Embracing Old Media

You gotta love Jeff Jarvis. No one - and I do mean no one - has imbibed more of the blogger's Kool-Aid than the man with the scraggly beard, the relentlessly centrist, every-waking-though-a-post media maven who has become a one-man XML empire unto himself.

Empire indeed. Because seemingly, and surprisingly, Jeff Jarvis has recently embraced the old media rules - the "I write, you read, and you'd better like it" rules of the old media world he pretends to despise. Just look at the site, folks. BuzzMachine has become the online equivalent of what Ed Koch used to say about middle class neighborhoods in New York resisting development: it's last one in, shut the door.

In a matter of months, the Jarvis site has morphed from a sloppy, loose, dog-eared, open-sourced mess of a brilliant conversation into a neat, tidy and heavily-guarded little money-maker.

Exhibit one: trackbacks are gone. Jeff got his; the hell with the thousands of bloggers just getting started who might want the lone click-through a trackback provides.

Exhibit two: the blogrolls are gone. See exhibit one.

Exhibit three: the MSNBC screen capture. Yup, citizen's media spoken here.

Exhibit four: the tagroll. It's obsessive, and it represents only one man's organization of the information on the site. Jeff's.

Now, I'm not one to call out another blogger just for the hell of it. But Jarvis is more than your average blogger: he's one of a handful of leaders of what purports to be a movement, a reformation of the "failed" world of mainstream American media, particularly journalism. Hell, Jeff's obsession and example helped get many of us into blogging. So why is Jeff Jarvis essentially closing up shop?

By the standards of the average Joe's blog, everything about BuzzMachine is just peachy - it's a fine blog, well-written, and certainly a must-read for media types (I'm on the feed every day).

What grates, however, is rampant blog triumphalism competing with entrenched blog triumphalist. Jeff's site used to be a great community; now it's just Jeff's great site.

I wonder if he just got sick of Kool-Aid?

UPDATE: Well, Jeff is royally pissed. Took it personally. I'm sorry for that (and for claiming incorrectly that BuzzMachine had removed trackbacks; didn't have 'em - but should). Though I do cop to the charge of snarkiness, this was not a personal attack - just a criticism of, well, a major media critic.

My tone may have been better, however: I may have focused on some little, stupid site details rather than the big picture. That is to say: I buried the lead. It's the blog triumphalism I resent, as I've said before; it's the idea of a very few media insiders that everything we do or say or invent is rife with "revolutionary" repercussions for society. The "we" vs. "them" - old media, new media - faux divide is grating in the extreme.

Luckily, Chervokas stepped up and actually made the argument I only hinted at with snark (seems we've worked this tag-team before) so I'll quote him here from comments, 'cos it's good stuff.

Does "citizen media," what we used to call, back in the day, "user generated content," represent a substantial challenge to the business structure of major media companies? Yes and no. A decade ago, when Tom and I launched @NY and began preaching that user generated content would change media forever, we (I don't me just Tom and I but the whole industry) believed that super narrow niche media and communities of interest would result in a new paradigm in advertising that would involve super premium pricing for highly targeted ad delivery, thereby changing media as an industry from a mass medium to a medium of the masses (I believe it was Tom who first coined that latter phrase). The medium of the masses has come to pass. The new financial paradigm has not. Instead the companies that make money from advertising on blogs and homemade websites, companies like Google, do so by aggregating mass audiences and charging the least premium kind of prices to be found in the ad business--direct marketing style prices based on response rates. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Jeff (snarkily) dismissed Jason with a regal wave of his commenting hand, but Chervokas came back with more:

I really do think there's a self-perpetuating hype avalanche that occurs when media focuses on media; and the net result is the overstatement of the importance of stuff like blogs--the stuff we media pros are surrounded by but which the broader public experiences very differently. And I think Tom's criticism that you've fallen pray to the momentum of that avalanche is something you might at least consider, however snarkily he might have expressed it.

It's like the Howard Dean effect. Young political reporters fell in love w/ Dean because the webcentric Meetup-driven nature of his campaign seemed novel and cool. As a result Dean got a lot of unskeptical feel-good press which gave the impression that he was the next big thing. But, as it turned out, when election time came, no one was there to pull a lever for him. The surging Dean campaign was a figment of the imagination of an unskeptical press dazzled by Internet cool.

Maybe I'm a curmudgeon, maybe I'm a contrarian, but the more people tell me that something is cool, the more skeptical I am of the whole enterprise. That skepticism might have cost me money as an entrepreneur, but it always stood me in good stead as a journalist.

