Cyber Monday

Today is cyber Monday. That means for those of us unwilling to conquer the crowds and storm the department stores, we can sit comfortably at home and claim the advantages of holiday consumerism from our computer.
What are the implications of buying online? Well, since each computer contains a 'cookie' that traces your online activities, you're likely to be ushered towards specific sites where google or bing think they'll get the most revenue because you're likely to buy the most stuff.
Some people are using ebay as their main retail outlet. People are able to post pictures of themselves, and participate in the advertisments themselves.


I think as more and more media goes online, the more and more humans will stay in their homes. Although there are the advantages of going out and trying on the clothes you're about to buy and certainly the speed of exchange... Amazon claims to be making 150 billion dollars a year with over 100 million active buyers. On the busiest day of the year, they shipped 5.6 million products.

A lot of recent articles point out how Amazon is the only retailer to compete with giant Wallmart.
 Personally I enjoy the web for intricate little crafts that I can't find except from the buyer themselves... and they often live a state or two or ten away. In a way, the internet is creating successful giants and successful hobbyists. As long as I don't have to buy my groceries online I'll be fine (and believe me, when my mother was trying out Simon Delivers, we got a lot of moldy cheese. ick)

Social TV

Facebook connect, joost, ABC's 'V', Hulu's FB integration all point to the rise of 'social TV.' The idea that we are no longer static observers but that we actively connect or disconnect to the content that exists in all different forms on the internet. For videographers and filmmakers, Facebook has proven to be indispensable for distribution. In fact a lot of movie-makers are going to stop buying slots in the newspaper and time on-air, instead opting for the audience-fueled marketing that they don't have to pay for. It makes sense... if you trust your friends taste in movies, why wouldn't you trust that whatever they post online is likely of value to you as well. And not only is it instantaneous, it's incredibly convenient, so that no matter where the original video was posted, you can watch it without changing your browser. Facebook seems to be the hub for all media activity. And collecting a sizable niche is easier than before.
Or at least that's what Facebook spokesperson was inclined to say...



It's perhaps the new way of appreciating the good ole' three big networks, by making them not so homogeneous but rather segmenting them and in that way, letting them back into our lives, one news package at a time.
Yet, we must ask, can the TV stations afford to lose their viewership offline as we switch more and more to instantaneous viewing online? I'm interested to see where this goes...
I suspect that we'll have to either publicly fund the networks or withstand the inevitable advertisement integration into everything on screen. I hope for the first.

Who owns what?

I found these graphics at thenation.com. They are simply shocking.

 

 

For me it seems bizarre that three television news stations be owned by the same people that sell light bulbs, run nuclear generators, create jet engines, and hand out credit cards, and yet such is the case for General Electric who owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
How are these things related? They aren't, except that they all reap profits.
But what if your station reports on another one of your products and the news isn't exactly going to sell more of this 'n that? That's when the difficulties arise.

We as Americans are afraid of big government, but what about big capitalism...? It hasn't done us much good, considering the state of the economy. In what ways do corporations influence our lives to the extent that government might? For one, we're being bombarded with ad's and we are given products  with no alternatives... and on the other hand we're becoming less of intellectuals in favor of  becoming consumers. Our media has degraded to selling itself to advertisers and entertainment as we stop asking important questions...
Like who is funding our news.
That's why I'm all about public radio, news, and television. Something that is relatively close to home and can be loyal, theoretically, to the public.

Electronic Ink

     I suppose most of us, by now, have heard about the Nook or the Kindle and have probably even formed an opinion on the quality of e-books, or rather, the lack of concrete, tangible paperbacks.
It's indisputable that an electronic book cannot replace the experience of opening a leather-bound book, breathing in the parchment, and slowly fingering the corners of page after page: it just won't be the same. But, what is equally indisputable is that fewer trees will be cut, less gasoline will be guzzled and less money will be dispensed.
The implications of this technology are particularly important for journalistic giants, what with the anticipated "end" of newspapers and the likes.
Despite the e-book disadvantages and peoples disinterest in paying ostensibly 'free' online news subscriptions, "[The E-paper, newspaper experience] will be close enough [to its prior print self] that the convenience, the economics and the environmental considerations will make it inevitable that people will switch," says Russ Wilcox, the president of E Ink, one of many companies gearing up to invest in thinner, more colorful, more flexible, an more versatile plastic screens.

Newsweek did a good job investigating the subject and the author doesn't doubt that the development in e-paper could help newspapers back on their feet.
One of the leading e-paper companies is Bridgestone. Yea... a tire company!
They have some pretty incredible examples of color, flexible, thin plastic screens that are already being tested for newspaper format (as well as billboards, maps, electronically updating price-tags, and even clocks)
It seems that although the quality and detail can't beat real photographs or real books just yet, the e-paper investments are a good compromise between something portable, small, and concrete with the internet or a computer. The nooks are already sold out for Christmas, and I'm fine with that, I'm waiting for a thin, fold-able, newspaper size, color e-newspaper that I can update at a kiosk on campus or on the street, just like those newspaper metal dispensers, by inserting two quarters. But that's just a dream...

I'll leave you with a Science Central news release that compares the e-newspaper to the papers of Harry Potter

Gourmet Magazine Closes

I was listening to MPR the other day and heard a story on Gourmet closing it's doors due to the lack of advertising revenues.
So what if Gourmet closes?  Can't we let the magazine die?
I can't honestly say I ever read the magazine, but its significance is undeniable.
Let's look back a little at it's history.
Gourmet Magazine started in 1941;
That's before Julia Child, The Food Network, and Gogurt.
 It was the first magazine of it's kind.
At first the covers were hand-drawn illustrations, exhibiting traditional American foods from pancakes to Tex-Mex to turkey stuffing. Recipes appealed to those who enjoyed cooking, who loved food, and who had money.
Now, as the last issue is put on stands, the magazine is perhaps better suited for a traveled audience, keen on the fancy fair from France or other culinary countries. The magazine talks about the culture of eating, the places to eat, and the art of cooking in addition to its many recipes.
But what effect will this really have on Americans?
Let's face it--not much! They've already converted to new forms of comestible chronicles online-- and who wouldn't-- they're free! Even Gourmet's publisher Conde Nast (who also owns The New Yorker, Vogue, and Wired)  updates a website (www.epicurious.com) with recipes directly copied from it's monthly.
Yet, isn't this something to be lamented?  In my opinion the interest in food, I mean real food, not just fast food, synthetic cereal, and corn-fed cows, has already diminished enough that less than one third of American families prepare their evening meal from scratch, according to the Institute of Food Technologies (2007).
The number in 2007 had already decreased from the previous year... I can't imagine the percentage now.
And with less and less families eating together at the dinner table, how are children learning to eat? They'll watch the advertisements for junkfood on the television (73% of American's nutritional and food information comes from television, 58% from magazines, and 33% from newspapers according to the IFT in 2002) and believe in the diet fad of the week...They'll accept that the world in increasingly obese and that we're just walking corn.

Not to sound reactionary, but, doesn't the publication of a food magazine, or rather the lack there of, scare people who worry that the art of cooking is now the art of defrosting (the fastest one can, the cheapest one can, and the one with the least rubbery texture)?

However, with 4.5 million unique visitors a month to Epicurious.com, one could argue that the fast and easy location of more recipes than could fit in a bookshelf would encourage cooking in this day and age. Yet with a quick look at the website you'll see it's geared for those looking to make the "simplest" and "quickest" meals possible.

With that many visitors to the website, mass markers have a potential of persuading the public to healthier eating habits or interactive components to more complicated recipe making, but will it head in that direction?

I can only hope so!