Slashdot Mirror
Running To The Internet (California Chapter) Two
I love the part of a book tour when you get to San Francisco, and leave Washington and New York far behind. It feels like home. In San Francisco, you never have to explain what the Web is or defend its existence to the angry Luddites dug into corporations, Academe, media and politics.
Media organizations sometimes invite me to appear or speak, under the guise of talking about my non-media book "Running To The Mountain." But of course what they really want is to talk about is the Net, in the hopes I can explain it, tell them how to make money off it (I can?t) or promise that it will go away. More often, they simply want to snarl about it.
I have nothing but bad news for them. The Web is like fire, I say, like the creation of tools. Stand in the way and you?ll be consumed.
At one appearance in New York last week, I was talking about Linux and Open Source. I was telling a bunch of slack-jawed media executives about the idea that media should be commonly owned, improved and freely shared. I was also telling what I thought was a happy tale of a woman from Ohio on ICQ Chat who put up a Web page offering "lovebeams," e-messages to make the world a cheerier place, along with "free stuff on the Web," and who got 500,000 hits in a couple of days.
Here, I said, were examples of a genuine revolution in information - people making, sharing and improving their own media.
In traditional publishing, journalism or broadcasting, I said, editors and producers have to fight for each book or newspaper that gets sold, each viewer that tunes into a broadcast. On the Web, a new participant named Nancy who?s bummed out by the negative vibes coming out of Washington can pull in a half-million visitors without leaving her living room. Which medium is rising?
"That proves nothing," snapped one veteran broadcaster dismissively, "except that people on the Web have nothing better to do." Another member of the group, a reporter on leave to write a book, joined in. "They always say young people are abandoning papers and network news shows. They always come back. Because they have to, they need us."
Guess what?, I told him. They never had the Net and the Web before. This time, they aren?t coming back.
Thus far, the Interactive Book Tour has taken me to Washington, Boston, New Jersey, New York and, this week, San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago. Slashdotters have appeared at two book signings and on three call-in radio shows. I start almost every interview with the story of how my book, a mid-list non-fiction memoir dissed by my publisher?s Sales Force as something they "didn?t get," went into four printings via linking on the World Wide Web, and after being excerpted on a Linux geek site.
At every appearance, from Boston?s "The Connection" on WBUR Radio to a luncheon at the Freedom Forum?s New York office, the talk turns to the Web. I can?t stop talking about it myself. I talk about Open Source, about the ferocious interactivity on sites like Slashdot, about the new kinds of messaging systems on ICQ and Hotlines. About Stinky.com I have a riff about MP3?s as a metaphor and warning as the revolution in information gathering steam on the Net is heading for most forms of creative media. And look, I tell them, what Jesse.net did for Jesse Ventura, and what e-trading is doing to the stock market.
The Web, I say, is about empowerment and choice. Interactivity isn?t a marketing tool, it?s one of the most intense political ideas in media. Everywhere online, people are demanding, making and getting more choices, pressuring institutions and corporations, breaking the choke-hold government and business has always had on information.
But usually, my listeners don?t like it or don?t buy it. Their eyes glaze, or they yawn, or they angrily disagree, wondering just who exactly will pay attention to politics, read books, pass budgets, set a coherent agenda, protect civilization. In San Francisco and northern California, home of the computer industry and birthplace of much of what is now the Net and the Web, it?s a different trip. They already know all this stuff I?m talking about, and more. The conversation starts from a high conscious about the Net and Web and moves on.
First excerpted in Slashdot, my book is itself something of a Web baby. My publisher remains bewildered by the books sold via linked Websites. Now in its fourth printing, "Running To The Mountain" has drawn an amazing amount of online traffic (my e-mail address is on the book jacket.) I?ve heard from men and women who have taken similar retreats or yearn to, from old high school classmates, and a former girlfriend, from the head of a giant publishing conglomerate, from a score of writers curious about how to reach their audiences via the Web.