Read the full exchange in comments here; I hope Jeff posts a thoughtful response. He's a thoughtful guy. But my favorite comment in this little contretemps came from MediaCurmudgeon over at BM:

Jeff–You’re too sensitive and defensive. Don’t dignify the dope with a mention.

Who you calling "dope," curmudgeon?

Comments

[steve-o]

Jealous?

[Jeff Jarvis]

1. I never had trackbacks. They have been broken for quite a long time.
2. Blogroll gone because I'm busy trying to earn a living... because the blog is most certainly not a moneymaker.
3. Not on MSNBC now; never got paid for it; a citizen used.
4. Tags? Beats categories.
5. Who put the stick up your ass, man?
What grates here is the rampant and random rudeness.
Don't you get sick of the snark? I do.

[Morris]

You have every right to your opinion. I found Jarvis actually posting on his blog about your opinion (with snide remarks) really stupid. I think he has too much on his plate and is feeling a little, uh, snarky.

[Clyde Diddit]

every-waking-though?

Glass house, throwing stones?

[Trip]

I like the irony of Jeff Jarvis angrily posting, "Don't you get sick of the snark?"

Did you expect Jeff Jarvis to uphold some higher aesthetic standards? This is the guy who created Entertainment Weekly.

[Noel Guinane]

The posts he puts up are still interesting. The quality of the conversation is still there. He runs a "closed shop" only if he starts censoring conversation; deleting or editing comments he doesn't agree with. He doesn't do this. Attack him for something that really matters and your argument might have some merit.

[Tony Alva]

Posted at Buzzmachine as well...

Jeff/Tom,

Take it easy here. No need to escalate this matter. We don’t need an argument about the exsitance of weapons of mass snarking. As an avid reader of both these blogs, I have been on the receiving end of Tom’s snark in his comment section to be sure, but also know that he’s a good guy and credit to the blogging community, even if his anti-anything conservative rants can be redundant sometimes. I fully understand and except the “can’t take the snark, get out of the blog” aspect of My Dirty Life and Times. It’s a great read.

[Shawn Levasseur]

When the hell did no blogroll or trackbacks, plus the use of tags become the sign of arrogance?

If you want to show that Jeff's "Sold Out", or whatever it is you're trying to accuse him of, complain about what it is that's changed about his CONTENT, not how he packages it.

[chervokas]

There's plenty for which to criticize Jeff Jarvis, some of which Tom hits on the head in his post.

His characterization of Jeff's work as "every-waking-thought-a-post" certainly reflects my experience of reading Buzzmachine. Whether it reflects an egomaniacal self-absorption for which many people, validly, criticize the world of blogging, I can't say. I've only met Jeff once, years ago, for a brief time and he probably doesn't remember it. But certainly for myself, I found the sheer frequency of his posts (and the concomitent lack of depth to be found in his quickies) to be a trying experience for me as a reader, leading me to remove Buzzmachine from my Bloglines account months ago. I haven't missed reading Buzzmachine, nor have I thought a wit about it until Tom's post.

I also think that Jeff--like many media pundits--seems to have lost perspective and journalistic skepticism. What Tom calls "drinking the Kool Aid" here. The "importance" of blogging, hell, the importance of electronic news media is now, and has been for sometime, completely overblown by the people who are in the news media. The industrywide self-absorption, self-examination, and inevitably in the case of "new media" types, self-congratulation--has always been curious for an industry that has always prided itself on the skepticism of its approach to every other industry. Blogging just isn't that important. It doesn't touch enough people across the globe to represent a revolutionary cultural change. It doesn't employ people, put money in pensions, or provide services the way truely important industries do--from the automotive industry to the hospitality industry. And it appears largely to be the provenance of the same old demographic that has always comprised the "media elite"--white, male, middle-aged, over educated.

Does "citizen media," what we used to call, back in the day, "user generated content," represent a substantial challenge to the business structure of major media companies? Yes and no. A decade ago, when Tom and I launched @NY and began preaching that user generated content would change media forever, we (I don't me just Tom and I but the whole industry) believed that super narrow niche media and communities of interest would result in a new paradigm in advertising that would involve super premium pricing for highly targeted ad delivery, thereby changing media as an industry from a mass medium to a medium of the masses (I believe it was Tom who first coined that latter phrase). The medium of the masses has come to pass. The new financial paradigm has not. Instead the companies that make money from advertising on blogs and homemade websites, companies like Google, do so by aggregating mass audiences and charging the least premium kind of prices to be found in the ad business--direct marketing style prices based on response rates. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Furthermore, the biggest challenge that Internet media has posed, financially, to traditional news media has been online's ability to erode entertainment advertising. Once a consumer becomes a broadband access subscriber, that consumer never again looks in a newspaper for a movie time. It relates not at all to the news and journalism component.

