[Jason] The Dark Knight reviewed
July 16, 2008
The Dark Knigh Reviewed
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Thanks to TechCrunch.com I was able to see the latest Batman film–The Dark Knight–tonight at the IMAX theater at Universal City in Los Angeles. It was an amazing film, with stunning visual, amazing performances and a great story. I thought I would give you my impressions.
IMAX, IMAX, IMAX
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First, you have to see this film in IMAX. If you haven’t seen an IMAX film yet this is the one to see. Now, the entire film isn’t filmed in IMAX but the parts that have leveraged this technology are like nothing you’ve seen before. For most of the film (i.e. non-action sequences) the film is in letter box with the top and the bottom of the screen not being used. However, when the film moves to cityscapes and action sequences–BANG!–the full screen is used.
This is done so seamlessly that you wouldn’t even notice the switch in formats. It really adds to the film. It’s almost midnight and I’m dead tired, but if you offered me a second showing the Dark Knight on IMAX right now I would go. It’s a two and half hour film and I’ve got a breakfast in the morning so this is a significant statement.
Heath Ledger’s Performance
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Heath Ledgers performance as the Joker is–in a word–epic. It’s perhaps one of the five most haunting and disturbing performances captured on film. If you take the most evil and demented characters ever captured on film, including Anthony Hopkins’ Hannible Lecter and Robert DeNiro’s Max Cady in Cape Fear, they pale in comparison.
Ledger’s Joker shares almost nothing in common with the campy Tim Burton version played by Jack Nicholson, No, Ledger’s Joker is a psychotic terrorist looking to nothing more than cause as much pain and suffering as possible.
His performance makes the Dark Knight feel less like a superhero film and more like a horror film combined with a film noir crime flick.
How great is this film–really?
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No one who seems this film will deny it is the best superhero film ever made. If you loved Iron Man, X-Men, or Superman you will be enamored with this film.
If you are a fan of crime films like HEAT, The Killers or The Departed you will love this film. It’s a real crime thriller with a great story line.
Right now I can’t think of a better film than this in the past year. If you compare it to best picture nominations/winners from the last couple of years Dark Knight stands right up there with There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, and Munich. It’s certainly better than Mystic River, Seabiscuit, Ray, Sideways, Juno, and Little Miss Sunshine. As such, it’s clearly going to get nominated for best picture.
I’m predicting it will clean up at the Oscars this year, including awards for Heath Ledger and Best Picture.
Are you cool with this?
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Not sure if you guys want to hear me talk about stuff other than technology, business and media. Should I really be sharing this with you on the email list? I wouldn’t think twice about posting this on my blog, and since the email newsletter is supposed to replace the blog I figure this wouldn’t be a big deal…. you can always hit the delete key right?
Don’t worry….I’m not going to review every film I see–this one is special. 
On that note, you’re welcome to reprint or forward this email as you like as long as you don’t do it for profit and you keep it whole.
Finally, I have to say I’m loving the email relationship I’m building with you guys. So many of you respond to the messages with considered thoughts. So many of you read the entire emails–that’s just great.
Question: how many emails would you like to hear from me? 2-5 a week I’m thinking right now.
best regards,
Jason
How to host an amazing conference
July 16, 2008
After 14 years of running and attending conferences in the technology
space, I’ve learned about 20 things that I think are essential to
either making–or breaking–an event. I’ve been keeping track of these
in the back of my head, but have never really taken the time to put
them into an essay… until now.
Two questions (and I will republish your answers to the list with your
name, title, and url if you provide them!):
a) What was the best conference you ever attended and why?
b) Who was the best conference speaker you’ve ever heard and why?
