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Seth's Blog : In search of meaningful
In search of meaningful
From the individual who needs to get her idea in front of the right people, to the New York Times, which faces a ticking clock to figure out the digital landscape, all of us are in the media business. There's a gold rush for attention going on, and, given how much the media likes to cover the media, we hear about winners and losers, those doing it right and wrong, and most of all, the template for what we ought to be doing if we want to succeed.
I fear that right now, many are laboring under Buzzfeed Envy.
Since 1989, when I first started doing online media, people have been transfixed by scale, by numbers, by rankings. "How many eyeballs, how big is the audience, what's the passalong, how many likes, friends, followers, how many hits?"
You cannot win this game and I want to persuade you (and Dean Baquet at the Times) to stop trying.
1. Are you generic? Over the last few years, the Times has lost Lisa Belkin, Nate Silver, David Pogue and other big name writers, not to mention the opportunity to do more with Michael Lewis and the Freakonomics guys. Here's the thing: when you read what these singular voices create, you know where it came from, and you have an opinion about it.
Buzzfeed doesn't focus on who is speaking, they focus on writing something clickable and shareable and urgent in the moment. Those that want to own a valuable 'brand' like the fact that it belongs to them, unlike the demanding star writer, who might leave at any time. The value all goes to the system, not to the individual contributor.
(Buzzfeed is well on its way to becoming a dominant media company. But the Times isn't Buzzfeed, and neither are you.)
The problem with generic is that it's easy go as well as easy come. The Onion just launched their own sharable silliness and to those that spread it, it doesn't matter at all if the person writing it works for one brand in the genre or the other one. Staying ahead and gaining scale gets more difficult, not less for those in this segment.
Kasey Casem is remembered precisely because he refused to become generic. When he left his show and started a new one, so many people followed him that he was able to buy back the original show and run both of them at the same time. We were connected to him, not the idea of a radio show.
2. Is it for the reader or the search engine? Here's an excerpt from how editors are deciding things at the Times now: "There was praise for headlines that had contained the right words ... to maximize online search results."
The most important thing any individual or corporate media entity needs to learn is this: One subscriber is worth 1,000 surfers. Newspapers learned this a century ago. The Philadelphia Inquirer created one of the richest families in America on the basis of a focus on subscriptions. And Time magazine has turned into a nearly valueless relic because they forgot to focus on subscribers and pandered to the newsstand and to the listicle instead.
[A subscriber, by my definition, doesn't have to pay with money. Sometimes, it's sufficient to pay with attention.]
3. Would I miss it if it were gone? And here's the key question, the one that gets to the heart of meaningful. When we deliver meaningful content, it means we show up, invited, with words and images that matter. It means that we are trusted enough to be permitted to speak the first few words, and talented enough to keep the attention we've worked so hard to earn. Most of all, meaningful can't possibly work for everyone with a smart phone, for everyone in every potential audience, because there are so many ways to be seen as meaningful, so many different tribes of people thirsting for different kinds of connection.
Here's the key flaw in the bigger-is-better reasoning: It's entirely possible to become an important voice merely because everyone is listening. (Walter Cronkite, or the front page of Yahoo in 1999). When everyone is listening, anyone who wants to be part of everyone also has to listen. That's certainly why the most viral viral videos get so many views--the second half of their views are people who don't watch viral videos, but need to get clued in.
There are still some advertisers who want the biggest mass they can find, who will pay extra to reach more people who care less, but those advertisers are going to find someone bigger than you to advertise with.
It's no longer possible to become important to everyone, not in a reliable, scalable way, not in a way that connects us to people who will read ads or take action, not to people who aren't already clicking away to the next thing by the time they get to the second or third sentence.
But it is possible to become important to a very-small everyone, to a connected tribe that cares about this voice or that story or this particular point of view. It's still possible to become meaningful, meaningful if you don't get short-term greedy about any particular moment of mass, betting on the long run instead. And we need institutions that can reach many of these tribes, that can bind together focused audiences and useful content creators.
Newspapers used to work because they were local, delivered and urgent, with few competitors.
