A night filled with computer problems for both Steven and I leads to us being a bit snarkier than usual for TechMeme Friday, but is that really a bad thing?
(Links by Steven for some of the stories we discuss in this episode)
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It’s Friday, and around the Braindead Techcast, that means it’s TechMeme Friday! Woo-hoo! Nothing like making fun of a whole bunch of stories all in one shot! As always, we just head down the TechMeme page and comment on each story, stopping to comment on the most interesting ones, and mock the others.
(Links by Steven for some of the stories we discuss in this episode)
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As someone who works as a professional blogger, I hear endlessly about how print media is blaming all of its woes on “new media.” Well, I’ve got a news flash for you, if you just stop whining and work at it, you can save yourselves.
Earlier this week, Peter Kafka at Media Memo reported that magazine publisher Condé Nast sold 6,614 copies of the Dec. issue of GQ via iTunes, and some 12,000 copies of the Jan. issue. At $2.99 each, that comes out to $55655.86, minus the 30 percent Apple keeps from app sales means they grossed $389595.10. Of course this doesn’t count in conversion from print, paying writers and so on, but it does show that an experiment can work, and there is money to be made on the iPod Touch and iPhone for print media.
Of course it isn’t just Apple products where print media is pulling itself up by the proverbial boot straps. I recently interviewed Paul Greenberg, Executive Vice President & General Manager of TVGuide.com, for TechnoBuffalo. You would think of all the publications from the old days of ‘print as king’ that should have died off, TV Guide should be fairly high on that list due to the nature of on-screen guides from your cable company and satellite providers. Instead the company is thriving in the digital age with a Web site that is drawing in users in droves. Here are just some of its statistics:
Four years ago the site averaged four million unique visitors a month, it is now at 21 million a month with 45 percent year-over-year growth
Each user averages a session time of 18 minutes, 36 page views per visit and five visits per month
50 percent are under the age of 35 (25 percent four years ago), and 29 percent have an annual household income of over $100K
iPhone app has over 400K installs
If you aren’t familiar with Web statistics, 18 minute user sessions is a huge number. Most sites are happy in the single digits, but TVGuide.com is not just pulling them in through search engine optimization, they are keeping them there once they arrive. This is a huge selling point for advertisers that want to by ad inventory on the site.
So here you have two stalwarts of the old guard print media that have quietly been working on ways to keep up with technology, and making it work for them. On the flip side you have Rupert Murdoch of News Corp whining and moaning incessantly about the evils of new media. His solution to all of this is to pull his company’s content from the Web as much as possible. He is trying to get other publishers to agree with him to cut off Google from being able to index their stories because they feel they are nothing more than thieves. In addition to casting out these scoundrels, they also want to begin charging for their content.
Of course what they don’t understand is that by cutting off indexing of their sites, it won’t matter if they charge for their stories, no one will be able to find them.
Just as the music industry has tried to blame all of its woes on piracy, the majority of print media is trying to find a scapegoat for their own short comings. At the FTC’s How Will Journalism Survive The Internet Age? conference back in Dec., Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post spent the majority of her 25 minute speaking session attacking these ideas according to paidContent.
Apparently, some in the old media have decided that it is, in fact, an either/or game and that the best way to save, if not journalism, at least themselves, is by pointing fingers and calling names. In most industries, if your customers were leaving in droves, you would try to figure out what to do to get them back.
And that brings us back to the start. There are at least two companies that have stopped their finger pointing (not that they ever did any actual finger pointing to the best of my knowledge) and done things to get their customers back. One has gone a paid route, the other has remained free, so it is evidence that both methods do work, but it is still evidence that print media can survive in the digital age as opposed to hunting it down like Frankenstein’s monster, torches in hand.
One of the things Mr. Greenberg from TVGuide.com said to me repeatedly, and it really stuck with me, was that the site was successful because it was “immersive.” When you visit their site, the wealth of information you find relating to any television property is impressive by any measure. He also said one of the keys to the TV networks surviving the onslaught of online media was that “they have to evolve quickly.” Well, yes, they do, and so do their print counterparts.
It is a law of nature that if a species doesn’t evolve to new surroundings, it dies off. Print media has to evolve, and it has to do it as soon as possible. If they are busy using their fingers to point to the evil new media as opposed to typing out code on keyboards, guess what’s going to happen to them.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
In this episode, Steven and I discuss how the FTC can’t make up its mind about how much it is going to enforce its disclosure rules … and then we somehow end up talking about the evils of the entertainment industry and its war on copyright laws. We do tend to wander. (links by Steven)
After two weeks of adding blogs, one is gone this week (SitePoint), and all the rest remain. Hopefully this will be my list for some time to come … unless I go insane and add more. And, for those keeping score, the total number of posts for this week is 54.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I take a look at the hair pulling over Facebook privacy, the plan to attack AT&T as led by Fake Steve Jobs and the whole Microsoft/Plurk debacle … in other words a whole load of stuff that annoyed us today. (links by Steven)
I am not sure I have ever been as insulted as I was last night.
At 5:48 p.m. last night I received the following e-mail: (emphasis theirs)
Hi Sean, I am with [redacted site name]. I have a question regarding your [redacted article link] article. I’m sure you get requests for this all the time, but we would love to be considered for placement in the article as we are a community of independent artists and offer many mp3 downloads, free and legal. I believe we are an excellent resourse and are a very relevant site to the article. I know, since the article was already completed a while back, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go back and change something, so we would love to compensate you for your troubles. And to make sure you know our site is legit, by all means, check it our for yourself. Here is our main [redacted link] page, which is sub-categorized by genre. Please let me know if this might be possible. Thank you for your consideration.
