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Competing to get into print

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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>In 1999 I declared that journalists must accept a <a href=\"http://www.yelvington.com/item.php?id=588\">new social role as guides, not gatekeepers.</a> Today\'s New York Times has an excellent example of that principle in action, eviscerating <a href=\"http://www.insightmag.com/\">the wingnut political online magazine Insight</a> for publishing a stream of falsehoods. </p>\n<p>The news peg is an \"article on the Insight Web site asserting that the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was preparing an accusation that her rival, Senator Barack Obama, had covered up a brief period he had spent in an Islamic religious school in Indonesia when he was 6.\" The claim was bogus, but nevertheless set off a stream of chatter among right-wing pseudo-journalists that quickly spread the falsehood.</p>\n<p>Amusing, this graf:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n\"And in an interview, John Moody, a senior vice president at Fox News, said its commentators had erred by citing the Clinton-Obama report. “The hosts violated one of our general rules, which is know what you are talking about,” Mr. Moody said. “They reported information from a publication whose accuracy we didn’t know.”\"</p></blockquote>\n<p>Pointing out info-falsehood and exposing political smear campaigns is, unfortunately, a growth industry.</p>\n<p>When I did a search for Insight, Google identified it as being affiliated with the Washington Times, a connection that newspaper now disavows. However, both Insight and the Washington Times are funded by Sun Myung Moon\'s Unification Church and its right-wing Korean political affiliates.</p>\n<p><img src=\"http://www.yelvington.com/files/insight_google.png\" /></p>\n', created = 1280418781, expire = 1280505181, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '1:4b7b5deb0499dc0484830fb8e41d02be' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>A few weeks ago the word was that the Los Angeles Times\' \"Manhattan project\" (renamed \"Spring Street\") report had disappeared into the bureaucracy, never to be seen again. But it resurfaced today full of fury in a major shakeup <a href=\"http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/la-times-reorganizes-as-24-7-newsroom-meshing-online-and-print-operations-t/\">outlined by Staci Kramer at paidContent.org.</a> This is a big deal, and is especially remarkable considering the conditions under which it\'s happening. Ordinarily, when a company is on the auction block, paralysis ensues -- not radical change.</p>\n<p>I\'ve written <a href=\"http://www.yelvington.com/20061013/thinking_about_the_los_angeles_times\"> about the Los Angeles Times</a> previously. It is the poster child for the endangered metro newspaper, and it\'s significant that Rob Barrett, who \"wanted to go hyperlocal,\" has come out on top. Our <a href=\"http://www.blufftontoday.com/\">Bluffton Today</a> was one of the case studies examined by Times reporters in their research. Can the Times be a newspaper of national stature <em>and</em> a family of hyperlocal, personally relevant products? This is going to be interesting.</p>\n', created = 1280418781, expire = 1280505181, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '1:9a83e914bcf181ee5e6cd3adef75b535' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>When I read the <a href=\"http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11984\">Gannett \"Information Center\" memo</a> and its attached Q and A, I immediately worried that there was so much in it that it would be misinterpreted and lead to unpredictable side effects. Faced with the enormity of it all, people would naturally latch onto the little parts that felt most comfortable (like hard news 24x7, or video).</p>\n<p>I don\'t know whether that\'s the problem or if it\'s just a good old fashioned case of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_(game)\">playing telephone,</a> but it does seem that what\'s coming out at the bottom of the funnel is not always what was poured in the top, <a href=\"http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=22944\">judging from the whinefest</a> at SportsShooter.com. </p>\n<p>I don\'t recall the memo dictating that everyone would be a generalist and no one a specialist, or that photographers would quit shooting and spend all their time editing \"citizen journalism\" video uploads, et cetera. </p>\n<p>Introducing change at any organization is difficult. Gannett happens to be a top-down, central-control operation, and a top-down, central-control change memo comes naturally. Following it up is another thing entirely, and it looks like that will be a process full of bumps and surprises. </p>\n<p>I don\'t happen to work for such a company (we are, by comparison, decentralized), but in conversations over the last week I was surprised to hear from several editors and publishers that a \"call to action\" memo would be welcomed. </p>\n<p>There is no substitute for leadership at the top. But there\'s also no substitute for leadership at the other layers, too. Including among photographers.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.howardowens.com/2006/communicating-the-urgent-need-for-change/\">Howard Owens has some thoughts about all this on his weblog.</a></p>\n', created = 1280418781, expire = 1280505181, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '1:35a8353fedc13535ce3ad9f21eec9fe7' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p><a href=\"http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&amp;storyID=2006-11-04T004815Z_01_N03404930_RTRIDST_0_MEDIA-GANNETT.XML&amp;rpc=66&amp;type=qcna\">Some of the coverage</a> of Friday\'s announcement from Gannett that things will be different misses the most important points. This is not about putting breaking news online all day long, which -- as I observed the other day -- is <a href=\"http://www.yelvington.com/20061030/but_its_so_1994\">hardly a new idea.</a> Nor is it about equipping reporters with <a href=\"http://www.yelvington.com/blogs/video\">video cameras.</a> </p>\n<p><a href=\"http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/cs/2006/11/gannett_the_sev.html\">Wired\'s Jeff Howe</a> nails it on his blog item, which focuses on \"7 primary job areas\" that are fairly buried in <a href=\"http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11984\">the Dubow memo.