I am also pitching it to the explorers of the Internet who have recently inspired me. #

The Internet is the ideal tool for studying the Internet. #

I live in an ideal time, which is a statement I’d never thought I would make. #

Once upon a time, journalists who were interested in the mechanisms of media would have been lucky just to find an eye-opening book once every few years. Then, at best, they would have had to wait another two or three years to catch another glimpse of the entrails of the beast. These days, I feel I am lucky just to read the observations, the questions and the exchanges among the best minds of my time in my field. #

The leap from Gutenberg to the Web is so immense not because of technology but because of the people with whom we can constantly be in contact. The old image evokes shoulders and giants; on the Web, it is more like bouncing on an energy field generated by great minds. :-) #

(Another difference with books is that, on Twitter, most of these people have the opportunity to display their terrific sense of humor. Daily interactions are serious—even dramatic at times—but there is always room for lightness, comedy, and the human touch.) #

All this work would not have been possible without the uplifts I receive from the following people, and this is why. #

Clay Shirky, Jeff Jarvis, and Jay Rosen make up my McLuhanian trinity. Nowadays, Shirky is more focused on the Web’s socio-political consequences, Jarvis on the value of sharing, and Rosen on the truth imperative in journalism. #

But all three understand media to be social machines that can be observed, described, and operated. Furthermore, they have observed, described, and promoted the notion that the people formerly known as the audience are now the most critical component of the new media landscape. #

I have followed Steve Buttry since he developed A Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection. He applies everything we know about the role of a news media in its community. And he generously shares what he and his colleagues are learning from their experiments. He has continued to be an innovator at TBD and is now at Journal Register Co. #

I can’t ignore that John Paton has hired Steve Buttry and Jim Brady at JRC and that Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen are on his advisory board. What Paton has done by imposing “digital first” at JRC is nothing short of revolutionary. His audacity— and the results he obtains—has made him a beacon for all news publishers. Paton and Brady don’t write much, but I follow their interviews and their talks. #

Steve Yelvington is also a hands-on journalist. His insights on the future of news media stem from his passion for the craft and his knowledge of the market place. #

At MediaCamp Montreal in 2010, I was asked why most people I had quoted had backgrounds in print journalism and not in radio or television. I don’t remember what I answered then, but the question stayed with me for several days after. The people I quote are on the frontline. Through their blogs and their daily practice, they exchange directly with their readers. That’s the new imperative: the readers as individuals, not as statistics. Nothing like living it for grokking it. #

I go through my RSS reader three times a day; I participate in unconferences; I have just installed the plugin Winerlinks (that adds permalinks to paragraphs) on this blog; So Dave Winer is part of my life and his view of the Web from the perspective of a programmer is irreplaceable. #

I also benefit from the original observations of investor extraordinaire Fred Wilson. He generously shares his knowledge and he provokes stimulating exchanges of ideas. #

Then there are the “embedded” new media journalists Patrick Laforge, Zach Seward, Tim Carmody, Alexis Madrigal, Jeremy Zilar, Megan Garber. And of course I have been reading Scott Rosenberg since Salon and Dan Gillmor since the San Jose Mercury News. #

If I miss anything in the Web media world, I can always count on Mathew Ingram. He has managed over a few months to become the most active reporter in the field. The great people at Nieman Lab have eyes everywhere. Paul Bradshaw surveys digital journalism from the UK, Benoit Raphael and Philippe Couve from Paris. #

I know where marketing is going because Seth Godin breathes it, John Battelle runs on it, Mitch Joel questions it and Ben Kunz calls it as it is. #

David Weinberger has antennas. #

Besides their area of expertise, most of these people are generous and care for the greater good, as Tim O’Reilly and Craig Newmark show so well. #

I will let you find on your own what the other common point is between Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow, Warren Ellis, Charles Stross, Rudy Rucker, and William Gibson—but the main one here is that they are avid practitioners of new media. Sterling and Doctorow are masters of blogging, Ellis has gathered a very original and passionate community, the discussions on Stross’ blog fly high and bright, Rucker knows the simple power of images and Gibson’s interactions on Twitter are one of a kind. They have more insights on communicating with readers than many social media specialists. And they write better. #