Yes folks, someone offered me a bribe to get placement in a list I did about 18 months ago.
I replied with:
For future reference, no legitimate journalist would ever accept compensation for such an act. You need to learn how to approach writers before you do yourself any more damage.
Believe me, I had more to say, and most of it wouldn’t have been re-printable if I hadn’t edited myself.
The idea that I would ever accept ‘compensation’ from a third-party for inclusion into a piece of my work disgusts me to my very core. As I have said many times before, I never attended any form of journalism school, but I think just about any one with half a brain cell knows that you do not make an offer such as this. And hopefully every journalist would know not to accept it.
I have no delusions about being a serious journalist, but I at least attempt to be an ethical one. This is part of the reason the whole FTC disclosure guidelines thing annoyed me so much as I am already ethical without being threatened into it.
All that being said, I cannot believe someone would actually attempt this. Who in their right ming just out and out offers what amounts to a bribe to a journalist? Perhaps they are new, hence why I have opted to conceal their name and site address, but you would think common sense might kick in and say, “Hey, maybe this isn’t a good idea.” Whatever the case may be, offering ‘compensation’ to a journalist of any type is reprehensible.
Some have said tech journalists being given gadgets to review is a form of bribe, and to those people I would ask, “How do you expect us to review the product if we have never seen or used it?” Do you want us to write reviews strictly from the biased press releases and professionally shot photography? Isn’t a move reviewer getting to see a movie early and free the same? ”Well, I watched the trailer and this movie looks amazing, go see it.”
However, I digress, don’t try bribing me, it won’t end well for you.
And, just a note to anyone else who ever ponders doing this: If you try to bribe me to be added to an article, I will publish your name and mock you publicly. This serves as the one and only warning anyone will ever receive on this matter.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Mark and I take yet another look at the whole FTC disclosure debacle in the wake of the fact that it has now turned into a joke meme in the blogosphere. Maybe the FTC will some day decide to clarify itself, until then, let the humor commence.
Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!
For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!
Steven and I discuss the FTC guidelines taking effect on Dec. 1st. Are you preparing your disclosures? Checking them twice? We also spend some time discussing the death of the CrunchPad … and laughing about it.
The primary focus is on how the FTC has left so many questions about all of the new rules we are supposed to follow, but yet they remain silent, not answering blogger’s questions. Do we have to go back and add them to old posts? What about using the “Like” feature on some sites? It’s a mess. (Links thanks to Steven)
Apparently I am in the completely wrong blogging game.
Technology is something I am passionate about, and while I love writing about it, it isn’t exactly making me rich. There is also an illusion that tech bloggers get piles of free products to review, but I can tell you with all honesty that I have received exactly three review units in the nearly three years I have been doing this, and one of those came to me after I wrote about the product and hadn’t even asked for it. The company just appreciated my favorable comments about the product.
If you aren’t familiar with the term, mommy bloggers are commonly considered to be stay at home moms that have taken up blogging as a way to share their views and share tips with one another. Well, they have been elevated by marketers to a level where they think these are the ultimate online influencers of key demographics, and have in turn begun to lavish them with gifts, trips and perks to try to sway them to their side.
While there have been many stories on this subject, the Los Angeles Times had a very frank, and honestly disturbing, look into just how much companies are giving these people to win them over. The article by P.J. Huffstutter and Jerry Hirsch will more than likely be decried by the rather … “outspoken” mommy blogger community as being one-sided and unfair to them, but facts are facts, and these little trips they go on are fairly well-known.
There are tales of how these people get flown to lavish events, meet celebrities, get put up in posh hotels, have steaks sent to their houses to feed their families while they are gone, dine with executives and so on, all in the hopes that they will write positive things. And while some of these bloggers do disclose that these things happen, others don’t, and that is where the problem comes in.
The most disturbing portion of the article to me was the following section:
“They handle the family budget,” said Amanda Vega, an industry consultant who specializes in social media and public relations. “People read them and believe them, because they’re easy to identify with.”
They also rarely are critical. Christine Young, owner of the From Dates to Diapers blog, has a closet full of free baby products she never liked. She hasn’t mentioned them in her blog.
They’re still there, sitting on the shelves, waiting to be donated.
“My business is not to bash companies,” said Young, 32, who lives in the Sacramento area. “My business is to create buzz for the products and services we enjoy.”
Do you see the problem between these two sections? The marketers know they are “trusted”, but how can readers really trust bloggers who only write positive things? Ms. Young’s comment of “My business is to create buzz for the products and services we enjoy” basically translates into “Hi, I’m a product whore, and to continue to get these products I promise to never, ever say anything bad about your products … can you send me some steaks?”
If you are going to do nothing but write high praises about all the stuff you have gotten for free don’t call yourself a blogger of any kind – you’re a shill. Period.
So what is it Mommy Bloggers? Are you being honest with your readers, or are you nothing but shameless shills?
So here you have two stalwarts of the old guard print media that have quietly been working on ways to keep up with technology, and making it work for them. On the flip side you have Rupert Murdoch of News Corp whining and moaning incessantly about the evils of new media. His solution to all of this is to pull his company’s content from the Web as much as possible. 
After two weeks of adding blogs, one is gone this week (SitePoint), and all the rest remain. Hopefully this will be my list for some time to come … unless I go insane and add more. And, for those keeping score, the total number of posts for this week is 54.
I am not sure I have ever been as insulted as I was last night.
Apparently I am in the completely wrong blogging game.
