Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz » TAG: Blogs and blogging

April 01, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Maintaining integrity on the Net

TAGS: Blogs and blogging

Call it what you want, it [the Internet] is all about ratings now. We can argue that what makes a blog important is the nature of the content, but who are we kidding?

We hide what we really mean by calling it "page views," "impressions," "unique visitors," "click-throughs," "time spent on site," but it is all the same.

From now on, I'm just going to lump it all together and call it ratings.

If you don't think everyone on the Web, including me, is obsessed with getting good ratings, take a look at this Reality Check headline which I wrote last week -- "Eyewitness to H-1B scammers." I laugh, but it sounds more like a lead-in to the local 10 o'clock news than a story on a high-tech site geared to CTOs and CIOs.

One antidote, on broadcast television, to the mindset that wants to figure out how many murders you can mention in thirty seconds before you cut to commercial, is public television.

Public television to a lesser degree than commercial TV worries less about ratings. On public TV you can see a documentary on sheep shearing in the Hebrides. That may not be your cup of tea, but the world doesn't all have to be about appealing to the majority.

Yes, there are individuals with great sites, great blogs, great content. But there is also something to be said for news organizations like CNN and MSNBC that can post reporters around the world and deliver information that an individual sitting behind his or her computer could never do.

Part of the problem facing all content providers -- television and Internet alike -- is that the argument coming from the marketing side of the office cubicle for appealing to the mass market has a certain logic.

It goes something like this.

Why post a story to the Web that very few people will ever read? If you argue that it is important that this information be disseminated, the somewhat circular reasoning comes back with the argument, which has some validity, if no one reads the story, it doesn't matter if it is important. Why waste your time doing the serious story that gets low "ratings"?

We can look to television to see what happens when you take this argument to its "logical" conclusion: Dexter, a Showtime-turned-CBS show whose hero is a serial killer who likes to torture people because they deserve it.

Cable was supposed to be one response to inane network shows but ratings are affecting their content as well. How many times can you watch American Pie or even Sixth Sense?

The only hope is some of the programs produced by the niche channels, such as the History Channel and Discovery that have h igh production values and offer education along with entertainment.

Okay, I confess to enjoying MythBusters, MonsterQuest, and UFO Hunters,, but aren't they also an indication of ratings obsession eroding content?

How this unbridled quest for ratings will shape what information the online content providers--including InfoWorld, Cnet, eWeek, CNN, MSNBC, Google, the New York Times--give us is yet to be determined.

Remember, while a Web site has unlimited space to deliver both serious and trivial content there is a limit to the resources the provider can devote to creating the content.

How then do editors refute the logic of marketers?

For those of us in high tech, maybe the answer to that kind of "logic" is this.

How can we be taken seriously on major issues, not if but when they occur, if all the readers have been seeing on the aforementioned Web sites are stories about the iPhone?

My hope is that this is still very new to all of us on the Internet. And that over time it will sort itself out.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on April 1, 2008 03:00 AM

May 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Beware the Mob - What happened to Digg could happen to you

TAGS: Blogs and blogging

In what can only be described as a lynching of an Internet site, Digg, the online site for and by the people, was taken over this week by a mob, albeit it appears to be a completely self-organizing mob, that kept posting stories that included the key to break a digital rights copy protection code built into HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

According to our IDG News Service Digg Bends to Users Will on AACS Encryption Key, "the company began removing the posts after it received a cease-and-desist letter from another company claiming these posts violated its intellectual property rights."

As far as can be determined, those who posted were not part of some officially organized effort but rather fed off one another as the posting momentum grew. No sooner would Digg take down one post than someone else would put up another post that included the key.

Attempts to game automated Internet mechanisms are nothing new. Companies that wanted to raise their Google search profiles, for instance, are constantly stuffing keywords into their opening paragraphs or metadata in order to move up the rankings.

Howard Stern tried to aid and abet a Web site that exhorted American Idol fans to vote for Sanjaya, even though his singing skills are well below par.

Now we have the even scarier phenomenon that took place on Digg. Citizen journalism, as I wrote about it last week (Beware Mob Media) is one thing. But now we see this idea taken to its illogical conclusion.

While some may hail the idea of "the people" forcing Digg to surrender and say it would not take down the posts even if it potentially means its own demise, the specter of the owner -- who in a sense is just like the owner of a brick-and-mortar store -- having to acquiesce to an unruly mob that doesn't like what the store is selling or not selling, bodes ill for the future and the value of the World Wide Web.

I don't see this as a victory for the people. In my previous blog post on the subject, I cited examples of the dangers of a mob mentality. Here is yet another.

Let's look beyond the issue of digital rights management. Instead of praising this as a victory of the people over the giants of Hollywood and the recording industry, we should consider the bigger issue of what keeps a democracy intact.

A large part of that is, I believe, the willingness of all of us to accept and follow the rules. The old cliche that says your freedom stops where my nose begins, was never more important than today.

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Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on May 2, 2007 11:08 AM

April 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Beware mob media

TAGS: Blogs and blogging

For all its good intents, citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happen

During the past couple of years, there has been a great deal of talk about citizen journalism. It started with the idea that bloggers and others could provide worthwhile information that would add to a topic under discussion or to a news event.

