For the Content Hungry: The Eat Media Blog

In this ever more digital age, it’s a compelling question.

Google is making a massive effort to digitize library collections from around the world, bringing millions of tomes into the collective ether that is the internet.

But are they still books once they’ve been coded into ones and zeros?

Virginia Heffernan addressed the question from another angle in her wonderful blog, The Medium, in the Sunday New York Times. The question was first offered to her by her young son after he’d completed reading something online and was asked by the computer, “Did you like this book?” He balked and refused to answer the question, insisting that what he’d just read — definition of the publisher aside — was not a book.

Heffernan goes on to agree, even though she’s an admitted devotee of both Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader and her Blackberry. Both may present text, but neither offers the same experience.

Don’t believe it? Take a tour around the web. Look at how some of the most hard-wired digiterati are using blogs, Tweets and other electronic signals to promote something printed on paper and bound into what we all think of as a book.

Is Google’s library going to be an impressive achievement? Absolutely. Is it going to be filled with information? More than any one person could ever see. But it won’t have a single book in it.

Will a Kindle ever offer the sensory intimacy of words on paper? Even if the new Kindle can somehow send out a little puff of new paperback smell (Go ahead, pick up a pocket paperback off your shelf and crack it open. Evocative, no?). Even if you could drop it in the sand without panic and even if they installed a little device that would whip out and give you a nasty paper cut once in a blue moon, it still would not be a book.

— Jonathan

John Updike died yesterday at age 76, having authored 61 books. Sixty-one books!

How did he do it? The New York Times reported that Updike churned out three pages a day, thus proving the writer’s workshop promise that three pages a day can produce roughly a book a year. Or in Updike’s case, serious real estate on the library shelf.

From the Times article: “I would write ads for deodorants or labels for catsup bottles, if I had to,” he told The Paris Review in 1967. “The miracle of turning inklings into thoughts and thoughts into words and words into metal and print and ink never palls for me.”

What Updike teaches us is this: Writers write. Artists make art. Musicians make music. Inventors invent stuff. Creators create.

And this: whatever your personal goal—learning Mandarin, mastering the circle of fifths, inventing the holographic Post-It—all it takes is three little inklings a day to make some serious traction.

—Britta

From the “It’s-never-too-late-to-learn-a-new-trick” category, the Vatican has launched its very own YouTube Channel.

It’s pretty basic so far, but you can have it translated into Italian, German or Spanish. Currently, there are only 18 videos on the site and they are almost all of Pope Benedict XVI speaking, but the potential for the site is amazing.

There are links to Radio Vaticana, the papal state’s radio service, Centro Televisivo Vaticano, the Vatican’s television station, the Vatican’s official website and the official website of the Vatican state (in Italian only).

On the YouTube channel, I’d like to see way more from the history side of things, as well as a video library of Pope John Paul II’s greatest hits, but it’s early in the process.

What happens next will say a lot. Launching a social media portal is one thing; nurturing a social media portal is another. How much are you investing in the care and feeding of your social media assets?

— Jonathan

Now that all the inauguration hoopla is over, it’s time to make like Obama and get to work. But before we let our Basecamp to-do lists get the best of us, let’s take a breather and remember what we’re in this for.

On my corkboard, buried under production schedules, magazine layouts and meeting notes, is a little gem I pulled out of Timothy Ferris’ The 4-Hour Workweek.

It helps me remember the big picture, even when I’m feeling too overwhelmed to answer its questions.

—–

Define: What do I want to be doing?

Eliminate: Am I being productive or am I being busy? Eliminate the noise and disruption.

Automate: Delegate or automate the remaining tasks.

Liberate: Enjoy your mobility and use the time you create.

—–

Your turn: What messages are tacked up beside your desk?

BONUS: I just stumbled on Basecamp’s new time-tracking feature, check it out.

—Britta

Yeah, it’s Inauguration Day, but you can read all you want about the big man and his big day just about everywhere else on the web, so in the interest of counter-programming, let’s talk about design.

More specifically, let’s talk about The Huffington Post. The site has grown into a new aggregating juggernaut with millions of visitors every month.

So why does it still look like a blog a couple of kids are cranking out in a basement somewhere?

Arianna Huffington has raised no shortage of venture capital, so money is no excuse.

She may be enjoying the ride right now as the hits continue to pile up, but at some point, someone is going to come along and do something very similar AND IT WON’T BE SO UGLY.

Arianna and crew have failed the Eat Media three-step mantra: Strategy. Content. Design. In that order. For a reason.

Their strategy is simple enough and follows on the heels of that other great news thief, Matt Drudge: make a lot of money by procuring other people’s content.

Huffpo’s content is a gimme: be the liberal Drudge Report.

But Huffington forgot all about step three: design. While The Huffington Post may seem to mirror the genius simplicity of The Drudge Report, it’s really just a mess.

— Jonathan

(Arianna Huffington photo from Wired and Matt Drudge photo from Media Bistro.)

It looks like Circuit City is officially going out of business. Another case of the blues: Lowes, Best Buy, outperforming the reds: Home Depot, Circuit City. The service, prices, layout and lighting of Circuit City are just the beginning of their problems.

Here is the current site messaging:

I understand the potential loss of competitive pricing at Best Buy with this loss. But even if I have to pay $5-10 more without the competition adjusting prices—I still say good riddance.

