The argument over Web3 is very exciting. How do you call out the two main protagonists? Jack Dorsey has an unlimited hall pass now that he's free of Wall Street's hound dogging adult supervision of Twitter, and he's using it for some subtle purpose. I don't know the guy well, but I have always appreciated his counter-conventional attitude towards great truths he has no time for. I am desperate not to be blocked by him. Kara Swisher has been blocked from her account for some reason. She is becoming my favorite media personality for asking all the questions I might have in a format where I will never be invited on stage. The distinctions between host and speaker are irrelevant when she is there because her spaces are a fantastic validation of the new format.
People in our age group are dropping like flies. We talked a few weeks ago about the Identity Gang, and this week it is Chris Locke of Cluetrain fame. The link is in the newsletter. He was nicknamed Rageboy because he was an original voice who came along as the Internet gave voice to anyone who showed up. Doc says that he invented Cluetrain on the wings of the previous generation of rageboys, with names like Hunter S. Thompson. Locke connected Doc, David Weinberger, and Rick Levine, who built the website that became the business book, like John Lennon, Paul, and George. The guy in Monty Python did all the animations that connected the tissues of the group.
Markets are conversations, Doc and the Cluetrain said, and at the time many felt they understood the fundamental note, what Doc now calls the promise of independence. The last few years of Trumpism and the Pandemic have left us more cautious about the impact of technology. My guess is that Jack and Marc represent a conversation that depends on both being right, yet the media wants an argument and an afterparty rope line. I don't hear much agreement as the John and Paul dialogue: getting better all the time, can't get much worse.
I remember the optimism of that time when the Internet was still in its infancy. The battles were over things like owning our own data, being able to transport it from platform to platform, and forging the social media moment into something we could run with in the broader media world. The endorsement model is the economic driver of the surge. It felt like a record deal in the 70's and 80's, where you pulled enough money to fund a recording session, then went to a label. The hope was for a contract for more recording and support for touring.
podcasting offered a bootstrap past the record companies and their marketing departments to a more elastic audience development environment. You no longer needed access to the radio funnel with its strictures of expensive recoupable recording time, loss leader showcase performances, and a scratch-my-back. The scale was compressed, but all those things were still there.
The gap between home and studio settings was bridged with the use of low-cost prosumer equipment, and sometimes hit records used a hybrid between the two. The Stones worked up riffs on cassettes and moved the actual tracks over to multitracks for better sound. Stevie Wonder used the same overdubbing and multi-track building of home recording to take complete control of the studio as he went from the Motown music factory to music he wrote, played most if not all of the instruments, and collaborated with engineers and technologists.
The same transfer of power from the labels to the creators is provided by today's smart phones, cloud services, and app stores. Newletters and live audio networks make it possible to write, record, and distribute material at little or no expense. You can use social media to promote and engage with a growing network of hosts, speakers, and listeners that float between roles in a social and aspirational way. On Clubhouse, the record/replay tools produce lists similar to the Top Ten lists of most popular replays. Next up will be most popular with certain groups and mining of their data about how they behave with related shows and artists. This evolution of liner notes, which used to be called liner notes, drove the market from Top Forty radio to deep cut album-oriented FM, and from there to the use of data to determine renewals based on shows' impact on retention of valuable subscribers.
Word choice feels forced and arbitrary as I read it. I don't know why I like this new platform. Maybe it is the excessive noise about the creator economy. Is it an economy when the money to be made is not enough to attract the same media system? Maybe it is the feeling of looking at the present through the lens of the past. I can't remember the details of that time, but the energy seemed to pulse out of the global moment. A live streaming show captures some of that, but not the excitement of the possibilities of the era. The notification and follow system drew a very few people, but more than enough to see how this will replace full production podcasting as it absorbs it.
Listeners could drop in, leave, and return over time in a similar way to the Space conversation. The discussion was more interesting than other long tail alternatives. It takes 24 hours to back the recording up and enable transcription services, so Clubhouse wins for the moment. The history of the early days of both Facebook and Twitter shows that most early users will join both to improve production automation. This is not the economy at work but the environment of early film schools like NYU and USC that spawned a community of directors and producers like Lucas, Coppola, and Scorsese that dominated the New Wave of Hollywood filmmaking.
It is a fragile thing, market-forming, and not at all clear the commitment of these players to anything other than a winner-take-all strategy. Even though it's tempting, the past history of bailing on third-party developers and acquisitions like Periscope helps keep Clubhouse in the game as it wrestles with a post-Dorsey resource battle at the parent company. It's not just a Field of Dreams story. They will come if they build it. That is not what they will stay for.
Take the cable networks with you. Please. How much longer will we stare at the destruction of democracy? The war with the virus. We want answers, not growth opportunities. A review of the new Don't Look Up asteroid movie described it as good but not great. For me, it was only about Trump winning reelection. Half of the country didn't believe the asteroid was coming until they could see it in the sky, but how many didn't believe it when they could see it was really hurt.
Medium is a Field of Dreams startup. Omicron is turning the Pandemic into the common cold. The author says that the result could be milder or more severe if the data was backed up. If we act on the science not our hopes, it will be consequential. When we follow the data and take sides, technology serves us. The Beatles broke up because of how they got together for so long.
The Gillmor Gang Newsletter is out.
The Gillmor Gang are Frank, Michael, Markman, Teare, Denis, Pombriant, Leary and Gillmor. On Friday, December 10, 2021.
Tina Chase Gillmor directed it.
The following people are associated with it:fradice,mickeleh,denispombriant,kteare,brentleary, andstevegillmor.
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