by David Burn | May 27, 2005 | Digital culture, Media
“Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” -Jim Morrison
From the Museum of Media History (not a real place, as far as I can tell) comes EPIC 2014, or Evolving Personalized Information Construct, a viral that walks viewers through the history and future of media since Tim Behrens-Lee “founded” the internet in 1989.
Writers Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson make several spooky projections, but due to the mood music in the piece and the soothing narration, their thinking seems legitimate and non-threatening. Unless of course, you happen to work at the New York Times. They claim the Times will be offline by 2014, the once mightly gray lady reduced to “a newsletter for the elderly and the elite.”
Thanks to Tom Asacker for the pointer. There’s some interesting discussion of the piece in his comments area.
by David Burn | Apr 20, 2005 | Media
I spend my days in front of a computer screen, which, like all things, has its plusses and minuses. One minus is my degrading posture. Another my repetitive stress injuries. On the brighter side, there is blogging and information sharing from around the world. One medium I particularly love to absorb information from is community radio delivered via streaming media, or in my case, iTunes.
Art by Robinella
I’ve been listening in on several communities over the past couple of years. KGNU in Boulder, WLUW in Chicago, WMSE in Milwaukee, KAOS in Olympia, KCRW in Santa Monica, and more recently WXYC in Chapel Hill, WFMU in Jersey City and WDVX in Knoxville. All these stations blow commercial radio off the dial, but I’m particularly liking WDVX right now. Mainly, because I’m a relatively new fan of true country music. Not Nashville! True country, or what old timers might call mountain music.
by David Burn | Feb 16, 2005 | Lowcountry, Media
Darby arrived in the Lowcountry Monday night. Yesterday morning while walking the beach, a photographer from the local paper captured her image. Today she’s on the front page of the paper.
photo by Jay Karr of The Island Packet
Darby Strong, who just moved to the area from Chicago, explores a fog-shrouded beach on Hilton Head Island on Tuesday. “I like it,” she said, “it’s kind of surreal.” Today’s forecast calls for fog, with sunshine later in the day.
by David Burn | Jan 13, 2005 | Digital culture, Media
from Wired: After Chris Allbritton returned to New York from Iraqi Kurdistan, he raised $15,000 and headed back to Iraq in 2003 as the first independent journalist-blogger sponsored by his readers. There he risked life and limb covering the war and its messy aftermath, detailing his experiences on his blog, Back-to-Iraq 3.0.
With 25,000 readers a day checking out his dispatches, Allbritton was able to build on this success by securing a plum assignment as Time magazine’s Baghdad correspondent. As a result, Allbritton has had to change his approach to blogging.
“I’m just very, very careful,” Allbritton said. “I never scoop Time, for instance. And I’ve become much more miserly in parceling out my opinions. I place a whole lot more emphasis on the reporting on the blog, rather than taking a stance. This has alienated a significant number of my readers, who have accused me of selling out, going corporate, whatever. But, I came to Iraq to become a full-time foreign correspondent, so them’s the breaks.”
He also doesn’t post as often on his blog anymore, and says he is thinking of shutting it down.
by David Burn | Jan 2, 2005 | Media
In These Times is a Chicago-based magazine of news, opinion and culture, committed to extending political and economic democracy and to opposing the tyranny of the marketplace over human values.
Aside from their content, which is interesting in its own right, I’m taking note of how In These Times has deployed blog-style comments into their web site. They also make their content available for free/viral syndication, clearly reaching out to the blogosphere.
To recap, a print magazine has cherry-picked two blog popular applications and woven them in to their site design, without making their site a blog. Savvy move.
by David Burn | Dec 10, 2004 | Media
by David Burn | Oct 31, 2004 | Media, Music
Marshall Mathers, a.k.a. Eminem, rapper, bad boy, political lightning rod and movie star is one savvy cat. On the eve of the election, he chimes in with “Mosh,” which he premiered on MTV last week. Now the video is hosted on the web and links to it are being sent to people who don’t even like rap. Why is it so viral? Because the content is dark, in your face, anti-Bush rhetoric with a get out the vote ending. I’m down with that. Let’s hope some of Eminem’s millions of fans are also down with it come Tuesday.
click to play
Anthony Lapp writing for Guerilla News Network says, it’s unlikely “Mosh” will be misconstrued. This is a song with a clear message. Eminem, in his typically egotistical way, is calling for regime change.
