Tom, you educate me beyond belief. I'm so glad you are here! Now, for a favor. Anyone good with graphics out there who will make me a little logo for my "allied" blog? I mean, all it has to say is... i don't know... the name, a tagline, and the url... here's some ideas:
allied.
the answer is in the blog
allied.blogspot.com
or
allied.
bloggings of a madwoman
allied.blogspot.com
or
allied.
united we blog
allied.blogspot.com
Anyone? I kind of like the 'united we blog' because it goes with allied and kind of pokes fun at the 'current state of affairs.' I want to put a logo on my blog (like this funky one I somehow assembled here for RGE outa RB's book cover, but not so sophomoric), but I ain't no graphics wiz. Also, I'd love to make t-shirts like Gary Blogsticker Turner. But alas, I'm imageless.
Friends? Readers? Gods of the Mac?
Thank you for this diversion.
A Conversation sparked by Christopher Locke's 'Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices'. Started by Jeneane Sessum in 2001, Gonzo Engaged was the first Blogger.com team weblog. Let the games continue.
Thursday, January 31, 2002
This week's (02.04.02) New Yorker has a story about Matthew Johnson, this insane Mississippi record company guy. He's been attempting to record and sell the music of bunch of old bluesmen. The story, called "White Man at the Door," by Jay McInerney, offers this reminiscence of Johnson's first encounter with R.L. Burnside:
“I remember the day I met R.L.,” Johnson says…”We were driving in his car. He was drunk. Every damn light on his dashboard was on, red lights flashing everywhere. There were cows on the road, and he was driving with one hand. He’s definitely, like, nihilistic - in a friendly way. He loves when things go wrong. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods – he just loves ‘em.”
The sound he's trying to capture and sell:
Johnson is trying to illustrate the evolution of the authentic anarchic howl – from Charley Patton to Eminem. He seems to be looking for the anti-Whitmanesque strain of the American voice – the naysayers, the verbal bomb throwers, the primal screamers. His heroes are the anti-heroes: Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner, Keith Richards, Axl Rose, Cobain, Eminem, plus the blue-collar heroes Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock. Genre be damned – in his mind, these are the true descendants of the lonely, libidinous, and eternally damned Robert Johnson, the true kin of Burnside and Ford.
Accused of ignorance, exploitation, and even bad taste, Johnson was unfazed: “I’ve been trying to sell out for years. I just never knew how before.”<br>
“I remember the day I met R.L.,” Johnson says…”We were driving in his car. He was drunk. Every damn light on his dashboard was on, red lights flashing everywhere. There were cows on the road, and he was driving with one hand. He’s definitely, like, nihilistic - in a friendly way. He loves when things go wrong. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods – he just loves ‘em.”
The sound he's trying to capture and sell:
Johnson is trying to illustrate the evolution of the authentic anarchic howl – from Charley Patton to Eminem. He seems to be looking for the anti-Whitmanesque strain of the American voice – the naysayers, the verbal bomb throwers, the primal screamers. His heroes are the anti-heroes: Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner, Keith Richards, Axl Rose, Cobain, Eminem, plus the blue-collar heroes Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock. Genre be damned – in his mind, these are the true descendants of the lonely, libidinous, and eternally damned Robert Johnson, the true kin of Burnside and Ford.
Accused of ignorance, exploitation, and even bad taste, Johnson was unfazed: “I’ve been trying to sell out for years. I just never knew how before.”<br>
David Reed said in 2000: Collaborative creative spaces. With broadband networks we are reaching the point where "pickup" creation is possible - where a group of people can create and work in a "shared workspace" that lets them communicate and interact in a rich environment where each participant can observe and use the work of others, just as if they were in the same physical space. Yet the architects who would make the network intelligent are structuring the network as if the dominant rich media communications will be fixed bandwidth, isochronous streams, either broadcast from a central "television station" or point-to-point between a pair of end users. These isochronous streams are implicitly (by the design of the network's "smart" architecture) granted privileges that less isochronous streams are denied - priority for network resources. There are no mechanisms being proposed in these architectures to allow new applications that may be more "important" squeeze out isochronous traffic. Is it really the case that tight timing requirements of packets in a voice stream means that those packets' delivery should always take precedence over events with loose short-term timing, but vast societal impact? That is what these network engineers take for granted.
I think he's onto something again, and lots of other smart network engineers agree with him. How about some Gonzo support for these ideas - Any suggestions?
I think he's onto something again, and lots of other smart network engineers agree with him. How about some Gonzo support for these ideas - Any suggestions?
