Politics, Emotion, and YouTube

Robin says,

Henry Jenkins and Stephen Duncombe talk Obama, YouTube, and emotional politics. (Second video down.)

Duncombe on the will.i.am Obama video: "It uses a language of emotions which one couldn't articulate in a logical sentence." He continues with an extended analysis of the "rhetoric that's embedded in the video" that is quite smart and revelatory.

Heard a new term from Jenkins in this exchange, too: "collective intelligence culture." I like it.

Radio Lab, OMG, Just, Radio Lab

Robin says,

The new Radio Lab podcast is sublime. Honestly, they could just say "blah blah blah" -- but apply their amazing production methods to it -- and I'd be sold. (In this case they talk to a guy who was commissioned to create background music for... a morgue. Amazing.)

It's the cadences that I love -- musical, verbal, pure sonic. These people are geniuses.

Macropocalypse!

Robin says,

If nothing else, Umair Haque knows how to invent new vocabulary and run with it. But I think there's some seriously deep and creative thinking beneath the lingo; if you're not reading Bubblegeneration (and you're interested in the internet, media, and/or economics) you should be. Latest example: The Macropocalypse and The Future of the Firm.

Mailer and McLuhan

Robin says,

A good video to watch in memoriam: Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan on the CBC in 1968. What a match-up. Honestly I'd never seen Mailer on film or video before this moment, and he's wild.

McLuhan:

The artist, when he encounters the present, the contemporary artist, is always seeking new patterns -- new pattern recognition -- which is his task, for heaven's sake! His great need... the absolute indispensability of the artist is that he alone, in the encounter with the present, can give the pattern recognition. [...]

Mailer:

Marshall speaks of [the artist] as a man who essentially records [...] I'd say the artist does that and then he goes one step further: He says whether this is good or bad. And it doesn't matter if the artist's finding is right or wrong, because what he does is give the people who come in contact with his art a subtler sense of good and bad -- then they have a better ability to determine for themselves whether something is good or bad. The reason I keep hitting this notion is that in all of McLuhan-land, you never find the words "good" or "bad."

(Via Russell Davies.)

Awesomeness = f(Small Blocks)

Robin says,

Significantly less fun than the previous post, but I've gotta admit, this bit from Steven Berlin Johnson in his kottke.org interview is sort of one of the best descriptions of what I like about the web, ever:

SBJ: One of the great things that Jane Jacobs wrote about in Life and Death of the Great American Cities is the design principle of favoring short blocks over longer ones -- the crooked streets of the Village versus the big avenues of Chelsea -- because short blocks diversify the flow of pedestrian traffic. In an avenue system, everyone feeds onto the big streets, and you have insanely overcrowded streets and then side streets that are deserted (which leads to storefront real estate that only the big chains can afford, and real estate that no one wants because there's not enough foot traffic). In a short block model, the streets tend to gravitate towards that middle zone where there are always some people on them, but not too many.

I've always thought that the blogosphere can be thought of as a kind of small blocks model for the Web, whereas the original portal idea was much more of a big avenues model. Yes, there are some increasing returns effects that lead to some A-list bloggers having millions of visitors, and yes, there is a long tail of bloggers who have almost no traffic. But the healthiest part of the curve is what Dave Sifry once called "the big butt" -- the middle zone between the head and tail of the Power Law distribution, all those sites with 1000 to 100,000 readers. That's the part of the blogosphere that I think is really cause for celebration, because something like that just didn't exist before on that scale. And as Yochai -- who of course is very smart about all this -- points out: those mid-list sites also communicate up the chain to the A-listers, who can broadcast out the interesting developments in the mid-list so that those stories enter a broader public dialogue.

Always worth remembering it didn't have to be this way. We could have ended up with a much more craptastic top-down internet, like a sort of Super-AOL-Prodigy, or something. We lucked out!

This Business Model Won't Work for Everyone

Robin says,

Regarding Ron Paul's insanely savvy web fund-raising, Virginia Heffernan observes:

He's up to $7,306,451.20 total -- or make that $$7,533,699.69 total, as the ticker on his site flips up every second, like the national debt -- and, if nothing else, he has shown that somebody is making money with online video.

Ha!

In a Strategic Sense, Good Beats Evil

Robin says,

Awesome post from Umair Haque:

That's the point: from a strategic pov, good beats evil - unfortunately for Facebook.

Nice Note on Current.com

Robin says,

From one of my favorites: Virginia Heffernan at the NYT.

Nobel Prize for Webcam Commentary

Robin says,

There's a big emphasis at Current.com on webcam comments: We built a super-simple tool to get your face into the comment stream and into the Viewpoints matrix (designed by my pal P.J.). In case you're worried "the cool kids" won't be there with their webcams on, check it out: The chairman leads the charge.

