Author Archives: Steve Mays

Mel Karmazin interview: “Fucking with the magic”

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Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio. Before that he was head of CBS Radio. For most of his career he has been known as a “Wall Street darling” for his ability to drive up the price of his various companies’ stock. Don Imus frequently referred to him as the Zen Master. Let’s just say he knows a lot about radio and advertising. I was struck by his description of advertising and frank assessment that Google was “fucking with the magic.”

“I loved the model that I had then. At that point I had… I was the CEO of  CBS and I had a model where you buy a commercial… if you’re an advertiser you buy a commercial in the Super Bowl and, at that time, you paid two-and-a-half million dollars for a spot and had no idea if it worked. I mean, you had no idea if it sold product… did any good… I loved that model! That was a great model! And why …if I can get away with that model… if I’m in the business where I can sell advertising that way, why wouldn’t I want to do it?

No return on investment. And you know how everybody looks for return on investment? We had a a business model that didn’t worry about return on investment and then here comes Google. They screwed it up. They went to all these advertisers and said, we’ll let you know exactly what it is.”

Oooh. Reminds me of the old saw, “I know that only half of my advertising works, I just don’t know which half.” The full interview is worth a watch and confirmed my feeling that a real sea change (in advertising) is taking place.

“The Age of Media Agnosticism”

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In an essay titled The Age of Media Agnosticism, Steve Rubel cites a study by the Poynter Institute that identifies seven classes of news consumers and the beginning of a “new era of media agnosticism.” First, the 7 types:

  • Traditional: those who devote a set amount of time to their news habit every day;
  • Passive: multi-taskers who don’t devote time to news but have an “ambient awareness” and tune in as their interest is piqued;
  • Pursuit: people who seek out a specific piece of information, such as the full version of a story they heard about;
  • Social: under 30-types who rely on the news to “find them” via social networks;
  • Partisan: individuals who turn to select news providers based on their own outlooks (e.g. DailyKos or FOX News);
  • Continuous: “information addicts” who are always plugged in; and
  • Post-traditional: news consumers who get it all online and have “loose loyalties” for certain sites.

I’ll put myself in one or both of the last two types. And for those of us in or near the news “business,” Mr. Rubel’s final takeaway:

“Faced with infinite choices, powerful search tools and equally helpful friends, we’re adapting our habits and becoming less loyal to general sources than we once were. Many rely on the news to find us rather than our needing to seek it out. Those who do hunt for news are likely to do so via a single outlet of their choosing and/or a search engine, or even YouTube.”

Pimp my netbook

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Local artist Jim Dike pinged me for advice on a new computer and wound up buying a Dell netbook. He wanted good battery life and reports the new Dell can run for 8 hours on a charge.

And it will look smashing the entire time. All you need is some clear sticker paper and colored sharpies (and a pick-up truck load of talent). Not sure how I feel about putting “sticker paper” on m precious MacBook Pro, but I’m tempted.

Quantum Enigma

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For some years I’ve been fascinated by, and reading about, time. Which pretty quickly gets you into the realm of quantum theory. Recently I’ve come across some wonderful books suitable for folks like me that needed “assistance” getting through college algebra.

Quantum Enigma is co-authored by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, who teach physics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. If you suspect that things are not as they seem, I highly recommend this book.

I bring this up in an effort to understand —and explain— how my last post here was on Christmas Eve, almost 3 days ago, and yet no perceived time has “passed” for me.

UPDATE: The above was first posted on 12/27/09.  I have since finished this book. It was a challenging read and much more about physics than consciousness. Unless otherwise indicated, the quotes below can be attributed to the authors, Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner.

“In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it. – Martin Rees

“Space almost instantly expanded, or “inflated,” at a rate much faster than the speed of light. Starting from something vastly smaller than an atom, the entire universe we observe today presumably inflated almost instantaneously to the size of a large grapefruit.”

“The chance  that a livable universe like ours would be created is far less than the chance of randomly picking a particular single atom out of all the atoms in the universe.”

“Consider how improbably you are — the improbability of someone with just your unique DNA being conceived. (Millions of your possible siblings were not conceived. And now go back a few generation.) With those odds, you’re essentially impossible.”

“It is hard to imagine something truly astonishing that we don’t initially rule out as preposterous.”

