“Businesses don’t survive in the long term because old people persist in old behaviors; they survive because young people renew old behaviors”

Something tells me the answer to where the publishing industry is heading lies somewhere between here and here.  Of course 25-year-olds are consuming almost all of their media digitally and of course advising publishers to cater to a shrinking market is asinine, but how are publishers supposed to make money if the barrier to entry/distribution/consumption that has sustained them up to this point is in the process of being flattened?

Gleick’s wrong to indict Google, it isn’t the problem (this was inevitable, they simply had the desire and the capital to do it first/better).  He’s right to suggest there will always be a place for analog books, but not simply as aesthetic objects; the Kindle is an awesome device, but there’s something about a book that’s hard-to-place, yet very real, that hasn’t been replicated by any ebook yet.  In fact, I almost find hard to believe that it ever truly will.  Still, people like me are an increasingly marginal group (I’m no longer in this group as my Kindle 2 arrived two days ago).  Shirky’s right that catering to us probably isn’t a sustainable business model.

It would seem Shirky’s implicit recommendation, that publishers find out how people are consuming their product (digitally) and get it there, makes sense.  This direction will necessarily lead to a very dramatic shift in how the whole apparatus works (which he believes is inexorable anyway).  They’ll almost certainly need to content themselves with making a lot less money in the process (which I suppose is the answer to my initial question) and this will probably hasten the dramatic change to their model.

So I guess my question now is: can you honestly say a business has survived if it’s completely unrecognizable once it’s come out the other side?

While this desire has been stewing for a bit, I was also inspired by this post.  I find the “blog as your resume” idea appealing (probably because this shows up on the first Google SERP of “tim geisenheimer”) and I want to get the ideas/comments/speculative thoughts that (very) occassionally kick around in my head out into the wild.  I also think that the only way I’m going to write regularly is if I have a more concrete idea of what I want to write about AND if I actually have some practical knowledge about the subject.

To that end, and to take David’s advice, I’m changing the scope of the Geisenblog to be more focused.  I’m going to write exclusively about digital media and technology based primarily on my experience working in online advertising sales for a web site that covers technology.  I’ll leave everything else to Tumblr and Twitter.  

I know it’s going to be hard.  The digital media/technology commentary space is crowded and I’m going to have trouble being truly “provocative” based on the nature of my job.   I’m a gadget lover, but by no means technically minded.  My approach will therefore be more inquisitive than authoritative, but I think there’s something to be said for that.

From a content standpoint, I’ll comment on trends and discuss projects we’re doing here at CBS Interactive that are relevant.  I’ll also use this platform to do what so many others have done before and break down my experience with personal online publishing.  It’ll be a sort of inverted approach because I’ve learned a lot about professional ad-serving platforms, user behavior, display advertising metrics, e-commerce, etc… at my time here at CBS Interactive, but I’ve never approached these issues from a small publisher perspective.  I’m looking forward to learning as I go.

So here’s to not writing a post full of resolve and enthusiasm just to lose interest after two weeks and instead consistently putting out some (hopefully) high-quality content.  I welcome any advice or ideas you might have.  Thanks for reading.

I feel that I’ve done a disservice to the handful of people who check the Geisenblog every morning expecting some fresh content only to find that same photo of my broken iPhone.  I’m going to forego the “post everyday for a month challenge” as that’s clearly not happening and try my best to get some awesomeness up here as often as I can.  ACL should provide me with an opportunity to do just that.  I’d also recommend checking Twitter to see how much sense I make at 2am and, if I manage to avoid breaking my old iPhone, blurry photos may appear here at random points throughout the weekend.

In honor of the Mono (which sadly seems to have taken a cue from my playbook and fallen off the face of the internet), I’ll leave ya’ll with a clip of “Come Home” by Back Door Slam.  They play blues in the vein of the Allman Brothers, but without the 20-minute drum solos.  I had the good fortune of seeing these guys at SXSW this past spring and I’ll be catching their show on Saturday.  Their front-man is a 21-year guitar phenom by the name of Davy Knowles.  He’s from random British tax haven, the Isle of Man and he was apparently inspired to play the guitar when he was 11 and heard “Sultans of Swing” on the radio.  He’s been described by one music critic as the second coming of Jimi Hendrix and while I’m not sure about that, I am sure that he’s pretty damn good at the guitar.  See for yourself:

Update: yeah, so no posts since 9/18 means I’m a liar.  This will change shortly or the Geisenblog will be donated to science.

The New CNET

The New Techcrunch

Dropped from approximately 3 feet onto NYC sidewalk.  Several pedestrians were startled by the stream of profanity that ensued.

Fuck.