'Rendering in Real-Time'

Robin says,

This might be the best metaphor I have heard about a person's brain, ever. Jon Stewart on Stephen Colbert:

"[The whole show] depends on Stephen's ability to process information as this other person," says Stewart. "I've seen talk-show hosts who can't do that for real. ... And then you watch Colbert and it's like the first time you use broadband: 'How the fuck did that happen?' He's rendering in real time."

From the Vanity Fair piece, which is good.

Density

Robin says,

I've mentioned Radio Lab before, but Tim just posted about an episode I hadn't heard and I downloaded it and IT BLEW MY MIND.

You've got to give it a listen if you haven't already. Immediately, you'll hear a huge difference from the boring march of words that characterizes every other radio show, ever. On Radio Lab, the words and sonic interjections are fragmented, tiled, cross-cut, layered. There's just so much more to absorb; it lights your brain up. Radio Lab is DENSE.

This is how all explanatory media should feel. We're ready for it.

P.S. I don't want to focus entirely on the meta-method stuff, though, 'cause the ideas and the reporting are also sublime. This is a must-listen.

Burma on Flickr

Robin says,

Unit Structures points to a Flickr photostream out of Rangoon. Some of the pro photography coming out of Burma has been mind-boggling, but I like this stuff even better because it feels like it's actually... real.

Am obsessed with what's going on over there, by the way. This Telegraph article has some amazing details:

At the front of the procession a monk carried an upturned begging bowl, the symbol of this movement, representing the clergy's refusal to accept alms from members of the regime.

Who's got the best coverage of this? Any tips?

Times on Times

Robin says,

The NYT announces its new, more open site policies in hilarious fashion. I love NYT meta-reporting!

Facebook's New Ads

Robin says,

Not the sort of thing I usually post here, but I don't know, this just feels like the future to me somehow. I mean, the "keywords" field? Nuts.

The Internet is the New _____

Robin says,

Is the internet today's punk rock? So asks Wieden + Kennedy's global director of digital strategies.

Actually I totally agree with his opening sentiment --

Frankly, I don't know what Punk Rock is

-- but even so, there's something about the comparison that's appealing. His post is a good read, and not only because it's insanely optimistic about democracy and includes some hefty quotes from The Chairman.

Also: How can you not print-to-read-later an essay called The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head?

Across the Dial

Robin says,

So, I've never heard anything quite like this: a recording of New York radio the night John Lennon was shot -- not just one station but a whole swath of them, complete with bursts of static in between, courtesy of some invisible listener ambling down the dial.

It's pretty amazing. I wish there were more readily-available recordings of TV and radio coverage still mired in the moment. And then on top of that, it's fascinating when you go beyond a single example into a sort of longitudinal survey.

Bill Moyers' show on the media in the lead-up to the Iraq war is actually a great example -- even just a few years out it's already revelatory and horrifying, and I'm sure it will only get better (worse) as the years go by.

The Motion of Motion

Robin says,

1. Select video, e.g. "Run Lola Run."
2. Display thousands of copies of said video on a gigantic wall-spanning video matrix, each offset from its neighbor by a single frame.
3. Observe.

The patterns that emerge out of different kinds of motion in the movie, and different kinds of cutting, are pretty nutso.

A Database of Facts

Robin says,

PolitiFact from the St. Pete Times and CQ. Backstory.

Great power can flow from default reference link status; think Wikipedia, IMDB, etc. Can PolitiFact achieve default reference link status for political claims? Would be very cool if it did. Snarkmarket will assist with link love whenever possible.

As an aside: It's totally rad to see the St. Pete Times stepping up in a national way like this. More, more!

Social Hardware

Robin says,

Grawww this is too cool: Webhead polymaths Schulze and Webb have built a prototype social radio. Think for a second about what you think a "social radio" might be before clicking that link... then check it out. The second of their three big ideas is my favorite.

Democratization of Manipulation, Part 3

Robin says,

Hey, speaking of democracy... this set of Photoshop tutorials that shows you how to do effects from movies, besides being rad and fun, is also totally subversive.

Seriously! It's one thing to vaguely understand that all images presented by the entertainment industry are massively processed... it's another to learn how to do it yourself.

Previously: Real Beauty, and the follow-up.

Favorite Voices, New Mediums

Robin says,

Hendrik Hertzberg has a blog and the first word, against all odds, is: "Bam."

With Great Power Comes...

Robin says,

James Fallows on two-tiered stock structure in media ownership:

The only justification for "Class B" shares giving special voting power to the Sulzberger family at the Times, the Graham family at the Post, and the Bancroft family at the Journal is the assumption that the families will weigh other factors in deciding how the news operation should be run.

That is: other potentially non-economic factors.

Of course, Class B shares aren't just an old-school thing. Guess which other company uses them to give super-votes -- and, potentially, the power to defy the market -- to founders and top executives?

