William Jacobsen's story is nice, it really is. It's the perfect "started from the bottom" kind of scenario that any blog provider would want under their belt. Legal Insurrection went from a fledgling website to a thriving, political beast, and understandably that history is going to inspire a slew of hopeful bloggers — and I don't really suspect it to help any of them.
When Legal Insurrection opened, in 2008, David Karp's nifty "Tumblr" idea was barely in full form. Pinterest wouldn't show up for another 2 years. April of 2008 also marked Facebook's inevitable triumph over Myspace. Consider this context: microblogging, or blogging for that matter was not yet streamlines and pretty, as it is now, while an entire audience of social-media-zens is displaced from one outlet to another.
It would seem to me that at this very moment, it would be like "buying shares early." I am aware that blogs may have inhabited the net for a long while before this — instead, I want to highlight the focus on them, and their accessibility. People were learning about blogs — young people and young adults, mostly — and wanted to read them.
But now? Everyone and their mother has a blog. You could make twenty Tumblrs in a day, or hop on Squarespace: having one's own page is not rare anymore. Rather, it's as simple as any other commodity on the internet.
What results from this is an unbelievably saturated market, where the odds of a blog crawling up from the depths to prominence is far more difficult than it ever was before. So for students to think that they may be able to re-create the rapid growth that Jacobsen experience seems entirely unrealistic.
However, this isn't to say there isn't a nice morsel of advice in between the lines — Jacobsen didn't make a blog. He made something new. The next Legal Insurrection isn't going to be a blog. It won't be a Tumblr. It'll be a Roomblr or some other arbitrary term. Often I see people poised to follow in the steps of other bloggers — they promote their Facebook pages, and boast over their Instagrams in the hopes of more followers, and more notice. But no one can spot a user when there's 3 million others doing it.
Success is adaptive. It's fast. And most importantly, it's very, very current. And if we are to be successful, we can't make the next blog. There is no next blog.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Why I mostly love, but also fear the "Kickstarter generation."
There's been a few hot-button words in the technology market lately. I'm going to ramble off a few, just for fun, and to act as a starting point for the rest of this entry.
The minds behind Oculus asked for a donation limit of 250,000 dollars. They received over 2.5 million dollars. That was 2012. If you had paid attention to the antics of Mark Zuckerburg, you'd know that Oculus was acquired by Facebook in early 2014. For 2 billion dollars.
This is obviously a dream scenario — this is what you'd put on Kickstarter's promotional video if it was a college. Let's take a look at disaster.
John Campbell was a comic artist, who took to Kickstarter when trying to fund his book, "Sad Pictures For Children." To say he succeeded was absolutely true: he made over 600% of his requested funds, pulling in over $50,000 dollars. All went smoothly, for a bit.
Soon, Campbell ran out of money to ship the books, and by some unfortunate series of events, ended up burning many of the donors merchandise in an alley by his home. He video taped this, and promptly dropped off the marketplace, and really the face of the internet.
This is where my concern lies: this is by no means the first incident of this nature. What it seems Kickstarter has welcomed is a free, open, digital platform for funding. The website even requires that all the funds go to the item in question. Though there is still the notion that an individual can opt out midway through, and can, literally, burn his donors money.
So what's the point of this ramble? I suppose it's an admiration of what Kickstarter is — a microcosm of collaboration, or a mass incubator. At the same time, I suppose I am also venting a degree of my own anxieties — what are the implications of people skimping out, ditching products, or duping customers? Can we even moderate this, what is essentially the creative process of inventors?
I don't know, all I know is I want an Oculus Rift.
- Tesla
- Quantum Computing
- Nano____s
- Graphene
- Elon Musk
- SpaceX
- Startup
That last one — startup — may be the most genuinely important one in some time. The notion of the startup is essentially the modernized, Apple-age rags-to-riches story. It's the GPU-powered American dream.
Few need convincing when encountering the notion that technology has been a blessing to the little guy — to the ones making things, rather than selling things. Sure, Intel and AMD are raking in billions a year, but there's still people huddled away in offices and often, basements, churning out independent games, films and more.
