Publishers Need New Filters - And Friends

There has been much hand-wringing over the camp fire of late amongst the 'traditional' media concerning futile attempts to restrain publication of various 'stories' in the face of [trumpets sound] "The Blogosphere", as Charon QC has described.

Even after 15 years of public Internet development, we are still in the midst of a "fight over information flows and access to flows", as Clay Shirky put it. The traditional media are really bleating because we - their readers - have moved away from their cosy, "free-rider resistant", proprietary model of information distribution to a new "free-rider tolerant" model. A plunge in production costs and a diffusion of free self-publishing applications has meant that quality-filters no longer need to be applied at source. A glance at all media, from the nightly television schedules to books, to social networks, radio and daily newspapers prove that people will watch, read and listen to all sorts of crap. It's just a matter of enabling people to find the crap they want - creating new filters that work for creators and their audiences alike.

Unfortunately for the traditional media, the best of that territory is now occupied by others, and their only response has been to circle the wagons. While they stuck to the old trail and a broken business model, various facilitators began to understand and solve consumers' filtering problem - notably Google, whose CEO can now lecture the newspapers on their future, amongst others. The iPad has really opened up the "apps" channel as a whole new form of content. Facebook has recently struck another significant blow, and the semantic web is developing fast, while others continue to study the challenge of "information overload". The traditional media response to all this has been either to figure out a way to get us to collaborate exclusively on their proprietary platforms or erect a 'paywall' to charge directly for accessing their own content. Others have enlisted government support, with questionable results.

It's not over, of course. The digital era has only just begun. Newspapers, books, movies are not dead. Innovation doesn't kill anything. Everything co-exists. Electronic book readers, like the Kindle, are effectively new filters that still oblige you to pay for reading books and newspapers (and blogs). More and more information will be added at an exponentially increasing rate. Filters will continue to break and taste patterns will shift constantly. Many old niches remain, and finding new niches will take editorial and marketing skill, some of which still resides inside the traditional media wagons.

But they need to uncircle those wagons and start making friends.

Seen This, Seen Them All

I do enjoy movies that undermine the Formula. I've seen both sides this week - The Expendables (as in the film, especially every actor's lines, is expendable) and Scott Pilgrim vs The World (now that's more like it).

I was left with a similar feeling as after the "action double" I saw in May - Kick Ass and Iron Mask 2. The Expendables no doubt aspired to Scott Pilgrim's tagline, "An epic of epic epicness". But the geeks earned it.

Bliar - The Hype Spawned The Hatred

Gideon Rachman, writing in the FT, suggests that the loathing of Tony Blair is overdone. He says that "...Mr Blair made his fateful decision on Iraq for reasons that were both honourable and understandable... the decision to back the invasion was not an isolated act of Blair-inspired lunacy. It reflected the conventional wisdom of the British political establishment."

What Gideon overlooks is that Blair never sought a mandate to govern according to "the conventional wisdom of the British political establishment." He offered us change, personal empowerment, the Third Way, an end to 'boom and bust' etc, etc. Then he and his ministers proceeded to behave in a way that even his most ardent supporters found thoroughly disillusioning by comparison. Not just ignoring mass demonstrations on Iraq, but systematically ignoring the House of Commons, dedicating themslves to spin, tolerating the Mandelson affairs, perpetuating the dysfunctional relationship with Brown and so on. Gideon Rachman suggests that Blair's election victory in 2005 means "the idea that the British voters rounded on Mr Blair in disgust after Iraq is simply false." But this view conflicts with Blair's own admission during his resignation speech:

In his speech to supporters at lunchtime, Mr Blair dealt directly with Iraq, many people's perception as his ultimate legacy, saying: "The blowback since ... has been fierce, unrelenting and costly."

The disaster of Iraq had continued to snowball since 2005, coinciding in 2007 with the realisation that the economic cycle had turned (despite Blair's promise of an end to boom and bust), which is when Blair gave his hospital pass to Gordon Brown and set sail for untold wealth on the speaking circuit. By November 2007, the Bank of England was actively trying to manage the impact of the looming economic slowdown.

But such was the height and breadth of expectation that Blair had set for himself not even his resignation could spare him from the impact of all the bad military, economic and political news that was to follow.

The hype had already spawned the hatred.

Image from Gideon Rachman's cited article in the FT.

Animal Cruelty?

Apparently this web cam footage of a bank worker dropping a cat in a bin is not some kind of spoof - but it does defy belief.

CatBinLady attempts to provide some insight into what goes through the mind of someone capable of this.

The cat is apparently okay, but the RSPCA is considering whether to prosecute. It has plenty to consider.

In her public statement, the perpetrator claims "it was a split second of misjudgement". But the above footage shows her glance meaningfully at the bin at the 30 second mark, and she finally gets the cat in the bin 17 seconds later. Then she walks away, leaving the cat to be rescued by others 15 hours later, according to news reports. She clearly did not return to free the cat in the meantime. In my view, her misjudgement began when she first glanced at the bin, and continued at least until the cat was saved by others, and arguably until she was confronted with the evidence and apologised.

This story reminds me of the owner of a neighbouring farm when I was a kid. While he was drinking in a pub in town, a terrible smell was traced to his car, which was parked outside in the heat. Two sheep he'd 'rescued' on the road and forgotten about were discovered in the boot. I doubt he apologised.

Greed Investment Bank?

Great to see Private Eye focused on the proposals for a Green Investment Bank ("The Green Stuff", p. 9, No. 1269).

On top of the objections I've mentioned previously, the Eye has rightly added its concern that the GIB would absorb billions in public funds by absorbing a hotchpotch of other green funding initiatives and quangos, yet "should not be accountable to ministers or to parliament [and] would be unlikely to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act". Or anyone, probably.

But don't worry. When the GIB hits the wall because no one understands the risks it's taking on, we can all bail it out.

It's as if the credit crunch never happened.

Image from Zazzle.