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Open Media: Taking Old Fartism Down
This youth domination has been true of no other mass medium -- adolescents and post-adolescents shaping an information structure they know more about than almost any sub-set of adults.
A first-rate piece in Brill's Content 's August issue, by writer Austin Bunn, reports on a soon-to-be-released HomeNet study, scheduled for publication this winter in the journal Human Computer Interaction. It documents in society-at-large what's been clear for some time on the most vibrant Open Media websites -- online, the young are shaping information culture. They are the gurus, visionaries, technicians, repairpersons and authorities on the Information Revolution. There are plenty of older Net visionaries and users as well, but they don't dominate open media in the way the middle-aged have always dominated information before.
While politicians and journalists have been clucking about sex, isolation and the decline of Western civilization, younger people -- teens through 30s especially -- have been acquiring and mastering computing technology. So-called "games," messaging systems, and free music and software-sharing sites have served as their universities and career ladders, indoctrinating a generation into the most sophisticated and powerful information systems ever seen. The spread of broadband online access to universities and private homes has been a huge spur, driving younger people online, providing the opportunity to learn and experiment once they got there. Napster is one well-known example. So are ICQ, Gnutella and C-Net, and this site. Lesser-known and more specialized OM sites include chickclickers.com and myvideogames.com, or the pioneeer weblog www.camworld.com.
This adolescent and post-adolescent technical expertise, writes Bunn, has translated into a broader cultural savvy, upending the traditional power balance, inspiring college students to found their own companies, reducing parents, journalists, teachers, CEO's, teachers and other adult authority figures to bystanders. For generations, Dad was the household figure who knew how things worked. Now he and Mom have to ask their kids. For even longer, media was run by aging and imperious white men who decided what was news and what wasn't. Today, these media movers and shakers are desperate, scrambling to find anybody who can tell them what's going on. Usually, the person they're asking is under 30.
These Open Media sites -- weblogs, webpages, messaging systems, software -- sharing and research communities -- are increasingly founded by the young, a trend with mind-boggling implications. These kids have grown up with the Internet; they know intuitively how to use technology. And they have radically different cultural, political, technological and social sensibilities.
According to a May study by the Pew Center for Media Research, roughly half of American families now have Internet access. There are also more Americans turning 18 now than ever before, points out William Strauss, author of "Millenials Rising: The Next Generation." The approximately 78 million Americans aged 21 and younger account for 28 per cent of the population. What TV was to the Boomers, computers are to their children. This evolutionary demographic is behind much of the rise in Open Media.
Whatever their commonality as members of the Open Media, the differences in these emerging sites are striking. Open Media embraces interactivity -- they reflect ideas, commentary and information from a wide range of sources, especially their readers. They don't merely provide the occasional link to other sites on the Web, as traditional sites. Rather, they use the Net infrastructure to make links an organic part of their content. They aggressively ask their readers to help set editorial agendas. Each reader becomes a highly-wired reporter, foraging on his or her own favorite sites, seeking particular kinds of information.
Using mostly digital transmissions, stories get spotted, suggested and linked to by readers. Readers also have access to the editorial figures on the website. Through story input, moderation or discussion forums they have a say in how the site operates.
Rather than divide a site into pay-versus-free areas, revenue comes from advertising, the sale of specialized merchandise, or other sources. But the information itself is almost always free, moving continuously through the site like a river. These young new media entrepeneurs embrace popular culture as strongly as technology. They gather almost continuously to discuss movies, TV shows, certain magazines and books.
Diversity is rarely as big an issue as it is for their parents. Possibly because of the anonymity possible online, or perhaps because of natural social evolution, differences in race, religion and sexual orientation rarely come up. They are comfortable talking about sex. They've experienced almost total freedom of expression online, much more than older Americans have. If this trend continues, this generation may free itself --- and its editorial agenda -- from many of the issues that dominated their parents' lives of their parents.
They are almost totally disconnected from the mainstream political and media system -- the network newscasts, major newspapers, TV talk shows and political events that dominate conventional, closed media. Such subjects rarely surface on Open Media sites. Yet despite the inherently democratic nature of their media creations, their lack of interest in the larger political structure is already posing problems and challenges.
