Speculating the Future of Publications

I have just read in a recent issue of Time magazine that the Ann Arbor newspaper, Anne Arbor News has closed down and transitioned into an online-only publication. Before Anne Arbor, it was the Rocky Mountain News in Denver which closed after 149 years of business. And I fear that this trend will continue in the years to come. This may sound like a depressing blog but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Currently, the only move a publication can make to sustain itself is to move into a digital format ie online. While it's cheaper and more efficient, it is also tougher to monetize. Some online publications are taking steps to ensure that their writers, editors, and staff members are getting paid. Washingtonpost.com requires an account membership to view most of it's content. Soon, I'm afraid that they will be charging for content. The only reason to be fearful of this idea is that, most of the time, people don't like to pay for things that they normally get for free.

The New York Times has a great little application called The New York Times Reader which is an Adobe Air app. It is a scalable auto-updating app that lets you read The New York Times in a sleek off-line window. You can subscribe to the Reader for $3.75/week.

So some publications are protecting themselves, some are not, and some simply can't. Some are simply too small to compete. And as fewer and fewer publications survive, the World Wide Web will be the only sustainable source of information. It's cheap, easy to access, and anyone can contribute. And therein lies the problem.

The great thing about newspapers and magazines is that they have editors and fact-checkers. Bloggers do not. Bloggers can literally say whatever they want and their blogs can be read by anyone all over the world. This is a dangerous concept.

Having said that, here is my timeline of the next 25 years:

The Approaching Storm: 2010 - 2015
Most of the small market newspapers have shut down or gone to an online-only format. The major papers will survive (New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, a few others) but cling desperately to life. The web however has grown significantly. Nearly everyone is a blogger of some kind either through blogging sites, Twitter, Facebook, or other sites. The volume of information explodes and as a result the reliability of this information wains.

The Dark Age of Information: 2015 - 2025
Nearly all newspapers and publications cease their traditional paper circulation. As the web explodes with content, online publications become lost in the fray. Information, regardless of merit or credibility, is consumed and spread. Few blogs and sites are reliable because no one is being paid to research and fact-check. The quality of information and content also plummets. In this time, all web content mirrors YouTube content of today. In other words, it's 99% crap. Not only is this the Dark Age of Information but it is also the Dark Age of Business and Innovation. As the credibility of information is threatened in the way that it is, global infrastructures become weakened and innovation comes to a screeching halt.

The Quiet Revolution: 2025 - 2030
An awakening has begun–a quiet revolution. The world is tired of unreliable information and socioeconomic stagnation. They want rich content, not fluffy or bogus stories and information. Bloggers become responsible in their posts. They do research and begin fact-checking. They don't update their blog or micro-blog or Facebook or whatever every hour. They wait for something relevent to happen. They start writing about relevent topics. As a result, web traffic and content slowly begins to plateau and then decline.

The Return of the Editor: 2030 - 2035
A new system is born out of the catastrophe that was the end of modern publications. I have no idea what this will look like–perhaps a new technology is born where documents can be downloaded onto an ultra-thin paper-like material. Perhaps information can be directly downloaded into an individual's brain. Perhaps things just stay on the web, if it still exists. Whatever the system is, one thing has definitely changed: People are being paid to write, fact-check, and edit content. And as a result, information is more reliable and the world works more efficiently. Individuals realize that not everyone should be spreading information because not everyone is capable of editing and fact-checking.

How editors and writers get paid is another question. The idea of paying for information is nothing new but it sort of is. I can go on Google and get millions of pages of information for free. Probably about .o1% of it is relevant and reliable. But I've never had to pay for that information. Perhaps in the future, I will. People need to realize that information is as important as the food we eat, which we are willing to pay for. You wouldn't eat spoiled food just because it is free. The same goes for information. In the end, you're not simply paying for information–you're paying for credibility, reliability, and an earnestness toward truth.

Having said all of that, I am fact-checking right now. Everything seems okay. I just want to add a disclaimer to this so I don't seem hypocritical. This is clearly speculation. I have no idea if anything is going to come to fruition. I hope it doesn't. But I just wanted to illustrate a possibility. If you don't want this to happen, all I can recommend is that you purchase a newspaper subscription and appreciate the importance of credible and reliable information.

-Edited by Jenna Boswell

Sweet Marketing Job

Vampire chicks are so cliched.

How Much Pregnant Are You?

In past entries, I've talked about the horrors of TV ads and what they do to the human condition. But as I watch more of them, it becomes more and more apparent that TV ads aren't coming from super-intelligent ad-men with nefarious plans. As it turns out, they are coming from absolute morons who are just trying to sell you shit.

