MiniMediaGuy

You have until February 3 to vote for the best blogs in 30 categories. I haven’t yet had time to scan all 150 nominees, but the ones I did click to left me humbled, amused and inspired. I’m talking of course about the Bloggies, which will be announced Monday, March 14 at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.

Here’s a few entries to whet your appetite.

In the best-kept secret category, I visited Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again, the blogspot of 21-year-old Keith Causin of Queens, New York. He likes to upload and write about MP3. The day I visited, Keith began a review with these words: “Dick Valentine is a Hyper-Sexual Dance Cyborg on a mission to forcibly shake the ass of every man woman and child on this planet.” The posting linked to a butt-shaking tune. Amazing!

Under best photography weblog I chanced on The Narrative, a photo-essay site by Matt O’Sullivan of Toronto. Not a lot of words there for obvious reasons, but lovely images and an inspiration for those who want to add a visual dimension to web posts.

I was pleased to see Jane Perrone of The Guardian newspaper in London nominated under the best article about weblogs category for her piece entitled “Random Reality Bites.” The story talks about a British paramedic who blogs about his experiences and observations. A workmate alerted me to the Guardian’s Newsblog and I’ve bookmarked the site ever since and have used Jane’s how-to articles to get my own blog running.

And I was utterly amused by Dooce, the weblog of Heather B. Armstrong, who was nominated for most humorous, best written and best American weblog. Heather’s bio reveals her to be a lapsed Mormon who drinks (or at least drank) tequila, curses like a sailor, has a boob fixation and was fired (dooced, says she) for indiscreet blogging. “I started this website in February 2001,” Heather writes. “A year later I was fired from my job for this website because I had written stories that included people in my workplace. My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID.” If you’re feeling unappreciated at work read her post, The Proper Way to Hate a Job.

For now the Bloggies are about glory, not riches. But in a media-centric society, starving bloggers must hope that fortune follows fame.

On that note, Online Media Daily has a piece about New York blogging entrepreneur Nick Denton. He backs the well-known Gawker and Wonkette, also nominated for numerous Bloggies. The article says Denton will launch two new sponsor-supported blogs, “Gridskipper, dedicated to travel, and Lifehacker, which will examine software downloads and time-saving Web sites. Both blogs already have corporate marketers on board: Sony Electronics will sponsor Lifehacker, while Cheaptickets will likely sponsor Gridskipper” By taking the sponsorship route, Denton takes his cue from the early days of television, when advertisers such as Geritol sponsored shows like Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.

Of course Denton is not alone. More on the business of blogging, and the bloggies, tomorrow.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
“Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re MiniMedia”

Looking back on my first month of blogging, I managed to achieve a degree of consistency, which is good; a focus on new media business models, or so it seems to me; but no readers, which is neither unexpected nor demoralizing at this stage, although it is a condition I hope eventually to change for philosophical and practical reasons. If the new media space is indeed in the midst of a conversation, then a monologue in an empty room doesn’t quite fit the bill. Besides, it gets lonely. So in the coming month I’ll have to give some thought to outreach.

As for subjects, I’m going to continue exploring topics that either illustrate new media business models or may be useful in that regard. As should be apparent from last week’s postings on Linux and Slashdot, my definition of business model doesn’t necessarily involve profit (though I believe profits are ultimately necessary). My interest is in how people organize cyber-enterprises, with a particular focus on media.

But today the boys are out of the house on sleepovers, and I’ve promised to take my wife to Sunday brunch. I plan to celebrate the “success” of this blog, which began as a New Year’s resolution, and has achieved at least a wobbly take off. Though blogging isn’t rocket science, every rocket scientist knows that the most difficult part of any mission is overcoming the inertia and lifting that huge payload the first inch off the ground.

Tom Abate

It’s a day of odds and ends and gathering bits that didn’t find a home earlier. Ultimately I will return to my recurring question — where is the money to support web media?

First, browsers. Earlier this week I mentioned that Firefox has ad-blocking capabilities. There’s been lots of buzz about Firefox (on the open source aspect, not the ad-blocking). Wired News reacted by running a story in which Opera chief executive Jon von Tetzchner laments that his alternative browser is being overlooked. My takeaway — when little guys try something new, they need shtick. Conversely, when you’re big, you get attention even when you’d rather cover your tracks. Thus Google’s hiring of Firefox engineer Ben Goodger has renewed speculation about its browser ambitions.

Quickly, I came across a note that Kanoodle, the New York affiliate advertising firm, has elevated Lance Podell from president to chief executive (though when I went to their bio page today it hadn’t been updated). Skimming their news releases I found a link to a new ad sales system geared to bloggers, which may be of interest to some.