Young Netizens seem flabbergasted when the adult value system collides with and changes their world -- in arguments over copyright and Napster or the passage of laws like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They don't seem to grasp that their lack of political acumen and organizing skills not only make such legislation possible but increasingly inevitable in encounters with a legal and political system dominated by those older and non-technologically-centered.
Understandably, the architects of this new media are arrogant. At the epicenter of one of the most revolutionary technological advances ever, they know much more about it than parents, teachers, journalists or politicians. They discovered early on that many of the people who lecture about them and their culture are clueless, and they learned to ignore moral posturing and hectoring. As a result, they'll form their own moral code in their own good time, apart from conventional social, religious and cultural values. As yet, no single value system has emerged beyond some libertarian notions about government and freedom.
They are free-marketeers and democrats. They are comfortable making money, unabashed about taking entrepeneurial risks (the Brill's Content article focuses on 13-year-old Ilya Anopolsky, founder of the Web-design firm Devotion, Inc., as well as Michael Furdyk, 18-year-old founder and business development manager of BuyBuddy.com.
Although today's Net-connected youth are denounced for being technology-addicted or socially isolated, the truth is they use the Net and the Web to communicate with one another, not to disconnect. For them, the Net is a social as well as a technological medium. They gather in chat rooms, on mailing lists and messaging systems and form enduring relationships that frequently last for years.
This generation of media engineers celebrates the accessibility of traditionally out-of-reach information. They have literally grown up downloading music, text, and almost every other conceivable form of intellectual property. Branded "pirates" by corporatists and politicians, they grasp what much of American society hasn't yet comprehended -- they posess the technological skills to gather all the information they want, and no authority has yet amassed an equivalent amount of expertise to slow them down or stop them.
This is a good example of the perpetuation of a relatively old internet "cliche" -- the "adolescent internet guru" vs. the "old fart luddite".
Bullshit.
If you still believe this in the year 2000, you are delusioned. Severely. The "old farts" are running the brick-and-mortar institutions that are either kicking the e-tailer's asses or buying them out. How can this be if they are run by stupid "old fart luddites"?
Oh yeah, and look at the brain-drain of employees running from crashing internet start-ups to work at more solid electronics companies or even "old economy" companies. Yeah, if you believe the cliche at the top of this post, you probably thought that XYZ start-up with the 17-23 year old founder was going to skyrocket.
Sorry, but the reality is that age doesn't matter. I know 50 year-old company CEO's/Presidents who are more 'net-savvy than many e-commerce consultants they talk to. If you're intelligent and "have the right stuff" it doesn't matter what your age is, you will rise above your competitors every time.
They aggressively ask their readers to help set editorial agendas.
Well, this shows that /. is definitely not Open Media, since the /. staff seem to completely ignore the views of their readers and choose stories based on their own biases.
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Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
this argument always reminds me of my parent's generation saying they invented rock and roll - being teenagers in the sixties and all.
bollocks. it was the old guys who sold the records.
it's always the "old farts" who do the rebelling really: they're the ones with the money/business sense/influence/access to mass amounts of mememaking media that make the differences.
The net is just the same. All this groundbreaking teenage open media madness is facilitated by the old farts - without them, their nice backbone making,computer building,satellite launching, venture funding fartiness we'd all be just writing on neighbourhood walls.
online, the young are shaping information culture. They are the gurus, visionaries, technicians, repairpersons and authorities on the Information Revolution
You are taking a leap here, acting like every 13-year old with net access is a brilliant little technologist. I suggest you visit chat rooms and web pages made by 13-year olds.
So-called "games," messaging systems, and free music and software-sharing sites have served as their universities and career ladders
Playing Quake, chatting, and downloading mp3s is hardly educating our youth. Kids used to mostly waste time watching TV, now they use computers to goof off. It's more interactive, yeah, but how is this a "university" or "career ladder"?
Using mostly digital transmissions, stories get spotted, suggested and linked to by readers. Readers also have access to the editorial figures on the website. Through story input, moderation or discussion forums they have a say in how the site operates.
I guess this is your take on what a flamewar is.
They are free-marketeers and democrats. They are comfortable making money, unabashed about taking entrepeneurial risks
Yeah, it's fine they make money while they are young, but if they grow up and start corporations, they are the root of all evil, right Jon?
I was just involved in this discussion a second ago... our small ISP is creating a new brochure.
The older group feels the prices shouldn't be included so as to get people to call in, and thus allow our salesmen to hook them.
