Wiki Edits

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting#Professional_actors

Blogs Vs. Wikis

Blogs and Wikis have been criticized for having under researched and less than credible content since their beginnings and for good reason.  In the internet driven information gathering frenzy that is today's web based research, and living in a world with a 24 hour a day news cycle, no one has the time to check the facts 100% nor do they care to it seems.  In comparing blogs and wikis, wikis do to their credit state that the information has not been necessarily checked by any outside source and that citations are necessary to complete the postings.  Blogs, on the other hand are generally just independent op-ed pages, advertising tools, or rants to be taken at face value and accepted as a forum for agreeing or disagreeing on information with varying degrees of accuracy, ignorance, pride and prejudice.  A great example of an innovation in blogging that captures all three elements would indeed be 'Checkout.com', the Wal-Mart blog written by actual buyers and novice bloggers that has impacted many retail manufactures drastically as described by the New York Times online March 3, 2008.  Is it truly reasonable however, to base purchases on the opinions of various consumers with little or no experience with some of the more important and significant features that consumer electronics may have.  One example of this would be the elimination of several features on a pro-sumer DV camera, that was impacted directly by the user driven blogging of highly inexperienced camera operators/filmmakers and consequently eliminated the cinematic capacity of said camera for someone like myself who is dependent now on searching out the in some ways inferior predecessor to my current camera.  With that, I think that I've ranted enough to have lost any objectivity about the subject matter.  If indeed, Panasonic had been using a company wide wiki to discuss strategy planning in developing a new camera based on previous experiences however, these features may well have stayed in the new unit.  This is an example of how Jimmy Wales would recommend Panasonic move forward in his interview with Harvard Business Review.org in April, 2008.  "Pretty much any sort of knowledge sharing that is enhanced by open, flexible, rapid collaboration, particularly in contexts where people are separated geographically and relationship-building is important. Wikis are great tools for helping people to come to consensus quickly, whether about what to put on a meeting agenda or how best to meet customers’ needs."

Old Media Vs. New

When thinking about old media and the distinguishing characteristics, it is important to look back at the origins of media production and publishing with the inventions of the printing press, typewriter, word processor, as Andrew Savikas does in Forbes.com's Feb. 19, 2009 article "Media: Don't Fear New Technologies".  What we see now as "new media" is merely a magnification of these technological innovations due mainly to Moore's Law, a booming economy, and new, less expensive ways to produce content of all sorts, from self publishing books, to streaming video and audio content, to blogs, wikis, and the like.  New Media has simply flooded the marketplace with free content that the old media resources were formerly relied on to produce.  Despite the lack of editorial support, and well mastered production skills in some cases, new media has flourished due to its low overhead and high demand.  Another factor that is often overlooked, is the "democratization of information" that we hear about so often as a supporting argument for free content, is no longer being vetted, edited, and marketed in such a way as to produce reliably researched/sourced, high quality content.  As a result, old media sources such as newspapers for example who have been slow to respond to changes in the market landscape have suffered in many cases unrecoverable losses.  The New York Times' owners for example have been for years forced to take losses on the paper in order to ensure high quality reporting and editorial content because of trusts established ironically in order to secure the paper's long term survival.  New Media's have changed the market so significantly and permanently as to make that type of organizational model obsolete.  Looking at video streaming websites, or audio download sites, as a result of rushing to fill demand in the marketplace, no business models for distribution were ever planned or laid out, it all just happened with the consumer driving taste, marketing, and trends.  Traditionally, these industries have always controlled their own destiny through manipulating consumer's tastes and ideas about content and innovation.  As the authors describe 'Tapping into a world of talent' section of McKinseysQuarterly.com article "Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch", in December, 2007, new media content is more and more being produced and provided by free agents and outsourced talent making the market incredibly competitive without any real means to an end in long term strategy.  That's always been a problem with technological improvements in information delivery systems and in the most recent cases has led to piracy, mediocre content, and collapse of many traditional media outlets that have been forced to compete with completely unregulated internet based businesses.

