MiniMediaGuy

I’ve been blogging for about six months now after more than 30 years as a professional writer in the linear medium of print. Professional means I got paid. Linear means every written work, from start to finish, was self-contained. What-you-read-was-all-you-got. So now this old dog is trying to learn a new trick — how to insert useful digressions into a written work by using hyperlinks. Of course, one of the first things any writer learns is that, when think you’ve had a brainstorm, there’s a good chance that someone else has had it first. That was the case when I used terms like “hyperthinking” and “hyperwriting” to search for this concept in cyberspace. Sure enough, Doc Searls, who is well known in blogging circles but who may be unfamiliar to newcomers, once delved into this area in his own folksy way by asking his readers whether “they appreciate(d) the linky way I write?” John Waterson responded and Doc posted John’s reply — from which I have snipped this double-edged bit: “Good links should open up the conversation; they should present participants in the discourse with options which they can follow up on, if they so choose.” But, John warned, they can also stifle conversation when and if they present “an obligation that must be fulfilled if you want to keep up.”

A New Zealander named Matthew Thomas also wrote a thoughtful do’s and don’t of links that also marveled at the wonderfulnew tool of digression which I have discovered through blogging: “This is the true beauty of hypertext,” he wrote. “If someone wants to explore a particular idea, they can jump mid-sentence into a linked document, returning to the original at their leisure — or not at all.”

I must say that the “or not at all” bit worried me. After all, I’m not getting paid for this. I’d at least like to get read.

In looking for how to craft links so as to add information value without losing readers, I came across Kairosnews, a scholarly forum to help “hyperwriters … master a new process that includes electronic links, visual images, sound, animation, and other forms of data within a single digitized writing space.”

And the English Department at the University of South Florida offers an introductory course on blogging that would be of particular interest to teachers — and contained this nugget that should be heeded by all denizens of the blogosphere: “Blogs gain power over time, showing how the writer’s (or writers’) mind (or minds) works. Over time, bloggers become known for being informative about a topic or set of topics. Bloggers attract readers by researching their topics, by providing evidence for assertions, and by creating a tone and persona that readers find informative or entertaining.”

Given all this wisdom on the topic, what can an old print hack contribute to the grammar of hyperthinking? Perhaps the discipline of writing short and tight — because even if there exists an infinite amount of space to be filled with our words, links or whatever, who has time to follow them! And perhaps I can offer the occasional amusement. So as it is now fashionable to say here in “Kalifornia” — Hasta la vista, baby.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

There may be lies and damn lies but at least The Numbers Guy has saved us from the pseudo-statistical inflation of the blogsphere. Instead of 31.6 million blogs, an estimate that many, like me, have unquestioningly referenced, Wall Street Journal Online columnist Carl (aka Numbers Guy) Bialik says there may be more like 3.5 million active blogs — if “active” is defined as a posting in the last 30 days. And, he suggests, far fewer than a million bloggers do it daily. Thanks to Staci Kramer at Paid Content for pointing me to Bialik’s column, which is worth reading in its entirety, as I will only summarize a few points here. Bialik writes that when BlogPulse researcher Natalie Glance studied activity in January, she found that “the typical active blogger posted an update just once every 10 days.” Elsewhere he writes that, at a recent blogging conference, Technorati chief executive David Sifry estimated that “daily volume is 800,000 to 900,000 posts.” Bialik notes that BlogPulse, “which says it has more blogs in its index, counts only between 350,000 and 450,000 posts a day — and that number has held steady for about a year, even as the total number of blogs has accelerated.” But the real thrust of Bialik’s commentary is that counting blogs is beside the point. It’s traffic and readership that matter. And here the message is similarly deflating — blog reach seems to be exaggerated. He asked ComScore Media Metrix to look at the April traffic for 13 prominent blogs, by counting their unique visits. “Just five met the company’s minimum threshold for statistical significance of about 150,000 monthly visitors,” Bialik writes. “Media and gossip site Gawker had the most, with 304,000 unique visitors. The others that cleared the cut: Defamer (287,000), Boing Boing (250,000), Daily Kos (212,000) and Gizmodo (209,000) … By point of comparison, comScore says the New York Times’s Web site had 29.8 million unique visitors in April.” Bialik presumably offered that last comparison as a reality check, but it coul be stood on its head. The Times is over a century old. These blogs are barely out of their virtual diapers. Iwonder what the comparisons will look like in a few years — or whether incumbent media will simply acquire the top blogs and extinguish any distinctions between the new and old media.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