With that segue into money land, a recent article in MediaDailyNews, citing data from AdZone research, suggests a “slightly lower rate of ad expansion during 2005 than in 2004.” A snippet on technology marketers, who are the biggest ad spenders, made me take note: In December, they spent roughly $148 million for over 17.6 billion impressions, down from October, when they spent $188 million for around 17 billion Web impressions. I’m not sure how AdZone defines impressions but clearly the price of ads has dropped as content enters the market faster than ad dollars. Must be tough for web-based ad sellers.

Finally, getting personal, the Center for Media Research published a demographic profile of people who use dating services. In brief, they are slightly more male than female, but not absurdly so, solidly middle class, and generally in the 35 to 55 age bracket. I believe most of these are paid services. In light of the apparent downward pressure on ad prices, web publishers might start singing a different tune, more along the lines of finding match-making opportunities rather than push advertising. I’m not saying everyone should get into personals. Instead, look for ways to make money by linking people for something other than love.

Post script: When I searched for the lyrics of Matchmaker, Matchmaker, because the tune was in my head, my first choice directed me to a site offering to sell me Zero Mostel ring tones for my cell phone. What a world!

Tom Abate

The Business Week cover story, Linux Inc., got me thinking about the ways in which open source software development is a model for web-based new media — and how the differences between code-writing and content creation may make open source a difficult model to apply.

The article was rich with tidbits about Linus Torvalds and his leadership style. But I focused on a quote from Harvard Law School Internet guru James F. Moore : “Linux is the first natural business ecosystem.”

Actually, the Internet deserves that label. But if we agree that Linux is the business ecosystem with the cutest mascot, the question becomes what environmental factors enabled it to thrive.

Business Week reporter Steve Hamm put his finger on it when he wrote “IBM, HP, and others capitalize on the ability to sell machines without any upfront charges for an operating system license” by installing Linux instead of Microsoft. In short — and this is my take — powerful firms took Linux under their wing because it helped them save money and humble Microsoft.

To some extent, similar forces are in place to help grassroots web-media achieve some commercial scale vis a vis mass media. For instance, I’m blogging for free courtesy of Google which owns Blogger. I could use AdSense or some other affiliate network to bring in linked advertising (for latte money). And these affiliates are promising lower cost ad placement than mass media.

But differences between software and media limit the transferability of the Linux model. For starters, software demands interoperability, and that enforces a certain discipline on open source software efforts. Stuff either works or it doesn’t. And even when differences in approach arise, I would think there are more objective criteria for picking one code strategy over another.

With media, on the other hand, there is rarely a single right approach to any creative work. That leaves lots of room for disagreement. And while individual productions often require teamwork by specialists, I don’t see how individual productions will be packaged together in an orderly fashion so that people can find whatever content they want. Perhaps content will aggregate by affinity groups, in magazine-like formats, tailored to dog lovers or Christian Midwesterners, or lesbians. Content could also come together in regional, citywide or neighborhood collections that parallel existing media.

Not to diminish the Linux phenomenon, but those folks had a relatively simple task — make better software to run on existing computers. New media pioneers have to make better or at least different content. And they also have to invent new structures within which people can access their creations. That’s going to be a tough ecosystem to create.

Tom Abate

Slashdot is one of the seminal Open Source sites and an object lesson in volunteer content creation. This post is a catch-up exercise on my part rather than a case study, but as it may be useful for others who are just joining the new media conversation, I’ll think out loud.

Slashdot features news, comments and links on technology and politics. Items are posted and screened by volunteers. A 1999 article in The Economist said: “moderators rate comments from minus one (rubbish) to plus five (a gem). Readers can configure the site so that it shows them only comments rated, say, three or higher. If a registered Slashdot reader has made sufficient positive contributions, the service’s computers occasionally invite him to rate comments. To avoid abuse, the power of moderators is limited. They are on duty for only three days at a time, during which they rate just five postings.”

According to the (also volunteer) Wikipedia encyclopedia, Slashdot was founded in 1997 by Rob Malda, who would then have been about 21. It quickly became a locus for free or open source software enthusiasts. In 2000, Slashdot tangled with Microsoft when a Slashdotter posted some Microsoft software code. Microsoft demanded its removal. A 2000 Salon article by Anthony Leonard said, “Asking Slashdot to remove posts is like asking a hacker to cut off his or her own hands.”

But in 2001, when an anonymous poster uploaded some Scientology texts to the site, Slashdot had to remove the material, or risk losing a costly lawsuit. Malda (aka CmdrTaco) explained the decision : “This is the first time since we instituted our moderation system that a comment has had to be removed because of its content, and believe me nobody is more broken hearted about it than me.”

In between these two episodes, Slashdot was sold in 2000, ultimately to VA Software, one of the early firms to create commercial spinoffs around Linux. (In an earlier post I noted how another of the Linux commercializers is experimenting with open source media.)

