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Friday, September 26, 2003
Wesley Clark suicide watch 
| | When Chris Lydon called me on the phone in Sitka and asked me to give Web-savvy campaign advice to Wesley Clark, I suggested that the General instruct his staff to find all the blogs that support him on the Web, to contact them personally, and to turn grass roots support into working relationships. By relating to his bloggers, he could start to "out-Dean" the Howard Dean campaign, which is by far the most clueful of the bunch, Web-wise; but hardly perfect. There is still plenty of wiggle-room for others who might be even better grass farmers than Dean. |
| | Well, now comes news that Clark is, incredibly, scorching the earth where his grass roots were just beginning to spout. Follow both those links and you'll read a story that's both extremely complicated and clearly just beginning to play out. |
| | Whatever's happening, however, it looks like the old politics running over the new. Draw your own conclusions. Mine, for now, are extremely pessimistic, no matter how swell the General currently looks in the polls and the mainstream press. |
| | If Wes Clark wants his campaign to snowball, he's going to need a lot more snow downhill than he's got right now. If he keeps scorching the grass under that snow, his ball's going to be rolling in dirt. |
| | Now is the time for him to call those pissed-off supporters, publicly admit the mistake of killing off their sites, and get on with the business of out-Deaning Dean. |
| | Which, of course, I'd give a snowball's chance. |
| | Also from myself, in the future, here. |
The Public Marketplace
| | ...in spite of the fact that it suffers no split between its consumers and customers, public broadcasters continue to leverage the woe-is-us please-keep-us-from-dying sales pitch that Pacifica stations wore out with their arch-liberal audiences in the 1960s. It was Pacifica that broke all the ground that public radio has farmed since NPR came along in the 1970s. Pacifica pioneered listener sponsorship, the pledge drive and a host of other weary fundraising traditions, from banks of phone volunteers to parades of re-runs between breaks for appeals by station personalities and visiting celebrities. |
| | With few exceptions, public radio and TV stations show no evidence that they even begin to understand the fund-raising potential of the Net, much less the abundant networked sources for original programming, widespread news gathering, community involvement and other virtues public broadcasters love to talk about but practice with a relative rareness that increases with every worthy form of radio that arises outside their cloistered system. |
| | It's time for public broadcasting to change the way it relates to the public it aims to serve. Here's how: |
| | First, start seeing listeners and viewers as a real marketplace, and not just as an "audience," one tenth of which are "supporters" because they donate cash. That means they should treat those supporters as customers. And they need to relate with those customers, as far as they practially can, through the Web. |
| | Second, break free from the endless cycle of pledge drives and promotional mailings and start using the Web. The old fundraising system was necessary when the airwaves, the phones and the mail system were the only means of contact with the marketplace. Thanks to the Net, we now have a market environment that offers many more efficient means for selling goods, making transactions, and relating with customers. Start making it easy for listeners and viewers to pay on the Web. |
| | Third, start making Web sites usable. Blow off the fancy designs and just make it easy to 1) see what's on the air and when; 2) pay for the goods; and 3) communicate with the station. While you're at it, make the archives permanent, organized sensibly and linkable too. |
| | Fourth, start syndicating every program. Send out an RSS notification, like blogs do, so software that informs listeners and viewers about what's on, and when, will have something to work with. |
| | Fifth, look to more than NPR and PRI as sources of programming. Look at the abundance of truly great radio that's out there on the Web. See how that stuff is syndicated, and watch how quickly you'll find listeners and viewers who will pay you to put it on the air. |
| | Sixth, start webcasting in relatively open codecs, and not just in Real and Windows Media. Use MP3 and start adding Ogg. If you're in the public marketplace, use open and public webcasting standards. |
| | Public radio may still be the best radio on the airwaves, but that's not saying much these days. As more great grass roots radio springs up on the webwaves, public radio becomes increasingly overdue for an overhaul by its own marketplace. Listen for it. Better yet, start doing it yourself and syndicating it. |
Overblogged
| | While driving and talking on the phone with Britt yesterday, he wrote down these one-liners about ironie regarding software we both love and hate: |
| | All the useful features are undocumented |
| | As with fun drug experiences, I don't remember the contexts, although they seemed relevant at the time. |
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