d Blog

Welcome to d blog, also known as Dan's rant. The content herein is essentially comprised of miscellaneous ramblings and random thoughts on the nature of contemporary existence.

"Media Mash Ups Kill Content Silos"

A fond farewell to Arthur C. Clarke we bid you adieu. Many thanks for preparing us to live in the universe you created for us. Thanks to you we know that we are not alone. Thanks to you the youth of today inhabit a world we built because you imagined it.

With the advent of cyberspace there are so many places to go that everyone needs a map and certainly you can't tell the players without a program. Sorting through the crap and separating out the good and usable will keep Google busy for millenia to come. People of a certain age won't understand this but successive generations starting with the youngest, now will make less of a distinction between the online and offline universe. Soon their perception will make no distinction at all. Every place is simply a place. It's all a place. Someplace or noplace. Even when they get there, can you be sure they're listening? If they are listening are they comprehending?

Quick, name a movie that makes full use of that medium. Decades ago my Modern Mass Media professor asked that question seeking to know what film that could only exist as a film. What film loses something tangible when consumed in any other form such as a book or a TV show. Is the medium the message? Name a movie where the highest and best use of the content is unquestionably as a movie. Citizen Kane comes to mind but certainly there are others. The same is true for other medium/content associations. Today we have so many ways to consume content that we no longer really perceive mediums as isolated stand alone content silos. Media Mash Ups are de rigueur for today’s popular Social Media promoters. Depending on your personal awareness we are either well into or on the cusp of a mashed up media world where intense fragmentation is either the challenge or the opportunity. Media people as well as techies and creative types gather around their own water coolers whether they be bars, pubs and clubs or Twitter. Together the inhabitants of the media, tech and creative worlds form the three legs that support popular messaging and storytelling whether it be for entertainment or commercially oriented purposes. And who can tell where one ends and the other begins these days? The most obvious demonstration of this new media dynamic comes from the world of podcasting. Check out Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code program or Joseph Jaffe’s Across The Sound (Jaffe Juice) podcasts.

Is Starbucks a mashup business? I think so. Even as they reinvent it to be more so.

If frequency and repetition of message are requisite to gaining mindshare and spurring conversion then the ubiquity of hitting the consumer from myriad touchpoints across all media and even combining media for pervasive presence become viable methodology. Do you watch TV while surfing the net? Multi Media Mashups allow us to immerse ourselves in the brands we love. The habits of multi tasking youth may not strike a chord with their elders but nonetheless it is the youthful lifestyle that drives the market. What passes for comprehension and awareness is at once acceptable and frightening.

Podcasts outnumber radio stations. Everyone is wondering what the impact of UGC is, particularly with respect to video. I think it was Chris Anderson who asked, "What happens to a marketers plans when the ants gain control of the microphone?" Marketers are loathe to cede control for fear of the message transmutating. Control was always illusory. No one knows where this is going, we barely know what it is. Successful marketers will be comfortable surfing today's constantly changing topography. Welcome to the conversation. Join the experiment.

This weeks Political Punditry:

Is The Bear Stearns Bailout Socialism For The Rich? Since it was they themselves going Hog Wild in an uncontrolled feeding frenzy over the last decade should Wall Street be more heavily regulated? Who will regulate the regulators?

It's been 5 Years since Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" on the Flight Deck and he's strutting around as if it were true. What do they put in his water? Government lies prevailed throughout and we all just sit around and take it. Me included. Sometimes in the morning I hate to look in the mirror.

Regarding the accumulation of wealth, It's better to be lucky than smart. Good people often die young. Being right is no guaranty.

The Multi-National Sponsors should Boycott the Chinese Olympics until Tibet is liberated. Why are we supporting Chinese oppression?

Your children want to know why are our troops are in Iraq but we ignore the ongoing genocide Darfur.

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