Why the Web Mustn't Become the New TV

An anonymous reader writes "This article argues that Rupert Murdoch's bid to own complete control of BSkyB is only part of an ongoing process to make the internet a totally 'linear' experience. The increase in the use of paginated content and the proliferation of video over transcribed interviews are, the author argues, part of a tidal shift from a browsable internet experience to a linear one that will move the user's experience of media from genuine choice to a series of locked-down 'information rides,' in order to re-secure advertising exposure. The author also writes, 'Current worries among publishing houses that magazines and newspapers will succumb to the digital written word on the internet are perhaps analogous to Victorian fears about mechanical horses taking over from real horses in the drawing of carriages. The point is being missed, the wrong fear being indulged.'"

Comments

Good thing

[Dunbal]

Rupert Murdoch is 79. He can't live forever.

Re:Good thing

[Pharmboy]

Doesn't matter. He can choose to make HIS websites as linear as he chooses. Of course, fewer and fewer people will visit them, but hey, he can do that if he chooses. A few media companies are making the same mistake that Detroit did a few decades ago: Telling the customer what they want, thinking they didn't have a choice but to be be spoon fed the dog food that Detroit was dishing out. Toyota, Nissan (Datsun) and Honda pretty much built an American empire on a foundation of Detroit's arrogance. That's one of the beauties of an open, capitalistic market: It is self-correcting with time.

Re:Good thing

[PopeRatzo]

There's already an Internet that has a liberal bias. It's called "The Internet".

Conservatism has been often described as a political philosophy that denies or tries to prevent change. Remember Buckley's famous line about conservatism standing at the portal of history, yelling "Stop!".

Well, that pretty much means that the Internet, by definition, is a liberal institution. A politically liberal institution, just by its very existence. Sure, there's lots of conservative stuff on the Internet, but the medium itself is liberal. Ever notice that whenever you see a political website change it's always from conservative to liberal and never the other way around (Little Green Footballs comes to mind)? And if you find a political blog that does not allow comments (moderated or not) it's always a conservative site? It's because the Internet by itself, just by its egalitarian nature, tugs to the Left. Yet television, by its nature, tugs to the Right. Ted Turner gave an interview not long ago where he talks about a lot of discussion went on at CNN at the end of his tenure to make it more Right-Wing. And in fact, in the past year it has indeed moved to the Right. If you look at the Sunday morning network news shows over the past 30 years, the guests have trended conservative by a 5-3 ratio. Because that's the nature of a one-way medium.

This is why some of the biggest corporations are working so hard to transform the Internet into a "linear" experience, where information is helpfully provided through the corporate filter and non-complying voices are marginalized or negated.

The clock is ticking, too. Without Net Neutrality laws very soon, the Internet is going to become a dystopic mutation of what we thought it might become a decade or two ago. It will become the Bizarro-world, opposite of an open forum where anyone can reach a wide audience without having to pass through the gates of money and power. It will do for the free exchange of ideas and information what Fox News has done for news.

In other words, it will become television, except you'll have to pay for it and watch commercials.

Today, I read about how the networks are trying to force the manufacturers of DVRs to disable the fast forward button during commercials (again). Think about this approach applied to your Internet.

In ten years, there's a good chance that when two or more of us meet, the main topic of conversation will be how great the Internet used to be. When it comes, the change will have happened so fast we will barely believe it. And remember, the Internet as we know it today was the happy accident of a technology becoming available before the richest and most powerful could "prepare it" for our consumption. Once it's gone, it will be gone forever.

"Free" markets, my ass.

Re:Good thing

[Local ID10T]

The New York Daily News [1919] didn't die with the death of Joseph Medill Patterson. The Daily Mail [1896] wasn't buried with Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, in 1922.

It would appear that "The Great Man" theory of history is revived whenever it is convenient.

I have never heard of any of them...

Re:Good thing

[careysub]

...

Meanwhile the so-called "liberals" seem intent to roll us back to Serfdom. It's as if they want to restore a 1500s-style political system in modern society, where the common man is treated like wards of the government. ...

