Mattel unveiled their 125th Barbie yesterday. Coincidentally (or not) News Anchor Barbie (we’ll call her Journalism Barbie) has come into existence at exactly the same time that real, respectable news reporting is fading into nonexistence. Images of the doll show the impossibly-proportioned classic girly girl in a pink fuzzy blazer, a frill skirt and high heels, with a microphone in hand. One has to wonder—is she doing her reporting for the “E!” channel?
Journalism Barbie’s aforementioned outfit, while it may look nice for the reporting part of her job, would be very uncomfortable for actual journalism. I can’t imagine that she’d be very comfortable visiting Afghanistan in those high-heel Mary Janes, and all of her investigative interviews would have to take place over the phone for her to have any hope of being taken seriously.
That said, career Barbies are obviously dolls and didn’t exactly become famous for their realism in the first place. It would almost be weird if Journalism Barbie wasn’t wearing pink.
What’s actually disturbing about the doll is what they got right: Besides her outfit, Barbie looks exactly like a modern reporter, i.e., a beauty pageant contestant on Valium.
Lately the hotness of the people reporting our news seems to be an inverse function of the quality of the content. I’m not saying that the hot reporters are dumb. I’m merely observing that journalism has become dumb, and that bosses are hiring pretty faces to report instead of people who make us feel safe—the Walter Cronkites and Connie Chungs (no offence to Connie).
At the New York Toy Fair last February, a spokesperson from Mattel announced that the 125th anniversary edition of Barbie would either be an architect, a computer engineer, an environmentalist, a surgeon or a journalist, and that it would be up to a world-wide vote of Barbie fans to decide which she’d be.
It seems as though the girls who used to be obsessed with Barbies grew up into journalists and voted this new doll into existence. Whenever I meet an astoundingly dumb, over-dressed female, it almost invariably comes up that she majored in journalism. It seems the journalism major is the new psych major. And now we’re all on Lexapro.
Journalism Barbie is a hallmark for the fall of journalism. She should be Blogger Barbie. It seems like that’s where we’re headed, both in online and on-air reporting. The only problem is that she’d have to wear something different, because in all likeliness, her job will be an unpaid internship.
Read more here.
Saturday, September 25
Thursday, September 23
iPads on College Campuses?
At the iPad's January launch, Apple CEO Steve Jobs eagerly touted the iPad as a game-changer for education. Sales of the gizmo may have soared to more than 3.2 million units so far, according to Apple, and analysts predict sales of 30 million by next year. But in education, it's a different story.
Despite the high-profile initiatives, most colleges don't have special iPad programs, and anecdotal evidence suggests that without a friendly free boost, the tablet is almost non-existent on many college campuses.
Read more at Fox News.
Despite the high-profile initiatives, most colleges don't have special iPad programs, and anecdotal evidence suggests that without a friendly free boost, the tablet is almost non-existent on many college campuses.
Read more at Fox News.
Tuesday, September 21
Steve Jobs: Please Leave Us Alone
A journalism student complained to Apple CEO Steve Jobs about his company's unhelpful PR department. He replied: “Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry.” She replied to Jobs, lecturing him on "common courtesy." In response, Steve Jobs wrote: “Nope. We have over 300 million users and we can't respond to their requests unless they involve a problem of some kind. Sorry.”
Read more here.
Read more here.
Monday, September 20
Shield Laws
Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, has said he wants to revise a proposed shield law in the United States. Questions about whether such a law is needed and about the to exclude organizations like WikiLeaks, which post unedited material online.
In theory, European shields are among the most robust in the world; Europe may lack the First Amendment, the American constitutional guarantee to free speech, but protection for the reporter-source relationship is cited in the European Convention on Human Rights, and many European countries have written it into law. In practice, however, there are still plenty of gray areas, resulting in long and expensive legal battles.
Read more at New York Times.
In theory, European shields are among the most robust in the world; Europe may lack the First Amendment, the American constitutional guarantee to free speech, but protection for the reporter-source relationship is cited in the European Convention on Human Rights, and many European countries have written it into law. In practice, however, there are still plenty of gray areas, resulting in long and expensive legal battles.
