Burnin’

Serial entrepreneur, MarkAndreessen, thinks print media companies need to take a page from the Spanish Empire’s playbook and make real their commitment to digital.

Here’s Tech Crunch’s take on Andreessen’s POV:

Legend has it that when Cortes landed in Mexico in the 1500s, he ordered his men to burn the ships that had brought them there to remove the possibility of doing anything other than going forward into the unknown. Marc Andreessen has the same advice for old media companies: “Burn the boats.”

In particular, he was talking about print media such as newspapers and magazines, and his longstanding recommendation that they should shut down their print editions and embrace the Web wholeheartedly. “You gotta burn the boats,” he told me, “you gotta commit.” His point is that if traditional media companies don’t burn their own boats, somebody else will.

I like the imagery Andreessen’s using, but instead of burning the boats, it might be smart to keep all oars in the water, as it were. It’s not like there won’t be printed newspapers and magazines in the future. There will be. They might become rather expensive–as they are expensive to produce and distribute–but they’ll be available.

On a related note, here’s Grace Potter and Joe Satriani covering “Cortez the Killer” by Neil Young.

Good Magazine is sharing a particularly good idea here.

Having lived in San Francisco, I know what a pain it is to park there. Sometimes you go round and around for half an hour to an hour just to find an empty spot, which is insanity, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.

Dynamic parking meter pricing and availability is technology that’s solving an actual need. Thank you Streetline. So many of the tech developments that grab the media’s attention are inconsequential in the grand scheme. For instance any news about Facebook is completely wasted on me.

How has the Internet changed the way you think? That’s a huge question for our time and it’s the question Edge.org put in front on 167 world-class scientists, artists, and creative thinkers. Their range of answers is a deep well that one can dip into time and again, like a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

To get a taste for some of the thinking, please sample these small bits…

From Howard Rheingold:

Crap detection — Hemingway’s name for what digital librarians call credibility assessment — is another essential literacy. If all schoolchildren could learn one skill before they go online for the first time, I think it should be the ability to find the answer to any question and the skills necessary to determine whether the answer is accurate or not.

From Douglas Rushkoff:

The Internet pushes us all toward the immediate. The now. Every inquiry is to be answered right away, and every fact or idea is only as fresh as the time it takes to refresh a page.

And as a result, speaking for myself, the Internet makes me mean. Resentful. Short-fused. Reactionary.

From Kevin Kelly:

In fact the propensity of the Internet to diminish our attention is overrated. I do find that smaller and smaller bits of information can command the full attention of my over-educated mind.

From George Dyson:

We used to be kayak builders, collecting all available fragments of information to assemble the framework that kept us afloat. Now, we have to learn to become dugout-canoe builders, discarding unneccessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.

From Paul Kedrosky:

If we know anything about knowledge, about innovation, and therefore about coming up with big deep thoughts, it is that it is cumulative, an accretive process of happening upon, connecting, and assembling, like an infinite erector set, not just a few pretty I-beams strewn about on a concrete floor.

From Paul Saffo:

Back in the mid-1700s, Samuel Johnson observed that there were two kinds of knowledge: that which you know, and that which you know where to get. The Internet has changed our thinking, but if it is to be a change for the better, we must add a third kind of knowledge to Johnson’s list — the knowledge of what matters. Knowing what matters is more than mere relevance. It is the skill of asking questions that have purpose, that lead to larger understandings.

From Clay Shirky:

This shock of inclusion, where professional media gives way to participation by two billion amateurs (a threshold we will cross this year) means that average quality of public thought has collapsed; when anyone can say anything any time, how could it not? If all that happens from this influx of amateurs is the destruction of existing models for producing high-quality material, we would be at the beginning of another Dark Ages.

So it falls to us to make sure that isn’t all that happens.

Of course, we all have our own essays to write.