Google.

Update: James Fallows notes the Google gambit too.

Errol Morris, Photography, and Truth

Robin says,

Good stuff on Errol Morris's New York Times blog. (Given the reaction of those three nouns -- Errol Morris, New York Times, and blog -- in my brain, I suddenly feel kinda like the target of one of those precision laser-guided munitions... except it's a blog, not a bomb, and I'm me, not a suspicious-looking chemical plant.)

Because it is TimesSelect, I will not tease you with a provocative blockquote. I will say: If you have access to the NYT's restricted garden of delights, the comments are as good as the blog post.

Update: Well, on second thought, I guess Vulture is right that Morris is not actually a very good blogger as such.

The Rule of Reason

Robin says,

Bill Moyers talks to Bruce Fein, a lawyer, and John Nichols, a journalist, about impeachment. Every time Moyers puts something on air it reminds me what "discourse" is actually supposed to look like.

If you didn't see it, the first episode of his new show, about the lead-up to the Iraq war, is gut-wrenching. It's all stuff you know and remember, of course, but it's still pretty terrible to see it all laid out so starkly.

This American Brain

Robin says,

WHOAH.

Aaron pointed me to Radio Lab, a public radio show about science.

Am excited to report that it is by far the coolest radio show I've ever heard -- in the truest sensory meaning of the word. I think it might be the best radio show in the world. Or in history.

Forgive me. Am caught up in the throes of enthusiasm and hyperbole. But seriously: It's great. Here's why:

• It's about science.
• It's incredibly aggressive with audio montage: dialogue overlaps and spills over, music and sound effects pile up in layers, outtakes and asides shimmer at the edges. The result is astonishing, and dense in the best possible way.
• It has a wonderful vocal style: They've completely rejected the voice-of-god format, as well as the voice-of-casual-god format, and even the voice-of-friendly-NPR-god format, and replaced it with a truly conversational, sometimes contentious tone. Very often, hosts will interrupt each other and say something like: "Wait, what? What does that even mean?"
• Lovely, lilting, IDM-y music.
• Only five episodes per season. This is an amount of media that I can actually process!

I've only listened to a few episodes but my favorite so far is Sleep. It includes: an explanation for the fact that you always sleep strangely on your first night in a new place, dolphins with parallel brains, the scourge of improperly folded proteins... and Tetris dreams.

So, I officially have a gigantic crush on this show -- both because it's good, interesting journalism, and because it's such a palpably new way of doing radio.

No Caption Needed

Robin says,

No Caption Needed is a new blog about "iconic photographs, public culture, and liberal democracy." Am super-excited about the prospect of a continuing stream of stuff like this. First time I've seen the phrase "visual public sphere" and I love it.

Via Eszter.

A Bit of Love for Current

Robin says,

Nice write-up from Joanne Ostrow in the Denver Post:

Imagine a television network that operates like YouTube but with a social conscience, a programming staff and a crew of professional videographers, journalists and hosts giving it shape.

Imagine it complete with viewer-made commercials.

Lately I've been happily distracted by such a network, Current TV. Specializing in short attention spans, airing mini-shows called "pods," Current TV is designed as always-on cultural background music for the iPod generation the way CNN is a constant for diplomats and editors.

The diplomats and editors will be ours as well.

Gorilla vs. Monkey

Robin says,

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, the guys who created The Gorillaz, have written an opera called Monkey. Of course.

It sounds sort of super-awesome:

"Opera is just a term for drama in theatre that's led entirely by music", says Jamie. "People are scared of operas, especially when they're in Mandarin. People will be astounded by this show, but they have to take that leap of faith. The first four months was complete confusion. It was quite scary doing this. But that's where the excitement is for me, the challenge. Now we have 81 minutes of non-stop, in your face entertainment. You won't have the opportunity to get bored! There's no curtain and no pauses. We have dragons and water and horses and lots of animation and flying sequences. It's full on."

The Future of Media

Robin says,

...isn't Googlezon at all.

It's ARGs with a point and open blogging events.

I am totally serious.

The Atlantic Rides Again

Robin says,

The Atlantic Monthly, along with Wired, was basically my introduction to the awesome interestingness of the world. So I am happy to see it making some smart new moves on the web:

With the exception of Sullivan, who I never really got into, this is the beginning of my ideal blog lineup. Yglesias, Douthat, and Fallows are all well worth your time.

A Print-Only Newsletter... Just Kidding

Robin says,

I gotta say, the NYT is doing so many things right online these days. For instance, this blog entry from The Caucus strikes me as pitch-perfect:

We are about 45 minutes away from the start of the big Democratic debate in South Carolina. The Times’s Katharine Q. Seelye will be live-blogging all the action from Orangeburg beginning at 7 p.m. ET.

