Fat Thursday

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What a day. Here’s a rundown.

Apple Announced iBooks2 and iBooks Author

The news came, as expected from early rumors, Apple was going to revamp their eBooks to support more interactive elements. The software is nice, feeling a lot like a robust Keynote that outputs Epub files. I haven’t had time to dig through the output code yet to see just how good it is (I have serious misgivings about code produced by WYSIWYG editors after seeing work done by Front Page and Dreamweaver). However, before jumping head long into pumping out books via iBooks Author, there’s some sneaky BS hidden in the EULA.

Perhaps people really did learn from the Human CentiPad episode of South Park?

Perry Out, Endorses Newt. Newt Attempted to Endorse The Wrong Open. Iowa Flipflops

Perry, after a lifetime of swearing he has never quit, well, quit. On his way out, he endorsed Gingrich. Almost at the same time, news leaked that Gingrich essentially asked his second wife to have an open marriage, admitting that he was sleeping with his now third-wife. And, 8 districts in Iowa’s votes showed up, switching the winner from Romney to Santorum. Fantastic.

Who Needs SOPA?

Remember on Wednesday when everyone really expressed their concern with the government attempting to enact Hollywood-written legislation which would allow for easy censoring of the internet? Well, the DOJ proved they don’t even need that just the very next day by taking down cyberlocker site MegaUpload, indicting 7 and arresting 4 individuals all the way in New Zealand.

So…if Hollywood needs new legislation because they can’t get rogue sites, I think reality showed that either they currently have those powers or they’ve got enough pull with the DOJ and DHS (by way of ICE) to carry out broadscale censorship without new laws.

At least Archer comes back tonight…

Gone Tomorrow

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I’m a fairly ardent media collector. My living room is walled by shelves which, from left to right, hold books, DVDs and CDs, each of which number in the hundreds of units.

However, as bandwidth has dropped to near-zero cost*, I have taken to streaming music. At first, streaming was just a means to listen to my music while at work. Then, streaming became a quick and easy means of new music discovery, where good albums would be either enjoyed until saturation or purchased if they were really good.

Eventually, streaming came home with me.

Now I pay for and use rdio and Pandora on both my work and home computers. I stream Pandora on my alarm clock and Boxee. Last.fm scrobbles the hell out of my 360. And I can’t even imagine downloading a podcast thanks to apps like NPR and Stitcher.

I’ve even worked myself into a new music discovery routine Tuesday through Thursday. rdio has a convenient New Release browsing option that rearranges itself based on popularity of new albums. I normally browse through on Tuesday and find albums of interest on the first four or so pages. I listen from back to front, as the most popular albums will be discovered and pushed to the front page by the end of the week.

But, today marked a change there. The new Snow Patrol album, which my girlfriend enjoyed, was available for streaming (and launched in the #1 slot on rdio) on Tuesday, was no long available for streaming on Wednesday.

Mind you, I know there are a lot of forces at play when it comes to copyright law and streaming licenses, but the whole “stream today, gone tomorrow” scenario smacks of a money grab. It’s not any different than windowing in the film or book industries – that is a means to erect an artificial barrier in an attempt to get the most money out of people possible.

And in the 21st Century where media converts on convenience over price, that’s just a douche move.

We already won the DRM war with music. How about the music industry not cripple the best alternative to piracy by playing games with streaming availability?


*except for mobile phone providers, who prefer to lower demand through fear of overage costs, rather than providing a compelling and rich bandwidth experience that would require, you know, building a realistic infrastructure.

The Very Definition of a Modern Fantasy Novel

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Your new batch of modern urban supernatural fantasy

Got the January GoodReads newsletter today, and as per usual, I scrolled through the new releases by genre only to be let down by what is currently being passed off as “fantasy.”

Skim these and meet me on the other side:

Shadow Heir by Richelle Mead

From the description, “The uneasy truce between her and her shape shifter ex-lover Kiyo is endangered by secrets he can’t–or won’t–reveal.”

