Ask.com has gotten a lot of press (and backlash) over the guerrilla Information Revolution marketing campaign that’s been running in the United Kingdom lately. It’s a 6-week campaign masked as a grassroots effort to bring awareness to Google’s monopolization of search and encourage searchers to try out other engines. Google currently enjoys 75 percent of UK search market share
It’s gotten quite a bit of coverage, but in case you missed it, over the past few weeks, Ask.com has been employing both guerrilla and traditional media tactics to get their message out and point searchers to InformationRevolution.org to learn about the movement, receive a free T-shirt and leave comments on the site’s message board.
All in all, a campaign to raise awareness about all the other engines out there that are overlooked because of searchers “sleep searching” and blindly using Google is a positive thing, right? Google’s a great engine, but it doesn’t have to be your everything. Unless they’ve given you a three-stone ring, it’s okay to try out other suitors. The site lets users easily experiment with a new engine and search on either Google, Yahoo, Ask.com or Live.
The problem with Ask’s campaign is that they don’t clearly state that they, Ask,com, a Google competitor, is the one behind it. Kinda sketchy. And now they’re taking a lot of slack for it, including today’s very public hand slap from the Wall Street Journal. You can’t blame users for reacting the way they have. It’s natural that when they discovered what they thought was a natural forming, underground campaign based around information is actually a cleverly disguised attempt to promote Ask.com, they’re going to be less than impressed. Ask has made them feel tricked, deceived, and lots of other non-warm-and-fuzzy things, probably not the aftertaste Ask was hoping to leave.
It’s a shame because the message Ask was trying to get out is an important one. Living in a world where one engine “controls” all the information is a dangerous idea and, frankly, gives Google an enormous amount of power. Unfortunately, that message is now totally lost on an audience who feels like they were duped by a company just trying to promote their own product. Right now, Ask.com has lost its ability to leverage this in a positive light. And it is users who will miss out because Ask really is a great engine. It may never replace Google as your steady, but for some queries, Ask really does provide better, more relevant results.
To be fair, the InformationRevolution.org site does contain an Ask.com logo in the bottom right hand corner, but it’s small and not overly noticeable. And if you don’t immediately recognize the photo of Apostolos Gerasoulis (Team Eli!), you probably miss the affiliation completely. I really think this was an oversight on Ask’s part. Now, instead of being a powerful branding campaign, it came off as a jealous Anti-Google smear campaign, especially when searching on Ask.com for “google” used to bring up a Smart Answer accusing searchers of being puppets. (Fortunately, this has since been taken down.) Not cool.
I also don’t think Ask.com intended to deceive users. I actually think the extent of backlash they’ve received has been somewhat unwarranted. They made a mistake but they weren’t intentionally being malicious. I have to wonder, if Google had launched a similar campaign or launched a movement to take away some of Microsoft’s presence in the office suite world, would we be talking about this right now? Probably not. We just would have laughed. But Ask isn’t Google, and that’s the problem.
The ad agency responsible for Ask’s campaign said they felt Ask.com had “nothing to lose” by running the campaign since Google is so much bigger. I think the fallout has proved that statement to be 100 percent false. By appearing deceptive, they’ve lost a lot of potential users, broken the trust of existing users, and probably tainted their overall impression in the United Kingdom. When you’re struggling for market share, you can’t afford to alienate people. It’s that make new friends, but keep the old lesson we talked about yesterday. Ask.com now has some major reputation management work to do in the UK.
Without a doubt, Ask.com made a mistake by not advertising they were the ones behind the campaign. If they wanted to raise awareness, then they’ve done that. People are talking about it. But if they wanted to promote Ask.com as an alternative to Google, I think they did themselves a great disservice by hiding, or at least not promoting, the fact that they were the so-called Information Revolution. They got a revolution, just not the one they were going for.
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Author: Lisa Barone is a Sr. Writer at Bruce Clay Inc.
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Letter to a Friend from ad|tech San Francisco
So I find myself in San Francisco on a warm mid-spring night. I am attending yet another internet marketing conference (YAIMC), the second major event I’ve atteneded in two weeks. Like New York City, San Francisco feels like a whole world away from my sleepy little west coast town. In the case of this conference, the differences are even more pronounced. My background is primarily in search engine optimization and marketing and that makes me feel somewhat different than the other attendees, sort of less relevant. This show isn’t about search marketing per se. ad|tech San Francisco is primarily about media buying.
It feels like search is being a recognized but only as minor component with just two sessions directly relating to search. Back in November at the NYC ad|tech conference, search seemed far more important. Here, not so much. In New York, several sessions were dedicated to search optimization and search marketing. I feel like seismic shifts are happening all around me and that isn’t because I’m in San Francisco.
Perhaps it’s all the Google they put in the water around here but everyone seems to be talking about display advertising. As you know, Google is likely going to acquire a large advertising network called DoubleClick for $3.1billion. The announcement was made almost two weeks ago and now everyone who isn&rsquooogle is thinking deeply about the potential and/or the consequences. For hundreds of companies represented here, the deal could cause critical problems in the mid to long-term future. Many meetings of minds have converged here to talk about it.
A rumor has been circulating saying Yahoo! was going to fully acquire online advertising exchange Right Media for $600 - $800mm. Yahoo! currently holds a 20% stake in Right Media. I briefly met VP of Sales and Business Development Ramsay McGrory at Right Media’s cocktail party on Tuesday night. When I later asked him about the rumor, he suggested the media would know before he did but was adamant in saying he had no knowledge of a pending sale. Nevertheless the rumors persist with several people either asking me what I know, or telling me what confidential sources told them. That’s the problem with rumors. Nobody wants to be the one to substantiate them.
The business strategy for medium to large ad or content networks seems to be to merge, acquire, conglomerate or cooperate as partners in order to build larger content provision and distribution networks. Yesterday, Pixsy.com announced a strategic partnership with one of Europe’s leading advertising networks, ad pepper.
Earlier this week I met with the management team from media search platform Pixsy.com in their Bryant St. offices. CEO Chase Norlin and VP (corporate communications) Lauren Karp also spoke about the need to grow distribution networks through cooperation and partnerships, partially in reaction to Google’s growth. Under the agreement, ad pepper will use Pixsy’s technology to introduce a number of private-label customized video and image search engines. Contextual performance based ads from ad pepper will provide monetization opportunities.
ad pepper is both older and larger than Pixsy. It has been around since 1999 and serves over five billion transnational advertising contacts each month. Pixsy, which has been in business since 2005 is one of the best media search engines on the web.