I also believe that the usage of Internet media--from blogs to podcasts--by ex-news types represents nothing new in terms of modes of media--they consist of text reporting and radio shows, very recognizably old school in mode and manner. This is particularly true in the case of blogs by the likes of Jeff or of Tom and myself, all of whom are veteran professional journalists. 3D video games, massively multiplayer online emersive environments, now those are new media. This is old media on a new distribution platform. Worse, it's a distribution platform that has devalued the old skills. Writers, musicians, photographers all get paid less now than they did because of the rush of user generated content.

Yes, the two-way element--the conversation--is a bit of a new mode, but it seems to me more of a refinement of the two century old OP-ED and letters page than a wholely new experience.

I guess there are some things that ARE new. The quantity and immediacy of information that consumers of news information have access to because the technology has allowed everyone to report their own lives, the elimination of the gatekeeper in that case--that's a change not just of quantity but of kind. And that's been all to the good--whether it's getting first person accounts from disaster areas and war zones in real time, or getting some sense of the inner life of the culture in its own time from what kids post on their MySpace sites. Wikis strike me as a very compelling kind of global, open source, knowledge management that could have a profound impact on how we record and collect human history. But I understand the viceral snarky reaction Tom has to what he sees as new media triumphalism by bloggers like Jeff.

All that said, Tom apparently went a little hard on Jeff in slamming, say, the lack of trackbacks, which Jeff says he never used (he should, if he wants to put his traffic where his mouth is). But you know, if we ever get tired of snarkiness what will be left for we bloggers to do with our free time?

[Mike]

Well at least he created Entertainment Weekly all by himself, I heard he even printed the magazine in his garage...

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, I remember, Jason, and I'd say our conversation then was rather like your comment here now.

[chervokas]

Jeff-

As I remember we didn't really have much of a conversation, just chit chat over drinks at one of Gordon Gould's events. That was a particularly dark time for me personally so I'll stipulate that you may remember something about it that I don't.

I remember liking the experience of meeting you. I thought, "here's a smart guy, very knowledgable about and experienced in the media biz who really understands the changes afoot and who has a really cool job where he can do something about it." I was kinda envious of what seemed like a good opportunity at Advance. At the time I was in a collapsing situation at Primedia. I don't really remember but you may have expressed some frustration with your situation at Advance.

Anyway, when I heard about Buzzmachine I started reading it because I remembered that chit chat. But--and take this for what it is, the reaction of a single reader--while I found I was interested in some of the points you had to make about the media biz, the sheer volume of posts--particularly of the "I'm posting from the green room at the Today Show"-type--made me feel more annoyed than informed. That's why I stopped reading, there was just too much self-referential fluff I just didn't care about.

Yeah, I'm a wind bag and I like to hear myself talk. But I like to hear other people talk too. I'm interested in what knowledgeable people have to say about issues that they have thought through. I guess I just prefer the experience both of reading and of writing less frequent, more considered thoughts. Chalk it up to personal taste. I'd be more inclined to read a different kind of Buzzmachine than the one you produce. But that's the beauty of the infinite channel universe, we can all do what we like. Obviously my taste doesn't reflect the broader taste since you seem to do quite well w/ the blog.

On a different note, I really do think there's a self-perpetuating hype avalanche that occurs when media focuses on media; and the net result is the overstatement of the importance of stuff like blogs--the stuff we media pros are surrounded by but which the broader public experiences very differently. And I think Tom's criticism that you've fallen pray to the momentum of that avalanche is something you might at least consider, however snarkily he might have expressed it.

It's like the Howard Dean effect. Young political reporters fell in love w/ Dean because the webcentric Meetup-driven nature of his campaign seemed novel and cool. As a result Dean got a lot of unskeptical feel-good press which gave the impression that he was the next big thing. But, as it turned out, when election time came, no one was there to pull a lever for him. The surging Dean campaign was a figment of the imagination of an unskeptical press dazzled by Internet cool.

Maybe I'm a curmudgeon, maybe I'm a contrarian, but the more people tell me that something is cool, the more skeptical I am of the whole enterprise. That skepticism might have cost me money as an entrepreneur, but it always stood me in good stead as a journalist.

[Jem Stone]

Even I can see that the MSN screen shot is self deprecating
"blog daddy" and all that. Buzzmachine is a daily must read and he's not a slouch at reporting brickbats. None of your accusations stand up. Calm down sir.

