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I sense that last week’s story on FolioMag.com about Time Inc.’s planned MagHound magazine aggregation subscription service (not to be confused with the new print-on-demand-magazine service from HP called MagCloud) had to be one of Folio:’s most linked-to articles in recent memory. (I did my part when the article appeared.)
I think it’s the “Netflix for magazines” analogy that makes the MagHound concept fascinaitng to bloggers and reporters. While at first I didn’t understand the “Netflix” comparison — Would I need to send magazine copies back to MagHound after reading them? — I now get that the reference is to the monthly fee (think, “membership dues”) one pays to receive a given number of magazines. Like Netflix, the higher fee-per-month you pay, the more magazines you receive. And you can constantly change what titles you want to receive so if you’d rather change from Time to Newsweek mid-year, it’s just a click of the button. (That’s assuming Newsweek participates.)
However, rather than “Netflix,” the service sounds to me like “EBSCO” — a service you likely have never heard of (unless you work in magazine circulation or a library, listen to NPR or live in Birmingham, Ala.). I’ll explain below.
Today, Steven Dubner, writes about MagHound (using once more, the Netflix analogy) on the New York Time’s Freakonomics blog.
Quote:
“To me, one of the biggest advantages of something like Maghound is far more prosaic: having one channel through which to handle all your magazine subscriptions, rather than having to hassle with that constant flood of mail from every magazine, reminding you 4 or 6 times that your subscription will be expiring in a mere 12 months.”
I agree with Dubner. That’s the most appealing aspect of the service to me. And it’s a service that has long existed — if you’re a large library or institution. Libraries don’t purchase one-off magazine subscriptions — they use services like the very large Birmingham-based company EBSCO Subscription Service. (A Nashville note: When it comes to books and other media, Ingram Library Services competes also in this market.)
I’ve long wondered why there isn’t a consumer version of EBSCO’s library services. However, without the Internet, the marketing and servicing of consumers maintaining a subscription to just a few titles is likely not a sustainable business model. (But then, again, magazine publishers — without the efficiency of the Internet — market to and service consumers who maintain just one subscription now — an even less-likely to sustain model.) I couldn’t agree with Dubner more — managing all your magazine subscriptions in one account would be great for consumers — and businesses. I hope MagHound works. (I also wonder if EBSCO is: 1. involved in this some way; 2. viewing it as potential competition for carving off some of its smaller customers. — This is very outside my little corner of the magazine world, so I’ll let others figure those out.)
Sidenote: Bonus quote by Steven Dubner on why magazines are holding up in circulation and revenue what newspapers are collapsing:
“This disparity probably makes sense when you consider that a lot of magazine content is more appealing on glossy paper than newspaper content is on newsprint, which means that a computer screen is a worse substitute for magazines than for newspapers. Also, newspapers are far more dependent than magazines on classified ad money, and that’s one form of revenue that’s been making a fast and furious migration to the internet.
ABOVE: This morning, the New York Times devoted an entire page to a news article suggesting the possibility of Estee Lauder’s influence on editorial decisions at Harper’s Bazaar Magazine. The news article was preceded by Estee Lauder interstitial “pre-roll” advertising and two Estee Lauder ads appear adjacent to the article.
Today the New York Times Style section includes an article (sheepish clarification: it showed up on my RSS feed of “magazine-related” news) that, in a tone of righteous indignation, reported that Harper’s Bazzar was devoting 40 pages of an issue to glamorous fashion photos modeled by four super-models/actresses who regularly appear in and on the cover of the magazine. Except this time, they will be identified as the “stars” of a new fragrance from Estee Lauder instead of, say, the stars of a re-make of Charlie’s Angels.
In the San Francisco Chronicle today, a story appears about the possibility of the FCC tightening the “product placement” rules related to, say, a Coca-cola cup appearing on the table in front of the judges of American Idol.*
As I’ve written before — many, many time — I’m a advocate for transparency in the relationships marketers have with media. I think marketers and media companies should disclose the relationships they have with one another and let the audience decide what is, and is not, ethical. Indeed, I think they should be proud of the relationships.