The Times’s Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny will be writing off the debate in South Carolina, for the Web site and of course, for the newspaper.

Note the order. NOTE THE ORDER!

DealBook is also amazing if you're into that sort of thing.

Behold, the Governor

Robin says,

This photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger is bizarre and awesome. He's getting a Wired Rave Award. (So is Brian K. Vaughan, a phenomenal comics writer!)

Magazines of the World

Robin says,

signandsight translates articles by non-English language authors in Europe (especially Germany) into English. What I like even better, though, are the synthesis: Here's all the smartypants magazines in the U.S. and Europe this week, summarized. Totally cool.

Reminds me of Foreign Policy magazine's reviews of books in foreign languages. The world needs more sites and services like this.

Virginia Tech, and Taking Control of Your Representation

Robin says,

A Virginia Tech student named Jason Piatt just looks into his webcam and talks:

I guess the internet's a pretty powerful thing... I didn't realize how many people are really on Facebook and MySpace and all that, but all day long people have been sending me emails, messages, and everything... "I wanna do this interview, I wanna do this interview."

At first it was kinda exciting because I felt like people really care about what I have to say out there... I'm doing somebody some good, I'm making a difference. And then after a while I realized, like, no matter how many times I told the same story, that I just told you... people still wanted to hear it.

And I would tell 'em, I'd say, I don't have anything, you watch CNN right? You see these other things... that's all I got.

Fix an image of the standard cable news presentation in your mind -- helicopter shot, yammering voices, text crawl -- and then watch this. It's riveting.

Update: This is on Current TV now. Here's the broadcast version (a little tighter).

Related: This Ypulse post is fascinating. A Facebook group created as a memorial to one of the VA Tech victims leads with this warning:

**ATTENTION NEWS MEDIA**

NEWS MEDIA DO NOT have permission to use photographs, quotes, or any information from the site, AND you do not have permission to contact group members.

Wow. There's something important going on here.

Unstrung

Robin says,

Check out Unstrung by Lara Pawson, a journalist in Angola. It is kinda what you always thought blogs could be. For instance: here, and here.

Via M. John Harrison, who I didn't know had a blog. His book Light is weird and terrific.

Radical Radical Transparency Transparency

Robin says,

I totally do not have time to process this right now, but I'm pretty sure it is awesome:

1. Wired does an issues on radical transparency. One part is a piece by Fred Vogelstein on Microsoft's blogging efforts.
2. Microsoft's PR firm, Waggener Edstrom, writes up a giant briefing document for MSFT execs on how to deal effectively with Vogelstein.
3. The firm accidentally emails this document to Vogelstein. Ta-da!
4. Wired editor Chris Anderson blogs about it.
5. Fred Vogelstein blogs about it.
6. Wait for it...
7. The president of Waggener Edstrom blogs about it!

The whole thing has transformed into a kind of crazy transparency-off. Yes, I have made up my mind: This is awesome.

P.S. Also in this issue of Wired: Clive Thompson quotes me! (I commented on his blog while he was working on this piece.)

Fatal Flaw

Robin says,

Whoah. I just realized something. That News Corp.-NBC-big media YouTube competitor is totally going to use Windows Media, isn't it? It totally is. Consider this my official prediction.

A PSA for Current

Matt says,

I'm catching up on weeks of RSS feeds. (Actually, I'm about to go to bed, and I've barely made a dent. Sigh.) Everybody's going nuts over these Ira Glass videos on storytelling. Robin probably won't point it out, so I will:

a) these have been around for a while. I want him to do another set of them now that he's conquered another medium. Hey, co-blogger, could ya work on that?

b) Current's actually got a ton more of these, not only with Ira Glass, but with Sarah Vowell, Dave Eggers, Elvis Mitchell, Robert Redford, Orville Schell, Xeni Jardin, Bonz Malone, Catherine Hardwicke and Jonathan Caouette. Go marinate in narrative goodness.

Foreign Policy: Still Awesome

Robin says,

Foreign Policy magazine just got nominated for two National Magazine Awards. One was for general excellence, which is right on. It's just consistently a great magazine.

And in case you missed it, they now have an eminently RSS-subscription-worthy blog.

Don't Think of a Viral Video

Robin says,

They can quantitatively predict media virality now. Crap. It involves hooking sensors up to your brain. Crap crap crap.

Ze Frank's Greatest Hits

Robin says,

If I really did run the Museum of Media History, I would put this video in it. File under "early 21st century internet culture." Also, "early life of President Hosea Frank."

65,536 Bytes of Madness

Robin says,

New blog entry up over at Current with a video that's worth watching -- it's one of these demoscene videos generated by a teeny-tiny computer program, just 64K big. And it melts your face.