And there's a venue for this growing realm of entrepreneurs — Kickstarter and IndieGoGo serving as perhaps the most usable, able platforms to finance budding projects. They work on the all-or-nothing business model: you pitch it, you ask for cash, and if you don't make it, it all goes back to donators.
The results have been impressive, to say the least. Check out this trailer for the Kickstarter campaign of Oculus Rift, a virtual-reality interface for video gaming.
The results have been impressive, to say the least. Check out this trailer for the Kickstarter campaign of Oculus Rift, a virtual-reality interface for video gaming.
The minds behind Oculus asked for a donation limit of 250,000 dollars. They received over 2.5 million dollars. That was 2012. If you had paid attention to the antics of Mark Zuckerburg, you'd know that Oculus was acquired by Facebook in early 2014. For 2 billion dollars.
This is obviously a dream scenario — this is what you'd put on Kickstarter's promotional video if it was a college. Let's take a look at disaster.
John Campbell was a comic artist, who took to Kickstarter when trying to fund his book, "Sad Pictures For Children." To say he succeeded was absolutely true: he made over 600% of his requested funds, pulling in over $50,000 dollars. All went smoothly, for a bit.
Soon, Campbell ran out of money to ship the books, and by some unfortunate series of events, ended up burning many of the donors merchandise in an alley by his home. He video taped this, and promptly dropped off the marketplace, and really the face of the internet.
This is where my concern lies: this is by no means the first incident of this nature. What it seems Kickstarter has welcomed is a free, open, digital platform for funding. The website even requires that all the funds go to the item in question. Though there is still the notion that an individual can opt out midway through, and can, literally, burn his donors money.
So what's the point of this ramble? I suppose it's an admiration of what Kickstarter is — a microcosm of collaboration, or a mass incubator. At the same time, I suppose I am also venting a degree of my own anxieties — what are the implications of people skimping out, ditching products, or duping customers? Can we even moderate this, what is essentially the creative process of inventors?
I don't know, all I know is I want an Oculus Rift.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Chewing out the media in style: How "Gone Girl" said more about the news than news ever could
For those who haven't taken the time to see David Fincher's recent flick, "Gone Girl," this post may be a bit harder to connect with, though I will take every opportunity to make this post as comprehensible to those less informed. But definitely go see it — it's dope.
Quick Context:
"Gone Girl" follows husband Nick Dunn after his wife goes missing — a media circus quickly ignites and blame gets tossed around like a bad round of "hot potato." This is all I will tell you, because the rest of the film is close to impossible to sum up, and is also entirely irrelevant.
Why is any of this important?
Where "Gone Girl" suits my needs right now is in the portrayal of the press, notably the talk show hosts, reporters and journalists that hound Dunn over his lost wife. They stake out his home. They trail him around town. They scream questions and invade his space without any regard for privacy.
They're absolutely awful, and for viewers, an instant target of ire.
Quickly I found myself in my seat, tired of the swarms of desperate cameramen, with their prying, foolish questions. Blonde-haired anchorwomen gossip and defame Dunn, insinuating guilt without any semblance of reason. But this is simply a movie — it couldn't be close to accurate to real life.
How this is not just a movie and is entirely, horribly accurate to real life
"Gone Girl" followed a dissapearance, but let's first start with something more light-hearted.
This was the scene outside of St. Mary's hospital, just before the birth of the "Royal Baby." The "journalists" here had waited for several hours, all hoping for a moment to snatch a pic of the new, royal tot. This image was the first to come to my mind as I watched Dunn struggle past the countless reporters that hovered around his home.
But how about something more horrible?
Something more horrible
This is a purely anecdotal. I have no video to chronicle the stupidity of CNN during the Malaysian flight disappearance, though if I did I don't think I'd have a hard-drive big enough to hold it. So work with me.
Fincher was remarkably successful in portraying one sad facet of news coverage today: the sensationalism. Dunn is quickly villanized, then sanctified, then villainized — rinse and repeat —for the entire run-time of "Gone Girl." The "feeding frenzy" of media was itself, a figure throughout the film, and I couldn't help but reminisce as I watched it.
See, it reminded me of a particular moment I had eating lunch, gazing at a television tuned to CNN. It had been over 20 days since Malaysian flight 370 vanished over the Indian ocean, and CNN had proved to be the main source of coverage on this global mystery.