The younger generation (I'm 24 so I'll include myself) feels that the prices should be included with a "prices subject to change" waiver. This way we save our salesmen's time for potential clients rather than giving out directions, prices, and quotes over the phone. (i.e. they are actually out there selling)
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
For Katz to imply that old media is doomed (in spite of the wild success of printed magazines targeting every imaginable niche market), and that sites like Teen Movie Critic are the future is so silly that I can't even take it seriously enough to thoughtfully point out how horribly, horribly wrong so much of his column is... so I will just fire off a couple of smart-assed questions.
Does the term "Open Media" imply that we are welcome to take his rough drafts, make a few changes, and sell them as our own under the GPL?
If there is such a thing as "Old Fartism", what exactly does an Old Fartist believe?
Is there also a New Fartism? Or perhaps a Reformed Fartism?
Katz, does it bother you that your whole column is dripping with the same sappy sentiment as the opening lines of "The Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Down with Old Fartism! Up with Pop Superficiality! Rah!...er something...I can't concentrate...I think I need a Pepsi...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I think its extremely simplistic to simply classify "media" into a group without interest in differentiating between them. Media is media is media... that's great, but the differences between them are staggering. Could something like slashdot exist in another medium? Probably thousands of comments a day, frequently each discussed quickly? Is a book a TV? You can't merely classify media and pretend there all the same.
:-). But the point remains - what with this age divide? I don't think that an age divide is this generation's invention - think of the "hippy culture" versus their parents - but just saying "all people are created equal" and thus concluding that the age divide is imaginary is absurd.
Here's an analogy: Humans live on a planet. But that planet is quite specific, and it forms us a lot. That planet influences who and what we are, to an inordinate amount. Similarly, the medium influences the information it carries.
Katz may make radical comments occasionally. OK, he rants all the time
I don't think that the age divide is "an extremist invention" or "incited hatred". It's entirely natural for people to try to differentiate themselves from their parents and the accepted social order when growing up; this was always so. The rapid change we as a species are experiencing means that it's easier to see those "age divides". It also means that it isn't always necessary to eventually adapt to your parents - the change just catches up on you.
Katz is quite right in suggesting that this may pose problems. The general public's interest in politics is falling... but how should democrasy work without interested individuals? What happens when the existing system impedes change?
I'm not saying that all old people are old farts... heck, my father works in artificial intelligence and alpha infomatica, and my grandfather developed an one of the first functioning solar car and is still a developer in the photovoltaic industry. But we're talking trends here. The trend is that young people know more about computers and such technology than others.
We need to think about that, not stuff it in a closet and pretend it isn't so. We need to make sure that the inevitable age divide doesn't turn into "incited hatred" and social disarray.
Denial is not a solution, merely another problem.
Open Media - and let's face it, the Internet in general - is based on a simple premise: say what you like, but be prepared to have people talk back to you.
It's this point that old media doesn't get. I've worked in ad agencies for years, and not one of them accepts that to be part of the Net, you've got to play by the Net's rules.
Chris @ chrisworth.com
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
Frankly i'm glad its the younger generation that rules the web. I don't think I'd want to stumble across much more Old Lady pr0n ;)
No, Jon, I promise you, they are games.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
There is all this talk about vast amounts of information but it does seem to break down into about 4 main groups:
.coms no-one expects that they'll have to produce all their 'value-added' content... someone else will supply it of coure!? but who?
a) real solid researched information
b) user contributed discussion forums
c) binaries - pr0n, warez, mp3z etc..
d) portals & links to the above
I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it builds up in a sort of triangle formation. There's probably about a megabyte or two or real information, and at the bottom there are 500 million sites all pointing to that.
When I speak nowadays to people starting
Paper media know fine well that the internet, for all it's petabytes of information, is more about peer-to-peer communication than solid hard information. What they dont realise is that more and more the two are becoming interchangable - who here looks to www.deja.com/usenet when they have hardware troubles before looking at the manufacturers website?!
if napster and icq are the colleges and universities of today, we're in for some serious trouble up ahead..
wish
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*g* yeah, tell me about it. Still, you can get some good stealth action going from a position of poverty and ignorability ;)
It would be nice if you'd quit with the 'homo' as a term of abuse. Jon is _not_ homosexual so far as I know, and his articles are, well, Jon Katz articles. By contrast, you could call me a homo with much greater accuracy, and the slashdot article that I wrote (posted by Roblimo) was much clearer and more interesting. I think you should find something else to call Katz if you want to abuse him. And yeah, it's not really my business as you weren't calling _me_ anything, but ya get sick of seeing it after a while, you know? *shrug*
But, as The Doctor points out in "The Mind Robber", fiction is powerless the moment you don't believe in it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In many ways, it's like TCP/IP. You DON'T need to know all the little settings you can play with in the header to be able to call up a web page, or an FTP site. Even if you do, and you do submit bug fixes back to the TCP/IP stack maintainer, it really won't alter what you see on those web pages.
To hear Jon Katz talk, you'd believe that the Student Union in England never existed. That Radio Caroline and other infamous, long-lasting "pirate radio" were never there. That multicasting had never been developed. That no Special Interest Group has ever written it's own newspaper or run it's own community radio station.
To call anyone older than a teenager an "Old Fart" is not only extremely derogatory (older people were once teenagers themselves, and some are quite capable of matching any teenager on the planet for originality and creativity) but also extremely stupid, divisive, hostile and presumptuous.
The reason the generations don't usually get along is because of incited hatred between them, as if they were factions at war. But when you look at more "primitive" civilisations, you see cultures where there IS no generation war, where people trade and exchange thoughts WITHOUT REGARD for age, gender, or other modern extremist inventions.
And that's what the age divide IS. An extremist invention. It has NO place in a civilised society, bar that which we choose to give it.
IMHO, Jon Katz is becoming as hateful of the imagined enemy as he imagines the enemy to be of those he supports. I suggest seeing a doctor, as that degree of paranoia and hostility rarely does anything but grow. Especially in a mind that has been cultivated for it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I found it particularilly amusing that he wrote a coulumn about young people taking over the new media, and the only web link in his entire article was to Brill's Content, a media watchdog magazine put out by the producer of CourtTV.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I have to ask, why is GENDER missing from your list of things we have overcome with the advent of the OPEN MEDIA Katz???? I mean you DID reference chickclicks.com. But on the other hand, I do realize you usually sterotype geeks as being male.
This is another view of the world.
Oh shaddup. Nobody will ever curl up in bed with a cut of tea and a monitor. Katz's book was more for everybody ELSE than it was for geeks. There are some things that are just worth shelling money out for. In any case a book is not Open Media in any sense. You buy it, you read it. I think they made a good decision judging that most sane people would rather shell out a few bucks for a good book than go blind being cheap-asses reading it on their CRT.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Thanks man- I'm not trying to harsh on you, just speaking up, you know? I don't mean to imply that you're some kind of bad person. No :( necessary ;)
(Full disclosure: I'm a journalist working for the AP. Take with grain of salt to taste.) Interesting and insightful post, but a few things I have to disagree with. There are some very, very good online reporters out there. CNET, which sends its people out and about all the time, is practically a tech wire service all its own. They even have a distribution deal with The Associated Press. Most of the highest-traffic sites have dedicated reporting staffs, including CNN, MSNBC, ABCNEWS.com (more disclosure: I used to work there) and others.
Now if you're talking about general news wire services, that market is pretty well sewn up by the AP and the other guys like Reuters and Bloomberg. Our stuff appears online all the time. I don't honestly see a reason to create a strictly online service. Plus the financial overhead in creating such a broad service is just killer.
But if you're talking about original local reporting online, then I'd have to agree wholeheartedly. The Internet would be really great for alternatives to daily newspapers and local TV, but I can't think of anybody who's doing good local online journalism, and that's a shame.
Part of it is the financial model, of course. I think that one can survive as a strictly-content site, but just like traditional media startups, the burn rate is intense. You have to be willing to go at least four or five years, often longer, without profits. That happens with new magazines, newspapers and TV outlets all the time, and is not unique to the Internet.
And finally, I completely agree that there needs to be less press release journalism. But again, that's not a New Media problem. That's a problem for the whole news biz.
Mike
It's obvious that young people are much better than old people. I mean, in 30 years time how many of those 'old people' are still going to be around, eh? Hardly any, and that's because they are badly designed, and frankly obsolete.
'young people', able to leverage the power of Open Media development will have their bugs continuously fixed - I bet today's under 30's will still be around in 30 years!
