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Watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama was indeed an inspiring thing even if it was on television. Sadly I did not receive an invitation. Seeing my friends update their pages on Facebook such that photos taken at the inauguration were posted immediately also was a cool way to interact and get a bird’s eye feel for how it might have been to be there.
Magazines like LIFE and the Saturday Evening Post used to perform the same function. Detailed photo spreads on events of the day made their product must see media.
So while most of the weekly magazines are doing their darndest to remain alive (and this is apparently a losing battle – see US News going to a monthly!) the way magazines could stage a revival would be to offer a product that the internet simply cannot compete with. Lush photo spreads of the inaugural on heavy paper would be a collector’s item for sure and a hefty cover price to boot would be a huge draw for readers and advertisers alike. Count on several being on the newsstand next week although I have no advance knowledge of a particular publication taking this direction.
My 15 year old daughter still gets Seventeen Magazine and told me that she would rather get the magazine than read it on the internet but she likes having access to both. She/I pays for the subscription and reads it cover to cover as soon as she gets it. Talk about connection! There is something about seeing photos on high gloss high quality paper that makes them much more memorable than when viewed on your computer screen.
So while it is no surprise that the mass magazine appeal of the 1950’- 1980’s is dying away, magazines occupy an important part of the media equation. Upgrade the paper, charge more and connect with the audience in a personal way by delivering them the content they want to see and read. The market may be much smaller but it will still be a market after all…
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Below ground and unconnected
There are things we Americans put up with simply because most of us have not had occasion to sample the way things could be. Yesterday was a nice and bright 20 degree day (wind chills in the single digits) here in New York City. I (like most New Yorkers) find that the subways are the best way to get around particularly when you have to go downtown to south Manhattan from midtown or beyond. I do prefer to walk when the walk is less than 20 minutes.
Subway service in the city seems to be slipping once again. More ridership has not reduced an increasing deficit and the plan is for fares to go up probably in later in 2009.
But with higher fares will New Yorkers be able to expect better service? Well it’s pretty lousy overall now if you ask me.
First off there’s the communication issue. Or lack thereof more properly. Have you ever tried to listen to the ‘announcements’? Even if you can hear them through the tiny speakers built in 1945 I challenge to tell me what language is being spoken. And the information if the words can even be made is unintelligible anyway! Today’s message for instance – ‘Due to an incident the R & Q trains are running slower than normal). ‘This was after I was standing waiting for a train for 20 minutes in the freezing cold. Really? Then there was some garbled information about transferring. Of course there was no train to get on to transfer to! NO mention of when the next train might arrive (or if). Finally when a train arrived it was neither an R nor a Q but some other train that I got on simply because I was tired of waiting and was hoping to go somewhere at least.
Then there’s the issue of personal communication when riding the subway. There is hardly any cell phone service. At least not in New York. Tokyo has it all over New York when it comes to moving people. Granted the New York City Transit Authority is famous for having more miles of train tracks than any other system and it has been around for a very long time. Yet Tokyo and several other cities have mobile phone service in their subways. Their communication systems tell you the next few trains and when they are to arrive on what track to the minute. And they arrive precisely on schedule. I lived in New York City for years before I knew the subways even ran on a schedule (yes amazingly there is a schedule)!
So why do we have to content with substandard service? The MTA fare structure is a bit unusual - $ 2.00 and you can ride as much as you want. All 200 miles. Of course the mayor has noted that the prices must go up ($ 2.50 is being thrown around) and service curtailed even more. I don’t know of many other cities that price their subway service this way. You pay for how far you go. Maybe it’s just because New Yorkers for the most part just don’t realize what the alternatives are, and so we take what we have. Dirty, smelly, poorly lit, inconsistent service, lousy information and non-existent cell phone service underground. Are we getting what we deserve? I sure don’t feel that way. Do you?
Subway service in the city seems to be slipping once again. More ridership has not reduced an increasing deficit and the plan is for fares to go up probably in later in 2009.
But with higher fares will New Yorkers be able to expect better service? Well it’s pretty lousy overall now if you ask me.
