Walls or No


Wore this T-Shirt for "Shallow Thoughts" on Naked Media today. Relevant to the discussion on magazines. (Click the shirt for the whole Tweet on the T-shirt.)

The Media Consumer's Bill of Rights

I told my guests today on Naked Media, designer Roger Black and Complex Media CEO Rich Antoniello, that I had started to draft a (half-joking) “media consumer’s bill of rights.” They asked me to share it with them. I have. And here I’m sharing it with you:

THE MEDIA CONSUMER'S BILL OF RIGHTS

AS A MEDIA CONSUMER, I DESERVE:
  • TO BE ABLE TO RECORD SOMETHING -- ANYTHING -- IN ONE ROOM AND CONSUME IT IN ANOTHER ROOM, WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY EXTRA
  • TO READ ANYTHING I'M READING ON WHATEVER I CHOOSE TO READ IT ON -- WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY OVER AND OVER AND OVER. KINDLE, E-BOOK, PRINT, BLACKBERRY, WHATEVER! LET ME SWITCH AROUND!
  • TO CHOOSE WHETHER TO WATCH ADS AND GET SOMETHING FOR FREE, OR PAY TO GET IT WITHOUT THE ADS
  • TO HAVE THE ADS SHOW FOR LESS TIME THAN THE PROGRAMMING (OR AT LEAST FOR IT TO FEEL THAT WAY)
  • TO NEVER FEEL GOUGED FOR THE MEDIA I PAY FOR ($20 for a CD? $50 for a DVD? When you’ve already made a big profit and it costs you maybe a couple bucks to manufacture, distribute and promote? C'mon.)
  • TO (OH, HORROR!) BE ABLE TO SAMPLE IT ALL AT THE LIBRARY.
  • AND , FINALLY, TO BE ABLE TO CONNECT ALL MY MEDIA DEVICES AND MOVE PROGRAMMING AROUND ON THEM -- AS EASILY AS I CAN NOW DRAG AND DROP TEXT FILES.
I’m sure I’ll think of more -- next time I’m trying to hook up a Windows laptop to an Apple computer and play something back on a set-top box with some sort of S-video to-coax cable work-around, while cussing and twitching.
But I’d love to hear yours.
REALLY

PS The media professional's bill of rights, I guess, would be the right to break any and all of the above any time the professional can find a business model to justify it; alienated consumers notwithstanding.

Privacy Bill In the Works to Require Opt-In for Cookies

Members of congress are preparing legislation that could severely impact how advertisers and others gather information and present material on the Web and through other digital means. The legislation would restrict the ability to place third party cookies* on the computers of those visiting Web sites, according to industry veteran Dave Morgan, speaking at the Advertising Research Foundation's Audience Measurement 4.0 conference today.

"Congress’ position is that consumers are not appropriately aware of what is being done on their machines, and the use of cookies delivered by a third party is something consumers have not been appropriately informed of," said Morgan, who oversees privacy initiatives for the Internet Advertising Bureau and is CEO of the startup Simulmedia. He was in Washington last week talking to FTC officials and congressional staff, he said. "Congress’ default position is that that will require an opt-in," to serve a third-party cookie. Rep Rick Boucher, who is working on the bill said he could get it through the House, that it would be passed, and that he was willing to work with the industry and consider self-policing measures, Morgan said.

But, Morgan said, the industry has to move fast, and legislators are skeptical of the industry's ability to police itself. There have, he was told, been many abuses. He said he'd had a conversation with a senator from the state of Washington who had worked in the industry who understood that cookies are relatively innocuous but "her constituents don't believe that." Washington senator Maria Cantwell worked at RealNetworks for a time after losing a congressional seat in 1994 and prior to joining the Senate.

Morgan said the tactic the industry could best use at this point was to approach legislators and inform them of the jobs created by the industry, $300 billion worth, according to a Harvard study he cited. Morgan previously led advertising company 24/7 Real Media and behavioral ad targeting firm Tacoda, sold to AOL for some $250 million. The technologies of the companies relied heavily on cookies. Morgan has often been called upon to answer concerns about user privacy.