Now on to Jason’s tips for a great event:
1. Every conference must have a purpose. A mission statement. A reason
to exist. If you can’t clearly say why your event exists, there is a
good chance it is not worth attending. If you look at the top
technology events out there, they all have fairly clear missions:
a) TED is a conference about ideas (worth spreading). It was previously
about technology, entertainment and design.
b) Foo Camp is based around informal discussions about technology (by
friends of Tim O’Reilly).
c) TechCrunch50 is designed to launch 50 brand new companies (for free
with a $50,000 grand prize, as opposed to DEMO which is almost $20,000
for startups–sorry, couldn’t help myself).
d) WSJ’s D conference is a place for the most senior executives in
technology and media to talk business.
e) The WEF/Davos is a conference for people to discuss issues
impacting the global economy.
f) Web 2.0 is focused on the second wave of internet companies (i.e.
Web 2.0 companies).
f) Le Web 3 is focused on the second wave of internet companies in
Europe (i.e. the Web 2.0 of Europe).
g) Burda’s DLD conference is essentially TED + WSJ D conference–but
in Munich and for Europeans.
h) Blogher is a conference for female bloggers.
You get the idea. The further away from a purpose you get the harder
it is for everyone–sponsors, attendees, and speakers–to know if they
should get involved. Be clear about your mission and make your
conference *essential* for some group of people. If it’s not essential
for some core group to be there, you will fail.
2. The best editorial format is a 15-20 minute solo presentation
followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. The reason this is the best format is
because individuals will perform on their highest level when they are
out there alone on stage. When you put two to five people on stage
there is massive diffusion of responsibility. Very few people need
more than 15 minutes to get their point across, and very few people
can be entertaining for more than 15 or 20 minutes (some can, of
course).
3. The best way to handle Q&A is to make a general statement at the
start of the Q&A session as follows: “We are going to the question and
answer session now. If you would like to ask a question please raise
your hand and someone will come to you with a wireless microphone. We
ask that you please ask a concise question, not a statement or
commercial for your company.” I’ve done this at all my conferences and
it works *very* well. Also, I’ve added–in a joking voice–the
following: “The audience should boo anyone who does a commercial for
their company instead of a question!” This typically gets a big laugh
and scares half of the self-promoting idiots who use the Q&A session
as a back door for marketing.
4. You must NEVER hand the microphone to someone during the Q&A. You
should hold the microphone in your hand like Phil Donahue used to so
that you can move it away from the person’s mouth if they drone on and
on. Alternatively, you can have two stand-up microphones and work out
a deal or signal with the audio folks so that they watch for a sign
from you to turn off the microphone if someone drones on and on.
Remember as the host of the event it is YOUR responsibility to keep
things moving along and if some jerk-off wants to waste 500 to 1,000
people’s time with a commercial for their startup you are WELL within
your rights to cut them off.
5. The best way to cut someone off is to say “Let’s give another
person a chance to ask a question.” This gives the person trying to
monopolize the Q&A a chance to be graceful. If they keep talking they
are basically saying, “No, let’s not give someone else the chance to
ask a question.” The best way to keep people focused is to say, “Your
question?” or, “Another question?” before putting the microphone in
front of them. This keeps everyone focused on asking a question.
6. Conference producers must–I repeat must–take 100% ownership of
what people present on stage. Most conference producers spend so much
time on logistics, marketing and sales that they don’t watch the
presentations of the people who are coming on stage. 90% of conference
bombing presentations could be avoided if the conference producers
asks for a run through one to two weeks before the event.
If someone is not willing to run through their presentation, they
shouldn’t speak at your event. I’m constantly shocked by conference
producer who ask me to speak at an event and never talk to me about
the audience, what they might expect or what the goals of the event
are. Now, sometimes these folks have seen me speak and trust me, and I
understand that. However I would make high-end folks like Doug
Rushkoff tell me their plans ahead of time. The way you can get away
with this is to say to them, “I’d like to make this the best
conference presentation you ever give… if we go over it once or
twice we might be able to make it 10-20% better each time.” No one
will give up the opportunity to get 20-50% better.
7. Fireside chats are only appropriate for very opinionated, blunt and
insightful speakers. Do not put just anyone in this format, because if
they are not absolutely entertaining and insightful it will fail.
Barry Diller and Mark Cuban are fantastic fireside chats because they
don’t filter themselves like most people do–they just talk like real
people.
