Friday, October 14, 2005

Got Net? On Newspaper Archive Fees

At last week's Southern Illinois Business Expo I spoke with a presenter about Internet marketing and print media. I asked:
If we're bullish on Internet marketing, why does an archive search and retrieval in the local paper cost money?
Many newspapers provide the search then charge for the retrieval of older articles. If I want to publicize my business (or my town, or whatever) and I got coverage in August 2004, someone who wants to read about da bidnez is going to pay $2.95 in the Southern Illinoisan, $5 for a day's use of the Harrisburg Daily Register, and so on.The Marion Daily Republican uses the same service as the Register, same rates.

MAKE IT UP WITH VOLUME?

Yes, there are bulk discounts. For only $1,995 one can receive the Southern Illinoisan's archive (1000 articles @ $1.99 per) or the Register's/Republican's $20/month ($240/year) for "all you can eat" archive retrieval.

As an example, the New York Times charges $3.95 for one article, and $49.95 for 1200 articles/year. The Chicago Tribune goes for $3.95 quantity 1 and $359/year (1200 articles). {Memo to self: perhaps this ties into automobile towing conspiracy.}

Contrast this with the Seattle Times and others. Their fee? Zip, nada, nil, goose egg. They want you to register with them. Name/address/email. A menu to tell 'em what you want and what you don't.

And, gentle reader, always keep a yahoo or hotmail or whatever second email for this purpose, right?

But how do they make money if its "free"?

CONTEXT ADS

As Yogurt The Wise said: "Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower."

Well, advertising actually. The Seattle Times automatically serves up content-sensitive ads. Same thing Google AdSense does on this blog. A machine reads the content and serves up what's likely to tickle the reader's fancy.

When the reader clicks the ad, the Seattle Times gets $$ for serving them the ad. So I look up a street festival in 1997, and I might get an ad for this year's festival, or where to get a great deal on a Haloween costume.

And there's a *whole* lot of other things that go into making that sausage: advertisers bid for location on pages & etc. & etc.

So if someone retrieved an archived article about the "Marion Hub Of The Universe" they might get an ad for a local store if they were reading a "shopping" article, or an ad for an accountant if they were reading an article about a business start up.

What else does the newspaper get when it gets people registering in greater numbers?

Information about their readers. What they read, when they read, what they buy, when they buy. And then, the paper can help their advertisers better target their message. Its all about the money. And if my business had coverage in the newspaper, I could expect that more people would be able to read about that business.

In any event, a more lucid writer than I*,Dan Gilmore's "On Grassroots Journalism" covered this very well in "Newspapers: Open Your Archives". He also takes the point (paraphrasing) that print information is history and should remain available "forever"; I strongly agree.

I'm curious: just *how much* money is made from archive fees? I'll bet you that more money's made from the ads.

PS: And I would not mind having my fancy tickled, let me assure you.

PPS: That's His Girl Friday (in the public domain, available from archive.org as a download) with Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy, and Rosalind Russell. It was remade into "The Front Page" several times. I got the DVD for $1 at a local Kroger.

* low bar, that

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Southern Illinois Business Conference Expo at the Williamson County Convention Center Pavilion

What's this doing in a technology and culture blog? Well, tech and culture need a healthy environment for sustainable growth. And communicating to and from markets, partners and customers feeds that growth.

A dance, if you will.

That's why I attended the Business Expo at the Williamson County Pavilion Friday 7 October 2005.

All in all, a good idea and interesting experience. I will do it again.

However....

INVISIBLE

As far as I can tell, the search engines could not find it. Why?

My guess:

I was searching "williamson county business conference october", and the engine wanted "expo" as a search term."Expo" did work. Methinks "META TAGS" did wound; they help drive traffic to a website. Not a major problem but someone needs to vet web copy for "searchability".

NB: And if the "Williamson County Pavilion" has its own site, I am a mooncalf lost in the Internet. It has no website, as far as I can tell.

AUDIENCE? WHAT AUDIENCE?

I spoke with a number of enthusiastic and informed booth folk (many of them the Business owner or a principal, major PLUS there!). They had a general complaint of lack of traffic; particularly the lack of consumer traffic.

One problem:Vote Suppressed
  • The September 18 Southern Illinoisan Article (click fast before the link expires) stated "The expo is designed for business owners and not open to the general public" which may have, erm, rather cooled the avid civilian crowds.