Search, so far, had found nothing. It had been almost 2 weeks of searching. Then this happened:
There had been, and still is no evidence on any front to even been to implicate black holes. In fact, the segment barely even spoke of black holes: the headline itself is essentially the television equivalent of click-bait.
What are you getting at, Steve?
As I walked out of "Gone Girl," I was surprised by how much I was thinking of journalism and reporting. The film made me ponder ethics, the nature of reporting, and what the public actually wants to see out of news.
Then I realized something that was admittedly a bit concerning: "Gone Girl" had provided perhaps the strongest commentary I had seen about the state of news today it its subplot.
Perhaps, again, I am getting a bit ahead of myself, but what does this say for the United States' own understanding of its media? We watch it, we witness it, but do we ever consider the means of which we get it, and the consequences of those means, for that matter?
Maybe it's a question of ethics, or one of self-awareness, but I have to commend a film for spurring the conversation. Hopefully, viewers will be able to take away some notion of how media operates, rather than simply tacking it up to another artistic liberty taken by "Gone Girl."
Quick Context:
"Gone Girl" follows husband Nick Dunn after his wife goes missing — a media circus quickly ignites and blame gets tossed around like a bad round of "hot potato." This is all I will tell you, because the rest of the film is close to impossible to sum up, and is also entirely irrelevant.
Why is any of this important?
Where "Gone Girl" suits my needs right now is in the portrayal of the press, notably the talk show hosts, reporters and journalists that hound Dunn over his lost wife. They stake out his home. They trail him around town. They scream questions and invade his space without any regard for privacy.
They're absolutely awful, and for viewers, an instant target of ire.
Quickly I found myself in my seat, tired of the swarms of desperate cameramen, with their prying, foolish questions. Blonde-haired anchorwomen gossip and defame Dunn, insinuating guilt without any semblance of reason. But this is simply a movie — it couldn't be close to accurate to real life.
How this is not just a movie and is entirely, horribly accurate to real life
"Gone Girl" followed a dissapearance, but let's first start with something more light-hearted.
This was the scene outside of St. Mary's hospital, just before the birth of the "Royal Baby." The "journalists" here had waited for several hours, all hoping for a moment to snatch a pic of the new, royal tot. This image was the first to come to my mind as I watched Dunn struggle past the countless reporters that hovered around his home.
But how about something more horrible?
Something more horrible
This is a purely anecdotal. I have no video to chronicle the stupidity of CNN during the Malaysian flight disappearance, though if I did I don't think I'd have a hard-drive big enough to hold it. So work with me.
Fincher was remarkably successful in portraying one sad facet of news coverage today: the sensationalism. Dunn is quickly villanized, then sanctified, then villainized — rinse and repeat —for the entire run-time of "Gone Girl." The "feeding frenzy" of media was itself, a figure throughout the film, and I couldn't help but reminisce as I watched it.
See, it reminded me of a particular moment I had eating lunch, gazing at a television tuned to CNN. It had been over 20 days since Malaysian flight 370 vanished over the Indian ocean, and CNN had proved to be the main source of coverage on this global mystery.
Search, so far, had found nothing. It had been almost 2 weeks of searching. Then this happened:
There had been, and still is no evidence on any front to even been to implicate black holes. In fact, the segment barely even spoke of black holes: the headline itself is essentially the television equivalent of click-bait.
What are you getting at, Steve?
As I walked out of "Gone Girl," I was surprised by how much I was thinking of journalism and reporting. The film made me ponder ethics, the nature of reporting, and what the public actually wants to see out of news.
Then I realized something that was admittedly a bit concerning: "Gone Girl" had provided perhaps the strongest commentary I had seen about the state of news today it its subplot.
Perhaps, again, I am getting a bit ahead of myself, but what does this say for the United States' own understanding of its media? We watch it, we witness it, but do we ever consider the means of which we get it, and the consequences of those means, for that matter?
Maybe it's a question of ethics, or one of self-awareness, but I have to commend a film for spurring the conversation. Hopefully, viewers will be able to take away some notion of how media operates, rather than simply tacking it up to another artistic liberty taken by "Gone Girl."
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