First off there’s the communication issue. Or lack thereof more properly. Have you ever tried to listen to the ‘announcements’? Even if you can hear them through the tiny speakers built in 1945 I challenge to tell me what language is being spoken. And the information if the words can even be made is unintelligible anyway! Today’s message for instance – ‘Due to an incident the R & Q trains are running slower than normal). ‘This was after I was standing waiting for a train for 20 minutes in the freezing cold. Really? Then there was some garbled information about transferring. Of course there was no train to get on to transfer to! NO mention of when the next train might arrive (or if). Finally when a train arrived it was neither an R nor a Q but some other train that I got on simply because I was tired of waiting and was hoping to go somewhere at least.
Then there’s the issue of personal communication when riding the subway. There is hardly any cell phone service. At least not in New York. Tokyo has it all over New York when it comes to moving people. Granted the New York City Transit Authority is famous for having more miles of train tracks than any other system and it has been around for a very long time. Yet Tokyo and several other cities have mobile phone service in their subways. Their communication systems tell you the next few trains and when they are to arrive on what track to the minute. And they arrive precisely on schedule. I lived in New York City for years before I knew the subways even ran on a schedule (yes amazingly there is a schedule)!
So why do we have to content with substandard service? The MTA fare structure is a bit unusual - $ 2.00 and you can ride as much as you want. All 200 miles. Of course the mayor has noted that the prices must go up ($ 2.50 is being thrown around) and service curtailed even more. I don’t know of many other cities that price their subway service this way. You pay for how far you go. Maybe it’s just because New Yorkers for the most part just don’t realize what the alternatives are, and so we take what we have. Dirty, smelly, poorly lit, inconsistent service, lousy information and non-existent cell phone service underground. Are we getting what we deserve? I sure don’t feel that way. Do you?
Friday, January 9, 2009
It's time for faxes to become extinct
I went to a meeting yesterday and met an interesting guy who is an investment banker/venture capital funding specialist. After he was done he offered to send us the deck from which he presented. So like I do when I receive any card from someone I have met I entered in his contact information into my contacts. But I took pause when I set to enter in the fax number.
Will I ever fax anything to this person? Probably never. So then I thought about how infrequently I send or receive a fax. Yes we use them occasionally in our business for bills of lading or proof of deliveries on shipments we have made on behalf of clients. But even those could be scanned and emailed.
So many of us (me included) are trying to cut down on the office paper we use on a daily basis. Emails often include a line to ‘please consider if printing this email is necessary’ or something to that effect. A good and useful message to be sure. But what about faxes?
I have been around long enough to have been there at the outset of faxes - rolls of paper in a big bulky machine that went around and around, took forever to print out and to boot were printed on awful paper that would want to roll up on itself once half the roll had been used. But they were cool - twenty five plus years ago that is.
Today we get a couple of faxes every morning from local eateries notifying us of their daily specials. I would think that it would be to their (and our) benefit to create an email list and then email the specials each morning. Then they have a list and we do not have to waste paper or energy (or a phone line) for a fax machine. Maybe during the day we get or send a fax or two but that’s about it.
And what could be less private than a fax machine in the middle of an office where everyone has access? An inexpensive scanner could easily do the trick to replace the fax and a service like eFax (which is free for the basic version) would allow faxes sent to you to be received as emails.
So when I meet with my team next week I will discuss jettisoning the fax machine. I am sure that idea is will be met with some trepidation and discomfort since it will be difficult for some to imagine losing the perceived convenience of the fax machine. But one less phone line, less paper and removing the need to go look for a fax far outweighs the benefit. We can do this. So can you. What do you think?
Will I ever fax anything to this person? Probably never. So then I thought about how infrequently I send or receive a fax. Yes we use them occasionally in our business for bills of lading or proof of deliveries on shipments we have made on behalf of clients. But even those could be scanned and emailed.
So many of us (me included) are trying to cut down on the office paper we use on a daily basis. Emails often include a line to ‘please consider if printing this email is necessary’ or something to that effect. A good and useful message to be sure. But what about faxes?
