Burnin'

Simon Dumenco, writing for Ad Age, taps a nerve when discussing the rise of social gaming and what it means for our culture.

In FarmVille, of course, you “work” your own plot of land, while FrontierVille stokes nostalgia for Manifest Destiny. (“Howdy, Pardner! Come join us on the frontier, where you’ll carve out a home in the wilderness and raise a family.”) Cafe World makes you a small-business owner/operator.

If only.

Think about all this for a moment: An American gaming company is captivating millions around the world by getting them to obsess about fake food, fake business and fake real estate. How America-right-now is that? The country that gave the world the housing bubble and the KFC Double Down (according to figures recently released by the World Health Organization, 67% of Americans are overweight) is betting big on pixelated playgrounds filled with sprawling plots of land, farm-fresh produce and fantasies of “cooking, slicing, chopping, sautéing and baking your way to the top of the culinary world!” in Cafe World’s words.

FarmVille has become the most popular game application on Facebook, with over 61.6 million active users and over 24.1 million Facebook application fans in June 2010. If you spend any time on Facebook at all, a portion of your friends will spam you with Farmville requests. Dumenco asks, “How America-right-now is that?” I might simplify his rhetorical question to “How American is that?” Day-dreamy ambition is indeed an American trait. F. Scott Fitzgerald spent his entire career addressing the topic, and he’s one of our most literate 20th century voices.

Dumenco admits to being depressed by the rise of social media gaming. I know what he means but it’s important to make room for the imagination. There are more imaginative things to do than play games, online or off, but on the grand scale of attention robbing activities, Farmville and its lot are relatively innocent. First person shooter games are another story. Giving kids toy guns is bad enough, but now we provide the whole killing experience via the click of a mouse. Now that’s depressing. It’s also sick and wrong.

Men’s Health named Portland, Oregon “America’s Most Patriotic City.”

The magazine came to its conclusion after factoring the number of registered voters who turned out for state and federal elections in 2004 and 2008, money spent on military veterans, percentage of residents who volunteer, and finally, sales of fireworks and U.S. flags.

Portland wins lots of media contests and has long been the darling of The New York Times, but this new designation from Men’s Health Magazine is surprising to me, for Portland is home to lots of free thinkers. Of course, free thinkers are the people who make America great, but they’re often marginalized in favor of another, simpler view of patriotic Americans.

Speaking of Portland’s free thinkers, I met Jeffrey Thomas at Meatapalooza on Wednesday and just days later a huge, flattering feature by D.K. Row appears in The Oregonian on Thomas.

Row is the paper’s art critic and he asks Thomas, a former art dealer, some great questions about the art of selling art.

Q: Can you remind us how tough it was to sell art back in the ’80s here in Portland?

A: Remember, this was a timber economy and in the 1980s, Oregon went through its first of many recessions. We went through three years of lapsed timber sales; this little business called Intel was just starting up, so we really had no tech industry. Interest rates for houses were 12.5%.

So it was a tough time to get interest in cultural activity. There was a lot of money in town but you did not show it. It was very old school WASP. Nobody showed their wealth; no one supported anything. There was this anti-philanthropic thing going on. You just didn’t show that you had money. That made for a tough environment to create cultural activity and awareness that would draw people here.

Q: And people think it’s tough now.

A: It was nothing like it was then. There was just no cultural awareness. It was a country club for a few families and everyone else was part of the working class. There were few galleries, and only a handful of people interested in them.

Today, Thomas is a producer and photographer’s rep for Polara Studio. His Polara bio says, “…in his mind every day is a birthday party, which sort of explains the applause and flowers that he constantly showers upon everyone around him.”

Thomas is @bonegypsy on Twitter.

Digital ninja, Faris Yakob–who I had the pleasure of meeting at a conference in Cambridge, MA a few years ago–made a guest post on Gaping Void that resonates.

Here’s the heart of Yakob’s argument:

Once you begin to extend yourself via media, you become aware that by broadcasting your life through media fragments, you are creating an idea of who you are that is distinct from, but inextricably linked to, who you are.

And that brand is a highly defensible asset.

Naturally, Yakob is referencing the ideas in “The Brand Called You,” a 1997 article by Tom Peters in Fast Company. I bought in to this line of thinking pretty much since it emerged and I’ve been actively “extending myself via media” since 1999, when I launched my first site.