Read more at New York Times.
Friday, September 17
‘International Journalism’ Academy
International media company Bertelsmann on Thursday founded an Academy of Journalism that will advocate the spread of the ideals of press freedom and promote expertise and networking among journalistic talent worldwide. The founding act, which took place on Thursday evening in Berlin at a ceremony to mark Bertelsmann’s 175th year.
Each year, the Academy will convey the tools of the trade for the digital future of journalism to a select group of journalists worldwide, by means of on-site workshops and e-learning modules. Its primary target group are aspiring journalistic talents, mainly from countries where press freedom is nonexistent or at risk.
The “International Academy of Journalism” will be built up in the months ahead and officially take up its teaching activity at the end of 2011.
Each year, the Academy will convey the tools of the trade for the digital future of journalism to a select group of journalists worldwide, by means of on-site workshops and e-learning modules. Its primary target group are aspiring journalistic talents, mainly from countries where press freedom is nonexistent or at risk.
The “International Academy of Journalism” will be built up in the months ahead and officially take up its teaching activity at the end of 2011.
Read more here.
Television Bureau of Advertising Name Change
After being known for years as TVB, the Television Bureau of Advertising in New York is adopting TVB as its official name. More than 600 stations are its members. The rebranding echoes a decision by the American Association of Advertising Agencies to adopt a shorthand designation, the Four A’s, as its name. A goal of the changes is to acknowledge that when it comes to advertising, “it’s no longer just about local spot television” and to remind marketers that local stations now also have “digital subchannels, mobile, Web sites and hyperlocal Web sites” on which they can buy commercial time and ad space.
Spending by advertisers on spot, or local, television rose 25.1 percent in the first half of 2010 compared with a year earlier, according to a report released on Monday by the Kantar Media unit of WPP.
Read more here.
Spending by advertisers on spot, or local, television rose 25.1 percent in the first half of 2010 compared with a year earlier, according to a report released on Monday by the Kantar Media unit of WPP.
Read more here.
Saturday, September 11
A Virtual Counter-Revolution
Fifteen years after its first manifestation as a global, unifying network, (the Internet) has entered its second phase: it appears to be balkanising, torn apart by three separate, but related forces.
First, governments are increasingly reasserting their sovereignty. Second, big IT companies are building their own digital territories, where they set the rules and control or limit connections to other parts of the internet. Third, network owners would like to treat different types of traffic differently, in effect creating faster and slower lanes on the internet.
It is still too early to say that the internet has fragmented into “internets”, but there is a danger that it may splinter along geographical and commercial boundaries.
Even more important, the internet is an open platform, rather than one built for a specific service, like the telephone network. Mr Zittrain calls it “generative”: people can tinker with it, creating new services and elbowing existing ones aside. Any young company can build a device or develop an application that connects to the internet, provided it follows certain, mostly technical conventions. In a more closed and controlled environment, an Amazon, a Facebook or a Google would probably never have blossomed as it did.
However, this very success has given rise to the forces that are now pulling the internet apart. The cracks are most visible along geographical boundaries. The internet is too important for governments to ignore. They are increasingly finding ways to enforce their laws in the digital realm.
Many media companies have already gone one step further. They use another part of the internet’s address system, the “IP numbers” that identify computers on the network, to block access to content if consumers are not in certain countries. Try viewing a television show on Hulu, a popular American video service, from Europe. Similarly, Spotify, a popular European music-streaming service, cannot be reached from America.
A lot of ink, however, has already been spilt on another form of balkanisation: in the plumbing of the internet. Most of this debate, particularly in America, is about “net neutrality”. This is one of the internet’s founding principles: that every packet of data, regardless of its contents, should be treated the same way, and the best effort should always be made to forward it. If operators were allowed to charge for better service, they could extort protection money from every website. Those not willing to pay for their data to be transmitted quickly would be left to crawl in the slow lane. The issue is not as black and white as it seems. The internet has never been as neutral as some would have it. Network providers do not guarantee a certain quality of service, but merely promise to do their best. That may not matter for personal e-mails, but it does for time-sensitive data such as video. What is more, large internet firms like Amazon and Google have long redirected traffic onto private fast lanes that bypass the public internet to speed up access to their websites.