  • Second problem(and this could be me):
  • I found the Southern Business Journal website difficult to navigate/cluttered. And when I did find the Events link (subtle graphics, in my opinion) it dumped me to a registration form.


  • I only wanted to know what was going on.

    Name: I Want To See
    Employer: The Schedule
    Address: Not A Form, IL 62911
    Phone: 867-5309


    EYE TEST

    There were a lot of full page trees who died in service to this event. The SI had several full page ads; however, as I enter my.... not golden, more rusty than golden.... rusty years, the message (who's really wanted here at this event) and the clarity of the font listing seminars.... dicey, that.

    So for example: List the Day's Seminars then List Seminars in Larger Font Underneath so geezers can read it.

    Was:
    Oct 6 Something Interesting
    Oct 6 Something Else
    Oct 6 Something Else


    Suggested form:
    THURSDAY
    Something Interesting
    Something Else
    Something Else

    SCHEDULE FEWER CONCURRENT SEMINARS, START EACH DAY WITH A KEYNOTE

    There was a mix of content; but it appeared (this is a survey, not a census) at about 1pm on Friday that there were a lot of chairs and not enough people. And some seminars with near identical topics ran concurrently.

    Perhaps develop thematic "tracks" like:

    • business marketing and promotion,
    • employee benefits,
    • government resources,
    • company stories


    Even large established trade shows (in my addled recollection) tend to run only a couple of concurrent seminars, until things get VERY BIG.

    For the keynote, if all else fails (meaning this kindly) get a politician or a head of the organizing group(s). Hizzonor or even a TV anchor (ok, stretching it here).

    MISSING IN ACTION

    Did I miss the Southern Illinois Tourism Presence? Maybe.

    How about Wine Trail representation?

    Food services/catering? Could have had more representation, as well as some just plain restaurant folks who want to promote meeting business on site.

    Marion Main Street? I wish I had seen them; the area needs balanced growth.

    I drove over there and registered at the door. Well worth the trip, and I hope that everyone involved understands that repetition will increase participation.

    That, and a clearer message delivered in a convenient form.

    From The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
    Prosser: But the plans were on display.
    Arthur Dent: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar.
    Prosser: That's the display department.
    Arthur Dent: With a torch.
    Prosser: The lights had probably gone.
    Arthur Dent: So had the stairs.
    Prosser: But you did see the notice, didn't you?
    Arthur Dent: Oh, yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign outside the door saying "Beware of the Leopard." Ever thought of going into advertising?

    Not that anyone asked: My qualifications for hand-waving about this include being "the customer" (weight gain & water retention) at a number of trade shows over the last 20 years, and being "the vendor" (thankless job, shin splints and boredom) at many others. And its easy to criticize the work of others; trade shows involve cat herding. And I think the organizers did a solid job; I just want the bar raised for next time.

    Image: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USF34- 026826-D "Interior of Oke-Doke dance hall. Williamson County, Illinois", 1939, Arthur Rothstein. American Library Of Congress, American Memory

    Digital Media: Blog Publishing And Mark Twain




      But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.


    The use of censoring software in public speech has, I do believe, gotten a tad over-heated. I'm in a conversation now about the "banning" of blogsearch.google.com at a local library. Not search words like nudie or whatever but the entire search engine.

    The result of this is searches for things like "cancer support group" or "name of local congressman" is blocked. Heck, try "cookies for grandma" and a screen pops up that makes me feel like Aunt Sally found me reading Hustler at the Kitchen Table. I've met the local congressman a few times, and he may laugh at off color jokes, he could only be construed as pornographic if under the influence of some *very* odd medication.

    I feel empathy for the people administering this. The fear mongers have good people twitching with concerns about pornography and impure thoughts far beyond the actual menace. I refuse (so far) to flame the folks trying to do their job under these digital draconian measures.

    So, watch this space for future developments.

    My take: If you find a couple of ticks, don't kill the zoo.

    And if you find a surly teen (redundant) searching for porn at the library, throw him out/embarass him. At some point erotica became pornography; tastes vary and its pretty dumb to do some things in public (e.g., the Library).

    But the search for the modern version of dirty playing cards will continue no matter which version of god or mammon we consider for guidance.

    Tuesday, October 11, 2005

    Visualization Software: Eye Candy 101




    Since about 1984 or so I have been fascinated with the visualization of complex data.

    I believe the canonical authority remains Edward Tufte at Yale. He's best known for The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information. I'll cover that at a future date.

    I did today find this satellite constellation visualization software from Lloyd Wood
    at the University Of Surrey(UK).

    Image credits to SaVi and The University Of Minnesota's Geometry Center. Here are more examples.

    Monday, October 10, 2005

    What Would Steve Wright Do?


    In keeping with the hard hitting copyright issues in a networked digital world...

    I pondered AP's copyright notice today:

      Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

    Isn't it hard for them to make a living like that?

    They might as well blog.

    Public Domain Felix from The Felix The Cat Page

    Saturday, October 08, 2005

    Robo Carp?

    The Mississipi River (et.al) now has Asian Carp escaped from Catfish ponds. These carp mess up the indigenous ecosystem, and now threaten the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Fishery Management site has video of Asian Carp leaping.

    Now with RoboFish, maybe we can make a bad problem worse (Jurassic Park with Techno); think RoboFish targeted to Asian Carp's "smell"/DNA signature. And imagine a programming error with the 1.1 code release....

    Perhaps grief for Noodling afficianados. More Noodling reviews at Johnsjottings.com.
      From Wikipedia.org: "Noodling is the practice and sport of fishing for catfish using only one's bare hands. Noodling may be called grabbling, graveling, hogging, or tickling, depending on what southern state you're in (Kentuckians call it dogging, while Nebraskans prefer stumping)."
    Other ecosystem car wrecks are discussed at http://www.protectyourwaters.net/, "The Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers web site is part of the ANS Task Force public awareness campaign and is sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serviceand the U.S. Coast Guard. "

    Friday, October 07, 2005

    Those Wacky RIAA Types: At It Again


    RIAA Goes After Satellite Radio is discussed at Slashdot.

    Wouldn't the industry be more profitable if it worked on getting costs out of its distribution, helping with Internet innovations, and stopped slapping consumers?

    Anyone who can remember the quote (memory here not what it was) from a Rapper in the mid-1990s talking about how the Music Industry was the fat man with holes in its pockets?

    For extra fun try NPR's Justice Talking "The First Amendment in a Digital Age" which aired on 16 September 2005 with Jack Valenti, Floyd Abrams (Pentagon Papers), and Lawrence Lessig (Creative Commons).

    Photo from Steve Schoenherr at his Recording Technology History site.

    Thursday, October 06, 2005

    Digital Media: Monk & More


    Heard lovely T. Monk music on NPR yesterday afternoon.

    There's a new recording from the Library of Congress of 1957 Jazz at Carnegie Hall.

    More about Thelonious Monk at The Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz (source of this photo).

    Quite a group of people in that concert: John Coltrane, Shadow Wilson, Thelonious Monk and Ahmed Abdul-Malik.

    This stuff is ephemeral; we're lucky to have it.

    Acetate tapes. Imagine.

    Tuesday, October 04, 2005

    Einstein Draft


    Wired News reports that an Early Einstein Manuscript has been found.

    The Einstein Archive is at the Lorentz Institute of the University of Leiden. One page is shown here.

    I remember the first time I saw the "Tiger" image in HyperCard and being wowed. (Simple mind, that.)

    But these kinds of data/images are just, to me, engaging.

    Saturday, October 01, 2005

    After The Bubble: New Venture Sources

    Ok.... I found this in the mail today. All of you entrepreneurs, light up. Peace in the land. Hallelu! Amen! MAKEMONEYFAST. Dunno, maybe Tom DeLay's people could use this.

    From:Madam Ann Martin
    Av.14.ruom19.treich ville
    Abidjan Ivory Coast right about here West Africa
    Email.ADDRESSREMOVED@yahoo.fr

    Dearest In Christ, I am the Madam Ann Martin from Kuwait. I am married to Mr. Greg Martin who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2003.We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2.Million in a Bank here in Abidjan. Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next Eight months due to cancer problem. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavor that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that "Blessed is the hand that giveth". I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don't want my husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers.
    I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that "the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace". I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband's relatives around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Bank in Abidjan. I will also issue you an authorisation letter that will prove you the present beneficiary of this fund. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the lord is my shephard. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that Wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.Contact me on my email any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply. Remain blessed in the Lord. Yours in Christ,
    Madam Ann Martin