Open Media, Take Two: The Sensemakers 149
Open Media offer one of the world's most badly-needed services: sensemaking.The dropping cost of information is driving much of the global economy. So it makes sense that organizing the information available online is a booming industry, the most vibrant new form of media.
Connecting information consumers with information may become one of the defining elements of successful media in the 21st Century. Open Media reverse the traditional flow of information, practiced by institutions from governments to churches to conventional journalism. Open Media outlets don't offer information mandated by a handful of executives, editors, producers and writers, although they do reflect different points-of-view and they filter to varying degrees. Through Open Media, sensemaking takes place not only among individual users, but among readers, users and people who link to Open Media sites. These sites are continually spotting, collating, submitting, archiving, sharing, linking and discussing information. Open Media was -- is -- being engineered and pioneered by the young, whose technical expertise is far ahead of most of the people responsible for raising and educating them.
They are in the right place at the right time with the right skills. Some of the most prescient technological observers saw the need both for Open Media and sensemaking decades ago. At the end of World War II, even as University of Pennsylvania scientists were patching together the first electronic computer, federal official Vannevar Bush warned that society was creating information far faster than it could make use of.
"The difficulty seems to be that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make use of the record," Bush wrote. "The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily-important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships."
Not any more. Bush would probably be shocked with wonder if he could spend a few minutes browsing on the Net. But all over the world, as tens of millions come online, popular awareness of an "information explosion" becomes daily more acute. The quantity of information accessible by personal computer -- now reaching far beyond the file system of a single computer to complex systems all over the planet -- has increased by a factor of millions.
Citizens of the modern age increasingly bewildered, overwhelmed by the extraordinary quantities of data coming at them from all sides. They are also increasingly restive and disappointed with media that make information choices for them, including choices they don't want or need. Before the Net, they had no choice but to patronize such top-down media. Now they do, and in growing numbers, they are leaving behind their old information industries and suppliers, from newspapers to network TV.
This leaves the media of the future in flux, up for grabs. Only a handful of people understand the specialized skills and systems of a technological society, both miraculous and unnerving to the point that they are driving users nuts. Americans in particular lead a hyperactive information life. And their media -- the institutions supposed to help guide and inform them -- have been as overwhelmed as they are.
As reported by Mark Stefik in his book The Internet Edge, Bush's 1945 observation -- he was at the time director of the Federal Office of Scientific Research and Development, and one of the most prominent scientists in the country -- led to that now-familiar metaphor, the "information explosion," popularized in Alvin Toffler's 1970 book Future Shock.
The very word "explosion" has ominious connotations; it's not benign or welcoming. It suggests a powerful force unleashed suddenly and destructively. One way to contain the information explosion would be to reduce the amount of information; that's not going to happen. Information drives the global economy, and its price is going down all the time.
A better solution -- and a hallmark of the new forms of Open Media evolving all across the Internet -- is to help people keep up with the information most relevant to their interests. This is precisely where traditional -- or Closed -- media have stumbled. Closed Media sites -- Salon, Slate, Inside.com -- struggle with the idea that evolutionary forms of media aren't about delivering opinions, commentary, pre-selected and reported stories involving chosen agendas. Quite the opposite; they're about permitting individuals -- using the most interactive aspects of new technology -- to shape their own information needs and values. Open Media use new forms of information architecture to permit people to define, seek and use the information they want. Closed media operate by permitting a handful of individuals to select information and distribute it, in the hopes that people will want and buy it.
Information explosions have occurred before, but this one is a hummer. The volume of information available in the developed world has been steadily increasing for hundreds of years, but seldom as rapidly as in the past generation. The Net, among other media, zaps information that was once available only via "enclave" institutions -- schools, libraries, publishing companies, churches, universities -- to whomever cares to see it. Open Media is inherently political, since information has traditionally been carefully parceled out to people (especially younger people) in small doses by educational, religious and other institutions. The reality of Open Media is that access to information by younger people is no longer monopolized by closed institutions and media organizations. The grownups don't like it one bit.
Any kid with a computer has access to vast amounts of the world's information archives, perhaps the most frightening reality of the Internet to most older Americans and political figures. The young are the dominant sensemakers of our culture, and perhaps the only ones qualified to assume that role.
Far beyond Vannevar Bush's imaginings, information is almost universally within reach to those who can afford computing. Yet those people complain constantly, increasingly, that they have no idea how to use it productively, or how to gather, absorb and store it all. Incalculable amounts of information are missed or lost by computers daily due to confusion, lack of storage, printing or other technical problems. Those of us online are all librarians now, all media moguls in various odd ways. We all struggle to make sense out of the overwhelming information choices that surround us.
Visions of Open Media aren't entirely new, either. Thomas Jefferson repeatedly argued for a de-centralized press through which individual citizens, politicians and merchants would fire ideas at one another. In l961, Pentagon scientist and Net visionary J.C.R. Licklider, who initiated much of the early funding for what became the Net, described an "information desk," which Vannevar Bush had visualized years earlier.
"The average person will have his intellectual Ford or Cadillac -- comparable to the investment he makes now in an automobile -- or ...he will rent one from a public utility that handles information processing as Consolidated Edison handles electric power. In business, government, and education the concept of 'desk' may have changed from passive to active: a desk may be primarily a display-and-control station in a telecommuncation-telecomputation system -- and its most vital part may be the cable ('umbilical cord') that connects it, via a wall socket, into the procognitive utility net."
Bush's concept of an intelligent desk has evolved into a desktop. And in between the average person and the information he or she seeks are media, increasingly Open Media, that helps them organize the new world they face. Search engines, Web sites like this one, messaging systems (ICQ, AIM, Hotlines) Weblogs (like www.camworld.com), individual Web pages, movie and consumer sites (www.imdb.com, www.deja.com) research and software sites -- their mission is remarkably uniform -- sensemaking.
Stefik estimates the average number of links off an individual Web page to be about thirteen. Individual searching makes sense for the technologically skilled, but most people who set off on the Net and the Web in search of information quickly get lost. "Even completely automated web walkers, which hop across web pages at electronic speeds, now take days or even weeks to sweep through all the documents on the Internet," writes Stefik.
Though the number of documents online grows steadily, much of the information on the Net and the Web never gets indexed. Stekif believes that as digital-rights technology becomes more widely integrated into the Net infrastructure, more documents will be available on the Net for a fee.
Meanwhile, Open Media are becoming increasingly important in helping make people aware of the news and information available to them. Weblogs in particular are being increasingly reliable, trusted sources of information as well as new focal points for growing, enduring and increasingly influential communities.
No wonder Open Media are the premier medium of the young, and are also gaining audience, market share and revenue.
Re:Slashdot as Open Media? (Score:1)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
(FX: Evil laugh)
Re:/. is the 'sensemaker' (Score:3)
-Kahuna Burger
Re:Reputation and identity (Score:1)
Trust and reputation are what real old school journalism is about.
Trust and reputation are are in new and old media, however new media allows a greater interactivity and feedback from readers and the audience.
The fact that you've just commented on the differences between various Boston newspapers is already a piece of information I didn't know. I don't know whether I should trust what you say, but if many other people agree with you, and then agree with other things you say, you'll build up a reputation as a trust worthy commentator : I might then have an increased confidence in what you say.
New media allows what you also suggest: ability to delve deeper into issues, no doubt about that. The issues that I mention are orthogonal to completeness, and in fact assist completeness -- for instance, if 200 people comment on an article, and one high reputable and trustworthy person says that it is 'complete', then I may not need to look at further detail. If those people are mistaken, then they'll lose their reputation.
Re:Reputation and identity (Score:1)
I should add: in the old media, there was little way to know if information was complete, or assess the reputation of those providing the information and so on. In the new media, there's a greater ability to do that - in real time, and with real time feedback.
Re:Here's some helpful information (Score:1)
Besides, these are simple rules from ME. Don't trust me to tell you the truth when you have experienced different. Aren't those rules cool like that? Hehehe.
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Re:Slashdot as Open Media? (Score:1)
1) We are the moderators. So when you say that we are letting the moderators thing for us, we are infact thinking for ourselves.
2) With enough moderators, you'll find that there is enough difference of opinion to get "Good" posts from all different opinions moderated up.
Think about it this way. I the scientific journals start ublishing everything, well then how'll you ever know whats worth reading and whats not? I'm not saying that the method of selection used is perfect, but if you get enough scientific journals togather, you'll find that most opinions are covered.
The advantage with slashdot of course is that if someone really wants, all the other crap is available for access. If you don't like slashdot's moderating. Just set your filter level to -1.