As mobile devices and networks improve, a standards-based browser could become the dominant access software on the wireless internet as well.
The danger is not that these islands become physically separated, says Andrew Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota. There is just too much value in universal connectivity, he argues. “The real question is how high the walls between these walled gardens will be.”
Read more at The Economist.
First, governments are increasingly reasserting their sovereignty. Second, big IT companies are building their own digital territories, where they set the rules and control or limit connections to other parts of the internet. Third, network owners would like to treat different types of traffic differently, in effect creating faster and slower lanes on the internet.
It is still too early to say that the internet has fragmented into “internets”, but there is a danger that it may splinter along geographical and commercial boundaries.
Even more important, the internet is an open platform, rather than one built for a specific service, like the telephone network. Mr Zittrain calls it “generative”: people can tinker with it, creating new services and elbowing existing ones aside. Any young company can build a device or develop an application that connects to the internet, provided it follows certain, mostly technical conventions. In a more closed and controlled environment, an Amazon, a Facebook or a Google would probably never have blossomed as it did.
However, this very success has given rise to the forces that are now pulling the internet apart. The cracks are most visible along geographical boundaries. The internet is too important for governments to ignore. They are increasingly finding ways to enforce their laws in the digital realm.
Many media companies have already gone one step further. They use another part of the internet’s address system, the “IP numbers” that identify computers on the network, to block access to content if consumers are not in certain countries. Try viewing a television show on Hulu, a popular American video service, from Europe. Similarly, Spotify, a popular European music-streaming service, cannot be reached from America.
A lot of ink, however, has already been spilt on another form of balkanisation: in the plumbing of the internet. Most of this debate, particularly in America, is about “net neutrality”. This is one of the internet’s founding principles: that every packet of data, regardless of its contents, should be treated the same way, and the best effort should always be made to forward it. If operators were allowed to charge for better service, they could extort protection money from every website. Those not willing to pay for their data to be transmitted quickly would be left to crawl in the slow lane. The issue is not as black and white as it seems. The internet has never been as neutral as some would have it. Network providers do not guarantee a certain quality of service, but merely promise to do their best. That may not matter for personal e-mails, but it does for time-sensitive data such as video. What is more, large internet firms like Amazon and Google have long redirected traffic onto private fast lanes that bypass the public internet to speed up access to their websites.
As mobile devices and networks improve, a standards-based browser could become the dominant access software on the wireless internet as well.
The danger is not that these islands become physically separated, says Andrew Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota. There is just too much value in universal connectivity, he argues. “The real question is how high the walls between these walled gardens will be.”
Read more at The Economist.
The Virtual Curmudgeon
FROM “Wikinomics” to “Cognitive Surplus” to “Crowdsourcing”, there is no shortage of books lauding the “Web 2.0” era and celebrating the online collaboration, interaction and sharing that it makes possible. Today anyone can publish a blog or put a video on YouTube, and thousands of online volunteers can collectively produce an operating system like Linux or an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Isn’t that great?
No, says Jaron Lanier, a technologist, musician and polymath who is best known for his pioneering work in the field of virtual reality. His book, “You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto”, published earlier this year, is a provocative attack on many of the internet’s sacred cows. Mr Lanier lays into the Web 2.0 culture, arguing that what passes for creativity today is really just endlessly rehashed content and that the “fake friendship” of social networks “is just bait laid by the lords of the clouds to lure hypothetical advertisers”. For Mr Lanier there is no wisdom of crowds, only a cruel mob. “Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks and lightweight mash-ups may seem trivial and harmless,” he writes, “but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned personal interaction.”
Read more at The Economist.
