Metaphor: Jumping out of a plane without a parachute

Jumping without a parachute
Dave Winer’s Find an airplane to jump out of

In hindsight, the Times could have and should have been the new distribution system, but they would have had to be nimble to do that, and been willing to accept the feeling of jumping out of a plane with no parachute. They let people in California do that nstead because they were willing to deal with nsecurity. What a silly reason to cede an empire.

Now here’s the good news for the Times. There’s still time.

The electronic system isn’t finished upheaving. There are still planes taking off that you can jump out of but as before there are no parachutes. You could hit the ground. Hard.

Eustace Tilley on Tumblr acts like you would expect

Remember how The New Yorker is on Tumblr? Tumblr is diverse. Some blogs cover politics. Some collect examples of cutting edge Web design. Some blogs have a personal vibe. Some post for lulz. But the ones that work, at least to my mind, remember that Tumblr is a social platform and have an authentic voice.

Back to The New Yorker. One Tumblrer posted a link to The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” Q. and A. with its bingo-like 4-by-5 grid of illustrated mugs and the line “There is definitely some kind of inappropriate bingo to be played here…” A funny, authentic way to link to the piece.

Those jokers at The New Yorker reblogged and added to hilarity: “Perhaps a game where each correct answer corresponds to the writer’s Q.&A? Click on the image to read Q.&A.’s from each “20 under 40” writer about his or her origins, inspirations, and coming work.”

Yes, as tone deaf as I’d expect Eustace Tilley to be .

Why Tumblr is the best RSS reader

I use Google Reader like most RSS subscribers. But you know what? Tumblr’s better. (Added: I know Tumblr’s not a true RSS reader. Stick with me.) Here are five reasons:

No “unread” counts
I hate watching the number of unread items pile up until it hits “1000+.” Dave Winer thinks that’s the wrong way, too. It bugs me so much, I asked Aardvark for suggestions for a Google Reader-like without the unread count and got the reply “get over it.” Guess what Tumblr doesn’t have? I can start at the most recent and go until I start seeing stuff I’ve already seen or until I’m bored.

Everything gets mixed together
In both Google Reader and Tumblr, I subscribe to a huge range of things: politics, media, technology, funny, interesting, people I know. In Google Reader, even though I don’t have to, I segregate different stuff into different folders. But on Tumblr, that’s not even a possibility. So I’ll get some hilarious 4Chan joke right after photos of pelicans covered in BP’s oil. Believe me, way better than slogging through a bunch of tech blogs.

Commenting is just like blogging
When I pursue my feeds in Google Reader and something pisses me off so much that I am forced to spew Internet-troll rage inspires me to respond, that comment is often buried in Google Reader. But on Tumblr, if I have something to say, I can hit the “reblog” button, write as much or as little as I’d like and publish it to a blog. My blog.

Subscribing isn’t a commitment
Even though it’s not, subscribing to a feed in Google Reader feels like a commitment; suddenly I’ve just added 10 more unread items and a new feed to to categorize and prioritize. But when I land on a Tumblr blog, I almost always subscribe. It’s not going to add a bunch of new unread items to my reader, I don’t have to figure out where it fits in my folder scheme. If the blog becomes bothersome, I can unsubscribe easily.

Everything’s a full feed
I never, ever have to leave Tumblr’s dashboard to read the rest of something, which streamlines my reading a lot.

I’d miss some of Google Reader’s functionality (e-mailing and saving items in Pinboard, for instance), but if I could move all my non-Tumblr feed to my Tumblr dashboard, I think I would.

Metaphors: A prospecting Corvette owner

My Covervette
Sherman Frederick’s Copyright theft: We’re not taking it anymore

It is the protection of that journalism that I want to talk about today.

Look at this way. Say I owned a beautiful 1967 Corvette and kept it parked in my front yard.

And you, being a Corvette enthusiast, saw my Vette from the street. You stopped and stood on the sidewalk admiring it. You liked it so much you called friends and gave them my address in case they also wanted to drive over for a gander.

There’d be nothing wrong with that. I like my ’67 Vette and I keep in the front yard because I like people to see it.

But then, you entered my front yard, climbed into the front seat and drove it away.

I’m absolutely, 100% not OK with that. In fact, I’m calling the police and reporting that you stole my car.

Prospecting
Sherman Frederick’s Copyright theft: We’re not taking it anymore

Well, we at Stephens Media have decided to do something about it. And, I hope other publishers will join me.