I started using a computer to type up my college papers in 1983. But it wasn’t until 1995 that I started using email and even then, I used it sparingly. For me, 1997 was the year when the information revolution swept me up in its fast moving tide. Which means I’ve only been thinking inside this particular framework of networked machines for 13 years. Fundamentally, has it altered the way my brain works? I don’t know, but I do know my habits have changed radically. While I read fewer books now, my overall volume of reading and writing (and thinking) has increased dramatically. I now spend many hours almost every day reading, writing and thinking. I’d like to think that’s a good thing, although I’m keenly aware of the need for balance.

I’m fascinated by Jonathan Harris and his sketchbooks.

When we use manual instruments to write and draw, I think there’s more feeling in the work, similar to how there’s more sound in a vinyl record than there is in a compact disc.

Harris is obviously a master with pen and paper, but he’s also a technologist. As he considers next steps in the evolution of storytelling, he imagines that it will play out online (which is more than a little likely).

Here’s a passage from the video above that’s worth studying closely:

Anything can be the hub. Anything can be the center. I really believe that’s the future of information presentation. The metaphor of the page as an organizing principal is dead. It’s archaic. It doesn’t work anymore. A better approach is to portray a world of connectivity. A world of connections. A huge connected graph where any node in the graph can be the first order node and everything else is expressed in relation to that node.

For sure, the page has always been a lonely place. Maybe that’s why I find comfort in it. The reality is both modalities are in play today—the lonely page (physical or digital) and the rushing river of real time “conversation.” Both have immense value. But the roar of the river can be deafening, especially in the rainy season. A notebook is a quiet place to think, a refuge from modernity. I need to spend more time in mine.

Alan D. Mutter writes Reflections of a Newsosaur, where, for the reader’s benefit, he combines his experience in Silicon Valley with that of his time spent at newspapers. As such, he’s a good person to consider how publishers can make money online, or if they can.

He offers this quick checklist:

1. You cannot charge for such commoditized content as world, national, business, sports and entertainment news.

2. You might be able to charge for local coverage, if it is sufficiently intensive, comprehensive and exclusive to make to make it required reading for residents of the targeted community.

3. In the business-to-business realm, you probably can charge users for exclusive information that helps them make money, avoid losing money or, ideally, both at the same time.

4. You probably can charge consumers for two things: (a) exclusive entertainment content and (b) authoritative information that helps them hang on to more of their money.

I think this is a pretty tight look at the topic. Exclusive content, especially in an area that others rely on to do their own jobs or manage their own money, is worth paying for/subscribing to, now as before. But such content is not common. It’s rare.

The online monetization conundrum isn’t about electrons versus print at all. The issue is the same as it ever was–the publisher with the best, most relevant and entertaining content wins. And that victory won’t be delivered by paid subscribers alone, but through a mix of revenue streams that might include semi-annual fund drives, selling merchandise like books or t-shirts, wise use of search and display advertising and sponsored events or conferences.

Books are like babies. They take time to conceive, develop and eventually stand on their own.

According to The New York Times, a star of the print media business–now deep into her first big digital project–thinks she can speed the incubation process up considerably.

In a joint venture with Perseus Books Group, The Daily Beast is forming a new imprint, Beast Books, that will focus on publishing timely titles by Daily Beast writers — first as e-books, and then as paperbacks on a much shorter schedule than traditional books.

“There is a real window of interest when people want to know something,” Ms. Brown said. “And that window slams shut pretty quickly in the media cycle.”

Perseus is paying The Daily Beast a five-figure management advance to cover the costs of editing and designing the books, and Perseus will distribute the titles through its existing sales force. The writers will receive low five-figure advances from Perseus, then split profits from the sale of both the e-books and paperbacks with Perseus and The Daily Beast.

The imprint’s first book, scheduled to be published as an e-book in December and a paperback in January, is “Attack of the Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America,” by John P. Avlon.

It’s not often that I find something profound in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. But today I did.

