Recent Reads

A few fun recent reads, as April draws to a close.

Clay Shirky takes it to some idiots who should know better. This is my favorite kind of piece. I only hope I will never be on the receiving end of one...

TimeWarner may spin off AOL, finally. A strong starting point to the article, by Tim Arango, "an untangling of what many consider one of the worst mergers in American corporate history." Ha! Synergy, take that. I read Nina Munk's Fools Rush In, which was a blast and so, so sad. (Aside, there are actually a lot of books with that title, which explains why all/most of them have subtitles.)

Also, two amusing post by Tycho over at Penny Arcade (post one and post two), bemoaning online discourse, although to use the word is to sully it. (Oh now look I'm writing like Tycho.)

Wait wait, what in the world is that? As I edit this post, there is a tab up above, "Monetize". Posting, Settings, Layout, Monetize. What does Google think this is, 1999?

Academic Reviews

I am reviewing a piece for NMS. The last time I submitted to NMS they got back to me in six months with no comments and it was a complete waste of time, I swore I would never submit to them again. Now they say they have a three week turn around on reviews. Ha.

But, I was about to Google for papers similar to the one I am reviewing, to see if this subject has been covered recently in the same way (no, I do not know every academic paper out there, no one does), or if there is a paper that the author should cite but didn't, and realized I might encounter the paper as a conference presentation, and that would be bad because reviews should be blind.

So, I stopped there, since it really seemed like an untenable situation.

To Save a TV Show, Don't Watch TV

I like this article over at Slate, Want To Save Your Favorite TV Show? Stop watching it on television, by Chadwick Matlin. Discusses how, unless you are a Nielsen household, no one has any idea that you are watching a TV show on TV... Unless you are watching a TV show online. Hulu? iTunes? They know. Suddenly your viewing preferences count. I am sure there is some decent discussion of samples and sampling in the survey out there somewhere. (It is a very technical issue, I've seen a Forrester senior analyst misinterpret the representativeness of a sample. Tisk.)

Bentham on Rights

Bentham - yes, that Jeremy Bentham, him of Wired fame for his Panopticon idea - did indeed, I have just learned, have other ideas. Other, amazing, ideas. Thanks, Nick Kristof!

One of the few exceptions was Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher who 200 years ago also advocated for women’s rights, gay rights and prison reform. He responded to Kant’s lack of interest in animals by saying: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

Clearly, that is great.

A.P. Still in 1999

So, the A.P. has a YouTube channel with its content, but apparently some people at the A.P. don't understand what YouTube is. If this were 1999, it would be funny.

Old Media + New Tech = Disruption!

Newspapers are all after Google for including snippets of their news, or something. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The Author's Guild is all over Amazon for text-to-speech in the Kindle. 

Reminds me of, well, everything. The radio powers (initially AM) suppressing FM technology (which was better) so as to protect their AM investments. The TV establishment fighting cable TV and the VCR until they could profit from them (I cannot resist the "Boston Strangler!" comment, who can, it is perfect). Newspapers hating the internet. Oh wait that's where we still are!

Established powers like the status quo, it's what sustains them, even if they draw on a formerly disruptive technology. They always seek to stop challenges in any way possible, and when consumers make it very clear they would use something new, the established powers seek to destroy it, often legally. Eventually if they can they co-opt the new technology, but that doesn't always happen. 

Challenge is opportunity. Embrace it (but not like an anaconda would).

Economists Rejoice!

Apple's iTunes Music Store now has different prices for different songs. Someone please do a paper. Do lower prices increase purchasing and still raise revenues (where is the optimal price?), and do higher prices on new songs not reduce purchases too much while still increasing revenues? That's the bet. Let's see what happens.