Technology360

'My Cancer' Blogger Leroy Sievers Dies

It's taken me a while to note the death of Leroy Sievers in my blog because even though it perfectly illustrates how powerful the combination of broadcasting (NPR in this case) and social media (blogging in this case) can be, this one had a personal dimension for me.  My wife, Sandra, died nearly a year ago after a 2½-year bout (since diagnosis) with esophageal cancer.  Leroy's NPR appearances and his blog were, for both of us, important fuel for the fight she waged from the moment her cancer was first diagnosed in early 2005.  Leroy was a journalist and so was Sandra early in her career (became a professor of it later), and she also wrote eloquently about it, though in her case it was in private emails to a large group of friends and family members.  Maeve McGoran and Laurie Singer have posted to Leroy's blog since his death and many among his large circle of readers wonder if this is going to survive him.  Or perhaps, since it was such a personal statement, it needs to be let go.  I don't have an answer, only hope for the much too large a club that is touched by cancer.  --Dennis

NPR to acquire Public Interactive

I'm about a week late in doing so, but no less enthusiastic, in noting in my own blog that we (I'm interim CEO of National Public Radio) have reached an agreement to acquire Public Interactive, an innovative ASP serving both public radio and public television, from Public Radio International.  PI will continue to be based in Boston and headed by Debra May Hughes.  I will have a lot more to say about this, how we got here, where we hope to go with it, and who the key players have been in this multi-year effort to extend public media's impact in a future post.  PI will continue its current range of services, but it would also be useful to think of it as the beginnings of a new digital division within NPR which will operate with the same culture of neutrality as has characterized public broadcasting's satellite distribution systems for decades.

Link:  NPR.  Related articles in paidcontent.org, current.org, et al.  --Dennis

Key Differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Graham Cormode and Balachander Krishnamurthy, who are both with AT&T Labs have written an article in one of my favorite online publications taking a detailed look at what makes a web effort "2.0."  Given how long the term has been around, we should be at least to 3.0 by now, right?  Here's the abstract:

Web 2.0 is a buzzword introduced in 2003–04 which is commonly used to encompass various novel phenomena on the World Wide Web. Although largely a marketing term, some of the key attributes associated with Web 2.0 include the growth of social networks, bi–directional communication, various ‘glue’ technologies, and significant diversity in content types. We are not aware of a technical comparison between Web 1.0 and 2.0. While most of Web 2.0 runs on the same substrate as 1.0, there are some key differences. We capture those differences and their implications for technical work in this paper. Our goal is to identify the primary differences leading to the properties of interest in 2.0 to be characterized. We identify novel challenges due to the different structures of Web 2.0 sites, richer methods of user interaction, new technologies, and fundamentally different philosophy. Although a significant amount of past work can be reapplied, some critical thinking is needed for the networking community to analyze the challenges of this new and rapidly evolving environment.

Link:  First Monday.  --Dennis

Social media passé?

Just when so many media companies are trying to implement social components in their online operations, apparently some are saying social media are passé.  In Digital Futures: How Do Companies Get Money To Follow Users?, Diane Mermigas writes:

... Social networks, which sometimes function as unwieldy aggregators of special-interest content and communications, have a general resistance to advertising and e-commerce. But despite the numbers–Facebook, MySpace and YouTube–the medium is considered by some to be passé, according to Ross Levinsohn, the ex-Fox executive and co-founding partner of Velocity Interactive Group. His insights came during an opening-day conversation with Jonathan Miller, a co-founder in Velocity at OMMA Global Expo in Los Angeles on Monday. The new venture-capital fund is not backing any more social networks. It’s focused on whether widgets represent a sustainable viral distribution platform that can grow into a moneymaker. ...

Link: On Media in  MediaPost.  --Dennis

Goldmine of media econometric charts

Someone whose flickr handle is "have_a_cigar" (Adam Thierer?) has posted a goldmine of media econometric charts.  Here are the titles of some of the charts and direct links.

