Free: the first reviews are in

Ever since Chris Anderson mooted the idea of Free in an article in Wired I have questioned if the idea justifies a whole book.  Now Wired has a follow up article taken from the book, which is due for release in July.  I’m still far from convinced.

Some reviews are starting to come in, and they – too – are critical of the message Anderson is promoting.  For example, The Observer:

Free observes an interesting phenomenon, but doesn’t take the reader far beyond the notion that there’s a lot of free stuff about. It pulls together information about current trends… But it doesn’t have the weight of a fully worked-through idea

Then the Sunday Times:

I’m afraid the under-thirties are wrong: there is no such thing as a free lunch. And this one is beginning to look terrifyingly expensive.

It’s strange that Anderson is calling these good reviews:

They may be good reviews but they are not glowing with praise.

Malcolm Gladwell has the best critique of the book so far – well worth a read: Priced to Sell

I want to read the book, so that hopefully Anderson can prove me wrong – but I want it for free.  I have reserved the book at my local library, but that will still cost me 25p.  I want £0.00.  There will be a few options:

“Free” will be free. Ebooks free for first week, web book (Google Books) free for first month, abridged audiobook free to all hardcover purchasers and unabridged audiobook (the whole thing) free to everyone forever. All starting on pub date (July 9th).

I’ll go for the unabridged audio and hope for the best.

UPDATE:  The debate over the validity of the Free arguments continue.  Check out:

• Chris Anderson’s response to Gladwell’s review

• Seth Godwin backs Anderson

Credit crunch: Madoff sent down for 150 years

The financial crisis’ biggest villain has been sentenced, getting 150 years in the slammer.  Vanity Fair got its teeth into this story early on, refused to let go – and gave us some excellent articles:

• The Madoff Chronicles

Wikipedia has a lot of links to other stories.  It says:

 

Sentencing and prison life

“I have left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren. This is something I will live in for the rest of my life. I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I know that doesn’t help you,” Madoff said, after his victims recommended to the judge that he rot in jail.[73] Chin had not received any mitigating letters from friends or family testifying to Madoff’s good deeds. “The absence of such support is telling,” he said. [74] “I have a sense Mr. Madoff has not done all that he could do or told all that he knows,” said Judge Chin, calling the fraud “unprecedented” and “staggering”, and that the sentence would deter others from committing similar frauds. “Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.” [75]

Sentencing and prison life

“I have left a legacy of shame, as some of my victims have pointed out, to my family and my grandchildren. This is something I will live in for the rest of my life. I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I know that doesn’t help you,” Madoff said, after his victims recommended to the judge that he rot in jail. Chin had not received any mitigating letters from friends or family testifying to Madoff’s good deeds. “The absence of such support is telling,” he said.  ”I have a sense Mr. Madoff has not done all that he could do or told all that he knows,” said Judge Chin, calling the fraud “unprecedented” and “staggering”, and that the sentence would deter others from committing similar frauds. “Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.”

 

The Guardian also thinks he won’t get some cushy jail cell – swindling $64 billion cannot be let off lightly:

• ’It’s likely he’ll serve his time in a maximum security jail’

The printed newspaper doesn’t work for the Net Generation

I’ve started reading Grown Up Digital by Don Tapscott, the author of Wikinomics.  I’m not sure that I am going to agree with all that the author is saying, but he talks early on about how the “N-Gen” (those people born between 1977 and 2007 – “the first generation to be bathed in bits”) consume media.  Here are some quotes:

The Net Geners don’t just take what they are given… They are the active initiators, collaborators, organisers, readers, writers, authenticators…  They do not just observe, they participate.  They inquire, discuss, argue, … critique, investigate, ridicule, seek and inform.

The print media company and the TV network are hierarchical organisations that reflect the values of their owners.  New media, on the other hand, gives control to all users.

The distinction between bottom-up and top-down organisational structure is at the heart of the new generation.  

This shift from one-way broadcast media to interactive media has had a profound effect on the Net Gen

In a previous post I have already said:

The bottom line is that the printed newspaper cannot meet the requirements of the way that people are increasingly engaging in news stories.  Its form factor and delivery method cannot be adapted to meet these requirements.

If Don Tapscott is right about the latest generation of children and young adults, then they are not even going to consider the printed newspaper as a format for getting information – it simply does not fit in with the way they access information.

Interesting debate about Twitter’s value on Iran story

A interesting debate is going on in real time at the moment on Twitter involving Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen about Twitter’s role (and that of others such as Facebook and YouTube) in covering the news of demonstrations in Iran over the disputed election results.  How valid can the Twitter reports be?  How do we know they are true?  What are the sources?  Are they “better” than the “conventional” media?

Good questions to ask… and some valuable links coming up, especially Iran, citizen media and media attention.

 

The Economist gives its opinion too:

…the much-ballyhooed Twitter swiftly degraded into pointlessness. By deluging threads like Iranelection with cries of support for the protesters, Americans and Britons rendered the site almost useless as a source of information—something that Iran’s government had tried and failed to do. Even at its best the site gave a partial, one-sided view of events. Both Twitter and YouTube are hobbled as sources of news by their clumsy search engines.

The winner of the Iranian protests was neither old media nor new media, but a hybrid of the two.

• Mashable:  HOW TO: Track Iran Election with Twitter and Social Media

• BBC World Service: Who do you trust to tell you what’s happening in Iran?

Credit Crunch – villain number 2: Allen Stanford

 

alcatraz by vgm838 on flickr

The financial crisis has now claimed what is currently believed to be its second most important villain to date (after Bernie Madoff) – Allen Stanford.  I can’t comment on his guilt but he sure appears to have a colourful and dodgy background. He faces up to 250 years in the slammer.