</a></p>\n<p>It\'s role shift time. This is about engagement, convening community, utility, and thinking big about small. The \"what\" and not just the \"when\" and \"how.\"</p>\n', created = 1280418781, expire = 1280505181, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '1:8fbf36885d458cc9811af6c517ee3509' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>Looking over the agenda for the <a href=\"http://www.moscow2006.com/\">13th World Editors Forum,</a> which will be held this summer in Moscow, Jeff Jarvis reacts: <a href=\"http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/02/23/i-smell-fear/\">\"I smell fear.\"</a> Well, I do too. Not everywhere, but in many newsrooms there\'s a real fear of citizen journalism, ranging from a concern that it will somehow undermine quality and credibility to a paycheck-centered fear that publishers are conspiring to lay off reporters in favor of unpaid citizen labor.</p>\n<p>But I will be there telling a tale of hope, not of fear. Opening the process of journalism so that it\'s participatory, so that we listen more effectively, so that no one is disempowered, so that we genuinely reflect a community in conversation with itself leads to better journalism, higher readership of professionally produced content, and a bond with the community that newspapers have not enjoyed for more than a quarter century.</p>\n<p>Earlier this week I was in Orlando at the multifaceted NAA Marketing Conference, which included Connections, the new-media conference. I got a kick out of <a href=\"http://journalism.missouri.edu/faculty/clyde-bentley.html\">Clyde Bentley</a> of the University of Missouri -- a temple of big-J journalism if ever there was one -- declaring that editors are poor judges of what\'s important to real people. How did Clyde discover this? Through the myMissourian.com project, which asked members of the community to write for a weekly TMC product. The information priorities of consumers are sometimes the inverse of the information priorities of editors.</p>\n<p>So, who\'s right? Consumers or editors? I think that if journalists are that far out of phase with the public, a realignment is in order. But it\'s not going to happen unless professional journalists are willing to open the windows and let in a little fresh air. Be not afraid. It\'s an opportunity to do better work.</p>\n', created = 1280418781, expire = 1280505181, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '1:7fdb20118c10a79be6cf97fc8b83f1f8' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p><a href=\"http://featured.gigaom.com/2006/09/18/8020-american-idol-of-digital-photography/\">Om Malik profiles</a> a company he calls \"the American Idol of digital photography.\" The idea: Get photographers to compete online to get their work printed in a magazine. The site: <a href=\"http://www.jpgmag.com/\">JPG magazine</a>.</p>\n<p>It\'s human nature to compete for scarce resources. Online space isn\'t scarce, but print always is scarce. I wonder what use newspapers could make of this principle. Hmm.</p>\n<p>The article also has some hints about how JPG\'s website was built, taking advantage of new Web services such as Amazon.com\'s S3.</p>\n<p>We think of Amazon.com as a retailer, but it\'s unveiled some powerful new web services that can make it possible for disruptive new Web 2.0 sites to be developed:</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261\">Amazon Simple Storage Service</a> (Amazon S3) enables massive online data storage and simple HTTP delivery in a \"cloud,\" in which you pay only for the storage and bandwidth you use. This makes it possible for a video site, for example, to grow rapidly without having to manage the planning, investment and project management processes associated with adding storage arrays.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=201590011\">Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud</a> (Amazon EC2) extends this principle to computing processes. You can configure a virtual server image -- starting with a Fedora Linux base -- that includes all your applications and configuration. To add a server, you simply place an electronic order through a web services API. Absolutely all of the server setup processes from then on are automated. Your servers are up and running within minutes. </p>\n<p>Pricing on both is cheap and tied directly to what you use. Need more servers? Start them up. Need fewer? Release the resources to the grid.</p>\n<p>The disruption will kick in as entrepreneurs imagine new ways to use this power. </p>\n<p>It\'s not just about running webservers. Think video transcoding. CGI rendering. Engineering computations. A university could configure an on-demand scalable parallel computing farm for scientific modeling. Since it\'s all done on a machine-hour basis, 100 machines could work for one hour instead of 1 machine for 100 hours. This doesn\'t apply to all classes of problems, but many new doors are opened.</p>\n', created = 1280418792, expire = 1280505192, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '1:6f71782e3ede4db9b28c2fd3411ca418' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>Steve<br />\nRe <em>(i)t\'s human nature to compete for scarce resources</em> - I\'m fascinated by this concept. Some of the most interesting research coming out of the various virtual worlds forums (Terra Nova etc) seems to point towards a conclusion that players actively resist situations in which there\'s no scarcity. Or, to put it another way, since resource scarcity in a virtual environment is a design choice rather than an inevitability, and since virtual worlds without scarcity or with enforced \"equality of outcome\" economics have failed, human nature is even more warped than you suggest(!) - when presented with a free choice we actively seek to create scarcity scenarios and reject those without. Which does as you suggest paint something of a rosier picture for JPG, and newsprint generally, than the doom-mongers would have us believe.</p>\n', created = 1280418792, expire = 1280505192, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '1:e76d0a782d7f2367faf5724f94298186' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Can't open file: 'cache_filter.MYI' (errno: 145) query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>You can follow me at <a href=\"http://twitter.com/yelvington\">http://twitter.com/yelvington</a></p>\n', created = 1280418794, expire = 1280505194, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '4:3ece123c8e1e67e3b1e98eee1effd0e9' in /var/www/yelvington.com/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
September 19, 2006 - 10:24am — yelvington