…emailing at this frantic rate, is pleasing very few of us. It is encroaching on parts of our lives that should be separate or sacred, altering our minds and our ability to know our world, encouraging a further distancing from our bodies and our natures and our communities. We can change this; we have to change it. Of course email is good for many things; that has never been in dispute. But we need to learn to use it far more sparingly, with far less dependency, if we are to gain control of our lives.

In the past two decades, we have witnessed one of the greatest breakdowns of the barrier between our work and per­sonal lives since the notion of leisure time emerged in Victorian Britain as a result of the Industrial Age. It has put us under great physical and mental strain, altering our brain chemistry and daily needs. It has isolated us from the people with whom we live, siphoning us away from real-world places where we gather. It has encouraged flotillas of unnecessary jabbering, making it difficult to tell signal from noise. It has made it more difficult to read slowly and enjoy it, hastening the already declining rates of literacy. It has made it harder to listen and mean it, to be idle and not fidget.

This is not a sustainable way to live. This lifestyle of being constantly on causes emotional and physical burnout, work­place meltdowns, and unhappiness. How many of our most joyful memories have been created in front of a screen?

John Freeman, acting editor of Granta magazine fashioned his manifesto for slow communication from his forthcoming book, The Tyranny of E-Mail.

The passage above brings up a lot of things I’ve been dealing with for years. Electronic mail is but the tip of the iceberg. My professional identity is now tied (in part) to the Web, thanks to the success of AdPulp.com. Thus, I’m compelled to add content to the machine multiple times a day—an act which requires sifting through hundreds of Web pages and all the little bits therein fighting to be noticed. In short, I’m overexposed, and overexposure sadly is something I share with too many friends and colleagues.

Recently, I moderated an online debate between two old friends on the importance of Facebook. One friend argued for the social networking site while the other explained why he couldn’t be bothered. “Socializing on the Internet is not for me,” my reluctant friend said, noting what is for him: hiking Utah’s beautiful trails, riding his bike, reading books and writing books. This friend is a deep believer in slow communication. So much so he’s been traveling around the country this summer and intentionally choosing to leave his laptop at home (so he can enjoy his travels unencumbered). Email, he says, mostly upsets him, as it often comes, consciously or not, with a list of demands on his time.

I admire my friend’s clarity on this issue and his wise decision to allocate his time to physical world activities. Sometimes I think about closing the laptop, storing it on a shelf and forcing myself to rejoin the analog world of book stores, telephone calls and physical work. There’s probably a way to achieve the balance I need without taking drastic measures, but the fact remains I think about the cold turkey approach regularly, which tells me I need to change my habits, one way or another.

Portland journalist Abraham Hyatt spent the last month organizing all the details that went into today’s Digital Journalism Camp, a free conference for journalists of all stripes. Given the state of newspapers and journalism in general, the price was certainly right.

One thing that wasn’t right was the no WiFi situation. Apparently, Sprint was going to provide WiFi but bailed at the last minute. There was one hot spot available but it was only good for eight connections. Some attendees plugged their machines to a physical port, some thanked their stars for a cell connection and others took notes the old fashioned way, by hand in a $1.29 notebook (can you imagine?).

Hyatt opened the day with remarks about re-imagining the work journalists do. He said journalists must find “nimble, pro-active and exciting ways of telling stories and describing the world we live in.”

The first panel of the day–on hyperlocal news sites–was led by business writer Michelle Rafter. She said if she had a million dollars she’d build and fund a hyperlocal news organization. Panelist Ken Aaron, Co-Founder of Neighborhood Notes, could relate. His site endeavors to break news on the neighborhood level in Portland. He described the transition Neighborhood Notes made from blog to news site and I was happy to hear they do, in fact, pay freelance writers for news stories assigned by the site’s editor(s). The rate is only $.10/word but it’s more than Huffington Post pays, or AdPulp for that matter.

During the morning’s second panel on SEO for journalists, I learned that I’m supposed to look at Google Trends for keywords and then place them in my titles, preferably surrounded by html header tags. I’m sure the experts are right, but that’s not how I roll. Writing creative headlines is a joy and not one I’m likely to give up any time soon.