Wednesday, January 30, 2002
Gotcha b!x. And emphatically agree. Seems they urgently require the services of Marek J and the rest of the TDCRC.
but I think you've somehow sidestepped the purpose of such comparisons.
Actually, no. I was dismissing the purposes as irrelevant to anything truly useful. I understand that it's important to the corporation owners of these channels, and their shareholders, to see these figures. But if these figures represent a fight over an increasingly small share of the potential market for news and opinion -- as more and more people tune out from the bullshit and the claptrap -- what's actually important to note (but is ignored as a presumptively-unimportant matter when such figures are reported) is that the figures are actually irrelevant, the fight is irrelevant, and the companies and shareholders are trying desperately to live in a world where these ratings reflect anything of true importance.
Actually, no. I was dismissing the purposes as irrelevant to anything truly useful. I understand that it's important to the corporation owners of these channels, and their shareholders, to see these figures. But if these figures represent a fight over an increasingly small share of the potential market for news and opinion -- as more and more people tune out from the bullshit and the claptrap -- what's actually important to note (but is ignored as a presumptively-unimportant matter when such figures are reported) is that the figures are actually irrelevant, the fight is irrelevant, and the companies and shareholders are trying desperately to live in a world where these ratings reflect anything of true importance.
You're right b!x but I suspect that this isn't what they're used for.
I suspect that these figures are being used:
1) by the company to add to their allure to potential shareholders
2) by potential shareholders/brokers/etc to judge the allure of the companies shares
That is why, I suspect, they are measured against their *direct* competitors, rather than all other media types.
I mean, how would *you* react to an item that said: CNN had 647,000 viewers while Google had 2,928,844,236 hits - last month. ??
What would that mean to you, when you're trying to decide which cable company to invest in? Or even which industry? Would those numbers alone be of any use whatsoever?
I'm not decrying the substance of your point, I do think that the net has had and will have a vast influence on these matters, and the losses of telcos trying to become content providers are legendary and frighteningly large, but I think you've somehow sidestepped the purpose of such comparisons.
I suspect that these figures are being used:
1) by the company to add to their allure to potential shareholders
2) by potential shareholders/brokers/etc to judge the allure of the companies shares
That is why, I suspect, they are measured against their *direct* competitors, rather than all other media types.
I mean, how would *you* react to an item that said: CNN had 647,000 viewers while Google had 2,928,844,236 hits - last month. ??
What would that mean to you, when you're trying to decide which cable company to invest in? Or even which industry? Would those numbers alone be of any use whatsoever?
I'm not decrying the substance of your point, I do think that the net has had and will have a vast influence on these matters, and the losses of telcos trying to become content providers are legendary and frighteningly large, but I think you've somehow sidestepped the purpose of such comparisons.
Hang on a sec b!X, you are comparing the average viewers for a program to the total monthly vistors to an entire domain.
Why is it that everywhere I bring this up, people ignore my "not entirely fair or direct comparison" disclaimer, which I have been careful to always palce near the top? People really don't need to re-state back to me what I've already disclaimed.
The point is that X hundred thousand people watching a news network is nowhere near the X millions making use of online media, regardless of what the specific uses are. And so the cable news figures are entirely useless as a basis for determining anything actually useful or repsentative about news media use.
Why is it that everywhere I bring this up, people ignore my "not entirely fair or direct comparison" disclaimer, which I have been careful to always palce near the top? People really don't need to re-state back to me what I've already disclaimed.
The point is that X hundred thousand people watching a news network is nowhere near the X millions making use of online media, regardless of what the specific uses are. And so the cable news figures are entirely useless as a basis for determining anything actually useful or repsentative about news media use.
Hang on a sec b!X, you are comparing the average viewers for a program to the total monthly vistors to an entire domain. You're out by a big factor here. Which is not to say that either figure means anything useful. I see this bizarre mentality all the time as people cite dubious 'reach' figures for QT and WM, and say far fewer people have QT than WM, ignoring the fact that far more people have either than will ever visit the site they are making, and that they don't have to rely on these very fuzzy estimates, as they can conduct a complete census fo their own site vistors anyway.
Jonas is badly wrong, and should be sent some reading matter, like this and this.
Or maybe he should just be left to lose his shirt on making content that he controls, which no-one wants to watch.
Jonas is badly wrong, and should be sent some reading matter, like this and this.
Or maybe he should just be left to lose his shirt on making content that he controls, which no-one wants to watch.