Silver-Tongued Devil by Jaye Wells

From the description,”Now that the threat of war has passed, Sabina Kane is ready to focus on the future. Her relationship with Adam Lazarus is getting stronger and she’s helping her sister, Maisie, overcome the trauma of her captivity in New Orleans.”

Raven Cursed by Faith Hunter

From the description, “The vampires of Asheville, North Carolina, want to establish their own clan, but since they owe loyalty to the Master Vampire of New Orleans they must work out the terms with him.”

Sins of the Demon by Diana Rowland

From the description, “The homicide beat in Louisiana isn’t just terrifying, it’s demonic. Detective Kara Gilligan of the supernatural task force…”

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

From the description, “She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.”

Back? Okay, good. Did you catch the trend there? These aren’t fantasy books with tangential nods to the real world, they’re real world books with tangential nods (or thick gloopy swaths) of overlaid fantastic elements.

Don’t get me wrong, I mean no disrespect to the authors of these books (and props for getting through the chain), but I am really disliking the current trend of fantasy that seems like it was put together with shovels.

The publishing industry likes to force some semblance of standardization amongst genres as well as creating finite sub genres (You know, like Supernatural Military Epic Fantasy), all in the name of making books easier to sell. However, when pushing books at the super genre level, can we at least get some damn variety in there?

I think we all know who to blame.

Favorite New Statement

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Conjunction Junction

Found this little statement while reading Techdirt, and I think it does a wonderful job articulating both the power of conjunctions and their means to placate while seemingly facilitate.

“Anything you say before but in a political statement doesn’t count.”

We can even scrap the word political and it still makes sense.

“That’s a really nice shirt, but you shouldn’t wear it,” means “You shouldn’t wear that shirt.”

Or “That’s a really good offer, but I’m going to pass,” means “I am not going to buy your thing.”

And, “I respect your opinion, but I think mine is more valid,” means “I don’t really respect your opinion.”

The Third Rail

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The third freaking rail

The third rail is the subway rail which carries electricity. You’re not supposed to touch it.

Similarly, content on websites are frequently arranged into vertical columns, which are referred to as “rails”. Usually, you’ll have a content rail, and a side rail full of links and ads and what not.

Lately, however, since publishers are told that “social is the way of the future” and those publishers then push their marketing teams to “determine a measurable social metric,” we have started to see a horrible new convention, what I’d like to call the third rail.

And just like with subways, I can never imagine touching the third rail.

You Were In The Army…right?

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Now with wirecutting sheath!“You were in the army. Did you ever learn a trick for opening a can when you don’t have a can opener?”
“Yeah. Do you have a bayonet?”
“No…”
“Well, that was the trick.”

In the end, the solution is to just use a knife.

Hey ICE! Irony alert!

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Dear Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement,

I don’t know exactly how you got to be the de facto copyright cops for the entertainment industry, but when you start putting out videos like this:

…you might want to make sure you’re not putting foot firmly in mouth. See, downloading illicit movies might cost that boom mike operator her job. But you know what certainly will? Reusing and recutting NYC’s anti-piracy PSA for your own benefit, thus denying a boom mike operator a job.

So…for the record, ICE has cost at least one boom mike operator a job. In the words of the video’s street huckster “you’re what’s wrong with everything.”

Man, I certainly hope ICE licensed that video. Wouldn’t it be ironic if they pirated and plagiarized an anti-piracy PSA?

The Gray Lady’s 40 Million Dollar Folly

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Or
How, After More Than a Decade, The Times Still Doesn’t Get The Internet

Photo by Graham Biggs

After years of talk, the New York Times finally released details regarding their new pay wall yesterday. Despite receiving mixed reviews, I am failing to see how anyone could see the new Times plan as anything but a bad idea.

First, a little background. The New York Times has attempted a paywall before – and it failed miserably. So have other newspapers, and with the exception of publications that exist in specialized verticals (financials), no paywall has ever really survived. One noted paywall, the Long Island daily Newsday actually saw a mere 35 paying subscribers in its three month trial.

Granted, the new Times Paywall is less a wall and more a Byzantine collection of rules and exceptions that say if and when you can read a Times article.

