The Cult of Me

On The Ridiculousness of Viacom + Copyright

Brad King — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:52:55 +0000

There comes a time when an idea is pushed so far to the extreme that it becomes un-defendable. For years, I thought we’d reached that threshold with copyright. Services like My.Mp3.com, which allowed for virtual music lockers, seemed perfectly legitimate. Time and again, though, the copyright cartels have used their money and influence to derail legitimate [...]

SXSW 2010: The Last Five Good Minutes

Brad King — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:47:08 +0000

Omid Ashtari, Partner, c10: Content Strategy (Los Angeles, CA) I met Omid two years ago when he was part of a panel on moving talent from the blogosphere to the mainstream media. At the time, he worked with Creative Artist Agency (CAA). Now, he’s out on his own. A partner in a new venture trying to [...]

SXSW 2010: The Super Five Good Minutes Deluxe Edition

Brad King — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:22:54 +0000

Travis Kalanick, Investor (Los Angeles, CA) I met Travis years ago when I worked for Wired. He was one of the founders of Scour.com, the first popular file-trading network. Different than Napster, Scour allowed people to transfer audio, video, images and any kind of file. Of course, it ended up in the same litigious spot as [...]

Games, Journalism + SXSW 2010

Brad King — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:56:46 +0000

One of the emerging memes at this year’s SXSW is the use of game mechanics in journalism. I’m glad. I’ve been pushing this particular meme both at SXSW Interactive through my Advisory Board role (most of this year’s panels I selected are ARG/Game/JOU related) and my writing. In fact, The Cult of Me is largely [...]

SXSW 2010: Even, Even More Five Good Minutes

Brad King — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:46:13 +0000

Jenny Toomey, Program Officer for Media and Cultural Policy, Ford Foundation (Washington, DC/New York City, NY) Jenny and I met back in 2000 when I was working at Wired News. She was in the early stages of conceptualizing what would become the Future of Music Coalition. Over the years, she’s been actively involved in music rights, [...]

SXSW 2010: Even More Five Good Minutes

Brad King — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:01:23 +0000

Tim Malbon, founding partner, Made by Many (London, England) My friend Aleks Krotoski introduced Tim and I last year at South by Southwest. The two of us are still trying to determine if this is because she likes us…or doesn’t. Made by Many builds custom publishing platforms, creates media on that platform and manages the community [...]

SXSW 2010: More Five Good Minutes

Brad King — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:07:09 +0000

Andrea Phillips, Alternate Reality Game Writer (Long Island, NY) I came across Andrea last year while doing some interviews for The Cult of Me and Dungeons + Dreamers. She was one of the writers on Perplex City, a complex ARG created by Mind Candy (and the esteemed Hon brothers, Adrian and Dan of Six To Start). [...]

SXSW 2010: Five Good Minutes

Brad King — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:48:08 +0000

Instead of blogging this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW), I’ve decided to record segments with folks I meet with the express purpose of answering one question: What’s the one thing, in your media sphere, that excites you the most. I’ll be gathering a few of these each day. Some I’ll post here. Some I’ll post [...]

SXSW 2010

Brad King — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:55:05 +0000

I’ll be blogging and adding my thoughts about this year’s SXSW Interactive festival. It probably won’t be live blogged, but I am co-ordinating with the folks at AEJMC try to get the most interesting stuff here. Stay tuned.

AEJMC: Video (Column Coming)

Brad King — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:09:37 +0000

In my last column of the year, I decided to take on the idea that news is “special” when it comes to content. I take a look at the similarities between the music and new industries, pointing out why Rupert Murdoch’s decision to remove content from Google, the AP’s decision to track its work and [...]