As for communities, the people I have learned from the most since Stewart Brand and Howard Rheingold are creators of communities (more on them later). But they don’t write much about it. The great Matthew Haughey occasionally shares his experience on his blog and at conferences. But the clearest and most knowledgeable writer on creating and managing communities today is Rich Millington. His blog is recommended reading for anyone who has to build a community. #

In Montreal, I have the privilege of exchanging ideas with the very best of geeks: Philippe Martin, Mario Asselin, Michelle Blanc and my WebCamp accomplices Sylvain Carle, Martin Lessard, Patrick Tanguay, and Seb Paquet. The advantages we have IRL (in real life) are, of course, bandwidth and the opportunity to enjoy a drink together. #

If you think that I am invoking the spirits of all my “gods”, you are probably right. But these are gods who read a lot and share a lot, so we are in contact with whole networks of other creators, explorers and analysts of new media on the Web. #

This work is dedicated to you. #

Your comments and questions are very welcome. #

#

Image: Geography of Twitter @replies – Eric Fischer – Some rights reserved

I was asked so many times, “Is there a media that already does this?”, that I first wanted to launch a proof of concept. But I have not managed to convince a publisher. Yet. #

When I stopped publishing here more than a year ago, I had several chapters that I believed were ready. But advance readers told me that my descriptions were complicated and not clear enough. This stalled me because so many authors have also observed these structures. I could see them everywhere on the Web. The last remaining step is to launch a news media built along these observations. #

I am a journalist. I had to find ways to show publishers how these observations stand out in all kinds of businesses on the Web and can be used for news media. I thank the people who have had the patience to listen to this story. And I thank my readers for their precious feedback. #

I also thank all the media, advertising, and marketing executives whom I have tried to convince to initiate real projects based on these observations. Each conversation has helped me further refine my understanding of the realities of the media industry. #

If anything, I think I wanted too much to fit these observations with existing businesses in media and marketing. #

The great leap I recently made was to respect the validity of these observations and not try to adapt them anymore. #

I wrote some of these unpublished chapters in 2009. They are in my past: they form the foundations of this work. So I am publishing them as reference under the title “Groundwork”.  I am just adding a quote and a photo to these posts. This blog is a draft after all and I’ll rewrite them when the time comes. #

Meanwhile, you can jump directly to [link to come shortly], which summarizes the state of my understanding of opportunities for news media on the Web. In the following posts, I will develop my pitch for a news media business based on this model. #

Some things haven’t changed, though: these observations are just that, observations. They stand on their own merits, not mine. #

So if they are still obscured by my shortcomings, I apologize and I need your help to clear them out. #

Thank you. #

#

Photo: US NAVY – USS Ronald Reagan Sailors wash flight deck – All Rights Reserved

So I can’t stress enough that I have been able to observe and describe the Welcome Model because I have first personally experienced the consequences of being welcomed, especially by the two persons I am introducing here. #

I had been observing the Web since the early 90s and, as a business journalist covering media and marketing, I was mainly interested in mass media. Around the year 2000, I realized that I should have a better look at the whole variety of native lifeforms that were blooming on the Web. I felt like a gardener who can’t see anything growing in his patch of dirt, turns around and is surprised to find in the nearby wilderness an abundance of new fruits and vegetables. One of the first marvels of the Web is that anybody doing anything on it was only an email away. So I wrote emails asking questions about business models. #

After a few back and forth exchanges, Avi Muchnick told me that I had better experience his website from the inside and asked me to register. He was creating at the time Worth1000.com, a website hosting daily contests of image manipulation. I didn’t know anything about “photoshopping” as we said at the time, but Avi told me to poke around. I had the privilege, at the advanced age of 53, of becoming a newbie. #

#

I began to participate in comments and forums. I made all the the basic mistakes, I was bullied, I bullied back and was almost banned by an upset admin. But I survived. I learned. I was fascinated. As soon as I realized how this “community” machine worked, I knew that I had reached the promised land: I had been an editor in chief of magazines, and I saw that “mods” and “admins”, the people operating communities, were the editors in chief of this world. That’s why I called my blog modadmin, for the editors in chief of Web media. #