As an aside, I've normally find +5 informative messages to be fairly non opinianated and fact stating.
cheers
Make it stop. (Score:2)
I'm falling out of my chair laughing at his pompous incompetent attitude. This from someone who has to 'geek-ize' everything and proclaim himself a saviour of the geek, who gleefully takes every word they said on one topic and uses it in a book, without giving them any opprotunity to say they didn't want it, and without paying them, because it's 'so important' yadda yadda.
Bunch of overblown overhyped crap is what it is, reminiscient of AOL marketing. "With Jon Katz, it's easy to be a geek!" "The New Katz 5.0 - Now able to stereotype nerds as well!" Bah. Slashdot's fallen quite a distance.
Open this, open that, world is evil, geeks will rule all, interaction, the "information superhighway", data explosion, etcetera, ad infinitum. Does Katz's jaw ever stop spewing forth such cliche and ignorant crap? Can I bribe him into shutting up?
Ever since that Hellmouth crap, Katz has spewed nothing but eschewed self-important crap in line with whatever current moronic trend in networking/internet/stereotyping is. I'm getting damn sick of this crap wasting valuable bandwidth because one man can't get enough of himself, namely, Katz.
If Rob and Co. really have editorial control, then editorial Katz back to the 2-bit rags he used to write for - this isn't a man who belongs on the Internet, nor should be allowed near a word processor, obviously.
=RISCy Business - flames not bothered with
Slashdot Sheep? (Score:1)
Indeed, slashdot is the perfect example. When people learn to play the community game of slashdot by adjusting to become a well-formed poster, they lose their original opinions (which may have been "flamebait" or just plain "overrated") and turn into a member of the community sheep. We are, as I said above, losing our ability to think individually by letting other people (the moderators) think for us.
And how many opinions have you lost? Seriously, have you restructured any of your views to avoid "[conflict] to the community"? I know I certainly haven't, and I doubt that many others have either; At least not in the sense that you seem to be saying.
My ability to think is alive and well. Any of my posts that get marked down as "flamebait" or "overrated" hasn't done anything to change my opinions. However, what it has done is make me more hesitant to post.
Our ability to think is not lost. It's just that the thinkers end up leaving the discussion to those who already are sheep.
...Just IMNSLO (In My Not So Lost Opinion).
-
Re:How fitting (Score:2)
Except I think this would just fall under the general category of "meta", which is already in the jargon file. Otherwise, we would also have to make a separate entry for meta-flames (flaming people who generate too much flamage), meta-stories (stories about stories), etc.
JON KATZ TAKE 2 (Score:1)
"mickey and mallory know the difference between right and wrong. they just don't give a damn." - steven wright, natural born killers.
jon katz. champion of the outcast teen. what has made him so sympathetic to the cause of the columbine killers? why has this event seemingly resonated so deeply within him? is jon just sympathetic to the life of the modern teen? or is there something more? something insidious?
these are the questions i've been asking myself as i've read katz's obsessive columbine writings. these were the questions i was asking myself as i sat mesmerized by my natalie portman poster. like a torrent of sudden rain, my spirit guides bombarded me with the heinous images of jon's life. i was so disturbed i could barely bring myself to write this.
jon was born and raised in a small, southwestern town. his father, carlito, was a mexican immigrant who worked for the department of transportation, building highways. his mother, juno, was a gypsy who earned money by performing card readings. the family made a comfortable living and jon was a happy, outgoing child, who even contributed to the family income by cleaning dog excrement from the neighborhood sidewalks.
carlito was a hard-worker. in fact, he worked too hard. one particularly hot, sunny day, he was overcome with heat exhaustion. the incident had changed carlito forever. the charming, jovial, caring carlito became a vile, egomaniacal, misogynist. carlito soon lost his job and spent the rest of his days lounging around the house.
the first incident of abuse happened when jon was but 6 years old. juno had lured a siamese cat into the house. she let the cat roam around until it was time for her to prepare it for the family's dinner. jon had just come home from a long day of sidewalk cleaning. carlito was laying on the couch with a 40 ounce schlitz. the putrid stench of dog manure flooded the house as jon closed the door. carlito was roused from his wrestling match. infuriated, he jumped off the couch, grabbing juno's cat by the tail. carlito stormed over to jon, who had backed himself into a corner. jon could do nothing but cry as carlito severely beat him with the screeching cat.
the more jon cried, the more carlito beat him. after fifteen minutes of abuse, carlito plunged his hand into the stomach of the dead animal and gutted it right there in front of jon. he ate the entrails and forced his stunned son to wear the pelt as a hat for the rest of the week.
the beatings continued for a few more years, at a lesser severity. until just after jon's 10th birthday. jon invited his friend ron over to spend the night. carlito would usually hide in the bedroom whenever anyone visited, so it was always a good way for jon to escape the beatings. the boys had had fun roaming the neighborhood that evening, making castles with the dog excrement they found and then pretending to be giant monsters, from a japanese science fiction movie, going on a rampage and smashing the castles. the boys played hard that night and went to bed early.
but the boys could not sleep. instead, they decided to play doctor and various other games. the laughter awakened carlito. he stormed into the bedroom and flipped on the light. there, he beheld his son on all fours with his little friend mounting him from behind. the boys were playing "dog." carlito lost control. he threw ron out of the house, sending him walking home and picked jon up by the feet.
carlito stormed outside, carrying his naked son by the feet. he rampaged throughout the neighborhood stopping any time he ran across a dog. carlito would beat hapless animal to death, using his son as a club. once again, he would plunge his hand into the dead animal, remove its organs and devour them. he then collected the pelt.
after carlito had slaughtered twenty dogs, he tied together all of the pelts into a make-shift body-suit for jon. exhausted, and with jon bruised, bloodied and crying, carlito stumbled home. carlito wrapped jon in the gruesome clothing he had made and threw him into bed. he left the room momentarily, only to return with an empty 40-ounce. he stuck the open end into jon's rectum. jon cried himself to sleep.
jon grew sullen and withdrew from his classmates. his grades slipped into oblivion. the teachers knew what the problem was, but dared not speak up. jon would sit in class, staring blankly out the window. nothing seemed to interest him. he never did his assignments. he began to arrive at school wearing ozzy osbourne and motley crue t-shirts. the faculty continued to ignore him. jon had become lost in a nether-world and none could pull him out.
none but timmy. timmy's family had recently moved into town from california. jon felt him come in the room and turned from the window to behold his first real crush. timmy was tall, muscular, tanned and blonde. it was instant love for jon. but he dared not express his true feelings. he became best friends with timmy. they did everything together. jon's emotions were tearing him apart.
jon couldn't stand it and his father had taught him well. jon invited timmy to go searching for peyote. the two wandered deep into the desert, the hot sun beating down on them. the intense heat slowly began to affect jon. he turned pale. he began to shake uncontrollably. then timmy made a fatal mistake.
timmy put his hand on jon's shoulder and asked him if he was ok. jon became enraged. he picked up a rock and hit timmy in the head with it, knocking him unconscious. jon plunged his shaking fist into timmy's stomach and removed his organs, eating them on the spot. jon then removed the skin from the withered corpse and carried back to his car.
jon kept the skin in his room, making passionate love with it at night. snuggling with it in the morning. he would whisper sweet nothings into its ear and run his fingers through its golden head of hair. jon was in a state of bliss. until carlito detected the scent of rotting flesh. jon was given another gruesome beating.
jon fell in and out of love several times throughout highschool. each of the unfortunate objects of his affections would suffer the same fate and, once they mysteriously vanished from school, jon would return to his withdrawn state. only one teacher had the courage to try to help jon his senior year of highschool.
jon had signed up for a computer class that year. his computer teacher recognized jon was troubled and took special care with him. jon soon developed a deep love for his teacher. but jon was ashamed. he couldn't quite grasp the complicated concepts that were part of the course: basic wordstar usage, lotus 123 and flipping the power switch. jon felt like a fool in front of his new love. he could not deal with his feelings.
jon began to amass a deadly arsenal in his bedroom. he collected all manner of guns, rifles and bombs. he drew a detailed map of the school and devised a plan for decimating the entire building and everyone in it. jon dreamt of becoming a notorious mass-murderer, no longer ignored. no longer a powerless worm in the eyes of his beloved mr. donacelli.
the night before "senior day." jon decided to celebrate by getting drunk. tomorrow his glorious plan would come to fruition. jon got drunk off of a gallon of cheap vodka. utterly incoherent, he climbed onto the roof of his house with the remains of his bottle and a fat cigar. he danced, naked, on the rooftop and yelled at the top of his lungs, "i'm gay, touch my balls!"
jon's father woke from his alcoholic coma, not knowing that the neighbors had called the police. he ran outside and found jon on the roof. carlito climbed the side of the house and grabbed his son by the hair, throwing him onto the ground below. carlito spotted a lizard in the grass near jon. he jumped down, caught the lizard and began to severely beat jon. the police arrived within minutes.
the police immediately took carlito into custody. they searched the house and found jon's arsenal, which they confiscated, thinking it belonged to carlito. carlito was subsequently convicted of assault and conspiracy. jon would never be beaten again.
april 20, 1999. jon sat in front of his television watching with fascination as the columbine tragedy unfolded before his eyes. wistfully, jon thought back to his days in highschool. he knew these two young men were heros. they pulled it off. an accomplishment he had only dreamt of. jon took out his pen and paper and began work on his next slashdot article.
thank you.
