Context & Continuity

Why is this Woman Smiling?

Probably because she's not going to get her hands dirty reading the newspaper anymore.  Today, the publisher of the Rocky Mountain News will publish its last edition on Friday, February 27, 2009.  These cities are also set to lose one of their daily newspapers:

• San Francisco
• Philadelphia
• Minneapolis

and if you believe Marc Andreessen, the New York Times.

Here's a link to the story in the Wall Street Journal.

Marc Andreessen on Charlie Rose.

If you didn't know this already, Marc Andreessen is a very smart fellow.  Please, for your own benefit, watch this video to find out what's happening now and what's happening next. 

One more signal the Web 2.0 meme has jumped the shark...

If you've followed this screed for almost any length of time, you know that I frequently post articles from the McKinsey Quarterly.  This I do because McKinsey is Polaris in my sky, a star fixed in the heavens that can be used for navigating through the world of business ideas.  But based on this recent article, I'm thinking that this star might not be showing the way to true north.  Here's the evidence:

Six ways to make Web 2.0 work

Have you moved to the edge of your seat?  Then relax.  Here's the distilled list: 

1. The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top.

2. The best uses come from users—but they require help to scale.

3. What’s in the workflow is what gets used.

4. Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs—not just their wallets.

5. The right solution comes from the right participants.

6. Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.

I thought number 4 was particularly good but had to make room for number 5. 

Here's a link to the story, and you really should take a look yourself so you can find out how Best Buy used Web 2.0 techniques to achieve it's ... success. 

It's all fun and games until your email address ends up on 4chan /b/

I don't think that we can possibly be reminded too frequently that the internet has some some venues that are beyond the pale of anything that could pass for civilization.  Take 4chan, for example. 

Don't know about 4chan?  Then consider yourself fortunately naive and, perhaps, even virginal by internet standards.  4chan is one of those places that your mother never told you to stay away from because your mother never imagined that places like 4chan exist in this world.  4chan has existed below the radar for a very long time, but now, 4chan has a face and a hit of fame on the Warhol scale.  Here is the true face of 4chan:

Meet Christopher Poole and look into the face of the man who's launch 1,000 memes, everything from LOLCats to RickRolling.  Here's his story.  And, as if that isn't enough, take a look at this profile in Tuesday's Washington Post.  This is the fellow sitting on top of 400,000 non-monetized posts per day.  He is a pioneer, an international criminal, a 21-year-old kid with the coolest reputation on the internet. 

So, read the stories and catch up. 

Et Tu, USA Today?

On February 11, 2009, USA Today published a story by Seth Brown on the topic of public relations.  The rasion d'etre of the article was the publication of a new book, PR- A Persuasive Industry: Spin, Public Relations and the Shaping of the Modern Media.

Whenever I see public relations in a headline, I know that there is just about absolute certainty that the story will be negative.  So how this this story score?  It only took Mr. Brown three paragraphs before he mentioned these three words:  Hitler, Goebbels and the Nazi.  Guess what:  Not only does Mr. Brown not like public relations, he also doesn't like the book.  Imagine my surprise. 

People gravitate to PR for a number of reasons: variety of the work; prospect of high pay; chance to be your own boss; glamorous lifestyle.

Perhaps the most alluring thing about being a PR consultant is that no formal training is required: no certification, no universally acknowledged test, no courses offered at many prestigious universities (although some colleges offer PR studies). Essentially, there are no barriers to entry. Acknowledging the general bad reputation of public relations, the authors feel the need to offer a defense, calling PR "a wholly legitimate aid to the exchange of information and ideas in society."

Oh, the glamor indeed. 

Even in my most generous mood, I couldn't shed a tear for the authors as Mr. Brown lambasts them.

The authors explain much about the industry: that PR is amoral, difficult to define and difficult to measure.

So, talk about adding insult to injury:  As if it isn't bad enough that a new book skewers the field of public relations, the authors of the book can't even get a good review from a journalist that hates public relations. 

Amazing. 

This very much affirms one of my core beliefs:  Never try to turn the public relations into the story.  Please step out of the spotlight.

Hal Varian: Regarding the Economic Impact of the Web.

Hal Varian is one of the smartest people to ever think about the web.  He's also the author of one of the best books on the subject of the networked economy.  Varian is an economics professor at Berkely and, a couple of years ago, took the job of chief economist at Google. 

Recently, he was interviewed by McKinsey and the video is well worth your time.  Here's a snippet from the transcript: 

We have to look at today’s economy and say, “What is it that’s really scarce in the Internet economy?” And the answer is attention. [Psychologist] Herb Simon recognized this many years ago. He said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” So being able to capture someone’s attention at the right time is a very valuable asset. And Google really has built an entire business around this, because we’re capturing your attention when you’re doing a search for something you’re interested in. That’s the ideal time to show you an advertisement for a product that may be related or complimentary to what your search is all about.

Highly recommended.  Here's the link to the interview.