Chopping Up Truth In Media Since 2009
So, I went to TechCrunch moments ago – and was greeted by this:
Maybe it’s a test to see how many ads you can stuff on one page and still make it look “classy”. They seem to be breaking their own advertising rules of ads per page – though, suddenly, I have an odd urge to look at the new T-Mobile tablet.
Next stop – Huffington Post.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
As soon as I read The Daily Beast story about Facebook’s alleged smear (whisper) campaign against Google, I immediately thought of the scene in “All The President’s Men” with all the newspaper editors sitting around deciding which stories to run the next day.
When Watergate is brought up, there is stiff resistance from a couple of the editors.
This scene (replacing ‘Watergate’ with ‘Facebook’) could easily have played out at The Daily Beast with the change of a few words in the screenplay:
INT. THE DAILY BEAST – BUDGET MEETING
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: Let me tell you what happened when I was having lunch today at Locanda Verde–
TINA BROWN: Correction – when you were drinking your lunch at the bar of Locanda Verde–
The room erupts in laughter.
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: –this Facebook guy, a good one, a pro, came up and asked what is the “Google smear” compulsion with you guys and I said, well, we think it’s important and he said, if it’s so goddamn important, who the hell is Dan Lyons?
INNOVATION EDITOR: Fake Steve Jobs for one – but I digress. Ask him what he’s really saying – he means to take the story away from Dan Lyons and give it to his people at the Sexy Beast.
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: Well, I’ve got some pretty experienced people sitting around, wouldn’t you say so?
INNOVATION EDITOR: Absolutely, and that’s all they do, sit sit sit – every once in a while they reprint Michael Arrington, some reporting–
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: Well, what if Dan Lyons get it wrong–
TINA BROWN: Then it’s Barry Diller’s ass, isn’t it? And we’ll all have to go work for a living.
The room clears, only a couple of Editors and Tina Brown stay behind:
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: I don’t think we should cover this story, period.
TINA BROWN: Go on.
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: It’s not that we’re using unnamed sources that bothers me, or that everything we print Facebook denies.
TINA BROWN: What then?
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: I don’t believe the goddamn story, Tina, it doesn’t make sense.
TINA BROWN: It will, it just hasn’t bottomed out yet, give it time.
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: Look, why would Facebook do it? My God, Google is self-destructing before our eyes – just like MySpace did, Friendster, the bunch of ’em. Why would Burson-Marsteller send emails to bloggers urging them to write negative stories about Google, unless they wanted to get caught? Why would Burson go to Politico, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post, unless they wanted to get caught?
TINA BROWN: Are you saying Google started a whisper campaign against itself?
SEXY BEAST EDITOR: Jill Kennedy at OnMedea thinks it’s possible – Google needs some positive press, corruption’s always a good one. Get off the story, Tina – or put some people on Google’s public relations team – fair is fair, even in our business.
—————————————-
Hey, we’re early enough in this conspiracy where all theories are in play.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Click here to read the scene from the original script of “All The President’s Men”
You had a really great thing going, Arianna.
The Huffington Post was one of the more exciting and visually striking destination sites on the Internet. There was a fantastic sense of community – a “we’re-all-in-this-together” kind of feeling that will be nearly impossible to replicate anywhere else.
Whenever I went to the Huffington Post (before the buy-out), I could literally see the hustle and the bustle (new stories posted by the minute with user comments multiplying before your eyes).
You rallied and recruited celebrities and experts who blogged about subjects that were important to them. So important they didn’t want or need to be paid. Huge communities sprung up overnight on hundreds of topics. It was an amazing success story.
But it’s gone.
You cashed out.
You became an employee of AOL. AOL? One of the most hated brands in the world.
When I go to the Huffington Post now, the excitement is gone.
Topics have been slashed. HP content is painfully lacking in any kind of passion. The only interesting things to read are those that are reposted (some say stolen) from other websites.
You alienated those that meant the most to you – the celebrities and citizen bloggers – because you couldn’t share the wealth. You became irrelevant and for what? $315 million (for which, reports say, you received $18 million). You were already rich. Was it worth that extra $18 million to become irrelevant?
Dumb question. We all need an extra $18 million. But politically you are nothing now – just another rich person on the cocktail party circuit (which may have been all you wanted anyway).
As for AOL… there’s really nothing to say. It will always be AOL. And that’s who you work for, Arianna.
I guess if things really go into the shitter, you can always write columns for the Brentwood Patch.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
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… Ben Silverman doesn’t. He really thinks he gets it but we know he doesn’t – and I seriously doubt Mob Wives will get him to the Promise Land of creating a next generation media business model.