Most CEO/founders are so on message that fireside chats turn into bad
infomercials. When you do a fireside chat format be honest with the
subject about this fact and ask them if they are “ready to bring it!”
Get them pumped up. Ask them what they are really inspired by or
pissed off about in your pre-interview. Ask them what the biggest
mistake they’ve made is and ask them the hard questions in an upfront
way. If they don’t answer the question, you are within your right to
say “I don’t really feel like you answered that question fully… can
you drill down a little more?”
8. Panels are the weakest form of conference editorial. Only one out
of ten panels I’ve been to are interesting, and they are typically
interesting despite the moderators and because there is some conflict
on the panel. Conflict equals both drama and that there is something
at stake. It’s hard to manufacture drama–it either exists or it
doesn’t. So, if you must do a panel, talk to prospects early about
what topics they’re passionate about. Then, after you have a list of
what they’re passionate about, ask them, “Who takes the opposite view
on this and why?”
A panel full of bloggers talking about how great it is to blog is pure
death. A panel with five journalists talking about the problems of
blogging is also death. A panel with bloggers, journalists, bloggers
turned journalists, and journalists turned bloggers? That’s going to
be interesting.
9. Most panel moderators are self-aggrandizing lightweights who do
more damage than good. The best moderators *pull* information out of
the panelists, cut people off, and move the conversation on. To be a
good moderator you only need 3-4 questions to get things going, the
rest of your questions should come by *listening* to the answers and
asking follow-up questions.
You can ask folks to expand upon their ideas by saying things like,
“You mentioned blogging as a public relations tool–could you unpack
that a little bit?” or, “I’m not sure I understand what you mean by
blogging being dead–can you expand that a little?” These types of
follow-up questions are typically the best. Also, address each
question to a person–never say, “Anyone on the panel want to
respond.” That’s lame. You should know which panelist is best suited
for a question, and if they are all equally suited pick the person who
has participated the least thus far. Say their name clearly: “Jason!
What are you thoughts on blogging and PR?” Short questions are best.
You don’t have to explain the question in detail–you’re no Charlie
Rose and this is not PBS. Say it quickly and let them speak.
10. NEVER let panelists introduce themselves, that is the job of the
moderator. Lazy moderators don’t take the time to research their
panelists and memorize their introductions. As a result people
introduce themselves and that leads to two horrible things: a) modest
people understate their background and b) losers talk about themselves
for five or ten minutes.
If I’m on a panel I say, “I’m a serial entrepreneur. My first project
was a magazine, my second was a blog company, and my current company
is a human-powered search engine.” That’s it. To the point and done.
When I ran my conferences in New York and Los Angeles, I introduced
*everyone* in tight bullet points then got right to it. News flash: No
one cares about your bio–it’s in the book/on your website. Let’s get
to the discussion!
11. Not having a Q&A period is almost always insulting to the
audience. If a speaker will not do Q&A, then tell them not to come to
the event. The converse of this is that you can’t let the folks go
wild in the Q&A asking stupid questions or doing self-promotion (as I
mentioned above).
12. Unconferences are generally filled with 80% weak/bad content and
20% good/fascinating content. If you’re considering doing a conference
where the audience self-organizes and makes the content you have to
take the time to have anchor presentations. If you don’t have some
ringers setup ahead of time, you risk having a lot of boring/inane
stuff.
The value of an unconference is that more non-traditional folks get to
speak and that leads to some diamonds in the rough. If you host one,
make sure you lower people’s expectations and do everything you can to
keep the presentations very short: 10 minutes tops, unless you’re a
ringer.
13. Turn off the backchannel: its so distracting for everyone and
typically devolves into making fun of the person’s appearance. For
those of you who don’t know about the backchannel at a conference,
it’s typically an IRC chat room where folks hang out and respond to
the speakers. It can be fun and informative when it’s good: folks post
links, challenge statements with data they find on the web, and riff
on what they are hearing. However, chat rooms quickly become inhuman,
and I’ve seen folks make fun of people’s accents, their weight, and
other such things.
When the backchannel first started, folks would put it on the
projector–now most folks understand that’s a bad idea because
typically the speaker is the only person who doesn’t see the comments.
