grungy-gonads 54 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 A friend sent me this overnight. Don't know where it comes from, but very interesting. This "free" thing really does need to change. I wonder when the newspapers will start either charging for their content or just not have it online. Murdoch has been hinting that they are looking at how to make money from online stuff - when did most newspapers suddenly put all their content online anyway? I know I'd pay a small amount for access to the Guardian. At the same time the Guardian/Observer in the UK seems in real trouble right now. See below Quote: Free. Free. Free. Free. The word is everywhere and it doesn’t sound as cheerful as it used to. “Free†used to extend the promise of a life-enhancing little extra to brighten your day. Years ago, when I was learning the magazine huckster’s trade, I was told that you could secure an interview with Kurt Cobain or Kylie Minogue or the Risen Christ if you liked, but none of them would be as good on the cover as the word FREE in bright red on a bright yellow background – even if the cassette you were giving away only had Hothouse Flowers and the Paris Angels on it. It didn’t matter. Free was fun. Free was your friend. Now free has turned nasty. Never mind the burden of encumbering crap you’re faced with in the course of your day (farewell, thelondonpaper, we hardly knew ye). Free is now lapping around all our ankles like a rising flood. It carries not the promise of a nice little something for nothing, but the threat of working for nothing, at least for those of us in what are now called (pretty generously when you think about it) the “culture industriesâ€. What happened to the music business is now happening to everyone else – “they came for the A&R men, and I did nothing…†– and worse, it’s got influential cheerleaders. The American Wired magazine’s editor has written a rather supercilious book arguing that free will become the default price for pretty much everything digital. Somehow things like music, television, software and journalism will just happen, says Chris Anderson, as the hobby products of amateurs who will magically perform better in these disciplines than people who have to meet a certain standard or lose the month’s rent. (Anderson also thinks that “news†and “journalism†themselves are now meaningless concepts, which presumably means he sees no difference between Christopher Hitchens and the guy who runs lolcats.com). Meanwhile Sweden’s odious Pirate Party has set up shop in the UK, bringing its toddler’s manifesto of contradictory demands. Let’s severely diminish copyright and patent law and ensure freedom of speech, they say. On the question of how musicians, writers, developers and dramatists would exercise that right to free speech if their platforms disappeared and they had to work in Netto to survive there is silence, or a lot of waffle about not protecting “failed modelsâ€. Well, yeah, boo hoo and who cares about a load of skint musicians and jobless journo’s? It’s not like any of them are doing real jobs, like bin-men and bank managers and private security consultants. It’s not like anyone would miss them. I can understand the former opinion but not the latter. I freely admit than I and many of my fellow professionals have never done anything like a proper job – meaning one with zero opportunity for independent thought, sloppy dress code or daytime use of Twitter – for more than five minutes and that if we did we would have nervous breakdowns. And compared to the average musician we’re the ones who look like engines of industry. But that is not the point. The point is that art, media and entertainment set the temperature of a society. They are the air that we breathe. Deprofessionalise them, and hand them over solely to zealots and hobbyists, and we all lose out. Your news will become even emptier and less trustworthy than it is now. Your pop culture coverage will become more elitist and obscurantist (see: Pitchfork) because even niche magazines like this one have to keep a keen eye on the cashflow. And anyone expecting a great flowering of music from bands who couldn’t get signed is invited to rummage in the box of CD-R’s under my desk to find out what unsigned bands really sound like. It’s not pretty. I’m not a Luddite. I love a good blog. I run WORD’s Twitter feed and despised the Phil Space brigade (Janet Street-Porter, Jackie Ashley, the fool Liddle again) attacking this fantastic service without understanding the first thing about it. But you can’t run the world entirely on goodwill. As a nation we love the amateur – Churchill was a watercolour painter who ran the war in his spare time, and all that – but the idea that the best art is produced by the enthusiastic Corinthian was always a myth. The best art is produced by the enthusiastic amateur who want to become a well-rewarded professional as quickly as they can. Good stuff costs money, and the most expensive resources are talent and the space to use it. Kick away the ladder up to that place where you can make a living from doing what you love, and all you’ve got left is people’s private doodles. In the absence of a solution, I propose we extend the principle of FREE to everyone else’s job, and see how they like it. I’m going to drive the bus to work tomorrow. Who cares if it’s late, it goes the wrong way and the driver loses his job? Fares will come down to zero and anyway, I’m not responsible for his old-world thinking and crowd-hostile vision and failed business model. If that works out, I might try running a bank. Quote: The managing director of Guardian News & Media, Tim Brooks, has told staff that more cost savings at the publisher of the Guardian and Observer are on the way. Brooks told staff in a memo posted on the company intranet yesterday that the current rate of losses at GNM, which publishes the two national newspapers and the guardian.co.uk website network, which includes MediaGuardian.co.uk, was "unsustainable". Link to post Share on other sites