The partnership between the two firms stems from the realization that the only way to compete with Google is to go full throttle, pushing your content to as many eyeballs as possible. While very few companies can cover the same sort of ground Google does, an immediate growth strategy for other media companies is akin to a survival strategy. Since Google virtually owns the house, smaller companies in similar markets feel the need to be bigger. In the case of Pixsy, bigger means far wider distribution of their media search technology and the integration of a network monetization method.
ad|tech is billed as “The Event for Interactive Marketers”. Interactive is an understatement and a half. Between the chaotic networking on the trade show floor, the scheduled speeches and sessions, the face to face power meetings with long-term partners and the packed-room parties, there are literally thousands of conferences happening at the same time.
Meetings are an important aspect of ad|tech shows. The conference hall the trade show is being held in has several balcony areas and a central café/meeting area. I have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of new people and actually speak with dozens of them. I have a pocket full of business cards, pages of interview notes and have given hundreds of my own business cards to others. ad|tech, like all major marketing conferences is the place to meet a good cross-section of the web publishing and advertising sectors.
I spent most of my day on the trade show floor exploring the booths and interviewing some pretty interesting people. I didn’t get into many of the sessions, and whenever I did, I was only able to hang around for a few minutes before running off somewhere else. Luckily, Lisa Barone, Sr. Writer at Bruce Clay Inc. is here and has been publishing excellent stream-of-consciousness coverage of the sessions she’s been to. We’re republishing a few of them in the coming editions.
There are a lot of start-up social networks here. Everyone’s building a better social network and I think I spoke with at least six of them. The online marketing industry is changing, at least as most search marketers knew it. Now that richer, more robust media files can be created and distributed by pretty much anybody, new methods of storing, classifying and finding information are necessary, hence the advent of the social network. What started as a way to represent user-specific communities is quickly becoming a dominant model for building communication platforms.
There is not a lot of pure search in social networking. While there are several components that can be affected by effective SEO or SMO, social networking, by and large, is driven by the members of the various social communities themselves. Display advertising works well in social networks, as do other revenue models such as auctions, paid-subscriptions and expanded paid features. A number of attendees I spoke with are giving up on the traditional search engines, especially the PPC engines. With rapidly rising costs per click and a subsequent decline in ROI, many advertisers are looking for other ways to spread their ad-spends. Purveyors of rich media content, display and banner advertising are seeing, (for lack of a better pun), banner years.
This week, talk of PPC or CPC is replaced with speculation on effective CPA (cost per action), CPM (cost per thousand), and the virtual commoditization of CTR (click through rates). The most serious ad-buyers here can tell you exactly where the best click trough returns will be found at any given time. Some have the ability to instantly shift enormous ad-spends on a minute-by-minute basis to eek the maximum margin on their (or their clients’) investments.
During the trade show, I stopped by the ISEDN.org booth to give one of the two reps a break. The activity in and around the booth was so heavy two people had to be present at any given time. During the two hours I spent in the booth, I probed people about their experiences with traditional PPC programs. I found far more interest for the flat-fee contextual ads offered by the ISEDN.org at this show than any previous SES or ad|tech conference. Advertisers are looking for a solution to the rapidly rising costs of their campaigns and the flat-fee method struck them as fairest (and safest) of all.
Many writers in the search marketing community have been predicting changes to the market in the coming years. Much like the warnings of the dire future circumstances to come due to global warming, these changes are often not apparent until they are actually happening. After the second day of ad|tech San Francisco, I get the sense that those changes are starting to happen.
Perhaps the biggest thing I have learned since being here is there is a lot for me (and likely many other search marketers) to learn about another side of the online marketing sector. There is a renewed interest in display ads in the greater marketing space. Despite the obvious differences there are serious synergies between search and display advertising. As the online marketing industry matures, those synergies are likely going to cause greater conglomeration in the industry, much like the one undertaken (for good or for ill) by THNK inc. two years ago. That’s a lot to think about going into Day 3.
Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and the trade show. At 5, the lights go out on ad|tech and nearly ten thousand weary attendees will make their ways home. I will be home on Friday around noonish. Hope the cat’s not too ticked at me for being away so long again.
____
By Jim Hedger
It feels like search is being a recognized but only as minor component with just two sessions directly relating to search. Back in November at the NYC ad|tech conference, search seemed far more important. Here, not so much. In New York, several sessions were dedicated to search optimization and search marketing. I feel like seismic shifts are happening all around me and that isn’t because I’m in San Francisco.
Perhaps it’s all the Google they put in the water around here but everyone seems to be talking about display advertising. As you know, Google is likely going to acquire a large advertising network called DoubleClick for $3.1billion. The announcement was made almost two weeks ago and now everyone who isn&rsquooogle is thinking deeply about the potential and/or the consequences. For hundreds of companies represented here, the deal could cause critical problems in the mid to long-term future. Many meetings of minds have converged here to talk about it.
A rumor has been circulating saying Yahoo! was going to fully acquire online advertising exchange Right Media for $600 - $800mm. Yahoo! currently holds a 20% stake in Right Media. I briefly met VP of Sales and Business Development Ramsay McGrory at Right Media’s cocktail party on Tuesday night. When I later asked him about the rumor, he suggested the media would know before he did but was adamant in saying he had no knowledge of a pending sale. Nevertheless the rumors persist with several people either asking me what I know, or telling me what confidential sources told them. That’s the problem with rumors. Nobody wants to be the one to substantiate them.
The business strategy for medium to large ad or content networks seems to be to merge, acquire, conglomerate or cooperate as partners in order to build larger content provision and distribution networks. Yesterday, Pixsy.com announced a strategic partnership with one of Europe’s leading advertising networks, ad pepper.