Finally, I'd like to make an uncalled for ad hominem attack on Jon Katz:
Jon, you're probably an OK guy and you're not stupid, but you just talk lazy populist crap most of the time. You pseudo reasoning annoys me. I make my living my thinking very precisely and getting things right. You make yours by waffling and making crude emotional appeal disguised as radical thought. Worst of all, you probably earn more than me.
Many Karmas have died to bring you this information.
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You're talking to a bunch of people using an operating system designed in the early 1970s. *We* are the old farts.
Katz: ...and this new paradigm is signalling a shift in the demographics of this New Media elite who can...
Dieter: Jon Katz, I cannot parse what you are saying. What is this stream of word-like noise that comes from you?
Katz: ...death-knell of the old guard with the introduction of the freedom which information confers on those who will wield its awesome power...
Dieter: Jon Katz, your noise has become tiresome. Now is the time ven ve DANCE!
Amen to that, Dieter.
If it wasn't for Katz, this place would be too one-sided.. I like him, I don't normally agree with him, but his posts beats the hell out of seeing 1,000 messages that go something like this.. "Linux Rules!" "BSD Sucks!" "MS Sucks!" "Hot grits down my pants!" at least with Katz's posts, you get the following instead... "Katz Rulez!" "Die Katz!" "Hot grits down my pants!" see the difference?
While I don't respect Katz enough to attempt to explain his usage (he could ahve a bet on with someone on how often he can say it for all I know.) I will comment that while there is nothing inherently wrong with being any age, gender or race, there could be something wrong with an entire industry, particularly the news industry, being made up of only one demographic. After all, if every publisher and editor in chief of a major newspaper was a black pagan lesbian, would you wonder if your news was slanted? I know my news is slanted, because I occasionally go out and make the news then read how it is reported.
Obviously, there are exceptions to the "old white male" rule, and there are alternative news sources with different slants, but the point is largly valid in mainstream american news.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
The 00 generation has Britney Spears and ADD.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I think it is the Orthodox Farts we have the most to fear from.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I think the reason Open Media is dominated by youth probably has as much to do with younger folks' higher learning curve, as it does with the fact they don't have the money to buy all the stuff they get for free.
Plus they have "free" T1 connections at school and more time to surf.
The old school had a number of very important values: checking the provenance of information, looking for possible bias in sources, balancing one opinion with another opinion fairly.
Deadlines and competition have meant this was an ideal more than a reality. News was never that good in the past, and it's nowhere that good now. Balance often comes down to finding somebody, anybody, with an opposing opinion no matter how stupid. Objectivity often boils down to the pretense that the writer has no opinion.
Despite the unattainability of this ideal, it's still important that somebody believes in them. The very point of having values and ideals is to put some kind of break on slavish obedience to pure expedience.
In any case, old fartism isn't the problem. It's the pressure of expedience that any commercial entity feels.
Look at the quality of "news" in slashdot. How often do you read an article that is really, really good? Usually it's just shunting some news from some other source, like a glorified and somewhat biased clipping service. I wouldn't want to live in a world where my only source of information was slashdot articles. It's the noncommercial contributors, the readers who comment, that create 99% of the value of slashdot.
There are niches in the information market like any other. Organizations like the New York Times and the Washington Post create extra value for their product by putting more effort into the ideals of journalism. More sensational papers try to create value by sensationalism, for which there is a certain market.
The thing about new media is that it really reduces the capital investment needed to create "information". Economics tells us that the production of something is determined by the balance of cost to produce and price it will fetch. Traditional journalistic values are expensive, whereas sensationalism is cheap to produce. So, the new media really opens the way for lots of bottom feeders, as well as innovative low budget operations.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm normally something of a Katz apologist, but I'm giving up entirely here. I just have one question:
What the hell did Katz have to say in this article that's different from anything he's written since the Hellmouth series?
I've read through the whole damn article (not skimmed, READ), and I can't find a single new thing that he has to say here. There doesn't seem to be a single drop of new content, nothing that he hasn't already posted attacking the DMCA or defending Napster or defending geeks.
Can somebody please let me know what this article has to recommend it? Please? Thanks.