That said, I must ask: Among the readers of Harper’s Bazaar, are there any who really care where the ads stop and the edit begins? Have you flipped through the September issue of any of fashion magazine? I think most readers would be shocked to learn there is anything in them other than advertising. More than any genre of magazines, fashion magazine advertising is the reason they are purchased.
As for reality programs like American Idol, is the “franchise” of American Idol not a product, itself? Do viewers care that watching the whole show is like watching a commercial for the brand American Idol and all of the performers appearing are also brands?:
When Ryan Seacrest tells viewers they should go download recordings of the evening’s performances on iTunes, are viewers really duped into thinking that was an editorial decision on the part of Ryan rather than a business relationship between the Fox Network and Apple? Do viewers think the Ford music video advertisement is something the contestants do to relax during the week? Do viewers think Coca-Cola is what’s in that cup in front of Paula Abdul?
Are readers and viewers that stupid?
Okay, some are. So perhaps they need some type of explanation or disclaimer below that NYTimes.com advertisement for the product being written about in article next to it. Perhaps they need a big box that includes a warning that, “this article about Estee Lauder’s Senuous is sponsored by Estee Lauder’s Senuous.”
Bottomline: When you attempt to apply the same journalistic and ethical guidelines to entertainment (i.e., fashion magazines and “commercially-sponsored” network reality shows) that you do to news journalism (general or business), you start heading down a slippery slope to school marm silliness that soon makes serious ethical issues seem trite.
*I wrote about American Idol’s creative product placement practices earlier this year.
Four years ago, an article in the Wall Street Journal suggested Internet advertising would match magazine advertising by 2007 and blow past it in 2008. What happened?
 The very short version: During 2007, almost $60 billion was spent on advertising that appeared in print while $11.31 billion was spent on advertising that appeared on the Internet.
The very long version: I don’t expect any readers of this weblog to remember a four-year-old rant I wrote (and here) about a Wall Street Journal article appearing in July, 2004. Screen grabbed on the left, the WSJ story carried the headline “Online Ad Dollars Set to Match, Then Go Ahead of Magazines (sub. required).” The article was based on a Jupiter Research report predicting that in 2007, Internet advertising spending would grow to $13.8 billion which, claimed the Wall Street Journal, “would match magazine advertising.”
My rant, which later became an article appearing in Folio: Magazine, was directed more at the Wall Street Journal reporter’s mis-interpretation of the research than it was at the Jupiter Research report. Their prediction was not really a comparison of Internet advertising to magazine advertising, merely their estimate of online advertising spending through 2007 and beyond. It was the Journal reporter who decided to mashup a comparison of future Internet advertising (based on Jupiter’s numbers) and its magazine number estimate.
However — and this was a major focus of my rant — the reporter (and Jupiter) failed to recognize that the Internet advertising prediction included all online advertising while the magazine advertising prediction excluded all business-to-business magazine advertising.
In my response to the article, I suggested that a better prediction of 2007 magazine ad spending would be the 2004 estimate by Veronis Suhler that $28.3 billion would be spent on magazine advertising (consumer and B-to-B) in 2007.
Fast-forward four years. Today, Advertising Age issued a report that included the actual ad spending (split by media) in 2007. As you can see in the Advertising Age pie chart below, $11.31 billion was spent on Internet advertising and $30.33 billion was spent on magazine advertising. Throw in the $28.22 billion spent on newspaper advertising and there was nearly $60 billion spent on print advertising last year.
Let’s break this down a bit. Let’s look at a comparison of the 2004 predictions vs. actual performance from Jupiter Research and Veronis Suhler regarding Internet and magazine advertising. As you can see on my comparison below, Jupiter over-shot their Internet advertising prediction while Veronis-Suhler undershot their magazine advertising prediction.
(Granted, Jupiter Research’s prediction during the most recent four-year span was dramatically better than their 1999-2003 prediction. In 1999, they predicted that online advertising in 2003 would total $11.5 billion compared to the $6.6 billion it actually hit.)
