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Posted
by 
Rebecca Fox
Managing Editor, mediabistro.com
Chuck Cordray
Senior VP and General Manager, Digital Media
Hearst Magazines
\
Steve Rosenbaum
CEO, Magnify.net
Michael Silberman
General Manager, NYMag.com
Tom Smith
General Manager, NYMag.com
Senior Director, Digital Media/IT,
Hearst Magazines
Ellen Stone
SVP Marketing
Bravo Media
My Internet Week Schedule (so far)
- Monday June 1st
• 6.00 PM The TechSet Bubbles Up Innovation with PepsiCo The Bubble Lounge
• 6pm - 8pm Mayors office of film, theatre and Broadcasting, Cocktails & Brief Remarks
- Tuesday June 2nd
*AO Breakfast - invitation only.
• 11:00am - 12:15 pm PANELIST: Innovation and Digital Video Columbia U Business School RSVP required
• 2:45pm PANELIST Strange Bedfellows, will take place at the New York Times.
• 3pm: LIVE DEMO: NY Demo Pit Great Hall at FIT (NY Tech Meetup)
• 6.00 PM Internet Oldtimers Foundation Party TBD By Invitation Only
- Wednesday
• Pepsi Digital Innovation Day (on PepsiCo campus)
- Thurs
• TBD
- Friday
* TBD
My Internet Week Schedule (so far)
- Monday June 1st
• 6.00 PM The TechSet Bubbles Up Innovation with PepsiCo The Bubble Lounge
• 6pm - 8pm Mayors office of film, theatre and Broadcasting, Cocktails & Brief Remarks
- Tuesday June 2nd
• 11:00am - 12:15 pm PANELIST: Innovation and Digital Video Columbia U Business School RSVP required
• 2:45pm PANELIST Strange Bedfellows, will take place at the New York Times.
• 3pm: LIVE DEMO: NY Demo Pit Great Hall at FIT (NY Tech Meetup)
• 6.00 PM Internet Oldtimers Foundation Party TBD By Invitation Only
- Wednesday
• Pepsi Digital Innovation Day (on PepsiCo campus)
- Thurs
• TBD
- Friday
* TBD
So, it was a wild and torrid romance - me and email. First, it was one account, then two, then, well, lots. I had company emails, personal emails, specialty emails ... I was (cringe) an E-MAIL-A-HOLIC.
I know you know what I mean.
But then, there were the computers. Lots of them. My desktop. My laptop. My office machine. My home office machine. And each of them got email.
At first I was in control. I could control it. I would delete. I would forward. I would 'manage.'
Then, it started. The excuses. To my friends. "Your email was caught in my spam filter." That was true, but with five computers (and five different spam filters), well, the odds of me reading all my email was getting slimmer every day.
Oh, yes I know - there are solutions. I tried GTD (getting things done). I tried a bunch of scripts and folders. But nothing worked. I was reading the same offers to hold a check for a Nigerian prince four times a day. I was on the verge of an E-MAIL BREAKDOWN.
What to do?
Well, I'm a Mac person - so I felt like I'd already chosen the platform that gave me the most comfort and protection with a spam-free and virus-free lifestyle. So my Apple friends weren't helping. I tried Mobile Me. God knows, I couldn't get that to do anything useful (my bad I'm sure).
So then, with email strangled and not moving - I found...
IMAP. (Insert here: clouds parting, sun shining, and harp-like sounds of delight and glee.)
Ok, don't get scared. This is a very good thing.
IMAP is an alternative to POP, which is how I've always set up my mail in the past. When I last visited IMAP (4 years ago) it was a live connection with my mail server, and so nothing was stored on my desktop. That meant that I couldn't do mail if my mail server went down (or if I was not online on my phone). Or so I thought.
But, IMAP is a new and wonderful thing.
First off - now all my devices look at the same email accounts on my mail server. That means, if I read a message on my desktop, or phone, or home, it's marked 'read' (read once, very nice).
But the best part are the IMAP folders.
Now, I've got folders that automatically manage my mail:
One is called: To Read and Respond (for important stuff)
One is called: Read / Responded / Filed
And then a whole series of folders for newsletters, mail groups, and other regular incoming info like server notifications and such.
I've set up a series of Apple Mail scripts that search for keywords or specific senders and then neatly tuck them in folders on my mail server - and viewable from any device on IMAP.
In the past, I'd open my desktop computer after reading mail over the weekend, and there'd be 500 unread messages. Ugh. Now, because I use my iPhone, laptop, home computer, and desktop to manage things, I never have more than a few messages waiting to be read, filed, and managed.
And, now that I'm using my "Junk" filter more, I'm teaching my mail server what junk is - so my junk folder seems to be getting smarter. Really.
IMAP. My email love affair is re-kindled. Oh sure, I still flirt with instant messaging all day, and Twitter is rapidly encroaching on my messaging as well - I'll never go back to being faithful to email, that was so 2002. But with IMAP I'm able to keep the flame alive... and email is now back to being part of my digital harem of bits and bytes.
Thank you IMAP. Wish I'd met you years ago.
There's been lots of talk lately about the future of the newspaper, the downside of 'free' as price point for online content, and what the future holds for both content makers and distributors alike.
I have to say, my media habits are pretty much in the early adopter camp. But I found myself wondering about the behavior of young people, college students, in terms of media sources and business models. So I decided to go to the source, and do some first-person research with one particular 19 year-old that I know well. He's a freshman in college, and may or may not be more absorbed in thinking about media than the average young person. In any case, I found his take on media sources and pricing surprising - and thought I'd share the discussion I had with my son Max with the blogosphere.