The word villain appears to be distinctly valid in this case: 

rascal, rapscallion, rogue, scamp, scoundrel

I doubt he’s in Alcatraz, but it’s taken a long time to get him inside.  There is good coverage around, especially in Pirate of the Caribbean, a Vanity Fair article.  Here’s some of the rest:

• The Guardian: US prosecutors charge Allen Stanford with turning bank into $7bn pyramid scheme, Allen Stanford: countdown to court, Key players in the Allen Stanford affair

• Judge orders jail for Stanford after indictments

• The indictments

Clay Shirky on Twitter and the media

clayshirky by joi on flickr

Strange how some things really make ideas click in your head.  This is one of the “!” moments, but I’m not sure why, considering that I’ve been reading a lot of articles recently on the subject of the future of newspapers.  This talk by Clay Shirky really stands out for its simplicity.  The first half is about Twitter but the most interesting part is when he talks about media.  Here’s some of it:

We are increasingly in a landscape where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap.

… the audience can talk back… [and] the audience can talk directly to one another; because there are a lot more amateurs than professionals

As recently as last decade, most of the media that was available for public consumption was produced by professionals.  Those days are over, never to return.

The media landscape that we knew… [where] professionals broadcast messages to amateurs … is increasingly slipping away.

In a world where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap…. where the “former audience” are now full participants.  In that world, media is less and less often about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals. It is more and more often a way of creating an environment for  convening and supporting groups.

Whether or not that is the media environment that we want to work in, that is the media environment we’ve got… [the issue is] how can we best make use of this medium, even if it means changing the way we’ve always done it.

The bottom line is that the printed newspaper cannot meet the requirements of the way that people are increasingly engaging in news stories.  Its form factor and delivery method cannot be adapted to meet these requirements.

Article: The Paper Chase

This article is the Editor’s letter for this month’s Vanity Fair.  He is talking about the future of newspapers and how he is fed up reading about their demise… in the newspapers.  For me, it is a piece of distinct highs and lows.  I don’t agree with a lot of the sentiment here – for example:

“Youthing” down a paper to attract 21-year-olds isn’t the answer: the only way you’re ever going to get the average 21-year-old to read a daily newspaper is to wait 9 years until he’s 30. 

What a ridiculous thing to say.  However, he follows up with:

My suggestion to newspapers everywhere is to give the public a reason to read them again. So here’s an idea: get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences.

… which makes sense.  Soon after, he rebounds when talking about the Daily Telegraph’s attitude to its website:

revamped the paper’s Web site and got the reporters to blog, produce Webcasts, and even Twitter to bring in a broader (and younger) audience. To many in the business, it seemed the Telegraph had fallen prey to the same near-lunatic fascination with its Web site that has been bedeviling American papers…. 

Which is a bit strange as I quite like the VF website, with its web exclusive stories, video, blogs and podcast.   Oh, and its Twitter feed.  Lucky that some online editor has his head screwed on (at least to the minimum of what is now needed / expected from a website), because the print editor doesn’t appear to appreciate it.

He goes on to discuss the Daily Telegraph’s success with the MP’s expenses scandal and how that helped sales to rise:

On the Friday the story broke in print, the Telegraph sold out. Since then, the paper has sold an extra 600,000 copies. According to the paper, it was the biggest sales uptick for a non-conflict-related story since World War II.

Maybe, then, that is the answer – write content so compelling that people will buy more papers.  This appears to be the editor’s point of view.

But it isn’t the answer.  The increased revenue from greater sales won’t make a lot of difference to a paper’s bottom line, as the majority of a paper’s income comes from advertising.  And therein lies the problem – in our current economic malaise, the lack of ads provides the real blow.

This is a subject that is far from simple.  There are no “right” answers.  One thing is sure – there will be more about the future of newspapers (and mags) to come in the coming months from me.

Latest generation browsers are wickedly fast

I’ve just downloaded and installed Firefox 3.5 Preview, the (now out of beta) Safari 4 and Opera 10 beta.

My God they’re fast – and I’m on one of these:

How long could Condé Nast “subsidize” Wired?

I recently wrote about the struggle that Wired magazine (US version) is having in finding advertisers.  Looking at how long the new (UK) version of the magazine could effectively be “subsidized” by other magazines in the CN group, I said: 

I hope Condé Nast has the patience, and deep enough pockets, to hold on for the long term.

I  know what follows is hardly scientific, but I received the latest (UK) Vanity Fair yesterday and it is very thin – just 130 pages.  There is a total of 36 pages  of ads, of which three are internal (two pages for a subscription offer and one for Wired magazine.)  After p36 there are no ads at all until you hit the back cover.

Now, I have no idea how the other Condé Nast magazines are doing, but if this is also representative of others in the same stable, then maybe CN’s pockets won’t be deep enough to support Wired (UK) magazine  for very long.  Let’s hope Wired UK is doing well on the subscription front and that sales of the mag haven’t fallen substantially since the launch issue.

Google Wave

This is cool.  I can see this really catching on as they have ticked a lot of the boxes that are necessary these days – especially making it open source and making it interoperable with other systems based on Wave (federation).  This could be a very strong platform to build upon, and could be invisible in the same way that the Twitter website is to those people using a Twiter client.  

Most importantly, it could make working (and playing) a lot more straight forward and flexible.  People will be able to see the advantages, even if all the possibilities are not immediately clear.

• Google Wave: A Complete Guide

• Google Wave official site