I grabbed a free falafel for lunch and a bottle of water, courtesy of a conference sponsor. Over the lunch hour, I chatted with Steven Walling who writes for ReadWriteWeb and works for AboutUs. Alex Wilhelm, a.k.a @Alex, Co-Founder of Contenture told me about his new PayPal-like service for content producers (something I want to learn more about and perhaps put into play). Finally, Mike Rogoway, business writer for The Oregonian, entertained my questions about why OregonLive.com was down the street in a separate building. He reminded me that while both The Oregonian and OregonLive.com are owned by Advance, they are in fact two different companies. I know that, of course, but it’s something I can’t quite get my thick head around.

The one o’clock hour was Ginger Grant’s turn to entice the audience with the power of story and myth, in particular. By the way, this Grant is not a character on Gilligan’s Island. She’s a B.C.-based professor, speaker and consultant. Grant said when she looks at a company she doesn’t want to know job descriptions. Rather, she wants to know what people are good at and most passionate about. She said if we suck at something maybe we ought to stop doing it. Sounds logical.

Grant also suggested we each make a list with two columns. First, list “What You Love” and follow it with “What’s Not Working For You.” Then use what you love to fix what’s not working for you, she said. Interesting. With that math, I ought to be able to write my way out of financial instability. Hold it, I’ve done that (several times over). Yes, but it’s a challenge that never ends.

“The Raconteurs of Madison County” is a title I came up with one day, after encountering the Web site Name Your Tale.

Name Your Tale asks for a title and if they like it, one of the site’s writers creates “a very short story, in fact, exactly 100 words.” Jenny Nicholson, who lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and works in advertising by day, “while plotting world domination at night,” was kind enough to write to my title idea.

Name Your Tale was started by Nick Faber. Jeremy Griffin is also part of the project.

On other micro fiction fronts, we have Two Sentence Stories, Fifty Word Stories and Six Word Stories.

I just submitted three “six word stories” for consideration. They are:

• Will work for mansion in Wilmette.
• It takes beer to make wine.
• Before Twitter she did not type.

Maybe these bits will be digitally elevated on Six Word Stories. Or maybe I need to work harder to get away from bumper sticker copy. Either way, it’s a fun exercise and I appreciate the efforts of those involved.

Time Magazine has named MetaFilter one of the “25 Best Blogs of 2009.”

This is the community weblog that gives crowdsourcing a good name.

I’m making note of it because MetaFilter is the work of McMinnville, OR resident, Matt Haughey.

Since moving to Portland last August, I’ve taken note of how many craftsmen and women are at work here. Many. In every conceivable field. To stay with content creators for now, I’d like to present my list of Portland’s top producers.

Dave Allen of music site Pampelmoose is a founding member of UK Post-Punk band, Gang of Four. He hosts a show on 94.7 knrk and holds down a big time day job at Nemo Design.

Rick Turoczy is the Silicon Florist. He keeps Portlanders up to date on all the local happenings in tech. He also writes for ReadWriteWeb, one of the most prominent tech publications online.

Marshall Kirkpatrick is Vice President of Content Development at ReadWriteWeb, and also the Lead Writer.

Dawn Foster is a social media maven, community manager and event organizer. She writes Fast Wonder and contributes to Om Malik’s WebWorkerDaily.

Amber Case is is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Consultant. She writes at Hazelnut Tech Talk and Discovery Channel’s new NerdAbout.

Julian Chadwick is the content generating mad man behind PDXPipeline, the best source for upcoming cultural events in the city.

Cami Kaos & Dr. Normal are the city’s husband and wife podcasting team par excellence. They produce Strange Love Live, a weekly interview show featuring Portland’s movers and shakers in the social web space.

By no means is this list exhaustive. A quick run through Strange Love Live’s archives, for instance, shows how much deeper it all goes.