Someone on a mailing list I'm part of posted from viewership stats for the cable new channels:
During January, Fox averaged 656,000 viewers while CNN had 596,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. MSNBC had 296,000 viewers. In Nielsen's cable measurements, a month ends on its last Sunday. In prime-time, Fox averaged 1.1 million viewers, CNN was at 921,000 and MSNBC had 358,000. Fox beat CNN during two months last year in prime-time, but by smaller margins. And it has never won in Nielsen's 24-hour average.
And all I could think of was how miniscule a portion of the pie these channels are fighting over. Okay, it's neither an entirely fair or direct statistic comparison, but look at the "audience" stats for online media. We're talking tens of millions, and the news networks are fighting in the arena of hundreds of thousands. Who cares?
In the list convo it was asserted how stupid all these people were for watching FOX over CNN. But demographic and ratings stats are all so specialized and insular that they have almost no relation whatsoever to any greater -- and therefore actually meaningful -- context. Maybe half of those watching morons on FOX (or CNN) are screaming "You stupid fucking IDIOTS!" at their televisions, in which case they aren't stupid viewers at all. Who knows. Which is my point.
These cable news numbers of miniscule by comparison to the Internet. And they don't mean anything to anyone except those concerned with the fight over an ever-shrinking audience, leaving the vast majority of viewers/users/audience/consumers/citizens to on their own merry ways elsewhere.
It's all so damnable irrelevant, but it gets reported as important.
So who put the RANT in my coffee this morning?
During January, Fox averaged 656,000 viewers while CNN had 596,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. MSNBC had 296,000 viewers. In Nielsen's cable measurements, a month ends on its last Sunday. In prime-time, Fox averaged 1.1 million viewers, CNN was at 921,000 and MSNBC had 358,000. Fox beat CNN during two months last year in prime-time, but by smaller margins. And it has never won in Nielsen's 24-hour average.
And all I could think of was how miniscule a portion of the pie these channels are fighting over. Okay, it's neither an entirely fair or direct statistic comparison, but look at the "audience" stats for online media. We're talking tens of millions, and the news networks are fighting in the arena of hundreds of thousands. Who cares?
In the list convo it was asserted how stupid all these people were for watching FOX over CNN. But demographic and ratings stats are all so specialized and insular that they have almost no relation whatsoever to any greater -- and therefore actually meaningful -- context. Maybe half of those watching morons on FOX (or CNN) are screaming "You stupid fucking IDIOTS!" at their televisions, in which case they aren't stupid viewers at all. Who knows. Which is my point.
These cable news numbers of miniscule by comparison to the Internet. And they don't mean anything to anyone except those concerned with the fight over an ever-shrinking audience, leaving the vast majority of viewers/users/audience/consumers/citizens to on their own merry ways elsewhere.
It's all so damnable irrelevant, but it gets reported as important.
So who put the RANT in my coffee this morning?
To slightly digress into the realm of corporate control over channel and content, see this NY Times story (encountered via Ditherati) in which the chairman of IDT has this to say:
"Sure I want to be the biggest telecom company in the world, but it's just a commodity," Mr. Jonas said. "I want to be able to form opinion. By controlling the pipe, you can eventually get control of the content."
Lest anyone continues to believe that such people aren't attempting to take control intentionally rather than just as some byproduct of conducting business.
"Sure I want to be the biggest telecom company in the world, but it's just a commodity," Mr. Jonas said. "I want to be able to form opinion. By controlling the pipe, you can eventually get control of the content."
Lest anyone continues to believe that such people aren't attempting to take control intentionally rather than just as some byproduct of conducting business.
KayPro II, 1982. I got so fascinated by it that I ended up teaching myself assembler and becoming a columnist for the KayPro user's magazine on the machine's inner workings ... the first step in a career built on writing on topics about which I am completely unqualified. First site: www.evident.com, 1994.
BTW, I blogged this morning about whether you can trust commercial voice, with a reference to GM and a link to this blog.
BTW, I blogged this morning about whether you can trust commercial voice, with a reference to GM and a link to this blog.
Tuesday, January 29, 2002
First Computer: Commodore PET. First program sold in 1979 to this chap from Kalle Infotec, to help him sell this exciting new concept called the Fax machine.
First got online in 1985 at Cambridge, and got linked using GROGGS and of course MUD and for multiplayer networked action games, Bolo.
First Usenet post Jan 1st 1994.
First website probably in 1996ish, though I'd put togther an offline HyperText system incorporating images, video, sound and text markup for a group of Veterinarians in 1992.
First got online in 1985 at Cambridge, and got linked using GROGGS and of course MUD and for multiplayer networked action games, Bolo.
First Usenet post Jan 1st 1994.
