EPIGONIC

China, Blogging, Censorship

Rebecca MacKinnon, Dave Weinberger and Robert Scoble provide a great public service today. MacKinnon first and most importantly with her post on Michael Anti (Zhao Jing), and Weinberger and Scoble with their follow posts to bring the issue more public attention (I saw it first on Weinberger this morning, and then again on scoble through memeorandum, leading ultimately to MacKinnon). These posts are evidence of how blogs can actually be good and useful and important (I've been a skeptic in the past; posts about important issues, written with authority and passion, like these three cause me to revisit that skepticism).

We don't know all of the specifics about this case, but I think the latter half of MacKinnon's post about her tests of Chinese language blogging tools is as troubling as this specific report about Michael Anti's blog. I wrote last fall about this issue more broadly, and have been surprised there was less reaction to Yahoo's actions last fall (and other companies, like Cisco, I might add).

I have some limited personal experience and opinion to bring to the dialog. When I headed up Real's international consumer business in 2002-04, I travelled often to China, and spent a lot of time talking with friends and colleagues there about the potential censorship of our services (it was clear the Chinese authorities would not let us bring in streams from CNN and BBC, for example). 

Whenever I broached the censorship topic, my young Chinese friends would tease me about my paternalistic ways, and never hesitated to remind me about my own government's alleged human rights abuses (our captives at Guantanamo Bay being exhibit A at the time). They would also tell me how it was easy to find Tianammen Square massacre video, or other anti-government video, on the Internet (none was so brazen as to actually show me), and not to worry so much about censorship. These were smart, thoughtful, independent, well-educated people, some of them "Sea Turtles" -- American citizens either Chinese born or of Chinese descent, returning to China -- who lived there full time and just didn't seem as worried as I was about the issue.

In the end, I didn't have to confront the ethical and moral issues personally -- I was let off the hook. Real decided not to invest as much in our efforts there as I wanted at that time, and the things we looked at were in music and games. It would be easy for me now to claim I would have made the right decision; I personally felt the powerful lure of that market, and understand why western firms are so intent on getting a beachhead there.

But ultimately, I do believe there are universal principles and human rights at stake, and freedom of speech is without a doubt one of them. While I personally understand the lure of the Chinese market, and appreciate the advice from my friends there not to behave paternalistically towards them, it's just wrong for us to use digital tools, technologies, and inventions we've created to help the Chinese government censor speech of individuals, especially political speech. We have export restrictions on many technologies, including most importantly armaments. Why not also make it illegal to export technologies that enable governments to censor the speech of their citizens?

I "get" that others will fill the void (perhaps Europeans, ever willing to court the Chinese, perhaps other Asian countries, perhaps even local Chinese companies). But isn't this an issue where we should be on the side of the people (generally, as a people and government), and not on the side of shareholders of Cisco, MSFT, YHOO, and maybe GOOG?

Why Blog? Part II

When I started this blog at the beginning of the year, I wrote an initial post trying to answer this question.

Now that the experiment -- no, market research, really -- has been going some eight months, I thought it might be a good time to revisit the question.

First thought: it is harder work, and takes more time, than I would have guessed at the beginning. Even trying to write in the more colloquial, conversational, and less rigorous form takes time and effort. And for what? And why? I am not sure I can answer those questions, and for me personally, I do not see any real, tangible gain -- at least at this point -- that outweighs the burden of the work. And I write that as someone who genuinely likes to write.

Second thought: as a reader, as I have noted in other posts, I find a very large portion of the blogs that I read incredibly unsatisfying. On the positive side, the trade blogs (particularly in digital media) are very, very useful. Particularly the offhand gossip about start-ups and watching meme trends, both of which make competitive research as I start my new venture much easier, and faster. But most of the rest, including the top blogs as proclaimed by technorati and others, I find increasingly tedious and useless.

One cannot extrapolate a market trend from a purely individual perspective, but I have wondered if these views are shared by others, and if so, what this portends for blogging and "participatory media" generally. It all reminds me of a previous bubble which came to nought in 1998-1999, when we thought self-publishing sites like Goecities and the Globe and Tripod and Angelfire would change the dynamic of the web, when of course they didn't.

It also reminds me of Real circa 1997-99. We were thrilled by the emergence of hundreds of thousands of programmers forming our "long tail" -- audio and video publishers rushing to the Net, creating or re-purposing a hugely diverse schmorgasborg of multimedia programming. That excitement gave way in 2000 to the hard realities of life and business; why would these folks continue to create or re-purpose that programming if it took work, and didn't pay dividends or generate revenues.

I think blogging and various forms of participatory media will continue to exist, for sure; the question is how big a force it will be in the end. I think, ultimately, it will come down to money. For me, as there isn't money or other value to be gained, I probably will end this experiment in blogging for a while. Too many other things to do!

Only from the MSM

The blogosphere -- especially those found in the right wing, pro-Iraq war longitudes -- was full of lots of sound and fury about the how the MSM and the "liberal media" were using the 2000th death in Iraq as a propaganda tool. Michelle Malkin, whose body has clearly been inhabited by Joe McCarthy, was particularly hysterical.