Today Slashdot is part of what VA Software calls its Open Source Technology Group, a group of sites that also includes SourceForge, a forum for open source developers. The OSTG website says Slashdot gets 16 million unique monthly visitors, 96 percent of whom are male, with an average household income of $74,772. Given its focus on tech, I would imagine the site draws enough advertising to be profitable but I don’t know that.

Other interesting things I don’t know include how the moderation system evolved, and how does it continue? Wikipedia alludes to trolling episodes, heated exchanges of postings, often coupled with pranks. I’m sure there’s a fascinating story in ethos of this community which strikes me as a Lord of the Flies meets cyberspace. But that would take a case study and is more than I can blog off today.

Tom Abate

When works of creation, information and entertainment are broadly dispersed, as is the case with web media, aggregating those works and their audiences is the sine qua non of business success. This has obviously attracted intense competition, as I alluded to in yesterday’s post, and I continue to stumble across more variations on the theme, such as the adMarketplace program of Conducive Corporation.

FYI, this type of aggregator serves as an ad broker between dispersed publishers and advertisers. The apparent novelty in the adMarketplace program, as I discovered via MediaPost, is that the firm will pay web publishers a bounty for bringing in new advertisers. So if you have a site about kites, and bring a kite advertiser into the adMarketplace fold, you get a commission on all of that advertiser’s subsequent placements — even if they’re not on your site. What a salesforce multiplier! Intrigued, I poked around and found a ClickZ News article to learn more about Conducive.

So, granted, aggregation is important, but what about navigation?

It used to be that media products came wrapped, either in a physical objects like book, or a time-bound broadcasts. Hyperlinks rip open the wrappers, which is good. But it can also be bad because nowadays, the road to information is paved with distractions.

Take last night, for instance, when I started thinking about navigation while reading a post by Susan Mernit on the Media Center blogsite. I followed it to some thoughts from New Zealand web designer Richard MacManus, who led me to an article by Joshua Porter from which I extracted this snippet:

“Aggregators are promoting a shift in the control of content. They’re challenging the idea that we as designers control public access to information in our domains, that users must view things in the way we prescribe, and that our hierarchy is best to present our content.”

By that point I felt utterly lost with the everything-is-everythingness of it all. Fortunately, Porter also directed me to New Yorker Jason Kottke, who has been blogging about “web technology, photography, media, network science, design … and rip/mix/burn culture” since 1998. A site that long-lasting and eclectic would obviously be huge, so Kottke provides instructions on how to use his site: “The front page is where it all happens. On the left is where I post new entries. You’ll always find the newest stuff on the site right at the top and about 2-3 weeks worth of the most recent entries as your scroll down the page. On the right are some links to the more important pages on the site and a list of sites I like to keep an eye on.”

We need more navigation assistance if web media are going to enlarge their audiences. It’s funny to see a baby open a book from the back, or hold a phone up in the wrong way. It’s not so cute to be an adult confronted with the bewildering possibilities of the infosphere, and not know how to get from need to knowledge.

Tom Abate

The bloggers at SiliconValleyWatcher started a buzz last week with a scoop about changes to Google’s Adsense. I want to join the conversation about that newsbit, and couple it with an item about an ad shut-off utility in the Open Source browser Firefox that could give users a way to “Tivo” web ads.

First things first.

SiliconValleyWatchers Tom Foremski and Candida Kutz reported last week that Google was giving publishers greater control over “when, where and who” can view those little text ads that pop up on the pages of websites in Google’s affiliate network. (Foremski says Google had 1,800 ad people meeting in San Francisco last week!) He also had an earlier, insightful piece on Kanoodle, the New York aggregator that is challenging Google. (If you’re new to the conversation, affiliate vendors like Kanoodle, Chitika and others act as advertising brokers. They link advertisers that want to reach niche audience with MiniMedia web publishers (as I call them) starved for ad revenues.)

John Battelle circulated the scoop and added an observation from Jupiter Research’s Gary Stein that Topix had enhanced Google Adsense in a way that gave “a 500% boost in click-through rate on home page ads.” (Again, if you’ve confused, MiniMedia types who depend on affiliate ads get paid when someone clicks-thru on an ad on their site. More clicks, more cash.)

While all of this is good news for the cash-starved pioneers of cyberspace, a bit in Cory Treffiletti’s Online Spin email newsletter pointed me to several references like this how-to from weblogger Loren Hughes. It shows how to turn of all or most ads through Firefox. As Firefox catches hold, the question will be how many users opt for ad-blocking. A trend in that direction could pinch off one of the promishing cash capillaries nourishing the MiniMedia community.

Tom Abate