Earlier this week I met with the management team from media search platform Pixsy.com in their Bryant St. offices. CEO Chase Norlin and VP (corporate communications) Lauren Karp also spoke about the need to grow distribution networks through cooperation and partnerships, partially in reaction to Google’s growth. Under the agreement, ad pepper will use Pixsy’s technology to introduce a number of private-label customized video and image search engines. Contextual performance based ads from ad pepper will provide monetization opportunities.
ad pepper is both older and larger than Pixsy. It has been around since 1999 and serves over five billion transnational advertising contacts each month. Pixsy, which has been in business since 2005 is one of the best media search engines on the web.
The partnership between the two firms stems from the realization that the only way to compete with Google is to go full throttle, pushing your content to as many eyeballs as possible. While very few companies can cover the same sort of ground Google does, an immediate growth strategy for other media companies is akin to a survival strategy. Since Google virtually owns the house, smaller companies in similar markets feel the need to be bigger. In the case of Pixsy, bigger means far wider distribution of their media search technology and the integration of a network monetization method.
ad|tech is billed as “The Event for Interactive Marketers”. Interactive is an understatement and a half. Between the chaotic networking on the trade show floor, the scheduled speeches and sessions, the face to face power meetings with long-term partners and the packed-room parties, there are literally thousands of conferences happening at the same time.
Meetings are an important aspect of ad|tech shows. The conference hall the trade show is being held in has several balcony areas and a central café/meeting area. I have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of new people and actually speak with dozens of them. I have a pocket full of business cards, pages of interview notes and have given hundreds of my own business cards to others. ad|tech, like all major marketing conferences is the place to meet a good cross-section of the web publishing and advertising sectors.
I spent most of my day on the trade show floor exploring the booths and interviewing some pretty interesting people. I didn’t get into many of the sessions, and whenever I did, I was only able to hang around for a few minutes before running off somewhere else. Luckily, Lisa Barone, Sr. Writer at Bruce Clay Inc. is here and has been publishing excellent stream-of-consciousness coverage of the sessions she’s been to. We’re republishing a few of them in the coming editions.
There are a lot of start-up social networks here. Everyone’s building a better social network and I think I spoke with at least six of them. The online marketing industry is changing, at least as most search marketers knew it. Now that richer, more robust media files can be created and distributed by pretty much anybody, new methods of storing, classifying and finding information are necessary, hence the advent of the social network. What started as a way to represent user-specific communities is quickly becoming a dominant model for building communication platforms.
There is not a lot of pure search in social networking. While there are several components that can be affected by effective SEO or SMO, social networking, by and large, is driven by the members of the various social communities themselves. Display advertising works well in social networks, as do other revenue models such as auctions, paid-subscriptions and expanded paid features. A number of attendees I spoke with are giving up on the traditional search engines, especially the PPC engines. With rapidly rising costs per click and a subsequent decline in ROI, many advertisers are looking for other ways to spread their ad-spends. Purveyors of rich media content, display and banner advertising are seeing, (for lack of a better pun), banner years.
This week, talk of PPC or CPC is replaced with speculation on effective CPA (cost per action), CPM (cost per thousand), and the virtual commoditization of CTR (click through rates). The most serious ad-buyers here can tell you exactly where the best click trough returns will be found at any given time. Some have the ability to instantly shift enormous ad-spends on a minute-by-minute basis to eek the maximum margin on their (or their clients’) investments.
During the trade show, I stopped by the ISEDN.org booth to give one of the two reps a break. The activity in and around the booth was so heavy two people had to be present at any given time. During the two hours I spent in the booth, I probed people about their experiences with traditional PPC programs. I found far more interest for the flat-fee contextual ads offered by the ISEDN.org at this show than any previous SES or ad|tech conference. Advertisers are looking for a solution to the rapidly rising costs of their campaigns and the flat-fee method struck them as fairest (and safest) of all.
Many writers in the search marketing community have been predicting changes to the market in the coming years. Much like the warnings of the dire future circumstances to come due to global warming, these changes are often not apparent until they are actually happening. After the second day of ad|tech San Francisco, I get the sense that those changes are starting to happen.
Perhaps the biggest thing I have learned since being here is there is a lot for me (and likely many other search marketers) to learn about another side of the online marketing sector. There is a renewed interest in display ads in the greater marketing space. Despite the obvious differences there are serious synergies between search and display advertising. As the online marketing industry matures, those synergies are likely going to cause greater conglomeration in the industry, much like the one undertaken (for good or for ill) by THNK inc. two years ago. That’s a lot to think about going into Day 3.
Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and the trade show. At 5, the lights go out on ad|tech and nearly ten thousand weary attendees will make their ways home. I will be home on Friday around noonish. Hope the cat’s not too ticked at me for being away so long again.