I have been around long enough to have been there at the outset of faxes - rolls of paper in a big bulky machine that went around and around, took forever to print out and to boot were printed on awful paper that would want to roll up on itself once half the roll had been used. But they were cool - twenty five plus years ago that is.
Today we get a couple of faxes every morning from local eateries notifying us of their daily specials. I would think that it would be to their (and our) benefit to create an email list and then email the specials each morning. Then they have a list and we do not have to waste paper or energy (or a phone line) for a fax machine. Maybe during the day we get or send a fax or two but that’s about it.
And what could be less private than a fax machine in the middle of an office where everyone has access? An inexpensive scanner could easily do the trick to replace the fax and a service like eFax (which is free for the basic version) would allow faxes sent to you to be received as emails.
So when I meet with my team next week I will discuss jettisoning the fax machine. I am sure that idea is will be met with some trepidation and discomfort since it will be difficult for some to imagine losing the perceived convenience of the fax machine. But one less phone line, less paper and removing the need to go look for a fax far outweighs the benefit. We can do this. So can you. What do you think?
Monday, January 5, 2009
What’s Howard Stern going to do when satellite radio crashes and burns?
Sirius paid Howard a SERIOUS amount of money to beat out XM for his ‘services’. Of course Sirius ended up outbidding itself once the government approved the union of these two floundering companies. I read the article in the 12/28 NY Times Sunday Business section (read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/media/28radio.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Mel%20Karmazin%20&st=cse )
I do think a great deal of Mel Karmazin and he has given his best effort but it’s not working. Over the past few years we have had 2 new leased cars both of which came equipped with satellite radio for a 3 month trial. Both times we did not extend the service after the trial period was over. At $ 12.95 per month it was an easy decision. I am not a Howard Stern listener so that wasn’t a reason to pay up nor would I pay for the opportunity to listen to Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo formerly of WFAN now on satellite radio.
It was doomed from the start. A big market never really existed for a paid service ($ 150+/year!) where you could get some unique content but advertisements as well. Terrestrial radio is slowly dying as well of natural causes. But Sirius/XM is on life support and I believe the plug will soon be pulled.
The iPod is only one reason and eventually the iPod will take feeds in from the internet such that you could play those feeds through to your car. And how many people subscribe to satellite radio at home?
If satellite radio were $ 4/month that price would be intriguing enough for me (and perhaps other people) to give it a serious look. But the content is still lacking after several years of promises of cool and unique programming. It reminds me of my 100+ channels of cable TV where frequently I am unable to find anything to watch.
In my customer controlled communications world I would have content made available to me to be called up on voice command. Read me page one of the NY Times. Allow me to say ‘next article’ or sports, or ‘Jets news’ and then have that read over the air with no delay. This technology exists. Why satellite radio never made it there is a mystery to me. But it’s too late now. I would not invest in XM/Sirius stock right now ($ 0.12/share) and it seems most investors feel the same.
Too bad – it wasn’t a bad idea it was just poorly executed.
I do think a great deal of Mel Karmazin and he has given his best effort but it’s not working. Over the past few years we have had 2 new leased cars both of which came equipped with satellite radio for a 3 month trial. Both times we did not extend the service after the trial period was over. At $ 12.95 per month it was an easy decision. I am not a Howard Stern listener so that wasn’t a reason to pay up nor would I pay for the opportunity to listen to Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo formerly of WFAN now on satellite radio.
It was doomed from the start. A big market never really existed for a paid service ($ 150+/year!) where you could get some unique content but advertisements as well. Terrestrial radio is slowly dying as well of natural causes. But Sirius/XM is on life support and I believe the plug will soon be pulled.
The iPod is only one reason and eventually the iPod will take feeds in from the internet such that you could play those feeds through to your car. And how many people subscribe to satellite radio at home?
If satellite radio were $ 4/month that price would be intriguing enough for me (and perhaps other people) to give it a serious look. But the content is still lacking after several years of promises of cool and unique programming. It reminds me of my 100+ channels of cable TV where frequently I am unable to find anything to watch.
