I have always been fascinated by the tags that Netflix uses to categorize their shows and movies.

Yes, they use “Comedy,” “Drama,” “Crime,” “Thriller,” etc. But every so often they will throw in a word not usually used by the TV or film industries. Like “Slick” or “Offbeat.”

John Koblin of the New York Times does a nice job explaining the tagging system at Netflix.

I assumed those tags were more about the analytics. That they needed to expand the entertainment and literary taxonomy to better analyze audience metrics. Maybe they can better serve up recommendations if they know who likes “Witty” stories as opposed to just “Comedy.”

Koblin explains that by displaying those tags, Netflix can increase engagement — get someone to watch more shows.

My takeaway is that more information can increase engagement.

I actually used my last page in the notebook at the end of the year. So I’m starting 2024 with a fresh new notebook.

I am somewhat obsessed with how Substack is giving journalists new business models. Add local news to the mix, and it becomes even more interesting.

For example, Rachel Leingang and Hank Stephenson started The Arizona Agenda about six months ago. It’s a Substack newsletter about Arizona government and politics. They wrote a quarterly report about how it’s going.

Which is OK. They reached a plateau and are on track to make the bare minimum to sustain their jobs. Their business model seems to be based on voluntary subscriptions. What I found interesting was they (the only two employees of this operation) took about a month off during the holidays. No daily newsletters and no subscriptions for that period. 

And that’s the rub. These small subscription-based businesses rely on consistent updates. And without support, there’s pressure to publish or die. So I am happy these two journalists were able to take time off to recharge. But then when they came back, they had to work through constant illness.

Plan your vote

NBC has a nice interactive tool that tells you what you need to know about voting this year. The candidates aren’t set but it does inform you of voting laws and key deadlines. It’s a nice example of service journalism.

Election coverage gets real

Christopher Baxter, executive director and editor-in-chief of Spotlight PA, explains how his organization is going beyond stories and guides to help voters and protect democracy:

“That includes considering more direct services to voters, such as helplines and training people on the things we as journalists do so often, like requesting and understanding campaign finance reports, filing public records requests, backgrounding candidates, and more”

It’s a bit out of traditional newspapers’ comfort zone and resource intensive. It will be interesting to see how it works. 

Figuring out Netflix

Lucas Shaw and Yasufumi Saito did a lot of work to figure out some metrics that Netflix won’t share. They analyzed a ton of top 10 emails from the company to approximate how much time was spent viewing shows and movies. 

Which is somewhat interesting and arguably less important than a new Olive Garden restaurant. But you have to admire the work that went into it. And sometimes there are ways to figure out what organizations don’t want to tell the press.

Is that what you’re going to wear on Instagram?

Michelle Ruiz of the Wall Street Journal writes a guide on how to dress for social media. It’s supposed to help you pick the right outfit for profile pictures, selfies and live video. Personally, it’s a bit too much to worry about but useful if you want to add influencer to your resume.

Twitter moderation is tricky

Shraddha Chakradhar of Nieman Lab writes about a study that looked at how Twitter labeled President Trump’s tweets. Before it banned Trump, Twitter put labels on tweets when it found he was not sharing accurate information. The study found those labels increased engagement in those tweets.

This could be a side effect of polarization. That people would share and comment on tweets just to stick it to the liberals trying to silence Trump. Maybe non-Trump tweets that are labeled won’t get the same engagement bump. I wonder how much of that engagement was done by Twitter bots to counter the moderation.

I curate some of the items from the daily email I write for the newsroom and am sharing them with you. I hope you enjoy it.

Maybe readers miss Donald Trump now that he’s “gone”

“Nearly every big news site saw its traffic decline in February, compared to a tumultuous January that included the Capitol insurrection and Biden’s inauguration.”

It looks like news readers don’t have an endless appetite for news. Sara Fischer of Axios writes that news seems to be less interesting without chaotic politics. And GameStop. 

Maybe this is good for local news if it sticks. They may turn their attention to local mayhem and restaurant news.

Cross your fingers that I’m right. The past year has been ugly for all types of media organizations. 

How to make Twitter forget about the Oprah interview

Publish a story challenging the New York bagel. Which led to a bit of back and forth over where to find the best bagels. BTW, Montreal bagels are a thing. 

BONUS:Listen to a great interview with Tejal Rao, who wrote the NYT bagel story. It was recorded pre-bagelopalypse.