#

Avi Muchnick – photo by Joi Ito

. #

#

. #

I was an old hand stumbling on every molehill while surrounded by whiz kids, talented artists, young geniuses having other jobs but all knowledgeable about programming. I still didn’t know anything about manipulating images nor about coding but Avi and the admins welcomed me in their midst. I will eternally be grateful for their warm welcome: they left me wander among them with access to every possible button governing the system. Avi gave me the keys of the house. And the whole time, I was taking notes and developing the observations that became ComCom and media machina. #

Professionally, those years at Worth1000 gave me the confidence to tell to media people that it is not that difficult to interact directly with registered members; there is a logic to it, steps to implement, guidelines to write, tools to install, but community building works. More importantly, I was at Worth1000 in daily contact with real people: I saw tempers flare, emotions rise and ebb, dramas, hilarity, recklessness, compassion, fun and hate, laugh and tears. I was touched by individuals and I was touching them. This is also an important professional lesson for media people: Web communities are not mass media, they are places where only real people can interact, one by one. #

#

While I was in contact through Worth1000 with people all over the world, back in Montreal I was not very successful when trying to convince my colleagues in media and marketing that we should build communities for their users and consumers. I had no more luck with local programmers until I met with Sylvain Carle, now CTO of Praized Media and needium. As A Frog in the Valley, he had been one of the first bloggers and he became the first person in my own city who knew at once how media and communities could come together. #

#

Sylvain Carle – photo by Simon Law

. #

#

. #

At the same time Sylvain introduced me to the Web community of Montreal, where I was mainly known as a magazine guy. He led me to the Yulblog and Yulbiz events, made me a blogger of the first Webcom conference and an admin of the Webcamp events ever since. He also helped me play with Drupal and WordPress, insisted that I try facebook and he even registered my first account on Twitter. We live in incredible times and I am incredibly lucky to have met such a great and generous friend. #

If you think that the linked images above are ads, you are wrong: ads are anonymous and have barely any content. These links lead you to two real people who have welcomed me, with whom I have created memories, and the stories I have just told about them convey trust. #

And trust is the supreme currency on the Internet. #

This is how “welcoming” sums up the real difference between traditional media and communities on the Web, between mass communication and personal relationships. #]]> http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/2010/03/08/04-introduction-to-the-welcome-model/feed/ 0 http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/2009/10/07/why-i-am-not-worried-about-journalism/ http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/2009/10/07/why-i-am-not-worried-about-journalism/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:33:45 +0000 bruno boutot http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/?p=849 I am not worried about journalism. #

If this simple statement hadn’t been met recently with so many questions from friends and colleagues, I wouldn’t have felt the necessity to explain it here. #

So why am I not worried about journalism? #

First, because I am a huge news consumer. The consumer of news in me lives nowadays in paradise: I have never had access before to so many sources, from so many points of view,  so quickly and through so many media. And this wonderful cornucopia is expanding every day. #

Some people even complain that we have too much information! That makes me laugh. I am an editor and that’s what we have always done: editing. When our ancestors like Ardi came out of the forest and into the savanna, I guess they were thinking “More food!” rather than “Too much information”. If  journalism is about gathering, editing and distributing news, we are witnessing a spectacular blooming of journalism. #

But, people tell me, journalism is going through a crisis that is threatening its very existence. #

No, it isn’t. News organizations are going through a revenue crisis. The news business is shaken to its core, but journalism isn’t. We have never had so many competent journalists. We never have had so many media. We have never had so many tools for gathering sources and content. We have never had so many tools to search, compare and validate so many kinds of data. We have never had access to so many people who are themselves more literate than ever and who have access to a growing number of media and people. #

Even more, never before have we had so many brilliant people who not only care about the future of journalism but who are connected in real time and who openly share every day the advancement of their knowledge. If you are really worried about journalism, you should immediately follow these people on Twitter, read their blogs and their books: the future of journalism has never been in better hands. (See below). #