____
By Jim Hedger
Friday, August 29, 2008
Yahoo! Acquires the Rest of Right Media
Concluding a story first published here as a rumor from ad|tech on Thursday April 26, Yahoo! has announced it will purchase the remaining 80% of the Right Media Exchange for approximately $680mm in cash and stocks. Yahoo! had already taken a 20% stake in the company with a strategic investment in Right Media in October 2006. Based in New York City, Right Media is the largest emerging online advertising exchange. By brokering advertising across the tens of thousands of publisher sites associated with the exchange, Right Media helps publishers monetize their ad inventories and webmasters monetize their sites. Founded four years ago, Right Media uses an open auction system which allows publishers and advertisers sell and purchase online ad placements in real time. “The acquisition of Right Media will further Yahoo!’s goal to create the industry’s most open, accessible and vibrant advertising marketplace, which will help democratize the buying and selling of digitally enabled advertising,” said Terry Semel, chairman and CEO of Yahoo! in a press release. “This acquisition is an important step in our long-term vision to build the industry’s leading advertising and publisher ecosystem. We believe that Yahoo!’s open approach is a clear differentiator from others in the industry and provides significant benefits to advertisers, publishers and Yahoo! itself.” As the largest online publisher with one of the largest ad networks Yahoo! will increase both the distribution power and inventory depth of the Right Media Exchange. “What we look forward to do as an owner is put more inventory into that pot to help create a more vibrant exchange and create better pricing for everyone,” said Semel. According to the press release from Yahoo!, Advertisers will have greater inventory and audience options from Yahoo! and other participants in this exchange, as well as increased control and visibility into the buying process.Publishers will be able to bundle their own ad inventory with Yahoo!’s inventory and the exchange’s inventory - thereby boosting demand and generating the highest returns for each ad placement.Advertising networks will reap the same benefits as advertisers and publishers, and additionally, the exchange will benefit those ad networks with unique value propositions, giving them an opportunity to compete with the largest players, thanks to reduced friction and increased transparency.For Yahoo!, this more open approach will allow the company to increase liquidity, allow advertisers to more efficiently ascertain the true value of display ad inventory, and generate greater returns for Yahoo!’s own display inventory. It will give Yahoo! a new channel and inventory for excess demand and provide an opportunity to derive more value from non-premium inventory. “Right Media will be the crown jewel in Yahoo!’s battle against Google,” said Leron Cohen, founder of Quired Media, an ad broker working through the Right Media Exchange. “For us, this is good news. I hope Right Media sticks to being the open and fair marketplace that has made it (and us) so successful over the years.” CEO and founder of Right Media, Michael Walrath added, “We share Yahoo!’s vision of a more empowered marketplace, where efficiency, transparency and accountability in online advertising become the norm. We are very excited by the prospect of becoming part of Yahoo!, the market leader in display advertising, as it looks to revolutionize the media buying and selling landscape.” In an open letter to Right Media advertisers and publishers, Walrath writes, “It’s important to reiterate publicly that the acquisition will in no way afford Yahoo! any unfair advantage in the Exchange. A level playing field is one of the foundations of the Exchange and its success–it remains level. The fact that the Right Media Exchange will operate as an independent division of Yahoo! ensures this.” Yahoo! plans to sell all non-premium ad space on Yahoo! through the exchange. While many in the industry will see the purchase as a reaction to Google’s pending acquisition of Double Click, Yahoo! had already started the process in the autumn of 2006. Google’s entry into the display market merely accelerated what appears to have been planned for some time. “Yahoo! is the largest online publisher and one of the leading ad networks on the web, and we believe it is in our strong financial interest to make sure there is a widely adopted, neutral, frictionless exchange that enables publishers and advertisers to benefit from a basket of the best solutions rather than having to accept a single solution from one of the larger players,” said Susan Decker, head of advertiser and publisher group and CFO of Yahoo!. “Furthermore, as the industry’s partner of choice and as a leader in both search and display advertising, we believe that we are well-positioned to rally the industry support to make the promise of Right Media a reality for the entire digital media community.” Yahoo! will host a conference call to discuss the deal at 11AM eastern time today. A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed through the Company’s Investor Relations website at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/mediaRegister.cfm In addition, an archive of the webcast can be accessed through the same link.
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By Jim Hedger
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By Jim Hedger
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Sun Sets on Canadian Tabloid Journalism
Sometime in the coming quarter, the Sun chain of Canadian tabloid newspapers is likely to fold. Founded in the early 1970’s the Toronto Sun grew from an upstart blue-collar broadsheet to a national chain of tabloids publishing in most of Canada’s large urban centers. Today, it stands as an early warning to other traditional news publishers, an oxygen starved canary trapped in a coalmine. The sun will soon set on the “Little Paper that Could” and even for those who opposed its viewpoints and resented its trivializing coverage of major world and national events, its demise is a little sad and more than a little unsettling.
Known for its controversial and often blatantly sensational reporting of events, the Sun was designed to emulate British tabloids. Often pulling its positions from neo-conservative views expressed in American media, the Sun was an ardent supporter of the Conservative Party of Canada and its predecessors the Progressive Conservatives and Reform Parties.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Sun’s influence stretched across the country as it opened papers in Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Brampton and York. It also acquired two of Canada’s oldest independent newspapers, the Winnipeg Sun and the London Free Press.
In 1998, the Sun chain was purchased by Montreal based Quebecor with also owns Le Journal de Montreal and Le Journal de Quebec. Quebecor also publishes a very successful series of free commuter dailies under the name 24-Hours, in Canada’s six largest cities, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton.
Since its acquisition a decade ago, the quality and quantity of news coverage has declined significantly. Much of the reporting, editing, compilation and layout is done in a central location before being sent to its nine English-language papers and the chain of commuter dailies, 24-Hours. Its circulation has dropped significantly over the past decade, down almost by half in ten years. The Toronto Sun sells a mere 200,000 weekday and approximately 400,000 weekend newspapers per edition.
Several external forces have combined with the numerous internal issues to spell the death of professional tabloid journalism in Canada.
Internally, the Sun chain faces sever labour shortages as successive rounds of lay-offs and attrition have reduced its newsrooms to skeleton staffing levels. Its competitor, the Toronto Star, estimates there are only six general assignment reporters, three bureau reporters and three police reporters working from the Sun’s King St. offices. Twelve writers remain to cover a city of almost six million people. Last year, unionized workers at Sun Media have filed several complaints with labour boards relating to massive layoffs and firings and the subsequent increased workloads. Morale is said to be non-existent in what is left of the newsrooms.
Externally, there is little the organization can do to stave off the inevitable. Newspaper publishing is only profitable for a small number of very large outlets. With a weekend circulation below 500,000, the Sun is simply not big enough for major advertisers to bother with. Increasingly, smaller advertisers, such as small businesses and individuals who might use the classified-ad section are abandoning newsprint in favour of eBay, Craigslist and search results.
In 1998 when the Toronto Star was fighting Quebecor for control of the Sun chain, newspaper circulation throughout the world was rising while the expense of gathering and publishing the news was actually declining. Technology had made gathering and sharing news less costly and the nature of corporate conglomeration made economies of massive scale possible. Since then however, costs for newsprint have risen dramatically while revenues from advertising are in sharp decline.
In 1998, consolidation spelled convergence, a magic word for publishers in the days before the dot-com crash of early 2000. Quebecor, which also owns several television broadcast licenses and the aforementioned affiliated chain of 24-Hour commuter dailies, has cut costs by compiling news, sports and political coverage across the second largest nation-state on Earth into one small national news office.
The concept of convergence is deceptively simple. Assuming the Internet can publish news in video, audio and text based formats, large information organizations combined their efforts in order to compliment each other’s specialties and cut costs. One reporter could theoretically gather material for publication in three types of media all of which could be reproduced over the Internet. Apparently convergence is more complicated in real life than it is on paper.