Do we know what information we want? (Score:2)
Open Media use new forms of information architecture to permit people to define, seek and use the information they want. Closed media operate by permitting a handful of individuals to select information and distribute it, in the hopes that people will want and buy it.
1. Do we always know what information we want? And is that a good thing? The danger of defining our own filters is that sometimes the most useful information is the kind I never would have put into a list of "what I want to hear about" because I don't grasp its importance until after I read it.
2. How many people are going to "select" to purposely view ads? Probably not many, so how do providers of Open Information make their money? By charging the consumer directly for the service? Are there any successful examples of this so far?
3. I'd like to hear a few specific examples of Open Media. If Closed Media allow a handful of individuals to pre-filter information, then that sounds like almost all media to me. What is Open Media then, just a search engine? Or is Open Media something that doesn't exist yet?
Mountains Out of Molehills. (Score:5)
Katz talks about the impact of "open media", but only mentions en passant that its impact is limited to those who have regular access to the Internet and who seek out such sources. Many people are content to go no farther than their radio or TV for news. In developing countries (and still, in many developed ones), some people go no farther than friends and family for current news.
No strangleholds on information access are being broken. Many major news sites on the Web are related in some way to real-world news providers that are in turn owned by larger conglomerates. Unsurprisingly, the corporations that hoodwink and confound us in the real world are trying to do so in the virtual one. The only difference in this regard is that in the virtual world, it's much easier to hear an individual's opinion.
The virtual world can be likened to a vast, long street lined with shops. Billboards and salesmen are everywhere, hawking their wares much as they do in reality. Large media companies dispense the news as normal, and the politicians make their presence felt by regulating the way the street operates, even though few of them have yet ventured onto it.
Also on this street, jostling passersby and one another, are millions of people wearing sandwich boards and ranting about their topics of choice. Some of those people have formed enclaves (some more exclusive than others), where favorite topics are bandied about, flame wars started, and inside jokes kept alive.
Jon, the virtual world is really not that different from the real world. If there is such a thing as "open media", the only reason it is more visible in the virtual world is because it's easier to self-publish there.
This isn't revolutionary. In the long run, it may not even be important. But it is interesting, and it is useful.
Friends not enemies (Score:5)
I think this is really the crux of it. This is old media in a sentence. And, as I see it, there is no problem with this happily co-existing with Open Media. Sure, one or the other might lose or gain some mindshare, but it's not, as those Linux distro millionaires like to say, a zero sum game.
By permitting a handful of individuals to select information, you are doing most people a big favour. Compare the Camel book to c.l.p.m. Compare a well written Linux HowTo with a slashdot 'ask slashdot' thread.
Each of the Open forms has strengths and (severe) weaknesses, and likewise the Closed form. They complement each other.
I don't see the big conflict here, only a series of small ones as we work out just what kind of information is better handled in either an Open or Closed way.
I will continue to buy the writings of those individuals who have an unusual ability to select and present information and ideas. I will continue to read with interest my mailing lists, my slashdot posts, and my other sources of open discussion. There's no conflict.
Same old story... (Score:1)
Well, I for one do not. So what if if an OpenMedia source serves up information that is pertinent to my interests and values? How can I be sure that they aren't leaving out information that I may be interested in? Sounds like a perverse form of censorship to me. It begs the question of whether these new media sources will or will not abuse their power.
I believe that news should be made available to society in its fullest, but if a person wants to be an educated, informed person, he or she takes the initiative and looks for the news stories that interests him/her.
Re:Slashdot as Open Media? (Score:4)
Indeed, slashdot is the perfect example of this Open Media - except the Open Media is so full of Closed Minds (as in a common slashdot slogan) that it's hardly open at all. Honest opinions get termed as "flamebait", and people restructure their views to the point where it no longer conflicts to the community.
Indeed, slashdot is the perfect example. When people learn to play the community game of slashdot by adjusting to become a well-formed poster, they lose their original opinions (which may have been "flamebait" or just plain "overrated") and turn into a member of the community sheep. We are, as I said above, losing our ability to think individually by letting other people (the moderators) think for us.
I'm missing it too. (Score:1)
I think what he actually means of sensemaking is a little more focused than this initial definition. However, this article seems to be a parody of "sensemaking."
This reminds me of the sociologist who recently wrote a paper about nothing, but used the correct wording, got it peer reviewed successfully and published in a journal. It would not surprise me to find out that JonKatz is doing a similar self-referential joke.
Okay. I'm now setting my preferences to exclude JonKatz. Life is too short.
Re:But can you trust it? (Score:2)
Now, fully realizing I'm defending my livelihood, there is still a place for true journalism -- stories hunted down by actual reporters. Yes, the Internet is the greatest repository of information ever built. Heck, I use it every day in my work. But quite frankly, the Internet doesn't have everything.
The data on the Internet is generated by people. People are the true sources of information, and they don't always spill absolutely everything online. For example, I cover a certain large sofware company here in Seattle. Said company does not provide the public with every tidbit of information that it has. Public records and competitors' info helps, but that's not the entire story, either. The true story about that company rests with the people who run it and work there. To get the best information on that company, you have to go and talk to them, pick their brains, and do a bit of analysis to put the pieces together. That's what I do.
Plus, not everyone can go and ask Larry Ellison just what the &#*@! he was thinking when he had people root through other people's garbage. They pay reporters, via their subscription dollars or ad revenues, to ask for them.
In fact, the story about Oracle's garbage-tripping adventures (to sum up, they hired private investigators to go through the trash of a pro-Microsoft trade group in Washington among other things) didn't come from aggregation of data online, but from a very good reporter who caught wind of something, hit the streets, and tracked the sucker down. He did a damn fine job, and his story and Oracle's subsequent admission -- caused by that very story -- started an intelligent debate on corporate spying and ethics.
Yes, the media needs to do a far better job of data aggregation and "sensemaking." But in the end, I fervently believe that the public is best served by having reporters out there finding out the stuff that's NOT on the Internet.
One more thing, since I'm on the soapbox. I agree with the previous posts that, when it comes right down to it, you have to trust the reporters who bring you the news. Yes, there are reporters out there who break that trust, just as there are software coders who may violate the GPL by altering Linux and not providing their changes to the rest of the community at large. But for the most part, no matter who they work for, I have found that most reporters would rather have their limbs hacked off with butter knives than succumb to any sort of corporate spoon-feeding of news. I know of reporters who have quit in disgust when asked to play down stories, and they're usually quickly snapped up by other news agenices with more scruples.
Bottom line, individuals just can't do everything. There's just not enough hours in the day. So just as you elect representatives to make laws on your behalf, you pay newspapers and other news organizations to go find stuff out on your behalf, and you vote on the quality of that information with your wallet.
OK, that's it. Thanks for listening.
Re:oh great (Score:1)
That one's easy. There is no right or left on the Internet. That dicotomy, where one is forced to accept one entire slate of political ideas or another, is an oversimplification that was invented and has been kept alive by the traditional media's need to pander to the least common denominator.
Whatever bias is present in any particular news site, you can be sure that is won't be nearly as simple as left and right.
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation
Open is more bias anyhow (Score:2)
The problem here is more one of a perception of conspiricy. Katz (and many many others) seem to think that because news or opinions are chosen by Men In Suits it is inherently dodgy.
This just isn't true. We in newspapers choose the news we print based on newsworthyness to our audience: in national papers that means a national audience, in specialist press (Slashdot, say) that's a specialist audience.
This means a few things:
1. Just because you might think something is important, and it doesn't get printed, DOES NOT mean there is a movement to keep that news secret.
It probably isn't either true or interesting
2. The content of the media is NOT controlled by its owners. Murdoch? Never met/heard from/been influenced by him. No one here has. The owners just don't have the time.
3. In general, the journalist does know more about the subject than the average punter: that's what makes them more placed to choose what is important for people to read.