But newspapers are closing and people are worried about investigative journalism, which is very expensive to do. They are right to be, but the key word in this sentence is not “journalism”, it is “expensive”. We don’t have a journalism crisis: we have a crisis of revenues in news organizations employing journalists, which is completely different. #

The news business has been disrupted by the Web. This is why it is a priority to work on business models for news on the Web; if we can contribute to solve the “revenue” problem, we contribute to solve the journalism problem. #

I am passionate about journalism: it is my job because it is my passion. So, I am very curious about all the developments and transformations of journalism made possible by the Web; this wonderfully rich and exciting medium. But this is not my priority in media machina. Of course you can’t talk about the news business without talking about journalism and I will. But the fundamental question I am tackling here is about the business models for news on the Web. Marketing. Sales. Money. #

And I am not worried at all about journalism. #

If you want to be inspired and energized about the future of journalism, you can begin by following a few people. It’s not yet possible to make “groups” within Twitter, but I do it through Seesmic. I have no more than 17 people in a group (this is the size of my Seesmic window, not a feature). Constraints are interesting:  it makes for an incomplete list (I am following many more) and the names in it change from time to time. But here are 17 people who make me very optimistic about the future of journalism and the news business (in alphabetical order of their first name): #

Bruce Sterling, Chris Anderson, Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow, Dave Winer, David Weinberger, Fred Wilson, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, John Battelle, Mathew Ingram, Paul Bradshaw, Scott Rosenberg, Steve Buttry, Steve Yelvington, Tim O’Reilly, Warren Ellis. #

I should add a few organizations like the Nieman Lab, but if I have to chose, I’ll take people first. You’ll have to work a little to find their blogs, books or photos. I am in awe of being connected to each of them. I feel incredibly privileged to live today and to be able to follow the writings of these people, their photos on flickr and their conferences on video in quasi-realtime. I’ll be happy to explain why anyone is on this list and I will publish more lists later. #

See notes. #]]> http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/2009/10/07/why-i-am-not-worried-about-journalism/feed/ 1 http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/2009/10/06/the-quest/ http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/2009/10/06/the-quest/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:10:46 +0000 bruno boutot http://mediamachina.boutotcom.com/?p=37 “Why don’t mass media make any money on the Web?” #

The time was 1998 and this question was hanging in my mind with the answer seemingly just out of reach. #

#

I had been looking at the Internet since the early 90s. I was at the time editor-in-chief of a business magazine about mass media, advertising and marketing (in French, in Montreal). Understanding how commercial communication works was my daily job. I was routinely interviewing top people in my market and beyond, from every type of mass media and every flavor of marketing. This was the time of a splendid, blooming ecosystem, with very successful entrepreneurs in dailies, magazines, radio, television, posters, ad agencies, creative advertising, PR agencies, direct marketing agencies, research firms, etc. I had been covering this industry – and this community – since 1987, and previously I had been a tv critic for a daily and a media reporter for a news magazine. #

This was my garden. I knew how everything grew in it and if I didn’t, I knew whom to ask. I was an insiders’ insider. Through clients, advertisers and other media, we were in contact with people and events in the United Sates and Europe. We thought we were on top of the communications world and that nothing could stop the rise of media and marketing. #

During the late 80s I had been in the front row when the big cable companies invested millions of dollars in installing two-way “interactive television” in experimental areas, like Time Cable in the United States and Videotron in Quebec. Nothing much came out of it but the logic of connectivity made clear that the future laid in this direction. I still remember when I had my first look at a BBS on my Mac at work. I wasn’t a programmer but with the help of our home geek, Claude Précourt, I delved into groups and lists with fascination: it was slow, it went through the phone line with beeping squeaks but it was the emergent Internet, another route on the McLuhan map. And very quickly most mass media around us, including our magazine, began investing in this new El Dorado. #

But by 1998 I had become frustrated with the whole territory of media on the Web. Something didn’t add up. Here you had all these brilliant people in very successful media throwing millions of dollars at the Internet … and nothing worked. We were at last in the promised land of interactivity, the next step in media development, and everybody was just throwing money into the pit – no revenues in sight. I was in the middle of the whole media and marketing machine and none of its cogs seemed to gain traction in the new mechanism. #

