Wired News: Antispam companies raking it in.
Recent estimates from the Radicati Group show that firms selling antispam products and services stand to make $653 million in revenues in 2003, and up to $2.4 billion by 2007.
Clay Shirky makes a powerful argument that micropayment schemes will never work, and outlines what he calls an “epochal” shift toward free content that is increasingly complex, collaboratively-produced, and high-quality.
“People want to believe in things like micropayments because without a magic bullet to believe in, they would be left with the uncomfortable conclusion that what seems to be happening — free content is growing in both amount and quality — is what’s actually happening.”
InternetWeek’s Mitch Wagner complains about PR people without a clue: “It seems to me that most of the PR people I deal with are focused on getting me to meet with their client, rather than trying to convince me to write articles about their client.” (link thanks to Phil Gomes’ G2Blog)
In the past four years that I’ve been a freelancer, I have become very good at turning down meeting requests. That’s because I’m not on salary, so every hour I spend meeting with your client is an hour that I’m not getting paid for. Makes it pretty easy to say no.
The only time I’ll agree to a meeting is when it is directly related to a story I’m working on (not the one I just published last week, either), and when a face to face meeting is the best way to get the information or flavor I need for the story.
Relationship building? I used to believe in it, but that was before I learned that PR meetings almost never lead to relationships of any kind. In ten years of such meetings, I can count exactly two people I am still in touch with. What goes wrong with the rest of the meetings? Everything: There’s rarely any follow-through after the meeting. The next time the company goes on tour it’s almost never with the same individuals. Executives rarely give out their real email addresses, and if they do they’re often too busy to reply, so the only person you have a chance of forming a relationship with anyhow is the flack (who is often working with a completely different client six months later).
I make better contacts at trade shows, frankly, where you can sip a beer with someone and they’ll still remember your name a week or two later.
Mitch adds: “PR people sometimes wonder why reporters think they’re idiots. This is because most of them ARE idiots.”
You may also be wondering why reporters seem like such assholes. That’s because most of us ARE assholes. It’s a defensive strategy, and a useful one, I’m afraid.
Steve Outing makes a strong case that email newsletters are dead, and that RSS news feeds are the way to go for publishers. His article quotes Chris Pirillo extensively.
Outing is right — but he’s about 2 years ahead of the market here, I’d guess. Most folks haven’t even heard of RSS yet, and explaining it takes a little time, as I’ve discovered. Once you understand how it works, the advantages are clear, but there’s a big initial hurdle to overcome. On top of that, no one can seem to agree on what RSS really is, and the current pissing match between partisans of RSS 1.0 vs 2.0 vs Pie, whatever its merits, is bound to make companies nervous about standardizing on RSS. Who wants to build their house in the middle of a battlefield?
Bottom line: The time is now for publishers of all kinds to begin implementing RSS, testing it, deploying RSS feeds and figuring out how to capitalize on this technology. Use either RSS 1.0 or 2.0, or both (most newsfeed readers can interpret both formats). But discarding email entirely would be a risky move for any online publisher who values their audience.
I’m slow in noting this, but Louise Glück will be the next poet laureate. I look forward to seeing what she does with the position. She doesn’t have the natural gregariousness of Robert Pinsky but her mind, and style, are laserlike in focus — especially compared to the current laureate, Billy Collins, whose poetry is wandering, wooly, comfortable, and inoffensive. Glück’s writing, by contrast, is spare, stark, challenging, and important.
The article says she has designs on expanding the Favorite Poem Project. I can’t wait to hear more.