• Google Valuation vs. Newspaper Industry
• Changing Fortunes? Market Cap, Enterprise Value, & Revenues for Media Operators
• Google Valuation vs. Radio Industry (wow, is this one telling!)
• Internet Advertising Revenue 1997-2007
• Projected U.S. Social Networking Advertising Spending 2006-2011
• U.S. Online & Total Media Advertising 2006-2011
• Average Prices for Selected Technologies 2003-2008
• Household Penetration Rates for Various Technologies 1970-2008
• Number of Years It Took for Major Technologies to Reach 50% of Homes (the longest? telephones @ 71 years; 2nd longest? electricity @ 52 years)
• Year-to-Year Advertising Growth by Sector
• Percentage of Ad Dollars by Media 1980-2007
• The Media Environment Circa 1970
• The Media Environment Circa 2007
• Video Choices Exploding, But Vertical Integration Plummeting
• Cable & Satellite Channel Growth Exploding

Updated 2 February 2008:
Actually, I'm thinking this must be from Adam Thierer because he uses all these charts in four five posts worth reading titled:

• Media Metrics #1: Introduction & Analytical Framework
• Media Metrics #2: Household Access to Media Services & Technologies
• Media Metrics #3: Ad Wars
• Media Metrics #4: Changing Fortunes
• Media Metrics #5: The Competition for Our Ears

All from The Progress & Freedom Foundation blog.  --Dennis

Open is King - The Future of Meida Beyond Control

... is the title of a lecture that Gerd Leonhard gave at the European Centre for the Experience Economy in Amsterdam earlier this month.  Lots of good stuff here.  Link:  Media Futurist [PDF].  --Dennis

Radio Gets Social

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo has a nice overview of many of the social-enabled music discovery systems -- personalized web-based radio streams.  She spends most of her time with Last.fm, Jango and Pandora but also does brief takes on several others (but not Slacker, which is intriguing enough for me to order one of their 15-station players this past week).  Link:  MediaShift.  --Dennis

Internet Expands Reach, But Narrows Vision

Diane Mermigas writes:

All this talk about hyper-targeting, super search and selective networking could be a sign of trouble.  ¶  The Internet, a big black hole of infinite content and information, is being segmented by users into relevant byte-sized chunks. Some of the time spent sifting through tagged, blogged and bookmarked content was once used to make more spontaneous discoveries in newspapers, magazines and online. Our need to more efficiently manage digital’s cornucopia invariably reduces our time for random search and enlightenment. Plus, it’s possible that too little serendipity in cyberspace could produce a narcissistic populace well-versed in their own interests, but ignorant about the world at large.  ¶ Certainly the Internet allows users to delve deeper into their interest areas more frequently and effectively than any other platform in history. Instant interactivity promises us more time for other things. But as our online management tools become more pre-set and precise, we become less intent on random search and discovery. It’s a tradeoff that comes at a subtle but significant price. ...

Link:  MediaPost. 

Update 26 November 2007:
Be sure to also read John Proffitt's thoughtful comment to this post below, with which I agree.  --Dennis

The dynamics of Web-based social networks

First Monday has published a scholarly article by Jennifer Golbeck titled, The dynamics of Web-based social networks: Membership, relationships, and change.  The abstract:

Social networks on the Web are growing dramatically in size and number. The huge popularity of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and others has drawn in hundreds of millions of users, and the attention of scientists and the media. The public accessibility of Web–based social networks offers great promise for researchers interested in studying the behavior of users and how to integrate social information into applications. However, to do that effectively, it is necessary to understand how networks grow and change. Over a two–year period we have collected data on every social network we could identify, and we also gathered daily information on thirteen networks over a 47–day period. In this article, we present the first comprehensive survey of Web–based social networks, followed by an analysis of membership and relationship dynamics within them. From our analysis of these data, we present several conclusions on how users behave in social networks, and what network features correlate with that behavior.

Link:  First Monday.  --Dennis

Broadcasters woo 'lost generation' in deal with social networking site Bebo

Owen Gibson writes:

The UK's biggest social networking site yesterday announced partnerships with a string of broadcasters, including the BBC, Channel 4, Sky, ITN and CBS, in a move hailed as one of the most significant yet in marrying old and new media.  ¶  Traditional broadcasters hope that distributing and marketing their programmes to Bebo's 40 million users will help them reconnect with the so-called "lost TV generation" of 13 to 24-year-olds who make up the social networking site's core audience.  ¶  It will allow Bebo users to collect and curate clips from BBC programmes such as Doctor Who and EastEnders, behind-the-scenes MTV footage, ITN entertainment news and a host of other items within their own "Personal Video Profile", displaying them on their homepage and sharing them with friends. ... 

Link:  The Guardian.  Link to Bebo. 

Also see, TV clips made available on Bebo.  Link:  BBC News.

Update:
Also see Daniel Langendorf, Social networking site Bebo aligns itself with TV, film and music companies.  Link:  last100.  --Dennis