In my customer controlled communications world I would have content made available to me to be called up on voice command. Read me page one of the NY Times. Allow me to say ‘next article’ or sports, or ‘Jets news’ and then have that read over the air with no delay. This technology exists. Why satellite radio never made it there is a mystery to me. But it’s too late now. I would not invest in XM/Sirius stock right now ($ 0.12/share) and it seems most investors feel the same.
Too bad – it wasn’t a bad idea it was just poorly executed.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Happy New Year - Will 2009 be the end of shared media experiences?
Maybe you will watch Ryan Seacrest this New Year’s Eve. Maybe Dick Clark? But hopefully you are not watching it alone. Even if you alone at least you are sharing a media experience where if something interesting happens many people will have watched it at the same time. But this is happening less and less frequently since the dawn of television and radio.
DVR’s and things like Hulu and YouTube allow people to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch. And that’s a great thing. Yet we lose something with all this on-demand consumption of media. There was a big energy jolt during the Olympics this past summer when we all watched Michael Phelps dominate the pool (even on tape delay but we mostly all watched it together even when we knew the result!). The same thing happened when President-elect Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech in Grant Park on Election Night.
The Super Bowl is the largest shared media experience on the American landscape. People talk about the ads (sometimes even the game) for days and sometimes weeks after the event. But with television viewership continuing to fracture into smaller and smaller pieces the opportunities for shared media experiences will dwindle away. I feel a lot is lost when viewers (and even readers) of content view things over an extended period of time. Time was when we had to have a shared experience with mass media because there were 8 channels of television content (maybe 20 of radio). But it was cool that people would talk about what they had seen and it would often be provocative.
I don’t see this as any kind of solvable problem and I venture a guess that there are those that do not feel it is any kind of problem at all. We are indeed a long way from the time that people gathered outside an appliance store to watch Uncle Miltie. (Ok I am old but I NEVER did that). Certainly standing in the street to watch a television is not the answer. But in this internet age where we have social networking sites to help us share experiences with people we want to ‘follow’, care about and want to reconnect with, large scale shared experiences are going the way of analog TV.
What do you think?
Have a safe New Year’s Eve and a healthy and prosperous 2009!
DVR’s and things like Hulu and YouTube allow people to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch. And that’s a great thing. Yet we lose something with all this on-demand consumption of media. There was a big energy jolt during the Olympics this past summer when we all watched Michael Phelps dominate the pool (even on tape delay but we mostly all watched it together even when we knew the result!). The same thing happened when President-elect Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech in Grant Park on Election Night.
The Super Bowl is the largest shared media experience on the American landscape. People talk about the ads (sometimes even the game) for days and sometimes weeks after the event. But with television viewership continuing to fracture into smaller and smaller pieces the opportunities for shared media experiences will dwindle away. I feel a lot is lost when viewers (and even readers) of content view things over an extended period of time. Time was when we had to have a shared experience with mass media because there were 8 channels of television content (maybe 20 of radio). But it was cool that people would talk about what they had seen and it would often be provocative.
I don’t see this as any kind of solvable problem and I venture a guess that there are those that do not feel it is any kind of problem at all. We are indeed a long way from the time that people gathered outside an appliance store to watch Uncle Miltie. (Ok I am old but I NEVER did that). Certainly standing in the street to watch a television is not the answer. But in this internet age where we have social networking sites to help us share experiences with people we want to ‘follow’, care about and want to reconnect with, large scale shared experiences are going the way of analog TV.
What do you think?
Have a safe New Year’s Eve and a healthy and prosperous 2009!
Friday, December 26, 2008
What I got for Christmas – a lesson in technology use.
Most importantly I got the gift of spending it with family – my wife’s family for that matter. I have done this for the past 31 Christmases. The family has changed a great deal but as one of my nieces in college said ‘finding your way to come home for Christmas is something that we should do no matter what’.
My place has changed going from the young kid to the middle aged uncle, son and brother in-law. It’s great to see everyone particularly the nieces and nephews who I don’t get to see often enough. All do different things – some are still students either in high school or college, some work full time. None are married – out of 9 cousins aged 15 – 27.
All are consumed with technology. Everyone has a PDA or phone and if under 30 without exception checked text messages or talked on their mobile phone at least once during the afternoon. That’s amazingly different since my first Christmas with the family back in 1978. The technology we had then consisted of a record player, a television (yes it was color) showing the Yule Log (or was that Christmas Eve?) and the long gone Blue-Gray classic college football all star game.
But now our conversations drift in and out of technology all driven by the younger set. Facebook, internet forums, YouTube, dominate. It seems someone is always sitting at the computer near the dining room table before or after dinner checking something. When I mentioned that I now tweet from time to time there were a few cousins that had no idea what Twitter was! And when I mentioned to my recent college grad (2007) niece about using LinkedIn to find a new job, she said she just had not gotten into that. She (like all my nieces and nephews for that matter) does use Facebook regularly but did not see the value in LinkedIn. What she did not see was how it could be relevant to her.
I was able to show her how I could find out about the people with whom she was going to interview after the weekend by checking their profile on LinkedIn. Of course you can Google someone as well to get information but specific to an individual LinkedIn is faster and more accurate since it is user generated.
What I also was able to articulate is how Facebook allows me to offer up my unfiltered and genuine thoughts to friends or ‘Friends’ and maybe that helps them draw a better read on me as opposed to the business oriented sides of LinkedIn and Twitter . Surprisingly my nieces and nephews actually read some of my updates (I did not know that since they never comment) and think they are funny sometimes but revealing more than that. They get to know me and I get to know them (yes I read their status updates and rarely comment) in ways that people never could before. And that might be the best gift I get of them all.
My place has changed going from the young kid to the middle aged uncle, son and brother in-law. It’s great to see everyone particularly the nieces and nephews who I don’t get to see often enough. All do different things – some are still students either in high school or college, some work full time. None are married – out of 9 cousins aged 15 – 27.
All are consumed with technology. Everyone has a PDA or phone and if under 30 without exception checked text messages or talked on their mobile phone at least once during the afternoon. That’s amazingly different since my first Christmas with the family back in 1978. The technology we had then consisted of a record player, a television (yes it was color) showing the Yule Log (or was that Christmas Eve?) and the long gone Blue-Gray classic college football all star game.
But now our conversations drift in and out of technology all driven by the younger set. Facebook, internet forums, YouTube, dominate. It seems someone is always sitting at the computer near the dining room table before or after dinner checking something. When I mentioned that I now tweet from time to time there were a few cousins that had no idea what Twitter was! And when I mentioned to my recent college grad (2007) niece about using LinkedIn to find a new job, she said she just had not gotten into that. She (like all my nieces and nephews for that matter) does use Facebook regularly but did not see the value in LinkedIn. What she did not see was how it could be relevant to her.
I was able to show her how I could find out about the people with whom she was going to interview after the weekend by checking their profile on LinkedIn. Of course you can Google someone as well to get information but specific to an individual LinkedIn is faster and more accurate since it is user generated.
What I also was able to articulate is how Facebook allows me to offer up my unfiltered and genuine thoughts to friends or ‘Friends’ and maybe that helps them draw a better read on me as opposed to the business oriented sides of LinkedIn and Twitter . Surprisingly my nieces and nephews actually read some of my updates (I did not know that since they never comment) and think they are funny sometimes but revealing more than that. They get to know me and I get to know them (yes I read their status updates and rarely comment) in ways that people never could before. And that might be the best gift I get of them all.
Monday, December 22, 2008
2009 the year of better communcation - I hope!
As I write this sitting on a plane heading to frigid Chicago 3 days before Christmas it bothers me to no end that in flight internet access is not a regularly available feature on airplanes. Forget for a moment that the few airlines that are doing it (Lufthansa I think is one) charge passengers for the privilege of wireless web access.