What does this mean? First, it means, (to quote a wonderful headline I saw this morning) “90% of all statistics can be made to say anything 50% of the time.” No doubt, the statistics in today’s report can be spun any way you want. I’ve spun them one way. Most bloggers would spin them in a way that suggests they are another nail in the coffin of the print medium. Frankly, the way headlines and intro paragraphs will be written can make most any statistics imply whatever you want — at least 50% of the time.
As for me, personally: I love Internet advertising. Without a doubt, it’s growing faster than any other form of advertising and I, personally, am benefiting from that. In 15 years, it has grown from zero to $11.3 billion, an amazing feat. However, my complaint is with the misuse of numbers by reporters and tech-oriented analysts — and, to be honest, just about everybody I know — to support a narrative that can be summed up in three words: Print is dead. As much as I love the Internet and all things digital, that narrative is probably not going to be true in the lifetime of anyone making that prediction.
Today’s narrative — as it was back in 2004 and 1999 and 1954 when TV was going to kill print and radio and movies — is that the Internet is going to bury all other forms of media one day. Today’s narrative is that Internet advertising is growing at a far larger percentage (which even a middle-schooler should understand is easier to do when you have a lower base on which to grow). Today’s narrative is that newspapers are going to be dead in, what, a year of so? Certainly, they won’t last for an entire decade, goes the narrative. According to Steve Ballmer, “…there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.” (He later said he could be off on the number of years, claiming, “…If it’s 14 or if it’s 8, it’s immaterial to my fundamental point . . . “
Of course, he also said the iPhone would flop.
Personally, I am doubtful about the longterm viability of the kind of print product the national chains of newspapers produce. Outside the sports section, I find little of value or interest to me in my hometown daily churned out by one of those national chains. And as I’ve said many times on this blog, I think many business-to-business print publications that focus merely on the transactions of their industries will be replaced by online properties that can provide a better, more timely flow of such information.
So, yes, I do think print will constrict while the Internet grows — over time. But die? Not likely.
In a Folio: report about actions of a recent board meeting of the media auditing organization, BPA Worldwide*, Bill Mickey notes BPA has started referring to “digital magazines” as “electronic editions.”
Quote:
“The term ‘digital’ has been ditched, according to the new rules. Instead, ‘electronic’ will now be used when referring to electronic editions of magazines. ‘There are a number of definitions for the word ‘digital’ in a media owner’s portfolio, including: digital magazines, websites and email newsletter products,’ says Hansen. ‘To eliminate this confusion, the BPA Board voted to change ‘digital’ to ‘electronic edition’ throughout the rule book when referring to electronic version of print publications and magazines.’”
Personal observation: Thank you. I’ve never liked the term “digital magazine.” In the past, I’ve used the term “digitial version of a magazine” in an attempt to clarify my belief that once a magazine is converted into an electronic file, it becomes a new form of media that should be treated — and described — as such.
However, I recognize that the names we hang on new media often use metaphors related to previous media. “Moving pictures” was the first term applied to film (and the folks who hand out Oscars still use the term “motion picture”). And radio was first called “wireless telegraphy.” When the market catches up with the concept, a better term comes along.
I’m going to follow the BPA’s lead and start using the term “electronic edition” whenever referring to the versions of magazines and books that have the potential of carrying “moving pictures” and that must be viewed on a computer or other electronic device.
*Disclosure: Hammock Inc. is a “member publisher” of BPA.
Summary: MagCloud is an HP Labs research project evaluating new web services that will provide small independent magazine publishers, online content owners, and small businesses the ability to custom publish digitized magazines and economically print and fulfill on demand.
Story: Derek Powazek, one the founders of the innovative JPG Magazine, that got its start by first marketing the magazine as a short-run, print-on-demand publication, announced today he’s been working with HP Labs for the past year on today’s launch of a Print-on-Demand (POD) service called MagCloud.