Several mornings a week, a group of Trappist monks in a southeastern U.S. monastery, forbidden to speak aloud but permitted by their Abbot to e-mail, gathers in an ICQ chat room, and sometimes I?m invited. They are devout followers and admirers of the late Trappist Thomas Merton, who inspired much of my book and the journey described in it. They are sending me preserves made in their community. They are hustling my book on the Web, linking it to other monasteries and Websites. They pray for me and encourage me to resist fatigue, cynicism and crass commercialism. They are something very new in the world, a convergence of technology, spirituality and community. As part of their ministry, they are a floating online support group -- a digital conscience, a celestial marketing force. Everywhere I talk about them, people ask me for their URL (I can only give it out with their permission).
I?m amazed that they would rush to the side of an avowedly non-religious person in this way. How, I wonder, can they even go online?
Simple, answers Brother Joseph. "We go online after morning prayers. We?ve been up for hours at 6 a.m. Here, we can minister without leaving out their cloistered life. I invite them to look at Slashdot, but they flee in shock. This doesn?t challenge our spirituality, it allows us to practice it..."
Every turn seems to lead to the Web. My talking about these monks on a Boston radio station sparks a story in the Boston Globe about technology and spirituality.
I appear on the Today Show with my yellow Lab Julius (Julius enjoyed the limo sent by NBC to fetch us, and some of the bran muffins in the green room) sitting at my feet. By the time I get home from New York, a half dozen different a dozen different dog lovers and kennel clubs have e-mailed, inquiring about his lineage and disposition.
Slashdotters pop up almost everywhere, watching, reading, e-mailing, critiquing, offering kind words and constructive criticism: next time answer the question this way. Lurkers regularly apologize for flamers and ill-tempered geeks; I tell them that no apologies or explanations are needed or necessary. No place could be friendlier or more supportive. My book owes its life to the people there. In a way, it was born here. They still ask me if I?ve gotten online with my new Linux box yet; I admit I haven?t had much chance, but will return to the dread project once the book is ended. They remind me that I must. A bunch have arranged to come see me in San Francisco, Capitola and Mountain View, Calif. A few are meeting me in Seattle for coffee or breakfast.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Jon's best work is when he drops the pretension and just writes about what he sees.
:) In bucket loads.
I get a lot more from his articles when he doesn't try and teach me but just lets me see through his eyes.
When are we gonna get more of his Linux travails? I'd like more of this stuff as well. I'm so deep into the geek world I'm starting to have problems explaining this stuff to my family and co-workers.
A peek into other points of view is more valuable to us than a thousand articles telling where you think it's all going or feebly trying to stir up controversy. We do that by ourselves
Jon: This is the first article of your's I've read word for word since the Linux installs. More of this PLEASE.
--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)
Now that customizable Slashdot is here, maybe we'll see if the ability to filter by author is going to cut down on the people burning crosses on Katz's lawn (figuratively speaking...) :)
By the way, Jon, you've got that problem again with the single quotes turning out as question marks, just in case it had escaped your notice.
I wonder what these people who say that people will keep flocking back to them are thinking. Seems to me, like people have been abandoning old forms of media for new ones for quite a while. Newspapers for radio, radio for television, etc... While nothing ever eliminates the old forms altogether, didn't television enormously cut into radio's popularity when all things were said and done?
Shawn Asmussen
Mr Katz can no longer help the fact that he's written a book, and that it has become more successful from web exposure. What he can do now is meet and talk to hundreds of people, varying from the extremely non-technical, to Slashdotters. He is now our Dan Rather, reporting to us the "net effect" of the technology that fascinates us. He is on our team. A few years ago there was a great need for someone to write an open-source unix. These days, there is a need for well-spoken, technologically-positive people to get out there and "spread the word". You may not care about Jon Katz's words, but others apparently do, and that's a very powerful opportunity (for us as well as him) that shouldn't be squandered.
The internet is far too over-rated for my taste. It may bring some new things into existence, but to say that it'll neccessarily alter other aspects of life is foolish. Do people really need interactive TV? TV on demand sure, but you don't need the internet for that. Does the internet obliterate the need for proper grammer and good journalism? I think not. Wired.com, nor slashdot, nor any other strictly internet source even comes close to providing the 'news' that I need. While the internet has most definetly facilitated open source growth, I don't believe that it is going to surplant commercial/propietary software and time soon. I wish people would re-evaluate the internet, and challenge these future seers assertions. Just my
If you've never been in a room with traditional media types, some of this message won't be as funny, but for me his description of the slack jawed or angry response was right on the numbers. I recently heard about a media campaign (targeted at college students) where the "do it by the numbers" media group spent about $100K in advertising and got just seven "form submit" responses. The same company placed about $10K with a smaller Internet marketing firm and got a huge hit count and about 100X as many responses. Really pissed off a few non-'Net guys in suits, let me tell you.