Meanwhile I had become a media consultant and while I worked at first for clients in the magazine industry, I took it as a personal goal to explore the Web and to find answers. Since Web operations of all types of media were bleeding money, it had to be a medium problem. In fact, the question I asked myself was not “How to generate revenue on the Web?” but “What is so different about the Web from all other media that makes every recipe ineffective?” The general overview provided by McLuhan about the effect of electricity on the media environment was mostly clear but at the same time there was something different in the very nature of the Web that was confounding everybody. #

There was no reason why it couldn’t be observed, though. #

At the end of 1998 I had gained a first glimpse, a first shred of evidence of the new environment: the simple fact of being all connected opens a new opportunity for media and marketing. I called this opportunity “ComCom”, as I will explain shortly in a following post. And now here we are, 10 years in this quest and I have mainly 4 observations to add to ComCom. All this time I have not applied the wise rule of open source programmers: “Release early, release often”. I have presented my findings to clients and colleagues and in conferences, but I have never been a great blogger and I was always taken by the chase: how does it work? #

So, better late than never, I am starting to release everything I have. I proceed with a short story of my work as of August 2009, keeping only the most relevant presentations, graphs, and projects. I am trying to write as briefly as possible without sacrificing clarity or logic. If anything is unclear, please ask, we’ll go through it step by step. #

#

painting Diane Obomsawin 2004, acrylic on canvas, 2′ x 9′

used with permission of the artist

And all this time I have been working under the inspiring and protective shadow of a giant, Marshall McLuhan. I have never really studied McLuhan. I read about him first through magazines, then I had great conversations about his work with Georges Khal, cofounder of Mainmise magazine, when I had the privilege to assist him in making Le Répertoire québécois des outils planétaires, inspired by Stewart Brand‘s Whole Earth Catalog. I read McLuhan’s books in French and later in English. #

Then the man who helped me reach another level of journalism, Jean Paré, editor-in-chief and publisher of Canada news magazine L’actualité, happened to be the original French translator of Understanding Media and The Gutenberg Galaxy. A few years afterward, I had the privilege to have Florian Sauvageau as columnist in my magazine and McLuhan was part of our long discussions. Florian is Professor, Department of Information and Communication at Université Laval and also the author of the preface of Pour comprendre les médias. I mean, all this time I was making media as journalist, editor-in-chief and associate publisher. McLuhan is not for me an outside topic, he is part of the fabric of what I know and how I think about media. #

When all is said and done, I guess that just two points are enough to sum up the huge influence Marshall McLuhan and Understanding Media have in media machina: #

• The first point is that media can be understood.

• The other one is that when analyzing any media, we have to pay attention to the relationships this media has with all our senses and all our fields and grids of perception, in the physical, animal and cultural realms.

The rest is, well, literature. #

I won’t enter the debates about what Marshall McLuhan meant by this or that. I don’t care, and probably he didn’t either. There are a lot of us in the “fans of McLuhan” corner, but he also has had his share of detractors, especially in academic circles. I have no problem with that. I have always worked as a media craftsman and I am only interested in what’s useful. What strikes me the most when reading McLuhan is the raw physicality of his perceptions and descriptions of media, not their theoretical relevance. #

A way to put it simply, I see Marshall McLuhan as an English scholar and genius who stumbled on a machine and described it in his language and with his tools, those of a professor of English literature and literary critic*. When we stop looking at the diverse interpretations of McLuhan writings, when we stop being transfixed by the glittering of his brilliant formulas, when we stop thinking about him at all and just look at what he is talking about, then we can see the machine appearing in the middle of the proverbial living room, in the middle of his work. #

Thanks to McLuhan, I think that all mass media and all branches of marketing are interlocking mechanisms that can be observed, understood, taken down to measurable parts and reassembled in multiple ways. Some will work, some won’t. Because they are machines and they follow logical rules of natural phenomena. #

And I have never doubted that I would observe a few of these mechanisms because Marshall McLuhan was always there, saying, ‘there is a machine here. #

See notes. #

#

image: involute gears (net) on flickr by Dave Bollinger 2009

used with permission of the artist