The service will allow a publisher — or anyone who wants to publish a magazine — to upload a high-resolution PDF and then, sit back, and let the money roll in. According to the site, “We’ll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management and more.” (Note: I’m not sure what the “more” will entail.) The website offers a “store” — a digital newsstand, where readers can browse and, using PayPal, order publications.
According to the site, it will cost nothing to “create the magazine” (don’t tell writers, designers, etc. that) and the publisher will set up a “markup” to earn a profit above production cost. No word yet on what the “production cost” will be.
MagCloud uses HP Indigo technology to custom-print each issue when it’s ordered. According to MagCloud, “Printing on demand means no big print runs, which means no pre-publishing expense. Magazines are full color on 80lb paper with saddle-stitched covers.”
During the beta, publisher accounts are by invitation only.
My Observation: Is there a market for this? Absolutely. If the price-point is low enough, short run magazines can help create one amazing long-tail of magazine publishing.
Several services offer “digital magazine” production and hosting products, which convert print magazines into a digital form. MagCloud is taking things in the opposite direction. In other words, “content” that originates in a digital form — say blogs, for instance — can have the opportunity to see life on paper — perhaps even on a coffee table. While several services offer book POD products, including the Amazon-owned (and currently controversial) BookSurge, this is the first serious major-corporate step into the magazine print-on-demand market (with full-service “backend” services) that I’ve seen.
Even More Background: Longtime readers of this blog know I was an early fan of JPG Magazine and have written about its demonstration of the potential of print-on-demand magazines often. Later, the magazine’s founders broadened their focus with a venture called 8020 Publishing.
Last year, when I read about the split-up of the company’s founders, I lamented that happening, but I included in my post:
“I do know this: they are pioneers. Their work will lead to many great things. Whether or not it is with that specific company and that specific magazine, I have no idea. But I can say this with some degree of certainty: They all have a great deal of opportunity ahead of them. The quicker they move through the current crap, the better off they’ll all be.
Today, I’m thinking that’s one of my better calls.
(Thanks: Hugh Roper)
The question: Can you link to an AP story and include a brief excerpt?
Why it’s news: Late last week, a portion of the blogosphere blew-up when the AP sent a takedown notice to the website Drudge ReTort (a Drudge Report parody site) asking it to remove some links to AP stories that included quotations from 39-79 words. After the near-universal lambast, the NYTimes reports today that the AP has backed down. The paper says AP hopes to come up with something that will accomodate bloggers (it is meeting with the Media Bloggers Association — I’m a member), but Jim Kennedy, vp and strategy director of the AP, told the NYT, “As content creators, we firmly believe that everything we create, from video footabe all the way down to a structured headline, is creative content that has value.”
The answer*: Yes you can link to an AP story. You CAN’T reproduce a story, but you can summarize it. Furthermore, linking to an AP story provides value too AP and the AP member’s site to which you are linking. I’m not a lawyer, but I know enough about this issue to question whether or not a “link” and brief excerpt from a story — especially one that you are, in essence, “enabling,” “reviewing,” or even “recommending” a visit to the article — is fair-use. More importantly, to win a lawsuirt, the AP would have to show your link harmed them or their members. Sending traffic to or providing an SEO-boosting link to their websites is a benefit to AP, not a harm.
What will happen? Jeff Jarvis is calling on bloggers to stop linking to AP. Michael Arrington agrees. It will be hard for me to avoid linking to some of their stories on some of the sites my company helps to manage, but we’ll give it a shot. In the future, perhaps media company lawyers will take time to consider the unintended consequences of rapid-fire take-down notices.
*I am not a lawyer. This is my opinion. Before you follow any advice you pick up on the blogosphere, check with you own lawyer.
Recently I heard the director of admissions at one of the nation’s premiere universities lament how U.S. News & World Reports helped to create a distorted competitive process that now surrounds college admissions. He recounted the history of the magazine’s ranking process and how it has transformed the way in which universities accept students — tuned to metrics measured in the rankings — and, in turn, the way in which high school counselors direct students, the schools students choose and, most dramatically, the paranoia and excessive anxiety of certain parents.
Much has been written on this topic so I won’t retrace the absurdity of the rankings.