Jon Katz - why isn't your book on line? If you think the new media is the way to go and the way of vsionaries, why don't you publish your book on line? You promise to, but why didn't you release it simultaneously with the print version? You are PRECISELY the kushy old guard media person who are railing against. You reap massive profits, millions of dollars per year, from your book, charging for nothing more than bound paper, which (you believe) should be distributed for free. If you want to be taken anything close to seriously on this topic, you need to put your book online, and the fact that you didn't release it with the print version shows that wanted to reap massive profits from the print version. How does this make you different from what you are decrying?
and is he trying to say he's old media or new? just because your words appear in slashdot doesn't make you part of this generation, bucko
(3 points and double word score for using the word bucko)
Here's an example for you.
My father used to work for the Santa Fe. He worked as an "area sales rep", which meant that he was partially responsible for performing logistics work--that is, figuring out the cheapest way to handle product redistribution. Logistics as a science has reached such a high level of perfection in this country pre-Internet that we can ship millions of tons of rock ore from one point to another that cannot be warehoused, and have the trainloads of material that takes days to move from one part of the country to another show up moments before the ore needs to be dumped into the smelters for processing, without either delaying the smelters or wasting thousands of dollars on an idle train car.
When various web companies were initially started, they started on the extremely brash assumption that they could undercut the traditional "brick and mortar" operations by enough of a margin that they could not only make a larger profit, but be able to offer a larger product selection for a smaller price than any traditional operation. How? Through waving the "magic wand" of the Internet.
The other day my father was watching a news special where they showed order fulfillment through Amazon.com, the leader in this "using high tech to squeeze even more profits than old brick-and-mortar operations." And how were they filling orders? By having individual shoppers walk up and down large isles full of product pushing the equivalent of shopping carts.
My father died laughing! There are tons of ways you can handle order fulfillment--and Amazon picked the single most inefficient mechanism one can possibly use to fill small orders from a large stock selection. Hell, in about an hour doing a quick Internet search on the topic of "warehouse fulfillment logistics" I came up with a half-dozen papers on how to fill these orders which would improve their effectiveness by at least 50%!
An interesting conversation I had with a vulture^H^H^H^H^H^H venture capitalist told me why venture money is pulling out of "pure-play" internet retailers like Amazon.com. The first reason is that frankly, logistics has been brought to such a high art in this country that most companies weren't spending more than a few percent on logistics anyways. That is, for a $25.00 book, perhaps only about $1.00 was spent moving that book from the printers into a box waiting to be shipped by UPS on the loading docks of a mail order warehouse. So even if Amazon could perform it's logistics 20% more efficiently in order fulfillment at it's distribution warehouse, the best they could hope to squeeze out of shipping a $25.00 book is perhaps 10 cents, assuming 50% of the logistics costs is order fulfillment.
Meaning for Amazon to make a million dollars in profit from a 20% increase in efficiency in an already extremely efficient logistics situation, they would have to sell a quarter billion dollars worth of product.
Second, the venture money has realized that many of these "new economy businesses" are comprised of people who frankly think the "old farts" of the "old economy" have nothing to teach them. And so they screw up the very stuff we brought to a very high science in the 1970's! For example, I ordered four products from Amazon.com, and they charged me $10.00 shipping and handling--yet sent me four separate shipments from four separate warehouses (rather than consolidating the order and reducing shipping costs)--for a grand total of $22.00 in overall shipping costs, not counting handling and order picking costs! That is, Amazon, in thier "high-tech order fulfillment efficiency", lost $12.00 on my order because they can't get their logistics shit together!
Now perhaps this was an exceptional situation. And in one sense, I'm glad I got my order earlier than later. And I shouldn't be picking so heavily on Amazon, given that I own about $2K of their stock, and given that Amazon is actually better than most e-commerce sites.
But it does illustrate the fact that a lot of the "new economy gurus" out there are so full of bullshit they can't even pronounce logistics, much less deal with it. It's rather sad, given the fact that the Santa Fe did research more than 30 years ago which shows that logistics can represent as much as 40% of the total operational costs of a typical manufacturing or distribution company. And having good logistics can represent savings of around 15% up to 50% of the overall logistics costs--which for a company the size of Amazon represents hundreds of millions in overall operational costs.
And that's one of the biggest things the "old farts" bring to the table: about 10 to 30 years of experience on the logistics of order fulfillment, manufacturing, redistribution, and all those other things that can quite frankly mean the difference between making a good profit and declaring bankrupcy.