No, says Jaron Lanier, a technologist, musician and polymath who is best known for his pioneering work in the field of virtual reality. His book, “You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto”, published earlier this year, is a provocative attack on many of the internet’s sacred cows. Mr Lanier lays into the Web 2.0 culture, arguing that what passes for creativity today is really just endlessly rehashed content and that the “fake friendship” of social networks “is just bait laid by the lords of the clouds to lure hypothetical advertisers”. For Mr Lanier there is no wisdom of crowds, only a cruel mob. “Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks and lightweight mash-ups may seem trivial and harmless,” he writes, “but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned personal interaction.”
Read more at The Economist.
Untangling the social web
TELECOMS operators naturally prize mobile-phone subscribers who spend a lot, but some thriftier customers, it turns out, are actually more valuable. Known as “influencers”, these subscribers frequently persuade their friends, family and colleagues to follow them when they switch to a rival operator. The trick, then, is to identify such trendsetting subscribers and keep them on board with special discounts and promotions.
Companies can spot these influencers, and work out all sorts of other things about their customers, by crunching vast quantities of calling data with sophisticated “network analysis” software. The market for such software is booming. By one estimate there are more than 100 programs for network analysis, also known as link analysis or predictive analysis. In the past five years IBM has spent more than $11 billion buying makers of network-analysis software. Gartner, a market-research firm, ranks the technology at number two in its list of strategic business operations meriting significant investment this year.
Read more at The Economist.
Companies can spot these influencers, and work out all sorts of other things about their customers, by crunching vast quantities of calling data with sophisticated “network analysis” software. The market for such software is booming. By one estimate there are more than 100 programs for network analysis, also known as link analysis or predictive analysis. In the past five years IBM has spent more than $11 billion buying makers of network-analysis software. Gartner, a market-research firm, ranks the technology at number two in its list of strategic business operations meriting significant investment this year.
Read more at The Economist.
Putting your money where your mouse is
WIKIPEDIA (is) an example of “crowdsourcing”, it demonstrates that on the internet, as in the real world, many hands make light work. Can the same approach be applied to money as well as time? That is the idea behind “crowdfunding”, in which lots of small contributions are aggregated online to support artistic or creative ventures.
Millions of dollars, in increments as small as $5, have poured into efforts that connect artists, musicians, writers and others with people willing to fund their projects. crowdfunding works by raising money for a well-defined project within a specified time limit and with a goal of raising a particular minimum sum (typically around $2,500). If the goal is not met, no funds are collected. Donors usually get some kind of reward or recognition (a mention in a film’s credits, for example), but they do not have any rights in the resulting work.
Read more at The Economist.
Millions of dollars, in increments as small as $5, have poured into efforts that connect artists, musicians, writers and others with people willing to fund their projects. crowdfunding works by raising money for a well-defined project within a specified time limit and with a goal of raising a particular minimum sum (typically around $2,500). If the goal is not met, no funds are collected. Donors usually get some kind of reward or recognition (a mention in a film’s credits, for example), but they do not have any rights in the resulting work.
Read more at The Economist.
iTunes for Journalism
Ebyline — an angel-financed startup founded by two former Los Angeles Times executives that launched today - believes it can make journalism more efficient by creating an open marketplace: a kind of iTunes for journalism. Freelancers have to cold-call publishers and then negotiate their own rates, then they have to invoice and manage their own billing and payment. Ebyline automates that process, handling all the billing and payment between the writer and the publisher. Freelancers can also “self-syndicate” by putting their content up for bid in Ebyline’s marketplace. Selling content produced by freelance writers makes Ebyline sound a little like Demand Media, Associated Content and other so-called “content farms,” but Ebyline handles only content produced by trained journalists. The company is already working with Variety magazine, ProPublica, MinnPost and the Texas Observer, and is currently trying to raise a Series A financing round.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Thursday, September 9
Google TV this Fall
Google will launch its service to bring the Web to TV screens in the United States this autumn and worldwide next year. The service, which will allow full Internet browsing via the television, would be free, and Google would work with a variety of program makers and electronics manufacturers to bring it to consumers.
