Everything Betsywhim

...this could be very very dangerous!

Subtraction.com: What the NYT Pay Wall Really Costs

Ex-NYTimes staffer Khoi Vinh has an incredibly detailed, thoughtful post about the pending Times paywall.  You should really read his post in its entirety - but here are the excerpts that jumped out at me.  Do read the whole post at his site, please:  subtraction.com

Whether the pay wall succeeds or not is an open question and I won’t pretend to know the answer. To be completely frank I was never a proponent of this concept and it was among the reasons I decided to leave my job there last year. Now that it’s upon us I hope it does succeed, actually, because The Times generates tremendous value for the public good and it would be terrific if we could find a way to continue to reward its talented journalists and staff for their hard work. (BDR - I agree)

 Still, I can’t help but look at the effort that went into constructing this new revenue model and think that it has exacted an unfortunate opportunity cost on the company.

...

(T)he world doesn’t stop while The Times gets its books in order. Newer, younger audiences are growing up into a world where The New York Times is an afterthought, and they’re forming patterns of news consumption that barely incorporate The Times if at all.

Just think what else could have been done with the time and resources that the company devoted to the pay wall: entirely new news products could have been developed, products that could engage a wholly different kind of audience and expand the company’s reach by several orders of magnitude. Flipboard was born in roughly that same time span; The Daily, for all of its imperfections, was conceived and launched within less than half that time; Groupon skyrocketed to prominence and tremendous revenue in that time, and over the course of the past eighteen months any number of other information-based startups and new products debuted and captured the public’s imagination. It’s exactly those kinds of innovations that The Times has needed for a very long time, frankly, but by focusing on the pay wall for most of the recent past, they effectively paused on that front for a dangerously long spell.

...

The amount of notoriety that this new endeavor will receive is sure to be tremendous, but all the subtleties — and complex mathematics — of this new pay model are likely to be lost on most news consumers. Its many rules and semantics are simply too complex to be communicated effectively, and what’s more the marketing tends to use blatantly tricky language (e.g., “$15 every four weeks” — just tell me what I have to pay, already). I’m willing to bet that what most people will understand about this new development is that now you have to pay to read The New York Times. Period. With that misunderstanding, it wouldn’t surprise me if users start staying away in droves.

...

Now I wonder what people are likely to think this time around, when it seems like the entirety of the site is subject to the pay wall, and all of the reasons why it’s actually not as bad as that are being communicated in such a convoluted fashion? Not only has the company missed an opportunity to build something for new audiences, but they may also be signaling an entirely counter-productive message to their existing audience, and in a very lasting way. I worry.

I haven't yet decided if I'm going to pony up to pay for a Times subscription - although I am definitely their target audience and find value in the work that they do.  But honestly?  I really wish they'd have flipped the revenue model upside down:

Charge more for the print subscription, less for web-based, and even lower than that for the apps themselves (which allow you to package, track and monetize the desired audience in a very very efficient way.)  Failure of nerve?  Failure of courage? Inability to let go of the cash cow they've been leveraging to build the digital empire?  I don't know.  And I worry that after a few weeks, I'll stop caring, stop trying to figure out just how much to pay -  and just move on to different sources instead.  

 

New Portland Cello Project Videos, Including a Kanye Cover | End Hits

Am already obessing over Kanye's newest release...but what's this? My favorite local band has a brilliant live cover of my favorite cut, All of the Lights? And I missed hearing it last December in conicert?  

Thanks to the Merc, i can just obsessively play it now. Over and over and over again...

Measuring Measures - Why the iPad is Destroying the Future of Journalism


Bradford Cross had plenty to say on his site recently about how traditional publishers are trying (and failing miserably) to replicate old economic models with their digital media efforts - most notably the iPad magazines that are prolfierating like weeks.  An excerpt here: 

I read a great article in the Economist the other day on my iPad.  I tried to share it with my social network on Facebook and Twitter, but I can't do that with old media.

When the iPad came out, I was ready to give big media another chance.  I thought they might wake up and start exploring new products and business models.  I thought they might explore how to integrate with the modern Internet, the distributed and syndicated content model, and the social ecosystem.  Then the apps came out.  It was all the same - a proliferation of branded channels.

The iPad has been dubbed a revolutionary device and the journalism industry has raced to embrace it.  But their embrace is more of a desperate final grasp at the past.

The iPad is a delightful device, but it can't salvage the existing model for journalism.

The rush to save the branded channel: RSS all over again

Old media wants to keep the subscription model.  It has worked for them.  They especially love the high breakage.  The only other model they've tested is pay-per-edition; the old newsstand model.