pie-eater 207 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 I was talking with some friends about this over summer. RE: The Guardian, I'm sure it was less interesting than it used to be. But perhaps that is because I am dulled to the fun of holding it because I pretty much read a lot of it every day here in Japan on t'inta. Do they actually put most of the paper online? It must be a fair chunk, there's a lot to read. I would also be prepared to pay a bit. We are living in a non-English country and so perhaps a little different from the masses back home. Would they pay? Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 we have 4 free papers here. Ones like the Metro etc... That means anybody can pick up 4 papers which they wouldn't normally do. Each is sustained by 2 pages of advertising per page of content. It's a disgusting waste of paper. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted September 16, 2009 Author Share Posted September 16, 2009 That kind of ridiculous total waste has been around for ages, I bet hardly anyone reads them anyway. I think the big thing is the giving away of newspapers content for free while still trying to sell the newspaper and when/if they will start charging for online. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 I know a few who have been charging for a number of years and ones who put it online and give away free paper copies. I just hate the way paper is wasted like this. Link to post Share on other sites
scouser 4 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Don't go encouraging them to charge!! Though actually I would too be prepared to pay something to get at least one of the proper papers. How much? Don't know. It has become such a habit to read them all every morning and evening, taking them away would be a big shock at first. Link to post Share on other sites
klingon 10 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 I think a big problem is that a lot of people are now expecting all media to be free as long as they've paid for the medium - people will willingly pay hundreds of pounds for a computer but be unwilling to pay 2000 yen for a brilliant application. I like to think that the future can consist of a happy balance between free and paid for but it's going to be difficult. If people just want lots of music and aren't fussed what it is then they can get a lot of it for free. If they want specific stuff they have to pay for it. I use a mix of freeware and shareware on my PC depending upon how much I use it. I don't do enough word processing at home to justify buying an office suite so I use Open Office. I do however do enough graphics manipulation and web page authoring to happily pay for some decent software despite basic freeware being available. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Too lazy to catch up on original post, but I heard an interview with a top manager in the guardian group and they said The Guardian makes a loss but they dont care because it is a flagship product and it is supported by more profitable titles in their range including some big websites (autotrader?) I read a nice prediction that content will be distributed as a subscription package. e.g., subscribe for Sky and you get Sky TV, The Sun through your door each morning, and access to the The Sun website. Similarly, subscribe to The Guardian and get the paper+website, and maybe discount on sister publications etc. Link to post Share on other sites
BagOfCrisps 24 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 I think you'll find the Guardian newspaper is in deep shit bobby12. The top manager was surely just trying to be a good director Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Quid pro quo Free turns out to be the most expensive thang Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Swear filter applies to t wat but not shit? Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 shit has become mainstream. I hear some schools have de-sweared it. Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 shit shite sheesh scheize bullshit bollocks merda I think it's colorful language and I love it Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Originally Posted By: Jynxx shit shite - Man City sheesh - Kebab scheize - zer bullshit - bullseye bollocks - the dog's merda - she wrote I think it's colorful language and I love it Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 You can hardly compare shit with the rather offensive t- word. Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan 178 Posted September 16, 2009 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted September 16, 2009 Regarding the filter, I think we have just a few words in there. That's all. It hasn't been touched for many years. There wasn't much call for us taking that filter off when the subject came up last week and I asked - in fact there was none. And as I said last week, we don't particularly want to encourage such language on here, I think the Forums work better because of the lack of it. Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Why don't you give us the list - It will be interesting ... yeah, I agree. don't like f***ing this and f***ing that. That's not colurful. excuse me, just one time offense here Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted September 16, 2009 Author Share Posted September 16, 2009 Is it so hard to guess? Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 I can only guess one ... Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 OK, two ... Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Is piss, bum, poo in the list ? Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 When drinking with my mates, it's really funny to see how many swear words we can get in a sentence. In Cantonese, on our table, away from women folk. One guy manages a different swear word before every other word he says. It's hilarious. Then the ladies come back and it's hmmm, cough cough, hemm, where were we? Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted September 16, 2009 Share Posted September 16, 2009 Originally Posted By: Jynxx Is piss, bum, poo in the list ? when has piss bum poo ever been swear words? Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 I think this is affecting all the newspapers to be honest. The most blatent one is the Independent which has had Evony's boobs at two places on its front page and is constantly running "50 best blah blah" bullshit articles just to get fifty clicks in another window. For all the 24 hour news you get now, most reporting is very shallow and is basically rewriting the wire (AP, Reuters, etc). There is very very little investigative journalism anymore on TV or in the papers. It costs far too much to get someone to do the research. Link to post Share on other sites
rach 1 Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 "50 best blah blah" bullshit articles >> haha yes there are lots of them aren't there, and each annoyingly on it's own page. I bought a few newspapers when I was back in the UK and thought the same as you pie-eater. Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts