The Future of Journalism in One Word

I finished up my little project for this class. And thanks to all who helped out.

Here's what came of it:


In case you don't remember, the question was to describe the future of journalism in one word. I wouldn't mind some feedback if you have the time.

On a side note, I hope you all are surviving finals week.

How much does our need for speed transfer?

So I was looking (or at least trying to look) through GQ earlier and getting incredibly annoyed by the fact that I couldn't find the table of contents. I think it literally took me like a minute to flip back and forth through that odyssey of ads. (There are 36 pages of ads to search through before finally reaching the table of contents. I just counted.) I know a minute doesn't sound like much, but you're all of the same impatient, information-hungry generation as me, so you know how that seems like forever.

Then I remembered that post on kottke about Google's new, free, faster DNS service. Why are they putting out a free DNS service? Because apparently speed matters so much, that slowing down the amount of time it takes for the search page to load from .4 to .9 seconds caused a 20% drop in traffic. For half a second. That's nuts!

But it made me wonder if the same thing stands for magazines (pun not intended). When I'm waiting in the check-out counter, I browse the magazines, and if they look interesting, sometimes I buy one (though it has to look pretty good to justify $5--yes, I know that is a blasphemous thing to say in this class). I think if I were the type of person to browse GQ in the checkout line, and it took me that long to even find the table of contents, I would give up. If half the time I flip open the magazine, I get someone selling me $100 perfume (or cologne) instead of some actual content, I say to hell with it and start browsing the candy instead.

Just sayin.

Part of my final project

As part of my final project for this class, I could really use your help. I just needed you to send me with a one word response to describe the future of journalism. If you could do that, I would appreciate it. Your response will be made public, but it won't be associated with your name. E-mail your one-word responses to jayhuerbin AT gmail DOT com. So, yeah, just send me your feelings on the future of journalism. One word and we're good.

More great stuff from Clay Shirky

Remember that Clay Shirky piece we read earlier this semester about the future of newspapers?

Well, he was interviewed for an 8-minute segment about the future of journalism and what he thinks media might look like. The interview was done by Leonard Witt at Sustainable Journalism. You can visit the SJ site or my blog to watch the video. It's a really good video and Shirky is very well-spoken.

Even Wired Magazine gets in on the blog fun.

Randomly bumbling around today I found myself at the how-to wiki on Wired.com. Get what they have?

How to start a blog:

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Start_a_Blog

pretty entertaining.

What the balls

My friend Sam showed me this blog:

Style Rookie

Basically, it's a fashion blog run by a 13-year old.  Her fashion is questionable, though I'm not partial to haute couture unless donned by Lady GaGa or created by Luxirare (check this blog out too and pine for her lifestyle with me), but the content is secondary to my reason for bringing it up.  This girl is 13-years old. She was born in 1996, and she runs a pretty tight blog.  She has a solid, developed voice, which I find charming but I can see other people thinking it's obnoxious, and she updates regularly with a buttload of material. Beyond even that, each of her blog posts recently has collected over 100 comments.  And she's 13.  What the fuck was I doing when I was 13?  I was writing my own web code and designing websites and maintained a blog too, but at most I got maybe 30-some-odd comments, which is actually impressive because I was egocentrically writing about my completely uninteresting life as a 13-year old and should have gotten less than 0 comments if possible. 

My point is that kids are running wildly successful blogs in terms of readership. This can be an indication of the learning curve in the information age, the future of publishing resting in the hands of the youth, the sign of things to come from our children, etc etc, but what this says to me is, "Well, if a 13-year old can do it, why can't I?"  Think of how much more you know now than when you were 13.  Think of how refined your opinions are and how you can intellectually defend them now. Yeah, maybe this girl is a fashion savant, but still: if 13-year olds are running successful blogs, why can't we?

Future of the Net

Just found this blog post predicting the major changes to the Interweb over the next year.

Rupert Murdoch & Google are Cracking Down

Hey all,

Just came across this article on the BBC: Google to limit free news access

"Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced."

At first I was wondering if this only applies in the UK, but then I found this similar article in the WSJ, and realized the new policy is universal.

Sounds like a pretty fair idea to me. Then again, I'm not currently working on a research paper that requires me to find some specific WSJ article from sometime within the past 3 months (or some such situation that would likely involve clicking more than 5 articles). But even if I was, despite being horribly frustrated, I think I'd still objectively understand the reasoning behind the limitations. Ah, free-dom is so hard to let go of once one has become accustomed to it...

PS Maureen, I bet your dad would be interested in reading this.

blogging for success, even when you're homeless

A few months ago while reading ELLE I came across this letter to E. Jean, the magazine's advice columnist:

Dear E. Jean: I’m currently homeless and living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I’m educated, I have never done drugs, and I am not mentally ill. I have a strong employment history and am a career executive assistant. The instability sucks, but I’m rocking it as best as I can. Recently I stumbled across a job notice (a reality show casting call for executive assistants) and was intrigued enough to apply. It was a shot in the dark, and I assumed I’d never hear back. Surprise! I was called in this week! And I promptly bombed it. When I found out who was involved in the show I got kind of starstruck and completely froze up. My usual personality did not radiate. My question: How does one get another shot when one screws up a job interview? Homeless, but Not Hopeless

Her reply:

Miss homeless, my dear: You don’t “get” another shot. You take it. Wear the new suit you get from Dress for Success (the fantastic organization that provides interview suits and career development guidance to lowincome women, Dressforsuccess.org), find a company, a store, a business you admire, and show up ready to work. When you speak with the manager, don’t ask for a job. Simply introduce yourself, tell her why her company is brilliant, and give her three ways you can help her succeed. Follow up with a phone call, plus a visit the following week.

Of course, the cleverest way to land a good job (and get an apartment) is to already have a good job/internship/volunteer position. This strategy permits you to impress the interviewers with the superhuman passion you have for your current projects.

This is what you did with your letter: You knocked me out with your courage and spirit. I am therefore, Miss Not Hopeless, offering you a four-month internship. Of course it’s the most hideously humdrum internship in America. You’ll be stuck with the tedious job of organizing research for my book, transcribing interviews, and analyzing data from 1,800,000 pages (not a misprint) of a college sex survey I did on Facebook. I looked you up and discovered you’re on the West Coast and that you write a highly entertaining blog. You possess a brain and access to a computer. Excellent! If you accept this internship, you’ll telecommute to my East Coast mountain office one hour a day, six days a week. At the end of the four months, if you don’t have a job and an awesome place to live, I will become YOUR intern.

My thoughts at the time were less than eloquent: Holy shit.  This girl just got an internship with ELLE.  All because she wrote a letter to an advice columnist.  And, apparently, was entertaining enough of a writer on a blog.  Can that happen?

Apparently, it can.  Read the blog: the Girls Guide to Homelessness. I'd suggest looking specifically at the posts she made before she landed the internship at ELLE (before August).  She has a great, personable tone.  Apparently she's living in a shitty trailer now, which is eons better than living in a shitty parking lot.

TV cowers under the might of the Internet too

I know this class is more about print, but I've found myself wondering how TV and film are faring in relation to the internet (what with Netflix, illegal downloading, etc.) Well I just came across an article posted yesterday at the NYTimes about GE planning to sell NBC to Comcast (Comcast? Really?) and it cites this reason:

Although the News Corporation, the conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, considered making an offer, Comcast was the lone serious suitor, a testament to the uncertain future of mainstream media, as the Internet has fractured audiences and few viable business models have emerged for the distribution of content online.

Just another person parroting what we've said 400 billion times in class, I know, but at least from my experience, TV has been thought of as a "safer" industry than print (this one time an older guy, an alumnus of Pitt, said, when I told him I was a writing major, "Welp, hope you're thinking to get into TV!")

The article also says NBC's ratings are last place in primetime. What? The Office and 30 Rock are the only two prime time shows I watch right now. Apparently having two Emmy-winning comedies doesn't mean jack-shit:

In a risky move, Jeffrey Zucker, the head of NBC Universal, moved Mr. Leno into the 10 p.m. slot, clearing the way for Conan O’Brien at 11:30 and radically remaking prime time.
But so far the move has only produced lackluster ratings and a poor lead-in to local news, further exacerbating NBC’s problems in prime time. The move has also become emblematic of network television’s struggle to re-imagine itself at a time of declining ad revenues and online competition.

Sort of funny, but when I first moved into my apartment I decided I only wanted internet because I can do without TV (thanks to Hulu and Netflix) and landlines are worthless. And the Comcast website said it would be 20 bucks a month. But then the lovely Comcast lady goes, "Oh, well, internet by itself is $69.99, BUT you can get this awesome splendiferous package with digital cable for only $74.99!!!!!!!!!" So I said, "Okay," but thought, "Eff you Comcast and your overpriced bullshit. Why am I paying you anyway, you annoying middleman? Shouldn't I be paying the people who actually make the content?"

So I guess now I am. Kind of.