Come along, follow me, as I lead through the darkness.
As I provide just enough spark that we need, to proceed.
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength, come with me, and I won’t, steer you wrong.
Give your faith and your trust, as I guide us through the fog, to the light at the end of the tunnel.” -Eminem
I think Lapp may have misconstrued. The artist’s use of first person does not necessarily mean he, Eminem, is ready to lead us through the darkness. I think the “I” in this case refers to The President or the candidate, namely any man who dare say these words to the American public.
by David Burn | Oct 30, 2004 | Media
Columbia professor, Todd Gitlin, writing in the current edition of Mother Jones: All governments lie, the muckraker I.F. Stone used to say. They fudge and omit. They bury and muffle inconvenient facts. They do this repeatedly, relentlessly, shamelessly. That’s hardly surprising. Why shouldn’t they seek—as a Marine Corps public affairs officer, Lt. Colonel Richard Long, told a conference on journalism and the Iraq war—to “dominate the information environment”?
If ever there were a time for unbridled journalism, this would be it: terrorist mayhem, war, corporate scandal, ecological crisis, economic upheaval. Public passion and curiosity have been stoked. But the potential investigators have been, to a considerable degree, otherwise occupied.
I.F. Stone digging dirt
by David Burn | Oct 19, 2004 | Media
Sadly, I missed last Friday’s edition of CNN’s Crossfire, where comedian Jon Stewart admonished the left’s Paul Begala and the right’s Tucker Carlson. Thankfully, webmasters everywhere have posted the bandwidth-rich piece to their sites.
I salute his intent and his moxie, but Stewart made the mistake of being seriously serious. As a fan of his show on Comedy Central, I don’t mind saying he is much better when he’s seriously funny. Carlson asked him if he lectured his friends this way and called him a bore—a real insult coming from a man in a bow tie. Stewart said, sure if they deserve it. Carlson went on to say Stewart is John Kerry’s “butt boy.” Stewart capped off his partisan hacks attack, by calling Tucker a dick.
by David Burn | Oct 16, 2004 | Digital culture, Media
“I do believe that weblog publishing tools have enabled the rise of the individual journalist-entrepreneur, away from the shackles of underpaid, under-utilized, under-appreciated jobs with formal media companies.” -Rafat Ali of Paid Content
I started blogging in July 2003 because I had something to say. My intention was never to make money. Like most writers I simply wanted to be heard.
As I have grown more comfortable with the form and learned much more about the blogosphere, it became quite clear that one can do more than simply be heard. Rafat Ali, Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton have all made this into a living, and a healthy one at that. Some reports have Ali pulling in ten grand a month in ad revenue. For a one-man show, that’s pretty damn good.
In recent days I’ve noted that Ali and Calacanis are looking for bloggers to help them grow their media products. I have contacted both gentlemen about the possibility of joining their firms. Yet, even while doing so, I had to confront the question, “Why?” Why work for them when I have the ability and the temperament to go it alone. Not here. This blog is covers too much ground to make money (and as I mentioned, that was never the purpose here). The key to monetary success with a blog is to exploit a niche, particularly a well-defined niche that you know a great deal about.
I decided tonight to embark on a new path with my friend Shawn Hartley–a technology and marketing wizard and a former colleague of mine from Bozell’s Omaha outpost. We’re launching Adpulp.com, a blog dedicated to covering the ad industry, in our own inimitable style, of course. Sure, there are some blogs already operating in this space, but space on the web is infinite. We will establish our own voice and an audience will find us. Blog it and they will come, you might say.
