

“We Are Unable to Process Your Payment: Thank you for using the Amazon Honor System! Unfortunately, we are unable to process your payment at this time because you have exceeded your monthly transaction limit. Much like a credit card limit, there are limits on the total payments you can make in a given period. The limits on Honor System payments are fixed so your maximum cannot be increased. However, because your limit is calculated on a rolling cycle, you should be able to make additional payments soon!”

As the donor was using an American Express card with no limit, I suggest the Amazon.com folks may want to look into their limitation rules for contributions.

In the meantime, here is a direct link to the page on the Red Cross site where one can contribute (select “international response fund”). I’m sure they’ll accept whatever amount you and your credit card company deem appropriate.

Coincidence? A week ago, I received my first-ever direct mail solicitation from the AARP. Today, the folks at Accuracy in Media (AIM) are claiming that AARP, The Magazine, has been taken over by the “counter-culture.”

Quote:

AIM editor Cliff Kincaid cites evidence that the magazine, which reaches 22 million people a month, is edited by journalists who have made their mark by writing for pornographic and pro-drug magazines. He says they are now making their mark at AARP by pushing so-called “medical marijuana” on America’s elderly citizens.

Now, where did I put that letter?

Why iPod/iTunes won’t be killed anytime soon — it’s about “style” but it’s also about cluetrain and “long tails”: Did you get an iPod for Christmas? Well, let me warn you: one of the things you’ll hear most in the months ahead is that there are plenty of “iPod killers” right around the corner. This morning, for example, there is news that Sony
is setting up a division called Connect Company that is, “tasked with
developing products and services to rival Apple and its immensely
popular iPod players and iTunes Music Store service.” (Via MP3 newswire, here is a round up of the current round of “iPod killers”: I, II, III, IV, V and here is a NY Times reviewer’s take on a few of them.)

While
I do believe that lovely iPod you just received will be obsolete in a
couple of years (or sooner), I don’t believe it will be any one of
those devices (especially, Sony) that will likely make you lust for
something new, but rather the probable killer will also bear the name
iPod and be from Apple, but it will be even cooler than what you have
now.

First, I guess a caveat is in order. It is no secret to
regular readers of this weblog that I am a Mac-centric person: I have
been a Mac owner since April, 1984, when I sold a car to purchase one
of these. And while I’ve also purchased many, many Dell computers for employees through the years, my company, due to its graphics/publishing focus, has been Mac-oriented, as well.

But this particularly polemical post is not based on my Macophilia, but on an understanding of iTunes/iPod
that can only come from two years of near constant use of the two. I
don’t want to appear, well, obsessed, but my continuous use of an iPod
and many of the more nuanced features of the iTunes store make it
painful to read any analysis of the vulnerability of iPod/iTunes that
is obviously written by those who clearly don’t understand the “secret
sauce” of Apple’s success in this category.

I’m especially
pained by (and for) technology writers who spend thousands of words
explaining how some feature-set or subscription model or, perhaps
adding video or a cell-phone, will help another company unseat the
iPod. I wish for an editor’s red pen when I see them displaying a
degree of cluelessness that allows them to totally miss the forest as
they describe the trees.

Because of my frustration, a couple
of months ago, I started jotting down notes regarding what reporters,
analysts and bloggers should consider before trying to compare Apples
with lemons (sorry, cheap line. I’m sure several of the devices are
quite nice and are in no way lemons). This post came from combining
many of those notes and not from me spending this vacation day thinking
about the future of iPod/iTunes.

Especially for those trying to
understand the iPod phenomena in terms of “marketing” rather than in
terms of “technology,” it is important not to get caught up in analyses
based on comparisons of features, operability standards, business
models, aesthetics, interface, design or digital rights encryption.

Rather,
here are few things that I think are key points to consider for
predicting Apple’s continued success in the digital player category.

1. It is helpful to understand the importance of design and style (spend a few hours with Virginia Postrel’s The Substance of Style
and you’ll catch the drift) in contemporary American culture to
understand clearly the iPod’s dominance in the marketplace. It is a
near perfect product, not only to operate but to hold and to look at.
It was not the result of a consumer focus group, but is clearly
a work of art and of a near religious devotion to the god of user
experience. Yet the dominance of the iPod is not merely about
“fashion” or “design” or “branding” of the iPod. Those who don’t live
12 hours a day with Apple products (like I do) tend to believe that
those of us who do are awed (and perhaps define ourselves) by the
“style” of the products. And while the aesthetics and usability of
Apple products are at times awe inspiring, and certainly, the style of
the iPod is a major factor in its success, I believe the iPod’s
dominance is not merely about the white earphones (which suck) or the
sleek simplicity of the device.

2. And while I don’t believe the
iPod’s success is about clickwheel interface, I could spend a few
hundred words praising its brilliance, but I won’t.

3. If the success of iPod/iTunes is about the “design” of anything, it’s about the design of the iTunes platform.
The platform is a brilliantly intuitive and robust hub for all
organization of music and audio and, because of its openness to scripts
and other third-party utilities, there is a constant stream of free and
share-ware resources to enhance the iTunes experience. Try some (here and here and lots more here.)
The iTunes platform is, in essence, an Internet browser and desktop
organizational platform that allows even the most disorganized
individual the opportunity, for once in his or her life, to experience
what it must be like for those who can instantly put their finger on
anything they own. I wish everything in life were as eloquently
designed to allow me to intuitively organize things as is iTunes for
helping me organize, reorganize, search and constantly rediscover new
ways to enjoy my music.

4. It’s about the constantly growing list of embedded “cluetrain”
features of the iTunes store. (And here, I’m using Cluetrain as a
catch-all phrase to refer to the conversational, community, ground-up
“markets are conversations” elements that are subtly changing the
entire nature of the iTunes store.) Apple obviously spent a lot of time
studying the nuances that make Amazon.com so compelling and they are
quietly coming up with their own unique social-networking and viral
spins.