But LEO LAPORTE (founder and chief guru of twit.tv – or This Week In Technology) GETS IT!
Please watch this 40 minute speech (which I previously posted in October 2009 – but I think deserves a second look) he gave to the Online News Association and you’ll see what I mean.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
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From where I sit at my breakfast nook in La Canada, California, 3,000 miles from IAC’s headquarters in New York, Barry Diller seems to be getting tired of it all.
Yesterday, when I listened to IAC’s earnings call, I got the sense that Mr. Diller could care less about what he’s doing these days. His answers were short and he seemed generally distracted and uninterested.
When IAC was formed a few years ago, it was all very exciting. A promising collection of digital assets that would destroy old media. Mr. Diller was on the cutting-edge of this brave new media world, leaving his dinosaur studio pals in the dust with their “movies” and “television shows”.
But it hasn’t quite worked out that way.
Mr. Diller has been a true visionary throughout his career and now it’s sort of sad to see him relegated to Q&A about the slowing growth at Match.com; the boring future potential of local search; and Ben Silverman’s new company.
All this while old media is staging a huge comeback and grabbing all the headlines: “‘Avatar’ breaks worldwide box office record.” “Super Bowl XLIV is the most-watched television event ever.”
All this makes me think: Is Barry Diller tired of it? Is this really the future he imagined in 1991 after driving across the country with his Apple Powerbook? Dating websites and CollegeHumor?
Who knows? Maybe he really enjoys talking business with Ricky Van Veen.
In my opinion, it’s time for Mr. Diller to jump in the car with an Apple iPad and drive across the country again.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Ben Silverman is making this way too easy.
IAC has released the logo for Ben Silverman’s world-changing, earth-shattering, ground-breaking new venture – Electus.
In my opinion, it is the perfect logo for the company. Everything you need to know about Electus and its future success is represented in the design of that logo.
Accompanying the logo (on the IAC website – Electus.com is… still to come) is a new description of the company. (Could we be getting close to launch?): “Led by founder Ben Silverman, Electus is a next generation studio enabling premium content creators to engage with advertising and technology partners at the inception of the creative process and partner on the finished product across a global and multi-platform distribution model.
“Electus is defining an innovative advertising component, which will challenge the traditional entertainment silos, allowing content creators and branding partners to develop premium programs and reach audiences like never before. The content will be distributed globally through the Electus international distribution arm as well as across a multitude of analog and digital platforms.”
Because nothing says “Next Generation” like a logo with A HORSE AND BUGGY ON IT!
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
P.S. – Ben Silverman is the upcoming keynote speaker at MIPTV this year. Because he is busy changing the world, I have taken the liberty of penning his speech for him.
At the upcoming Super Bowl in Miami, 22 players are absolutely necessary to play the game. Apparently, 22 producers are absolutely necessary to make “Hesher” – an independent film premiering at the Sundance Film Festival (and just picked up for distribution by Newmarket) starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman.
There’s a fixed joke in Hollywood that you can’t throw a rock without hitting a screenwriter. It seems, for those of us inclined to throw rocks, you can’t throw a rock at Sundance without hitting an independent film producer.
What happens if, by some chance, “Hesher” gets nominated for an Academy Award next year. Only three producers are allowed on the ballot and actually receive the award. What happens to the other 19 and what is the process for weeding it down to three? Wouldn’t that be a great reality show?
And “Hesher” is not an isolated case. It appears to be a trend.
Here are three films that were at the Sundance Film Festival and the number of Producers that were necessary to produce them.
Hesher (22 Producers – including “Executive” and “Co”-Producers)
The Kids Are All Right (starring Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo – 13 Producers)
The Romantics (starring Katie Holmes and Josh Duhamel – 11 Producers)
Look, I’m sure all these people played a vital role in their respective films’ journey to the screen… or not (only those on the production really know what’s going on here). But a Producer credit used to be highly-coveted and very difficult to get – in most cases after years of paying dues and working up the cinematic ladder.
Today, it seems, the credit is handed out like film festival swag. Now, when I meet someone who says they are a producer on an independent film, I am inclined to say “Oh, really, what, did you deliver the food?”
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
A couple of moments ago, I went to AOL.com to see what fresh content they had put up today and was greeted with a heartbreaking headline about four missing American college students in Haiti who were on a humanitarian mission when the earthquake struck last week.
Then, just as I was going to click-through to read about the parents’ anguished search for their children… The Human Target – Premiering On Fox – burst through the story headline with digital flames and bullet holes.
Call me crazy, and I realize it’s hard to pick and chose which stories get the full animated advertising treatment, but this seems a little inappropriate to me.
Can’t The Human Target just burst through Ben Silverman and Jeff Zucker stories?
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea