Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

Kassia Krozser

The YouTube Result: Democratizing Reporting

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Way back when Medialoper was just an idea — a half-baked idea at that — I was struck by a comment from a television network executive. I’m sure he’s long gone, but his words, softened and rephrased over time, have stuck with me. He, speaking with the full-on hubris of someone who held the keys to the kingdom, assured a reporter that ordinary people could never create sustained original programming on the Internet.

That, he believed with dangerous smugness, would be the pure province of established motion picture studios and television networks. They had the technology and all that.
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Book, Movie, Audience: Bringing Forces Together

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So it follows the course of human events that popular (and not-so-popular) novels are made into movies (prompting the ever-after statement, “The book was better.”). Once upon a time, books and movies, rightly, occupied different spheres. How would they meet? It’s not like they sold books in movie theaters or screened films in bookstores.

Ah, to return to those innocent times. The joy…

Seriously gang, it’s 2007. Nearly 2008. A new age has dawned and all that. So it makes perfect sense that one key way to promote books-made-into-movies is to, well, you know, work both sides of the media spectrum. Cross-promote, build on the audience of one for the other. Use modern technology the way the Internet gods intended it.
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The Future, As I See It

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I admit it — I’m still way excited about the new iPods. Not only for the usual selfish reasons but also because I see them as the dawning of a new age. Specifically, the age of free, ubiquitous WiFi and — yes — better short-form video.

Let’s start with the first. There has a been an ongoing struggle when it comes to wireless. On one side, there are those who want WiFi to be free. Or, if not free, extremely low cost. Some cities, for example, are trying to blanket their communities in wireless, treating it as a low-fee utility. Think of it like electricity, only, well, better.
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NBC’s Bad Move

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Will all due apologies to the Fresh Prince, networks executives just don’t understand. Or, rather, NBC executive just don’t understand. This past week, we learned that negotiations between Apple and NBC broke down because NBC wants to charge $5.00 an episode for television shows sold via iTunes while Apple, understandably, wants to charge less.

Rather than lure consumers in with a partial-season offering of NBC programming, Apple will not sell any NBC shows this fall (the deal was set to end in December anyway). First, a little bit of math. Assuming a 24-episode season, regular viewers will be paying approximately $50 for the season at $1.99; NBC wants those viewers to pay in the neighborhood of $120 for that same programming. You know, that’s a lot of money, especially considering that the cost of production is largely subsidized by commercial advertisers during the first broadcast run.
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The Advertising Conundrum

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As eyeballs and earlobes move away from traditional media, it will the challenge to advertisers to move to where the body parts are. After decades of selling to a relative few number of media outlets, advertisers will be chasing down consumers all over the web and the world.

This will lead to a serious challenge as the places where the kids — and let’s be honest, advertisers remain stubbornly stuck in a world-view where only kids have cash for discretionary spending — hang out are not necessarily as family friendly or wholesome as advertisers prefer. When you’re beholden to shareholders, you cannot, for example, advertise on a site that extols the virtue of pot smoking. Even if the audience captured (and retained) by that site represents the nadir of marketing goals that can be achieved.

This is the problem with MySpace, Facebook, and just about every blog worth noting. In the past, advertisers had sufficient clout to, if necessary, control the message. Television networks were more likely to bow to advertisers pressure than politicians spouting off about “family values”. If you couldn’t sell the spot, then you might consider changing the content.
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One of Those Late Summer, Living Is Easy Posts

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When I said that I grew up in a town without radio, I exaggerated only slightly. For most of my life, we had two A.M. stations. One, all Top 40 all the time. The other, a mix of Top 40 and “oldies”. I use the quote marks because last year’s Top 40 was this year’s oldie. However, the resourcefulness of our species is a wonder to behold, and we were also able to listen to real oldies.

I’m not entirely sure how she did it, but somehow my mother rigged up a system that involved the cable for the television, aligning planets (we were on Venus, so it was really a matter of getting Mercury to behave), and making sure that nobody (younger siblings as I was a perfect angel) touched anything. Once all of that happened, we were introduced to such classics as “Leader of the Pack” (look out, look out, look out…).
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The False War: HD DVD versus Blu Ray

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Nothing says the dog days of summer like the first Christmas display of the season. Costco is already gearing up for the holiday season — my first glimpse of Santa-mania came in the form of a ribbon display. Presumably, due to extensive market research, someone knows that the first thing consumers purchase for the impending holidays is ribbon to tie around the merrily wrapped packages.

You have wonder, if only a little bit.

The other big sign of the upcoming season comes in the forms of headlines: “Consumers Urged to Pick New DVD Format” or “Shoppers to choose which high-def DVD format lives”. Makes you feel both helpless and powerful, doesn’t it?
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My Heart Starts Pumping, My Fists Start Pumping

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You have to understand: I think I’m one of the lucky ones, maternally speaking. Somehow, I ended up with one of those mothers who is far cooler than I’ll ever be. That being said, a girl has to assert her individuality. For example, when faced with the chance to buy an orange skirt — especially when her mother says, “You can’t buy that. It’s ugly.*” — she’ll buy the orange skirt.

And when her mother says, “What are you listening to? That woman sounds like she’s in labor.”, you pretty much know that you’ve found your favorite singer ever. Which is really good because if I recall correctly, my mother’s, shall we say?, complaint came on the B-side of Radio Ethiopia. You know what I mean. Though, in all honesty, it could have happened sometime in the midst of “Land”. I was totally wearing out the grooves on that album** during the time in question.

Heck, maybe it was Easter. I’ve always had a soft spot for that one.
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It Only Took 20 Years…

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Okay, how crazy is it that the Simpsons movie, the aptly named The Simpsons Movie (and available only in theaters), would gross $72 million on a hot summer weekend? Think about it: the world has been watching The Simpsons weekly for nearly twenty years, yet people still did the whole trek to the theater to see what sort of craziness the gang might encounter when released in large screen format.

It’s enough to inspire and bemuse.

There are many theories about why The Simpsons endures after all these years. Mine is that the show just keeps getting weirder — no mean feat for a show that started in the realm of pretty strange. Perhaps, unlike Second Life, The Simpsons is a true manifestation of what would happen if the laws of gravity and physics and probably even inertia were ignored.
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Internet Radio Gets a Stay of Execution

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Way back when I noted that NPR had gone to war against the recording industry, I commented that there is no greater enemy of the music industry than the music industry. You would think they hated music, the way they run their business. After all, what other justification could there be for bending over backwards to keep music from being heard by consumers?

In the months since I wrote that article, I have been reading many articles that quote representatives of SoundExchange, the collection arm of the RIAA, talking about how these new rates are “for the artists”. That is bull. These new rates are to create new revenue streams for the copyright holders — the labels. The artists are not going to see appreciably more money if higher rates go into effect. Artists never win. To do so would upset the balance of the universe.
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