If you feel udder loneliness…

Cow cuddling is a business. Kellie B. Gormley of The Washington Post writes “People are signing up to hug cows at sanctuaries across the country, many desperate for affection as the nation approaches a full year of social distancing during the pandemic.” 

I understand it’s a moooving experience.

Let’s call it vaccine curious

Pew Research has a new survey finding increased acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines. It’s not too surprising. Part of it has to do with media coverage. While it’s not our job to be vaccine cheerleaders, we do need to offer the best medical information we can access. 

The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan writes that local reporters need to publish basic medical information. And not spend too much effort on debunking vaccine myths.

Maybe Tucker Carlson was right

James Shanahan writes that we need to be cautious about surveys showing how much support there is for QAnon. Some surveys contradict each other. And there is perhaps some nuance.

Are pants still a thing?

Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate feedback on presentation and content.Let’s get back to doing good work.

I’m not lucky enough to have access to Facebook’s Today In feature. Odds are you don’t have access to Facebook’s attempt to highlight local news either. It seems kind of a rare beast to spot in the wild.

Facebook graphic

So I’m relying on Christine Schmidt’s analysis of Today In on Nieman Lab. She seems surprised that it focuses mostly on crime and car crashes. In other words, mayhem.

I’m not shocked. This is the kind of content that attracts engagement on Facebook generally. “It’s often an angry, reactive place where people go to get worked up and to get scared,” Laura Hazard Owen writes. So that’s what is going to be curated.

Consider that local stories for Today In needs to reach some sort of critical mass for Facebook to even generate a page. If there aren’t enough local stories, then the more-is-better Today In algorithm won’t work. It’s going to target the high engagement stories because that’s what Facebook does.

Which is a sign that Today In is a failure. These criteria ensure only high population densities get Today In coverage.

Facebook always had a bias toward the heavy hitters — the publishers and celebrities who had large followings. The algorithmic threshold for Today In meant that Facebook was only interested in places that generated a lot of content.

It’s a business decision. Only deploy resources to the content that gets a certain amount of engagement. It’s not so much about curating local news but harvesting ad revenue that won’t go to the local news publishers who can’t scale enough traffic.

So I don’t have high hopes for the planned News tab on Facebook. I expect more of the same focus on high-traffic opportunities. Which is what a business needs to do. Just don’t expect something noble.

I was familiar with The Guardian’s report on harassment in its reader comments. Unfortunately I didn’t find it surprising or shocking.

Hate and the freedom to express hate is all too common.

So I only half listened to the On the Media interview with  Mary Hamilton, Executive Editor for Audience at The Guardian, about the bottom of the comments barrel. That is until Bob Garfield mentioned his column that used to run in The Guardian and the comments it attracted.

He felt like the commenters came to interact with each other rather than comment on his column. He got the sense he was hosting a community.

Hamilton agreed. And she cited the community that formed around the crossword puzzle. The commenters were regulars who got to know each other, held meet ups in real life and produced a theme song.

Hamilton’s example didn’t surprise me. Crosswords are that kind of interest that draws communities of interest. Smaller, focused groups can form into communities that make you feel good about this thing called the Internet.

Newspaper comments usually don’t.

In my theory of reader comments, newspaper audiences aren’t good places for community.

• The audience is a large group.
• The members have a diverse set of interests and viewpoint.
• The nature of journalism is about broadcast not conversation.

But according to Garfield, his column became a site for community gathering. I have no reason to doubt him, so I will believe that is what happened. Even though it goes against my theory.

Probably because I don’t know how The Guardian comments are run. Who is in them? And I don’t know any more than what’s at the bottom of the barrel.

So maybe I can find out why I’m wrong. And maybe I’m a little bit right.

https://www.facebook.com/OnTheMedia/posts/10154071920978955

 

 

 

 

Clay Shirky does a multi-tweet analysis of how the evolution of media (from broadcasters to social media) has made it possible for outsiders to break the power of the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States.

It’s great work but a parallel timeline could be created to explain how campaign financing laws have eroded the parties’ power even more. It allows money to support more ideological powers than the party powers.

It’s a heck of a one-two punch.

https://storify.com/cshirky/republican-and-democratic-parties-are-now-host-bod

I was listening to Walt Mossberg and Nilay Patel review Apple TV on the Ctrl-Walt-Delete podcast for The Verge.

Three things that you need to know about this:

1. Ctrl-Walt-Delete is one of the best titles ever.
2. Yes they do discuss their reviews of the new Apple TV, but it does touch upon many issues about TV and media streaming.
3. This kind of rambling discussion works really well when you have two intelligent people who really aren’t trying to prove how clever they are. It’s worth 48 minutes of your time.