4. We also have a duty - and it is taken seriously - to be bias free and fair.
5. Conversely, the average website contributor just doesn't: Open media written by the many with have too small a signal/noise ratio to be of any use.
reading epinions or deja may be fun, but I'd rather get a review from an expert in the field, fully informed and dedicated to fair reporting
Re:Explosion? Hah! (Score:1)
I actually enjoy finding the raw data from multiple sites and brining it all together to make a little sense about what I'm looking for. Sometimes it's overwelming. When you search for something and google gives you 20 or more pages of 10 links each to see. But things like 'search within results' is pretty powerful. There are very good search tools out there, and they're going to keep on getting better (I hope). Even if it takes you 30 minutes to pick through stuff and find what you want, you couldn't do that years ago. If you spend 30 minutes and find nothing, it can be very disappointing, but I find that rarely happens. At worst, even if I don't get exactly what I was looking for, I get a better idea about the topic. Usuaully if a search is going to reveal no useful data, you know in the first 5 minutes of searching, because everything is a deadend.
After reading Katz's article, I'm not sure what the big deal is, and I'm not quite sure what he's getting at. He talks about the need for better information analyzing sites, and about how old filtered data isn't good enough. Why isn't the raw data good enough then? In his previous article, he mentions sites that turn Each reader becomes a highly-wired researcher and reporter, foraging for information. Wait a minute, do we need IPO'd sites for this? Isn't the internet what's allowing us to do this? Not a handful of sites, which to me sound like middle men between a search engine and the reader.
Sites like Slashdot, I use primarily for news. I can still find information, excuse me, data, about nearly any article posted by using a search engine. Slashdot is useful because it tells me about things I wouldn't have known to look for on my own. Links are provided, which are very convient, but it's not slashdot that is turning me into 'a highly-wired researcher and reporter'. The internet is doing that. Not that I think Slashdot is unbiased (another issue), but by using this site, you are looking at filtered data, and you may not be seeing the whole picture 100% of the time. I don't ever want to rely on a handful or even a hundred good sites like slashdot for my 'information'. I always still want to be able to use raw search engines and doing some figuring out myself.
Isn't a huge amount of information already open? (Score:1)
I must admit, I have to take issue with the above statement. Not that the Internet isn't making the information referred to above available - it's just that it's always been available. Schools, libraries, and universities have always been open sources of information. At MSU, where I go to school, all libraries are open to the public, and all classes are similarly open (though you have to pay if you want credit). Churches, too, are quite open when it comes to disseminating information (sometimes to a fault). The only institution left on the list are publishing companies, and the only way in which they differ is that they charge. The point I'm (finally) trying to make is that an overwhelming amount of the world's information, especially scientific information, has already been freely and openly available for a very, very long time. The only new wrinkle the Internet has added is that it makes the information available to every lazy Joe Sixpack who is too apathetic to go to a library. That's my $.02, take it or leave it.
Open Media = Specialized Filters (Score:1)
In my other work-life [unc.edu], I decided that I could help to contribute to a more focused news site myself. Thanks to the wonders of the Linux-led revolution, I now do.
The greatest benefit of this type of new media is really the ability to exclude all sorts of information that you don't want to hear/know about/care about. Of course, relying on this media source also means that you are running some risk of not getting news that is otherwise important to you but that you excluded based on your chosen filter, but that's a risk regardless.
Vive la revolucion!
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whoa (Score:1)
Re:Explosion? Hah! (Score:1)
You're damn right, and one only needs to load up /. at a -1 comments threshhold (even 0, sometimes +1 works, too) to prove it.
Irony (Score:2)
(Sorry, I couldn't resist. :)
It's funny that the more columns Jon Katz [themestream.com] writes, the more he seems to keep saying the same thing...
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How fitting (Score:2)
There is just one thing I want from slashdot, and that is to have a thoughtful discussion on what Jon Katz is trying to say. Is that too much to ask? Instead, the article will be filled with "Jon Pu^H^HKatz doesn't belong on
Re:Open/Closed - It is irrelevant (Score:2)
Except... First, unlike radio and television which only has a fixed number of bands to offer in a particular outlet and thus can be monopolized, setting up a new Internet "broadcasting center" (web site) can be done with virtual pocket change: about $30/month or so, unless you don't mind Geocities ads.
Television and radio can become monopolies because the FCC will only grant so many television stations and radio stations in a given area. The Internet, however, is virtually infinite.
Second, while it may be true that setting up a first class organization costs a good chunk of change, the same can be said about creating a good operating system: the staggering manpower costs required to create a good first class operating system is absolutely phenominal, and beyond the amount of capital that can be reasonably raised by a startup.
Yet we have Linux. We have people who are willing to donate the sort of time and effort required to create a first-class operating system for free, outside the traditional command/control structures you see at a Microsoft.
And with the Internet it's the same thing: often the most interesting web sites with the most useful information and news are set up by individuals who donate their time for free to cover events or technologies which they are personally passonate about.
I'm not sure where Television and Radio would be if it only cost about $200 to set up a pirate television broadcasting center that could reach the same geographical region that ABC could. But I suspect the landscape would be far different than the monopolistic media outlets that are currently out there.
Likewise, I suspect the Internet won't reduce itself to yahoo.com, aol.com and news.com being the ABC, CBS and NBC of the Internet.
It's just too easy to turn to another station.
So is Slashdot a form of "Closed Media"? (Score:2)
Is this really all that different from the traditional press? Stories frequently reach the press because someone informs a member of the press. Slashdot merely provides a convenient mechanism for the public to notify the press, in this case Slashdot's staff, of a potential story.
From that standpoint, does that really make Slashdot all that different from a conventional newspaper -- complete with Jon's commentary. They even get some of their funding from advertisements posted on their pages.
My head hurts (Score:2)
"The grownups don't like it one bit."
I'm not going to completely slam this article, Jon, but what I am going to say is that "grownups" aren't this big evil that starts nasty corporations to keep us "individuals" down. For godsakes.
The only issue I have with this article is your continuing over-zealousness. Yes, sites like /. are excellent news sources, but they don't produce much news of their own. They get their news from what you have dubbed "closed" media sources. For example, if I want to do research on 3rd world countries, I doubt I'm going to have a whole lot of luck finding a webpage filled with news of (say) somalia that somebody maintains on his own. He's going to want compensation, otherwise, he's not going to have the time nor the energy to make the site worth anything.
My point is, in this "information explosion," "closed" media is just as important as "open" media (to use your buzzwords). In fact, I'd argue that the latter couldn't exist without the former.
Another point, why are americans more info hungry than the rest of the world? I'd be willing to bet money that the english and the spanish and the like are just as information hungry as we are.
One last point: You seem to place yourself as part of the "open" media. Where in "open" media does a comment like, "If you want to write about stuff that concerns you, get your own column." fit in? Isn't "open" media all about what the consumer wants?
-V
Re:Slashdot as Open Media? (Score:1)
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Open/Closed - It is irrelevant (Score:4)
Then there was television. Again, TV station owners, producers and directors tried anything to get people to first buy one of those boxes and then turn the darn thing on. Strange, live programming was the only thing available and on air personalities regularly reminded viewers that the technology was new and who knew what would happen.
Both mediums began that way and both mediums were eventually formulated for maximum audience penetration and ratings. Both mediums were eventually controlled by singular entities determined to controll a "stall" of outlets which would giveway to the media companies we have today. FCC rules have been relaxed to allow for this centralized control.
The result is a handful of media companies whose products strangely resemble each other. Their news offerings duplicate opinions rather than factual information gathering. Their programming runs industry trends (gameshows or westerns for instance) rather than innovative product offerings.
This same thing will eventually happen to many Internet information sources as the cost of technology, marketing in a crowded market and talent to run and attract an audience requires capital beyond the average startup company.
Online media outlets with suffucient name recognition and subscriber lists will be acquired by ever larger growning companies, some in existance and some new. Then the previous experience of radio and television will be repeated.
Wonderful.
JonKatz, take 6.02e23 (Score:1)
My thoughts: So what else is new? Wasn't the same thing said about books when the printing press came out, or when the first person started writing on paper instead of clay tablets. FUD over a new way of sorting out and creating information from data is something everyone does.
True, but there IS a downside: (Score:2)
There is no standard for comparison on the net.. ANYONES ideas/ideals/wacko beliefs are "correct" and its increasingly difficult to lump together things that share the same root to get differing opinion.
It used to be you went to a library, or book store, and looked up "Religion" and had 40 or 50 books staring you in the face which you could read, contrast, etc, most of them by authors that at least had SOME form of editing or review before they wrote that book. But if you look up "religion" in Webcrawler, etc, you get a bewildering number of hits, that no human could access and adequately cross reference in a reasonable time frame. Then add the fact that fully half these hits are personal opinion, or oneline blurbs on a web page, and you find out WHY open media is going to take a long time to get where you want it (and I want it) to go.