Publishers want to have their own branded channel - whether in their own app, or in some meta-app.  They are fighting back against syndicating their content on the web and they want you to come to their sites and pay.  This is largely because they've not done well with the likes of Google news, Yahoo news, and friends.  It hasn't been an effective revenue share model for them.

via measuringmeasures.com

(please go read the rest of this thought-provoking piece via the link above. It's well worth your time...!)

Along with others, I hate the title, but love the article - synthesizes nicely a lot of what I've been reading/thinking/talking about with others.

Killer sentence, in a nutshell, for me:

The success of search, social, and design seem to indicate that the future of news products need Google-level relevance, Facebook-level social, and Apple-level design.

It broke the Black & Decker!

P141

What broke my old trusty 15-year old Black & Decker?

Pre-mixing the vat of hot buttered rum batter I think I'll need on hand for the upcoming holiday season.

But I'm resourceful - as the black smoke from the seized motor cleared away, I moved over to Tool #2: the Cuisinart food processor.

...and 2 lbs of brown sugar & 4 sticks of butter later, we're set. (I'm getting ready to do a taste test shortly, in fact...)

But if I need to whip cream any time soon? We're SOL.

Jon Stewart's closing comments during the #rally4sanity

...during today's Rally For Sanity (excerpts below). Go read the whole thing at xd13.org -- it'll take maybe ten minutes. Then share it where possible.

Civility matters.

I need to keep remembering that.

You, too? Let's all help each other...
(thanks to @ carmenhill for the find & retweet....)

Amplify’d from xd13.org

This was not a Rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument; or to suggest that times are not difficult, and that we have nothing to fear-they are and we do!  But we live now in hard times, not end times.  And we can have animus and not be enemies.  But unfortunately, one our main tools in delineating the two…broke. 

The country’s 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems; but its existence makes solving them that much harder.  The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues here to for unseen.  Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then, perhaps, host a week of shows on the sudden unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.  If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

The press is our immune system, if it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker, and perhaps exeima(?). 

We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how its a shame how we can’t work together to get things done.

But the truth is, we do.  We work together to get things done every damn day!  The only place we don’t is here [the capital building], or on cable TV.  But Americans don’t live here [the capital building] or on cable TV.  Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done.  Not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.  Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as democrats, republicans, liberals, or conservatives.  Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do.  Often something they do not want to do, but they do it.  Impossible things everyday that are only made possible through the little reasonable compromises we all make. 

Read more at xd13.org

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/e9s6
via Amplify.com

I can't relate...or can I?

Really really like Michelle Orange's take on the new phenomenon of relatability, and how it often collides with thoughtful, acerbic criticism. Written in the aftermath of her scathing review of Going The Distance, a new rom-com film starring Drew Barrymore & Justin Long, she talks about how she reacted to her outing as 'mean girl prototype' during Long's appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show.

I love Orange's writing & will seek out more; appreciated the notes of humility demonstrated by both her & her supposed victim, actor (& Mac guy) Justin Long.

Amplify’d from therumpus.net

Blame Oprah if you want to, but relatability has been fermenting as both a cultural phenomenon and evaluative rubric since the 1970s, when a combination of factors moved the social concept of the self to the front of the culture. The mainstreaming of therapy and therapized language, the platonic “we’re all the same” rhetoric of the civil rights and equality movements, the merging of high and low culture, and rampant individualism conspired to form a kind of cultural currency, a new dialect that had the ear of the country.

Read more at therumpus.net

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/e9a5
via Amplify.com

Detox, Day Seven

It started as as personal challenge: could I go dairy-free & alcohol free for an entire week?

And as I sip my soy chai latte on this brisk Saturday morning, well, the answer is yes.

But was I trying to solve a problem? Kick a bad habit?

Um, no.

If anything, it's more about recalibrating. Coming back to center. And then figuring out just what role booze and/or dairy needs to have in my life.

The booze answer is a simple one: abstaining saves me empty calories, money, and a depressed immune system (not to mention that cruddy next-day feeling at times). But I found I missed the social lubrication aspect - it's easier to talk to people after a glass of wine, for example. Besides, I like wine. Appreciate a fine glass of bourbon (2 cubes only, please).

So I will indulge in moderation, and in a mindful way.

The dairy answer is far more nuanced, and not one I have a clear handle on, to be honest.

Jury's still out here...and if I decide to continue going dairy-free, well - it WILL be a hardship for one major reason: I love love love cheese. (Abstaining from dairy has been much harder, believe it or not!)

All in all?

It was worth doing.

And I'll toast the successful conclusion tonight at midnight with my beverage of choice!

via Pixelpipe