What got me thinking was their struggle to compare the music paradigm of albums and songs to television content. iTunes busted that paradigm by allowing us to buy music by the song instead albums. And they struggled because there wasn’t a real good comparison.

You can’t call a television season an album. Although musicians claimed they produced albums with a theme that told a story, for the most part we could enjoy a single song without hearing any other song on that album. Otherwise commercial radio wouldn’t be a thing.

We don’t just pick a few shows from a particular season to watch. A show’s season usually tells a narrative that seeks to bind each episode together. Even most police-lawyer-medical procedurals are stitched together by some narrative thread.

Networks really weren’t albums because we never had to “buy” a whole network. We always were able to switch between networks and choose the individual shows we wanted to see.

Cable bundles are the new albums

But we can make the argument that cable-satellite dish bundles are the albums of television. Subscribers are forced to buy the albums (more commonly called bundles these days) when they only want to consume a fraction of the media covered.

Cord cutting is the disruption that threatens the bundle. But that leads us to different bundle subscriptions. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime are just bundles with different business models. And individual networks are offering bundles. Or albums.

Note, Amazon Prime does allow us to buy or rent individual shows or seasons.

Late night talk albums?

Maybe late night television talk shows are better comparisons to albums. Each show is comprised of individual creative units (Walt Mossberg’s term). The proof that they standalone as entertainment can be seen on YouTube.

These interviews or performances are viral successes. They are just as important to these shows as radio play time are to musicians.

So what?

Now that we have that figured out, we can build the iTunes of TV.

Or not.

There’s not really a business model there. I can’t imagine anyone paying 99 cents to have “The Undertaker Tombstones a Turkey” on their phone.

Maybe they will pay a subscription to have a feed of NBC clips delivered to their phones. I’m talking Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Saturday Night Live. Yeah, NBC is rolling out a comedy streaming service. But not all of this is comedy. And I doubt it will give exclusive access to just these clips. Which is how we seem to be consuming these variety shows. Ala carte sketches not whole shows.

So here’s the disruption.

What if the talent’s agents work out deals that allows them to sell a service that bundles their clients’ appearances. So George Clooney’s agents will sell clips of all his appearances on talk shows.

I know. How self-absorbed can celebrity culture get?

But it doesn’t have to make that much money to be worthwhile. The talk shows will have to agree not to release the clips as part of their promotions. And the talent will have to weigh those gains against the promotional value. Which is why they do these shows in the first place.

That’s about the only chance an iTunes for TV has for gaining any traction. I’m not holding my breath either.

While I have no desire to disturb the somewhat peaceful nature of Acadia National Park, I’m bummed I won’t be able to fly drones in any national park.

Not exactly a crime against humanity. But the video and photography from a drone’s perspective could be stunning. I guess we will never know.

Unless the national parks want a promotional video.

And I’m sure exceptions could be made for search and rescue.

The Washington Post has a very impressive report that covers drone crashes and near misses with aircraft in the United States. It makes the FAA’s case very nicely that drones need to be tightly regulated and restricted.

Which makes a certain bit of sense. But too much control and we’re going to lose a lot of benefits.

• Drones are a valuable tool for journalists.
• Regulators can observe a lot of activity in remote areas.
• Search and rescue efforts can pinpoint lost people. Maybe even deliver emergency supplies.
• Dangerous inspections can be conducted remotely.
• Emergency communications can be augmented.
• Law enforcement. (Enuf said)
• Fire fighters can gain valuable surveillance in a variety of situations.

I’m all for safety. But lets balance it with progress.

 

The great Northern Jerk-Off pic.twitter.com/cg6Eg0ilVd

— StuffJournalistsLike (@JournalistsLike) April 22, 2014

@mathewi The story of daily journalism: Set 'em up; knock 'em down; baffle beyond comprehension; then explain, as to a child.

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) April 22, 2014

photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc

First, commenters who are jerks are jerks in real life:

According to a new study published by University of Manitoba researchers, Internet trolls – people who commonly lurk on message boards and post offensive material to get a rise out of people – exhibit anti-social behaviour in their offline settings as well.

via Internet trolls are jerks in real life too – Features | The Star Online.

Second, when they’re being jerks in real life they’re using their real names.

So what makes you think that requiring real identities will clean up reader comments?

Greetings from Maine.