However, when I heard the admissions director blame U.S. News on the state of the admissions process, as a magazine person, all I could think is this: If there was a ranking of magazines — even a ranking of newsweekly magazines — there is no way U.S. News would rank high. It’s certainly not in the Ivy League. It’s not even one of those top-tier non-Ivies. It’s, well, a small for-profit jr. college that accepts anyone with a pulse. So how crazy is that?
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that U.S. News will no longer be ranked at the bottom of the Best News Weeklies in America. It’s no longer going to pretend it’s a newsweekly — rather it’s going to be a “Best of” magazine.
In my opinion, U.S. News ranks #1 on the list magazines that should just go away completely.
Update: From a comment below, I think my post may not be clear to some. Let me try to clarify myself: I think U.S. News has long lost any standing as a magazine of importance. It has survived because it latched onto a gimmick. Unfortunately, that gimmick had seriously negative consequences and is, overall, a disservice to those it claims to serve. I think college rankings are a cancer that U.S. News spread. They place too much emphasis on metrics that have little to do with success in life. Rather than waste money and time on studying such rankings, I think students and their parents should look at resources like Colleges that Change Lives that recognize students and universities are made up of human beings, not collections of statistics and marketing-prowess.
Over the years, it’s been fascinating to watch the light turn on for certain people regarding what’s taking place in the marketplace of “content” (excuse me, Doc). For example, today, Paul Krugman writes an “a-ha” piece after using an Amazon Kindle for a couple of months.
Quote:
“Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it’s good enough for me.
Whenever I read something like that, I have to take a deep breath and admit to myself that not everyone has spent the past 20 years obsessed with this topic. Whenever I read something like that, I wish I had a place to point people to a few seminal writings that have provided similar a-ha-moments to really geeky folks (like me) — but a long time ago.
If you have some more writings that provided an a-ha moment to you, please add them to the comments.
Here are a few of my go-to ones:
1. The Esther Dyson essay, “Intellectual Value,” written in the July, 1995, issue of Wired magazine. (Krugman quotes Dyson in his piece today, but does not link to it.) Go ahead, commit it to memory. It’s like the Gettysburg Address.
2. The book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, grew from this now “read-only landmark website.” (Here’s a place to read the book for free.) It pretty much foresees everything that marketing is becoming. It’s like when Luther nailed his 95 theses to that door in Wittenburg.
3. While not a specific article, I find myself referring often to the concept Paul Saffo coined “macro-myopia.” It relates to forecasting the impact of new technology and means, roughly, “in the short term we overestimate, in the long term we underestimate” the impact of new technology. This is an idea I’ve written about several times over the years (on the Cluetrain listserv in 2000, here in 2002 and in 2004 when Paul explained his role in adding to a concept developed by Roy Amara, Ev Rogers and others. The importance of the concept today is this: When those of us who are obsessed with technology see something that we know is going to change everything, we delude ourselves into thinking the change will be overnight. Technology adoption has a very predictable cycle and even those technologies that look like instant hits are likely catching a wave that was two-decades in the building.
Two bonus long reads for those who find comfort in realizing all these new ideas have been around a long, long time.:
4. The 1945 article, “As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush (synopsis).
5. The Machine Stops, a 1909 science fiction novella (12,000 words) by E.M. Forster.
Friday Afternoon Pondering: Minonline.com is the source of the chart above that ranks the top performing publications (as measured by the number of pages of advertising) during the past quarter in the business-to-business vertical of marketing. Minonline.com distributed a link to the chart as a teaser for its subscription-based service in which on Monday, I presume, the chart will be interpreted. At the link above, it merely states: “Crain’s Advertising Age shows its strength as the #1 publication on top of the advertising pages list for the 1st quarter. A less likely occupant is ST Media Group’s Signs of the Times with a first-quarter 2008, year-on-year 10% increase in ad pages and a nearly 40% increase for March 2008.”
Note: This is not the Signs of the Times magazine referred to, rather this publication about the sign industry is.
