The Price of Information

Professor Huber sits down in front of his class, a copy of the Times Union, crumpled and folded, lies in a heap on the table in front of him. He had just asked them what the future of the news industry will be. Does information want to be free or expensive? Maybe the question is better posited as: do people want information badly enough to shell out some dough for it?

Huber picks up a section of the paper and proclaims loudly that one cannot walk out of Stewarts or any other store with this paper without paying for it first. This is a great claim indeed and would be true if people weren’t strolling out of the stores all the time with a free copy of the Times Union tucked neatly into their computers.

My classmate, Reid Buchanan, said that the argument is over, that people already made their decision, and they are not going to pay for the content that the Times Union, and others, is already giving away for free. So how does information gain back its price tag? Buchanan thinks the information that can sell is information “that solves a problem” or is “information you have to have,” which he likens to the Wall Street Journal’s financial coverage or ESPN’s sports news.

But where does general news coverage fit into this? We know it’s necessary for people to know what is going on in their world and to have good, unbiased reporters tell them. Yet, how willing are people to actually pay that reporter that wants to earn a living doing this when someone else will offer something similar for free?

I talked about The New York Times pay wall previously. Jay Rosen says “It’s a gamble” Michael Wolff describes it as a “Hail Mary strategy.” But what if they’re wrong?

I suggested in class that an online pay model may work if it’s built around a niche. There are niche markets online for many things. Why not journalism? The Wall Street Journal has a big niche: financial news! There are many investors willing to toss a few bucks at financial experts that spew information that’ll net them some positive gains or at least some good insight. Insight seems to be a key word.

One of my classmates mentioned ESPN Insider, which supplements the site’s basic sports coverage with exclusive blogs and juicy news tidbits.

But sports and finance are only two niches and there are infinitely more of them. Another example, video game ezine The Escapist, serves up biting editorials and game news from talented writers and buoys this with a Publisher’s Club membership that offers mobile and tablet access and an advertising free version of their site, along with HD, or HTML5, video. The same thing can go for VIP access to celebrities in entertainment or access to in depth reporting from countries across the globe. Pop your interests into a virtual shopping cart and you're ready to check out.

“This is about the “app mentality.” People are clearly willing to pay for content and experiences that they consider valuable and important,” says Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Chairman of The New York Times Company. So, maybe The New York Times isn’t as out of touch as some say they are. The Times needs to foster this “app mentality” and other newspapers need to take notice. Sell your paper piecemeal and maybe the audience will like every section so much they’ll give the whole thing a chance.

Here’s a new depiction of the family dividing up the paper. Dad has a paper copy of the business section on the couch. Junior scans the sports section on his laptop, while Sis dabbles in the entertainment section on her phone, all while Mom checks the local section on the desktop. Each walks away with a section of news that they care about and within each section is a group of reporters that they can, hopefully, remain loyal enough to support.

Extra! Extra! A paper actually wants to get paid for its services!

Screen Print of the Article - Just in
case they decide to change that header

The New York Times has finally decided to put up a pay wall. In an oddly bold printed article with the web banner titled “New York Times to Impose Fees for Web Readers on March 28,” they lay out their plan for subscription web access to readers. Website and mobile access is $15/month and an extra $5 if you prefer the iPad to your phone. A rather useless $35 “all-access plan” is also available, if you absolutely must have access to all three. If you’re only a casual viewer, don’t worry, you’re guaranteed access to 20 articles per month. I assume this means access to any article will now require registration, by which they can count your 20 article limit.


I was a little hung up by the terminology they used in the article header. A Fee is usually a charge with a negative connotation. Your bank charges you fees for overdrawing your account. Your job might charge you a fee to replace your lost desk key. Late fees are your library’s punishment for keeping their books and movies for too long . Your credit card charges fees for anything, because they are an instrument of Satan. The theme is that fees are charges that are levied when one exploits a service.


