The LC on the DL

Podcasting keeps threatening to jump the shark. Seems like we hear that it won’t take off, then we hear it’s gaining ground, then we hear old media will never let it dig it’s way to sunlight. Podcasting isn’t dead and more lip service is being paid to it every day, however the service model that supports podcasters is old and broken.

We are trying to force podcasting into an old mold. Podcasting is not traditional media and the old ad systems and tracking methods just don’t work. There isn’t even a good stats system. Systems like RawVoice (powering Blubrry and TechPodcasts) as well as Podtrack are using redirects to count hits on the media files. How many hits versus how many downloads are completely different. How long are people listening? How much data is being transferred? Who knows, it’s all bout the clicks. It’s frustrating and there isn’t anything else.

It leads into the same old ad model.

To get into the stats tracking system, and possibly the ad system, one has to go through a survey where they ask you about your subscriber base, your hit count, your page views… all the stats that I wonder how many people have a handle on if they are signing up for stats tracking.

There are systems for stats tracking - most are utilizing java script which is great if you aren’t a tech site and all your visits have java script enabled and aren’t using a plugin to block stuff. Did you know there is a plugin to actively block the Google Analytics code from placing the cookie on your system? Google shows that I have 1/32 the amount of hits that I actually have because the people that are make up my audience are the people that are blocking the cookie intrusion. When the day is over I am going to trust my webserver logs because only they know how many times they served up a page and to who.

With all this clicking and viewing and scripting comes the methods ad networks use.

Ad networks want click throughs - not page views. Affiliate advertising is great if people are going to buy that Dell or Apple computer while they are on your site. Most likely they won’t but they will remember that Dell ad and go straight to dell.com when they are ready to buy. You provided the ad view that reminds them later what to buy but you see NOTHING from that ad in monetary value. It’s free advertising and free website space. If you are lucky enough to have hundreds of thousands of page views per month or even day you will be lucky enough to get ads that pay with cost per impression. Why do you have to have such crazy traffic? Because now that you do you can command better pay.

This isn’t even a model of traditional media. How often to people click on their TVs on on magazine ads? Never, the technology doesn’t allow them to. Yet advertisers pay MILLIONS for the VIEWS.

THE VIEWS.

Even on television shows that have less viewers than many websites they are paying big bucks to get their ad on.

Why can’t we command the same respect for our internet sites or for our podcasts and video? Because no one is standing up and saying “fuck this”. I have a policy that I don’t like to go on crazy rantfests about broken systems if I don’t have a better suggestion or plan to roll up my sleeves and work on fixing it.

I am fed up with the crappy stats systems, the crappy online advertising models, and the substandard promotion directories and I plan on doing something about it.

That statement has been creating some controversy but I will continue to stand by it. Twitter is not a chat. Twitter is a micro-blog, twitter is a broadcast, twitter is NOT a chat. Here’s why:

When I post an update to Twitter, or tweet, it is broadcast to everyone who is following me as well as publicly through the public timeline and my public twitter home page and any and all RSS subscribers of my Twitter account.

The whole @username thing that people use on Twitter to let someone know their tweet is directed to them was never intended by the folks at Twitter and in fact they found it rather irksome. The direct message exists so that you may carry on conversations over Twitter should you chose to do so without broadcasting your entire one on one conversation to the public and anyone following you.

Remember that new feature where you can chose how you see replies? It was put into effect because people got sick of seeing everyone’s public conversations that they shouldn’t have had to as well as all the one sided conversations filling up their SMS and webpage timeline.

Back and forth @ messaging on Twitter is like sitting at a restaurant and being forced to listen to the couple at the table next to you talk too loud about personal things or even worse, you only are on one side of the conversation like being stuck behind someone at the store who is talking on their phone and you can’t help but overhear since you are in line too.

Twitter @ messages aren’t always that uncomfortable. Sometimes there is a public conversation going on or you just want to shout a quick reply from a generally public question… there are many situations where the @ message is perfectly acceptable. When isn’t it acceptable? When that is all you are doing is carrying on a bunch of public conversations that really should be private. There are just some things no one really cares about and once you get too many back and forth @ messages no one really cares that isn’t involved. If you are sending messages back and forth to one or two people on Twitter wouldn’t it be easier to take it to IM rather than trying to keep it to 140 characters or less? Too many @ messages are just as tacky as doing that whole “reply to all” in email when you are talking to just one person on the list.

Twitter is a blog that has implemented extremely short blog post restrictions therefore creating a microblog that users can subscribe to with or without an RSS reader. Twitter is a broadcast mechanism. While some Twitter posts tend to foster conversations, it is still not a chat.

“I’m boring but overcompensate
With headlines and flash, flash, flash photography”

-FOB “The Take Over, The Break’s Over”

You know that guy, yeah, THAT guy, he talks in cul-de-sacs. He is revered for the things he says he knows and he keeps you guessing as to what genius will pass through those golden lips of his next. He doesn’t talk in circles or he would have been called out long before now. Oh no, he has mastered the art of cul-de-sac propaganda.

His followers are many and he showers a little bit of personal affection and candy coated generalizations on each person who flatters him. A lucky strike or two gets him a winner of a theory and his brain will break free of the monotony and doldrum of the mainstream of “alternate mainstream” thinking. Unable to sustain the feed he slips back into the routine.

Innovation - New Thinking - Transcend - On-demand

The hype and the vaporspeak; riding the coattails of the developers and the hackers and the DIY’ers. You need someone who gets it and he is your man. He is the 2.0 of middle management, a regurgitator with a silver tongue. Same message - modern model. He controls your thoughts by being intentionally vague with positive newspeak.

Hoards of squishy 2.0 groupies fall into their place in line to generate his adsense income. A MLM without the scam watches and Snopes entries. New perspective doldrum dished out in healthy helpings to the starving through every “new media” outlet possible and in person when manageable. The cul-de-sac propaganda machines are everywhere, cookie cutter copies of each other for each tech division imaginable. Live and in person for the generation of privileged early adopter kids like us.

In our “shared culture” can you spot the real from the dozens of fakes?