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Dave Winer

June 6, 2002 by Michael Boyle

Dave Winer

has published an interesting DaveNet today, “Is it marketing or journalism?” Of course this question has been central to journalism for years, going back at least to the days of Hearst and Pulitzer’s yellow journalism. But though the question seems to have been sleeping for a while, it has definitely revived in the past couple of years.

As far as I’m concerned, Winer is pretty directly taking on the Telecom Reform Act in a piece like that. At least that’s my interpretation. By concentrating ownership of the media, the Act led directly (though it wasn’t the only thing that led us here) to the point where there is a lack of competition in the marketplace: competition that would (and traditionally did) keep journalists honest. Think of baseball. The owners always scream about keeping free agent salaries down, about controlling their environment. But with 30 teams, someone (usually Steinbrenner, it seems) always defects and refuses to toe the line and signs the big contract. That competition no longer exists in journalism. There aren’t very many players left (at the money end of things), so it’s less likely that someone will defect from current practice (i.e., not questioning the boss or money) and thus in effect keep them all honest.

Again, with feeling: the CDA was a smokescreen! It was the rest of the 1996 Telecom Reform Act that was really offensive. It vacated accountability in the media through the removal of competition. The effect this has had (with other influences) is undeniable.

Tags: ALA, EFF, Environment, Journalist, Marketing, Media, Scripting News, Wine

There’s an interesting

March 13, 2001 by Michael Boyle

blog entry and following discussion at Robert Scoble‘s site today. There is a divide between marketing folk and other web folks – and it’s a divide that isn’t closing as quickly as some of the others in the industry. I think a part of it may be related to the distinction (made several months ago by Meg Hourihan and others) between web people and dot-com people – with the added category of merketing folks who are neither.

Tags: Blogging, Hour, Marketing, Meg Hourihan, Scoble, Web

Big changes here

January 10, 2001 by Michael Boyle

in my world. I left my job, but I don’t know what’s next, exactly. Put it this way: I am highly motivated to find something new to do on a daily basis. If anyone has suggestions for a very experienced (I started on the web in 94) web-world project manager with experience in business development, strategic planning, marketing, and more, please let me know!

Tags: Business, Marketing, Web

Is a lesson

October 20, 2000 by Michael Boyle

starting to be apparent coming out of some of the spectacular dot-com failures? Soundbitten’s article on the failure of Verde and the possible contribution Scient made to the failure is instructive. Verde was trying to be a web-only content site, with e-comm built in at the ground level. OK, fine. But they outsourced the very lifeblood of the company – the platform on/in which it was to live!

Maybe it’s just me, and my biases (the company I work for does its own design, programming, editorial, hosting – everything) but I think that if you’re going to live on the web, you have to develop for the web in-house. That’s the real challenge for marketing and sales types with an idea – to figure out how to work with developers – and developers who themselves are radically different from one another (i.e., programmers and designers are different from one another in dozens of ways, in general). But if you’re a retail bookseller, you don’t farm out your retail sales staff to a consultancy – that’s what you’re about, to a great extent.

There may be a place for consultants in all of this, don’t get me wrong. But if you’re a net company, you have to have to develop your own internet infrastructure – you can’t get around it. Doesn’t mean you can’t purchase products that will help you do this – a company doesn’t have to invent everything from the ground up.

Maybe the real lesson is that new dot-coms try to separate back end from front end too much. It isn’t enough to be good marketers, writers, strategists. To split form (content or marketing) from function (CMS, design, UI) is to tie one hand behind your back as you try to get a dot-com off the ground.

Tags: Books, CMS, Design, Developer, GNE, Internet, Marketing, Platform, Web, Writers

Hmmm. This is

July 10, 2000 by Michael Boyle

an interesting name for a new site: Hotwire. Nothing beats originality, that’s for sure! Evidently they passed “Overblown Marketing Writing 101” as well: “Hotwire also has the backing of a prominent $8 billion investment firm to quickly aggregate strategic partners in multiple categories.” Gotta love aggregating those strategic partners! Fun for the whole family. A little further down the main page indicates that this crap is put together by Scient, a buncha airlines and some VC I’ve never heard of before.

Tags: IRL, Marketing

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