Andrew vs Justin

I was at the AlwaysOn conference in LA today. I was on a panel that was sparsely attended and not very organized. We didn't have a host/moderator. Bummer. And the panels were behind schedule so my friend Chris Fralic had to bail from our panel for his next one. Double bummer. I was feeling grumpy. Oh well.

But before my panel I saw Justin go head to head with/against Andrew Keen. Andrew has a book coming out called the Cult of the Amateur. He made the argument over and over and over again, that social media is killing our culture.

I don't want this post to sound like an attack but I really couldn't believe it. Andrew believes that MySpace, bloggers, and others contributing to our social media revolution are not qualified to contribute to the conversation. His point was that Digg and MySpace were going to lead the downfall of the NYTimes and other traditional media sources.

I'm not kidding. He cited the usual complaints about Wikipedia as an example. He said it was appalling that Pamela Anderson Wikipedia entry was longer than some historical events.

Andrew believes that some of us are qualified to be part of the conversation and others aren't. I wonder if he has a list published in his book of those that can and can't. He even suggested that the government and the role of big media should maintain standards -  otherwise we will have an internet full of pornography and gambling. Huh? I was waiting for him to qualify who should and shouldn't vote based on intelligence.

Anyway, I'm sorry if this post feels like a rant. I don't know Andrew and I'm sure he's a good dude. Maybe he was just trying to be provocative to sell copies of his new book. I guess I'm used to being a little bored at these events so this one touched a nerve.

I think justin and justin.tv are interesting and fun (isn't fun okay too?). 

Do I want to watch Justin.tv? Not really. It's not for me.

But obviously I'm a fan of personal publishing. We are still in the early days of where this is all going. And it great. As a simple example, I would love to broadcast my kids ballet recital or soccer games to our family members and close friends all over the planet.

I think what Justin is doing is actually a big deal. I like that he's pushing the bounds. We should pay attention and learn something here.

Go Justin.

Comments

[amin]

Sounds to me like he is just trying to sell books with some shockingly backwards thinking.

[Mike D]

This guy Keen just floors me. I came across this interview a few weeks ago and thought it was a joke.
http://www.strumpette.com/archives/351-Impending-Cluetrain-Wreck-Predicted.html

He actually puts citizen media in the same category as porn, gambling, etc.

"I expose the dangers not only of "citizen media" like blogging and wikis, but also of online pornography, gambling and identity theft. These are issues that have a significant impact on real people's lives and need to be publicly discussed and debated."

[Jay (living in First Life)]

Bijan and Mike - I think you're both missing the real point. The world needs someone as extreme as him to get us thinking about the circle j___ that's going on. Seriously now, do you really think Justin.tv is churning out quality content? Why is its viewership so low? Why was Justin Kan so arrogant in his remarks.

I agree that Andrew is a bit of a loony. Whatever. There are a lot of people like Michael Arrington and Co who rave about every mindless, worthless app the folks at Y-Combinator churn out. Whatever happened to entrepreneurs trying to solve real problems?

A lot of what Andrew is saying is completely off base but his ending remark was a classic - "oh don't talk about that" when he was referring to advertising as a viable model to support high-quality content. We really need to ask ourselves why we're so afraid to charge people for good content. Not everything can be supported by advertising.

Bijan - tell me you subscribe to VentureWire and other paid subscription services. Do you think they could make it up by going ad-based? Of course not.

If you have crap content like Justin.tv, then sure, throw it up, see if it gets anywhere. For each ad-supported success like TechCrunch, there are 10,000 complete failures. The problem with ad-supported models is that it creates a mad dash to build lots of traffic and switching costs (with the exception of something like a Facebook) are low. The viewership is fickle and we've made readers used to free content. Great some would say. I think what Andrew is really trying to say is that something is lost when everything is free. Not everyone lives in the echosphere gentleman.

[bijan]

Jay-

I have lots of issues with what Andrew stated during the panel but to be clear the point of my post isn't about Andrew's views on ad based biz models. That's antoher topic all together :)

My specific disagreement is with Andrew's belief/statements that social media is going to corrupt society and his view that we shouldn't have it.

Obviously i disagree and since you called him a loony (not me btw) than I assume you don't agree with him either.

Hope that helps clarify my view on this but happy to chat more about it of course.

[Chris Yeh]

If you want to broadcast your kids' ballet recitals and soccer games, try Ustream (www.ustream.tv). You'll find all of those on Ustream, plus church services, weddings, conferences, and more.

--Chris Yeh (Ustream investor)

[Chris Brogan...]

I think Keen's work is something of an interesting hand grenade into a big community of Kool Aid drinkers (no actual negative meant to the Kool Aid brand, who makes a fine fruit-like flavored powder). I think he's basically stirring up the bees.

This isn't a bad thing. When there's friction, there's a chance for fire. And fire moves this, changes things, destroys things, warms things up.

Let him speak, but let US figure out what we're going to say back to him that doesn't sound like, "Oh yeah? Well you're dumb!"

Chris, who was in the audience with you and sorry we didn't meet. : )

[Tim]

I watched the panel over streaming media for a while and found it relatively entertaining, as people were getting worked up and taking Keen much more seriously than he had any right to be taken, but most of his points, which had a grain of truth, felt pretty cynically calculated to provoke, annoy, and drive book sales and the building of a Keen brand. Of course two things were weakening the points he was making for me, even as he spoke:

(1) I found out about the panel because of a Twitter post by Chris Brogan. That trusted personal media source was more effective in getting me to watch than the hundreds of poorly aimed big-media-style broadsides AlwaysOn had been peppering me with for weeks. Score one for social media.

(2) I quickly became bored with the production of the official video feed and popped over to Justin.tv, which I only really check out at times like this. It was more interesting to see them unguarded and backstage, and then to see what Justin was looking at -- the audience, the monitor, the other panelists, while Keen ranted.

(3) After a while I had to switch off and go work on our project with Joshua Micah Marshall (Veracifier!). Here's a journalist -- someone who would be unimpeachable even by Keen's standards -- using blogging and crowdsourcing and now, videoblogging, in an incredibly sophisticated way to run circles around traditional newsgathering operations, owning story after story. Maybe blogging isn't the death of reporting and journalism. With new techniques, lots of interest, and people like Josh able to pay the bills and stay free of interference, maybe it's the beginning of a new explosion.

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I'm not kidding. He cited the usual complaints about Wikipedia as an example. He said it was appalling that Pamela Anderson Wikipedia entry was longer than some historical events.