Given the investments I’ve made in my brand, particularly at AdPulp, I ought to have a “highly defensible asset” that can be used to land clients, speaking engagements, job offers and the like. Yet, the reality on the ground isn’t nearly as grand as all that. I’ve spent many a long night tossing and turning on why that is.

One problem is I’ve established myself as an ad critic while continuing to work in the business, which may lead to some unintentional confusion. For instance, when you meet me, are you meeting David Burn the ad guy, or David Burn the guy who rips on and/or compliments other ad guys? Personally, I’ve never had a hard time unifying the two. To make quality communications, one needs to be acutely aware of the rest of the field in order to instinctively react to it, build upon it or utterly reject it. For that reason, AdPulp ought to be the ultimate portfolio piece. But unless the job in question calls for the creation of an online media property, it’s often perceived to be an apples-to-oranges situation.

Here’s the thing though, I’m not really concerned about the brand called me problem I just outlined. As Shakespeare said, “to thine own self be true.” I’m doing what I like to do, and what I’m good at. I don’t need a bunch of people to recognize how to best employ my talents for their own benefit, I just need a handful of people to do so. That’s why I started Bonehook and that’s why it’s a content development firm, versus an “ad agency.” I’m making it as obvious as I can that my success with AdPulp is directly transferable to any number of my client’s marketing problems.

I didn’t go to journalism school, but I was a journalist while in school. My training as a reporter and news editor on The College Reporter–more than my classes–prepared me for the work I’ve been doing for 22 years now.

My uncle was a journalist, a pioneer in TV broadcasting. When I graduated from F&M, I asked him if I ought to pursue a Masters in Journalism. He said that’s one way to do it, the other is to become an expert in a field first, then start covering that field. As it turns out, that’s the path I chose, or maybe it chose me. Either way, I worked in marketing communications for many years before I started to cover the industry on AdPulp, an industry site I co-founded, write and edit.

With that in mind, I’d like point to Chris Lynch and his ideas about where journalism, and J-school education is today.

In the coming years, I think most journalism schools will shrink or disappear. The ones remaining will be drastically different, with students focusing on topics that don’t relate to content creation at all. Moreover, some of the best new professional content creators won’t attend journalism schools. They will hail from different majors and degrees, like business, computer science and finance. The notion of being a professional journalist who is merely an objective observer of a topic or industry will officially fade in the coming years. This is a good thing, since it was a stupid fantasy that it should be like that anyway.

…most journalists today aren’t experts; they merely report about people that are. This creates a barrier and credibility problem that people paid little attention to before the Web because the journalists’ identities to regular people were less transparent, and less social.

Lynch, who works at Socialtext in San Francisco, also writes about something he calls “the Reader Elite.”

The move to a pay model will be the first step in giving rise to the Reader Elite. Pay-for-media sites will employ smaller staffs that will produce headier content to satisfy its needs. Paying up to hundreds of dollars a year for their content boutiques of choice, the Reader Elite will expect stories, videos and podcasts put together by on-site content creators across the world.

Skipping over the elitist part of his argument for a moment, I’m thinking I’d very much like to get a percentage of the readers who frequent AdPulp to pay us hundreds of dollars a year for our work. Perhaps, that’s the next stage in AdPulp’s evolution as a media property.

But what about the remainder of Lynch’s points above? Is objectivity a tired old 20th century notion with no place in modern media? Are J-schools a waste of time and money? Will the rise of pay models hurt civic discourse? These are meaty questions and I thank Lynch for serving them up.

An objective storyteller is a faulty idea. Storytellers, by definition, have a point of view. Fairness is the question, not objectivity.

As for J-schools, they will adapt or perish, just like the businesses that employ their graduates. Will they adapt fast enough for this fast changing marketplace? If they don’t, another kind of school will rise up to meet the need, which is what happened in advertising. In advertising, one goes to an industry school like The Creative Circus or Miami Ad School to learn from working professionals. I can see where media companies might start calling for this type of hands on, real world training too. Whether established schools or startups staffed by working media professionals meet the need isn’t important, because the need will be met.