It appears that people are kind of missing the point of what the increasingly easy access to rapid content distribution is doing to our society.
I think everyone here ought to reread Alvin Toffler's famous book THE THIRD WAVE, released in 1980. He said that the rapid improvements in communications technology will break the cycle of people depending on a few sources of information from large, centralized media companies--the "demassification" of mass media.
The fact we have rapid growth of specialized magazines, newspapers, 70-plus channel cable TV systems, 200-plus channel personal satellite TV receivers, and the explosive growth of the commercial Internet and its ability to cater information to almost any need (look at the rise of everything the Drudge Report to even Slashdot) means that most people have the ability to get information from a variety of sources that would not have been imaginable even ten years ago.
And the Internet allows us to trade information and goods at a pace that is also unimaginable ten years ago. The rise of Napster has heavily upset the whole idea of "massified" distribution of music through our record companies, and the success of eBay has allowed anyone with a computer to trade any physical good without using a middleman.
In short, the rise of the commercial Internet has given what the Institutional school of economics calls increased choice, because we are no longer dependent on a few choices in terms of buying and selling goods. And our society can barely keep up with the change.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Change or die.
Jon, please don't change.
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-- Slashdot sucks.
Whatever their commonality as members of the Open Media, the differences in these emerging sites are striking. Open Media embraces interactivity -- they reflect ideas, commentary and information from a wide range of sources, especially their readers. They don't merely provide the occasional link to other sites on the Web, as traditional sites.
Of course "Open Media" sites are interactive... thats half the fun! However, this is all they provide, since open media sites DO NOT provide news. Katz continues:
They [Open Media Sites] are almost totally disconnected from the mainstream political and media system -- the network newscasts, major newspapers, TV talk shows and political events that dominate conventional, closed media. Such subjects rarely surface on Open Media sites.
This is an outright lie. CNN and the New York Times, for example, are two top closed media journals. On any given day, I'm apt to see articles from their sites referred to on slashdot. The issues that they discuss are precisely the issues for discussion on sites like this one. We happen to use /. as a filter, but we conect to the same "closed media" sources.
"Open Media" will never supplant traditional media. Traditional news outlets have something that "Open Media" can never match --- reporters, and lots of them. These reporters are the people who make it there work to relate to us the happenings of the world, and they will remain for us the primary source of information for a long time.
I strongly dislike and do not enjoy the articles written by Jon Katz, they are like a regular article, minus the relevant information, minus the interesting information, injected with buzzwords and "geek propaganda."
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I strongly agree with you. So, why not a poll?
Look, if we really believe in the UberGeekdom that Jon promotes, we geeks should have the right, nay, the duty, to vote him down.
And, if we just think that we're not in favor of his writing, perhaps because it reminds us of the worst excesses of the Bulwer-Lytton contest "It was a dark and stormy night...", we should still get our say.
That said, I don't think casting aspersions on the man due to any perceived gender attraction is proper. For all I know, I'd like the guy if I met him in person, it's the writing and the twisting of the truth that I object to.
[sigh, here goes another 20 mod points
Will in Seattle
Saying it's just about young vs. old makes about as much sense as saying its white vs. black (after all most of the stuff Katz is raving about is the domain largely of young white males).
Even the phrase "Old Fart" is a punk rock coinage.
Old Fart predates punk rock.
It even predates me (who is one). B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sometimes I get really tired of hearing how "big and exciting" the Internet has become. This isn't about the Internet, or Open Source, or e-commerce, or anything like that. We're experiencing a giant shift in our modern philosophy. Thirty years ago, who would have thought that this much information would be free?
This social transformation kicks ass, and I for one am really damn excited about the future.
The problem is that it is the old geezers who are running the Time magazine, and as such they know how to write, how to formulate an article, etc. What comes out of this Open Media is garbage because it's run by a bunch of kiddies who know nothing of content and quality. It pure-and-simple rubbish - quantity, and not quality.
Of course, this observation isn't as sensationalistic or otherwise hypeable as an Open Media article. There aren't any broad sweeping futuristic predictions in all of this. So, to make this sound more sensationalistic, I'd like to say that JonKatz is a horrible writer. Who taught you how to write?
As I recall, the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak were both post-adolescent 30 years ago when they started building their Apple computers. Also, Bill Gates was in a similar position when he went to work designing a DOS for the Altair.