The Wisdom... or Something... of Crowds

Robin says,

An interesting thing happened at Jim Romenesko's Starbucks Gossip site recently: Somebody slipped Romenesko what appeared to be an internal email from Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz. Romenesko posted it, with the caveat: I have no idea if this is real.

Soon after, its legitimacy was confirmed, and now it's been covered by the big guys. (It's actually a pretty interesting story -- Schultz is warning that Starbucks has lost its way.)

But before that happened, Starbucks Gossip readers were hashing out the likely legitimacy of the email on their own. If you read some of the long comment thread, you get an awfully good snapshot of web-ified group discussion today: smart; informed (most of the commenters are Starbucks baristas!); opinionated; and, er, often wrong.

No specific conclusions from me (maybe you have some?) but I just thought it was a data point interesting enough to share.

(Starbucks Gossip is great, by the way -- I think I might read it with more excitement than I do the other one these days.)

PR via YouTube

Matt says,

BrandFlakesForBreakfast is right. JetBlue earns +10 humanity points for posting a YouTube video from its CEO instead of the standard press release on its website.

Usemonopolies

Matt says,

Jonathan Lethem has plagiarized together an entrancing paean to intellectual theft:

Artists, or their heirs, who fall into the trap of attacking the collagists and satirists and digital samplers of their work are attacking the next generation of creators for the crime of being influenced, for the crime of responding with the same mixture of intoxication, resentment, lust, and glee that characterizes all artistic successors. By doing so they make the world smaller, betraying what seems to me the primary motivation for participating in the world of culture in the first place: to make the world larger.

The effort of preserving another's distinctive phrases as I worked on this essay was sometimes beyond my capacities; this form of plagiarism was oddly hard work.

Cf. this beautiful Slate photo-essay on visual plagiarism.

The New Visual Rhetoric of Politics

Robin says,

This video of John Edwards' speech at the DNC Winter Meeting is well-constructed. I like the editing and I like the "video grain" -- it feels very YouTube-native. Early points to the Edwards campaign.

Update: This video response starts off a little dorky, but ends up being a really sharp media analysis. I love the internet.

I Hope You Can Read Fast

Robin says,

Another cool video: This one is a new Web 2.0 primer.

Videos like this -- that use moving images to explain abstract concepts instead of concrete realities -- are actually pretty rare. It's hard for me to tell if this one is truly successful, because I'm already familiar with this particular abstract concept, but it sure seems like it.

And regardless, the visual device -- narration in query strings and source code -- is ridiculously brilliant.

(Via.)

Google's Master Plan

Robin says,

Speaking of Google: Scope out this super-slick anti-Google manifesto. Not too deep but wow, that is some fantastic animation. (Unit Structure-iffic.)

Everything That Can Be Remixed... Will Be Remixed

Robin says,

Step one: Transcribe iPhone ringtone.

Step two: Issue iPhone ringtone remix challenge.

Step three: Holy crap... these are actually really good!

Presidential Campaigns as Production Companies

Robin says,

Talking about presidential campaigns, David Weinberger says:

They're better models of TV production than of democracy in action.

He has a cool post up about John Edwards too.

YouTube for Nerds

Robin says,

A new site called FORA is aggregating smarty-pants lectures and talks from the likes of C-SPAN, the Long Now Foundation, New America, various World Affairs Councils -- you get the idea.

Expect bad suits... bad hair... bad lighting...

AND AWESOME IDEAS.

Orville Schell on the future of China, whaaa? (Ring a bell?)

You've heard Will Wright jam with Brian Eno; now see it.

Who better to talk about Iran than Reza Aslan, author of the transcendently good book "Not god but God"?

This is so dope.

P.S. Except that it's kinda hard to link to videos and the pop-up player is lame-o. And they have no RSS feeds. Give them time.

A World of Endless Fascination

Robin says,

Yo, I'm back in action over at the Current blog. I'm going to post every Monday -- probably something web-nerd-related.

I actually think the question I pose at the bottom of the post is a pretty good one.

Keeping Current

Robin says,

There's a nice mention of Current over at Lost Remote. I resist talking about the channel here because a) there are perils inherent in blogging about work and b) obviously I am biased, but really, it's quite good.

Ryan Larkin

Matt says,

Street Musique, Syrinx and Walking: three works by the incredible Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. I think this is what you'd get if you mashed up Fantasia, The Science of Sleep, The Earthly Paradise, a Bill Plympton cartoon, and some pot brownies.

Then there's the also-amazing short 3D documentary about Larkin's life, Ryan (part 1 | part 2). (MetaFilterrific.)

The Reformation Was, You Know, Sort of a Wiki

Robin says,

Joel Stein:

Not everything should be interactive. A piece of work that stands on its own, without explanation or defense, takes on its own power. If Martin Luther put his 95 Theses on the wall and then all the townsfolk sent him their comments, and he had to write back to all of them and clarify what he meant, some of the theses would have gotten all watered down and there never would have been a Diet of Worms...