So, folks laugh at something, it throws the speaker off and they turn
around and say, “What’s everyone laughing at?” It was a neat idea at
first, but most of the time it’s a distraction. I suggest skipping it,
or just don’t endorse it.
14. Classroom style seating with power and ethernet cables is the best
setup. Folks sitting at desks pay attention and have room to settle
in. There is room behind them to walk in and out typically, and since
they can have their laptops open, they tend to camp. Theater seating
(without the desks) is great to pack folks in, but typically you have
folks knocking into each other and spilling coffee all over the place.
15. Have water and hard candy in the room–preferably on the tables.
This will keep people in their seats and keep them from coughing.
16. One track conferences are best because people have a shared
experience. People typically have multiple tracks because they are
trying to pack in more speakers. Then folks have to decide between
conflicting panels, all of which are lowered in quality on average
because you are doing so much. Most conference folks have three tracks
packed with panels so they can have 15-20 folks speaking at a
time–this is death. Again, diffusion of responsibility. Your job is
to curate the event and have only the top 20% of the speakers you
could have. As an exercise take the last conference you were at and
cut the weakest half the speakers and leave only the best speakers and
ask yourself, “How much better would the conference have been?” That’s
the job you need to do BEFORE the event.
17. Have fresh fruit, drinks, and energy bars available all day long.
Having only cookies, coffee and ice cream is a really bad idea. Folks
get wired and then tired–plus they get fat. People appreciate healthy
choices, and you’ll have a more lively audience.
18. If you want people to listen to a speaker, make sure that they
have a seat and take their alcohol away. I’m always shocked by junior
conference folks who think that you can put 500 folks in a hall with
no chairs and an open bar and then get them to pay attention to a
speaker. If you want folks to listen give them a seat and close down
the bar. If you want them to network and drink, don’t force a speaker
on them. Cocktail hours are for networking–not for speeches.
19. As the conference host you *must* stay in the room the entire time
and ensure that things are running smoothly on stage. I’m always
shocked when I go to an event and I see the host running around the
registration desk, the green room or the lobby. GET BACK IN THE ROOM
and make sure the audience is having a good experience. At my Silicon
Alley events and TechCrunch50 last year, I didn’t leave the room at
all. Even when I wasn’t moderating or speaking I stayed in there so I
could have the experience of the audience. If something went wrong, I
would get on it (i.e. audio problems, spilled coffee, a broken
projector).
20. Follow your muse. The best conference are the ones where the
host(s) put things on stage that matter to them. When I host an event,
the first thing I do is make a list of the 20-30 things that I’ve
found fascinating over the past year or two and try to figure out how
to share that fascination with the audience. This is the model that
Esther Dyson, Stuart Alsop, Richard Saul Wurman, and countless others
have followed and it works. It’s *your* event and *you* are
responsible for the content. Focus on it and be the best curator you
can… if you do, everything will work out.
Note: Folks can still sign up for the email newsletter, but all
subscriptions are reviewed to make sure the person uses their real
name, etc. You can signup here: http://www.tinyurl.com/jasonslist or
you can email me at jason[at]calacanis.com
All the best,
Jason
How to Generate Feedback for Your Startup (three simple ideas)
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There are many more smart people outside of your organization than in
it. Michael Moritz mentioned that to me recently, and I think it’s a
Bill Joy quote but I can’t remember.
Anyway, it’s as true for the humble three-person startup as it is for
Google and Microsoft. It’s simple math, and with global communication
friction reaching zero you would have to be a fool to not tap the
world for ideas.
Of course, asking the world for ideas is a sloppy process. If Google
put an anonymous suggestion box on every search result would they ever
be able to digest that information in a way that helped the business?
Probably not. However, as a startup in the search/research space I’d
love to drink from that fire hose.
Scale is a paradox: it’s the goal of all startups, and the curse of
the ones that transform into large organizations.
The same holds true of blogging as many of use have learned: you put
your voice out there to be heard, but at some point the echo back from
the back of the stadium becomes so distorted and freakish that you
long for your coffee house days.