Last night, I watched a commercial for Plan B, an aptly named emergency contraceptive. The thing that really baffled me was the way they describe the process in which Plan B works. There is a voice-over narration that says something to the effect of, "The sooner you use Plan B, the better it works," and that tickles me. So basically if you take Plan B right away, you won't be as pregnant as you would if you waited, say, nine months.

I think it's funny to pick out flaws in things that cost millions of dollars.

I Do Not Like the Movie Accepted

This movie does two things wrong:

1. It patronizes an alternative approach to education.
2. The climax is completely contradictory to the main theme of the movie. 

The movie is about a group of post-high schoolers who aren't accepted to any colleges so they make one up to trick their parents into thinking they did. And along the way they "learn" things about education and the system that robs kids of their ideals and passions. From my personal experience, this is completely untrue. If anything, my personal awakening of my talents and interests happened during college - which was at a fairly large state school. 

But the crux of the movie is that a traditional four-year college education isn't necessary and that an alternative education is just as valid and useful in the real world. I totally agree with that. But this movie took that idea and put it in the head of a fourteen year-old. So an alternative education means you learn about skateboarding and you build ramps and you lay by a pool and just talk about stuff. No, I'm sorry that is not an education. Alternative education doesn't mean you don't learn math, science, history, english, etc - rather it means the methods used to teach those subjects are different. This movie really discredits the idea of alternative education. And that's not a good thing. The modern educational system is very flawed, and it does rob kids of their creativity, but not in the way this movie describes it. The movie should have focused on the system's emphasis of "instructor appeasement". By this I mean that success in school is directly related to how much you satisfy a teacher's expectations. But no, this movie says that kids are robbed of their creativity because they have to study a lot and use energy drinks. Well folks, the truth is, if you don't study a lot in college, then something's wrong. 

The climax could have been fine if they cut it short by about two minutes. Justin Long gives a speech about how their system of alternative education is just as valid as a traditional education to the Board of Education (I think). And at the end he grabs the back of his chair, looks down, and finally says that he doesn't care about their approval. He claims that the board has already judged them by the way they look and that no matter what, they will always remember the ideals that were instilled in them at their fake college. The ideals being that they don't need approval from people of authority and that they're way of learning is just as good. So after he tells the board he doesn't need their approval, what does he do? 

HE FUCKING WAITS FOR THEIR APPROVAL!

He even throws his chair at them in disgust after his speech. Yet he waits silently for their approval. The movie should have ended with him and his posse aka the student body marching out of the court house or wherever it was and leaving triumphant if not a little self-righteous. But no, this movie completely turns it's back on what he was just saying. Because they waited and received approval from the board, they just became a part of the system. They aren't alternative in neither name nor practice. They are just self-righteous people who don't want to go to math class but want a college degree. I'm sorry but you can't have your cake and eat it too. 

Ok, I know what you're saying: "It's just a teen comedy, don't take it so seriously." 

And I wouldn't take it seriously if this wasn't also a message movie, but it is. If this was a movie where a bunch of kids made up a school because they didn't like math class, I honestly would be okay with that. But because this movie makes statements about the system of education, alternative education, and what those two things mean, I have to comment. I have to take it seriously because this movie talks about serious things. The fact that it's a teen comedy is irrelevant. On a side note, it really pisses me off that most people think comedies are free from analysis. Just because they make you laugh doesn't mean you can't discuss them. Not every comedy is just made to be consumed. 

This movie also sucks because you want to hate the villains (the crew from a traditional four-year college) but at the end of the movie, everything that they had to say was right. The fake college demeans real education and it makes a mockery of an alternative approach. 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot – it's not that funny either. 

The Shameless Ads on Facebook

I'm sure everyone knows that the ads that you see on Facebook are directed to you specifically based on keywords that you use on your profile, photos, etc. But aside from the CIA data-mining, this is not the worst thing Facebook does. For me, it's the most shameful ads on Facebook; these "Grant Check" scams and Google Ad money games that are bating college kids and people unfortunate enough to really suffer during these tough economic times.

I guess this blog is to warn those desperate folks out there who think it's legit because it is not. If you click on one of those tempting ads telling you how easy it is to make 5 or 10 thousand dollars from Google or from government stimulus checks, you'll notice a few things.

1. All the websites are exactly the same. It has a green header with some headline about how "Josh" or "Jake" or "Steve" or "Kevin" made $5,000 from Google or some stimulus check. They tell their story about how easy it is and how much their life has changed. It's a little suspect that all the sites look the same but it could be just a form of design congruence from the person who set them all up. But the thing that really sent me over, as I looked at these sites, were the comments – they too are all the same.
2. The checks are obviously photoshopped. You'll notice on the check photo they use that a) it's the same photo on every site, and b) the name on the check has been photoshopped (poorly at that) to match different people.
   