I’m not sure I trust the B2B media pundits to interpret this chart, however. I think it is a job for the guys at the Freakonomics Blog. How can advertising for advertising be so dramatically up in a quarter when advertising is supposed to be down — especially advertising in, of all media,B2B print publications.
I can guess the theories: (A) Media companies are advertising aggressively because they have so much unsold inventory, (B) media companies are launching new properties and thus are buying more ads to promote them, (C) media companies are aggressively pushing the message that advertising in a recession is the mark of a savvy marketer, (D) none of the above, (E) all of the above.
I’m guessing (doing anything else would require actual research and thought on my part) D & E are both correct answers. But again, I think it will take a skeptical economist to figure this out, not some analyst focusing on a narrow band of data related to the number of advertising pages sold.
The Important Part: Today, the Washington Post’s Peter Carlson says goodbye to his column, "The Magazine Reader." If you haven’t been keeping up with magazines for the past decade, Carlson’s column today is the equivalent of one of those 30-second introductions at the beginning of an episode of a TV drama series that starts, "Recently, on Lost…"
The Take-Away Quote:
"In the magazine business, as in nature, life is a Darwinian struggle that is frequently nasty, brutish and short. Every year, more than 500 magazines are born and nearly as many die. During the past 12 years, Life died. So did Civilization, My Generation, Spy, George, Talk, Brill’s Content, Punk Planet, Doubletake and Mademoiselle, plus Lingua Franca, a smart, funny magazine about academia, Gadfly, a lively pop culture magazine and recently, the music magazines Harp and No Depression. Replacing the dead on newsstands was a crop of newborns — Maxim, Portfolio, Real Simple, the Week, Blender, the American Conservative, Hallmark, Found, Mental Floss and a fine literary mag called the Believer. Meanwhile, the Oxford American, a magazine of Southern culture, died and was reborn. And Radar, a snarky pop culture mag, died, was reborn, died again and was reborn yet again. As of last night, it was still alive, but stay tuned."
Personal observation: Thanks, Peter. Start blogging.
I know, I know. It seems like all I ever do is hang out on the Internet.
But there’s this guilty pleasure I’ll now admit. I’m hooked on American Idol. Last night, David Cook won this year’s competition. He’s the first winner who I think may go on to be a hugely successful recording artist who I may actually enjoy listening to later. While others have certainly gone on to big success, I’m not really a fan of their music. For example, Carrie Underwood is nice looking and a megastar, but I’m not really into that commercial Nashville sound, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, since I know some people are going through AI withdrawal this morning, I thought I’d say goodbye to this season with a confessional list of six reasons why I like watching American Idol:
1. It’s perfect content for watching with a DVR like TiVo: I can honestly say, I’ve never watched an episode of American Idol “real-time” (while it is being broadcast). Even last night, my wife and I didn’t start watching the season finals until it had been on over an hour. I probably only watch about 20 minutes per hour of American Idol. I don’t like the host, the judges, most contestants or almost any of the features. I love being my own editor of the show. If you can figure out how to program your DVR remote to jump-ahead 30 seconds, you can watch the only segments I think have any value: (a) the ‘up-close-and-personal back-story features about the contestants; (b) the performances of the really talented ones. The Fast-Forward control is the key to watching American Idol.
2. The show displays how advertisers must react to DVRs/TiVo: It is with amazement that I have discovered that while I Fast-Forward through a lot of the content of the program, I find myself stopping and reviewing some of the commercials and “sponsored” content. I’ll admit, some of this may come from my professional curiosity of what is taking place. Over the years, the show has gone from rudimentary “product placement” marketing (Coca-Cola cups on the judges table) to sophisticated and non-offensive “branded content” marketing that shows what “post-advertising” can be. Apple has become a major sponsor this year and, as typical, has displayed how “content” can be the most effective form of marketing. I may do a separate post on everything Apple has done this season, but, let’s just say: what Apple did this season on American Idol is the most brilliant display ever of network TV marketing. I doubt more than 1% of viewers recognized the array of brand-marketing, product marketing and (and this is the amazing part) direct marketing they were being bombarded with throughout each program. While Ford and Coca-Cola used the program effectively, Apple used it masterfully and in a way that proves once more their understanding of media is on a higher plane than we mere mortals.