Clearly you have no idea what governments and social conditions were like in the 1500s. "Wards of the government"?! Perhaps you have your education from Glenn Beck University?

Re:Good thing

[mcrbids]

I was a Libertarian for many, many years until I realized that no matter what you do, Libertarianism could never address the 'tragedy of the commons'. This is at the heart of ecology, global warming, clean water, public education, and too many other things to name.

By my reckon, the United States is the first modern 'first world' country to actually try Libertarianism, with the orgy of deregulation, privatization, and 'free market' gospel.

It's destroying us - our economy is crumbling along with our infrastructure and the corporate media has everybody with an average or less IQ convinced that socialism is why. Remember - there are a LOT more idiots than geniuses, and they can vote!

I'm a born-again, left leaning moderate now!

Re:Good thing

[Yaa 101]

>>>Yet television, by its nature, tugs to the Right.

Maybe in the UK but not in the US. The networks of ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC all lean left and it's been that way since the 1950s. The only right-leaning channel is FOX News and that's a recent development (it didn't pass 50% coverage until 2002). .

All these stations (and most opinion) are center to right wing from the point of view in my country, people from the US hardly know what is left wing due to the dominant right wing bias prevailing for centuries. Though even in my country the majority of people are shifting to the right.

Problem is that people have a choice to either dictatorial left wing or indifference right wing, both are extremely corrosive last 30 years, and since people mostly want to be left alone they choose for indifference.

Anyway, the shift towards centralized internet and away from internet on the edges is in full swing because the powers that be are more afraid and paranoid then ever in history, their paranoid is also fed by being able to measure more precise.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

> In ten years, there's a good chance that when two or more of us meet, the main topic of conversation will be how great the Internet used to be.

That's already happened!

Remember the internet before the masses discovered it? Long 'bout late 1980's? Compare to what it is now.

It's gone to shit. Ok, there is a lot MORE of it - but most of that more is astroturfing, advertizing, commercialization, spam, youtube comments that make even the stupidest usenet poster of the 80's seem like a rocket scientist, SEO sites, top sites, Farmville, and so on. The signal has been lost through the noise of several billion idiots.

The internet died in about 1996.

You're correct of course. You're just 14 years too late in the observation.

Re:Good thing

[Yaa 101]

I think that it is a great loss for Murdoch, like Berlusconi he is more interested in using his opinion channels to influence every day live and politics than making a direct buck from it.
10.000 people reading his bias is generating way less influence than 10.000.000 people doing that, personally this makes me happy not sad.

Re:Good thing

[jesset77]

Thus people end up joining a party they do not agree with, simply because they agree with the other one even less.

I guess that strategy makes sense if you actually vote. Do people still do that? Who are these people, and why would you want to associate with them if they put Bush in power twice in a row?

Put simply, no matter who you vote for you're voting for wealth and incumbent power. Only they can afford to purchase the mind share required to woo millions of JoeThePlumbers at a time. I view this as a flaw in the purely democratic (and democratic republic) system: requiring too much specialized education from the layman.

The layman is fleeced every election, whether he votes or not, because the basic outcome (wealthy, well connected servant of incumbent power) represents every one of the only viable options.

The layman needs his voice represented. The problem is the voice of the layman is "taxes are too high" and "we need more school teachers" and "why are we dicking around in the middle east?" which cannot be expressed by voting elephant or donkey. Involving another handful of parties would not help to directly address this problem.

I think the ideal solution would be to build a governmental system which, instead of democratic-republic, is democratic-deferred. This is honestly an idea I got from another slashdot commenter, some years back. :D

Everyone gets to vote. On every issue. At every level of government they participate in. From municipal to state to federal to international, both NATO and treaty. That's the basis of Pure Democracy, and one of it's major failures is because no one but a professional politician (even then, a staff of professional politicians) can even hope to remain educated on literally every political decision in the world. That's where the "deferred" part comes in.

It's simple. You may cast your vote on an issue or a law directly, but very few people will almost ever. Instead, most people will "defer" each of their votes by proxy voting through any other voter. You can easily defer all of your votes through another (one would expect trusted and more well informed) person, or choose rafts of votes to defer in different directions. The person you defer to may in turn choose to defer again. You can set your votes on autopilot, "Just defer to my parents until I check in again". And that's it.