Everyone gets 20 free articles a month. Links from social media sources and blogs and some search engines will be able to read the article regardless of how many other articles have been read. And readers will always have access to the front page of the site, front page of the sections and some of all the blogs and most of some of them.

Walls have it easy. The Times is putting a crap shoot and a curb between you and the content you want to read.

What’s worse is that there are so many loopholes that anyone with a passing interest in reading any article on the Times website really can. Which leaves paying for access to the website really as more of a punishment for being a less savvy internet user than something that bestows real value.

Of course, in its pricing scheme the all but admits that the website is a free bonus. How so? Well, there’s no way to buy access just to the website. You have to either pay $15 for a four week subscription to the website and the smartphone app, $20 for access to the website and the iPad app, or $35 for access to the web, smartphone and iPad app. The math behind that is crazy, but thankfully Wired already did it.

If A + B = $15 and A + C = $20 and A + B + C = $35, what does A equal?

That answer is 0.

Yes, the New York Times is saying that access to their website is essentially a giveaway value add, but you can’t have that value unless you’re a paying customer. At least not all the time. Well, you can have access when they feel like it.

Of course, nobody is saying that the Times website is worthless, least of all the advertisers. Numbers I’m seeing is that the site took in $300 million last year from ad impressions alone. But, the new pricing and access scheme concocted by the wizards at the Times feels oddly punitive especially when we consider the competitive landscape of publishing news online.

The issue facing the New York Times seems to be multifaceted, and the new paywall will do little to solve it. In fact, if the Times earns back the $40 million paywall investment within the next two years, I will be shocked.

Let’s look at the issue. First, the New York Times is not merely competing on a city or regional level. Hell, they’re not even competing on a national level. They are an international publication and they know this, as the equally vaunted and lauded paywall took effect today in Canada with the rest of world schedule to start on the 28th of this month.

Second, the New York Times is not just competing with other newspapers. News is coming from more and more spaces – all of the newspapers of the world, plus all of the television websites, the vertical websites, blogs, and the recently emerging trend of real time, unedited broadcasts from reporters on location via social networks.

Put these two together and you begin to get the picture of the modern media landscape, people have an abundance of news sources to pull from. The sea of a million periodicals allows a rapid comparing and contrasting of news that puts emphasis on loyalty to story rather than loyalty to brand.

In order to succeed online, the Times needs to stop thinking about coping with the new system while punishing those who play by the old rules and instead move to the golden rule of selling: make people want to give you money.

I know, it sounds simple. But if it were, every product would be a must have. However, since I’ve already come this far, here are just a few suggestions for how to turn the experience behind the paywall into something actually worth paying for.

First, get rid of the freaking ads. I know, newspapers have never been about selling copies and have always survived by amassing an audience and then selling that audience’s attention to advertisers. But, seriously, if I’m paying to be there, I don’t want my experience muddied up by ads.

Second, embrace your subscribers by allowing them to be heard. This is not just an argument for comments, or for restricting commenting to merely paying subscribers. This is an argument for a second commenting system that is restricted to paying customers. Reward these users by not having them mix with the aggressive and argumentative landscape of the public comments system. Allow commenters to interact with each other. And the kicker? Require your staff to participate in the premium comments.

Third, provide access. I don’t mean the current model of access which is determined on a device-by-device basis. That’s a bastardization of infinite supply. I mean real access. Access to reporters. Access to notes on an article and background information. Access to photos that were taken but not used. These are unique items that are often of scarce supply and provide a real value to readers and differentiate the Times website from the millions of others out there.

What’s more, these don’t have to all be included in one plan, they could be rolled out a la carte and at multiple levels. Level one gets you an advertising free Times experience. Level two removes adds and access to the gated community. Level three allows for communication with reporters and peels back the curtain on the story. Hell, level 15 could involve a monthly beer with the editor.

Put bluntly, the Times is selling the wrong thing. They’re trying to get people to pay for infinite and largely fungible content instead of paying for scarce commodities like access and privilege. And that is a damn foolish way to blow $40 million.