Anyway, some complain that Jon gets kind of long winded sometimes. I say let him -- he's out there telling the rest of the world that this revolution is not only coming, it is here and it is fun.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Urrrrgh. I hate people like this. How did this moron find his way to Slashdot? What pisses me off about people who like to trivialize the Internet is thest they NEVER know what they are talking about.
And re: news, which FallLine is tacitly assuming to be the main function of the Internet, I have gotten all mine from the Web for the past two years. I have no clue what he is talking about. Not only is there exponentially more information than I could ever hope to get from traditional media sources, I can get it when I want it, how I want it, and in as much or little depth as I desire. I make a daily circuit on the web actively gleaning information relevant to me from various sites. This may include not only tertiary sources but primary and secondary ones as well. I can get all the news I need in a liberal tone far more palatable to me than any traditional media. The only thing I can figure about people like FallLine is that they actually like being spoon-fed bite-sized morsels of information at regular intervals by an attractive and well-dressed robot who enunciates very clearly. Which brings me to *my* take on the real functions of the Internet and the differences between it and traditional media, which are to facilitate intellectual participation in information rather than acceptance of it "as-found" - communication with text - and of course interpersonal communication.
Sound about right, Katz?
I do think you imply in your first post that news is the most significant purpose of the Internet, or perhaps the most useful one. And I'm not sure I see what argument you're making with your "simply another communications medium" comment - implying perhaps that all communications media are created equal and this one is not especially differentiated from the others. I think that's a disingenuous assumption. The Internet is more versatile and far-reaching than any communications technology that has come before in terms of the types of information it can deliver and to whom, far more so than print media, radio, or TV. That's a pretty solid fact. And as I was saying, the ways people interact with the information on the Internet differ significantly from the ways people interact with "old media" - they have the option of either saying "uh-huh" or changing the station or channel or turning the page. Allow me to illustrate. Perhaps you and I both watched the Academy Awards on Sunday. Perhaps you got fed up with the ebulient Roberto Benigni about the time he was climbing over people to get his statue for Best Foreign Film and flipped over to CNN. Perhaps I got a kick out of him and stayed to watch the whole show. That's about the sum of the comment we can make on the Academy awards. No one asks us whether we think Roberto Benigni deserves an award, or whether Whoopie looks good in feathers. Then, this morning you and I both read an article by someone named Jon Katz. You disagreed with its premise - then instead of leaving you said so. Not to youself, but to hundreds, maybe thousands of people who will see your comment. Probably the author himself will see it. I saw it. Now, I have been following Jon Katz around the web for some time now and am rather fond of the guy, I've even emailed him a couple times (try emailing Whoopie). I wanted to respond to the article too, in support of it, and did so by flaming you. So a conversation started. Every damn person that reads the original article can read what we have to say about it if they so desire. Try getting yourself as big a potential audience as the emcee at the Academy Awards. You don't think that changes anything? Some people argue that it doesn't really because Katz's article is still at the top of the page. Well, do what so many other people have done - make your own page. The personal website is not dead, and those which have had some effort put into them and provide content people want to look at can get some pretty respectable hit counts. Regarding the personal site, unquestionably the web has become more commercialized and centered around corporate mega-sites (go.com anyone?) but the fact that people *can* publish pictures of their cat to the entire world ensures without any reasonable doubt that they *will.* And by golly other cat lovers will surf in and coo at how cute Fluffy is.
Back to news again, you're still looking at it from an extremely narrow angle. Let me explain again. Perhaps I am getting some of the same AP newsfeed you are, but from there I can go to any of a million supplementary sources and take my understanding of that piece of news in any direction I want. *I* control the way I experience it. The way to use the Internet effectively to acquire information is not to visit one site, but to travel, to surf. Wired News (not actually a general news publication BTW, but focused on particular types of news) may give you an article summarizing an issue, then give direct links to company websites, etc. where in many cases the ordinary reader can get further information straight from the horse's mouth - from the newsmakers.