Rants on Interactivity

Blog daddy Jeff Jarvis unloads on some arrogant 'pro' journalists who think interactivity is a matter of getting readers to click on buttons so they can led by the nose through the 'news', meanwhile dismissing blogging as "Drivel passed off as journalism. The ramblings of someone somewhere passed off as news." Here's a clue for you folks: We get to decide what's news now, and who's worth reading.

Jeff gets to work with such wingnuts daily, so I can well understand his vehemence. But I'll toss in a hearty cheer of support from this direction. I've been bumping into this kind of arrogance since the early days of CD-ROM multimedia in the '80s, up through the $0 billion interactive TV market of the early 90s, and well into the Internet age when they should have started knowing better. Trying to 'compel' your readers to waste their time dealing with your user interface has never been a value proposition. The information throttling, non-dare-call-it-bias intermediary and aggregation position is a wasting business model, wiggle how you may. As for real, two-way conversational interactivity, you might be able to change a civilization with it, given luck and a tail wind. [Due Diligence]

7:33:14 PM    

Should RIAA and MPAA be exempt from anti-trust?

The wannabe monopolists intent on controlling the technology you use, and suppressing your rights to talk about it, are making another power grab through political influence buying. This time, it's musician-wannabe Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Disney), sponsoring something called the EnForce Act, which is actually an anti-trust exemption for our beloved oligopolists. Can you think of good policy reason that these guys should have a special case carved out of an act that seems designed to control exactly their behavior? Me neither. A good time to drop e-mail on your Senators - maybe there are a few with guts left out there.

Via Glenn Reynolds, who also suggests a RICO investigation. [Due Diligence]

7:31:48 PM