By VICTOR GODINEZ / The Dallas Morning News
vgodinez@dallasnews.com

If you want to see a thrilling war movie about America’s battles in Iraq and Afghanistan, forget about heading to your local movie theater or calling up your Netflix queue.

You need an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 video game console and a game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare for epic action from today’s front lines.

Hollywood churned out dozens of in-the-trenches, pro-America extravaganzas such as Wake Island and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo while World War II was being fought.

But the portrayal of the U.S. military during its current engagements has been more subdued and even critical.

Game makers have stepped into the breach. And they’re making huge bucks crafting patriotic entertainment pieces for which the movie industry used to be famous.

I think we will be seeing more of this kind of shift in the future. Hollywood’s problem is that they are hung with portraying a message that overrides the artistic value of the production. You can see that at the box office too. Something to be said when Avatar is running neck and neck with an Alvin and the Chipmunks animation.

Not to say film has not had messages as part of the medium. Take a look at Casablanca a perennial must see film. Hollywood’s problem is they are running counter to the ethos of country as a whole. That the game makers do not seem to be making that mistake probably has more to do with the technology rather than any overt consideration on the production team.

A trend to watch.

Linky.

Leo Laport’s little seven employee company grossed $1.5 million with $350,000 in expenses last year producing shows for geeks. Compared to mega broadcasters that’s tiny money. But Leo’s business is doubling every year. Mega broadcasters’ revenue is shrinking. Leo describes how this all came to be in a speech at the Online News Association conference here.

Since before  the time of the Pharaohs, images have been manipulated and idealized to make people more appear more perfect. Going back to the very beginning of the photographic art, images have been manipulated as an integral part of the process. In the past, the more extreme manipulation of photos required great skill and was very labor intensive. Digital imaging made the process much easier, faster and widely available. Nearly  every still image you see in modern media has been manipulated to one degree or another. Naturally, those who sell with images manipulate them to a much greater degree.  If you closely examine modern advertisements, many of the human faces you see look almost cartoon like - this is most true in the faces of aging celebrities.  With the internet delivering a deluge of manipulated images some nanny state politicians want to save us from being mislead by what we see.  Naturally, they propose putting disclaimers on images to protect young people from unrealistic expectations.  Most of the younger folks I’m acquainted with are intimately aware of the common, Photoshopped image and often even poke fun at them. Perhaps we should just have a disclaimer on your browser that will warn you that any image you see may have been manipulated.

If there was a disclaimer on every piece of media that received a bit of digital “help,” our images here in the US would be nothing but disclaimers. In France, however, lawmakers are concerned about the effect that Photoshopping has on people’s body images. As a result, one such member of parliament, Valerie Boyer, has proposed a law that would require “enhanced” images to sport a warning, making it clear that viewers are not looking at an unretouched image.

Magazines and advertisements around the world are filled to the brim with airbrushed imagery portraying not-quite-real people living in a fantasy world filled with diamonds, puppies, Louis Vuitton bags, and lots and lots of great sex. Men’s and women’s magazines are equally guilty, and it’s not exactly a secret that impossibly hot people help make effective advertisements.(Ars Technica)

I have not seen any data on how many of Amazon’s Kindle ebook readers are in the wild, but it’s surely tiny in comparison to the entire book market. Never the less, the Kindle version of Dan Brown’s new best seller is outselling the print version on Amazon. This tells us nearly as much about the Dan Brown fan base and the Amazon customer base as it does about the demise of the printed book. Never the less, it’s a clear signal that traditional publishing has come to an end.

Commentators are wondering whether the book is heralding a new era in publishing. While Amazon is offering almost 50 per cent off the hardback copies, $16.17 instead of $29.99, the Kindle edition is available at just $9.99 – and there is no wait for delivery.

The news does not mean that the Kindle edition is outselling the physical copies overall. Kindle editions are only available through Amazon, while the hardback can be bought elsewhere both online and on the High Street.

Bloggers at technology website fastcompany.com say there simply are not enough Kindles in existence for them to rival total sales of hard copies. However, as the Kindle gains in popularity and new devices such as the Apple iTablet come to the market, electronic editions may soon take off. If Dan Brown takes another six years to write his next book, he may find that it sells most of its copies electronically. (Telegraph)

I have seen this consultant type before. I should not be surprised that they are in the newspaper sector too.