So, in The Times Freudian-slip of a header, I believe they are actually chiding their online readers for their selfish behavior. Do I think it’s right of them? HELL YES! It’s about time The New York Times stood up for themselves and decided that their 1st rate news coverage cannot be gobbled up by news hungry web crawers and headline nabbing bloggers. Their basic web access subscription is a ridiculously reasonably priced plan. To compare, The Wall Street Journal is $8.62 a month and the Los Angeles Times is 12.99 a month for their eEdition, which is an electronic carbon copy of their daily paper (their online content appears to have no pay wall).


So, is “fee” the correct word choice for the New York Times new subscription plan? Yes. Should they use it to notify their readers of this change? Probably not, but hey, they’re The New York Times not some sissy, tabloid nonsense and people will pay for the privilege of reading their fine paper.

Milk, Cookies & Crazies




Although it's quite cinematic school should never actually feel ominous

 The other night my wife and I had an unusual craving. We were just about to watch the horror movie “The Crazies,” which involved scenes of horrific violence, gore and naughty language when we were overcome with a pang for milk and cookies. My wife had just baked a couple leftover batches from the weekend and we couldn’t resist them despite the crude entertainment. I have to say though; a warm chocolate chip cookie alongside a pitchfork to the gut does me just fine, but would probably be an odd juxtaposition for anyone else.

It makes me think about the odd relationship of bullying and school, namely that the one cannot exist without the other. School has a noble purpose, to educate our youth in a number of fields, to stretch their minds and flex their cognitive prowess, and to help prepare them for the world they will face as adults. Like any noble endeavor though, it can become tainted. Our army has a goal of protecting our nation but fails to protect women and gays within its own ranks. Our markets attempt to diffuse risk to allow for greater financial access for all Americans and a stable economy to support growth but they became shortsighted and greedy and nearly destroyed our entire financial system. Likewise, our schools have strived to teach our youth, yet they have fostered an environment of bigotry and violence that has grown so enormous that they have lost any control over it. They have lost their students trust and ours as well.



Click for a larger view

 The Cyberbullying Research Center, directed by two professors with doctorates in Criminal Justice, has been running studies on students since 2004. Their website is a vast resource for anyone interested in concise, empirical evidence of this problem. Their most recent study found that about 20 percent of students have experienced cyberbullying and roughly the same percentages of students have admitted to cyberbullying. Their research has also found a startlingly high percentage of students that had been bullied within 30 days of the survey. [see their chart]

Tuesday night the College of St. Rose and the Times Union hosted a panel that discussed the rise of cyberbullying and various ways to hopefully prevent it. My social media class joined a large group of parents to see what information they had to share.

Lori Cullen, a plump and cheery mother of three children and Times Union blogger, said she recently had a “shared introduction” to social media with her children, finding out that her young children already had an internet presence on sites such as Facebook.

Sandra Morley, discussed “teaching etiquette” in her classrooms. Her perfectly erect posture and stern expression gave away her profession as Principal of Bethlehem Central High School as clearly as her introduction from moderator Lydia Kulbida, the news 10 anchor. She spoke of a need for schools to “know your students and know them well.”

The discussion stalled when it came to Joseph Donohue, state police lieutenant with a strong jaw and white hair, who riddled his comments with cliché after cliché. He had a lot to say but said nothing stronger than bullying had gone too far by the time it reached the police.

The opposite end of the contribution spectrum was Professor Stephen Birchak. He wore a dark, tailored suit and a disarming grin and shook things up with a joke or two before settling into his lecture. This wit obviously helps him in his appearances as Dr. Bird, speaker and therapist for children dealing with esteem issues. At the meeting it aided him in conveying his points.

Birchak found that most cyberbullies don’t realize the pain they cause by making hurtful comments online about others. He believes most of them do it seeking attention for themselves and that they are “ignorant to the pain and suffering they cause.” Birchak also described the need for administrators to seek out the bystanders and believes that they are the key to overturning bullying in any environment, in school or online.

This coalesced nicely into the final panelist, James Preller, author of the novel “The Bystander.” The book covers the topic of bullying in the middle school environment and the fear experienced by the student on the sidelines, the silent witness. Preller utilized visits to actual schools and his own life experience to create what he called a work of “realistic fiction.” He told the story of reconnecting with a bullied classmate on Facebook and how this grown man had never fully rid himself of the terrible memories of his youth and the dreadful feelings that these recollections still evoked.