Sony said last week it had agreed to have Google TV on its television sets, and Samsung has said it was looking into using the service. Schmidt also said Google would announce partnerships later this year with makers of tablet computers that would use Google's Chrome operating system, due to be launched soon, rather than its Android phone software, which has been used for mobile devices until now.
Read more at Reuters.
Sony said last week it had agreed to have Google TV on its television sets, and Samsung has said it was looking into using the service. Schmidt also said Google would announce partnerships later this year with makers of tablet computers that would use Google's Chrome operating system, due to be launched soon, rather than its Android phone software, which has been used for mobile devices until now.
Read more at Reuters.
Wednesday, September 8
Citizen Journalists at the 2012 Olympics
Two years from now, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will draw to a close, concluding what will become known as the first social media Olympic Summer Games. The city of London is promising to make the city a pervasive wi-fi zone and the British government's move towards a "Digital Britain" (@DigitalBritain) coincides with this period.
There is a good chance that official media may need to become part of this new wave of gonzo journalism to fully do their job of reporting what these games were all about. Yet, the biggest challenge is not convincing professional journalists that their power is waning or that they need to reskill towards the blogosphere. Rather, the bigger problem is the public relations officers who have spent years cultivating relationships with professional journalists on the belief that this will get their organizations kudos and coverage. This loyalty to a diminishing power can frustrate collaborations between professional and citizen journalists.
Read more here.
There is a good chance that official media may need to become part of this new wave of gonzo journalism to fully do their job of reporting what these games were all about. Yet, the biggest challenge is not convincing professional journalists that their power is waning or that they need to reskill towards the blogosphere. Rather, the bigger problem is the public relations officers who have spent years cultivating relationships with professional journalists on the belief that this will get their organizations kudos and coverage. This loyalty to a diminishing power can frustrate collaborations between professional and citizen journalists.
Read more here.
Tuesday, September 7
Life Without a TV Set
Only 42 percent of Americans in 2010 said they felt that a television set was “a necessity,” according to a telephone survey of nearly 3,000 people conducted in May by the Pew Research Center. The proportion of people counting a TV as a must-have has shrunk by one third since 2006, when 64 percent of Americans said they needed one.
However, as Pew points out, these numbers do not mean that Americans are throwing away their televisions. The number of televisions per home has risen steadily, according to Nielsen, so that more than half of American homes have three or more televisions. Rather, they suggest a decline in the perceived status of the television set.
Read more at the New York Times.
However, as Pew points out, these numbers do not mean that Americans are throwing away their televisions. The number of televisions per home has risen steadily, according to Nielsen, so that more than half of American homes have three or more televisions. Rather, they suggest a decline in the perceived status of the television set.
Read more at the New York Times.
Monday, September 6
Brain Waves & Newsstands
In early August, the British magazine New Scientist published a cover that had scored well on a test conducted by neuromarketers, who study the brain’s response to products. The issue sold 12 percent more than the same issue a year ago.
Read more at the New York Times.
Read more at the New York Times.
Saturday, September 4
Monetizing Foursquare
Phone-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla that let users “check in” to shops or restaurants and instantly tell their friends where they are. Fans of such services gush that they will mint money by allowing ads to be targeted at folk who are about to make a purchase. But the networks must negotiate some important hurdles first if such lofty predictions are to come true.
There are, however, several reasons why many marketers are still wary of committing big money to Foursquare and its like. One is that even the largest mobile social networks have just a few million members, which limits their appeal. According to a report published last month by Forrester, a research firm, only 4% of American adults have ever used such networks and far fewer do so more than once a week. Other forms of mobile marketing, such as SMS-based promotions and mobile-search ads, already reach far larger audiences.
Another challenge facing location-based networks is to prevent tech-savvy individuals from gaming their systems. The blogosphere is littered with stories of “fake mayors” and other folk who have come up with ways of checking in to places they haven’t visited.