The means is there.. what we need is a standard of some sort.. maybe a volunteer review board who look over stuff and put a stamp of approval on it.. sort of like the ratings system here... I am able to read the -2 posts, but why would I want to? I trust my fellow
I do agree though, its time for the 1% of the people who own 90% of the worlds media outlets to stop telling me who the best candidate is, what I should eat for my own good, and why I should consider myself a monster for not crying over their "child in danger" piece of the week. Nothing annoys me more than a blow dried news anchor or rolling stone author talking down to me about computers, or anything else I can almost guarantee I know more about than they do. The Media is currently written for 8 year olds, and that HAS to change.
maeryk
Slashdot columnist's opinion of Slashdot (Score:1)
(SLASHDOT NEWSWIRE) -- In a story today on Slashdot, a Slashdot employee compared Slashdot with other media and concluded that Slashdot was best!
Strangely, the stock price of Andover.Net failed to react to this ringing endorsement of Slashdot by Slashdot.
Jon, the fact that
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Re:Thoughtful discussions (Score:1)
I'm fairly new to /. and this was the first Katz article I've read (I think) and was a bit surprised at the vehemence of the complaints.
Your point was a very good one, since I was in fact thinking that his way of explaining things was very good at a basic level, but you're right - audience is important.
On the other hand, it does seem useful to stay aware of that level of communication since most of us have to deal with the 'general public' at some point or other. I could certainly see giving a copy of this article to someone or linking to it as a good explanation of the basic concepts involved.
You also said, "that most of the issues he has been bringing up recently [...]are issues that the average /.er has already pondered and reached conclusions about when we were very young." I find this interesting, because it seems likely that the conclusions we reached are not all the same and reexamining entrenched beliefs can be a very educational experience.
So, ignoring the assertion that this article is not written at our collective technical level, I think a discussion of open source media would be interesting.
For example, what do people see as the future revenue streams for this type of work? Can advertising and IPOs sustain them indefinitely? Will the trend be towards a lot of very specific niche media (like this one) or towards large entities with a higher degree of filtering?
There's always something to explore. Any takers?
Chaosnymph of the many questions
Re:I'm missing it too. (Score:1)
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/
I couldn't find it without my mnemonically gifted friend. Try typing "sociology published nothing" on google. www.Disinfo.com couldn't find it, www.mempool.com, news of the wierd, nothing.
Of course, after excluding jonkatz, I had to come back and see if I got moderated or replied to. Now that I think about that, I guess I'm guilty of trolling. Not a happy thought.
Re:True, but there IS a downside: (Score:1)
True, but also: I would rather have a number of people OUTSIDE of that field review it as well.. for the opposite reason of what happens when the aforementioned author (TV Guide, frinstance) writes a story "all about the internet" (which is clueless) or when JonKatz writes a story professing to tell me what I should believe is the great evil in the world.. i want multiple opinions.. something reviewed only by their peers in the same field will inevitably turn out to be slanted, or the reviews will.. review by the common man AND their peers will turn out something with valid criticisms.
The example Im thinking of is a science book written by a brilliant, yet socially and writing-clueless scientist.. other scientists may understand exactly what he's talking about, but, in most "media" cases, the layman SHOULD be able to get some factual information out of it as well, not just get glassy eyed staring at jargon and buzzwords.
(read that part carefully, jonkatz..this means YOU)
Maeryk
Re:Here's some helpful information (Score:1)
Somtimes that's what makes 'em interesting enough to reply to.....
Besides, these are simple rules from ME. Don't trust me to tell you the truth when you have experienced different.
OK. I don't believe you.
As a general rule I don't like those rules that only apply to one person. Unless there was a rule that only applied to me and it was really cool. I might like that one.
carlos
Re:Here's some helpful information (Score:1)
Now you know why I like my rules! And you are free to take mine, re-arrange them to fit you, and use them.
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Re:Explosion? Hah! (Score:1)
* at 8am today it was mostly cloudy in Brussels
* at 8am yesterday it was mostly cloudy in Brussels
* at 8am Monday it was partly cloudy in Brussels
A collection of data becomes information, a generalization from specific observances: mornings tend to be cloudy in Brussels.
Most of the Web is based in data; people report this, list that, and enumerate the other. Information is what the traditional media have provided (though, at times, severely biased); collation of data, data in context, summation of data.
Re:Talking Headline (Score:1)
I often wonder if journalists should be allowed to write their own headlines instead of a copy editor slapping one on. Some of them might be as clever and inventive as you were this time.
I'm a copy editor, and trust me, you don't want to read reporters' headlines. You'd have newspapers full of "Committee agrees to discuss political issue at next meeting." If you see boring, information-free headlines like that one, you'll know that a copy editor just slapped a reporter's headline on his own story.
Back on topic, though, I really have to point out that what Katz is spouting this time is the same tripe I used to hear from journalism professors (not to mention freshman journalism students), and now occasionally from clueless corporate types from my newspaper. There are at least two kinds of people who are too smart to buy into this "new media will replace journalism!" crap, and those are serious journalists and serious geeks.
Serious journalists know that most of the internet's affect on news reporting is manner and timeliness, not content. Yes, journalists are having to adapt to a fast-paced 24-hour news schedule. But news is news. The internet won't kill journalism any more than it will kill books.
And, of course, serious geeks know better than to listen to Katz.
"Open Media" sites... (Score:2)
I wrote an article about the Princess Mononoke DVD situation [themestream.com] and decided to donate the proceeds to Nausicaa.net. It got posted to Slashdot, and boom!. Over $182 worth of donations. I also write a column about the Palm [themestream.com] that makes a respectable amount of money.
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Hrm. (Score:1)
I know there's got to be a verb in there somewhere. :)
Do we really need another damn buzzword? (Score:1)
We've had editorial consultants, PR executives, spin doctors and now sensemakers - Is there really anything new about selectively massaging data so that it appears as hard information?
We've also had many attempts by people learned in the "science" of "management" to define values for "data" "information" and "knowledge" whilst flailing around to even grasp the concepts involved. Personally I'm sick of this cult of the buzzword. When was the last time you heard a manager refer to common-sense concepts in plain english (or whatever other plain language - I only picked english because its the language I'm writing this in..)?
# human firmware exploit
# Word will insert into your optic buffer
# without bounds checking
You missed the boat (Score:1)
Katz's articles require more intelligence to understand than your television.
Makes sense to me (Score:2)
Job Requirements: Ability to survive the total perspective vortex, take sips from the info firehose and deal with 7,835 emails/day. Also index, catalog and sort all web pages, make optimum purchasing decisions. Ability to interpret and explain abstract scientific phenomenon and technology to the bewildered uneducated masses a plus. Required to understand and interface well with personal of divers cultural backgrounds.
The successful candidate will be well briefed on late breaking news events and have the capacity to coordinate departments and act accordingly toward maximizing stockholder value. Some public speaking required.
It's called K5 (Score:1)
But what I'd like to see someday is a site where news stories are put in, and the users actually vote on it (much like the moderators here).
It exists. Go to K5 [kuro5hin.org].
Information filtering, sensemaking, editorializing (Score:1)
First, as others have saliently pointed out, the information is not accessible to all, it is rather overwhelming and redundant, and the data:info ratio is unnervingly high.
Second, we have to make a distinction between filtering news, "sense-making", and a sort of editorial overlay process. I'm surprised that portals weren't really mentioned anywhere in the essay: the portal (and anything that functions more or less as such, like
But then there's a necessary editorial side to news, too. What good does it do me to have news that Galileo was officially forgiven, or that Mitnick was allowed to write tech advice columns, if I have no idea who either of these guys are? There *is* room for online journalism like salon.com, because we're not all bright, informed, and perceptive enough to draw out these conclusions for ourselves. And, as other posters have pointed out, there *are* quality advantages to having this editorial interpretation process carried out on a professional level, instead of having to wade through online discussion forums, moderated or no. But it may be that in the future journals will be almost entirely editorial commentary, simply pointing to history as documented by "Open Media".
While the news-accumulating-and-filtering process is may be revolutionized by the internet, sensemaking and editorial processing are only improved, strengthened, and democritized -- which I would call evolution.
Lastly, I never miss a chance to point out that we should always be careful about predicting the future. We can try to understand the problems we will face, but as we can't be too sure of those, their solutions are really way beyond what we can imagine.
Re:Open/Closed - It is irrelevant (Score:2)
No, but I can afford a link to one that does.
You and I, for instance could not even aford to run Slashdot from our homes. Sure we could run something more watered down, but would it be interesting enough?