3. The program has universal (omni-demographic) appeal: Over the years, I’ve discovered my love of NFL football means I have a topic I can strike up a conversation with people everywhere I travel in the U.S. Unlike politics or religion, a conversation about the hometown team is typically a “safe” place to start a conversation. American Idol is the same deal, except better. If you watch American Idol, you can have a bubble-gum conversation with waiters and waitresses, flight attendants, teenagers, retired couples from Florida. “What’s the deal with that Justin dude?” is good for a five minute conversation in a Southwest Airline boarding line.
4. I love story-driven competition: Next year, even if you think it would be the last sports thing you’d ever be interested in, watch the coverage of the Ironman Triathalon — the one in Hawaii. Typically, it’s a 90 minute documentary shown weeks after the event. It is mesmerizing because they focus on the stories of just a few of the participants who represent the different reasons why someone would get involved in such a sport. If American Idol was just a talent competition, I would have tuned out after a week or so — I don’t watch any other such program. However, the producers of the show find contestants who are both talented and have something about themselves that is compelling. Indeed, it can be argued that the final decision of this year’s winner came down to whose story the viewers preferred, as both of the contestants were very talented singers.
5. It makes me appreciate how very unique star-quality talent is: Living in Nashville and going to places like the Blue Bird has enabled me to be blown away by extremely talented people who will never be stars. Watching American Idol over a few months will amaze you when someone you think can’t lose ends up breaking under the pressure — or blossoming. It’s fascinating to watch who gets better and who peaks at the right time. Carrie Underwood went from being okay into super stardom during her year. I think David Cook did the same this year. Others prove that many people have a lot of talent and have worked hard and have not given up on their dream and have been lucky — but still don’t connect with the only folks who matter: the people.
6. It’s user-created content: Think about that one long and hard. While the program is perhaps one of the most over-produced and packaged programs in history, at its essence is this: People who aren’t stars and are on no-body’s A-List get a shot at getting to perform in front of a bigger audience. In the end, millions of people get to decide if they have what it takes to make it to the big-leagues, fame and fortune. There are lots of analogies there for what is taking place across all forms of media.
The last person on the blogosphere needing me to echo-chamber him is Robert Scoble, but this post is a wonderful challenge to something that is so embedded as conventional wisdom, I thought of it as truth before reading what Robert wrote. The CW is this: There’s too much noise on the Internet and what we really need is something that helps us reduce the (buzz term warning) signal-to-noise-ratio. But (now that Robert has enlightened me) the fact of the matter is this: If we (and if you’re reading this on an RSS news feed or on my blog, you’re a part of the “we”) weren’t noise junkies, we would be getting our information via the telegraph.
Robert’s post is in praise of noise — for noise, says Robert, is where you discover patterns and tidbits that become news.
Ironically, it can be argued that Robert is saying he enjoys being a filter for the rest of us — serving as a hunter, gatherer of the information that the rest of us may find of interest. We know we don’t have the time, access or endurance to hang out with all the geeks Robert hangs out with — so we entrust him to put up with all of that noise and hassle so he can share with us a firehose of tidbits he picks up. In turn, the thousands of people who follow Robert serve as a filter to discover his “best-of” stuff so those who can stand even less noise, can pick it up in a more-quiet way, via Techmeme, for instance.
Some people hate noise so much, they’ll actually wait 30 minutes for news to hit CNN. And still others have such low tolerance for noise, they’ll actually wait until the Wall Street Journal and New York Times are printed and delivered in the morning to learn what happened today.
And, still others, love the “quiet” so much, they wait until next week and read about stuff in Time or Newsweek.
If you’re reading this, it’s hard for you to claim that you’re not somewhat of a noise junkie. And, despite what Robert says, if you get your news via Techmeme or Google News, you’re still more of a noise junkie than most of the people you know who get their news from CNN and USA Today.