Today, all four components have changed dramatically. Craigslist and others have stolen a lot of the revenue that came from local, anyone with email can be delivered, and the news cycle has bypassed the daily rhythm of the newspaper. And few competitors has become infinity competitors.
The future of newspapers (and for anyone making content) is to act more like a magazine, like Fast Company and Wired and The New Yorker of fifteen years ago. The center, the urgent center, of a smaller everyone.
My advice to the Times starts with this: Every reporter (and probably every editor) ought to have a blog (or be part of a focused group blog), and post every single day. That's perhaps 600 blogs, every single day, each charged with finding a group of people who care enough about that voice and that topic to hear about it daily. If a reporter can't write cogently and passionately enough about his topic to gain a following, he probably needs to work somewhere else. And if the paper can organize to hire and train and reward people who can do work like this, if they can figure out how to get out of the 48-page paper mindset, if it can create stars and pockets of true connection, it's inconceivable to me that they won't be able to turn a profit.
Of course, one straightforward act isn't going to change the future of the Times, but it represents a symptom, a visible sign that the focus is changing from making an above-average (or even excellent) newspaper for the masses into creating circles of expertise, organizing tribes, building subscriptions based on attention and publishing outside of the finite world of paper... (And I firmly believe that this applies even more to individuals and smaller organizations than it does to legacy newspapers).
The future of media can't possibly only lie in random mass viral entertainments, generated with the aid of computers and aimed at the lowest-clicking denominator. For most organizations, that can't lead to useful ads, it doesn't lead to subscriptions, and most of all, it doesn't lead to impact. Entertaining the people who click on 50 things a day will get you numbers, but it won't make a difference.
If it's not worth subscribing to a particular voice or feature or idea, if it's not worth looking forward to and not worth trusting, I'm not sure it's worth writing, not if your goal is to become meaningful.
The three questions to ask, then, at every editorial meeting:
Who is this for?
Will we be able to reach them?
Is it meaningful?
And here's the rhetorical question I'd ask the publisher of every media company, from the sole practitioner to the Times: If you had the loyal attention of the powerful, connected, concerned and intelligent people in any given (valuable) tribe or sector, and you regularly showed up with anticipated, personal and relevant content for those people, could you make it into a business?
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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
- Wages vs. Real Wages Over Time: How the Fed Destroyed the Middle Class in Pictures
- Popular Universities: Name of the Game is "I Like it Like That"; More Facebook Fraud
- Democrat Quotes on Iraq; Ron Paul Asks "Haven’t We Already Done Enough Damage in Iraq?"
| Wages vs. Real Wages Over Time: How the Fed Destroyed the Middle Class in Pictures Posted: 18 Jun 2014 12:02 AM PDT Wages have seemingly been on a tear since 1965 having risen from $2.5 per hour in February of 1964 to $20.5 per hour in May of 2014. A couple charts will show what I mean. Average Hourly Earnings of Production and NonSupervisory Private Employees  click on any chart for sharper image Average Hourly Earnings of All Private Employees  Data for all private employees only goes back to March of 2006. Real Earnings On Monday, a BLS Real Earnings report showed:
Wages vs. Prices Neither the BLS nor Fred (the St. Louis Fed data repository) shows real wages over time, at least directly. But the data is there. It's just a matter of putting the charts together with the data they provide. Following BLS methodology, let's compare year-over year growth in CPI-W with year-over-year growth in average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory private employees.  Also following BLS methodology here is a chart of year-over-year earnings growth of all private employees compared to year-over-year growth in CPI-U.  Real Wages Over Time The two preceding charts may seem confusing. But if we subtract growth in CPI from growth in wages, we can determine "real" wage growth, a measure of how far wages have risen vs. prices. Real Wages All Private Employees  Real Wages Production and Nonsupervisory Private Employees  Damning Charts The preceding chart looks pretty damning, but things are far worse. The CPI does not include sales tax hikes, the prices of homes, property taxes, or fees of all types. For those with kids in school, the CPI will seem like a complete joke. All things considered, the average person would be far better off with wages at $2.5 per hour and constant prices and taxes than they are today. A Political Look Doug Short at Advisor Perspectives produced the following chart following our discussion of Tuesday's BLS data release.  