STEVE: First, can you describe your 'media mix' -- how much news, vs. music, vs. movies TV etc. do you watch/read?
MAX: OK - well, tons of news. I have the Huffington Post set as my homepage and routinely surf cnn.com and blogs, plus I read a hard copy of the NYT in the d-hall. Music, I hear about from friends and download from torrentbay - I've usually got a song I just heard about a good 5 minutes later. Movies, same. I download off pirate bay and occasionally borrow from the college library. Really though if I hear about a movie or want to find one, I look to torrents. For TV, I'll watch on Hulu or download if it isn't on there - but I find having that much television available makes me only want to watch a show or two consistently. It's easier to ignore the spam/crap.
STEVE: Where does 'digg' fit into that?
MAX: Digg is what I go to when I've read the breaking news for the day and want a little more variety. It's basically my version of a magazine.
STEVE: That's interesting, where do friends play a part, links from Facebook, any twitter or other 'social network' links from friends?
MAX: Most of the friend/media interchange happens on the ground level -- me hearing about interesting shows or music and telling people about things I like, but I find YouTube acts like a very easy platform for sharing ideas/trends -- if you want to tell someone about something, you go to YouTube and show them a video. Facebook can play into it in auxiliary ways, but the primary interchange still happens face to face (on campus).
STEVE: OK, so is it possible for a marketing campaign with advertisements to get you interested in a show, or a movie, or a band?
MAX: Yeah, but it's really a matter of trust. Do I trust the source?
STEVE: Ah, that's interesting. What sources do you trust?
MAX: Trust has to do with the relevancy of the content -- if it's either interesting or funny or important. I don't want to be "ripped off" for my time.
STEVE: Do you pay for anything, and how do you decide what to pay for and what not to?
MAX: No I do not.
STEVE: iTunes?
MAX: Nope
STEVE: iPhone apps?
MAX: Like 2, maybe
STEVE: Is there ever a band or an artist that you'd give $1 to just because they're indie and cool?
MAX: Maybe in a system I know is right, but right now it'd kind of feel like dropping it down a bottomless pit.
STEVE: Let's talk about stealing.
MAX: Haha ok.
STEVE: It seems like when you grew up, everything was free (ad supported). Now the ads don't work, but you and your friends think that free is almost like a political statement
MAX: Oh yes we do in fact
STEVE: Well, music used to cost something (records, CDs, etc.), then mp3s came along. Movies you used to pay for (tickets), now pirate bay. When you are not in college, and you have a job and make money, will you still not pay for content because it should be "free?" Is it economics or politics?
MAX: It's both. Because they're connected. If the politics don't work, the economics won't work. Right now the politics are broken, and there's a gap, so we're filling it til the politics are fixed. It's our duty to steal the music. We're dumping tea in Boston Harbor. Young people don't like the idea of a "music industry" and they don't feel connected to it.
STEVE: So, if Flaming Lips had a way for you to pay them $5 for a group of songs (rather than pay a record label) would that feel more honest (or more appropriate)? Paying the artist rather than the MAN?
MAX: To reiterate, we're not pirates. We have a sense of propriety, we just aren't going to put up with the bullshit. Frankly, I'd hand them more than 5 bucks if I were putting the money directly in their hands. Raidiohead released their album In Rainbows for free on the Internet with the option to pay. Most didn't, but one man paid a thousand dollars. Now If I have 100 dollars for music and 5 favorite bands, each one could get 20 dollars for their newest albums.
STEVE: Last topic. Newspapers....
MAX: Sorry, journalism and dead trees are going to need to get a divorce.
STEVE: Right - but what happens to the Huffington Post if the NY Times goes broke?
MAX: That's why I said journalism. Preserve the institution, but frankly the format was diagnosed with a deadly illness a decade ago -- it's time the newspapers started taking the Internet seriously.
You read the Times both ways -- it's just news. For better or worse, the NYT is now a for-profit business like any music company or movie studio -- they're just distributors -- so you tell me: how does the New York Times reconnect itself to the concept of journalism, which has moved on to the blogosphere these days?
It's all about trust. The Internet is only a scary place if you look at it that way. It's a series of nodes that represent people. The closer my news is to a person, the more comfortable I feel about it. I'm willing to accept bias and spin, as long as it's not deceptive and deceitful. I read the Huffington Post because their admitted bias matches mine. Journalism is about people, first and foremost.
STEVE: Play futurist for a sec - it's 2015 (or so). When you wake up
• where do you go, what do you read/watch, whom do you trust?
MAX: Assuming the global financial system still exists, I live off my iPhone, or whatever. What Apple got right was the simplicity of the device. It's tiny, square, and the interface's dexterity is unparalleled. This creates a trifecta in my life of convenience and connectivity - so right now I see myself using my iPhone as an ID, as a surfing device, or really just about anything. I don't need a million devices -- I only need one or two. Maybe I have a home base or something, but really I want my media to be with me all the time and in a tiny form. I'm not saying big screens won't still exist, what I'm saying is the only permanent force in this market and this industry is people. The human/device/media interaction is the key to it all.
In conclusion, if this is any indication as to how young people plan to consume content as they grow up, we sure better sort out some ad supported solutions sooner rather than later. Because it's pretty clear that there isn't a whole lot of enthusiasm for PPV or VOD, or other pay for micro content solutions -- at least from this one person's perspective.