I need to learn more about two related phenomenon, narrowcasting and IPTV. Narrowcasts define themselves by contrast to broadcasts. The former is targeted, the latter less discriminate. IP stands for “internet protocol” — chopping a transmission into bits, sending out its parts electronically, then reassembling the whole at its destination. Sending television to niche audiences sounds like a big new opportunity. For a concise summary of IPTV, including links for further exploration, read the entry at Answers.com. My one-sentence synopsis would be — with the ability to chop up video and deliver it via the Internet, television programs (an anachronistic phrase!) can be sent anywhere, even handheld devices. Narrowcasting is the kindred concept — and though it may have slightly different meanings depending on who is using the term, the simple fact it is becoming possible to target video to small audiences. I am sure we will learn in time whether it is possible to make money in narrowcasting, as firms are already popping up to become the consolidators and deliverers of video narrowcasts. To start learning the names of these firms, I found an Associated Press article posted by Wired News. Oakland Tribune reporter Francine Brevetti (a colleague in the Northern California journalism community) recently wrote two related articles, one on IPTV in general, and the other on Akimbo, one of the emerging narrowcasters. A website called Internet Protocol Television seems to track developments in this arena. At this point that’s all I know about IPTV. It isn’t much so I wont ramble on much longer, except to say that, having written about the tech industry for 20 years, I think this phenomenon is in the early stages of a long-lasting and fundamental shift, that could decentralization the distribution of video and will almost certainly revolutionize the nature of programming. Today we consume TV in 30 minutes chunks (allowing time for commercials). That is an artifact of the need to maintain a broadcast schedule. What happens in a narrowcast world? Well, over the next 10 or 15 years we’ll find out, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this — as I learn other things I think worth saying.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

Today I want to remind myself that sales and, by extension, advertising, rely on word of mouth referrals. The Internet is the ideal word of mouth (WOM) medium because it is easy to pass on recommendation (or warnings). But the examples that occur to me involve dispersed communities of interest rather than compact communities of locale. Thus I wonder: can small publishers localize WOM to create a tool to woo local advertisers to the Web? A recent Wired News article focused a new trade group, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, provided an overview of the phenomenon in the context of Web media, and related it to kindred concepts like viral marketing.
Another piece in Wired News celebrated the do-yourself campaign to spread Firefox, the freeware browser, citing “users so loyal they devise their own DIY promotion ideas” notably the Funnyfox series of short video clips. More recently, a Media Post article re-emphasized the importance of referrals and suggested there were three levels of reference-makers: “social influentials, who have large networks of connections to other consumers; category influentials, who are well-informed about a certain product category; and brand influentials, who are strong advocates for or against certain brands.” All of this is interesting if you’re a large corporation trying to manage consumer perceptions or a startup trying to create a community of interest around some notion (as in Move On) or product. But can the Web be used to develop word of mouth for local advertisers? Many articles, like this piece from ClickZ or CNet item discuss how difficult it has been to get local advertisers to jump onto the Web. Big Web sites can live without the support of these small, local companies. Small Web publishers may absolutely depend on local advertisers — and the lack of success of the search engines may create an opportunity for publishers and marketers astute enough to make the Web-wide word of mouth magic work in the local context. So what is the sine qua non of the successful viral campaign — creating short, sharp images or thoughts that people want to pass along the item to friends and associates.Word of mouth is about sharing. The Web makes that easy. Small publishers with a local focus merely need look into their communities to find the inside jokes and cute images that help create community — then link some local advertiser to that shared mindset. For example, if the objective is to get the local pet shop to advertise, how about encouraging customers to send in their digital images for a Pooch of the Month contest (be sure to make provisions to scan hard copy prints for customers who take pictures on film; and then there’s the Feline community to consider). If word of mouth is a powerful Web tool, then it should be exceptionally powerful at the local level — and most accessible to small publishers who observe globally then act locally.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

Yesterday I suggested that small, independent media creators should congregate in malls, built around a shared space to hold receptions or run training classes. Today I want to continue making the case that new media may need an old-fashioned retail presence. Several months ago I was introduced to a San Francisco startup called Memento Press.It is a retail store that shows people how to turn their photographs into books, calendars or other printed keepsakes — and then makes these artifacts for them. Memento’s founders know that web-based firms offer the same service. In fact they’re former web executives. (I apologize for not having more info but I’m traveling and my paper file on this is at home. I did find a reference (if you follow the link scroll to the bottom) that confirms my recollection that Memento co-founder John Litwin used to be an executive with Ofoto and BabyCenter. Litwin apparently wrote a case study about BabyCenter’s that contains some ideas germane to this discussion.). I don’t know how Memento is doing, nor does one example validate the notion of a media mall. But I am encouraged that seasoned web execs see the value of going retail. What I don’t know about malls could fill a book (though I will try to learn). But I do know they generally require an anchor tenant. In the media world, print shops are an obvious example. Another possible anchor, with more “new media” appeal would be a store to turn old films and videos into family documentaries or business presentations. People are already doing this as hobbies or stand-alone businesses. For some operators it will make sense to get a retail presence, to draw customers and get business out of the garage. Who else might populate a mall? Every town and community has advertising agencies, public relations firms , photographers and other professionals who live and die by media. These professionals are going to become more, not less necessary in the era of e-commerce. Just look at the cottage industry that has grown up around teaching firms how to get the most of their search term bidding. Many small businesses don’t even know what they need to know to stay competitive. Creating a media mall will help educate these potential customers about new services they need to flourish.. So far I’ve talked mainly about how a media mall would recruit customers by creating a destination for media services and expertise. But there is another value to aggregating small media firms — they will all need robust networking and data systems, and I find it hard to believe that these small operators will have all the expertise they need to maintain these systems. Therefore, I envision that the media mall would also provided network administration, data storage and recovery services. These could be arranged on a sliding scale depending on use. (Mentioning this makes me think of another potential anchor tenant — a hosting service with the ambition of creating e-commerce web sites for local small businesses. If the mall attracted web designers there would be a synergy between the host — which would operate all the gear — and these designers, who would recruit the small business clients, design their sites and hold their hands. I have lots more to learn. I have no idea what the market is for retail space, nor do I understand the process of leasing and sub-leasing. But I think there’s something here. You hear a lot of talk these days about media ecosystems. What is an ecosystem? An environment that facilitates certain processes. That’s how I see the media mall.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

