December Wired

Man, there's a lot to like in this latest edition of Wired. Of course, with Shopping Season (America's greatest Holy-days) upon us, the features don't start until page 200.

The cover topic is YouTube, and I really like that coverage. The main article name checks a lot of the videos I have enjoyed on YouTube including The Evolution of Dance and those guys on treadmills.

A lot of the article is about how old media doesn't get it and can YouTube monetize the right amount to be significant in business but not lose its indie soul.

I say yes. They can hit enough of a happy medium (get it? 'medium'? ;-) to make money and still get a lot of participation. Plus, they're now owned by Google, who are the masters of unobtrusive monetization. Sure, plenty of the purists cry foul on Google and YouTube. These are the same kinds of people who can't listen to Ben Gibbard anymore since he's on a major label. Let them slink back to more obscure server farms and continue to fight the cultural power. They talk about maybe attaching advertising videos, but, heck, I don't see why they can't just do text ads on most of the free, personally uploaded content and make their money back that way.

Old media doesn't get it? Who cares? Let them extinct themselves, and good riddance.

The next article's about a Tahoe ad campaign that let people mix their own. Many were critical and subversive. It's an interesting experiment, but I don't think this is going to be the next-gen advertising model. For one thing, aren't we more post-major-brand-loyalty than that? What hipster loves her Chevy?

Here's an idea: monitor the major new media streams for brand mentions. Plenty of them are majorly commercial. When Kevin Kelly or Matt Haughey or Jason Kottke or Mighy Girl say they like something, leverage it. Make a special offer through their site. Ask them to indie-produce something for you own back-channel, low-level, weblog or YouTube campaign.

Ohmigosh. I could be a New Marketeer. What should the name of my firm be? seanmeade.net? ;-)

I liked the article on lonelygirl, too. Now those people know what they're doing. One of them (who is a woman to give the right tone) answers 500 email a day. More evidence that old media is dead. If these guys had hit it big on TV they'd have a street named lonelygirl in Burbank. But they don't have an major old media deal to bankroll them to keep doing what they're doing. {Ring Ring} Cluephone. It's for you...

Interesting article called Edifice, Complex on the engineering of Gehry-esque buildings. Cool stuff.