Martin Luther:

Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter.

Sharp juxtaposition by Brad deLong. Awesome.

Hot Diggity

Matt says,

If ever a post were truly worthy of the "Media Galaxy" category, it's this: tons upon tons of quality copyrighted media, for free, for now.

Illustrator Discovery Engine

Matt says,

At Patchbox, artists can submit a link and an 80 x 80px thumbnail, and you can look at samples of a bunch of different styles of graphic art all at once. (MetaFilterrific.)

Car Salesmen

Matt says,

'Sometimes, the truth of a stereotype can make it all the more wonderful.' (Via. And don't stop there.)

Variations on a Theme

Matt says,

DrawerGeeks.com: Twice a month, graphic artists reimagine popular icons. Behold the wizardry. MeFidelic.

Craigslist Among the Capitalists

Robin says,

This DealBook entry on Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster's presentation at a media conference in New York is really fun:

Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a "a culture clash of near-epic proportions." She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. It doesn't, Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). "That definitely is not part of the equation," he said, according to MediaPost. "It's not part of the goal."

It's amazing how the decision not to maximize profit has become Craigslist's unbeatable competitive advantage. It is the one move other companies can't copy.

The post really struck a chord; the conversation that follows is the longest I've ever seen on DealBook, by far.

When the Crystal Ball is All Fogged Over

Robin says,

This post by super-smart Scott Karp gets to the heart of the situation in the media world right now:

The problem is that, in the this increasingly complex networked 2.0 world, customers don’t know what they need. And providers don’t know either. What happens when the buy side and the sell side are wandering lost in the fog?

I keep coming back to this Henry Ford quote:

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."

As much as media is obsessed with the scarcity of attention, the real scarcity is in innovation.

Nice crystallization.

A Story, a Lost Pet, a Garage Sale, an Event

Robin says,

I kind of love the submission taxonomy presented on Pegasus News's neighborhood pages. Yo, that's what it's all about.

How Current Works

Robin says,

Amanda Michel over at NewAssignment.net (Jay Rosen's cool collaborative journalism experiment) interviewed me about Current.

Go Digg it if you do such things!

Kill Me Now

Robin says,

Michael Hirschorn leads his whither-newspapers story with EPIC. And this is, honestly, one of the best lines written about it, ever:

As a piece of pop futurism, EPIC 2014 is both brilliant and brilliantly self-subverting (at once inevitable and preposterous).

Oh yeah, by the way, IT'S IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Update: Jon Fine mentions Hirschorn's story and points to some pretty interesting news: Two big-time WaPo reporters are striking out on their own to start a political news site.

Fabric Constellations

Robin says,

Wow, never thought I'd be linking to quilts here on Snarkmarket, but... these are not your ordinary quilts. Just look at those colors!

Also: I saw the Gee's Bend quilts at the deYoung earlier this year, and was blown away.

Viral Video Film School

Robin says,

Awesome episode of Current Buzz posted today: Viral Video Film School. The construction of Brett's piece is fantastic... very "the rise of the image, the fall of the word," actually.

Freedom

Robin says,

This video is a pretty blunt instrument, but even so, it's the coolest thing I've seen so far this Election Day. Of course, the George Michael song is key.

And, importantly, the link was emailed to me by a random friend. In fact, I've gotten more election-related emails this time around than in any previous year. It almost feels like there might be some sort of public deliberation occurring...

This democracy thing, it just might work out.

One Day Snarkmarket Will Get One of These and Oh, the Wish We'll Make

Robin says,

Latest winners of the TED Prize just announced. Jeez... if there any two people in the world who could make Bill Clinton (one of this year's winners) seem kinda lame and dull by comparison, it's James Nachtwey and E.O. Wilson.

Re: Nachtwey, you should see "War Photographer" if you haven't. It is actually in the dictionary under "harrowing."

Re: Wilson, he is the primary subject of the latest issue of SEED Magazine. They actually made a video trailer for the issue -- sort've a ridiculously awesome idea, actually.

Re: the TED Prize in general, what I wanna know is, have they made any progress on last year's?

A Negative Theology of Spam

Robin says,

I'm telling you, this gem of an essaylet from Short Schrift is the kind of thing E.B. White would have written if he had a blog:

Like all good lapsed Catholics, I believe in sin but not salvation. Likewise, I believe in spam. You could say that I only believe in spam. The "spam" folder gives us the assurance -- perhaps false -- that our other messages are NOT spam, that they demand at least reading and sorting, if not a reply. We can believe that the message for which we've been waiting, the good news, is on its way, because we have a sure means of detecting false prophets.

So good!

Let's Paint, Exercise, & Blend Drinks TV

Robin says,

The comment on YouTube sums it up: "this redeems television."

