eMarketer: Blogs now mainstream media
In 2009, 96.6 million people are blog readers, representing 48.5 percent of the Internet population. By 2013, 128.2 million people — or 58 percent of all U.S. Internet users — will read a blog at least once per month. – eMarketer via ADWEEK And we're not wearing pants.
Radio Rapture
Jerry Del Colliano (Inside Music Media) on yesterday’s firing of 590 people by Clear Channel Communications and why radio “consolidation” turned into such a bad thing:
“I’m sorry that these virtual monopolies didn’t work, but the reason they failed is because their arrogant CEOs ran up the debt to buy stations at prices that were, frankly, never really worth what sellers pumped them up to. Now they can’t service that debt and even though they could probably survive an economic downturn (radio always used to in past recessions), the debt they ran up during the consolidation years is killing them.”
I think I might have run out of anything more to say about the challenges facing radio.
In my radio fantasy, everyone working in radio today is raptured up to heaven, leaving thousands of empty stations with the transmitters still on and records “chick” “chick” “chick’ing” on the still spinning-turntables. (Okay, I know they don’t use turntables anymore but it’s my fantasy.)
Listeners tip toe down deserted hallways, peeking into empty studios, wondering where Rush went.
Eventually, someone sits down at the microphone and figures out how to turn it on. What do they say? What would radio become? Would they hastily call a sales meeting and begin selling ads? Would they assemble a focus group and put together a tight playlist?
I have no idea. Maybe they’d just stick their ear buds in slip out quietly, locking the door behind them.
“The world in my pocket”
Reply
That’s how Mindy McAdams describes her iPhone:
“If someone has all the videos and quality radio news she could ever find time to listen to (or watch) right in her pocket, how can anything even remotely like the newspaper compete with that? The newspaper as it was, in the heyday of the 30 percent profit margins, had something for everyone. Now the Internet-enabled phone provides that.”
I’ve had that “iPhone = world in my pocket” thought while sitting at the counter of the Towne Grill, waiting form my biscuits and gravy. First the email, then the Twitter, then Google Reader.
Once upon a time, I bought a copy of USA Today to read with my grub. But eventually 75 cents for the few stories of interest seemed pricey. Then I started printing out stories the night before and making my own little newspaper. And then I got an iPhone.
I think Ms. McAdams really asks the good question:
“Will traditional print news organization come up with programming, instead of random and disconnected stories? I don’t mean it has to be audio and video, but it would be something with an identity, like a show or a series. The closest thing I can think of that’s not radio is David Pogue — a brand unto himself.”
“Random and disconnected stories.” Hmm. I need to think about this. More in the morning.
Next morning: I’m now wondering if our news networks have been too focused on “random and disconnected stories?” We’ve worked hard to put our news stories online with less thought and energy given to building identity. Well, that’s not entirely true. We’ve put a lot of our existing radio programs and features on our websites. But would we be better served to focus more podcasts?
“Homeless American”
On the way home from the airport yesterday I gave some money to a man sitting at an intersection. I don’t usually do that and I’m not sure why I did this time. But I think it was something about the sign he was holding. It read simply: “Homeless American.”
Now, I don’t know if he was homeless (he looked the part) or American, but something about the sign spoke to me. The simplicity? Maybe. For the rest of my trip I thought about the signs used by… beggars? Too Third World. Panhandlers? Let’s go with that.
How important is the sign? Without it, I might have thought he was just looking for a ride, so I think the sign is a must. Usually brown cardboard and almost always lettered with black marker.
But most important of all would seem to be what your sign says. Haven’t seen “will work for food” for a while (Sounds a little too much like a negotiation.) Can’t be too long if you’re working an intersection or even busy pedestrians.
Is there some secret list of Great Signs That Work Every Time? I’m thinking it ain’t on line so they must move it from hand to hand.
Some would insist the guy I saw —and those like him— are lazy and could get a job if they wanted one. I’m not so sure.
When fiction becomes reality. Gulp.
“A deadly new swine flu strain that has killed at least 20 people in Mexico City and sickened more than 1,000 has “pandemic potential,” the World Health Organization chief said Saturday _ but some fear it may be too late to contain the outbreak.” — Associated Press
From Victor Gischler’s Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse:
“No single thing had doomed (the) planet. Rather it had been a confluence of disasters. Some dramatic and sudden, others a slow, silent decay.
The worldwide flue epidemic had come and gone with fewer deaths than predicted. Humanity emerged from that long winter and smiled nervously at one another. A sigh of relief, a bullet dodged.”
The premise gets even scarier.
Where is the advertising?
Print: Advertising is adjacent to content
Broadcast: Advertising interrupts content
Movies: Advertising is within content
The Web: Advertising IS content
— Terry Heaton
Occupation: Blogger
“In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers, firefighters or even bartenders.”
“Pros who work for companies are typically paid $45,000 to $90,000 a year for their blogging. One percent make over $200,000. And they report long hours — 50 to 60 hours a week.”
The Day the Circus Came to Town
Recently unearthed (bad) photo of me astride the majestic beast. (1981)
President Obama welcomes email
From a post here at smays.com in March, 2008:
“On Friday morning, 10 emails are selected at random and forwarded to President Obama’s in-box. He looks through them, picks one and responds –personally– to the sender.”
And the following from the New York Times in April, 2009:
“Tens of thousands of letters, e-mail messages and faxes arrive at the White House every day. A few hundred are culled and end up each weekday afternoon on a round wooden table in the office of Mike Kelleher, the director of the White House Office of Correspondence. He chooses 10 letters, which are slipped into a purple folder and put in the daily briefing book that is delivered to President Obama at the White House residence. Designed to offer a sampling of what Americans are thinking, the letters are read by the president, and he sometimes answers them by hand, in black ink on azure paper.”
If you can find an earlier reference to “my” idea, leave it in the comments. I’m just looking for my props.