Daily Archives: December 19, 2004

Where in the world could you go to watch six sporting events on one TV screen, while listening to fellow fans of your favorite team cheer it on, and placing bets on those same events? All in the comfort of your own home.

Try England. That’s where BSkyB is forging ahead with innovative personalized, interactive television.

Nothing like it has been seen in America yet. But it’s coming. BSkyB is owned by News Corp. And News Corp. owns DirecTV.

This is one more way that our digital world is evolving toward greater user control over the information and entertainment we allow into our lives. The Web gives us control. Apple’s iPods gives us control. Satallite radio gives us more choices. People, especially in Europe and Japan, see their wireless phones as expressions of individuality and expect them to be customizable in every feature.

Not only is mass marketing is dead, mass living is dead. In technology, each man is an island.

And my question is — are media companies ready for the transition.

We’re moving into an on-demand, my-wants-my-way world. We’re already past the point where most consumers might wonder what it might be like to float free of the masses. Most people, especially young people, just expect it. If you can’t give it to them, you’re dead.

In a world where you can customize M&Ms, there is no longer just one way to deliver news, or one type of news to feed the public. We in the MSM are already falling behind.

The media world is really going to be rocked when TVIP arrives. TVIP will, I predict, make news and entertainment even more diversified and customized. People will download a wide variety of TV shows and showettes that reflect individual tastes and interests in ways Ed Sullivan never could have imagined. And if you think bloggers have shaken up the media world, wait until the pajama army starts producing television shows.

To some extent, it’s hard to imagine what the world will be like in just a couple of years when mass entertainment and mass news has been completely killed off. Continue reading →

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Michael Kinsley: Advantage blogosphere!

Summary: Kinsley wrote a column on privatizing social security. An army of bloggers responded. So Kinlsey writes:

A few days later, most of the big shots haven’t replied. But overnight, I had dozens of responses from the blogosphere. They’re still pouring in. And that’s just direct e-mail to me. Within hours, there were discussions going on in a dozen blogs, all hyperlinking to one another like rabbits.

Just so I don’t sound too naive: I am familiar with the blog phenomenon, and I worked at a website for eight years. Some of my best friends are bloggers. Still, it’s different when you purposely drop an idea into this bubbling caldron and watch the reaction. What floored me was not just the volume and speed of the feedback, but its seriousness and sophistication. Sure, there were some simpletons and some name-calling nasties echoing rote-learned propaganda. But we get those in letters to The Times editorial page. What we don’t get, nearly as much, is smart and sincere intellectual engagement — mostly from people who are not intellectuals by profession — with obscure and tedious, but important, issues.

Why the difference? Lots of space, for one. I’ll be hard-put, next week, even to summarize my own argument, let alone discuss those of others, in the space available to a columnist. Letters get even less space, if they are published at all. Certainty that what you write will get posted is surely another factor. It’s nice to know you’re not wasting your time. Ease is important, too. You can send your views electronically to a blog in less time than it takes to find a stamp, let alone type a letter.

Only idiots dismiss blogs as drivel produced by pajama-clad eccentric egoists. Smart people recognize that while there are many blogs produced by just such hacks, there are quite enough being produced by writers of experience, education and intelligence who more often than not know what they’re talking about, or only stick to topics of some expertise. These blogs are resources, even for journalists and professional pundits, and smart people in the media have known this for a long time.

Of course, Kinsley couldn’t close out a column without some smugness. In counter, I think there is always some talking past each other in all communities, but the best bloggers and blog readers rarely do that. And hence, the tone is civil discourse is elevated. I think. Continue reading →

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