Give it a couple of minutes.

Via Peter's RSS unblog.

The Ultimate Interactive TV Show

Robin says,

Wow -- Richard Dawkins was surprisingly good on the Colbert Report. He is so sprightly and British.

On the same show -- the Report's one-year anniversary -- Stephen Colbert announced they'd be auctioning off his portrait.

The Caretaker

Robin says,

Might TV cause autism?

(Via Points of Note.)

Democratization of Manipulation, Cont'd

Robin says,

Here's a new Dove commercial that's part of their ongoing "Real Beauty" campaign. Mostly I'm just noting it so I have an excuse to link back to one of my favorite Snarkmarket threads of all time.

(Via Adrants.)

Just In Case You Haven't Heard ...

Matt says,

This American Life is podcasting.

How Sesame Street Changed the World

Robin says,

There's a new documentary about Sesame Street coming out that sounds fantastic; more info in the LA Times. 3qd-elicious.

How Current Works

Robin says,

Hey, if you have any interest in the nuts-and-bolts of how Current works, check out this long interview with my boss Joanna Drake Earl over on [itvt]. It is almost ridiculously long and in-depth... I love online interviews.

One of the things Joanna talks about is the fact that aspiring VC2 producers can now download legal, licensed production music for their videos from the Current site. As I said on the Current blog, it exemplifies my favorite thing about Current: We take people (and their desire to do good work) seriously.

Think of This Blog as a Series of Colored Index Cards

Robin says,

Conor explains the primacy of the colored index card in TV production (and includes informative stills!). Why hasn't it been displaced by something high-tech and web-based?

At first, I was shocked that technology hadn't killed this practice. Isn't there some sort of wiki that we could use? A cool, iCal-looking webapp that everyone in the office could access, annotate and play with? Are leaky Sharpies and 3x5 cards really the best we can do?

Already, we use software that lets us share/edit our scripts, and I've been slowly getting people to use del.icio.us to share bookmarks across the office. But I don't think I'm going to make any progress killing the wall of cards, and, the more I see it popping up other places, the less I want to.

There's something cool about being able to look at the wall (instead of a monitor) and instantly visualize what you have coming up. But, for me, there's something even cooler about maintaining a couple of traditions that make you feel like you belong to some larger sense of TV history -- that your room of writers isn't so different from the rooms of writers on all the shows you've admired growing up.

Hmm -- the bit about instant visualization sounds just like the engineers and project managers over in that Edward Tufte thread we were talking about earlier. For big, shared projects, there's still nothing better than paper pinned to the wall.

Yahoo! Current Launches

Robin says,

Just launched: phase one of the Yahoo! Current Network.

Today's highlight: a real-life, sit-down interview with Gary Brolsma, the Numa Numa kid. You can tell he is about the shyest dude ever... which just makes his wild arm-flailing abandon in the original Numa Numa video all the more endearing.

Meme Tourism

Robin says,

It'd be like something out of a William Gibson book: You pay money to go 'inside' a viral internet meme.

Conor didn't pay for this but it's still pretty trippy. (His presence in Gary Brolsma's bedroom will be explained soon enough.)

The Amazing Screw-On Head

Robin says,

I am way late to the party on this one, but The Amazing Screw-On Head is fantastic. Mike Mignola is my favorite comic-book artist of all time so it's no surprise I like it, but still. Give it fifteen minutes.

New Kinds of Graffiti

Robin says,

Beautiful stuff over at if:book.

It's Inevitable

Robin says,

I was just checking out Google Video's new ad system and happened to click on this video, a Charlie Rose episode featuring Thomas Friedman.

And it struck me: This man is going to run for political office.

Maybe not soon, but some day. Just listen to the way he talks! And come on, he's rich!

When it happens, just remember: Snarkmarket called it.

MTV Turns 25

Robin says,

The WaPo's Hank Stuever, one of my favorite writers at any newspaper, find's MTV's moral center. He also uses the word "snarkabratory." (Thanks, Nora!)

Who Wants to be a Superhero?

Robin says,

Finally, a reality show for people like me. (To clarify I mean "people who would watch something awesome like this." Not "people who dress up as superheroes." Shut up.)

We're All Designers Now

Robin says,

ZeFrank on the democratization of design and creation. Radness level = extreme. He's totally right -- how wacky and historically new is it that everybody knows what a font is? And has a favorite? Waxmatic.

How Wikipedia Really Works

Robin says,

Nick Carr links to a great interview with three living, breathing Wikipedians who aren't Jimmy Wales. Here's the cash:

Dirk Riehle: What about the 'collective intelligence' or 'collective wisdom' argument: That given enough authors, the quality of an article will generally improve? Does this hold true for Wikipedia?