Oh, I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't mention people that actually made money. :P
Having had a personal computer and been highly involved in the computer 'world' for the last 20 years, it has always been starkly apparent that the young are the main innovators. The only thing that has changed is that the general public is now aware of this, and finds it confusing somehow.
gitm
- The pen is mightier than the sword, the court is mightier than the pen, and the sword is mightier than the court.
Why are so many people here picking on old people? In one of the recent Napster articles, someone commented that the RIAA and the record companies were controlled by old, fat, white guys. Now, we are being told that "closed media" are run by aging (and "imperious") white men.
Is there something inherently wrong with being old and white (and male, too)? Yeah, "they don't understand us youngsters". And they're always generalizing and stereotyping people, too!
It reminds me of all those college comedy movies. That darn dean is always ruining all our fun. (like the simpson's episode where homer goes to college, too)
That said, I think it's time I changed my
Oh for chrissakes, what is this tripe?
Oh yeah, I remember: it's called Propaganda!
I spot Name-Calling, Glittering Generalities, Transfer, Plain Folks appeals (if the Plain Folks are geeks), Bandwagon and a bit of the old Unwarranted Extrapolation.
I can stretch and call Testimonial and Fear as well. There are few solid conclusions to be had but I can argue for Bad Logic in a couple spots.
I don't spot Euphemisms, but then again there are no negatives presented about Jon's point of view so I'm not surprised.
Do we really *need* propaganda on Slashdot?
This is crucial. Online media don't have people out there snooping around finding the news. News, remember, is something someone doesn't want published. All else is publicity. The print media have problems with this too. Notice how much you read in newspapers and magazines stems from a press release or press conference. But they at least realize it's a problem. And because reporters traditionally start out covering accidents, fires, and crimes, they learn how to get the facts in the field.
The problem is that online media doesn't have a revenue stream. So most of it is either advertising or psuedo-advertising ("Why you should upgrade to Windows 98 / buy vinyl pants / etc.) What we have online is people commenting on stuff others put online. Original material generally is either advertising, self-promotion, or online versions of offline content.
Micropayments have been floated as a solution to this since the Ted Nelson / Xanadu days. But nobody wants to pay micropayments. All the enthusiasm for micropayments is from the collecting side. Other than porno and Consumer Reports, there are very few successful pay sites.
I am putting the finishing touches on a GPL-like Free Media License and will be licensing an ongoing Novel and Movie Script (entitled Autonomy) under it shortly. (Just my luck! Now I really wish I hadn't been so lazy about uploading later drafts - I'll try to get the later drafts and additional chapters uploaded tonight - what I've uploaded of my story is weeks old at this point).
Open and Free Media Sites include
(If anyone has more, please respond here and I'll add them to my website as well!)
The goals of these efforts are similar, to promote the free exchange and collaboration of media and entertainment and counter the trends toward draconian copyright restrictions on popular culture.
My own effort takes a GNU GPL approach, others take different approaches (including a BSD-style approach in at least one case).
Katz rhetoric aside, I encourage everyone to check out these sites and consider releasing some of their own work under whatever license/philosophy most comfortably matches their own.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
oh well. i guess it's time to quit my rant. damn whippersnappers.....
-Superb0wl
-Superb0wl
It's not that I'm lazy....it's that I just don't care.
Ok, what wiseguy moderated this down as off topic? Being a reply to a pretty frivolous post I consider it on-topic ;p
I'm standing up for my AC brethren
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is intriguing, especially since one of the most frequently-cited reasons Microsoft is in the antitrust quagmire it's in now is because they were very late in getting lobbyists into Congress, presumably due to a hubris that their power over software would be enough. Is it possible that the technology-centric members of society will increasingly allow "the laws of the Net" to be their law, regardless of what their governments say? Will society someday be divided into the law-abiding neo-Luddites and the self-regulating technologists? (And most importantly, will William Gibson or Neal Stephenson publish another novel based on this premise?)
Does the term "Open Media" imply that we are welcome to take his rough drafts, make a few changes, and sell them as our own under the GPL?
If there is such a thing as "Old Fartism", what exactly does an Old Fartist believe?
Is there also a New Fartism? Or perhaps a Reformed Fartism?
Katz, does it bother you that your whole column is dripping with the same sappy sentiment as the opening lines of "The Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.