I’ve tried a couple of ways to get feedback on my latest project and
they’ve worked really well. These ideas are fairly obvious I guess,
but since most folks haven’t tried them perhaps you’ll find some value
in them.
I wrote about this last November in a post called “The Community CEO”
which you can find here: http://tinyurl.com/communityceo
Question: Do you have any ideas on how to engage people in your
startups development?
I’d love to hear them. If you do hit reply please state if you
DO/DON’T want it included in a follow up post to the Jason list at the
top of the email. Now on to the three simple ideas.
LinkedIn.com’s Q&A service
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Shortly after launching Mahalo I asked folks on LinkedIn’s Answers
service what they would do if they were the CEO of Mahalo. The goal
here was to get feedback, but also to create empathy and engagement
with the product.
If users can understand that we’re humans trying to build something
helpful we move from being an abstract object in their minds to
something more like colleagues. We’re all trying to make our way in
the world, no one has all the answers, and asking for help is a humble
and worthwhile action no matter who you are.
Isn’t this part of Barack’s appeal in fact? He looks for feedback and
doesn’t claim to have the best answer, but rather the best process for
coming to an answer. (note: I’m not Barack promoter, in fact I haven’t
decided who I’m voting for yet–just making a point here).
On LinkedIn folks want to connect with you and they want others to see
how smart they are. As such, the answers on LinkedIn are massively
more considered than those on Yahoo Answers.
You can read the feedback here: http://tinyurl.com/linkedinceo
Flickr Photo Focus Group
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Our pages are designed to be 50% content and 50% links–a hybrid of
Wikipedia/About and Google/Yahoo if you will. Currently we put links
on the left and the content–an abridged Wikipedia article in scanable
format–on the right. Over time we’ve watched in our labs as users
gravitate to the right to read the Guide Note–if they see it. So, we
decided to mock up a page with the Guide Note on the left.
I posted it to my flickr account and twittered it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasoncalacanis/2451705655/
The result?
Views: 4,714
Comments: 231
On-image notes: 55 (as in folks posted a note on the image).
Offering folks the chance to comment about an idea, combined with the
promise of some schwag worked really well. Of course, there was way to
much information to sort through on a detailed basis, but the trends
were clear to us.
Also, most of the feedback came in on the first day. Are we going to
A-B test this? Sure, but the early feedback from designers was very,
very helpful.
eMail list suggestion box
——————————-
In one of the first emails to this list I asked folks for feedback on
how to make Mahalo better. The winner would get a free DASH GPS unit
(no, not getting paid by them, just love their product so they gave me
a few to give away).
Got over 100 emails almost instantly and I read these while playing
poker (I’m getting crushed right now for the record. Was up 6,200 for
the year and now up only 1,000–lost $5,200 over three games in a
row–brutal). While playing poker I read these on my Blackberry as
they came in (wait, is that why I lost?!?). The result was a non-stop
stream of consciousness about how people view the product. The top
three asks were:
a) A cleaner homepage
b) A customizable homepage
c) A mobile (specifically iPhone) version of Mahalo.
A sample of the suggestions follows below, and for my money the best
suggestion is to clean up the homepage. The first person to send in
that suggestion was Marques Stewart, who works in IT (
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marquesstewart ).
Thanks Marques. You’re also invited to the TechCrunch50 event as my
guest ($2,995 ticket otherwise!) if you can make it to San Francisco
on Sept 8-10th.
Mahalo Suggestion Box: Selected Comments
——————————
Adam P. from Australia suggested a mobile version of Mahalo for the
iPhone. Brandon S. and Keith C. had this idea as well.
Matt C. suggested a digg spy service where you could watch searches on
Mahalo. There are some major privacy issues with that (think someone
searching for their own name + keyword), but we do already have a
dashboard to watch other user activity on Mahalo. It includes links
suggested, guide note edits, and message board posts. You can find it
here: http://tinyurl.com/mahaloua
Cody suggested letting good contributors make pages about themselves.