Robert lives far out on the extreme edges of the long tail of noise. The best reporters always do.
Using the idea of “noise” as a metaphorical framework for understanding how much of a filter you want before learning something that in your world may be considered “news,” is a great way to start understanding that the Internet and all this stuff we call Web 2.0 is as much about information and data and conversational flow as it is about technology.
Bonus link: Another thought-provoking post today is from Fred Wilson, who writes about data flow.
Next-day bonus link: Jeff Jarvis on why Twitter is the canary in the news coalmine. Another day, another metaphor to explain Twitter.
 Early this morning, there seemed to be a theme emerging in my RSS newsreader. Here are a few items that showed up:
Frank Anton of Hanley Wood, says:
“If the magazines published two or three years from now aren’t different, we’re in trouble. The current magazine model won’t take us into the next five years, let alone the next 100 years.”
Colin Crawford of IDG says:
“…being unburdened by print allowed the team at Infoworld the opportunity to focus on the changing needs of their customers and to develop online, event and mobile products.”
Jeff Jarvis responding to Colin’s post, says:
“Yes, print is a burden. It’s expensive to produce for it. It’s expensive to manufacture. It’s expensive to deliver. It limits your space. It limits your timing. It’s stale when it’s fresh. It is one-size-fits-all and can’t be adapted to the needs of each user. It comes with no ability to click for more. It has no search. It can’t be forwarded. It has no archive. It kills trees. It uses energy. It usually brings unions. And you really should recycle it. Wow, when you think about it, print sucks.
So what was the theme? Print is a burden. Unfortunately, saying “print is a burden” implies that there are other options out there that are not burdens. Frankly, the web is a burden. Traveling to events IDG puts on is a burden. Trying to synch my phone and computer is a burden. As Scott Karp displayed in a post yesterday, trying to discover which among 2,000 different news stories on the same topic is a burden.
Despite my love (and I use the word love very deliberately) of the magazine medium, I have never been burdened by thinking print is a hammer and every communications or marketing challenge is a nail.
Granted, my company has published magazines since the day it opened 16 years ago. But even back then, we also created lots of “interactive multimedia” (published on CD-ROM). And in those pre-web days, we also managed “forums” on CompuServe. As a custom media creator, I’ve never felt “burdened” by any medium that helps build strong relationships between our clients (associations and companies) and their members or customers. If smoke signals would help forge and sustain those relationships, we’d be all over it.
Those who know me — even through this blog — know I personally agree with Jeff Jarvis on his somewhat satirical indictment of print. I’m about as paper-free as someone can get in their personal and business practices, but I’m no print vegan (did I just create a new buzzterm?). As Jeff is writing a book and writes for newspapers and magazines, it’s not like he’s a print vegan either. But my print aversion is neither “environmental” (as I always say , if paper is the cause of global warming, someone needs to share that inconvenient truth with this guy) nor based on any belief that print is inherently bad. What I find a burden is poorly designed, written and produced print. What I find a burden is the clutter and confusion print and paper often add to my already cluttered life.
Bottomline: Print is not the burden. My time is the burden. If you publish a beautiful magazine with articles that really matter to me — that instruct, inform or celebrate something I feel strongly about, it is no burden on me. If you help me get to the information and insight I need to live a fuller life or conduct business in a more flexible and productive way, your blogging and tweeting and bookmarking does not burden me. Useless, redundant, meaningless, re-shuffled drivel is the burden. It can be delivered via print or on a weblog or a mobile device. Crap is a burden no matter what the medium used to deliver it.
If you haven’t noticed how FolioMag.com has embraced blogging with a vengeance (since Dylan Stableford’s return), it’s time for you to check it out. If you’re in the magazine industry — especially in B-to-B — they’re showing how it’s done. Indeed, today, they proved just how blogistic they are by using a post to bust a competitor’s lame attempt at gathering some competitive intelligence using the old (and I mean old), “we have a client who’d like to know so-and-so” approach. No, the calling-out wasn’t hip-hop magazine level. It was a little more like Michael Arrington on Twitter very late at night.
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