The Dan Rather case comes to mind. In that case, it was a blogger who said the letter Rather was using to base his story on President Bush trying to avoid active duty during the Vietnam War was a fake.

Ever since then, the theory has been proposed that ordinary citizens may have something to add to news as it is regularly covered by professional journalists. Not to mention the fact that for-profit Web sites that adopt the concept get an awful lot of free content. Why care who creates your content as long as you get your page views, right?

I am not a cynic and a skeptic because I am a journalist. I admit those attributes came first and are the reason I probably was attracted to journalism. The chance to say the emperor has no clothes is my hot button.

So with that in mind, let me offer a very cynical point of view: Citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happen.

Now I know fascism requires the centralization of power, and that would appear to be the opposite of citizen journalism. But think of dark historic times such as the Salem witch trials or Hitler's rise to power.

They both started with the rantings of individuals, but somehow those individuals became "thought leaders," and around them coalesced a central organization made up of like-minded individuals.

I'm saying citizen journalism, where nonprofessionals report on and write the news, will devolve over time. Citizen journalism will become a platform for so-called thought leaders to vent their biased, possibly hateful opinions. If you go to a racist Web site, of which there are plenty, you know what to expect. But when you go to a site or read a blog that wears the mantle of citizen journalism, it is another story.

If you don't think things can get turned around in a not-so-good way, let me remind you of the one tool many dictators use to perpetuate authoritarian rule: the referendum. What could be more fair? Everyone votes, and yet it turns out to be the scariest tactic of all.

So we come to the Topix Web site. The perfect example of citizen journalism in action. Topix is a local news aggregator, started with the best of intentions by Rich Skrenta, co-founder and CEO.

Skrenta decided what was missing from news sites such as CNN and Google News was local news. Although Topix gets news feeds from hundreds of local daily papers, news radio, and television stations, Topix was striking out, according to Skrenta. They just weren't getting enough local news to keep the pages fresh, and without that they weren't getting enough local interest -- i.e., not enough local clicks.

Then a local event, two tornadoes in Caruthers, Mo., changed everything. Skrenta opened up Topix to everyone so that residents could communicate with one another. "Is my grandma's house still standing on Cherry Street?" someone might write, and sure enough, grandma's neighbor might write back, "Yes, she's okay."

Now Topix gets 50,000 posts per day nationwide, more than 10 million page views per month.

Sounds good. For the moment.

But if you've ever lived in a small community or belonged to an affinity group online, you know how things go. I belonged to an online group for Harley-Davidson Sportster riders, and even that went south. From discussing bike mechanics and good rides, it devolved into politics and where you stand on Iraq with lots of name-calling to boot. Let's face it, besides the good things about living in a small community, there are also the busybodies, the ones who think they are the community watchdogs and censors. They don't see or understand the value of impartiality or the benefit of standing on the outside and looking in. Is that who you want to get your information from?

I guarantee at some point some local citizen journalist will ask why Mr. Jones down the street doesn't put out a flag on July 4th. What's wrong with him anyway? Or why does that guy with the funny accent never say hello to me? What's he hiding?

Journalists remain a voice of reason and a moderating voice. But now we seem to value "thought leaders," so-called experts who have their own agenda. They claim to know more and are willing to steer the discussion in the direction they choose.

If we start turning to them to find out what our neighbors are hiding or why they aren't saluting the flag, we are going to be in lots of trouble.

To my ears, "citizen journalists" and "thought leaders" sound like words straight out of a George Orwell novel. Maybe I'm wrong. But as more and more people stop reading newspapers and depend on online community sites to get their information, I see the danger and it may just be too late.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on April 23, 2007 03:00 AM

April 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Buzzlogic prediction: Melinda Doolittle--not Sanjaya--will win American Idol

TAGS: Blogs and blogging

Statistical analysis of the blogosphere points to why Melinda Doolittle will win American Idol

The prediction is not mine but comes from the founder of Buzzlogic a startup that monitors blogosphere conversations, mainly by topic and keyword, for brand managers and marketers at large and small companies.

Buzzlogic takes keywords and with algorithms maps the intricate web of links that take place between bloggers and readers posting comment.

Buzzlogic determines who the thought leaders are by looking at the number of hits on a topic bloggers receive. The algorithms also factor in the number of posts that a blogger posts on a specific topic because this helps to build credibility of the blogger as an expert on a topic.

Using all of these approaches, and more, Todd Parsons, co-founder of Buzzlogic told me that Melinda Doolittle will win American Idol this year.

View report for all American Idol contestants

Although Sanjaya and Doolittle are almost in a dead heat for the most number of blogs written about them among the American Idol contestants, Sanjaya's posts are almost all negative while Doolittle's are all positive.

View the American Idol winner's circle

View Sanjaya's Buzzlogic results

If Buzzlogic's prediction is correct, they should try predicting the winner of the next presidential election.

If they get that one right, too, we will have a very real demonstration of how the World Wide Web can bring down, or as it used to be called "disintermediate" yet another hallowed institution, presidential pollsters, such as Gallup and Zogby.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on April 16, 2007 11:13 AM