Actually, anyone can create a page about themselves on Mahalo right
now–notable or not. To create a page just visit:
http://mahalo.com/Special:Createpage
Henry B. suggests a bi-weekly or monthly podcast “about Mahalo’s
challenges, struggles, ideas and also solicit ideas from the community
to better Mahalo.” That’s a good idea, I think we’ll get on that.
Adam M. suggested starting a twitter feed “and post once a day with
the Mahalo page of the day.” Good idea Adam!
Marques S. suggested cleaning up the homepage she explains: “People
like to have a good majority of their news/search in the upper area of
the browser and Mahalo should try to capitalize on that. I believe
that having to scroll down to see alot of the features that Mahalo has
to offer isn’t a good UI choice.” I agree, great suggestions, and we
are working on a new homepage.
Brad McCarty suggests we integrate tighters with FriendFeed: “Let’s
say that you create a Mahalo page – once you’re done editing, you can
choose to have that page auto-linked into your FriendFeed stream. The
same idea could hold true for major page updates, etc.” We’re in touch
with FriendFeed on this one already. It’s clearly a great idea.
Max D. suggests a random key on Mahalo, saying a “Stubleupon
type of button to get a random Mahalo page” would be killer. We have
one, perhaps we should market it? http://www.mahalo.com/Special:Random
David S. has a great idea along the lines of our “show us your Mahalo”
project: “give away something very cool… to the person who gets full
camera time during either; the All Star Game, or one of the
Conventions coming up. Camera time being: A sign, painted body,
banner, etc… that has Mahalo loud and clear, and has something about
the event that can draw the cameras attention long enough to give you
free advertising that could be ultimately priceless.” That’s an
interesting idea.
Paul L. says “I think it would be nice to see the rankings of # clicks
per link for each Mahalo page.” I agree, this is something we have on
our list. It’s groovy to see which page is clicked the most by users.
Steve H. smacks us down about the homepage as well: “My recommendation
is to unclutter the main home page. Make it streamlined and something
you don’t have to page down to start your topic search. The
‘featured’ list is way to long and distracting.” I agree. It’s my
fault and we’re fixing it. Kieran H. and Matt B. also say clean up the
homepage!
Daniel R. has suggestions about the homepage as well: “the main
suggestion I would have would be to be able to personalize the mahalo
front page once you are logged into your profile. Nothing fancy, but
there are some sections I like to see, but others I don’t care at
all.” Agreed. Personalization of the homepage might only appeal to the
top 2% of the audience, but we want that 2%! Charles M. M., Russell
E., Bobby E. and Steve K. also suggested we make a personalized
homepage.
Kevin W. had a lot of suggestions, among his best was “* To help drive
traffic, how about a referral program where you earn a couple of
points for everyone you get to visit the site. You can then redeem
your points for cash, music downloads, Mahalo merchandise, or
whatever.” I love this idea. In fact, we’ve been thinking about doing
this since day one, but we’ve focused like a laser on the core
product. Maybe next year on this one.
Nathan P. suggests coming up with an incentive program for folks who
make the site better. We’ve been thinking about this from the start.
However, it’s very complicated and we’re going to focus on it after we
have the core functionality of the site completed (i.e. new homepage,
perfect Guide Pages).
Josh Rappoport asks “how about Mahalo Follow for Safari?” I love this
suggestion and we did a massive search for Safari developers. Turns
out there is no plugin structure for Safari, so we would have to hack
it and that would be cost prohibitive. I’m bummed too.
Alan J. suggests “using the API from Dash to incorporate Mahalo.com
into the DASH unit itself.” Brilliant! We’ve put it on the list.
Benjamin T. suggests focusing on mobile and supporting OpenID. I can’t
believe we don’t support OpenID already… we should. I gotta figure
out how that one slipped through the cracks!
Russell N. suggest “A simple rating system for each article. 1-5
stars or something like that. Simple, quick and easy.” Not a bad idea
at all.
Jonathan R. says “make the Top 7 and Guide Notes bigger and stand out
from the rest of the page.” Good point.
Patrick C. suggest we add polls to Mahalo. I like this idea a lot.