[Tony Alva]

Jason,

You know I'm a big fan so don't take offense, but I have your blog listed in my favorites as "Trickster the Curmudgeon" :>)

Jeff's blog is over stuffed with random posts, but like many of his readers, I enjoy his zeal for the medium and can exercise my inalienable right to move on down to the next post when he over does it.

“…but the more people tell me that something is cool, the more skeptical I am of the whole enterprise.”

I’m actually more of this mind myself. My good friend and neighbor (IT guy) spent countless late night hours sitting around a fire drinking beer debating these things. He was a "change the world as we know it” guy and I the common man skeptic (I won $50.00 from him when Webvan went under).

This blogging thing… I think it’s making an impact. I don’t know if it’s the apocalypse of MSM, but it has busted up their monopoly on information. I think blogging has people communicating more and that’s a good thing.

[chervokas]

Tony, I certainly agree that the Internet in general has dramatically improved people's access to information in important ways, ways that have changed society--everything from near-instant access to SEC documents to cell phone photos of the London underground after the bombings. All car purchase negotations begin w/ dealer price and go up now, rather than beginning w/ sticker price and working down.

And of course the advent of cheap publishing tools like Typepad has eased the ability of individuals to publish beyond even the original ease of publishing that underlaid Tim Berners-Lee's creation of the Web as a platform through which academics could share their work.

But I think it's also true that the only business model that has come to pass to support all this "citizen media" is the same old mass media business model--aggregate sizable audiences in a valuable demographic and sell cheap per unit advertising to retailers and others. It's a model where scale, mass, and the trad. demos still rule. And without a different business model you still have the same old media business. As it stands now we have a bifurcated landscape of professional media that caters to a broad middle and DIY amateur stuff, some of which is good, most of which is bad, and none of which generates a living for its creators.

That's why so-called MSM isn't in it's death throes yet. MSM=mass media, and mass is still the only functioning business model for general information. For specialized information--particularly in business and some high end niche hobbies--you can charge end-users fees high enough to begin to see a different picture in terms of scale, relationship between end user and media source, etc. But to date those circumstances have remained in the sphere, principally, of business information.

It will be interesting to see what happens w/ satellite radio. Premium cable, which Jeff does know about, is the classic test case that supposedly shows that general media, be it news or entertainment, can be directly supported by end users w/o advertising. But there are only a handful of channels for which this has proved to be true. And the model hasn't succesfully be exported out of the very narrow case of HBO. If it can't be duplicated its an anomoly, not a model. Furthermore, cable is a one of a kind playing field because MSO operate as statutory monopolies in their regions.

I'm a satellite radio skeptic (surprise, surprise) because the fixed up front costs seem so enormous. Podcasting, it would seem, offers a solution for creating and distributing audio content globally at extremely low distribution costs (especially compared to satellite's fixed costs in the billions). But to date we haven't seen enough to suggest a paid media model for podcasting, or even that freebie DIY podcasting can compete w/ podcasts that are repurposed from traditional radio sources.

[Tony Alva]

"...But I think it's also true that the only business model that has come to pass to support all this "citizen media" is the same old mass media business model--aggregate sizable audiences in a valuable demographic…”

I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment. The Jarvis style hype is eerily familiar to the pre-bust dotcom frenzy, but while all the fast fading wild ideas of that era failed to deliver the stratospheric returns for those internet entrepreneurs, it did leave us with a changed world (by that, I mean this common man skeptic buys more crap, and reads more crap on the internet than I ever would have imagined).

I remember reading a Newsweek article that discussed other techno booms that changed our lives forever, but never really evolved into profitable businesses, air travel being the most memorable. The article cited the dizzying losses of this industry that has undeniably changed our lives. I can’t recite all the stats, but in the entire history of passenger air travel, no airline has enjoyed a steady stretch of black ink ever. Automobiles the same way.

I’ll leave it to you guys (Tom, Jason, Jeff, et al) to debate the finer points of the new media/medium business model and hope you keep it all out in the open so us armchair Murdock’s can listen to it and learn a few things.

I still love Jeff’s optimism and Buzzmachine will always be on my blogroll.

[p.lukasiak]

Jarvis is really little more than a relentless self-promoter who has been exploiting "blogging" for all its worth for the last couple of years. There are dozens of people who were doing what Jarvis was doing longer and better than Jarvis every did it----but those people were not dedicated to exploiting the medias interest in "this newfangled blogging thing" to promote their own careers and agendas. Jarvis would (and will) drive over his own grandmother to get in front of a television camera --- and worrying about what Jeff Jarvis thinks is a waste of time for serious people. He is the vanguard of the corps of "new-media" whores, and should be regarded as such.