Given Moore's Law, and the similar one that seems to be covering bandwidth, I don't see too much problem running a fairly large and interesting media source out of one's home. Given the ability to replicate news sources and link to content, the media landscape can become quite varied. There will always be the AOSheep, and the ones that just like it, but it will be much, much easier to diverge from the mainstream and chill in the eddys.
The largest dangers to a varied (i.e. good) media, 1) legislation , 2) the hardware solution (TW giving AOL packets higher priority/blocking other ISP traffic), 3) legislation.
(and of course the whole Napster/DeCSS/DVD/Copyright/IP thing)
As this Open Media thing gets started, more and more people will find their niche, but most of the older ones will have their cracks too deep in their couch grooves to escape. I think this is already happening to some extent. The major networks have realized that retaining younger viewers is just too expensive (they can't compete with the rampant creativity of the Natalie Portman set) and will concentrate on their Boomers. When the boomers are gone, so will most of the Old Media's power. Except that by then all the smart money will have shifted anyway, and we'll have a new boss, just like the old boss. But we won't get fooled again, that's for sure...
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Re:Mountains Out of Molehills. (Score:2)
"Katz is really making too much out of a simple issue."
But of course! It's his way. (or rather, His Way!) He's only reported on two topics I can think of where his hype and alarmist attitude were even close to justified.
Jon seems absolutely desperate to make every aspect of the 'internet culture' unique, novel, fearsome to the old guard, and endangered. Sad but true, there's not that much new under the sun.
Re:Reputation and identity (Score:2)
while the realtime feedback may not have been there, I highly disagree that "old media" gives less ways of assessing reputation. Media competed with each other, and were glad to pounce on the "forgotten story" or point out failings.
Sadly, I use the past tense because of the state of media mergers in the US. In Boston, I think three or four of the top radio stations are all owned by the same company. Almost all of the small community newspapers are put out by one large group which also puts out the "competing" TAB. And they're looking at relaxing the rule against one co owning a newspaper and a radio station in the same market. Don't even get me started on TV.
Its this merging of ownership that I think endangers old and new media sources alike, rather than the "closed or open" media idea.
-Kahuna Burger
Re:Open/Closed - It is irrelevant (Score:1)
If the purpose of this 'underground' web site was to run information/news that the main medias were afraid to cover, (or for political or advertisement reasons) then what are you going to link to?
Plus, another point of this thread was whether or not you could run this personal web site in competition with a Major. If you link or call other news-clips your own, you're going to get shut down quickly.
You mentioned Moore's Law being on your side, but they're also Gates law, which is very similar... applications will bloat up to the capacity that Moore's Law provide. Plus, I don't know how many 18-months you want to wait to afford running SlashDot at home. My argument still stands. You can't afford to run a similar sized operation like Slashdot at home. Today. Tomorrow. Not only that, but to compete again the imaginary Major Media that we had come up with, we're talking even more bandwidth to run flashy content to compete.
I do however cringe at your unfortunately good point that one thing to fear is TW giving AOL packets a higher priority on the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rader
It's Not that Easy (Score:1)
Somali News Pages For Dummies (Score:1)
For example, if I want to do research on 3rd world countries, I doubt I'm going to have a whole lot of luck finding a webpage filled with news of (say) somalia that somebody maintains on his own. He's going to want compensation, otherwise, he's not going to have the time nor the energy to make the site worth anything.
Check out the Somali News Page by Yasin Ahmed Hassan [http://www.etek.chalmers.se/~e3hassan/news.html]
new ways to control with the new media (Score:1)
The second fallacy is that most people are interest in, or need, information concerning only a small number of subjects and and can ignore the rest of the world. This is not likely the general population. Most of us realize that we are not computers. We realize that we have a complex biological system that seems to work best when we are provide it with a sample set of data from a diverse set of topics. From this information, we can usually extrapolate amazingly good decisions. Any system that ignores this is going to create encyclopedias, not people capable of useful thought.
If we combine these two things, we create an amazingly scary scenario in which the people paying for the ads have even more control over the information that we recieve, instead of less.
Fundamentally the article reminds me of the efficiency experts of the 80's. They had all sort of ideas of how to cram more stuff into less time, but few ideas on how to make a person more in control of his or her own destiny.
Re:Information filtering (Score:2)
Still I think this kind of thing is going to come about - most people prefer convenience over issues like privacy, and one thing this kind of service will be, is convenient.
Sure, and having information stuffed down your throat by a TV is also convienient. That's what 2000 channels were supposed to be for. Does anybody want the internet to be like that?
Convience above all. That's indeed what our culture has come to, and that's why the Web is nothing but another TV, because people don't take the time to sort out the information and just let it fall in. People get trapped by the online equvalents of the Psychic Friends Network, and just believe anything that falls in their lap.
Open Media is a part of the Informational Society (Score:1)
It is an undisputed fact that society is now is rapidly developing the global collective consciousness as a repository of human knowledge and experience - as described by Manuel Castells in his portrait of 'the informational age', and the tensions between 'the net and the self'.
This development has been coming for centuries, but the internet has become a significant catalyst that in retrospect was inevitable, but only when it occurred did it make the bigger picture clearer to society.
As part of this development, information has become the primary resource of the age, and will continue to do so in the coming years. As with any resource, it becomes refined through specialisation, differentiation and other means.
I think Open Media is a less precise or less well targetted description for a broader trend across all aspects of information in society. Your analysis could have included a broader context in a more succinct and precise manner.
Relevant literature: Manuel Castells 'The Information Age' for a scholastic analysis of society; and Ray Kurzweills 'The Age of Spiritual Machines' for an elaboration on the potential future.
Look What the Katz Dragged In... (Score:1)
Ooooh, about . . . 1,200 to 3,500 words. Give or take a rant and depending on how many geeks are afflicted in each story.
Sorry Jon!
You know, I really think Jon gets too much shit for what he does. People need to lighten up. His articles and comments are attacked, not because of their content or relavence, but because some time long ago, a few people were grossly critical of an article or two and Katz bashing became the cool thing to do.
If Katz were that worthless, everyone would have bannished his articles from their displays, via Slashdot preferences. The fact that they linger around to read everything he ever writes (even if they claim it's just for a good laugh), says a lot.
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seumas.com
Re:oh great (Score:1)
I have often thought about this myself. Gramatically speaking, you can go very far by simply removing certain adjectives, like liberal, conservative, etc. Then you replace people's races with null space. e.g., the stories of a white (always mentioned) man shooting a black (again always mentioned) man, or a black (rarely mentioned) man shooting a white (rarely mentioned) man. If you fix the race-specific adjectives, you get a "man shoots man" and you realise that the article is un-newsworthy aside from statistical value.
Then again, I'd just like to see a robot report the news.
Re:You missed the boat (Score:1)
Ahem. Both are content-free, but to read Katz you at least have to be able to read... That probably requires some intelligence.
Kaa
I will explain what it is about. (Score:2)
Slashdot is the most obvious example of "Open Media" (at least Katz mentions is in this article; he didn't seem to in the previous one)
Slashdot is owned by andover.net, which in turn is owned by VA Linux.
Neither Slashdot, andover.net, nor VA Linux currently make a profit (still less, a positive operating cashflow).
Therefore, the corporate future of the publisher of this article is dependent for the time being on its ability to raise capital from the market.
Since it is highly unlikely that a bank or bond house would finance a small firm with such strongly negative cashflow, "the capital market" in this context, means the equity market and the venture capital market.
The equity market, and the VC market, when looking at Internet/technology plays, are attempting to find the "Next Big Thing" to invest in.
Therefore, anything that helps to convince people that Slashdot might be the "future of media" directly helps the company to raise funds and to survive as a corporate entity.
That's what these Jon Katz articles are about. Maybe I'm cynical, but on the other hand, would it not be surprising if nobody "called the attention" of potential investors in VA Linux to this piece of analysis.
Of course, if the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal or Newsweek magazine, or Slate were to publish an article directly relevant to its own commercial position, or the position of its parent company, they might publish a disclosure statement, drawing attention to that fact and allowing readers to mentally take the potential conflict of interest into account. But I suppose that's an old-fashioned "closed media" way of doing things, and the new way is to "form a community and allow them to decide what they need to know".
The clue is in the intro: "they'll hook consumers up to the information they want and need and find new ways to make money" Not disclosing conflicts of interest isn't exactly a "new way to make money", but it's been held in low regard for a while and might be due for a revival.
Make sure you remember to buy lots of VA Linux shares, kids.