Elisabeth "Elian" Bauer: No, it does not. The best articles are typically written by a single or a few authors with expertise in the topic. In this respect, Wikipedia is not different from classical encyclopedias.

Kizu Naoko: Elian is right.

And I love this broad-minded comment, the first on Carr's post:

Our founding fathers created a wiki, representative democracy, where everyone (supposedly) has an equal voice.

MurdochSpace

Robin says,

Slate imagines Rupert Murdoch's MySpace page. Ha!

Aww, What Do Those Guys Know?

Robin says,

Top fifty blog by scientists. Dugg.

L'Usine de Bonheur

Matt says,

So far, this is my favorite commercial of the year. (Brandiloquent.)

Snacksonomies

Robin says,

Once Snacksby gets off the ground it's going to be the. coolest. thing.

I just added beans.

Rocketboom at the Webbys

Robin says,

Now this is how you cover an event.

Amnesty Int'l Ad Campaign

Matt says,

It's not happening here, but it's happening now. (Unmediated.)

Engines of Serendipity

Robin says,

Wish I had time to muse more fully on this, because it's one of the best and most interesting blogposts I've read in ages: Nick Carr on serendipity. Not just the modern disputes, either (though he gets to those); Carr actually starts off with a brief history of the concept.

Three Princes of Serendip, y'all.

I ♥ Librarians

Robin says,

Still chugging along under the steam of EPIC, I gave a talk to a big group of librarians in Denver on Friday. Had Matt been there too, there would have been singing; as it was, I just did a slideshow.

Here's Jennifer Lang's run-down on her blog called "Z666.7.L365." Z is the Library of Congress classification space for information about libraries. That's so rad.

Jennifer also rounded up some examples of a trend I heard about in Denver: libraries creating MySpace pages. The logic, of course, is that MySpace is where all their patrons are hanging out... so they should connect with them there. The Brooklyn College Library has 1673 friends, and some comments that are totally worth reading. For instance: "it is THE strangest experience when you get a Friend Request from your SCHOOL'S LIBRARY. who the hell came up with this idea? BRILLIANT I TELL U....abso-freakin-lutely brilliant!!!!"

And so much sweeter and legit-seeming from a library than from, say, some stupid deodorant.

One of the really magical things about libraries, after all, is that they are all about service. They don't want anything from you; they don't want to sell you anything. Today, that is almost a radical proposition. Like serious journalism, librarianship is worth preserving and extending in the era of Google's cold genius; in both cases there is something valuable at the core.

I Think I Dig This

Matt says,

Philips Electronics bought the first page of Time and four other magazines (space usually reserved for ads) and will put the mags' table of contents there. Taking off the journalistic umbrage hat for a moment, purely as a reader, I would love this. And the whole Philips "Simplicity" campaign is kind of genius.

UGC Yeah You Know Me

Robin says,

Derek rings a death knell for the term "user-generated content" and I agree. I would, in fact, strike the word "content" from the earth if I could. It's so clinical.

Yahoo!^® Buys Snarkmarket

Matt says,

It's exciting to be finally able to say this is official. This deal has been in the works for what feels like ages. But Robin and I are thrilled to announce we will be joining the Yahoo!^® family. When we started Snarkmarket almost two-and-a-half years ago, we really didn't know what to expect, and we definitely weren't expecting to sell this baby off. (Under the terms of our acquisition, we're really not allowed to discuss figures, but I think saying there are three commas involved is oblique enough.)

But as we've evolved into a media powerhouse, with a user base of almost 7 regular commenters, it became clearer and clearer that the only responsible thing for us to do was to partner with a large organization that could give this community the resources it needed to realize its potential. Yahoo!^® is certainly the best partner we could have imagined. We're excited about what's in store for us, for you our users, and for the world.

For more info on the acquisition, see here, here, and the official Yahoo!^® announcement here.

Roll Your Own

Robin says,

Dustin's Chevy Tahoe commercial is AWESOME. (Background.)

The Dark Knight Returns, Again

Robin says,

I'm reading Batman: Year 100 (issues #1 and #2 are out; #3 and #4 still on their way) and liking it a lot. The plot is sparse, and so is the linework -- writer/artist Paul Pope has a style that's half Frank Miller, half manga, and honestly a little Bob Kane-y too.

Here's Wired's interview with Pope; that's what tipped me off to this series in the first place.

Bought my copies at SF's incomparable Isotope.

Sans Atlantic

Robin says,

Gah! On heels of news that The Atlantic Monthly's circulation is the now lowest it's been since the late 80s comes this: Their absolute A+ ace reporter William Langewiesche is leaving for a job at Vanity Fair. And -- maybe even worse -- managing editor (and soul of the Atlantic) Cullen Murphy is out, too. His short travelogue this month on Hadrian's Wall (subscribers only, sadly) is classic Atlantic. In other words: totally unexpected and totally smart.