Avatar

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First movie of the new year. I’m pretty good about keeping track of what I read (thanks to Library Thing) but tend to overlook movies. Perhaps because we don’t go that often these days.

Avatar was my first 3-D movie since House of Wax with Vincent Price (1953, Ritz Theater in Kennett, MO). The glasses are more comfortable and the effect as pretty amazing. Rather than things zooming out into the audience, I found myself pulled into the movie.

I very much enjoyed the movie. The helicopter pilot brought back memories of Aliens. I never figured out why Sigourney Weaver’s character always had on hiking boots when she was in the alien avatar.

It will be the height of cool to not like this movie.

Pick your decade: Frustration or Change

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I should just point www.smays.com to Seth Godin’s blog. Maybe change to WhatHeSaid.com. Mr. G picks two important trends for the coming decade. I’m opting for “change” over “frustration,” but you should read the full post.

Change: The infrastructure of massive connection is now real. People around the world have cell phones. The first internet generation is old enough to spend money, go to work and build companies. Industries are being built every day (and old ones are fading). The revolution is in full swing, and an entire generation is eager to change everything because of it. Hint: it won’t look like the last one with a few bells and whistles added.

In my experience, the people who poo-poo the idea of radical change usually have the most invested in keeping things the same. Good luck.

Augmented reality and the annotated world

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The following is from a post by Jeff Jarvis in which he talks about augmented reality and the annotated world and the ever-changing definition of journalism and local news.

“Every address, every building, every business has a story to tell. Visualize your world that way: Look at a restaurant and think about all the data that already swirls around it — its menu, its reviews and ratings and tags (descriptive words), its recipes, its ingredients, its suppliers (and how far away they are, if you care about that sort of thing), its reservation openings, who has been there (according to social applications), who do we know who has been there, its health-department reports, its credit-card data (in aggregate, of course), pictures of its interior, pictures of its food, its wine list, the history of the location, its decibel rating, its news…

And then think how we can annotate that with our own reviews, ratings, photos, videos, social-app check-ins and relationships, news, discussion, calendar entries, orders…. The same can be said of objects, brands — and people.”

His post includes a few videos but this is my favorite:

When I think about the implications of this technology, and what it means for news organizations, I have what I have come to think of as Wile E. Coyote moments. The realization most will never catch the Road Runner (Beep, Beep!) The future –which is here– belongs to small, flightless birds that refuse to play by our cartoon rules.

PS: If you’re satisfied seeing the world through emails and text messages, your BlackBerry will be fine. If you want to augment your reality (and you will), it will be with an iPhone or similar device.

Jonathan Brownfield: Sports Photographer

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Jonathan BrownfieldI don’t remember how I happened across Jonathan Brownfield. One of those six degrees of Twitter things, probably. Jonathan is a professional sports photographer and has shot games involving “our” teams so that was probably it.

Along the way he mentioned visiting family in Missouri over the holidays so I tweeted him with an invite to stop by for lunch/tour/interview.  Today was the day.

Here’s some background from one of Jonathan’s websites (for those that take a pass on the interview):

“While in high school, I started working as an assistant for Sports Illustrated photographer, David Klutho. That marked the beginning of my career as a professional photographer. This lead to having over 20 photos published in Sports Illustrated.

When I started college I began working for the University of Missouri Athletic Department and became their Head of Photography. Besides shooting, I coordinated a group of photographers to make sure every home event was covered.

During my sophomore year I was recruited by Hooters to photograph some of the local girls for the 2008 and 2009 calendars and the 2008 Miss Hooters International Beauty Pageant.

I currently shoot sports for US Presswire.

Now days my work is regularly seen in USA Today, ESPN Magazine, and in the LA Times.”

Did I mention that Jonathan is 23 years old?

I made a list of questions to ask a professional sports photographer only to discover that Jonathan has branched out from that (still a passion but now kind of a weekend thing). I rambled on with my questions so I’ve chopped the visit into two, 20-minutes chunks. The first one is mostly bio and social media. The second finally gets around to some sports stuff.

AUDIO: Interview Part 1

AUDIO: Interview Part 2

I was very impressed with Jonathan. Accomplishing what he has at 23, it would be easy to conclude one’s poop is odorless. He is what your grandmother called “a nice young man.”

You can see some of his photography here. He blogs here. And he’s @johnnybond86 on Twitter.