--streetlawyer, older and wiser than you are
disclaimer: I have no material interest in slashdot, andover.net or VA Linux. I have always been a fan of Jon's journalism, but not of editorial policy on slashdot. I think the problems of conflict of interest are likely to severely affect all of the "open Media", if, indeed, Open Media is a valid concept
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:1)
/. is the 'sensemaker' (Score:2)
Course, there's a load of junk here too but at least you have the chance to get rid of some of it.
sensemakers? give me a break (Score:3)
forget organizing information. neural network it. develop better searching mechanisms. and spare us the Open Media fluff... Open Media such as
Inside scoop (Score:1)
I like Slashdot a lot (except of course the long pointless Katz articles) but this site is only posting technological articles (which is fine by me, and if they stray - they get yelled at by the readers) If I want up to the minute information about, oh I don't know... news, then I have to watch TV or similar outlet, watch a news reporter do their job like sticking a camera between 2 policemen that are trying to push 'em back. Something you won't get from a web site. Or if you do, it's the same clip, but a week later.
And I certainly won't get any local news from a web site. Hey, anyone here care that the White River in Indiana (near me) had every fish die in it, and they still can't find out why? Well, you probably don't, just like I could care less about your local news story from last night about how a lady in your local town got her ass bit by a baby alligator that crawled up through the toilet pipes.
From what I can see, web sites sporting news are great for reading user comments (many can cut through the bullshit with their expertise) and articles about reflection, or about research, after effects, etc. Post-news information almost.
Maybe Open Media (whatever that means) is getting there. If so, I'd rather hear about how we're getting there, how or if it's possible. I don't want to read Katz sugar coat and force us to believe we're there already, and that he's one of the apostles leading the charge.
No wonder Open Media are the premier medium of the young, and are also gaining audience, market share and revenue.
Off course it's gaining market share. It's always easy to go up from 0%.
The web is still a mess out there. I was able to find slashdot, tomshardware, anandtech, and a few others, but they're computer/techy related, and much more popular "Open Media" web sites (whatever that means). I wouldn't know where to turn to find the ultimate, all in one "Open Media" (whatever that means) source for vampires, or fishing. Oh wait, it's called Newsgroups.
It's just information sharing. It's hardly news. And each time they post a Katz article on Slashdot, Slashdot becomes less of a quality news source.
What is news? Something new, something I didn't know before. Something happening farther away than my field of vision (500 feet, or if in a Dilbert cubicle, 5 feet). Opinions, suggestions, ramblings, etc, has it's place, and I love them dearly, but it's hardly news. Slashdot is an invaluable tool for me because the TV News doesn't cover these topics! (if they do, it's never with the depth I would want) But sites that cover the main news still can't compete against TV, etc. At least not yet.
Rader
Re:But can you trust it? (Score:1)
This is because Open Media requires more democratic reputation systems - exactly what Amazon is developing. You trust information that comes from people and organisations that have built up trust over time, and could just as easily lose trust very quickly.
Expect to see reputation and identity systems become a major issues in the coming years.
Interesting direction (Score:1)
We sell information to these people who put it in papers, reports, etc. This is a dying industry (worth 5bn at last count) whereas the overall information industry is valued in the 100's on bn dollars. It is the nature of the content that bridges the gap. I don't want to trawl through the 30 sites I do every day for information, I want the information tailored for me in a dynamic way drawing from many sources and slants and I suspect that professionals.
I don't think that open media is the answer. Sure forums like slashdot are interesting, but they are unreliable and very heavily slanted to the readers and founders ideals. If I want infomation I read slashdot, then go to someone who knows to inform me, rather than being informed by /.
Anyway 2p more down the drain.
Re:Push technologies (Score:1)
We've got backing from one of the biggest publishers to move our content in that direction and it looks like a phenominal market for business.
Re:ROB MALDA PLEASE READ. (Score:1)
Re:Here's some helpful information (Score:1)
Re:People need to be the Sensemakers (Score:1)
I had to laugh at: EVERY STUDENT needs to be given good teaching and instruction on filtering the data that is out there so they themselves can understand information presented and make sound, rational decisions based on it.
The only thing every student needs is to learn to not rely on others to tell them how to think. Common sense goes along ways, Policies by polling means that we will never make the best decisions, hell look at our current administration, the only decision clinton makes with out a poll first, is on who he's going to screw, or how he's going to lie to us. We fire more college grads that cannot or refuse to make a decision on thier own. 4 years of college to get that stupid....
Re:Open/Closed - It is irrelevant (Score:2)
Suppose all your favorite web sites get bought out, one after another, by the big vanilla corporate conglomerates. Suppose these conglomerates debase the content of these sites so that they serve corporate profits rather than your interests. Will they not cease to be your favorites? Won't you go looking elsewhere for something more congenial to your tastes? Sure you will. The difference between old media like radio and the Internet is, when none of the local stations any longer play the music you want to hear, you simply can't start up a new station featuring material more to your tastes. Whereas, fifteen minutes after Microsoft buys out slashdot and changes all the content to what they call "pro-innovation" stuff, a hundred disgusted ex-readers will fire up their own weblogs to fill the gap.
The big difference is the cost of the technology. Once again everything boils down to dollars and cents. How much does it cost to make a TV show or a radio show? Far, far more than I will ever be willing or able to spend. The great expense is the crucial factor which ensures that these media are controlled by giant corporations; and in turn, because they are controlled by these huge capitalist entities, the content tends to be censored, biased and homogenized. And besides the cost barrier that is so hard to hurdle, legally, these media are closed up tight as a drum. In my town there was a guy who broadcast his own program (some odious far-right rubbish, but as Voltaire (actually not him but someone else) famously said, etc., etc.) over the radio spectrum; one day the Feds came, confiscated all his transmitters, knocked down his antenna, and hauled him off to jail.
How much does it cost to have a web site? It costs the cost of a computer to compose upon - you can get an old but adequate computer for this purpose for as little as $350 - plus the cost of a connection to the internet, which at the most should be no more than $20 a month. (In addition to this you have to consider the cost of providing your site with content, but I'm going to assume that you write the content yourself, and the pleasure of self-expression compensates for the cost in your time and effort.) How much does it cost to host a web site on your own server? Again, for starters, that $350 computer will suffice, together with as little as $55 per month for a DSL line.
And thus far, it isn't generally illegal for you to broadcast your stuff over the Internet. Don't bet on it staying that way forever! Even as I type, a coalition of mass media heavies together with police state puritans currently strive with enormous effort and diabolical and shameless dishonesty ("Internet pr0n threatens to molest your children by remote control! News at eleven...") to seal off that loophole to low-budget public speech.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Re:Slashdot as Open Media? (Score:2)
I post regularly, and I have unorthodox opinions for Slashdot (e.g. I think Linux is the most boring piece of software ever devised). I have on occasion been moderated down unfairly. I have also been moderated up to my surprise. On other occasions, I have posted a little slice of my life - pure experience - and they always get moderated up. But I have never posted a dishonest opinion, and I never will.
But the one lesson I've learned - which is the one way I have "restructured my views" - is that it's not what you say, it's the way that you say it.
Anyway, your comment got moderated to +4, which, ironically, completely defuses your statements ;)
Yep, and look what it's like! (Score:2)
So in other words, Old Closed Media used to be able to make you think, and bring you face to face with new opinions, while New Open Media allow you to avoid anything that might disturb you and remain as ignorant and bigoted as ever you were. For example; slashdot, a great forum for zealots to slap one another on the back, with all dissidents moderated down. Curious use of the term "open", but there you go.
Re:Explosion? Hah! (Score:3)
Seriously, I don't think there is an explosion of information at all. The pre-Internet days were already brimming over with more information than any one person could hope to process anyway.
What the net has offered is an explosion of repitition. For example, a Google search of buffy the vampire slayer this morning produced 120,999 hits. I like that show, but is there really enough to say about it that you could fill over 120 thousand "pages" with it? Half of those hits were probably just copies of the drinking game (drink if Buffy's bra strap is showing, drink if Cordy gives unwelcome fashion advice, etc.)
The information boom happened in the 17th Centry, not the 20th. Since then we have just been inventing ways of getting our news faster.
Re:Information filtering (Score:2)
Errrm, that wasn't a troll BTW. I honestly think that this sort of thing will come about as more and more information moves onto the net and people start to use it as their sole source of information.
Sure, and having information stuffed down your throat by a TV is also convienient. That's what 2000 channels were supposed to be for. Does anybody want the internet to be like that?
Not the same. 2000 channels means that again you have to search for the stuff you want and end up missing half of it. What I'm talking about is the equivalent of a single channel just filled with the stuff that matches your profile - very convenient indeed.
And no, I certainly don't want the net like that, but given the amount of people using services like AOL or FreeServe who never venture out of the service's own "areas", I'd say that many other people would want this sort of thing. And not everyone has the time to track down every little thing they want, especially when they might not even know of its existance.