The fallout (from the load out)
July 12, 2008
Team Jason,
Wow, it’s been an amazing 24 hours since I officially announced my
retirement from blogging ( http://tinyurl.com/jasonretires ). As
you’ve probably seen there has been some of coverage of my retirement,
most of it wondering if I’m joking or not (links at the bottom). To
those who know me better than a couple of Valleywag headlines, am I
ever not joking??!? I mean, Clark Kent asked a question in the faux
Q&A session, I posted a photo of Michael Jordan’s retirement, and I
spoke about spending more time with my family (as in my wife and two
bulldogs).
Clearly I was joking in the post, but I’m dead serious about the
retirement from blogging.
Most folks have no tolerance for ambiguity, and when faced with it are
extremely uncomfortable. This lack of comfort makes them think, and my
goal with the blog was always to challenge people’s thinking–most of
all my own. Confusion is attention of the best kind–I long to be
confused. I’ve become addicted to playing poker because your
constantly faced with confusion, and winning is trying to make sense
out of nonsense.
Is blogging dead?
————————-
Yes, it is. Officially.
Actually, I’ve been thinking about this question and while blogging is
clearly booming, there has been a deep qualitative change in the
nature of the ’sphere. There are so many folks involved in blogging to
today, and it’s moving at a much quicker pace thanks to “social
accelerants” like TechMeme, digg, Friendfeed and Twitter. Folks are so
desperate to be heard–and we all want to be heard that’s why we
blog–that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual
hearing.
Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts
than they do on the posts themselves. In the early days of blogging
Peter Rojas, who was my blog professor, told me what was required to
win at blogging: “show up every day.” In 2003 and 2004 that was the
case. Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your
message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from
whatever you’ve said.
Think: Nick Denton has reworked the bloggers pay at Gawker Media to
reflect not the quality of the words but the number of page views
those blog posts get. He doesn’t pay by word count, he pays by page
views. He’s closed the loop between editorial and advertising, turning
the Chinese wall into a block party. It’s the publishing promised land
while simultaneously being the death of publishing. Gawker is growing
page views while simultaneously destroying it’s brand equity. This
will either result in an implosion, or the perfect id-driven magazine
where our core desires are synchronized in relation to their
marketability. It will be fun to watch, but I wouldn’t want to be one
of those bloggers in the cage, running on the Denton’s wheel.
Excelling in blogging today is about link-baiting, the act of writing
something inflammatory in order to get a link. Many folks say I’m
responsible for link-baiting–these people are absolute idiots. I’ve
never tried to get any of these insecure, lonely freaks to link to
something I’ve said.
Truth be told, I’ve always written the way I talk–honestly and
without a filter. John Brockman explained to me at one time that some
of the most interesting folks he’s met have, over time, become less
vocal. He explained, that there was a inverse correlation between your
success and your ability to tell the truth. When I met John I was
nobody and I promised myself I would never, ever censor myself if I
become successful. My friend, and one of the few folks I’d consider a
mentor, Mark Cuban laid a path for me to follow in this regard. I wish
I could say I’ve succeeded, the best I can say is I’ve tried.
My good friend Xeni Jardin, who I had the pleasure of working/playing
with for a couple of years in another life, faced massive assault from
the audience she herself built at Boingboing.net. These folks were not
attacking her because of what she did (she deleted some old posts for
personal reasons), they were attacking her because they could. They
were attacking her because open-media (i.e. blogging) has turned into
an excuse for bad behavior. It’s outrageous to think that an audience
would turn on the author they love and built up for years over
something so trivial as deleting some posts.
Then again, they booed Dylan when he went electric in Newport and all
along his tour of Europe. They called him Judas, but he didn’t believe
them. I hope Xeni doesn’t believe them–they’re liars.
Why email?
