Watching time, the only true currency // A journal from John B. Roberts
No fun to read that CNET Networks is shutting down some print journals in Asia. Today Online has the story: CNet Asia closes down print arm to focus on online portal.
IN A move that has shaken up the tech news industry, CNet Asia will shut down its entire print arm and focus on its core business as an online tech news portal.
I certainly agree online is where it’s at, but the more media, the better!
While I’m fond of time here at clock, other metaphors and words strike a chord in my non-musical brain. One of them is filter, so I have to enjoy filtered, the blog of Mark Jones, Deputy Managing Director at IDG Communications in Australia. Then, when Mark writes a post titled 2005: A year of attention seeking (Via Doc Searls), I am more inclined to pay increasing, well, attention, even if (or especially because?) IDG is “officially” a competitor. Subscribed.
Mark recognizes and reinforces that readers’ time is their own, and loyalty is sliced ever thinner.
We have to fight to get people to read every single word.
He wraps up the attention post with:
As the noise blog/podcast/vlog noise rises, we (IDG) must continue to remain part of that conversation – and shout louder if necessary.
I’m a bit confused by “shout[ing] louder,” but absolutely, it’s a challenge for anyone, even larger publications, to continue to earn a sliver of people’s time. Separately, I also appreciated the pointer to Trevor Cook’s post on Here comes everything: Can technology solve information overload?
The surprising consequence of these technologies is that its users are relying on people to be their guides more than ever before. Instead, of heading towards a fully-automated solution, today’s online leaders are replicating human communities and networks as the best way to sort the (informational) wheat from the chaff.
Note, I went so far as to listen to a recent podcast interview with Mark Jones. I dearly wish all podcasters would detail the length in time of their file. Knowing it’s 20MB is partially useful, but how much of my life am I commiting? This one is 58:17, per iTunes.
Amusing that Mark had to admit that IDG in Australia doesn’t yet have RSS feeds, though he’s “working on it.” I understand the concerns. He points out the problem all publishers face… the business model. IDG, it seems, is concerned about its e-mail business, specifically. I don’t know if he’s speaking of Australia alone or not. Definitely, with RSS, as he says: “The traditional model is broken when it comes to RSS.” He also talks about the difficulty of talking to the agency buyer with so many caveats around measuring RSS audiences, a topic I tend to follow.
On a CNET News.com note: about 20 minutes into the podcast, Mark talks about how a group blog at Infoworld (US) broke the news of a bomb scare at Oracle World at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
I think we were the first with the news on the bomb scare, and I think we even beat CNET, which was quite an achievement.”
Here’s the Infoworld scoop he mentioned. Glad this isn’t behind the Infoworld reg wall. I wonder why they treat the blogs differently for registration? Here’s the News.com story on the same event.
Later, one of the hosts ask Mark why his blog is called filtered. His answer:
It’s kind of a philosophical thing really. It’s the idea that’s it my point of view and I’m filtering out the crap and giving you the good stuff, hopefully. Or you could take it the opposite direction, I don’t know. It’s an idea I’ve been thinking about… blogs are an extension of opinion columns in one regard. We’ve been used to corporate brands and magazines like Computerworld being the brand, and what’s happened over time, we’re seeing that individuals are the brand, and you get thing filtered according to a particular world view, so to me that was the word that encapsulated what was going on.
Turns out Mark recently relocated back to Australia after living in San Francisco for three years. Sorry I never met him while he was here. Thanks to Mark for including CNET News.com in his blogroll. Hope we continue to earn that slot. I wonder which feed he follows, and in what newsreader?
Via Tomalak’s Realm, I found this history of the tab at Technology Review, which gives a bit of background on card catalogs as part of the article “Keeping Tabs.”
The tab was the idea of a young man named James Newton Gunn (1867š1927), who started using file cards to achieve savings in cost accounting while working for a manufacturer of portable forges. After further experience as a railroad cashier, Gunn developed a new way to access the contents of a set of index cards, separating them with other cards distinguished by projections marked with letters of the alphabet, dates, or other information.
Apparently Gunn also went on to help found the Harvard Business School… which is a more lasting legacy?