First website probably in 1996ish, though I'd put togther an offline HyperText system incorporating images, video, sound and text markup for a group of Veterinarians in 1992.
First computer - started messing around on friends C-64's in 1984 (back in grade 4) - type in all day only to see a bouncing ball - hard to believe that GEOS could run on that thing (btw, our world would be a better place if Geos had become the standard instead of Windows on PC's). First computer I owned was a Tandy Color Computer, the only cool thing about it was that it has Q-Bert. I wish I had a Timex Sinclair but oh well....
First webpage - sometime in 1994 while connecting online via my AT and 9600 bps modem via a shell account via GeoCities. On further inspection, it was normal then but hasn't aged well. It got me addicted.
First webpage - sometime in 1994 while connecting online via my AT and 9600 bps modem via a shell account via GeoCities. On further inspection, it was normal then but hasn't aged well. It got me addicted.
First computer: Xerox 860 in 1982, followed by a Mac 128, signed on the inside by Jobs and crew, which my business partner later donated to the public school system before I could SCREAM!
First date of connection: PAN Network, 1988, at a price of $79 a month for access to this now-prehistoric worked-some-of-the-time text-based musician's exchange. They are still around, but have obviously adopted a different business model and an only slightly better graphical approach.
Built first web site: Feb of 1996. www.systecinc.com (long dead, still living courtesy of the way back machine). It stood toe to toe in its day, and on futher inspection, it still ain't bad.
First date of connection: PAN Network, 1988, at a price of $79 a month for access to this now-prehistoric worked-some-of-the-time text-based musician's exchange. They are still around, but have obviously adopted a different business model and an only slightly better graphical approach.
Built first web site: Feb of 1996. www.systecinc.com (long dead, still living courtesy of the way back machine). It stood toe to toe in its day, and on futher inspection, it still ain't bad.
For us people who have been online for a long time, I think it was sites like GeoCities that got a lot of us going
Egads. That must make people like me who were putting stuff online when there was only gopher and a line-mode web browser ancient.
I. Am. Not. Old. At. 32.
Egads. That must make people like me who were putting stuff online when there was only gopher and a line-mode web browser ancient.
I. Am. Not. Old. At. 32.
After reading the book, it wasn't so much, "What is he doing to people?", it was more, "finally someone is making sense!". I have never agreed with the traditional ideas that we all flocked to the internet to buy stuff from Amazon.com and WebVan, we came to have discussions like this and to be heard. For us people who have been online for a long time, I think it was sites like GeoCities that got a lot of us going (my site went online before they had 100,000 users and Yahoo! wrecked it) with the potential of the net, again it gave us a voice.
I took a class recently at a local college and was dismayed when the prof showed no interest in anything any of us said. He had his handouts ready and didn't care anything about what the class thought. Once you get your voice, having it ignored is something that you remember. Gonzo and CT made that clearer to me than anything else I had read.
No comments:
I took a class recently at a local college and was dismayed when the prof showed no interest in anything any of us said. He had his handouts ready and didn't care anything about what the class thought. Once you get your voice, having it ignored is something that you remember. Gonzo and CT made that clearer to me than anything else I had read.
No comments:
Dear Jordon:
I am glad you took advantage of our Titanic Deck Chair Rearrangement consulting practice Stage One -- Break Your Company.
We are also happy you chose to apply Derailment service from Clutrain Division at no charge to you.
We look forward to being your vendor of choice for years to come.
Respectfully yours
Marek J.
Chief Derailment Manager of the Rulebreaker Division of TDCRC
I am glad you took advantage of our Titanic Deck Chair Rearrangement consulting practice Stage One -- Break Your Company.
We are also happy you chose to apply Derailment service from Clutrain Division at no charge to you.
We look forward to being your vendor of choice for years to come.
Respectfully yours
Marek J.
Chief Derailment Manager of the Rulebreaker Division of TDCRC
Thanks for the plug, Janeane. However, you introduced me to the group by my screen name instead of my real name. I'm Tom Shugart, actually, and Janeane has been too nice to me for me to get mad at her.
Looking forward to getting going in blogging, and to some good reads here--as well as getting further into Gonzo, which I've only skimmed to date. But, clearly I'm intrigued.
Looking forward to getting going in blogging, and to some good reads here--as well as getting further into Gonzo, which I've only skimmed to date. But, clearly I'm intrigued.
Monday, January 28, 2002
When I picked up Cluetrain, I read it in one sitting and started to feel sick. I was (am) in the middle of writing a book and as I was reading it, I realized, Locke is right and I am not. Gonzo only re-inforced that sick feeling. Everything I have ever read on branding and positioning was becoming garbage. The sick feeling grew as I knew that the way I had done my job was based on branding and positioning the organization.