Businesses tend to cluster. Buyers like to shop in business clusters. That explains the popularity of food courts, antique districts, farmers’ markets and shopping malls. I think it makes sense for small media producers to create “malls” for printers, web designers, videographers, photographers, newsletter editors, and all the other specialists who produce content.

This notion struck me a few days ago and in thinking it through, a picture began to emerge. To understand my vision (fantasy?), I should tell you that this idea struck me while I was attending the 40th birthday party of a neighborhood friend.

The party was held at our local coffee shop. There must have been three dozen adults and two dozen children milling about. In this public venue, the party had become a community event.

That’s when it struck me that media build communities. Or perhaps communities form around media. Either way, small-scale or amateur media producers who aspire to become professionals, need ways to encourage community formation. It’s not all going to happen online. The best communications medium is no medium. It’s face-to-face.

That’s why the central feature of my fantasized media mall is a meeting hall or party room capable of holding five or six dozen people. That would be enough space to hold a reception or screen a video, or set up tables for a weekend workshop to teach Photo Shop for, say, $250.

This party place would be shared by mall renters. Tomorrow I’ll talk about these possible renters. Today I simply want to argue that we need a new distribution channel for small scale media. We already buy mass media though existing channels. We subscribe to cable. We buy mass produced CDs and DVDs at retail chains, though that business model is under attack from both legal and illicit downloads.

And we have also purchased custom-made media, generally through face-to-face transactions. In the past such purchases might have included the PTA newsletter, the business brochure, or the calendar with the kids’ photos on each month.

Technology is making it possible to create new types of custom-made media. We can make small batches of hardcover books. Filled with family photos, they make wonderful keepsakes. Videographers can create low-budget documentaries, possibly for distribution via DVD — and perhaps pay the rent by giving this treatment to wedding productions.

So we are moving into an age of custom media. What better way to alert people that new things are possible than to create the media mall where they might visit one day to get a quote on their PTA newsletter and see something new to them — like the gold embossed 50th anniversary photo book that some other person had made for their parents.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

Dan Gillmor, the former San Jose Mercury news columnist turned citizen journalist, defined particpatory news-gathering and outlined its guiding principle at the World Editors Forum conference that was held recently in Seoul.

I will excerpt portions of Gillmor’s speech below. But first let me note that South Korea is home to what may be the world’s most successful experiment in participatory media — Ohmynews. This is citizen-driven news operation that, some observers say, influenced the outcome of South Korea’s last presidential election. The World Editors Forum, a Eurocentric organization, published a special weblog from the conference, which will give you some of the who’s-who and what-was-said of the event.

Gillmor’s speech touches on themes he explored in his book, “We the Media” — part-reportage on the changes in media production and consumption, and part-manifesto in celebration of those changes.

Media, says Gillmor, are undergoing “an evolution from the lecture model, to which we in mass media have become accustomed in the past century, to something closer to a conversation … the former audience can now become part of the journalism process, whether by communicating with professional journalists or, increasingly, producing their own content … If we accept the idea that we are moving toward a more conversational system, then we must remember that the first rule in having a conversation is to listen.”

Gillmor notes that not all bloggers are journalists; some merely wish to create shared, personal diaries. But for those bloggers who wish to produce news, he urges four basic rules: be thorough (in reporting); be accurate (in making factual assertions); be fair (in presenting the complexity of events); and be transparent (in disclosing any bias or perspective that may influence your presentation).

“Money is not the major push behind citizen journalism,” says Gillmor. “It is the entirely human desire to tell each other our stories, to help each other navigate through this complex and often insane world.” But, he adds: “This doesn’t mean that citizen reporting should always be an exercise in volunteering. We must develop sound business models to support new media forms. They are coming.”

I look forward to seeing more as Gillmor puts some of his ideas into practice at Bayosphere, an evolving tech-based participatory journalism experiment in his home (and mine!) the San Francisco Bay area.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
Cause if you ain’t Mass Media,