Alan Jacobson is a designer and strategic consultant who advises newspapers. Among the problems he is asked to handle is the collapse of classified advertising revenue. Jacobson believes newspapers do not have to sit passively aside and allow craigslist to take over the classifieds business. Last spring, he collaborated on a manifesto about newspaper design and strategy called RevenueTwoPointZero. One of the most important things newspapers had to do, said Jacobson and his colleagues, was “build a better craigslist.” They went on to explain how to do this in six bullet points:

• Make it easy to use.
• Make it easy on the eyes.
• Make it free.
• Make it make money.
• Make it safe.
• Make it the biggest and best marketplace.

It isn’t trivial to make a website easy to use and easy on the eyes — the first items on Jacobson’s list — but let’s specify that newspapers could do it. Free is a choice. The problem comes with the last three recommendations. Jacobson wants newspapers to make money by advertising next to the free listings. He also counsels them to be aggressive with “upselling.” This is a marketing term that means that means pitching users additional premium services, such as more photos and more prominent placement.

Read the article and look at the graphics of some of the sites this Guru is suggesting. So what do I think is wrong with guy’s suggestions? —

• Upselling works best in person while the standard purchase decision is being made. The upsell completes the customer experience. Problem with his execution is the upsell is up front and the reason the customer came there is discounted.
• Easy on the eyes? Of the two examples given both violate this advise.
• Making it free is table stakes. So being free does not guarantee success.
• Make it safe. Here is where I believe a bone is being thrown. One of the essentials of CraigsList is that its all local. CraigsList deals in markets in the same way that Real Estate is local. CraigsList is not at all like eBay in that regard. So if 90% of the time the buyer and seller are going to meet to complete the transaction is really no different than if it were a garage sale. The horror stories you hear, well consider the categories that most of these originate from and you conclude it was risky business to begin with.

What the gentlemen misses is the metaphor. Look at the classified ad in paper. Its usually a lede then a description then facts on the item. Look at CriagsList. The link is the lede. No BS. No upsell. Just the lede. Click on it and you get the rest. CL just stole the paper’s concept. So now this fella suggests running away from that concept. Some 200 years of success should not be ditched lightly.

I don’t wish to disparage Mr. Jacobson but I have to tell you I have seen plenty of corporate rainmakers in my career. They usually come in with a fancy introduction, a nice suit and a ‘formula’ that will lead anyone to success. All they have to do is follow the System. Now sometimes it works, but often times it does not. Local conditions on the ground not conforming to the basis for the formula working being the primary problem. There is one other problem with using rainmakers. They are taken like a pablum for what ills the company. Which for much of the Journalism set is the fact that they have so distanced themselves from their end customer they are no long relevant to the local conversations. No formula overcomes that problem.

First, let me say that there are individuals who really do believe that their biology is effected by Wifi signals. I’ve worked along side more than one of them. Their suffering is real, but the bulk of physical evidence shows that they have a phobia rather than an allergy. If any well meaning reporter  really wanted to ease the suffering of these individuals, they’d help them get appropriate treatment rather than fan the flames of hysteria.

It seems that the old media has an allergy when it comes to fact checking stories about Wifi phobia as well:

….reporters just seem to love the story about people being allergic to WiFi. The latest is in the Daily Mail over in the UK, which has an entire article all about a guy who lives in “agony” because of all the WiFi around. Not once does the reporter look into the evidence of the “allergy” but does claim that 2% of the population suffer from this. The guy travels around with a WiFi detector to protect him… but it’s not protecting him from whatever is causing his problems (as the study found). You would think that a reporter would actually check the facts on such things, right?  (Tech Dirt)

I beleive that the old media has internet phobia. They think that thier slow decline is because Wifi enables bloggers to write in their pajamas in the basement without connecting a wire. Therefore, it must be unhealthy. Most of these old media folks also believe they have  superior wisdom that lets them selectively fact check with impunity. That could have more to do with loss of audience than any blogger in the basement. Most of us are not as stupid as manstream journalists think we are.

It has been announced that Pirate Bay, the audio/video/mp3/ogg/flac source site for things not paid for has itself been sold. Why a sucker? Well I will get to that after the jump –

The Pirate Bay has agreed to be sold for $7.7 million, a deal with a Swedish software maker that would ultimately turn the world’s most notorious BitTorrent tracker into a legitimate player.

The move by Global Gaming Factory X AB comes nearly three months after the four co-founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of facilitating copyright infringement, and face a year each in prison pending appeals in addition to a $3.6 million fine.

While the site is to discontinue pointing the way to free movies, music, games and software, Global Gaming Factory thinks it can turn The Pirate Bay into a money-making venture.

“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site,” Hans Pandeya, Global Gaming’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Eh, Hans, you are the sucker.

This is not an issue about Pirate Bay going legit. I hope they do, I also hope they are successful at it. For if they are, they will be positioned to offer deep discounts on media, if the sources get a clue. If I could get a copy of ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ legit for $2.99 vs $19.95 off the storefront I would do so.