NOTE: I videotaped Morgan after the panel and will run it during the next Naked Media (noon ET, June 30). along with Morgan defending and Nielsen Online's CEO calling him to task for saying Twitter can be used a measurement tool that could compete with Nielsen. The video will later be available on demand at NakedMedia.org.

= = = =
*Cookies, pieces of code, are key to understanding Web users' behavior through everything from ad serving to the number of pages seen and paths taken through a Web site. Third-party cookies are those placed on a users' machine by someone other than the Web site the user is visiting, for example via an advertiser or partner. Currently, such cookies are served automatically and data collected that way as well, unless the user chooses settings in a Web browser that block them, or chooses to actively delete them.

iPhone Sells (Despite Reports it Didn't)



So, the analysts said the iPhone 3GS didn't sell. Then Apple released data that said it did. I was at the Apple store on 14th St in Manhattan on Saturday morning before it opened at 9a. Here's the pic.

Google Not Enemy, Not Friend

Jeff Jarvis says Google is not the enemy but for many it’s also clearly not a friend. Panelists yesterday at Digital Hollywood’s Advertising 2.0 conference cited $Goog for creating an environment in which consumers expect that information and entertainment will be free, and for confusing the idea of capturing and engaging consumers, getting them involved in a marketing message, brand and the like. “Google is the culprit, they’re not interested in engagement,” said Jonathan Klein, CEO of Getty Images. “You come in, and then go out.”

This, just a couple days after The Wall Street Journal’s article on the Justice Department taking a closer look at Google’s deal with publishers to put books online, in the context of a broader push toward antitrust investigations in the technology industry. Clearly, a portion of Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s job is going to be focused on battling Washington, and wooing the advertising and publishing industries. And, of course fending off competition from a host of companies and products like Microsoft’s Bing that are, in the words of Warren Lee, Venture Partner at VC firm Canaan Partners, trying to “out-Google Google.”

For most though, though, Google is simply an “is.” It has to be dealt with and understood. Its analytics are useful for those who want at least an entry-level solution for Web analytics. Its search, and sometimes its ads, and office tools can be used to good effect -- again, especially for those who don’t need large enterprise solutions, or don’t have large staffs to build them. It has a valuable, if not highly diversified, business model, and a model that is not the panacea for media, but rather a component of some media businesses.

Video View from IAC at Digital Hollywood's Advertising 2.0



Sometimes the view is worth sharing, as much as the content. From the 9th floor room where sessions were being held at the IAC building on New York's far west side.

Lack, Wolff, Go at It



Bloomberg LP's Andrew Lack holds up Michael Wolff's 1999 book "Burn Rate," which he would read from later, in part to chide Wolff, at the Digital Hollywood Advertising 2.0 summit in New York. Hashtag #dhadv on Twitter has some running commentary on their vigorous back and forth.

Wolff's take, largely, is that old media (Bloomberg included) is on the outs, and won't survive. Lack says that quality -- Bloomberg, NY Times, etc. -- will and must survive and that those businesses Wolff is writing off still exist, strongly. Lack of course is the former president of NBC News. Bloomberg hired him to oversee Bloomberg News' radio, television and interactive divisions, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Journalist, Editor, Ad (Wo)Man


Yes, journalism and marketing are converging, sharing the same terms and concepts. Editorial icon Tina Brown, journalist-turned-entrepreneur John Harris of the Politico and Tina Sharkey of BabyCenter were very comfortable at Digital Hollywood’s Advertising 2.0 conference today talking up the value to advertisers of their sites, and their willingness to go well beyond the banner ad to try to integrate advertising in more creative and interesting ways (though Brown and Harris were careful point out that advertising initiatives were labeled as such). “The muscles you use on the editorial side,” help with advertising, Harris said, in helping a message “break through” to the audience. “We see the journalistic and advertising sides as two forces galloping together.”