Of course I can still get a diet coke if I want for free. I would rather have the internet access by far. Seeing as I cannot pick up a bottle of internet access at the newsstand (either before or after airport security) I would think that providing free access to the internet on all flights in lieu of free sodas would be a much better deal for the airlines. Remember the airlines are the folks that have brought us the $ 6 can of Budweiser. So why not a $ 3 soda? The point is that the web is ubiquitous and it is more than a mere annoyance that you get to pay hundreds of dollars to sit in a tiny seat on short (under 3 hours) haul flights with no food or in-flight entertainment options (unless you fly Jet Blue). Now I don't want to hear Mabel talking on her cell phone to her husband about what time he should be at the airport to pick her up - EVER! NO CELL PHONES IN FLIGHT. EVER! But in the interest of better communication I think the airlines are going about it all wrong. They don't tell you when you will land but if there were internet access we could figure out what time we would land and at which gate at the very least!
While l waited for my flight (it was delayed three hours which happens I understand) the communication was not good at all as to if or when the flight would leave. Initially it was to be 2 hours late but somewhere along the way the communication stopped and 15 minutes before the flight was to depart a sign finally went up. Why don't the airlines have an information officer on the premises to help passengers with information? The amount of goodwill this would engender would be palpable. I can get more information in the back of a New York City taxicab now (with internet enabled televisions becoming the norm) than I can in an airport.
And once you get to your destination you know what you get to experience. The likelihood of paying for internet connections at your hotel! And the more expensive the hotel the more likely you will have to shell out $ 10.95 or more for 24 hours of internet access. When traveling on business I often stay at Marriott Courtyards for the primary reason that they offer free internet access. And it is far less expensive to stay there than at most other hotels. I just don't get this do you? If we are living in the information age why is so much access behind the iron curtain?
3G networks are on the rise and soon (but not soon enough for me) your internet enabled phone/pda will be able to access the web from anywhere and at great speeds (even in the air!) so eventually all this stupidity on charging for internet access will go away. Unfortunately you will still have to pay for checking your bags on most airlines (this is not going away sadly) and eventually pay for your soda too. It's coming sooner and not later. 2009 may offer a little better communication than 2008 but we still have a long way to go.
Of course I can still get a diet coke if I want for free. I would rather have the internet access by far. Seeing as I cannot pick up a bottle of internet access at the newsstand (either before or after airport security) I would think that providing free access to the internet on all flights in lieu of free sodas would be a much better deal for the airlines. Remember the airlines are the folks that have brought us the $ 6 can of Budweiser. So why not a $ 3 soda? The point is that the web is ubiquitous and it is more than a mere annoyance that you get to pay hundreds of dollars to sit in a tiny seat on short (under 3 hours) haul flights with no food or in-flight entertainment options (unless you fly Jet Blue). Now I don't want to hear Mabel talking on her cell phone to her husband about what time he should be at the airport to pick her up - EVER! NO CELL PHONES IN FLIGHT. EVER! But in the interest of better communication I think the airlines are going about it all wrong. They don't tell you when you will land but if there were internet access we could figure out what time we would land and at which gate at the very least!
While l waited for my flight (it was delayed three hours which happens I understand) the communication was not good at all as to if or when the flight would leave. Initially it was to be 2 hours late but somewhere along the way the communication stopped and 15 minutes before the flight was to depart a sign finally went up. Why don't the airlines have an information officer on the premises to help passengers with information? The amount of goodwill this would engender would be palpable. I can get more information in the back of a New York City taxicab now (with internet enabled televisions becoming the norm) than I can in an airport.
And once you get to your destination you know what you get to experience. The likelihood of paying for internet connections at your hotel! And the more expensive the hotel the more likely you will have to shell out $ 10.95 or more for 24 hours of internet access. When traveling on business I often stay at Marriott Courtyards for the primary reason that they offer free internet access. And it is far less expensive to stay there than at most other hotels. I just don't get this do you? If we are living in the information age why is so much access behind the iron curtain?
3G networks are on the rise and soon (but not soon enough for me) your internet enabled phone/pda will be able to access the web from anywhere and at great speeds (even in the air!) so eventually all this stupidity on charging for internet access will go away. Unfortunately you will still have to pay for checking your bags on most airlines (this is not going away sadly) and eventually pay for your soda too. It's coming sooner and not later. 2009 may offer a little better communication than 2008 but we still have a long way to go.
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