Doing this replaces an installed representative with a fluid field of experts who must work hard to maintain their trust with the electorate. People and organizations will work hard to achieve their political ends, and the easiest way to do so will be to win the deferrals of the common people to add clout to their aggregate votes. One wrong move will lose you supporters instantly. INSTANTLY. No waiting for another term, no impeachment hassle, just a "LOL FAIL" and the public moves on to someone more competent or more honest.

This puts Joe the Plumber in a position where he doesn't need to understand every issue, he just needs to identify someone more educated in politics than he is who shares his values. Official "political parties" would no longer be needed, though they may help people identify causes in an unofficial capacity.

Put me in that system or something comparable and I'll vote. I'm not wasting effort casting votes into an antiquated, broken system.

Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[geek]

Move along, nothing to see. Seriously, don't like what Murdoch is doing? Click elsewhere. This isn't rocket science.

Hell you can even make a competitor to BSkyB if you like. The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational. No one is forcing you to watch/read. Get the fuck over it.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Calydor]

That would work if this was just being done by some out-in-the-sticks local newspaper.

Murdoch is rich and has influence. He has the political power to set a precedent for how to do things. Simply ignoring him is not going to change that one bit.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Microlith]

Until he streams lobbyists into Congress and starts burning cash on attack ads. Remember, in America men like Murdoch have more rights and influence with the government than you do. The Supreme Court said so.

Murdoch and the rest of the Media industry don't like the two-way, interactive nature of the web. They hate it, in fact, because it lets people ignore them.

Hell you can even make a competitor to BSkyB if you like.

I know, it's so easy to jump into the business of being a satellite media service company. Real easy.

The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational.

Nah, Murdoch deserves all the shit he catches. I'm sure he'd not blink at killing everything you like about the internet if it served him in some way.

No one is forcing you to watch/read.

Of course not, but it's a shit deal to have only the options of "Murdoch controlled media" and "nothing," which is really how he wants it.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Zocalo]

Murdoch is rich and has influence. He has the political power to set a precedent for how to do things.

Yes, because his attempts to use his wealth, influence and political power to get everyone else in the News business to erect a pay wall in front of their websites is working out really well. So well, in fact, that he's even stopped going on about it himself lately after his own trial ended in a dramatic fall in readership.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[interkin3tic]

The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational. No one is forcing you to watch/read. Get the fuck over it.

If an idiot is standing on the street corner spewing lies and no one listens to him, then you can just ignore it and it's not a problem. If a significant portion of your country and voters start believing in it, that's mainly a problem with your country, yes, but it's no longer in the realm of "just ignore it and it won't be a problem." Murdoch's lies are affecting US policy. He's having a substantial impact, increasing partisan politics, preventing Washington from doing -anything-, encouraging ignorance, pushing us towards more of a police state, and distracting people while our rights get sold to corporations.

I'll get the fuck over it when he's dead along with his whole propaganda machine, when most people who watch fox news and believe the BS voluntarily give up the right to vote, when Washington has fixed every problem they've created, and when large corporations stop trying to neuter the internet.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[digitig]

You sound like Luddites. Like this quote from the article:

"To a certain extent this is all reminiscent of the furore in the sea-change from practical to digital newspaper production in London's Wapping in the early 1980s, engendering protracted but ultimately futile strikes from the pre-digital technicians who were made jobless by new, computerised automation of magazine and newspaper production."

You cannot stop progress simple because you don't like it. The horsewhip makers were laid-off when cars took over, and so too were these pre-digital technicians.