While the public and financial markets for mass-published newsprint are in sharp decline, news gathering organizations have faced stiff competition from smaller, more focused online news gathering organizations, including this one. With much lower production and staffing costs, online journalism has grown into very real niche industries.
The death knell for traditional publishers who have based their success on convergence has been the rise in popularity of user-created video sites such as YouTube. The production and distribution of news and entertainment in video format was the last protected bastion of what was once the traditional media. Now that the cost of producing video is virtually nil and users have the ability to self-distribute their own content, the large, cumbersome corporate news outlet is on its way to extinction.
The Sun chain is about to set in Canada and its demise should stand as a warning to other large media chains. Based on their editorial content, many in Canada thought the Sun was written by dinosaurs. What we didn’t fully realize until recently was that it was also managed by dinosaurs. We all know what happened to dinosaurs that failed to evolve. Author: Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.
Known for its controversial and often blatantly sensational reporting of events, the Sun was designed to emulate British tabloids. Often pulling its positions from neo-conservative views expressed in American media, the Sun was an ardent supporter of the Conservative Party of Canada and its predecessors the Progressive Conservatives and Reform Parties.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Sun’s influence stretched across the country as it opened papers in Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Brampton and York. It also acquired two of Canada’s oldest independent newspapers, the Winnipeg Sun and the London Free Press.
In 1998, the Sun chain was purchased by Montreal based Quebecor with also owns Le Journal de Montreal and Le Journal de Quebec. Quebecor also publishes a very successful series of free commuter dailies under the name 24-Hours, in Canada’s six largest cities, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton.
Since its acquisition a decade ago, the quality and quantity of news coverage has declined significantly. Much of the reporting, editing, compilation and layout is done in a central location before being sent to its nine English-language papers and the chain of commuter dailies, 24-Hours. Its circulation has dropped significantly over the past decade, down almost by half in ten years. The Toronto Sun sells a mere 200,000 weekday and approximately 400,000 weekend newspapers per edition.
Several external forces have combined with the numerous internal issues to spell the death of professional tabloid journalism in Canada.
Internally, the Sun chain faces sever labour shortages as successive rounds of lay-offs and attrition have reduced its newsrooms to skeleton staffing levels. Its competitor, the Toronto Star, estimates there are only six general assignment reporters, three bureau reporters and three police reporters working from the Sun’s King St. offices. Twelve writers remain to cover a city of almost six million people. Last year, unionized workers at Sun Media have filed several complaints with labour boards relating to massive layoffs and firings and the subsequent increased workloads. Morale is said to be non-existent in what is left of the newsrooms.
Externally, there is little the organization can do to stave off the inevitable. Newspaper publishing is only profitable for a small number of very large outlets. With a weekend circulation below 500,000, the Sun is simply not big enough for major advertisers to bother with. Increasingly, smaller advertisers, such as small businesses and individuals who might use the classified-ad section are abandoning newsprint in favour of eBay, Craigslist and search results.
In 1998 when the Toronto Star was fighting Quebecor for control of the Sun chain, newspaper circulation throughout the world was rising while the expense of gathering and publishing the news was actually declining. Technology had made gathering and sharing news less costly and the nature of corporate conglomeration made economies of massive scale possible. Since then however, costs for newsprint have risen dramatically while revenues from advertising are in sharp decline.
In 1998, consolidation spelled convergence, a magic word for publishers in the days before the dot-com crash of early 2000. Quebecor, which also owns several television broadcast licenses and the aforementioned affiliated chain of 24-Hour commuter dailies, has cut costs by compiling news, sports and political coverage across the second largest nation-state on Earth into one small national news office.
The concept of convergence is deceptively simple. Assuming the Internet can publish news in video, audio and text based formats, large information organizations combined their efforts in order to compliment each other’s specialties and cut costs. One reporter could theoretically gather material for publication in three types of media all of which could be reproduced over the Internet. Apparently convergence is more complicated in real life than it is on paper.
While the public and financial markets for mass-published newsprint are in sharp decline, news gathering organizations have faced stiff competition from smaller, more focused online news gathering organizations, including this one. With much lower production and staffing costs, online journalism has grown into very real niche industries.
The death knell for traditional publishers who have based their success on convergence has been the rise in popularity of user-created video sites such as YouTube. The production and distribution of news and entertainment in video format was the last protected bastion of what was once the traditional media. Now that the cost of producing video is virtually nil and users have the ability to self-distribute their own content, the large, cumbersome corporate news outlet is on its way to extinction.
The Sun chain is about to set in Canada and its demise should stand as a warning to other large media chains. Based on their editorial content, many in Canada thought the Sun was written by dinosaurs. What we didn’t fully realize until recently was that it was also managed by dinosaurs. We all know what happened to dinosaurs that failed to evolve. Author: Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
MISOGYNY UNACCEPTABLE IN SEM
The tone of the debate turned ugly and a well known speaker and writer was silenced. The fallout is going to be enormous and wide-reaching. It might have stemmed from jealousy, anger or even a previous insult but it hurt. It might be rationalized as an unintended consequence of free-comment, but the intention was obviously humiliation. As sides form on the issue the only element that is starkly obvious is a fear or hatred of accomplished women. Misogyny mistaken as fun.
Prominent author and public speaker Kathy Sierra cancelled an appearance at the O’Reilly sponsored ETech conference yesterday in reaction to sexually violent threats posted to the now defunct blog, meankids.org. Similar comments appeared at another recently defunct blog, unclebobism.wordpress.com.
Negative comments are not new for Sierra. As the author of several books, papers and articles on marketing and Java, Sierra has attracted the wrath of those who disagree with her views. Over the years, she has dealt with sexually explicit comment. In this case, comment has transited to transgression and the better part of the blogosphere appears united in anger and condemnation.
About a month ago, comments made to her site and to meankids.org and unclebobism.com transited beyond mean-spirited. At her Creating Passionate Users blog, Sierra outlines the history and graphic nature of the threats in long post titled, “Death threats against bloggers are NOT “protected speech” (why I cancelled my ETech presentations)”. Her experience paints a disturbing image that details the undercurrent of anger, misogyny and violence present in blog comments and forum discussions.
Sierra has obviously been shaken. She wrote in her post,
“I have cancelled all speaking engagements.
I am afraid to leave my yard.
I will never feel the same. I will never be the same.”