Here are just a few examples:

A. Anyone with a website or blog can set up an iTunes affiliate store.
I did so on the first day they were available and have watched as new
link features have come on line. Amazon.com’s affiliate link-building
features are clearly the best, but iTunes has ramped up some impressive
features in the last month or so. (It would get too geeky to list them
now, so just take my word for it.)

B. Anyone can convert a playlist on their desktop into an iMix list (iTunes link)
they can share with all who shop on iTunes. As of this 12/28/2004,
there were 175,650 iMixes posted by iTunes store customers. Check later
and watch the geometric growth of iMixes. iMixes allow anyone to
program their own album (remember K-Tel?
Original hits, original artists. Now we can all produce such
compilations.) - iTunes even creates a graphic “CD cover” image. iMixes
allow one to be goofy and creative by just dragging some files around.
It’s way easier than writing an Amazon review or even an Amazon “listmania”
list. But it still adds a human element to the iTunes store and gives
thousands of customers a reason to link to something they’ve created to
express themselves.

C. If you saying, “so what,” on the iMix feature, read (or re-read) the article titled The Long Tail,
by Chris Andersen, Wired’s editor-in-chief. It will help you understand
the economics of endless, cheap shelf space and (I would add) an army
of volunteer merchandisers who will go to the trouble of saying to
their friends, “Hey, buy this song from somewhere way down the tail of
the iTunes demand curve.” Andersen’s article points out why, for the
iTunes store at least, it’s not merely about selling the “hits,” it’s
about selling mid-list, bottom-list and never made it to the list
tunes. For example, I recently created an iMix when I noticed I had two
songs on my iPod called 2 a.m. It made me wonder if one could create a
playlist of tunes with song-titles from each hour of the day and night.
Within a few clicks, I created this iMix (my only one so far) called On the Hour - Tunes ‘Round the Clock (iTunes link)
and with another couple of clicks, I could direct people to my
“affiliate store” version of the link. Chances are there are some songs
on that iMix you’ve never heard (or heard of) before. You may listen to
the 30 second sample and decide to purchase it. If you do, I get a
nickle. I share some of my tastes and quirkiness or willingness to
search around for tunes, you discover new songs, and I get paid. What a
world we live in. (Andersen does suggest a way to “kill” iTunes,
however, but it’s a price-driven approach: sell tunes for 20¢.)

D. iMixes are now searchable and as I’ve just displayed, I can link not only to a specific tune, but to any iMix search (iTunes link) or any other product or collection of products.

E. The growing army of iTunes affiliate geeks are constantly looking for ways to integrate iTunes into their blogs more easily.

F. Apple geeks are constantly coming up with cluetrain features they can embed into iTunes. For example, as Doc Searls has noted so eloquently,
“without links, you don’t exist.” And it used to be difficult to link
from a web page to a specific spot on the iTunes store. Yet recently, a
feature was added to iTunes that allows a user to get an iTunes music
store URL with ctrl-click (on a Mac) or right click (on Windows) on a
song title, album artwork or any iTunes link.

5. It’s
about how the iPod can follow you around all day. Despite suggestions
to the contrary, the iPod already easily transports your music between
home, car and office. In my house, a couple of Air Port Expresses and one of those cool Bose iPod speakers
(thanks to some cool santas) replicate the function of a tremendously
expensive stereo set up — and I was able to set it all up in a matter
of minutes. In my car, I pop on a Griffin iTrip
to play my iPod via my FM radio. (It works great on my car, but I’ve
had some interference on a rental car.) At work, I simply plug my iPod
(or synched iTunes on my Mac) into the speakers (or headphone) that
I’ve had set up for years.

6. Podcasting: It has been explained by me
and others that “podcasting” is not limited to iPods and iTunes, but
rather refers to a set of approaches and protocols that allow a near
seamless transference of an audio file from its creator to its willing
audience. It’s one thing to manually move audiofiles to ones MP3
player, however that’s not the best way to understand the potential of
podcasting. The real magic of podcasting happens when RSS and the
docking/synching powers of your audio file hub work together with no
friction to transfer an MP3 file onto your iPod while, say, you’re
sleeping. I’m sure that can happen on a platform and device other than
iPod/iTunes, but I doubt it can do so today in such a flawless,
eloquent way. Podcasting makes the iPod/iTunes platform a
broadcast-like medium for the rest of us.

7. Here’s my next to last point, only because I realize that only iPod addicts are still reading: the iPod is a business device with a long list of potential usages today (dictation using one of those Griffin iTalks, or, as our production manager can do, the delivery to the printer of 20Gs of Quark and other graphic files, or, as this article displays radiologists are using iPods to transport large files), or, with the Apple product iSync,
the mirror of ones calendar and contacts files. And with a new photo
iPod, one can present a Power Point or Keynote presentation to the guy
sitting next to you on an airplane (but, please, if it’s me, don’t).

8.
It’s about some weird karma thing that comes bundled with iTunes/iPod
that causes someone to jot down notes for several weeks and then post
them on his blog during his vacation. I have about six more, but I’ll
stop now.

A Mac in every pot? If I were not enjoying myself doing nothing, I’d be all over the ThinkSecret.com rumor/news of a monitor-less, keyboard-less Macintosh G4 that will look sorta like this. Oh, and it will cost less than $500. Why is this big news? Think of it as a way to turn your Windows computer into a Macintosh…or a machine that could replace your TiVo and still serve as a hub for your HD TV, music collection, etc. This should hit Slashdot before long. Those guys will say more in a few minutes than I can in days (later: here they go), so I’ll go back to doing nothing.