“How we treat each other has lasting effects,” said Preller.

Then two students from Shenendehowa High School introduced a mock demonstration of what they termed the “virtual bathroom wall.” It was an example of a Facebook profile, created by cyberbullies, with the sole purpose of ridiculing and humiliating a fellow student. In addition they created Facebook group pages and a Formspring account to detail every avenue cyberbullies are using to torment their victims.

The St. Rose panel comes on the heels of President Obama’s conference that discussed the problems of bullying. This seems to beg the question, what plan will work as an effective means for, if not deterring bullying, to lessen it and its harmful effects?

Is the federal government’s intrusion into local schools an effective means to this end or is this another area best left to local administrators?

I like to believe that bullying can be prevented as a result of curbing the “bystander effect” and allowing victims more outlets to report being bullied. Bullying is not exclusive of schools but that doesn't mean that schools can't be exclusive to bullying. If the problem were given the attention it deserves, and maybe now it finally is, then perhaps we can eventually conquer it. In the meantime, I like what Professor Birchak said to one of the questions at the end of the panel.

“[Victims] feel there’s a permanence to things,” he says. What students need to realize, he says, is that these things shall pass and that there are people that love and care deeply for them that they can turn to. He says that often times talking to someone about their plight helps them to see the bigger picture, that being a victim of a bully does not define who they are. To the parents, he says, their obligation is to “keep that conversation open.”

UAlbany, there’s egg on your face

This weekend University at Albany students took early morning drinking to a new level and found the blogosphere more than willing to broadcast it to the nation.

Our city's annual buffoonery, also know as “Kegs and Eggs,” commenced this weekend with five UAlbany students arrested and city police almost as scratched and battered as one Nissan Maxima .

My “partying” friends usually overwhelm me with funny stories of their drunken expeditions with colored photos to document it. This year I haven’t heard a thing from them but I already have an earful.

The Times Union wrote and blogged about it, local bloggers called out students and faculty, while YouTube and Local NBC affiliate WNYT passed the disturbing videos along. Even a site called Irishcentral.com covered it. All of this culminates to an Associated Press piece nabbed by nothing less than the Wall Street Journal Online.

Apparently, while some students were rioting, throwing beer bottles and attacking police officers, others decided to assault the aforementioned car. Apparently nobody noticed, or cared, that they were being videotaped during this.

It’s been reiterated repeatedly how instantly information is passed on in the blogosphere, now UAlbany knows just how fast, and horrible, this truly is.

The internet sucks and I hate it

It’s hard to create an argument against a medium while using it. Clary Shirky discusses this conundrum when he describes the Abbot of Sponheim, defending scribes in a text proliferated by the printing press. “The abbot’s book praised the scribes, while its printed form damned them.”

Despite this, I intend on proving my point.

Take a look at this.

Now, this could be a video that supports my argument or a video of cats doing stupid things, either way it doesn’t matter. You will more than likely click on that link and see what’s on the other side of it because I told you to. This is a prime example of the arrogance and distracting nature of the web. We live in a world where even a well-rounded argument cannot be sufficiently gleaned from an article. Not only do these hyperlinked potholes abound on the web but we now expect them. Our browsers adopted tabs so that we can conveniently pile them up and flip-flop between them.

I meant to give you this.

This Pew study has a number of interesting points to it but one they stress to make is that blogging in the younger generations of internet users has been on the decline.

Only half as many online teens work on their own blog as did in 2006, and Millennial generation adults ages 18-33 have also seen a modest decline—a development that may be related to the quickly-growing popularity of social network sites.

They go on to make the point that older generations are actually increasing their internet use, especially on blogs. Why to some this point is pertinent, I’d rather ignore it for now as I believe the older generations influence on youth’s online behavior is minimal as evidenced by this chart from Pew.