——————–
In a word, intimacy. This message will go from my inbox to your inbox,
perhaps from my Blackberry to your iPhone. From my sleepy garden
office in Brentwood to your laptop perched on a desk in some high-rise
hotel in Shanghai or your crummy little studio on the LES. I’m
stopping my day to write it, and you’ll stop your day to read
it–perhaps. Maybe you’ll save this, or forward it to some friends
with certain sections in bold. There is zero tolerance for waste in
personal communication, so if you don’t find value in this email
you’ll delete it and maybe remove yourself from the list. You would do
the same if someone started boring you at a cocktail party, no? Find a
graceful way to get the hell out of there, and in email it’s one
click.
This platform puts a level playing field between us that is so
different than me posting to my blog which gets swept up in the Google
and Yahoo machine, sending thousands of visitors who haven’t made the
email commitment.
Also, there is an immediacy to this. At any point you can hit the
reply key (or forward) and send your thoughts directly to me at
jason@calacanis.com. This is much different than you posting to my
comments section and subjecting yourself to the trolls and haters who
have taken up residency there.
Why should we all build our homes and give residence to the trolls
under them? Comments on blogs inevitably implode, and we all accept it
under the belief that “open is better!” Open is not better. Running a
blog is like letting a virtuoso play for 90 minutes are Carnegie Hall,
and then seconds after their performance you run to the back Alley and
grab the most inebriated homeless person drag them on stage and ask
them what they think of the performance they overheard in the Alley.
They then take a piss on the stage and say “F-you” to the people who
just had a wonderful experience for 90 or 92 minutes. That’s openness
for you… my how far we’ve come! We’ve put the wisdom of the deranged
on the same level as the wisdom of the wise.
You and I now have a direct relationship, and I’m cutting the mailing
list off today so it stays at ~1,000 folks. I’ll add selectively to
the list, but for now I’m more interested in a deep relationship with
the few of you have chosen to make a commitment with me. Perhaps some
of you will become deep, considered colleagues and friends–something
that doesn’t happen for me in the blogosphere any more.
Much of my inspiration for doing this comes from what I’ve seen with
John Brockman’s Edge.org email newsletter. When it enters my inbox I’m
inspired and focused. I print it, and I don’t print anything. The
people that surround him are epic, and that’s my inspiration–to be
surrounded by exceptional people.
The Feedback
———————-
Ted Leonsis, another mentor to me over the years, thinks I’m pulling a
Brett Favre. Perhaps. Background: Ted is responsible for Weblogs, Inc.
being bought by AOL, and he spoke at the *first* event I ever did
called “Meet the Alley” in 1997. The event took place at Pseudo.com
and the air conditioner broke. It was August, and it was 100 degrees.
Ted went on and gave an amazing talk. When Ted spoke about content on
the Internet back in 94-96 time frame I was 23 years old and I knew
what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to be Ted. Weblogs, Inc.
was version of his AOL Greenhouse, and Mahalo is a souped up version
of AOL. http://www.tedstake.com/?p=2504
Sarah Lacy says blogging is at a cross-roads and she gets where I’m
coming from. I’ve known Sarah for a couple of years now, and she’s
become a personality on the Web 2.0 circuit thanks to her book “Once
You’re Lucky, Twice Your Good,” a book in which I get very few
mentions (not that I’m counting them.. 384, really? . She too has
felt the harsh mob mentality, also known as “the wisdom of the
crowds.” For the record, crowds are really frackin’ stupid and to put
your stock in crowds is about as bright as putting your faith in a
dictator–they’ll love you for as long as they feel like it, then
they’ll ripe you apart without mercy. Also, has anyone else noticed
that women like Sarah and Xeni get treated 10x as harsh as men do in
the blogosphere? Another reason to opt out.
http://tinyurl.com/6fz4qd
SarahinTampa.com says: “It’s like he hit the nail on the head of
everything that’s wrong with blogging today…at least for me.”
http://tinyurl.com/56f3f6
A bunch of other folks have commented on the story, and you can see
their reactions on TechMeme:
http://www.techmeme.com/080712/p14#a080712p14
Jim Kukal says it’s the death of the A-list:
http://www.jimkukral.com/the-death-of-the-a-list/
Scoble says it’s a farce:
http://tinyurl.com/62n649
All the best,
Jason