Beer and Blog put together “End Joblessness: A mini job fair” on Saturday in Beaverton. The event took place at the offices of Oregon Technology Business Center, which is a non-profit incubator for tech startups.

I walked in, grabbed a Deschutes Mirror Pond and began to mingle. I spoke with Web designers, a researcher for a tech recruiter (whose boss wants him “to Twitter and blog”). I also met Steve Morris, the Executive Director of OTBC and the co-host of the event, along with Beer and Blog’s Justin Kirstner.

What I didn’t expect was Magic Seth. He approached me directly and asked if we’d met before. I said no. He said next time we will have. He then drew me and two iPhone App developers into a magic trick. He asked me to pull a card from a deck. I did. It was the 8 of Hearts. He asked one of the developers to pull up a card site up on his iPhone. He did. He then chose the 10 of Diamonds from that digital deck. Magic Seth said we could look at each others choices. I won’t tell the rest, ’cause it’s magic, but suffice it to say all three of us were alerted to the quirky but powerful intelligence in our midst.

So, it’s now a few days later and I have Magic Seth’s business card here on the side table. Naturally, I Google the man. It appears that Magic Seth has a degree from Hampshire College and another one from MIT. He wrote an academic paper titled, “Interactive Visualizations for Text Exploration: Using SVG to navigate large collections of unstructured documents”. In other words, chaos isn’t frightening to Magic Seth.

Here’s some video, if you feel like investing deeper in the Magic Seth story:

Turns out, Magic Seth leads half day to three day intensive seminars in “doing the impossible.” It’s possible that he’s licensing proprietary technology to multinationals on the side. Anyway, I didn’t find work on Saturday, but I did encounter some mid-afternoon brain food.

image courtesy of Flickr user, Brian Solis

Sarah Lacy is a successful tech journalist. So successful in fact, Sarah Lacy is more than a journalist, she’s a brand. Yet, she’s not convinced that being a brand is all that great.

I’ve written before that one of the advantages of the Internet– the relatively low barrier to click on something– is an advantage for building brands and gaining distribution online, but it’s also a disadvantage. People flock to you as a side-show, but don’t actually want to invest real dollars to support whatever you are doing. Honestly, how many of Tila Tequila’s million MySpace friends buy her CDs? There’s a currency in mild watching-a-train-wreck-fascination and even hate online, that doesn’t exist in the offline world in the same way. And, to date, it hasn’t translated.

I’ve got an inkling that this multi-year trend towards brand-this and brand-that in the business world may be in for a rude awakening. After all, there are far more high-profile examples. Think about Howard Stern: He used to be one of the most talked about, most hated, most beloved people in popular culture.

Valleywag asks, “What is wrong with you internet people? Sarah Lacy is working hard so you can fully appreciate her and you’re not FULLY APPRECIATING HER IN ALL MEDIA CONSTANTLY.”

Lacy writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek.com called “Valley Girl” and is co-host of Yahoo! Finance’s Tech Ticker. She also has a new book out: Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0.

On a personal note, my brand is not here at this scrapbook site. It’s at AdPulp. My intention from the beginning was to create something bigger than just me. I suppose that’s the difference in being a writer versus a writer, editor and publisher.

Kathleen Parker, a columnist for The Washington Post is working to understand what the rise of new media means for print journalists like herself.

Thankfully, she does so in a funny manner:

It’s over. Done. The old media are no more. We are all new media now. All journalists, we are also the news. We are essentially a nation of news-mongering newsies making news as we do the news. At some point, the news will simply consume the news consumer-slash-provider in a big-bangish event that will go unreported.

Parker also offers this bit of insight in to the news business:

If you want friends or money, my first editor told me, get another line of work.

What are we to make of all this journalistic self-loathing? I know what I make of it. Clearly, this is the perfect time to create a new kind of media company. One that holds tight to certain basics—like an informed citizenry being the key to a healthy democracy—while finding new means of production, distribution and monetization. Paid advertising and paid subscribers can’t be the only two methods of making money in this business. Let’s invent some new ones!