Politics and Media 2.0

I really enjoyed last class. I feel using the internet with Politics is giving us a greater opportunity to be in the know about what is going on in the world. I like the fact that if we do not like a contender, we can make funny pictures of him and stick it on our blog. Freedom of expression. I like that if we like a contender, we can advocate him on our blog or Facebook. Since the US is so big, and there are so many people involved, and many elections to vote in, the idea of having the internet at hand to discover whats going on is amazing. We can not always watch every speech given by every person running for an office, that is why social networks and blogs are interesting to have on smartphones. Otherwise, we may miss out on all the "interesting" stuff that people like Ann Coulter come up with. And, we all know that we would not want that.
I like the fact that the long tail offers me everything that I want. Sometimes I want to know what is going on, and I want to know it in lay mans terms. Sometimes I want to know what the legal obligations are in making such a law. I want to know what is going on in Congress, but I don't want to sit and watch CSPAN. Thanks to the long tail, I am offered that in a variety of forms on the internet, and I can pick and chose what to read, and who to follow. Do I want to go mainstream, or do I want to follow someone who is speaking from their heart and not caring as much about the ratings? Its my choice. Since I am a fan of the long tail, Ill have the leave the Jerry Springer show that is appearing daily on mainstream media and go to little Suzy Joe who is blogging about why she does or does not like what someone running for office has to say and why she doesn't think they are appropriate for that office. To me, the long tail offers us more opportunity to get the truth, and to read pure hearted journalism (finding some pure unbiased people), who care about the issues at hand instead of what someone is wearing, or what someone looks like. Since we have become a nation who cares only what people wear and how they look, the issues have become second most important, when it should remain the most important thing that determines whether someone is elected. I say no to mainstream politics and yes to the long tail once again!!



Whoo hoo for the Long Tail

A few thoughts on Transmedia and Tribalism

Our discussions in the last few weeks about tribalism and transmedia have me thinking about the forces we exert in our lives toward feeling secure. It seems to me that culture/society is all about the quest for light in the darkness. It all comes to feeling secure in the world we live in. Since the beginning of time, humans have worked toward understanding the big questions like where is the food coming from, how do we make it through the night alive and if its cold outside, how do we get warm. The basics of survival being air, water, food and shelter. It is this compulsion that sent us into tribes and built this multi-cultural world we live in. In the past, we lived inside a 20 or 30 mile radius of the place we were born. We lived with our families. To be outside the safety of the fire was to be ever in danger. We competed with our near neighbors for the food or banded with them into communities. Now, as we gradually spread out across the globe, able to travel anywhere, eat anything, know anybody, translate the babel, and contemplate the outer space, we return sometimes to the concept of tribe. It may seem we don't need the shelter of the common cave but we still need each other and the networks of money or power we inhabit. This long tail of applied interests we have been studying recently seems to me to be that reaching back into the small space of shared interests but with the twist that the internet can offer us neighbors from all corners of the global cave. We find we have shared interests with folks in other lands. We find that the threads which seem to divide us can also unite us but can also divide us yet again. The internet offers the same dangers but they seem more removed when they aren't right there knocking at the other side of the front door.

Transmedia storytelling takes the folk singer, the cave painter and the wandering minstrel and tosses in the Easter bunny, the corporate head cases, the librarian, the editor, the graffiti artist with his can poised on the edge of the brick wall and all these inordinate geeks and sets them loose together in a strange new tribe. One thing I note is that it takes a moderator, the uber-storyteller, to wind the threads together into something recognizable and remotely trackable. And even then perhaps the thing which attracts us most about the transmedia format is the stuff of fable, the idea that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if we could just find it. There could be an undiscovered country (clue) that not just anyone can find. We humans like stories that go on and on, serialized, remade, retold, reworked for every new generation. How else can you explain the remaking of classic films and books?

80/20 Rule – Applies to Everything- Right?

Long tail of Delivery Service… Grace brought up very valid points about the mail delivery system and the long tail of the delivery business. I actually owned my own courier/trucking company and can relate to the hardships that FedEx is experiencing. The last 10 years of seemingly limitless business technologies (faxes, internet purchases) have really taken a toll on the mail system and other delivery methods. The decline of manufacturing and price of fuel in the U.S. are the main reasons I sold my company in 2006.