Friday, September 3
China’s Journalism
The Chinese Communist Party's state-run news factory, the Xinhua News Agency, is growing like gangbusters. In the past year, Xinhua has spent billions launching a 24-hour English-language news station and populating a skyscraper in Times Square, with plans for 120 to 200 overseas bureaus and 6,000 additional journalists. With a price tag estimated in the billions of dollars, the new Xinhua is an expensive megaphone. With a price tag estimated in the billions of dollars, the new Xinhua is an expensive megaphone. Xinhua may be the future of news for one big reason: cost. As a wire service, Xinhua has a lower price tag than the Associated Press, Reuters, or AFP. Recent deals with other state-run outlets make it the leading source for news in Africa and much of Asia, with a strong hold in the Middle East. It helps, of course, that Xinhua’s spin diminishes when the news doesn’t involve China. A bigger problem is the fact that Xinhua is often face-rakingly boring.
Read more at Newsweek.
Read more at Newsweek.
Print or Pixels?
By the end of this year, 10.3 million people are expected to own e-readers in the United States, buying about 100 million e-books, the market research company Forrester predicts. This is up from 3.7 million e-readers and 30 million e-books sold last year.
The trend is wreaking havoc inside the publishing industry, but inside homes, the plot takes a personal twist as couples find themselves torn over the “right way” to read.
Read more at the New York Times.
The trend is wreaking havoc inside the publishing industry, but inside homes, the plot takes a personal twist as couples find themselves torn over the “right way” to read.
Read more at the New York Times.
YouTube Ads Turn Videos Into Revenue
Though Google does not report YouTube’s earnings, it has hinted that it is hovering near profitability. Analysts say YouTube will bring in around $450 million in revenue this year and earn a profit.
YouTube now offers several types of ads, including display ads on its home page and on the video pages, ads that promote videos and ads that run in the video stream or pop up on the bottom of a video. When someone uploaded a recording of the Eminem song “Not Afraid,” for instance, instead of taking down the recording, YouTube ran pop-up ads that let people buy the song or the ring tone and shared the revenue with the copyright owner. Hundreds of these partners make more than $100,000 a year.
YouTube now has 160 million mobile views a day, almost triple last year’s number. When Google introduces Google TV later this year, people will be able to watch YouTube videos on Internet-connected televisions.
Read more at the New York Times.
YouTube now offers several types of ads, including display ads on its home page and on the video pages, ads that promote videos and ads that run in the video stream or pop up on the bottom of a video. When someone uploaded a recording of the Eminem song “Not Afraid,” for instance, instead of taking down the recording, YouTube ran pop-up ads that let people buy the song or the ring tone and shared the revenue with the copyright owner. Hundreds of these partners make more than $100,000 a year.
YouTube now has 160 million mobile views a day, almost triple last year’s number. When Google introduces Google TV later this year, people will be able to watch YouTube videos on Internet-connected televisions.
Read more at the New York Times.
Sunday, August 29
The Search Party is Over
(Google) is still growing at rates that would be the envy of the rest of the Fortune 500. But its core business is slowing, its stock is down, its Android mobile platform generates scant revenue, and competition (hello, Facebook) is fierce. Can Google find its footing in this brave new world? The Googlers certainly know this, but in classic Innovator's Dilemma fashion, the company seems unsure about how to move beyond the core search business that has brought it such massive success.
Social networking is likely to be a big push for Google and holds the most potential. The company is widely rumored to be pursuing a "Google Me" project to do battle with Facebook. They are sort of like the power company of the Internet. But what they lack is a sense of how people share and collaborate. You don't have friends on Google, you have contacts and tasks. These services reflect an engineering culture that's all about utility, but one that makes it hard for the company to create something that's friendly and social.
Read more at Fortune.
Social networking is likely to be a big push for Google and holds the most potential. The company is widely rumored to be pursuing a "Google Me" project to do battle with Facebook. They are sort of like the power company of the Internet. But what they lack is a sense of how people share and collaborate. You don't have friends on Google, you have contacts and tasks. These services reflect an engineering culture that's all about utility, but one that makes it hard for the company to create something that's friendly and social.
Read more at Fortune.
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