So lets get this straight. Reducing the internet to the type of linear media that existed before the web is "progress" that cannot be stopped. Continuing to take advantage of the non-linear nature of the web and building on it is "Luddite". Er, well, keep taking the dried frog pills.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

>>>when most people who watch fox news and believe the BS voluntarily give up the right to vote

You believe the shit on democrat-leaning MSNBC. How are you any better? (rolls eyes) I can't believe you'd even suggest such an anti-democratic idea as saying FOX News viewers should not be allowed to vote. Here's a thought: Maybe you could do what FDR did in the 40s and round-up the Americans you don't like, and send them to concentration camps? That's how FDR stopped people from voting, simple because they had asian grandparents or parents.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[voidstin]

Thank you for proving the parent's point.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

Ya know - it helps if you read the actual bills your Democrat Congress passes.

For example the ability of the FBI to demand copies of your cellphone bills/locations without warrant? It's in the recently-passed Financial Reform bill. I've seen the language in the bill myself.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[apoc.famine]

Well, it seems the rest haven't heard how badly it failed - my hometown newspaper had an ad-supported online edition for years and years. A week or so ago they paywalled it.

I'm wondering how long it will take them to realize that only a dozen or so people visit their website every day now. It's not a large paper, and the bulk of their readership are 50+. If they're going to paywall, they might as well just get off the internet. I highly doubt it's worth keeping an internet presence for the money generated by 1 & 7 day subscriptions.

All Paths Are Taken

[SuperKendall]

The increase in the use of paginated content and the proliferation of video over transcribed interviews are, the author argues, part of a tidal shift from a browsable internet experience to a linear one

And the rise of features like Safari Reader (and Firefox equivalent from which it was born), along with video heavily annotated and searchable also mean the web is moving to a totally non-linear, take it as you please kind of mechanism.

Both things are true, the web can and will take all possible paths. If people do not like confinement than overly narrow paths will grow dusty with disuse over time, but even if they mostly like it the other paths will remain for those that want to take them.

I never did see the point in freaking out about any super-powerful titan "taking over the web" since there is no web to take over, there's just islands that people can build up as high as they like in order to entice people to visit.

Re:All Paths Are Taken

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Especially the video section.

Youtube is heavily annotated, from both manual annotations to automatic speech parsing algorithms, language translation getting better all the time, and even some basic structure recognition for content in video.
This is only Youtube, admittedly, but no doubt in the years that it will take for video to become the centerpiece of online content, this stuff will be trivial to implement for the average person.

And as you said, nobody will ever really take over the web, even Google.
Google have a really high chance of snuffing it by years end pretty damn easily if they pulled some wrong moves out of that magic hat. Who knows, they could pull out the bomb.
As does any other company, more so at this moment in time if they venture in to high-bandwidth content like video.

All i can say is i have cancelled my Sky subscription anyway. I only used it for a small handful of channels, all which have slowly rotted in to awfulness over the past year, especially Sky1. The tool in control of that has ruined the channel for me now.
And if this goes through, i certainly wouldn't want to give any of those people any money.

I'm just glad there are actual competitors to Sky now. Whether it is Virgin, FreeSat, BT Vision, even Freeview, or the many others, Sky is slowly losing ground.
Just a shame that all the content producers on so many of the independent channels are going to suffer the most in this. Tough business...

Meaningless peice

[Sycraft-fu]

While I agree that maybe big media companies would like to make the web a linear experience, they can't. Reason is the web is too large to control. The barrier or entry is extremely low. As such there are sites all over the damn place, that do whatever they please. There is just no way for a media company to control all this. They can take everything they control and make it suck, but all that'll do is make people go elsewhere.

Because of the distributed, low cost nature of the web it is just not really possible for one group to control it. With TV, sure they can do that to a large degree. Not only are TV programs inherently linear, but running a TV station is expensive. It isn't like someone can say "Ya I think I'll set one up." Even if you had a TV station, you have to deal with contracts to get on the distributors, and then of course produce content people want.

None of that is a problem with the web, other than content. You can get a website for $10/month or less with a reasonable host, and probably free if you sniff around a bit. That's all it takes and your site is now on the same level with every other, there is no barriers for people to get to it. The only question then is producing things people want to see. Also people like some extremely cheap things on the web. Look at Maddox's page. It is nothing but his writings and drawing. No big budget productions, nothing fancy, but people like it.

That is just an environment big media can't control. This goes double since the closest things to gate keepers there are is search engines, and they are run by companies way bigger than big media. Fox isn't going to scare Google or Microsoft. They'll keep running their search how they want.