In fact, the opposite seems to be suggested by Pew’s data shows that use of social media sites by users age 46-64 has increased by over 25%

However, what is applicable is the switch from long-form blogs, like Blogger or LiveJournal, to the short and sweet forms of status updates or tweets. If the internet has spawned more and more examples of ways to distract its users, from Farmville to Funny Cats, perhaps blogs are just another casualty of our lack of attention.

Yet, there are some that would look toward this as a good sign. They might argue, how is attention less accessible now than before? They would say today’s youth are privy to mountains of information, in tweets, status updates, blog quips, article summaries and aggregated content, and they somehow find a way to process it all and retain it.

Author, Steven Johnson, argued that information overload allows our brain to build new pathways to process information faster. While his book never approached the internet’s potential benefits one could conceivably piece an opinion together based on his approach to other mediums such as television and videogames.

Jamais Cascio, who cites Johnson, does just that in his article, “Get Smarter,” saying that, “The trouble isn’t that we have too much information at our fingertips, but that our tools for managing it are still in their infancy.” He finds that some occupations may have to suffer or dissolve completely from the changes wrought by the internet. The rest of his article sounds like a hypothetical android world.

Perhaps this is what we have to look forward to. Cascio describes a world where brain augmentation is a snack food and complex digital assistants are so commonplace as to “not even merit comment.” But, this, he says, is probably an age 50 years or so in the future. So don’t expect R2-D2 to beam into your garage and suddenly transform into a Chevy Camaro.

The argument appears to have changed however. It is no longer a question of how the world’s technologies will change society into a global online community. It’s not even a question of when. The argument itself is over. As Clay Shirky succinctly puts it, “the future belongs to those who take the present for granted.”

But, while I hold his small, orange book “Here Comes Everybody” in my hands and read the printed words pressed onto off-white parchment, I find myself hoping for that change to slow down. I hope it doesn’t consume the printed word that I’ve grown to love as quickly as it seems to be. If it does than I truly will hate the internet, despite all its benefits and I don’t think I’m alone on that one.

Give it up for Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera's Twitter Dashboard

Al Jazeera has launched a very cool Twitter Dashboard that tracks the uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain. This is a great example of just the sort of thing that news experts say is changing the face of the media.

So, what do our news companies have for us to drool over?

Well we have a blog from CBS, the station that gave us Edgar R. Murrow, detailing the trivial exploits of a lackluster morning show reporter, another presenting a creepy Gizmo-like creature clutching an umbrella and more Charlie Sheen than I could ever hope to (much less want to) link to.

Why is it that American news companies settle for posting garbage like this?

It is because, for some reason, it sells. When the media revolution comes maybe we won’t be a part of it. Sheltered in our coddling news media we tend to avoid news from around the world that doesn’t concern us directly and the news stations, perceiving this, have delivered what we have requested.

We have to do better than this. If we don’t then at least we should recognize Al Jazeera for doing so. Oh, thanks Mrs. Clinton.

"A recess your Honor? My lawyer needs a recharge."

 Another day and another job is taken over by technology or at least broadsided by it. The New York Times reports on new software that can outperform a lawyer, and their accompanying paralegals, with analyzing the mountains of documents that can come about in major court cases.
Obviously, this new technology, which can make associations between the words "dog" and "man's best friend" without being told to, is already on the first crest of it's usability peak but already this shakes things up more than many law firm employees would like it too. Most assistants to various professionals may have already dealt with the a new wave of technology that has washed away their jobs. Secretaries replaced by voicemail, journalists outdone by microbloggers and humanity outshined by robots.

E-Trade's  popular baby commercials
 seem to mock it's own customer base

 But it remains to be seen  how far this trend can be carried. Technology sometimes is only a harbringer of convenience and efficiency but not neccesarily a replacement for a sound professional.
To put it another way, internet dating seems to be a nice way for you to meet people but then eventually you invevitabley go and meet eachother in person, preferably at a bar, restaurant or other well-lit public area where your friends can meet them and make sure they don't murder you.
Another necessary professional opinion would be in finance, where select access, complex analytical tools and patience will still cause day traders to throw away mountains of cash because they really don't know what the heck they're doing.