Well, lo and behold, where did I find the most provocative and surprising analysis of this milestone? On the New York Times, natch!

"Talent Will Out"

Or will it?

The "talent will out" claim was made by Barry Diller, at the Web 2.0 conference two weeks ago. (Emily Litella NB: some have written up his remarks at "talent wins out." I am 99% sure I heard him say "talent will out" or "talent always outs." I haven't found a video or audio clip to confirm either way, but the "talent will out" interpretation is more consistent with his subsequent remarks. It's a nuanced point, but an important distinction.)

Diller made this comment in response to a question from Battelle about Newscorp's acquisition of MySpace, and whether there would be a future for "prosumer or user-generated content." Diller said he thought there was a limited amount of talent in the world, and that it was unlikely internet-based platforms such as MySpace would help us to discover a heretofore hidden respository of creative geniuses. For this view, he was widely excoriated by the blogging world and Web 2.0 priesthood as a relic, a media mogul who doesn't get it, a Web 1.0 dinosaur.

I think Diller is right about the likely outcome, but wrong in his reasoning.   Unlike Diller, I would argue there is lots of talent in the world. The issue is that there is a very small pool of talented people who also possess the necessary ambition, time, energy and will to bring their talent to a wider public. And that's not likely to change, even with these new platforms that make it easier for all of us to publish our work, and put our talent on display.

There are common-sense ways to prove this thesis. Start with blogging.  Here is a new medium that should have liberated the masses of talented writers out there waiting to be discovered. But despite the current hypefest around blogging and the near-religious belief by some bloggers that they are poised to topple the grandees of the print media, most blogs are utter crap. None have ever moved or affected me like the best of works in print. Where are these great new talents unleashed by WordPress, Blogger and TypePad?

This isn't to say blogs are unimportant, and won't make a huge impact on the media landscape. They are and they will, but for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the talent of individual bloggers, and a lot more to do with the wisdom of crowds; getting access to specific information about particular niches; and as a democratic check point to other, more hierarchical forms of media.

There is a second common sense way to prove the thesis. Think about the most talented friends you have. If they are great writers or humorists, are they blogging? If they are blogging, are they putting their best material online? If they make video or audio programming, are they putting that online? Are they even likely to do so?

My personal experience here is that my most talented friends aren't putting their stuff online and won't anytime soon, for one of two reaons. Some won't because, while they do have ambition and will to channel their talent, they are putting their best work into creating books, or films, or radio shows; all mediums that are about showcasing talent (a follow point on that next graph). Others won't because, while they have talent, they just have too much else going on in life, and insufficient ambition and will to use their talents to create something for public consumption. Their talent is channeled into the funny repertoire over dinnner, the occasional great e-mail, or something else wonderful but ephemeral and made just for friends and family.

There is another argument one can make why these new online platforms won't suddenly lead to the discovery of new talent; and that is that they do not make great homes for talented people or the works they produce. I know, that's heresy. But listen: A truly talented person with will and ambition and ego to make his or her talent public wants to tell us something in a pure, unadulterated, uninterrupted way. Where they, the talent, speak to us, the member of the audience. This has been true for thousands of years.

But as many others have noted, ad nauseam and better than I, the online medium is not at all about that. It's about conversation. Participation. Remixing. Democratization. It's about us talking to us. For all the many good things that come out of this new, collective medium, I am not sure it makes the best home for talented  people, and their works. There are and remain other media that remain better suited for that: the short story, the novel, the film, the interview show, the essay to name but a few. (Oh, and digitization of those things and distribution online is just that -- distribution, not a new medium).

The point of all this is that the cheerleaders and operators of these new platforms should stop being so defensive when folks like Diller say it's not likely they'll become showcases for great, undiscovered talents. He's right. Concentrate on the other things that the medium is good for -- its ability to foster new forms of conversation; to allow us to find and to share information about specific things more efficiently than ever before; and to connect us and bind us together in new ways that harness our collective talents.

Why Blog? Part I

I've thought about that question a lot over the last year but still can't answer the question to my own satisfaction.

I think why I am finally putting some thoughts down on a blog boils down to the following:

1. I like finding and reading blogs where the authors have good, interesting information to share, backed up by knowledge and even expertise on the topic. The liberation and flee flow of information is one of the great things about the internet, always has been. Except when the information is crap.
2. I've spent over a decade now in the digital media business, and I've got opinions I want to share once in a while. I haven't done that until now because I've been employed at a public technology company, where I was paid for my thoughts and ideas, and it would have been rude and uncool to share them while getting a paycheck (call me old-fashioned). That employment comes to an end officially at end of this month, so now I will be able to write more freely about these topics.
3. I also have opinions on other topics, notably foreign affairs and politics.
4. I just want to experiment a little with this new medium, so that I understand it better.

So, I'll post here irregularly. But, I hope, the information here will be useful to some people, some of the time. And, if no one ever reads this, does it -- like the proverbial tree falling in the forest -- really exist?