click on chart for sharper image Congratulations! Congratulations to Republicans and Democrats alike. On a chained-dollar adjusted basis (but not counting sales taxes, property taxes, fees, home prices, etc.), real average hourly earnings are back to a level seen in 1968. Counting taxes and fees, the average worker makes far less now. Demise of the Middle Class The Fed wants 2% inflation. It achieved that (and then some) especially if we add in the price of houses and various taxes. Who benefited? The answer is Wall Street, corporate CEOs, banks, public unions, and the already wealthy. The demise of the middle class is a direct result of fractional reserve lending, inflation tactics of central banks, war-mongering and other unfunded Congressional legislation, all exacerbated when Nixon closed the gold window, allowing unlimited printing and Congressional deficit spending. Some suggest robots and corporations are to blame for the demise of the middle class. The notion is absurd. Instead of pointing the finger at the real problem, the Fed blames robots and Democrats blame corporations and Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats alike fund wars and other activities via the printing press that the US cannot possibly afford. For further discussion of the demise of the middle class and the role president Nixon and Congress played, please see Time Lapse Image of Growing US Political Polarization; Root Cause of the Shrinking Middle Class Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Popular Universities: Name of the Game is "I Like it Like That"; More Facebook Fraud Posted: 17 Jun 2014 07:37 PM PDT Don't put too much faith in Facebook rankings of universities (or Facebook "like" rankings of anything else either). I discussed Facebook Fraud on February 11, 2014 asking "How Much of Facebook's Ad Revenue is Legitimate?". So who really cares about the "Inside Facebook" report Where are the most popular universities on Facebook? It turns out Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge (but not Princeton) are buying Facebook likes according to Lenny Teytelman, a very infrequent blogger whose recent post filtered my way. Here are some snips from Teytelman's post Facebook's Most Popular University. I found it amusing that a Malaysian university took pride in "beating Cambridge" in terms of the number of "likes" and touted it in press and on social media, with ambitious plans to double their total FB likes.University Likes  Teytelman notes that 3,300,000 Harvard likes came from Dhaka, Bangladesh; 1,500,000 likes for Yale came from Dhaka, Bangladesh; 877,000 likes for Yale came from Addis Abeba, Ethopia. I Like It Like That In honor of Facebook "Like Fraud" I offer the following musical tribute. Link if video does not play: Dave Clark Five - I Like It Like That. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Democrat Quotes on Iraq; Ron Paul Asks "Haven’t We Already Done Enough Damage in Iraq?" Posted: 17 Jun 2014 11:53 AM PDT One reader recently emailed a list of statements made by various war-mongering democrats regarding Sadaam Hussein, Iraq and WOMDs. The list includes statements made by President Bill Clinton; Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State; Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser; Democratic Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry; Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA); Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL); Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI); Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA); Al Gore; Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV); Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), and numerous others. Snopes Verified That's a pretty substantial list. And Snopes verifies the quotes in Words of Mass Destruction. Please check out who said what when. Also note the context. While Snopes verified the quotes, it also puts the quotes in context. For example, Senator Hillary Clinton stated in a 2002 speech ... "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Hillary did indeed make that statement. What Clinton detractors fail to point out is that in the same speech, she also stated ... "If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us. In recent days, Russia has talked of an invasion of Georgia to attack Chechen rebels. India has mentioned the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan. And what if China were to perceive a threat from Taiwan? "So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option. Hillary had that correct in spades did she not? So while all the quotes were accurate, some were extremely misleading. Push for War I am not out to absolve Hillary Clinton of all blame. When the final vote came, she stupidly voted for war as did many Democrats. Her vote and later defense of that vote cost her the nomination. That aside, who is the guilty party here? Bush, who twisted arms with blatant lies and nonsense, or the Democrat and Republican fools who fell for those lies? "Haven't We Done Enough?" What follows is via permission from the Ron Paul Institute. For ease in reading I will dispense with usual blockquote