   
   
   
3. The actual people are fake. In one, Kevin Hoeffer is a firefighter and father of three and recieved a check for $5000 from Google. In another ad, he worked at a manufacturing plant and has no kids and received a check from the federal government for $12,000. And the same pictures of him are used. How stupid do they think people are?
   

It really pains me to know that there are people out there suffering from the fall of the economy. But it infuriates me to know that other people are somehow profiting off their suffering.

Wolverine, where art thou?

When word about a Wolverine spin-off movie hit the interweb, I was just as excited as next guy. And let's face it, a Wolverine movie would be for men and men only. I'm sorry but I've tried to explain the metaphorical and allegorical properties of his infamous berserker attack to many women and none of them really get it. As I see it, his devastating attack is a commentary on the damaged modern male psyche - a condition only explicable if you were part of a secret government weapons project or raised by a single mother. And as I see it, there really isn't much difference between the two.

Then came the title – X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It's a great title because immediately you start thinking about other titles in this possible franchise. X-Men Origins: Gambit, X-Men Origins: Storm, X-Men Origins: Magneto, etc.

Then came the cast – Hugh Jackman reprising his role from the earlier X-Men films, always a good sign. Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool which may or may not be the greatest casting decision in comic book movie history. I think Reynolds is the only ripped-up model type actor that I can take seriously as both a bad-ass and as a solid comic presence. Muscles and humor never go well together.

Like (as bad an example as this is) Carrot Top. While not the funniest guy around, if he stopped working out, lost his shredded physique, I might be able to laugh at his jokes. Maybe. I just can't take him seriously as a comic and believe me, I totally get the paradoxical nature of that comment.

You're destroying what little career you have left, sir.

But about Jackman, I mean, personally, I wasn't too happy seeing him as Wolverine in the first film. Wolverine is supposed to be 5'3". Jackman is like 6'1". But he somehow made it work, at least for me. I grew to appreciate his take on the role. But the casting of Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth – that decision was very brave. In the first X-Men film, Sabertooth is played by someone who could actually be Sabertooth in real life. But he didn't have much presence other than his size and physicality. And Schreiber is tall but he isn't imposing by any means. I think casting him was a good decision only because he can become Sabertooth. And since this is an origin story, it works.

So obviously I've been pumped for a long time.

And then this giant dark cloud casted on the set and all the people involved. Buzz about Gavin Hood not being in control of his set and a series of re-shoots and Fox Studio execs changing things around had flooded the internet. It did not look good. And now I just read about ANOTHER set of re-shoots for Wolverine. The movie is due out in a few months. This does not bode well.

And the thing that is kind of unsettling about the whole thing is that, I don't really care. I went from being really excited for a movie to not caring at all about it. I remember reading about all the terrible things and then watching the trailer and thinking – meh. And then I started asking why I thought that. I should have been really excited for it. Maybe it's a sign that I'm getting older and I just don't get excited for things like that anymore.

The Little Problem with Taoism

I can't help but be in a constant zen-like state at work because I don't really do anything. I usually get all the work I need to get done by 11:00 a.m. so I'm mainly sitting around reflecting on my life until something I need to do lands on my desk.

And in my time of doing nothing today, I thought about taoism and being zen and how it may be the best thing for people. Taoism insists that people stop getting all worked up over the crap that drives them bonkers. There's a principle of Taoism called wu wei, which can be easily defined as "not getting in your way". For example, I would be much more content if I were to casually walk down the street with no destination in mind then if I were to have somewhere to go. If I had a place to be then I would be in a position to stress out about it. Maybe there's traffic and I can't cross the street. What if I'm late? What if I'm meeting someone? What if they aren't there when I get there? What if I'm going to the wrong place? But if I'm just outside walking around, there is no issue.

But as I thought about it, I realized an inherent contradiction in Taoism and wu wei. As it turns out, not having a goal is still a goal. If I say, I'm not going to have a goal today, then I did in fact start a goal. Knowing me (a neurotic defeatist), if my goal in life was to have no goal, I would stress out about not being able to accomplish it. I imagined myself as the person aimlessly walking down the street. I'd be so paranoid about accidentally doing something of significance. Like if I walked into a store and thought that maybe this was my subconscious goal. Then I'd leave in a haste and wonder if it's a goal of mine to leave here quickly in an attempt to preserve my original goal of not doing anything. It's a vicious circle.

But like I said, Taoism and wu wei are good for people because most people are normal. Unfortunately, doing nothing in my book is monumentally important.