Honesty and uniqueness used to be for the very special organizations with tremendous ad budgets and dynamic leaders. But the dollars behind those campaigns aren’t what made the difference, it was the commitment to finding the right message. While other companies seemed to be happy telling the same story: We’re open—neon OPEN signs, We have a sale—poorly designed flyers stuck beneath windshield wipers and Free Shipping—flaming gif banner ads, the truly great companies looked for what was unique about their business and told that story.

Today even the smallest companies need to differentiate. (And no, being cheaper doesn’t cut the mustard.) It all starts with finding the perfect messaging (arrangement of words) that aligns with your organization’s personality and objectives. Give your customers a smoke job and they will see through it—they are smarter than you think. Special Offers.
Here’s a quote from a well-worn book that has been with me for 20 years. It applies to fiction writing, ad copy, web copy and custom content.

“Whatever you want to say, there is only one right word that will express it, one verb to make it move, one adjective to qualify it. You must seek that word, that verb, and that adjective, and never be satisfied with approximations, never resort to tricks, even clever ones, or to verbal pirouettes to escape the difficulty.”

[Flaubert writing to Maupassant]

Hallie & Whit Burnett
Fiction Writer’s Handbook
1975

—Ian

I’ll admit it: I’ve never been big in to “community.”

Chamber of Commerce meet-and-greets give me hives, street fairs scare me and I’m still high-fiving myself for never attending a city commission meeting despite my years as a city magazine editor.

So as a lifelong non-joiner, all the emphasis on creating online communities leaves me a bit skeptical. I’ve already shared my dedication to BabyCenter, and Saturday mornings wouldn’t be the same without Ohdeedoh or Apartment Therapy.

I consume their content. I post the occasional question or comment. I feel good about myself when the editors select my question for their “Good Questions” series. But do I need to hang out in their forums and make a slew of new BFFs? Not so much.

Just because users aren’t contributing to your online forums or “connecting” with one another doesn’t mean you’re not offering a meaningful user experience. Some products and services are more apt to attract “joiners and contributors” than others. The correlation between joiners, active community members, purchasers and content (custom and UGC) is not always easy to distinguish. Check your analytics.

Remember in school how the teachers made you break in to small groups? Some of us hated breaking in to small groups, and when it comes to online content, some of us just want to hear what the teacher/editor/experts have to say and move on to the shopping cart, or in search of more information. Give us relevant content and we will come back again and again.

—Britta

BabyCenter.com closed its online store yesterday in order to concentrate solely on digital media (and open the door to collecting more cash from retail marketers). As one of the site’s 1 million daily visitors, I can say this was a smart move. I’ve never gone to BabyCenter.com’s store, but I’ve tapped in to hundreds of pages of their content.

Ever since my little boy was a six-week-old embryo, BabyCenter.com has been sending me weekly emails filling me in on his latest developments (He’s the size of a lima bean! He has fingernails! He can hear your voice!).
Now that Isaiah is almost six months old, I still get weekly updates, and by the looks of things, the folks at BabyCenter don’t plan to stop until well into his middle school years.

And I don’t mind, not at all.

You see, the content is so relevant, it’s almost spooky. The week we decided Isaiah was ready for sleep training, BabyCenter delivered videos on how to carry out two different methods. The week we realized he needed solid foods, BabyCenter offered tips on getting the sweet potatoes in his mouth and not all over the mom. This week, it occurred to me that I should start baby sign language with him and whammmo: our “Month 5, Week 3” email features an article called “When and how to teach your baby to communicate with signs.”

I realize there is a commerce factor, and the tradeoff for the free sleep training video was a short ad from Johnson & Johnson (the folks behind the brilliance). But I didn’t even click “Skip” since the ad was actually showing me how to give a baby massage (using J&J’s lavender scented baby lotion, of course).

Years from now, when Isaiah reaches the end of BabyCenter’s timeline, I imagine the emails will be more along the lines of “How to explain hair in weird places” and “What to do if your kid gets the crap kicked out of him.”

But if the content remains as relevant as it is today, I’ll stick with them, even when they launch TeenCenter.com.

— Britta

True, the micro-blogging service has been a social media darling in 2008, attracting plenty of attention. And sure, it has been growing by leaps and bounds, but how does it stack up against the titan of social media, Facebook?

Not so well. In fact, so poorly, that it’s largely irrelevant. The same report stated that despite Twitter’s skyrocketing growth (in terms of registered users), it would take 36 years to catch up to Facebook, and that’s if Facebook stopped growing today. Twitter may have 5 million or so users, but Facebook is adding that many in a little over a week.

So, Tweet all you want, but you’ll remain on the fringe of the social media universe. It’s an elite fringe, for sure, and it’s probably a good way to connect with influencers, but Twitter’s a long way from being a smart or viable marketing platform.

- Jonathan

The New York Times published its list of the buzzwords of 2008 on Sunday, a list both sublime and ridiculous. (Updated in a Monday blog post.)

Let us never speak of these again:

• Change: It’s time for deeds, not words.
• Hockey Mom: ’nuff said.
• Maverick: I don’t want to hear this word unless I’m watching Top Gun.

Words we’re going to hear more of in 2009:

• Staycation: New variety: the permanent staycation: when you are unemployed and unable to find work.
• DWT (Driving While Texting): There’s no shortage of morons out there.
• FAIL: Even with Bush out of office, the hangover will continue.

Huh?

• Pregorexia: Let’s hope this phenomenon is confined to Manhattan.
• Futarchy: Futile.
• Nuke the fridge: This may have the staying power of jump the shark, but I doubt it.