On March 24 someone took their hatred way over the line with images and comment that pushed Sierra over hers. She might not continue to contribute to the industry as she has in the past. In her own words,
“I do not want to be part of a culture–the Blogosphere–where this is considered acceptable. Where the price for being a blogger is kevlar-coated skin and daughters who are tough enough to not have their “widdy biddy sensibilities offended” when they see their own mother Photoshopped into nothing more than an objectified sexual orifice, possibly suffocated as part of some sexual fetish. (And of course all coming on the heels of more explicit threats)
I do not want to be part of a culture where this is done not by some random person, but by some of the most respected people in the tech blogging world.”
Sierra named names in her post. She holds the community that founded meankids and unclebobism, which includes Chris Locke (aka-rageboy) co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, Frank Paynter (listics.com), Jeneane Sessum , and Allen Herrel, responsible for the posts.
For his part, Paynter has apologized. He had hosted both blog sites but removed them from the Web as soon as Sierra complained to him. Locke, Sessum and Herral, on the other hand, have not.
Locke did respond to an email interview request from Liz Tay of Computerworld Australia. He also notes that Sessum was barely involved saying, “Jeneane Sessum is being hounded over this whole affair, which is not right. I think she posted only once, but it was something trivial, if I recall correctly. From our later conversations, it seemed she hadn’t even read the later posts that have caused all this furor. She was in the hospital with medical problems, which she’s still dealing with. I cannot and do not presume to speak for her, but I hate to see her take heat for something she is not in any way responsible for.”
At the end of it all however, Locke misses the point of the outrage expressed by the community. This story is not about Kathy Sierra though she is an unfortunate character in its narrative. This story is about anger, violence and threats of a physical and sexual nature. It is a story that gets repeated time and time again in forums, blog comments and discussion groups. What is most shocking about this incident is that those involved are well known, generally respected names.
Regardless of who said what, the content and context are absolutely unacceptable in an industry built on the exchange of ideas. It is fine to disagree and fine to make fair comment. Both are good for the growth and evolution of technique or philosophy. If, however, your disagreement can not be articulated in civil words, it is best kept to yourself.
Perhaps there will be a positive outcome to this version of the saddening story of misogyny in the Internet development industry. Perhaps other bloggers and commentators will stop putting up with it. Even better, perhaps others in the community will join SiteProNews in taking a solid and unwavering stand opposing the use of violent, threatening, or misogynist commentary. The line has been crossed and it is time to push back.
Author: Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.
By Jim Hedger
Prominent author and public speaker Kathy Sierra cancelled an appearance at the O’Reilly sponsored ETech conference yesterday in reaction to sexually violent threats posted to the now defunct blog, meankids.org. Similar comments appeared at another recently defunct blog, unclebobism.wordpress.com.
Negative comments are not new for Sierra. As the author of several books, papers and articles on marketing and Java, Sierra has attracted the wrath of those who disagree with her views. Over the years, she has dealt with sexually explicit comment. In this case, comment has transited to transgression and the better part of the blogosphere appears united in anger and condemnation.
About a month ago, comments made to her site and to meankids.org and unclebobism.com transited beyond mean-spirited. At her Creating Passionate Users blog, Sierra outlines the history and graphic nature of the threats in long post titled, “Death threats against bloggers are NOT “protected speech” (why I cancelled my ETech presentations)”. Her experience paints a disturbing image that details the undercurrent of anger, misogyny and violence present in blog comments and forum discussions.
Sierra has obviously been shaken. She wrote in her post,
“I have cancelled all speaking engagements.
I am afraid to leave my yard.
I will never feel the same. I will never be the same.”
On March 24 someone took their hatred way over the line with images and comment that pushed Sierra over hers. She might not continue to contribute to the industry as she has in the past. In her own words,
“I do not want to be part of a culture–the Blogosphere–where this is considered acceptable. Where the price for being a blogger is kevlar-coated skin and daughters who are tough enough to not have their “widdy biddy sensibilities offended” when they see their own mother Photoshopped into nothing more than an objectified sexual orifice, possibly suffocated as part of some sexual fetish. (And of course all coming on the heels of more explicit threats)
I do not want to be part of a culture where this is done not by some random person, but by some of the most respected people in the tech blogging world.”
Sierra named names in her post. She holds the community that founded meankids and unclebobism, which includes Chris Locke (aka-rageboy) co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, Frank Paynter (listics.com), Jeneane Sessum , and Allen Herrel, responsible for the posts.
For his part, Paynter has apologized. He had hosted both blog sites but removed them from the Web as soon as Sierra complained to him. Locke, Sessum and Herral, on the other hand, have not.
Locke did respond to an email interview request from Liz Tay of Computerworld Australia. He also notes that Sessum was barely involved saying, “Jeneane Sessum is being hounded over this whole affair, which is not right. I think she posted only once, but it was something trivial, if I recall correctly. From our later conversations, it seemed she hadn’t even read the later posts that have caused all this furor. She was in the hospital with medical problems, which she’s still dealing with. I cannot and do not presume to speak for her, but I hate to see her take heat for something she is not in any way responsible for.”
At the end of it all however, Locke misses the point of the outrage expressed by the community. This story is not about Kathy Sierra though she is an unfortunate character in its narrative. This story is about anger, violence and threats of a physical and sexual nature. It is a story that gets repeated time and time again in forums, blog comments and discussion groups. What is most shocking about this incident is that those involved are well known, generally respected names.
Regardless of who said what, the content and context are absolutely unacceptable in an industry built on the exchange of ideas. It is fine to disagree and fine to make fair comment. Both are good for the growth and evolution of technique or philosophy. If, however, your disagreement can not be articulated in civil words, it is best kept to yourself.
Perhaps there will be a positive outcome to this version of the saddening story of misogyny in the Internet development industry. Perhaps other bloggers and commentators will stop putting up with it. Even better, perhaps others in the community will join SiteProNews in taking a solid and unwavering stand opposing the use of violent, threatening, or misogynist commentary. The line has been crossed and it is time to push back.
Author: Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.
By Jim Hedger
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Can the Web Save the World?
Can the web save the world?
In a word, yes.
And here’s the qualifier: “One piece at a time.”
Web activism has been part of my personal agenda for as long as I’ve been involved with the web.