indentations. Start Ron Paul Haven't We Already Done Enough Damage in Iraq? In 2006, I invited the late General Bill Odom to address my Thursday Congressional luncheon group. Gen. Odom, a former NSA director, called the Iraq war "the greatest strategic disaster in American history," and told the surprised audience that he could not understand why Congress had not impeached the president for pushing this disaster on the United States. History continues to prove the General's assessment absolutely correct. In September, 2002, arguing against a US attack on Iraq, I said the following on the House Floor: No credible evidence has been produced that Iraq has or is close to having nuclear weapons. No evidence exists to show that Iraq harbors al Qaeda terrorists. Quite to the contrary, experts on this region recognize Hussein as an enemy of the al Qaeda and a foe to Islamic fundamentalism.Unfortunately, Congress did not listen. As we know, last week the second largest city in Iraq, Mosul, fell to the al-Qaeda allied Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Last week an al-Qaeda that had not been in Iraq before our 2003 invasion threatened to move on the capitol, Baghdad, after it easily over-ran tens of thousands of Iraqi military troops. The same foreign policy "experts" who lied us into the Iraq war are now telling us we must re-invade Iraq to deal with the disaster caused by their invasion! They cannot admit they were wrong about the invasion being a "cakewalk" that would pay for itself, so they want to blame last week's events on the 2011 US withdrawal from Iraq. But the trouble started with the 2003 invasion itself, not the 2011 troop withdrawal. Anyone who understands cause and effect should understand this. The Obama administration has said no option except for ground troops is off the table to help the Iraqi government in this crisis. We should not forget, however, that the administration does not consider Special Forces or the CIA to be "boots on the ground." So we may well see Americans fighting in Iraq again. It is also likely that the administration will begin shipping more weapons and other military equipment to the Iraqi army, in the hopes that they might be able to address the ISIS invasion themselves. After years of US training, costing as much as $20 billion, it is unlikely the Iraqi army is up to the task. Judging from the performance of the Iraqi military as the ISIS attacked, much of that money was wasted or stolen. A big US government weapons transfer to Iraq will no doubt be favored by the US military-industrial complex, which stands to profit further from the Iraq meltdown. This move will also be favored by those in Washington who realize how politically unpopular a third US invasion of Iraq would be at home, but who want to "do something" in the face of the crisis. Shipping weapons may be an action short of war, but it usually leads to war. And as we have already seen in Iraq and Syria, very often these weapons fall into the hands of the al-Qaeda we are supposed to be fighting! Because of the government's foolish policy of foreign interventionism, the US is faced with two equally stupid choices: either pour in resources to prop up an Iraqi government that is a close ally with Iran, or throw our support in with al-Qaida in Iraq (as we have done in Syria). I say we must follow a third choice: ally with the American people and spend not one more dollar or one more life attempting to re-make the Middle East. Haven't we have already done enough damage? Copyright © 2014 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. End Ron Paul We do not know what would have happened had Al Gore won. But we do know what Bush did! My position has been consistent. I am proud to have been on the right side of this issue from the beginning, never once wavering or believing the lies of the Bush administration. Those who suggest I am "too hard on Bush" are mistaken. I would be equally hard on any president, Republican or Democrat, who did what Bush and Cheney did. Paul notes": General Bill Odom called the Iraq war "the greatest strategic disaster in American history," telling a "surprised audience that he could not understand why Congress had not impeached the president for pushing this disaster on the United States." Iraq was indeed an enormous strategic disaster, and a criminal action as well. Congress should have impeached Bush and Cheney. Both are war criminals in my estimation. But a Republican Congress would never impeach a sitting Republican President for war crimes, but they would impeach a Democrat president over the meaning of "sexual relations". Moreover, even Democrats would have been reluctant to impeach Bush because they stupidly authorized the war as well. Thus, no one should be surprised how blame for this mess was swept under the rug, by both parties. No one in either party wants to accept blame or responsibility. But what to do now? Ron Paul was right in 2002 and he is right now. Those begging for more intervention just ought to step back and ask "Haven't We Done Enough Damage Already?" Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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