Lastly, will online pay models reward elites, while ignoring the needs of those who can’t afford multiple expensive subscriptions? I don’t think so. The idea that information is free (and wants to be free) is is still in beta. As far back as the late 18th century, people, not all of them rich, paid for content. In fact, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” cost two shillings, which Paine thought too high. The public did not agree and Paine’s pamphlet sold over one hundred fifty thousand copies in its first printing. Eventually over five hundred thousand copies were sold.

The mistake made recently by digital publishers of all sorts was to offer their content for free in the first place. Many, like The Times of London, now see the error of their ways and are preparing to put the genie back in the bottle. Here’s how the managers of that particular paper see things:

There are those who argue that it is in some way contrary to the “spirit of the internet” to charge for content. This is an absurd contention. The internet is one vast free market. Indeed it is the critics who fail to understand the net. In the early days it might have been possible to regard online publishing as merely a marketing teaser to encourage print sales. Years later, the internet has grown up and grown out of this. It is a proper platform for publishing a newspaper and we propose to treat it as such.

The Times will charge £2 a week for access to both the Times and the Sunday Times, which goes to Lynch’s point about hundreds of dollars per year, per periodical. But here’s the thing, if a site produces original content that no else has, their product is worth every penny. Which is another way of saying there’s too much talk about technological upheaval, and not enough focus on the fundamentals of the media business. I often say, “may the best storyteller win.” The reality is if an organization is able to charge for its content–because it is high quality and in demand–it needs to do so.

[UPDATE] Mashable is reporting that in the last four years, newspaper ad revenue dropped by 44.24%. That’s nearly half of the industry’s revenue.

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.

Frustrated with the lack of meaningful dialogue around the nation’s health care debate, columnist Paul Krugman let one rip in The New York Times yesterday.

Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.

Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.

Yes, because the zombies–in this case the insurance companies and big pharma–have lots of money at stake. When there’s lot of money at stake, the public will be under-served every time. That much we know.

Krugman, unlike most Americans, is a student of history.

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.

Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.

Sadly, our present day recession is bad, but not bad enough to break the stranglehold. We haven’t reached a tipping point yet. In the 1930s one-in-three Americans was out of work and let’s remember that women typically didn’t hold jobs at that time, which meant one-in-three households had no income whatsoever. Today, things are falling apart, but not as fast.

More importantly, the psychology of the situation isn’t leading Americans to fundamental change. Instead of coming to terms, millions are busy trying hard to hold on to whatever they have—their boat, their home, the college fund for the kids and/or a retirement nest egg. Let’s just get back to normal is the prevailing mindset and that’s not going to lead to radical change.

We needn’t look back very far to recall what a miserable start the Clinton White House had in 1993 because of health care. Whatever the powerful interest–health care, the gun lobby, welfare farmers, warring oilmen–they can be outdone, but only through a massive public uprising. And who has time for that kind of vigilance when there’s a job to keep (or find), kids to feed, dogs to walk and favorite TV programs to capture on the DVR?

Krugman is astonished that nothing has changed in America. He knows we ought to know better. But we don’t know better and therein lies the real challenge. How do we lead our neighbors, friends and family from the fear that binds them into a new era of cooperation and trust? I don’t know any way other than to write it out and talk it out.

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.

As a native Nebraskan, I make it a point to keep up with the progress being made by other Huskers.

Interestingly, new media stars keep shooting from the corn. Evan Williams founded Blogger, sold it to Google, then founded Twitter. Ana Marie Cox rode Wonkette to a book deal, a job with Time and talking headom on the cable news circuit. Now, Rachelle Hruska, creator of GuestofaGuest.com is making some noise.

According to The New York Times:

Ms. Hruska arrived in Manhattan in 2005 to work as a nanny, after graduating from Creighton University, a Jesuit school in Omaha, and ended up an Internet entrepreneur — a small-town-girl-makes-good tale, with a New Media gloss.

Guest of a Guest chronicles night life from the city and the Hamptons through dozens of daily posts and photographs. For followers of such coverage, the coin of the realm has traditionally been exclusivity, a sneering velvet-roped rejection. But GofG, as it calls itself, gives civilian readers the illusion that they can attend these parties, too, as virtual guests. Who would believe that the effusiveness of Nebraska Nice could sell? But in bad-news times, maybe that’s precisely why it does: the site, Ms. Hruska said, which began on April 1, 2008, broke even just this month.

What a charming assessment. But it’s safe to say there’s more than “Nebraska Nice” at work here.