Anderson’s findings on the inaccuracy and misuse of the 80/20 rule were fascinating. I used Pareto’s 80/20 rule to describe parts of business many times. We used the rule to describe the volume distribution of client base- 20 percent of our business was in the printing industry, 80 percent was the long tail (advertising, record labels, graphic design, etc). We used the term when describing profits as Anderson said, and again with our types of services (80 percent were 1 hour deliveries and 20 percent were other services). Anderson made a great point when he said it was an overused and untried theory in many situations and I agree. I didn’t realize that you can apply it to anything and sound reasonably knowledgeable! There was a difference in our industry versus online retail distribution though. Our actual numbers were very close to the rule which is why we used it. I think it is also quite possible that we tend to look for patterns we are used to seeing and may come up with the example that fits the model we are looking for.

Signs of the Times: The Long Tail & Profit margins

The Wall Street Journal today reports that Yahoo's earnings fell 26% because of a slowdown in display-ad sales.

"Yahoo also reported its fourth consecutive quarterly slowdown in the growth rate of its display-ad sales—its most important business, which includes graphical, interactive and video ads. Display-ad sales revenue was flat from a year earlier."

Also from WSJ, The USPS continues to struggle with their business model as traditional mail delivery bites the dust in the wake of the long tail of other delivery methods. From faxes to FedEx, the USPS is struggling.

"Plummeting demand for traditional mail delivery, which funds the postal service, has created a looming fiscal crisis that has Congress, postal employees and government officials weighing a venture into non-mail business as a way to stay afloat."

As online businesses try to fit their profit margin into the long tail economy, they find they don't always fit. As traditional business face competition they can't overwhelm, they also don't always fit. It's interesting watching the ways that business is changing. I was at a meeting the other day where the question was posed: What is the biggest challenge for FedEx in the coming years? The cost of fuel is going to continue to rise and will tap the profit margin. At the same time, FedEx is one of those deal changers who changed the way that business was done in the past (and who  had directly impacted the USPS). They need to remain flexible and willing to find new ways to deliver the package in order to stay in business. Finding new energy sources will impact the way they have always found to deliver the package. They are currently experimenting with blogs  and twitter accounts as ways to empower their employees and clients. I'm wondering what other social media means and methods they will arrive at. I don't think that the use of Facebook & Twitter by businesses is always effective or that the folks using these methods always know what they are trying to accomplish by promoting a business in this way.

as the tail grows longer...

This class has been a breath of fresh air for me. I spend a large portion of my day online for business and personal communication. The "Longer Tail" has struck home on many different levels. I can relate personally to the discussion in class about how we have become a culture capable of filling the niche desires of even the most eccentric consumer. Our new web based economy reacts quickly to the new and even quicker at finding a way to market it.

I use the internet in my job as a Jeweler to source virtually everything we need for our clients. The way we do business today is virtually nothing like it was even ten years ago. Thanks to the rapidly expanding network of vendors around the world I can find the most obscure items in minutes if need be.

At home I use twitter, FB, google+, and reddit, to browse user created content and contribute my own thoughts and creations. Via these social vehicles I can promote the University of Memphis cycling club, stay in touch with freinds, and kill time in any number of ways. I can even make extra money selling my old belongings on ebay.

I like where the discussion in this class is going and hope to learn how to better integrate with the rapidly advancing online community.

What is this class about?

While traditional media outlets continue to be the main source for news and entertainment content, the internet has become a secondary, decentralized network for the distribution of a wide variety of content. Key to this explosion in creative output is that the internet allows producers to supplement and bypass (though not necessarily replace) traditional media gatekeepers. Bloggers, podcasters, filmmakers, musicians and a host of other creative artists can get their work directly to the hands of their audiences. Low cost technology means that many more people can create work that can rival the quality of traditional media. This contributes to what Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson has described as "the long tail" theory: selling less (in quantity) of more, diverse, products.

This course will examine the long tail phenomenon and other theories behind media 2.0 and look at cases of actual media 2.0 artists. We will talk directly to people who are producing and distributing their work on the Internet and other alternative channels and explore how these new distribution forms challenge assumptions about how mass media should/does work.