In 1994, when I organized and sponsored the first conference on web marketing ever (Marc Andreessen gave the keynote), I invited all the usual suspects: ad agencies, PR firms, tech magazine writers - and NAMAC, the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture
Why did I want to bring a non-profit group of independent filmmakers to the table for a discussion about the future of the web?
Because I felt then, and feel even more strongly today, that the work of independent media producers is essential for the pursuit of social justice and positive change in our society.
My then-extravagant hope was that some day we’d sort out compression issues and bandwidth limitations and be able to stream independently produced video across the net as an antidote to television.
Now that day has arrived. What are we going to do with it?
Save the world, of course, one piece at a time.
Saving a city
A city is a pretty good-sized piece and seven years ago some friends and I sat around my kitchen table and tried to figure out how we were going to save a little city that we loved. Just two miles square and sitting on the banks of the Hudson River, the City of Hudson appeared destined for obliteration.
Here’s what we were facing:
The second largest cement company in the world was planning to build the largest coal-fired cement plant in North America right next to town.
Cement plants are third only to oil refineries and chemical plants in the amount of health-damaging pollutants they produce. The plant which would run 24/7 was just a mile from schools, the city’s hospital and New York State’s retirement/long term care facility for retired firemen.
And here’s the really bad part: Not only was every local politician and every local media outlet in favor of the plant, an atmosphere of intimidation hung over the city that frightened many local people into keeping quiet about their concerns. The company was prepared to spend - and indeed did end up spending - $50,000,000 on advertising, PR, lobbyists, attorneys, and donations to local groups.
On our side: Fifty people and fifty bucks.
Six and a half years later, in a conflict that lasted longer than World War II, the fifty people with fifty bucks won.
How?
It’s a long story (see the “Additional Reading” below), but it all boiled down to this: we used the media we had - hand painted signs, meetings, flyers, the mail, the web - to build a membership organization that grew large enough to counterbalance and ultimately overcome what I think most reasonable people would have thought was an unbeatable force.
Today, I find myself thinking a lot about another city.
Saving our soul
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have been initiated into the glories of New Orleans and those who have not yet had the pleasure.
Until June of 2006, I fell in the latter category. Then my old friend Steve O’Keefe, one of the Internet’s earliest commercialization pioneers, invited me to come visit. He’d been living in the city for the last ten years pursuing a passion we both share, music.
To say that I was stunned by the depth, breadth and sheer vitality of the music culture of New Orleans would be an understatement. How could I have missed this all my life? Understand, I’m a huge jazz fan. I’ve produced jazz concerts, hosted a jazz radio show, managed a jazz record label - and I never “got” New Orleans. (It might have something to do with growing up in New York City. I *assumed* my home town was the only place that mattered.)
Anyway, the city’s music scene is only the outer manifestation of something that is rapidly disappearing from North American society: communities…neighborhoods, where people know each other, celebrate and mourn together, and support each others’ creative endeavors. For too many people, New Orleans equals Bourbon Street, a Disney-like tourist trap where frat boys misbehave and puke on each others shoes.
That’s not New Orleans.
The real New Orleans is indescribably profound, creative, human and it holds a big piece of America’s soul - and the real New Orleans is dying.
Un-spinning the spin
Like so many stories the mass media sells us, the story of New Orleans has been spun to such an extreme that the reality and the reporting might as well be from different planets. For example:
* Myth #1: Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, right? Wrong.
The storm did little damage. It was the catastrophic failure of over one dozen federally built and maintained levees that caused the vast majority of the damage.
* Myth #2: The citizens of the city were disorganized, reckless and lawless. Wrong.
The pre-hurricane evacuation was one of the largest and most successful rapid movements of a civilian population in history. Those who were trapped by the flood waters caused by the collapsed levees were overwhelmingly peaceful and participated in countless acts of heroism, often risking their own lives to save others and feed and care for the most vulnerable.
* Myth #3: The hurricane was over eighteen months ago, they should be over it by now.
Wrong. Tell me what city could recover from the loss of 200,000 houses, 81,000 businesses, 175 schools and 6 major hospitals in a year? In two years? In ten? Per capita damage to Louisiana was a mind boggling $6,700 per state citizen. Compare this to New York after 9/11 ($390) or Hurricane Andrew which devastated South Florida ($139.)
What happened in New Orleans was the equivalent level of destruction of total war. After World War II, otherwise self-reliant and capable cities like Berlin and Tokyo and many, many others needed massive, prolonged infusions of outside assistance to get back on their feet.
So what’s going on?
Bottom line: The federal government - whose negligence caused the disaster in the first place - has made the decision that it’s cheaper, politically and financially, to let New Orleans die, rather rebuild it.
Thus the constant drumbeat of media propaganda that the city was destroyed by “an act of nature,” that its people are inherently corrupt and unworthy, that no one should live there. This last point is especially preposterous. If no one should live in New Orleans, no one should live in Holland either. The difference is Dutch levees don’t collapse.
You can probably see where this is leading.
Internet pros volunteers needed for New Orleans
New Orleans needs independent media to tell its story. Not just for the sake of telling a story, but to organize and rally all the people in the US and around the world who love the city and what it stands for - and there are millions of them currently unconnected.
Who’s going to do that?
More precisely, who’s going to create the media infrastructure that will make it easy for New Orleanians to tell their story and easy for outsiders who care to target their help where it will do the most good - both on the neighborhood level and in Washington.
City’s are savable. Even in the darkest times. I know. Hudson was savable. I believe New Orleans is savable too.
Are you a person with Internet skills who cares about the people of New Orleans? Would you like to play in a big stakes game, one that can change the destiny of a city and create a model for cities that may face similar systemic catastrophes in the future?
If so, please enter your name and skill set in our Internet Pros for New Orleans Database and we’ll try to match you up with a project where your skills will have the biggest impact.
Can the web save the world? Yes. One small piece at a time. Let’s start with New Orleans.
Join the Internet Pros for New Orleans volunteer database:
http://www.foodmusicjustice.com/signup.php
Author: Ken McCarthy is an activist webmaster who hope to use his skills and knowledge to better humanity, one city at a time.
By Ken McCarthy in
In a word, yes.
And here’s the qualifier: “One piece at a time.”
