From Kevin Kelly on the occasion of his 73rd birthday, 101 bits of
additional life advice. “Most arguments are not really about the argument,
so most argum...
Archive for 04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013
Is Andrew Sullivan's Way the Only Way for Bloggers Who Want to Make Real Money?
Amidst a raging debate, stemming from a recent PEW report on the state of News Media, whether it is theGolden Age of journalism or it is barely breathing its last, the journalistic world is keenly watching Andrew Sullivan's recent 'pay wall' experiment with his famous blog, 'The Dish'.
Though the unfulfilled expectations in advertising revenues of main stream digital news media is widely perceived as the motivation for this venture, the Blogoshphere, at large, is not holding breath, thanks to the respect bloggers are gaining as influencers in brand promotion.
Contrary to the gloom and doom perception among News bloggers, a Technorati report on digital influence in 2013 place Bloggers as an influential tribe on the up, whose real value is not grasped by those who splurge massive budgets on brand promotions.
Though blogs and influencers don't get a large portion of brands' digital spend, they rank high with consumers for trust, popularity and influence. When making overall purchase decisions, for consumers, blogs trail only behind retail and brand sites.
In fact, like the state of the media, there is much overlapping here thought he Technorati report doesn't seem to draw any distinction.
However, there is much convergence in the findings of the two reports as to the diversion of digital advertising resources from digital news media to other the digital media including blogs, with display ads, video and search claiming bulk of the spending.
Though the Technorati report further identify the preference for mobile, social and video, where the buck gets the maximum bang, as the preferred technologies, Blogging has a 30% share, only behind Facebook, twitter and Youtube.
Clearly there is huge distinction between Blogging in journalism like that of Andrew Sullivan's, which influence politics, at least in the developed world, and hugely contributes to focus on issues and change the shape of the world and Blogging as a channel to stream world's accumulated expertise for the benefit of consumers, which seem to benefit from the current trend.
In reality, with the sticky amalgam, which the TV, Print and Digital media as well as the social web tend to become, bloggers as a tribe, to remain to remain influential, may find it necessary to go behind a pay wall to win back credibility, the fundamental virtue in journalism, something money can't buy.
In fair criticism of the erosion of professionalism and standards which over a period of time will only destroy the trust, much like the paper advertisement lost its mettle decades ago for the same reasons, Bob Garfield of the Guardian rightly states:
All of that fantastic content Yglesias was gushing about is paid for by venture capitalists making bad bets, established media companies digging into their savings accounts to pay the bills, displaced workers earning peanuts, amateurs, semi-pros, volunteers and monks.
Then, there's e-payola: pay-per-post, pay-per-tweet, pay-per-review - and their cousin, affiliate advertising, which gives bloggers and tweeters incentive to steer readers toward transaction. In broadcast TV, there's the serial incest between the news divisions and entertainment divisions, and on local TV, video news releases camouflaged as reportage.
Yet, none of these gimmicks is on the way out. Au contraire, they're all growing. Which is terrifying, for what they all have in common is that, to one degree or another, they compromise editorial integrity. Readers and viewers have no way of knowing that they are being marketed to, or that the content is inherently untrustworthy.
If anything, the social web, which in the case of Facebook which has grown over one billion members only accelerate this pernicious erosion of integrity.
For example, information put on the web can go viral irrespective of its factual nature merely by human and emotional reaction, very often producing unjustified results. This is further complicated by the level of education and evolution of the society.
However, over a long term the trust deficit from this onslaught volume over quality will be compensated by economic reasons, much like the manufacturing industry is slowly returning from China.
The demand for quality and veracity will inevitably grow due to scarcity and bloggers will be no exception to this trend. This of course implies that not only News Bloggers like Andrew Sullivan but anyone who wants to keep high standards and quality will have to start expecting to be paid for it in some manner.
When Bulls, Hawks, Cubs and Bears Start Playing Hail Mary Like Lady Gaga, It Is a Different Ball Game!
CSN Chicago, a part of NBC Sports Regional Networks, is changing the meaning of sports forever!
Sports used to be something a few celebrities engaged in for the rest of us to watch and the press used to have a field day about.
The nature of sports and its explosive emotional upheaval has changed a long time ago by the infusion of music which has immense mass appeal. The emotional swaying power of music and its celebrity creators have blended well with the turmoil of sports, taking it to exhilarating heights in the past.
The Three Tenors Concert of Los angel Super bowl remains a musical moment etched in the history of sports. Numbers like We will Rock you by Queen still reverberate in stadiums around the world. The bears have even turned music celebrities in the past by performing Super bowl Shuffle for charity.
It is the genius of music celebrities like Lady Gaga in turning technology and the immense influential power of the ever expanding social web, to pamper and keep hold on their fan base, which the giants of sports have borrowed this time.
#Kobe Bryant: Heart of a lion.Derrick Rose: Heart of a shivering chihuahua.notsportscenter.com/koberosefacebo…
— Haceb Ehcen (@Possessed_OG) April 14, 2013
The interactive social experiences technology CSN Chicago sought out for their new social engaging feature Team Pulse is the same as the one which Lady Gaga employed with great success to engage with her fans in real time through her website, provided by ARKTAN, specialised in creating engaging user experiences on the social web and TV.
However, unlike the massive benefits such interactive features bring to celebrities like Lady Gaga in the entertainment field, the Team plus feature of CSN has far deeper and wide reaching power to convert all sports to mass sports.
For example, real time interactive facilities provided for the 'Bulls Pulse', the official site of BULLS, include real time curated time lines of Bulls Talk for fans, Press Box, Player Tweets, Official Bulls & NBA and Instagram photos. The feature also includes a Trending list of players with mentions each get during the event.
What this means is that everyone involved and watching a game live and all those away from the venue but engaged through TV or other media can express their views, opinions and criticisms, which everyone else can see and react to, anywhere around the world.
The revolution in smart phones and tablets, which has rendered such interaction easy and enjoyable and platforms on the social web like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and numerous Blogs and forums take the game to the level of a global event.
What does this mean in reality? Spectators can now influence players during the game. Someone can pass a valuable tip or advice the coach is missing. The commentator can see the trend and focus on a player if he is doing well or making mistakes because the tweets are benign or nasty. Everyone can see how much attention the game is catching so everything including the live ads can be changed. See where this is going ?
In fact the Instagram stream brings much fun to the experience by letting everyone express their feelings of the 'moment' before, during and after the event in an unprecedented and unique way, giving a sense of one to one community participation in the event.
Adding short video streams like 'vine' can add depth to this experience if added to the page, leveraging on the immense addictive power of this new social media platform, something CSN and the technology provider need to consider.
Further making the streams scrollable can enhance participants experience by being able to revisit and 'miss' nothing, especially if they want to share at a later time.
It is only just the beginning of a trend how the sporting world is going to change. Pretty soon, such features can become standard for several other games like football and cricket, basket ball and hockey popular in other parts of the world.
The impact of interactive features like Team pulse can be much far reaching changing the laws of the games, their engagement, betting industry, entertainment and TV and even the popularity.
Pretty soon, like Psy of South Korea who has taken the world by storm with his 'Gagnam Style' and now his follow on 'Gentleman' which had over 10 million Youtube hits under 24 Hrs, locales and national boundaries will disappear for sporting events.
One thing is sure. The way people will live and relax during weekends will certainly change. There may be nothing of interest about a game you watched over the weekend to talk about aound the Monday morning coffee in the office!
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