I'm not at all concerned. The web will continue to be a massive collection of any and everything. Different people/groups/companies can make parts of the web that are however they like, and as many people are as interested can go and enjoy it. Maybe some people want a real locked down, linear web experience and if Fox provides one they may enjoy it. But don't worry about them forcing it on everyone, they just don't have the ability.

Re:Meaningless peice

[s0litaire]

Until 2 tier access comes into play and "Net Neutrality" goes out the window then you'll be stuck with what ever "Howling Mad" Murdoch thinks you need to see...

Sorry, Murdoch hater, you've been outvoted.

[tepples]

Seriously, don't like what Murdoch is doing? Click elsewhere.

Even if you don't like it, there are enough other people who like it that Mr. Murdoch has gained influence over countries. I don't like what Mr. Murdoch is doing to U.S. politics by having built the Tea Party protests into a nationwide movement, but FOX News Channel has attracted enough people to this reactionary movement that it has a significant chance of setting policy that can cause me to be imprisoned or die despite my vote against it.

Re:Sorry, Murdoch hater, you've been outvoted.

[KingFrog]

Well, you've finally figured it out. The REAL purpose of everything that happens is to cause you to be imprisoned. Can someone mod him "Funny" or "Dangerously deluded" and get it over with?

Re:Sorry, Murdoch hater, you've been outvoted.

[tepples]

The REAL purpose of everything that happens is to cause you to be imprisoned.

Changes to the law cause people who follow the old law to go to jail for not following the new law.

Videos on websites...

[Bert64]

I hate it when i go to read a news story, or a howto or something else online and it's only available in video form...

Especially technical guides, where a howto would let me cut and paste but a video won't...

Videos vs Text

[Thyamine]

I can agree with the complaints about some of this at least. I hate when I go to read an article and instead its a video piece/interview/etc about the topic. I can't just open it and read at my discretion, not to mention how almost every video link seems to start with some commercial. Sure, you need to make money, but you just lost any interest I have. I do fear that this will become what the web is. I also can't be doing much else, I have to stop and engage directly with the video instead of opening interesting sounding articles that I can peruse anytime I want. I suppose I could re-watch the video or pause/rewind/play but that's not what I'm after.

Re:Videos vs Text

[Phurge]

totally agree. plus a video usually takes two minutes to tell me something I could read in 20 seconds.

Re:lol

[poetmatt]

bingo. this will never happen, nobody wants TV to be equal to internet, and the demand is nonexistent. It's not too different than 3d tv, which has also been underwhelming.

14 years too late

[hessian]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Sorry, internet: this is your new audience.

Their purchasing determines what is profitable on the internet.

Their attention span determines the type of information that will be profitable.

You, the old school user, are maybe 1% of the net. You are irrelevant except as a niche market.

They are comfortable with TV, "rides" and planned, advertising-funded adventures in alternate realities to distract from their depressing existences as corporate serfs.

They (or rather, what they will buy) will determine the content of the internet. Not you.

What do they like?

* Television
* Fast food
* Coca-Cola
* Movies like X-Men
* Disco
* Corn dogs

That is your future, internet. You are only ruled by the nerds at night.

Re:14 years too late

[FroBugg]

Are these the same kids that just won't get off your lawn?

Re:14 years too late

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kinda funny that "Elitism" is mentioned in the See Also section of the article you linked ;)

I was born in 1985. My ex-gf was born in 1990. The first consumer ADSL plans in Germany were offered by the Deutsche Telekom in 1999. When she was nine years old. We barely know what it's like to live without internet access. Today's teenagers even less so: they grow up with this stuff. They watch videos on YouTube, share their statuses on Facebook Mobile and listen to music on LastFM. Most of the people I know don't even have a TV at home, and when they do, they only switch it on when they want to watch certain show they like. It's completely natural for us/them to selectively consume media and I think it will be very difficult change that behaviour (especially if it was picked up at a young age).

it's the author that's "missing the point"

[PJ6]

"Locking down" information is like trying to make water not be wet. Also, "taking away choice" on the internet is a great way to get completely ignored.