---
Jon E. Erikson
New this new that... is it arse. (Score:2)
Newspapers, millions of pieces of information and they act as the filter to you. Read alot of newspapers from all over the globe and get all of the information.
This isn't a new idea, this is an old idea with the word "Open" put infront of it.
Just because people put an "e" or "Open" or any other buzzword of the day infront of a word doesn't mean that the concept or actions have changed.
Re:Slashdot as Open Media? (Score:2)
I still hold that linux isn't the answer for everything (flamebait??), Microsoft still sucks(consensus), and software is too damned brittle(offtopic??).
--Mike--
Talking Headline (Score:2)
I often wonder if journalists should be allowed to write their own headlines instead of a copy editor slapping one on. Some of them might be as clever and inventive as you were this time.
Sorry for getting off-topic. I just thought it was very efficient writing. The various Haiku trolls around here could learn something from Szoup.
Re:Information filtering (Score:2)
Slashdot was once like that. Once upon a time, there was good news here for people looking to stay on top of the software ball. Now, it's just "Linux rocks/Win(DOS|~1|.*) sucks" drivel, over and over and over (plus Katz). This isn't a good development at all. Instead, it makes people who are more closed-minded and narrow that they won't be able to see outside of their own perspective!
Re:Look What the Katz Dragged In... (Score:2)
Funny, I thought people bashed Katz collumns because they were way too long, sometimes incoherent and overuse buzzwords. I have never noticed Katz bashing being "cool" but as red herrings go to make people embarrassed to voice their opinions, its a pretty good one. Good job.
And as a person who hasn't filtered Katz, its because he is occasionally good at coming up with a decent topic, which /.ers can run with as a good conversation. In these cases, the good bits of the thread discussion are usually unrelated to Kazt's ramblings and are just inspired by the teaser paragraph. The actual writing itself is rarely worthwhile.
Oh and the "Katz sucks!" "No, you're just jealous" threads can be fun once in a long while, too.
-Kahuna Burger
Slashdot as Open Media? (Score:4)
--Mike--
Re:Look What the Katz Dragged In... (Score:2)
Personally, I keep hanging around hoping he will come up with something as interesting as the Hellmouth series. Something that, agree with it or not, introduces a perspective that is under-reported elsewhere and prompts lively debate about our culture.
This ain't it.
Open Media does not exist (Score:2)
Precisely because all of them can read the online papers, and online libraries --- they have access to the "Closed Media."
Katz is right about the need for filtering of information. And what Katz calls the "Closed Media" provides precisely that. In today's convienience-driven society only "closed media" can deliver information without hassle. "Open media" outlets require too much effort, and will be disregarded by the masses. Sorry John.
Reputation and identity (Score:2)
Er, how is this a product of the "new" media? I trust most information that comes from the Boston Globe, though I don't assume that it is complete. I give less trust to the information from the Boston Herald, because they have built up a reputation with me as sensationalistic. I check out the Mass News once in a while to see what the bile filled liars are ranting about this week.
And since at least the first two have far more to lose from a massivly incorrect or premature story than any web page, I can count on them having more controls in place.
Trust and reputation are what real old school journalism is about. Thats why wading through the data glut of the internet will never compare to reading a respectable paper. The good thing the internet gives us is the ability to delve deeper into issues when we feel that we may not be getting the whole story due to lack of mainstream interest or cultural conflict.
-Kahuna Burger
Re:How fitting (Score:2)
Yes, it is.
The problem is not that we (by we, I mean those of us who are critical of Katz) don't take him seriously, but rather that most of the issues he has been bringing up recently ("corporatism" vs. privacy and freedom; the human impact of the "information age"; etc.) are issues that the average /.er has already pondered and reached conclusions about when we were very young. It is just not new to us anymore... and he writes it all with a tone and style that makes it look like he believes he is teaching us radical new paradigms, rather than re-hashing festering old issues.
I'm starting to suspect that he either does not read the comments to his stories, or ignores all negative criticism (justifying it as "needing a thick skin" to face all the flames), because it is becoming very clear that he does not really know who his audience is. If his columns appeared in Time or a local newspaper, I might be saying "wow, he really does a good job of explaining things to people who know nothing about current technology".
When continues to emit bogons like "Open Media", "Corporatism", "Chick-clickers", and now "Sensemakers", even though he has been criticized and mocked time and time again by the bulk of people responding who obviously see through his attempts to organize percieved trends to fit his model of the Open Source movement, it makes it clear that he values no opinion in this "open" discussion nearly as highly as his own.
There. I'm done ranting, and yes it did feel a little cathartic.
Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Just what are these Jon Katz articles supposed to be about?
Explosion? Hah! (Score:5)
There is _NOT_ an information explosion going on, there is a DATA explosion going on. Data is defined as raw facts, information is those facts sorted, collated and presented in a useful form.
In fact, I'd say there is an "information implosion" going on right now - there is more data, but information is harder to find, as there is more chaff being added to the wheat of the internet.
Do a web search on just about anything these days; you'll be guaranteed at least one pr0n link, a whole bunch of useless sites put up to carry banner ads, and somewhere, finally, the information you wanted.
I'm really looking forward to the next set of search engines; curren "innovations" such as Google are making progress, but there have been no real leaps and bounds made to turn raw data into information.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Here's some helpful information (Score:5)
2) There are millions of items of information you will never need to know.
3) You will not see everything or know everything before you die.
4) You should learn to make sense of things you witness firsthand before you take the word of another person.
5) No matter how much you trust someone else to tell you something (be it `sensemakers' or the media at large), don't trust them as much as you trust what you know from your own experience.
6) Realize that when group X tells group Y what you know and gets it wrong, that what group X tells you about group Y is also suspect.
I'm sure this is redundant and simple, but I find most people don't know how to do this. Then when they hit the net and get inundated with info, they fold faster than superman on laundry day.
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Katz-flambe, take two (Score:3)
The people who can't make sense of the explosion of information are the people who need a good sense of what to pay attention to and what to ingore. What we don't need is people to sort it out for them - we need to give them the ability to sort it out themselves.
Sensemakers should be the people themselves. Carl Sagan already wrote about it in his excellent book [barnesandnoble.com] The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
What we end up with when other people make sense of the explosion for us is a nation of people with dependent brains - people who cannot think on their own. People can be their own sensemakers - already, the smartest and well-informed are. The people who cannot make sense will get trapped by pseudoscience, speculation, and oughtright lies (and flamebait *cough* *cough*). We have to make the sense of it ourselves, so that those who don't make sense - only feed us more misinformation - don't win.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2)
Re:Here's some helpful information (Score:2)
That's nice in theory, but the world is full of people who have interpreted their experiences in error. I am highly allergic to penicillin. Judging by my experience alone, penicillin is a deadly poison. I have to go outside of my personal experience to find that many people have been helped by the use of this 'poison'. If I were a doctor (or played one on TV) I would probably have occasion to prescribe or administer penicillin even though my own experience contraindicates its use.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say that something won't work even though others can do the same thing with appropriate results. We all tend to filter information based upon past experience, but we have to learn to recognize that tendency and investigate the claims that do not mesh with our filter. The trick is knowing which claims to selectively investigate so that we don't end up reinventing the wheel before we can learn anything new.
carlos
Alternatives to Moderation (Score:2)
Stop Making Sense (Score:2)
However, this doesn't mean we have to go and start making up new words to fit the activity. Sensemaking...
---------------------------------
Information filtering (Score:2)
I suppose there is an ongoing process of increasing information on the net, although I'd hardly call it an explosion. The real "explosion" on the net seems to me to be in Geocities homepages rather than new style journalism, but the amount of information available on the net is going to increase.
Probably the real winners if this ideal ever comes to past are those services which can filter this flood of information and provide users with a summary of it that they can digest. After all, it's useless to have so much information available that you can't find anything you're after. Much like /. allows me to read about stuff I'm interested in that I wouldn't have seen otherwise, these services will allow people to customise profiles of what they want to know about.
Of course there are bad sides to this - if you only see what you're interested in it tends to reinforce the views and ideas that you already hold rather than challenge your beliefs. Whether this will be worse than the lowest common denominator style of mass media that most people get today is something we'll have to see.
And of course there are privacy issues with having such a personal profile available. Still I think this kind of thing is going to come about - most people prefer convenience over issues like privacy, and one thing this kind of service will be, is convenient.
---
Jon E. Erikson
But can you trust it? (Score:2)
The biggest advantage of 'traditional media' is that information is generally confirmed before publication. New media, in constrast, all too often must rely of rumors and shoddy confirmation to get the story out first.
Consider at how many stories on Slashdot have been withdrawn or severely modified after the original posting. This is a criticism, not condemnation. I appreciate the 'peer review' present here for technical issues which 'old media' cannot match.