Describe New Media

New Media can be seen as the revolution in mainly internet based technologies that have spawned such mediums as podcasting, video sharing on sites like YouTube, enhanced social networking through such sites as Facebook, online magazines/newspapers such as "The Huffington Post, and data gathering technologies being innovated and implemented by financial service companies as well as on-line research available as pay content through publications like Crain's.  We distinguish new and old media in several ways, but the lines are blurred at times as well.  New Media tends to be comprised of user/consumer generated highly dynamic amateur content that varies in quality, technique, and level of mastery or spit and polish.  Old Media tends to be seen as labor intensive, highly specialized, static in its content and marketing, and sometimes outdated and unresponsive to new market trends as a result.  One very interesting example of a new media being co-opted by an old media to form a new product, is bloggers being recruited for penny saver type free publications as described in "Publisher Re-Thinks the Daily" by Claire Cain Miller.

What is New Media?

New Media is the intermingling and cohabitation of existing mediums for artists, journalists, information gatherers, and businesses to create new and innovative platforms for media production.  Because of the advent of new technologies, primarily the internet and Web 2.0, new media has an unparalleled audience surpassing even that of television, newspapers, and union/guild associations.  People are grouping together organically to create new user content globally in a way that has never been seen.  Through the use of streaming video, audio, cheaper cameras, audio interfaces, production, and editing softwares, and access to people's personal preferences from online activity, the marketplace for new media is growing exponentially with no end in sight.  New medias would have almost no audience today without quantum leaps in computing technologies and internet adaptations over the last 15 years.  The internet allows for musicians, video producers, and businesses to reach a broader audience with almost no overhead whatsoever.  In this regard, those people who make associations and partnerships that are mutually beneficial towards marketing and capitalizing on this new content will be the beneficiaries of the new technology revolution.  Similarly, those companies already established that use bloggers, social networking, preference gathering technologies, and internet based marketing strategies will grow stronger and continue to thrive within an ever changing and uniquely dynamic era in technological advancements in new media production.  Andrew Savikas makes it clear in his article for Forbes.com Magazine "Media: Don't Fear New Technologies", that there are plenty of examples for us to look at as technological innovation driving changes in the organization of industry and profiteers.  The old 'New York Times' motto was "don't get it fast, get it right".  Unfortunately, in a 24/7 news cycle, that changed to "get it fast and get it right" which has led to among other things, U.S. governmental manipulation of a very trusted news source for propaganda purposes based on uncorroborated information.  Savikas gives a simple example in his article.


[T]he system of communication introduced by print was so large, so fast, so powerful, and ultimately such a source of wealth that the defects of the system could be remedied as far as need be. Proofreading was labor-intensive and wasteful in manuscript scriptorium, but quite cost-effective in a print shop; and if the print shop is busy preparing stock prospectuses where tens of millions of dollars are at stake, proofreading of a madly obsessive-compulsive nature is both cheap and sane in view of the possible losses from error.


This is a great example of organic groupings then funneled through a mechanical group to create the best end result as Lopez Pumarejo describes in chapter 1 of "New Media and Business".  

Harvesting Innovation

The difference between old and new medias, is that it used to be common to create news stories, music demos, camera reels, short films, business models, etc. with the express purpose of enlisting experienced operators to help implement the new and innovative ideas into a pre-existing market place with some measure of editorial experience guiding new talent.  There of course were pros and cons to that model including thievery/taking advantage of the artist, homogeneity of content as well as lack of innovation, but expertise was the benefit.   Don't get me wrong, I don't love corporate America's uniquely fascist brand of crappy/creepy bureaucracy as much as the next guy, and when attempting to reap the benefits of an independent creative person's sweat and labor as referred to in McKinseyQuarterly.com  12/07 as "new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside of corporate boundaries", I think I'm done with that meeting.  It's a slippery slope creating new market places without models for generating income for the artist/journalist as we've seen with massive amounts of piracy in entertainment, and undocumented rumor being passed off as news content.