Web activism has been part of my personal agenda for as long as I’ve been involved with the web.
In 1994, when I organized and sponsored the first conference on web marketing ever (Marc Andreessen gave the keynote), I invited all the usual suspects: ad agencies, PR firms, tech magazine writers - and NAMAC, the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture
Why did I want to bring a non-profit group of independent filmmakers to the table for a discussion about the future of the web?
Because I felt then, and feel even more strongly today, that the work of independent media producers is essential for the pursuit of social justice and positive change in our society.
My then-extravagant hope was that some day we’d sort out compression issues and bandwidth limitations and be able to stream independently produced video across the net as an antidote to television.
Now that day has arrived. What are we going to do with it?
Save the world, of course, one piece at a time.
Saving a city
A city is a pretty good-sized piece and seven years ago some friends and I sat around my kitchen table and tried to figure out how we were going to save a little city that we loved. Just two miles square and sitting on the banks of the Hudson River, the City of Hudson appeared destined for obliteration.
Here’s what we were facing:
The second largest cement company in the world was planning to build the largest coal-fired cement plant in North America right next to town.
Cement plants are third only to oil refineries and chemical plants in the amount of health-damaging pollutants they produce. The plant which would run 24/7 was just a mile from schools, the city’s hospital and New York State’s retirement/long term care facility for retired firemen.
And here’s the really bad part: Not only was every local politician and every local media outlet in favor of the plant, an atmosphere of intimidation hung over the city that frightened many local people into keeping quiet about their concerns. The company was prepared to spend - and indeed did end up spending - $50,000,000 on advertising, PR, lobbyists, attorneys, and donations to local groups.
On our side: Fifty people and fifty bucks.
Six and a half years later, in a conflict that lasted longer than World War II, the fifty people with fifty bucks won.
How?
It’s a long story (see the “Additional Reading” below), but it all boiled down to this: we used the media we had - hand painted signs, meetings, flyers, the mail, the web - to build a membership organization that grew large enough to counterbalance and ultimately overcome what I think most reasonable people would have thought was an unbeatable force.
Today, I find myself thinking a lot about another city.
Saving our soul
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have been initiated into the glories of New Orleans and those who have not yet had the pleasure.
Until June of 2006, I fell in the latter category. Then my old friend Steve O’Keefe, one of the Internet’s earliest commercialization pioneers, invited me to come visit. He’d been living in the city for the last ten years pursuing a passion we both share, music.
To say that I was stunned by the depth, breadth and sheer vitality of the music culture of New Orleans would be an understatement. How could I have missed this all my life? Understand, I’m a huge jazz fan. I’ve produced jazz concerts, hosted a jazz radio show, managed a jazz record label - and I never “got” New Orleans. (It might have something to do with growing up in New York City. I *assumed* my home town was the only place that mattered.)
Anyway, the city’s music scene is only the outer manifestation of something that is rapidly disappearing from North American society: communities…neighborhoods, where people know each other, celebrate and mourn together, and support each others’ creative endeavors. For too many people, New Orleans equals Bourbon Street, a Disney-like tourist trap where frat boys misbehave and puke on each others shoes.
That’s not New Orleans.
The real New Orleans is indescribably profound, creative, human and it holds a big piece of America’s soul - and the real New Orleans is dying.
Un-spinning the spin
Like so many stories the mass media sells us, the story of New Orleans has been spun to such an extreme that the reality and the reporting might as well be from different planets. For example:
* Myth #1: Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, right? Wrong.
The storm did little damage. It was the catastrophic failure of over one dozen federally built and maintained levees that caused the vast majority of the damage.
* Myth #2: The citizens of the city were disorganized, reckless and lawless. Wrong.
The pre-hurricane evacuation was one of the largest and most successful rapid movements of a civilian population in history. Those who were trapped by the flood waters caused by the collapsed levees were overwhelmingly peaceful and participated in countless acts of heroism, often risking their own lives to save others and feed and care for the most vulnerable.
* Myth #3: The hurricane was over eighteen months ago, they should be over it by now.
Wrong. Tell me what city could recover from the loss of 200,000 houses, 81,000 businesses, 175 schools and 6 major hospitals in a year? In two years? In ten? Per capita damage to Louisiana was a mind boggling $6,700 per state citizen. Compare this to New York after 9/11 ($390) or Hurricane Andrew which devastated South Florida ($139.)
What happened in New Orleans was the equivalent level of destruction of total war. After World War II, otherwise self-reliant and capable cities like Berlin and Tokyo and many, many others needed massive, prolonged infusions of outside assistance to get back on their feet.
So what’s going on?
Bottom line: The federal government - whose negligence caused the disaster in the first place - has made the decision that it’s cheaper, politically and financially, to let New Orleans die, rather rebuild it.
Thus the constant drumbeat of media propaganda that the city was destroyed by “an act of nature,” that its people are inherently corrupt and unworthy, that no one should live there. This last point is especially preposterous. If no one should live in New Orleans, no one should live in Holland either. The difference is Dutch levees don’t collapse.
You can probably see where this is leading.
Internet pros volunteers needed for New Orleans
New Orleans needs independent media to tell its story. Not just for the sake of telling a story, but to organize and rally all the people in the US and around the world who love the city and what it stands for - and there are millions of them currently unconnected.
Who’s going to do that?
More precisely, who’s going to create the media infrastructure that will make it easy for New Orleanians to tell their story and easy for outsiders who care to target their help where it will do the most good - both on the neighborhood level and in Washington.
City’s are savable. Even in the darkest times. I know. Hudson was savable. I believe New Orleans is savable too.
Are you a person with Internet skills who cares about the people of New Orleans? Would you like to play in a big stakes game, one that can change the destiny of a city and create a model for cities that may face similar systemic catastrophes in the future?
If so, please enter your name and skill set in our Internet Pros for New Orleans Database and we’ll try to match you up with a project where your skills will have the biggest impact.
Can the web save the world? Yes. One small piece at a time. Let’s start with New Orleans.
Join the Internet Pros for New Orleans volunteer database:
http://www.foodmusicjustice.com/signup.php
Author: Ken McCarthy is an activist webmaster who hope to use his skills and knowledge to better humanity, one city at a time.
By Ken McCarthy in
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