“There was a time when advertising staff was not allowed to step into the newsroom,” observed moderator Sarah Ellison of The Wall Street Journal. “Obviously we’ve come a very long way from that point.” Brown noted that in the magazine world, as editor of such leading publications as Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, she was always comfortable working with the publisher to “create an environment where advertisers want to be.”

But she seemed to take umbrage at the idea of marketers trying to do their own journalism (such as this recent Pepsi-led project for Internet week, for which I was editor in chief). To them, “I would say good luck,” Brown said, defending journalism and saying it takes real skill to practice it, and to edit it. (Assuming, it seemed that those who practice it on behalf of Pepsi are not journalists.) I had asked her how she would convince an advertiser to put ads on her site, if they could go to their target audience directly without her Daily Beast as an interlocutor. Sharkey, who is not and has not been a journalist, acknowledged that it was all a mishmash, very confusing with “marketers as publishers, publishers are marketers, brfands are agencies, agencies are brands ... it’s like ‘Who’s on First.’ “

News and Advertising Converge

It's fascinating how the language of news and advertising are converging. Both sides now are talking of the need to "engage" their audiences, stop preaching from on high and include others in "the discussion" or "the conversation." Straddling the two worlds, as I do, I see them coming closing together than ever, rather than being diametrically opposed universes, as they used to be.

Does Huffington's Argument Hold Oil?

Arianna Huffington was very provocative yesterday at the Mirror Awards, where she gave a keynote address and accepted the Fred Dressler Lifetime Achievement Award (for which Nora Ephron, introducing her, joked that Arianna she wasn't old enough). The Huffington Post founder not only answered critics in saying she has not been killing newspapers and that she pays journalists -- issues you can read about elsewhere -- but she also likened those who would charge for news to those who are putting up protective walls in other industries. If I heard correctly (I'm trying to get a transcript -- silly me for Twittering while she spoke, instead of taking notes or running a recorder), she talked of oil companies that try to tamp down on gas mileage advances.

But how are those who wish to charge for news are hurting the industry? For, if they're wrong, the market will prove them so. There's not, to my knowledge, a push for government regulation to force sites to pay for news, or make consumers pay for something they don't want. Sure, there are those who want to get paid for the content they produce -- that gets into issues of fair use, and fairness, in general.

Still, if if someone wants to try to charge for news they produce, why stop them from doing so? It's just another business model. There's probably room for that way and Huffington's

Tweets From the Mirror Awards

... for which I was one of the judges. These are my tweets from there.

Huff: news and opinion must be shared, supp'd by advertisg. Likens pay wall to protectionist tactics in other industrries. #mirrors

Huff: as long as there r people our generation there will be newspapers. #mirrors

Huffington: Arthur Sclessinger and Nora Ephron were my first bloggers. Both said 'i don't get it". Now over 3000 bloggers. #mirrors

Ephron: 1200 channels and not 1 to watch. 1 reason obama won was Huff's enthusiasm. She dragged many into the future w/ her. #mirrors

Nora Ephron cracking up audience w/ jokes about Arianna. Sleeping w/ Al Frankin, dating the same man, "daffy", amazing 2 c a funny Republican ...

To me, the real recognition of the honorees is how much their work is blogged, twittered, friend-feeded, forwarded, linked etc #mirrors (This was my, Dorian's, opinion)

Bill Moyers can't present Arianna Huffington her award because of a medical procedure #mirrors

Obama for America accepts award, says election was first time bottom-up. Really? They taught us that's democracy #mirrors

David Carr: media story used to seem silly, but now it's a story about the crucial #mirrors @carr2n

Meanwhile, Over at Internet Week

I'll be doing a lot of work on Internet Week in New York, this week, at the Pepsico sponsored site covering the events -- I'm editor in chief for the project.

Here's a post I wrote from the Conversational Marketing Summit hosted by Federated Media about how the wall's are coming down between advertising and editorial.