Archive for: October, 2006

Web 2.0 and Control

Oct 20 2006 Published by under Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans, Technology, The Internet, Web 2.0

At the end of yesterday’s post, I noted that today I’d tackle control issues and their impact on Politics and Web 2.0. The control issues demonstrated by politicians have always been kind of a pet peeve of mine. I’ve taken some heat for pointing out the ridiculous lengths some Republicans go to in order to keep a firm grip on their message.

This isn’t really about that, though. It’s more about control as expressed through the mitigation of risk, more than through message discipline. You could argue the two are closely entwined, but I really think there is a distinction and I’d like to draw it. I’d also like to explore a tendency I see in culture that is really disturbing to me.

I’m a big fan of Greg’s Previews on Yahoo Movies. I liked it better when it was UpcomingMovies.com, but Yahoo! hasn’t damaged it too badly. I’m not, however, a big fan of a tendency I see in Hollywood, and in politics.

I read recently that Kristin Cavallari will be starring in a remake of Revenge of the Nerds. that news really made we want to gag. Every time I read movie news, it seems like some studio has decided to remake either a classic movie (generally ones that aren’t that old), or has adapted a classic 70s or 80s TV show for the big screen (Dukes of Hazzard, CHiPs, Miami Vice).

I’ve railed on this blog before about the fact that Hollywood seems to be completely and totally devoid of new ideas. But I really don’t think that’s it. Movies like Stranger than Fiction, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Napoleon Dynamite and others have convinced me that we do not have a dearth of creativity. We have, I believe a dearth of bravery and an abundance of fear.

In Hollywood, fear of failure leads to studios making horrible remakes of old TV shows. They try to tap into our sense of nostalgia in an effort to draw an audience, and instead end up creating films that nobody wants to see. I would be interested to see a study (and perhaps I’ll do one in a few weeks when Mrs. Quip is traveling), that examines the percentage drop in revenue for films as a corollary of the number of remakes in a given year.

Similarly, in politics, we continue to rehash all the same tried and true charges of liberalism, tax-and-spend, extremist, etc. In advertising, we recreate the exact same spots over and over – the grainy photo of your opponent, the newspaper headlines, the flashing lights of a police car in the background of a crime spot. It’s all the same, but since the images don’t change, the only way to make the charges stick is to exaggerate – more and more – the actual charge. The reason we think we’re drifting down a spiral of ever more negative ads isn’t because the ads get worse. They stay exactly the same. It’s because the script gets worse.

Is the audience for movies shrinking because the interest in movies is shrinking? Or is the interest in movies shrinking because the quality of the movies is in steady decline?

Do you need to make political charges ever-more sensational because people are ignoring politics and we must break through? Or are people ignoring politics because the process of breaking through is ever more repellent?

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You Had Me At ‘Fish Biscuit’

Oct 20 2006 Published by under Programming, Television

I was going to post on this yesterday, but got carried away railing against Cox’s piece on web 2.0.

Lost, so far this season, has been phenomenal. I was pretty unhappy with last season, and to be honest I’m not thrilled that they plan to take a break for three months between the first half and the last half of this season. However, if the rest of the season is as good as it has been so far, I’m willing to accept it.

Wednesday’s episode was awesome. Locke has gone mental, Desmond can see the future, and Charlie is finally getting some stones. The latter is especially good to see. Charlie had been a whiny little spaz for too long.

I’d get into the “what does it all mean” of the episode, but there are plenty of other forums for that. I’ll just register my approval for the season thus far.

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Cold Soup

Oct 19 2006 Published by under Operatives, Politics, The Internet

The oddly titled discussion site “HotSoup” is up and running. Sadly, it’s even worse than I had suspected it would be. I honestly don’t know where to begin with a critical review.

From a design perspective, it make little sense to me to put the one clear piece of dynamic content (the really annoying headline bar) at the very bottom of the page. They built the site to have a significant space for ads, but have none, so that leaves a huge empty block on the page. The upper right of the homepage has a little blurb extolling the people who founded the site, but then tries to convince you it’s not about them.

Click through to a feature contributors post, and you get even more confused. Something called the V-Factor rates posts on a scale between “never” and “definitely will”, but completely fails to indicate what they will never or always do? What the hell is that?

Perhaps the most vexing thing about the site is the apparent lack of any correlation between the name and the content. Their content is divided into “Issue Loops” but that bears little relationship to Hot Soup. They might as well have called the site Eggplant.com.

Honestly, I don’t get it. I have a lot of respect for the people involved in this, but it may be the most poorly conceived idea since Kevin Federline.

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Why John Kerry Won’t Get The Nod in 2008

Oct 19 2006 Published by under Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Politics

At the end of the 2004 election, it was discovered that John Kerry was sitting on nearly $14 million dollars. A lot of Democrats at the time were pissed to learn that he could possibly have won Ohio if only he hadn’t clung to the cash.

Now, with Democrats taking out a $5 to $10 million dollar loan in an effort to win Congress, Kerry is still sitting on $8 million in cash – ostensibly to use for his Presidential run in 2008.

A new website, Hey John, is urging visitors to send him a little message telling him to sh*t or get off the pot and use that war chest to help win Congress.

I suspect he won’t, because he cares more about his own ego than he does about his party. Were he to transfer that to the DNC, and the Dems take back Congress, he would have essentially bought his nomination. Fortunately, for the rest of us, I think he’s too thick to understand that.

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Web 2.0 and Political Movements

Oct 19 2006 Published by under Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans, Society, Technology, The Internet, Web 2.0

Continuing yesterday’s thoughts on web 2.0, Anne and I exchanged some traffic on that post and this article from the Washington Examiner last week.

They got me wondering whether the online ‚Äúconservative elite‚Äù was aware of what the left had in mind and, if so, whether they were concerned. During the past few years, I have had the opportunity to ask this of Internet specialists working on the Bush-Cheney campaign, top officials in the Republican National Committee, communications specialists at the White House and dozens of top conservative bloggers…

When I suggested that ceding control of the major “nodes” in the online world to the left was a huge mistake, they were dismissive. It became clear they could not imagine one day finding themselves boxed out of what is fast becoming the biggest force in electoral politics.

First, I’m not sure who he was talking to, but it wasn’t me. Having been the eCampaign Director for both BC04 and the RNC, I’d think he would have picked up the phone, but alas, he didn’t. It’s probably better for his story that he didn’t, because I would have been tempted to point out how dumb his premise really is.

Nobody gets boxed out of web 2.0. That’s sort of the whole point. But let’s look at this through three factors – the movement, the medium, and the message.

Movements have nothing to do with the medium. You can argue that the whole lefty “people powered politics” is a function of the Internet, but it’s a fallacious argument. The same passion, ideology and motivation existed before the Internet. The reason the GOP turned to radio in 1994 is the same reason Democrats turned to the Internet after 2000 – it is the most interactive form of communication available and it is a media popular with the youth.

What does youth matter? I’ll explain, but let’s hit the interaction angle first.

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