This is to inform you that I will not be purchasing anything from Amazon.com. This is a direct result of your unwillingness to pay any advertising fees to associates in Maine.

I understand that you need to make a political statement by refusing to send any money to Maine residents. To help protect you from being accused of hypocrisy, I will not give you any money.

Sincerely,
A former customer living in Maine

On Sep 26, 2013, at 7:45 PM, Amazon.com Associates Program wrote:

Greetings from the Amazon Associates Program.

We’re writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account will be closed and your Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement will be terminated effective October 6, 2013. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional Maine state tax collection legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor LePage on June 5, 2013, with an effective date of October 9, 2013. As a result, we will no longer pay any advertising fees for customers referred to an Amazon Site after October 6, nor will we accept new applications for the Associates Program from Maine residents.

Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to October 7, 2013, will be processed and paid in full in accordance with your regular advertising fee schedule.  Based on your account closure date of October 6, 2013, any final payments will be paid by December 31, 2013.

While we oppose this unconstitutional state legislation, we strongly support the federal Marketplace Fairness Act now pending before Congress. Congressional legislation is the only way to create a simplified, constitutional framework to resolve interstate sales tax issues and it would allow us to re-open our Associates program to Maine residents.

We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates Program, and look forward to re-opening our program when Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Associates Team

I don’t need a degree in anthropology to tell you that the local Starbucks staff is very friendly and well trained in welcoming customers. But apparently it helped three anthropologists figure out that Starbucks was friendlier than local coffee shops in Boston.

What’s really interesting is how Kevin Hartnett begins writing about it in Boston.com:

“The knock on chain stores is that they hurt community. Starbucks comes in, drives your local barista out of business, and a formerly chummy group of neighbors turns into a bunch of anonymous latte drones.”

That “knock” comes from the assumption that local businesses are better at customer service. But you’re not going to find friendlier customer service unless the business — local or chain — has made it part of the culture.

Friendliness and superior service are not accidents. They are the result of training that goes beyond how to make lattes and management expectations. Unless local business owners make that commitment, they are going to lose business to more welcoming businesses — local and chains.

Read their findings: The Social Transformation of Coffee Houses: The Emergence of Chain Establishments and the Private Nature of Usage

This example really isn’t that practical, but Domino’s Pizza in the United Kingdom has a video showing how to deliver pizza with a drone.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/on4DRTUvst0[/youtube]

This is probably a publicity stunt to get people to share a Domino’s video. But it’s a good start for people looking to innovate their delivery business.

1. “Hitting squirrels with a gun is hard. Hitting them with a golf club is much easier.”

2. Small plane lands on Maine Turnpike, takes off again

3. Hitler’s food taster tells of poisoning fears

1. Listen to Jimmy Buffett

2. Write

3. Tell my wife I love her because she makes my life better every single day

4. Hike/paddle/pedal

5. Drink beer or wine (Honestly, I don’t do this enough)

6. Drink water

7. Follow the lists I make

The Boreal Design Inukshuk was my first kayak. I had many great adventures paddling around Casco Bay. It was stable in active seas and a joy to paddle. I also was able to fit everything I needed for island camping trips.

I’m selling it because I bought another kayak that fit me better.

The Inukshuk is a good kayak for bigger paddlers – even beginners. Experienced paddlers will appreciate its excellent tracking and moderate rocker that makes it very agile.

I’m asking $700 for the kayak. You can contact me at 207-619-3853 or cvn@carlnatale.com.

Specs

Length	17′ (5.18 m)
Cockpit	16 1/2″ x 31″ (42 x 79 cm)
Width	23 1/2″ (59.7 cm)
Total Volume	106 US gal (400 L)
Depth	13 1/2″ (34.3 cm)
Weight	63 lb (29 kg)
Bow compartment	10″ x 10″ : 19 US gal (25 x 25 cm : 73 L)
Stern compartment	14 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ : 32 US gal (37 x 32 cm : 123 L)

Google announced today that it is going to discontinue Google Reader.

There goes a major dashboard for me. My Google Reader has feeds that keep me up to date on:

• Maine news
• Steelers
• Political news
• Business advice
• Miscellaneous updates

It’s a clean interface that is available to me from any browser. It’s much easier to manage than email. And it’s about to go away.

I understand Google’s reason. It’s not making any money or advancing the brand. And apparently not so many people are using it.

But it’s so damn useful. So I’m in the market for a new RSS reader that is browser based. I don’t want to deal with another app. And I want it cloud based so my choices follow me around all my devices.