But that is not Pirate Bay’s draw. Bay’s draw was something for nothing. That and the ‘Tee Hee….’ mindset of ripping off The Man. I dare not call it counter-culture. Not quite that but almost. When the chic is off the rose then so goes the audience. That happened to Napster to a certain extent. The other fact is it is too easy to set up another site like it in Pakistan and have free competition vs paid service. Its the mindset in play here.

Possibly Pirate Bay will need to be renamed to Rum’s Cay and Media Emporium when the dust settles.

Linky.

Readers probably know I am not a big fan of the Twitter. Its the Western Union of the electronic age. But I am also not blind to the fact that if Twitter is working for someone it’s not to be discouraged —

It wasn’t an overnight thing; Dell’s been on Twitter for two years. But Dell blogger Stephanie Nelson says they’ve managed to steadily grow followers for their outlet store via @DellOutlet, earning $2 million via Twitter referrals for their “certified refurbs, scratch and dent and previously ordered new Dell products.” They took in another $1 million from people who went from the outlet store to Dell proper for new stuff.

The account — unmistakeably commercial, no celebrities — now has 600k followers, “close to the top 50 most followed Twitter users according to TwitterCounter, sharing the stage with brands like @Zappos … , @JetBlue and @WholeFoods.”

Their strategy? You won’t need to write this down: “… by offering a mix of Twitter-exclusive offers, Dell Outlet deals and Outlet-specific updates and information.”

This is Dell. So $3m for them is their electric bill for the Round Rock plant for half a year. But as a tool for daily marketing I can see the merit. Technically the channels are opt-in so a local bakery can’t be accused of spamming. The customer asked for it. It also does keep enterprise front and center in the customer’s mind. So for a local firm, using Twitter could be the difference between having a profit or not.

More here.

Generally Fox has their act together. But a Bill O’Reilly flap has generated some controversy —

Due to violations of the Terms and Conditions of BillOReilly.com attributed to your account, your Premium Membership is hereby terminated effective as of the date of this notice. The termination is final and any attempt to use the site or to renew membership either directly or indirectly will similarly result in termination and/or blocking use of the site.

I’m not sure what terms and conditions I supposedly violated. I never posted any comments (or “blog postings”) on O’Reilly’s site. All I did was quote (and screencap) two embarrassing comments from the message boards.

Oh, wait. I just reviewed the Terms and Conditions again, and I believe I have found the relevant language: “4. Do not expose Bill O’Reilly as a rank hypocrite.”

This all started when BOR accused the blog HotAir with not policing their website. Problem is what HotAir was accused of came from a commenter not one of the site authors. BOR then went on to say his site does not engage in this kind of mongering. Which brings us to the irony portion of this post. The blog Patterico Pontifications paid the entry fee and found — the very same mongering that BOR accused HotAir of! Then BOR had the tumidity to then ban him for reading comment entries.

Now all of this is mildly amusing. But quite honestly both sites lose in a tit for tat battle of words. It leads one down the same journalistic rat hole that is killing the pulp press. At this point both sides just ought to call an armistice and cool it.

Linky

Many may wonder why we here at ThirdPipe hit the Journalism profession so hard. The issue is simple. We cover not only what makes the tubes go but what gets carried by them. Nobody buys pipes for pipes sake, they want water. Same on the Net, people want information. It should be delivered to them factually and without bias. The readers are not getting that today. Case –

To create economic value, journalists and news organizations historically relied on the exclusivity of their access to information and sources, and their ability to provide immediacy in conveying information. The value of those elements has been stripped away by contemporary communication developments. Today, ordinary adults can observe and report news, gather expert knowledge, determine significance, add audio, photography, and video components, and publish this content far and wide (or at least to their social network) with ease. And much of this is done for no pay.

Until journalists can redefine the value of their labor above this level, they deserve low pay.

Well-paying employment requires that workers possess unique skills, abilities, and knowledge. It also requires that the labor must be non-commoditized. Unfortunately, journalistic labor has become commoditized. Most journalists share the same skills sets and the same approaches to stories, seek out the same sources, ask similar questions, and produce relatively similar stories. This interchangeability is one reason why salaries for average journalists are relatively low and why columnists, cartoonists, and journalists with special expertise (such as finance reporters) get higher wages.

Like we say often, “It’s hard to beat free”. A consequence of that is it redefines the definition of worth to those engaged in the same activity. That includes writing for a living.

Please, read the whole article. It distills down in an eloquence of but a single article what we have been saying, for quite some time.