Tag Archives: Early Net Culture

A more balanced, decentralized lifestyle

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“The Internet will reestablish a more balanced, decentralized lifestyle. In the physical world, you win by being big, with economies of scale in manufacturing, worldwide distribution, and branding. In the virtual world, you win by being good: Automation reduces the benefits of scale, the Internet equalizes distribution, and reputation follows from quality rather than incessantly repeated slogans. The switch from centralization to decentralization goes to the heart of the human experience. And because the switch will drive up quality, it will tend to be a force for good.” [Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, November 22, 2004]

I no longer believe in politicians, large institutions, and organized religion…just to name a few. One thing (?) in which I believe strongly is the Internet and it’s potential for improving (saving?) mankind. I can’t make an intelligent case for that belief but Jakob Nielsen makes a good running start at it.

The franchise is the content

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“…the Internet has become our entire business environment, not just another medium for distribution … the franchise is not the newspaper, the broadcast station, or even the website. The franchise is the content itself. … Get ready for everything to be Googled, deep-linked, or Tivo-ized.”

— Tom Curley, President and CEO, The Associated Press, in keynote address (full text) to Online News Association Conference, Nov. 12, 2004

This Internet thing.

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NYU economics professor Nicholas Economides describes the Internet (35 years old in September) in terms of the industries it’s displacing. The U. S. Postal Service is becoming obsolete. In the last five years, more than one out of every 10 radio listeners between the ages of 25 and 34 have stopped listening (Clear Channel, Citadel and Cumulus Media have seen share prices drop 23%, 40% and 26% respectively in the last year). Newspapers have watched revenue from help-wanted ads plummet by more than $3.7 billion in the last five years. And telephone service is almost certain to see some big heavy changes.

Radio-Guy

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Steve Erenberg collects stuff.

“Oddball & scary scientific stuff, globes, industrial masks and helmets, motors, contraptions, electrostatic devices, salesmen’s samples, anatomical models, x-ray tubes and early radio equipment.”

I’d love to see where he lives. Erenberg is a creative director at a NY advertising agency but was trained as an architect. He designed the five-story globe in front of Trump Tower.

Podcasting

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“…allows you to subscribe to feeds, which include links to audio programs. Every time one of your subscriptions posts a new program, it automatically downloads onto your computer. You then transfer those shows to a portable music device, listen to it throughout your house via a wireless connection or take it with you wherever you go. Think of it as a personalized radio station that you program and change whenever you want.”

What are the choices again?

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A new study for the Online Publishers Association asked: If you could choose only two media, what would they be? The Internet ranked No. 1, chosen as first (45.6 percent) or second (32.1 percent) by 77.7 percent of those surveyed. Television ranked No. 2, with 52.4 percent making it a first or second choice, trailed by books (18.5) and radio (12.9). Only 9.2 percent would choose newspapers in that media mix, and only 3.2 percent made newspapers a first choice.[E-Media Tidbits]

How do you build web traffic?

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1. You can buy ads in the Super Bowl. You can rent billboards on the Interstate. You can trade links with a thousand websites nobody gives a shit about.

2. Or you can create unique, compelling, relevent content. People interested in that content will tell other people interested in that content and on and on.

If you can’t do #2, it doesn’t matter if you can do #1. And the music comes out here.

If you watched any TV news (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) during the past 24 hours you might have seen the story about Laura Bush commenting on The Memos. The audio was from an interview the First Lady did with Kay Henderson, the news director of Radio Iowa, our statewide radio news network headquartered in Des Moines. Apparantly, this was the first comment by someone in the Bush camp on “the documents.” Just about every news organization in the country picked up Kay’s piece. And she had the savvy to send them all to RadioIowa.com.

Sprint DSL

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Two years ago I signed up for ADSL service with a local ISP. 512Kbps down/128Kbps up…for $50 a month. Yesterday I switched to Sprint and now have 1.5Mbps down/256Kbps up…for $60 month. I was really dreading the switch but it went smoothly. And the Sprint reps were amazing. My initial contact (“Dave”) called frequently with updates and early this morning to be sure everything was working properly. I ran into a little snag during set up and called Sprint tech support. “Rocky” was in North Carolina (not Pakistan). He spoke English and was very helpful. Had me going in 15 minutes.

I’m now surfing at twice the speed for just pennies a day more. Since the early modem days (300 baud!) I’ve dreamed of a fast connection. Oh, if I only had a T1 line! Imagine my surprise when I learned that my DSL line is the same speed as a T1. Next challenge: going wireless at home. To be continued.