Re:lol

[NoMaster]

No, you're missing the point. They don't want TV to be equal to the internet; they want the internet to be the equivalent of TV . Demand - at least, what the existing inhabitants demand - also has very little to do with it; they're experts at steering the wants and demands of the incoming population by supply-side manipulation. They've also got the temperament to wait until the tide turns their way, the experience to know that it almost inevitably will, and the deep pockets to stumble around making expensive mistakes until it does.

What, you think /. or other similar crowsourced-ish news/blog sites are the future? No, if you want a glimpse at the future, it's more Fox and Gawker Media than anything else.

/. you are to blame

[wen1454]

The web has been getting more linear for a long time. Greedy businessmen are only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is the emphasis on recentness. The most recent articles are placed first creating a linear organization. Blogs, /., twitter, reddit are all part of this trend. In the past content was more likely to be organized hierarchically (e.g. most personal websites) or with the most recent comments first (message boards and newsgroups). The consequence of this trend is that now articles are only viewed and discussed for about a day after they are posted. In the past discussions would drag on for weeks and months (hence Godwin’s law), and 6 month old content on your website was as likely to be read as 1 day old content.

Re:i'm relieved

[genner]

to learn that when the republicans sweep back into power next month that the FBI won't be able to get that bill through congress. Republicans would never let it happen, right?

NO they won't. They'll kill the bill and replace it with something worse.

Re:Japan's Golfcart & Exotic philosophy != car

[endymion.nz]

I hope you realise that the rest of the world mocks you for driving giant behemoth cars around. I've driven a few fast rear wheel drive Toyotas and Nissans.

They're light - most of them are under 1600kg, MANY of them are under 1300kg.

They have independant rear suspension since the late 70s - GM was still putting leaf springs on Corvettes up until the second most recent model.

Many have front double wishbone suspension - the Toyota Supras have double wishbone suspension front and rear.

Their motors are the double-overhead-cam type, often with variable valve duration. Does GM still use pushrods in the LS3? They did in the LS1 and 2.

So basically, I will take a 1983 Toyota Corolla GT-S, or a 1989 Nissan Skyline GTS-t, or a 1998 Toyota Supra JZA80 over any American car that I could not immediately swap for one of these. :)

Re:lol

[gronofer]

You are suggesting that sites like Slashdot will disappear because its readers will prefer to watch streaming video from big media conglomerates? I can't see why this would happen. The Internet has been competing with TV since it became widely available in people's homes. Using the Internet to deliver the TV streams won't change anything.

Re:Interesting moderation

[whoop]

Or, perhaps, it was moderated like that because it contains nothing substantive. A generic, "you Glenn Beck lover" jab should be considered insightful? He starts off asking a question, a good start, but doesn't back it up with examples or something to further discussion. That comment is no more useful than "You are poo."

Re:lol

[Omestes]

Murdoch wants to make money, and will abandon any plan that proves itself sufficiently unprofitable. Business men are tiresomely predictable where their wallets are concerned.

Maybe. But there are plenty of examples of failed business models churning along, long after they die. Can we look at music industry, or, increasingly, the newspaper industry, please? Big businesses are slow moving, conservative, behemoths, they love the status quo, and fear new models (for the most part). Murdoch wants to turn the internet into something he already knows, and profits wildly on, television. This is like his moronic attempt at pay-walling his news outlets, he wanted to make online content EXACTLY like paper content.

It doesn't matter if this really works or not. Ideally the motives are profit, but the general motives are more psychological. CEOs are people, and people are prone to faulty motives, and the lack of long term planning and foresight. In the long term this might be abandoned, but in the short term they will fight for it, even if the rest of the population thinks its futile. Again, I will reference the various other media associations who are fighting an unpopular fight to maintain the status-quo, even if that fight is pretty much doomed in the long term.

I'm sick of people painting capitalism as a purely rational exercise. It isn't, and never will be. It is a concept run by people, and people are shockingly non-rational.

I doubt there is a conspiracy. It just is a bunch of people acting like people.