Om Malik profiles a company he calls "the American Idol of digital photography." The idea: Get photographers to compete online to get their work printed in a magazine. The site: JPG magazine.

It's human nature to compete for scarce resources. Online space isn't scarce, but print always is scarce. I wonder what use newspapers could make of this principle. Hmm.

The article also has some hints about how JPG's website was built, taking advantage of new Web services such as Amazon.com's S3.

We think of Amazon.com as a retailer, but it's unveiled some powerful new web services that can make it possible for disruptive new Web 2.0 sites to be developed:

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enables massive online data storage and simple HTTP delivery in a "cloud," in which you pay only for the storage and bandwidth you use. This makes it possible for a video site, for example, to grow rapidly without having to manage the planning, investment and project management processes associated with adding storage arrays.

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) extends this principle to computing processes. You can configure a virtual server image -- starting with a Fedora Linux base -- that includes all your applications and configuration. To add a server, you simply place an electronic order through a web services API. Absolutely all of the server setup processes from then on are automated. Your servers are up and running within minutes.

Pricing on both is cheap and tied directly to what you use. Need more servers? Start them up. Need fewer? Release the resources to the grid.

The disruption will kick in as entrepreneurs imagine new ways to use this power.

It's not just about running webservers. Think video transcoding. CGI rendering. Engineering computations. A university could configure an on-demand scalable parallel computing farm for scientific modeling. Since it's all done on a machine-hour basis, 100 machines could work for one hour instead of 1 machine for 100 hours. This doesn't apply to all classes of problems, but many new doors are opened.

Comments

September 20, 2006 - 2:44am — Seamus McCauley (not verified)

Scarce resources and human nature

Steve
Re (i)t's human nature to compete for scarce resources - I'm fascinated by this concept. Some of the most interesting research coming out of the various virtual worlds forums (Terra Nova etc) seems to point towards a conclusion that players actively resist situations in which there's no scarcity. Or, to put it another way, since resource scarcity in a virtual environment is a design choice rather than an inevitability, and since virtual worlds without scarcity or with enforced "equality of outcome" economics have failed, human nature is even more warped than you suggest(!) - when presented with a free choice we actively seek to create scarcity scenarios and reject those without. Which does as you suggest paint something of a rosier picture for JPG, and newsprint generally, than the doom-mongers would have us believe.

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