At the same time I couldn't put either book down. I knew they were right and I knew that is why I had been drawn to the web, to participate in discussion and share my voice. great books but they wrecked months of work!
Coop
At the same time I couldn't put either book down. I knew they were right and I knew that is why I had been drawn to the web, to participate in discussion and share my voice. great books but they wrecked months of work!
Coop
I've added someone to the team--one Tom Shug--who's relatively new to the notion of blogging and thinking about starting his own. I am cheering him on based on the wonderful stuff he writes in the emails he's sent me, a piece of which follows:
Suddenly, its 1958. I'm sitting in my college pad in the attic of a cheesy rooming house. My on-top-of-everything buddy, Jack, hands me a book of poetry and says, "fasten your seatbelt." It's Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" It's one of those moments you never forget. I'm practically leaping out of my chair. I know, instinctively, that somehow, somewhere, the revolution we didn't know we were hungering for has begun.
It was ten years before the streets spilled over, but, believe me, there were plenty of discussion groups going on in the interim--perhaps not so different from GonzoEngaged--people not wanting to live The Lie any longer--ferment and urgent inquiry simmering beneath the surface of the bullshit gentility of the time.
Uh, yeh, I think Tom's got a future in blogging...
Suddenly, its 1958. I'm sitting in my college pad in the attic of a cheesy rooming house. My on-top-of-everything buddy, Jack, hands me a book of poetry and says, "fasten your seatbelt." It's Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" It's one of those moments you never forget. I'm practically leaping out of my chair. I know, instinctively, that somehow, somewhere, the revolution we didn't know we were hungering for has begun.
It was ten years before the streets spilled over, but, believe me, there were plenty of discussion groups going on in the interim--perhaps not so different from GonzoEngaged--people not wanting to live The Lie any longer--ferment and urgent inquiry simmering beneath the surface of the bullshit gentility of the time.
Uh, yeh, I think Tom's got a future in blogging...
You don't have to be a spammer to be a proponent of demographics-targeting personalization marketing.
Ai - that was my point I think. We may be approaching some sort of violent agreement.
Ai - that was my point I think. We may be approaching some sort of violent agreement.
Dilbert asks the key question. This is really the question Clay is asking, but the other way round - how do you know that the ad spend in FMCG or CPG or whatever you call them is actually achieving incremental sales?
What quantification techniques are used, and could one try the same techniques with Gonzo campaigns?
This reminded me of Ruth Shalit's articles in Salon a couple of years ago, such as this one about the superego of the Pillsbury doughboy. Lots more here
What quantification techniques are used, and could one try the same techniques with Gonzo campaigns?
This reminded me of Ruth Shalit's articles in Salon a couple of years ago, such as this one about the superego of the Pillsbury doughboy. Lots more here
One tru b!x: You may be right. (I may be crazy.) But he also shits all over customisation - but only as it is (ab)used by people who think "SPAM=marketing".
Well, he seems to send personalization for a stay with the Tidy Bowl man. I don't know how opposed Locke is to customization in terms of a user making his own little information portal, per se. The argument appears to be that personalization is Just Another Demographic Tool for Command and Control, rather than any honest engagement with online markets. You don't have to be a spammer to be a proponent of demographics-targeting personalization marketing.
Well, he seems to send personalization for a stay with the Tidy Bowl man. I don't know how opposed Locke is to customization in terms of a user making his own little information portal, per se. The argument appears to be that personalization is Just Another Demographic Tool for Command and Control, rather than any honest engagement with online markets. You don't have to be a spammer to be a proponent of demographics-targeting personalization marketing.
Mike Golby: I wasn't questioning Amazons quarterly results, but simply that these mean what they were implied to mean. Reading the article cited, they appear to have well over 2 billion in accumulated losses, with 900 million on hand. To me, this means they are quite some way from being profitable, although they have (for one quarter at least) stopped losing money I think it's still a bit early to be proclaiming Mr Bezos as "right" about anything.
One tru b!x: You may be right. (I may be crazy.) But he also shits all over customisation - but only as it is (ab)used by people who think "SPAM=marketing".
One tru b!x: You may be right. (I may be crazy.) But he also shits all over customisation - but only as it is (ab)used by people who think "SPAM=marketing".
This guy (asscrawler) is a living monument to the notion that reality is an ironic aside.
So this boob is afraid of boobs. Wouldn't you know it? I hear there are some extra burqas lying around in Afghanistan--that might be a cheaper solution to his little problem with the Spirit of Justice.
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