We grubstaked and contracted with a company called Righthaven. It’s a local technology company whose only job is to protect copyrighted content. It is our primary hope that Righthaven will stop people from stealing our stuff. It is our secondary hope, if Righthaven shows continued success, that it will find other clients looking for a solution to the theft of copyrighted material.

via Steve Buttry

Metaphors: reacting to a big blown call and porn

Porn
Andy Medici’s Strange Bedfellows: What Journalism Can Learn From Adult Entertainment

Imagine you are working in an industry that has been battered by the recent recession and rapid advances in technology. Instead of paying for teams of professionals, people are going online to find new content like yours or create their own. The Internet has opened the door to thousands of competitors, all offering content that appeals to just about any niche or taste.

Meanwhile, your legacy company is burdened with an outdated distribution system and is trying desperately to adjust to a new world in which having a local monopoly is not an option.

Sound familiar? Well if you have been working in the adult entertainment industry for the last few years, then this isn’t really news.

An imperfect perfect game
Steve Buttry’s Workplace lessons from an imperfect perfect game

A lot of men my age draw too many life lessons from sports. But I’m a man my age, so I drew three career lessons from last night’s Detroit Tigers game:

  • Don’t let complaints about the things you can’t control distract you from focusing on what you can control and finishing your job.
  • Take responsibility for your work and admit your mistakes.
  • Tradition is no excuse for failure to innovate.

via Steve Buttry

Realtors warn potential clients to be wary of the Web!

A story posted by KCRG warns potential renters and home buyer about the dangers of finding property online!

As technology improves, criminals keep finding new ways to scam people. Realtors say more and more con artists are trying to take advantage of people looking to buy or rent homes online.

See, Realtors nowadays have to compete harder for sales against for-sale-by-owner types (which can sell their homes for less since they don’t have to pay a commission to a real estate agent) because of, guess what, the INTERNET! So while buyers and rents should be careful using Craigslist, it seems that the Realtor source might be a little biased when warning potential clients to be wary of the Web.

Why buying Palm isn’t going to help HP

About a month ago, HP agreed to buy Palm, primarily for the company’s mobile operating system webOS, which is replacing Windows 7 on the company’s touted forthcoming tablet.  A sexy mobile OS is great and all, but my recent interactions suggest a deeper problem for HP that it has to fix.

At NLTV, every year I find myself with a chunk of money in my budget I need to  spend before the end of the fiscal year and, come July, the money vanishes. I get to buy cool, big-ticket items like new high-definition video cameras.

This year, I was in the market for a new, powerful workstation that could handle high-def video editing in Creative Suite 5: a $1,500 Nvida graphics card, high-end Intel i7 processor, lots of disk space and memory. I expected to spend $5,000 or $6,000. I figured I’d look at HPs, since I’ve been happy with my new HP  laptop as well as the system and service I got when I needed a workstation to run a live-video-switching operation on.

Since I need a pretty specific configuration, I figured I get in touch, let the sales folks know what I needed and let them tell me what was possible. So I went looking for a phone number.  I work for a local government, I headed to the government section of the website. It was a few clicks deep, but I found a number for the switch board. I called it and pushed a few buttons to move along. HP’s system transfered me — the phone starting ringing as it sent me elsewhere — and then it hung up.

Strike one.

I called back, went through the same phone tree and was transfered me again. This time it didn’t hang up. So there’s that. But I did get to enter into a conversation with a gentleman who tried to determine where I was calling from (they had an old address for the city) so he could direct me to my sales rep. This conversation took 12 minutes; my phone timed it.

Strike two.

And at the end, he said he couldn’t give me a direct number to my rep, but I could call a different switch board and ask for her by name. Then he transfered me. To her voice mail.

I left a message and got a call back a few hours later when I was out of the office.

She had gotten my message and, gosh, wasn’t the Iowa rep anymore. And, gosh, she could only quote on servers and networking. So I had to call a different person, whose information, including a long phone extension that I couldn’t keep up with, she rattled off quickly and just once.

That would be strike three.

And this is HP’s sales department. I have a hard time imagining service would be smoother.

So I won’t be buying an HP, and I imagine there will be others similarly dissuaded.

Metaphor: The Titanic and dinosaurs, as if we haven’t heard those before

The Titanic
Phillip Kaplan describing news startup Publish2’s News Exchange at TechCruch Disrupt

On one hand, it feels like selling paint to the Titanic. Also I’m not sure if I want newspapers to survive and thrive, as they’ve basically disrupted themselves

Dinosaurs
Jeffery Bussgan describing news startup Publish2’s News Exchange at TechCruch Disrupt

It felt like selling vitamins to dinosaurs. Where’s your business when newspapers die? What’s the value proposition then?