Blogs are pretty much like my column was, except of course that I was edited by people who had my back when it came to spelling, grammar and just plain making sense.
The Web has irrevocably changed the entire culture (insert "no duh" comment here, you know you want to), not just pop culture. Presumably smaller and smaller enterprises can succeed because the Web lowers the bar to entry. This blog, for instance, is a free product. It doesn't cost me anything, except time, to put up. This free content is somehow monetized by the company that gives me the opportunity to put it up.
The big change is that whatever money is made is disconnected from the work that went into providing this content.
That wasn't the case when I did it in print. I was an employee and the monetization of content - essentially the advertising revenue - was passed on to me in the form of a salary, so I was monetizing, too.
The Web is killing print, so that model I used to work under is working for fewer and fewer people at my end of the spectrum. Stars of whatever medium will always be well-rewarded (well, maybe not the stars of poetry in the Western world), but the paying opportunities that used to exist for thousands upon thousands of good writers are rapidly diminishing because the Web is, well, worldwide and creates a downward income curve that seems counterintuitive.
As print-media outlets drastically cut the size of their staffs or fold into oblivion, the Web does not offer localized information sources that have an income model that can support anything like the staffs that had been employed at newspapers and magazines.
The Web detaches place from the business equation.
Oh sure, if you have a business that can only work by being in a brick-and-mortar location, like a restaurant or a bar, you're golden in the age of the Web, and you can actually cut your advertising costs by putting up your own Web site and incorporating the right keywords to drive search-engine users to your local establishment.
But Amazon.com is an example of just the opposite. With modern delivery systems, including real-world services like FedEx and virtual delivery via Kindle, there's no need for a brick-and-mortar location to sell from. All you need is a site that's a glorified mail-order catalog, continuously updated and with a virtually unlimited inventory accessible at a moment's notice. Whether you're searching for an obscure or a popular book, the process is fairly easy and almost the same, and you don't have to go to the store. It's right there at the end of your fingertips.
City magazines and newspapers are place-oriented, and to date they've offered the only viable opportunity to underwrite the cost of gathering news information through primarily local advertising. But now that viability is gone because advertisers - whether Mom-and-Pop businesses, big-bucks corporations or some guy who's trying to sell his old truck - are fleeing to the Web, where results are more immediate, more apparent and less costly.
So while there are plenty of entrepreneurial types who are putting up local Web sites that provide local information, none of them (at least, that I know of) is able to provide more than a few writing jobs and those at relatively low pay.
As Will Dana, managing editor of Rolling Stone, recently wrote in his "Editor's Notes" column: "Maybe Homeland Security should be helping to keep the print media alive. A few years from now, there's a good chance there won't be many newspapers left - if any. So what happens when some cyber-terrorist zaps the Internet or takes out a couple of satellites, and suddenly there's no communications infrastructure? This is not such an outlandish thought - deep in the Pentagon, there are people who do nothing but worry about these things. Aren't you going to wish someone was throwing the paper on your doorstep?"
Scary times indeed Sal. Hope you're doing alright!
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you. All is well, so far.
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