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April 25, 2005

Satellite Radio

In the Tuesday, April 17 edition of the Wall Street Journal, in the “Advertising” column by Brain Steinberg and Christopher Lawton, a headline screamed, “Satellite Radio Latches on to Ads” with a sub-head, “Martha Stewart Living To Launch Sirius Channel; Pitches to Be Part of Shows.” Neither the headlines nor the column tell the whole story.

The three lead paragraphs were: “Yesterday’s announcement that Martha Stewart’s Living Omnimedia will launch a 24-hour radio channel on Sirius Satellite Radio wasn’t just a sign that Ms. Stewart has been busy since she got out of jail.
It’s also the latest indication that Sirius—which along with its rival XM Satellite Radio started life as a refuge from the constant blare of commercials on traditional radio—is becoming more and more dependent on advertising.
In announcing the four-year agreement, Sirius Chief Executive Mel Karmazin said, ‘Martha Stewart Living Radio will have a great appeal to women who are completely underserved by terrestrial radio.’”

What Karmazin didn’t announce was that Martha Stewart first approached Sirius’s arch competitor, XM Satellite Radio, with her offer of doing a Martha Stewart Living channel for $7.5 million a year for four years. Martha would record some musings as she drove in from her estate in Westchester County to her office in New York. XM passed, thinking it wasn’t worth $7.5 million for an hour or so a day of unscripted Martha musings and that it wasn’t enough to fill an entire 24-hour channel, even though Stewart proposed filling in with other typical Stewart content.

Sirius paid $100 million a year for five years to Howard Stern for his program, so Martha understood the greater fool theory and went to Sirius. Sirius also overpaid for NFL Football—paid more for 20 weeks of once-a-week pro football (including playoffs and the Super Bowl) than XM paid for 162 games of MLB. MLB is a much better deal because baseball is more suitable for radio than pro football is and the season is much longer—more inventory.

The fierce competition between Sirius and XM for content is good for consumers, because it will cause them to keep commercial loads down on their talk channels, keep their music channels commercial free, and not to charge premiums for popular personalities such as Stern and Stewart. I predicted at the time of the Stern deal that Sirius would follow XM’s lead in charging a monthly premium for Stern like XM was doing for their morning personalities Opie and Anthony. But in the face of subscriber protest, XM stopped charging a premium and in the heat of battle, Sirius will not be able to charge a premium for Stern.

Also, Sirius’s strategy is not to charge extra for Stern, but it will use Stern to drive subscriptions and listening so it can sell advertising in Stern’s show. Karmazin figures there is more money to made selling advertising, one of his specialties (kindness isn’t).

Karmazin has overpaid before. When he was building Infinity Radio, which took over CBS Radio and Westinghouse Radio, he paid too much for major-market radio stations. In order to service the huge resultant debt, Infinity added commercials and cut expenses to the bone, hurting the stations’ growth. This year Viacom wrote down the value of the Infinity radio station a whopping $10.9 billion—Karmazin’s legacy at Viacom in addition to a huge amount of ill will.

When Karmazin became President of CBS, he would over-estimate the upfront market and arrogantly demand unreasonable price increases, which CBS later had to back down on. In the April 11 issue of Advertising Age, in a front-page interview, Karmazin pulled the same old trick. Scott Donaton, Advertising Age’s editor conducted the interview with Mel and wrote, “Sirius Satellite Radio’s ad revenue will rocket from $1 million to $100 million by 2007, CEO Mel Karmazin predicts…” Increase by a factor of 100 in just two years?

In the May 2 issue of FORTUNE, about Viacom’s CEO Sumner Redstone titled “The Sumner of Love,” Redstone said of Karmazin, “You can’t run a company that way…penny pinching, starving the company, and making people unhappy.” Marc Gunther, who wrote the FORTUNE story, like a good reporter should, obviously asked Karmazin for his reaction. Always the respectful gentleman, Karmazin was quoted as saying, “Sumner Redstone is full of shit.”

Well, after seeing the recent deals and predictions he’s made for Sirius, I think it’s not only safe but also appropriate to say, “ So are you, Mel.”

Posted by Charles Warner at 12:29 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

Charles Warner at April 28, 2005 07:09 PM writes:

Baseball is more profitable for XM to sell because there a lot more games over a longer period of time, which gives XM more time to sell. XM can't sell spots within the games (they will be carrying local feeds) but in a hub-type scoreboard and highlights program. Also, by having MLB, XM will be able to attract more subscribers for baseball than Sirius can for football, I think.

You're right, satellite radio's biggest competition for music listening are iPods. However, there will enough of an audience for the two satellite radio services even to get a shard of the fragmented media pie. Advertisers will invest in satellite radio in order to reach an upscale, younger audience as they continue to flee from terrestrial radio.


Chuck at April 27, 2005 10:15 AM writes:

I'm a little confused about the football argument. Yes, baseball has more games and probably more audience (although the audience is older -- does this matter as much in radio as much as in television?). But Sirius and XM aren't only competing against each other. They're competing against I-pods. I mean, if you can have 20,000 tunes arranged however you want, what do you need a radio for?

It seems to me that both stations are looking for unique programming. Football (sports in general) is worth a lot of money not because it is better than baseball, but because it is something that you can't do with a podcast. And with baseball gone, football becomes more rather than less valuable to Sirius. That's probably the Martha Stewart thinking as well.

As you say, XM and Sirius will both survive because they are congressionally mandated to survive, so they aren't exactly competing with each other. And I'm not convinced that satellite radio has enough of an advantage over other forms of media to really make much of an imprint on the landscape. But I'm usually wrong about media matters -- I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.
They're competing will all other media.


Helen Johannesen at April 25, 2005 12:24 PM writes:

Great blog! I think it is going to be very interesting how this whole Sirius/XM is going to play out. I recently saw an XM radio for the first time in person, and frankly I was not that impressed. Sure you can curse and use profanity, and listen to any baseball game, but between the categories and sub-categories of the stations, the "box" if you will, I wonder how extrodinarily different it is. The whole concept seems to have a split marketing strategy towards either people who can't pick their own music. Who need stations like 117 called "eclectic" (WHAT does that mean??) and other people who may want to escape ads (not for long) but also enjoy some sort of perversity. Or I am wrong? And then there are people who get tickled pink that they can get traffic reports from anywhere in the coutry and sports from any city.


Charles Warner at April 25, 2005 12:15 PM writes:

Yes, the two are playing chicken. Game theory suggests that the way to win a game of chicken is for one combatant to convince the other that he (a he, not she, because only testosterone-laced males are dumb enough to play the deadly game) is irrational and won't make the rational decision of backing down to avoid death.

But Sirius's irrational exuberance won’t scare the rational XM out of the game. Here’s why: 1) The FCC approved only two satellite signals to cover the US with footprints. So there are and will be two and only two competitors in the game and they can’t merge, because the FCC wouldn’t approve it—the government wants two competitors (and no more). 2) They won’t merge for business reasons because Sirius has taken on too much debt with its programming costs and there would be no reason for XM to take on that burden, especially when it will become profitable sometime before 2007 (a rational estimate, as opposed to Karmazin’s irrational estimates). 3) There is too much bad blood between the two to ever get along (look what happened to AOL and Time Warner). 4) They have two totally different strategic views of the world. Sirius will sell based on an old-fashioned radio-based CPM approach and XM will sell on a modern sponsorship and integration approach—never the twain will meet.

I think there will be room in the future for two satellite radio services because people are tuning out of terrestrial radio because of cookie-cutter programming, lack of innovation, and, mostly, too many commercials (a movement largely led by Karmazin at Infinity—ironic, eh?). Sirius can hang on for a couple more years, but I think its end game is to sell to a large media company—a company who can afford to sustain the losses for another five years until the medium reaches maturity and it can cut back on its programming costs after current, bloated contracts have expired.


Jesse Kornbluth at April 25, 2005 11:16 AM writes:

This seems like a game of "chicken." Hard to imagine both companies surving such a spending frenzy.

Do you see a merger in their future?


April 18, 2005

More On Internet Pricing

Last week I blogged on click fraud and wrote that I believed the problem was caused by performance-based pricing. Recently another pricing issue has come to the forefront, primarily by means of Jay Rosen’s intelligent blog, Press Think.

I read Press Think regularly and assign it as required reading in the Media Ethics class I teach at the New School University. I think Rosen is a brilliant thinker about journalism even though he gave me an F in blogging in February when he believed I didn’t accurately reflect his views about why the New York Times bought About.com. I let it pass because I know better than to get in a pissing match with someone as smart as he is. His April 14 blog entry titled “Q & A with Bill Grueskin, Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal Online” was one of his best and I urge you to read it if you are interested in issues about pricing for content on the Internet.
Rosen writes, “The rumblings are growing louder. They suggest that the New York Times will soon start charging for its online edition, or at least for parts of the site...Every time I hear one of these reports--and I get them a lot--it is accompanied by news of an internal struggle at the New York Times Company over the future of the online edition, which is also about the soul of the journalism-to-come: free or paid or a mixed republic?

A major factor in those debates is the success the Wall Street Journal has had with its paying-customers-only policy for the online service. Figures released today show that WSJ.com subscribers are at 731,000, or 5.2% above the same quarter last year. That means the Journal's online edition has a paid list larger than paid print circulation at all but six newspapers in the U.S. (A subscription costs $79 a year, or $39 if you already subscribe to the Journal on paper.) Meanwhile, traffic keeps growing. Total usage this quarter--the number of subscribers coming to the site each day--is up 20 percent over last year.”

He goes on in his interview with Grueskin to ask, “Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing has written: ‘why not charge money for the news (which lots of people want to pay for!) and give away the history (which relatively few people want to buy)?’ He quotes Dan Gillmor:
One of these days, a newspaper currently charging a premium for access to its article archives will do something bold: It will open the archives to the public -- free of charge but with keyword-based advertising at the margins.

I predict that the result will pleasantly surprise the bean-counters. There'll be a huge increase in traffic at first, once people realize they can read their local history without paying a fee. Eventually, though not instantly, the revenues will greatly exceed what the paper had been earning under the old system. Meanwhile, the expenses to run it will drop.

And, perhaps most important, the newspaper will have boosted its long-term place in the community. It will be seen, more than ever, as the authoritative place to go for some kinds of news and information -- because it will have become an information bedrock in this too-transient culture. (See also PressThink, Jan 28.)”

So the gauntlet is thrown down—pay for new or old content or should new or old content be free? It seems to me this is a pretty straightforward case of competitive pricing strategy and has little to do with journalism or the silly notion that “information wants to be free.” It wants to be free for freeloaders but not for those who create information.

There are some bloggers (information providers) who give it away free, but most of them I know of have day jobs (Rosen at NYU, Jeff Jarvis is president and creative director of Conde Nast’s Advance.net, Glen Reynolds of Instapundit is a law professor at the University of Tennessee, e.g.). Others pine for advertising (Daily Kos, Gawker, Wonkette, e.g.). However, individual bloggers don’t have the kind of huge traffic the New York Times’ Web site or the Wall Journal’s Web site have. So the problem is how should newspapers and magazines charge for content.

I think the Wall Street Journal is doing it right—charging more for non-subscribers than non-subscribers. I think $79 a year ($6.58 a month) seems about right as does $39 ($3.35 a month), which means it generates about $43 million a year in online subscription revenue—enough hire several journalists. The WSJ can get away with charging because it has a unique, premium brand. Consumers have always paid more for premium brands--that’s the whole point of advertising--and consumers will continue to pay premiums on the Internet for high-quality content. I think its price of $2.95 for an article over a month old is about right too. But “right” is not the correct concept—“competitive” is. The New York Times also charges $2.95 for articles more than a month old.

I think the Times should start charging the same as the Wall Street Journal does—the WSJ has set the pricing precedent, so follow suit. Initially, the price increase will cut down traffic, which will reduce ad revenue, but as in the magazine business, advertisers prefer magazines that charge for subscriptions over books that are free because when people pay for content, they pay more attention to it and are more likely to read more of it. Also, advertisers would prefer a subscription model because the demos would be better—more upscale.

What I think the Times would discover is that articles on business might not get generate much income (few would prefer the NYT’s business coverage of that of the WSJ—brand preference, not necessarily a content preference), but that the NYT’s coverage and criticism of the arts, music, theater, dance, architecture, and books would generate significant revenue. In other words, people will pay for the best coverage and thinking on specific topics. If I were positioning the Times, I would let the WSJ have the business and economics niche and claim the NY local political news, arts, books, etc. as my niches—do what you do best. Let the New York Post have the gossip niche with its Page Six.

I would then make a deal with Atlantic magazine, The New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books to combine their Web sites with the New York Times Magazine and charge $120 a year for Web subscriptions to the combined site and $4.95 for articles over a year old. Advertisers would drool over the demos of this elitist Web content and they would pay high CPMs. The Times would have been a lot better off buying Atlantic and the New York Review of Books and even the Paris Review than About.com—more compatible content and demos.
If the NY Times doesn’t start charging subscription fees they will slowly lose its newspaper (or dinosaur blog) circulation to its Web site. The newspaper will inevitably lose circulation, but slower if it charges subscription fees for Web content. It can make up for lower ad revenue on its Web site because of reduced traffic with higher CPMs and with subscription revenue. It better make the change soon, too, because the longer it waits, the more furious online readers will become.

However, I suspect that the egos of those in charge at the NYT will not allow it to copy what the WSJ is doing. They are good at old fashioned newspapering; however, they need to bone up on marketing, differentiation, pricing strategy, and best Web pricing practices—and soon.

Posted by Charles Warner at 02:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

Terry at April 22, 2005 06:07 PM writes:

Agreed.

T Lane

www.terrancemlane.blogspot.com


Jokes in the NYT Weekly Review

Sunday, April 17, 2005. New York - Hurry, Hurry, get your jokes right here! Yes, the Gray Lady (or as my friend Bill Grimes would say, the Pink Lady) has introduced another innovation into its Sunday "Weekly Review" section--jokes.

Last week the NYT introduced a three-page "Opinion" section within the Weekly Review--one page of editorials and letters to the editor and two pages of columns (these columns used to be referred to as op-ed columns, but now I guess they'll be behind-ed columns). The Times moved Frank Rich to Sunday and moved Maureen Dowd out of Sunday. A demotion for Dowd and promotion for Rich? Whadda' you think?

This week on page two, under the heading of "This Week," the times ran pictures of Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien, and Dennis Miller and under each picture three jokes from last week (except for Stewart there was only one long one about Gingrich). Is the Gray Lady finally admitting that these five comedians have become the journal of record, especially for young people--you know those people who grew up watching MTV and who don't read the New York Times? Is the Times finally admitting that if you want to know what's important in the news, you watch Leno or Letterman?

I'm delighted that the Times is printing these jokes from the big five and hope it continues. I never watch live TV, although my wife TiVOs Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" and I watch it occasionally, especially when there is something important in the news so that I can learn what’s gong on without all the spin that comes from news sources that the Times and other news organizations print. I also am glad to learn what younger people are learning and think is important. Finally, I’m thrilled to be able to get the important news in a few short jokes so I don’t have to read the book-length articles (and columns) in the Times.

If you’re in a hurry, then hurry, hurry and get your news via the jokes in the Sunday New York Times. This could be a fabulous innovation and, let’s hope, a trend.

Posted by Charles Warner at 12:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

April 14, 2005

Winning

I got my first management job in 1964 as sales manager of WTOP-AM in Washington, D.C. and started reading books on management to learn how to manage, because no one had ever given me any training on how to do it. I then became Eastern Sales Manager and then General Manager of CBS Radio Spot Sales. By the time I left CBS in 1972, I had read all the books on management that Peter Drucker had written and at least a dozen other management books. I devoured books on the subject because I though they would make me a better manager and help me get promoted.

Books did help a little in giving me a foundation in management theory, but I had to learn the practice of management (the name of Drucker’s first best-selling book) by doing it. I continued to read the latest books on management as I struggled through several radio station general managers jobs in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and New York. When I was fired from NBC’s WNBC-AM in New York, where my program director was Bob Pittman, I still wanted to learn more about management (mostly to see what I had done wrong) so I kept reading more management books while I got my master’s degree in journalism and did my Ph.D. work in media management. By the time I had finished the literature review for my dissertation, which I never finished because I couldn’t get excited about doing all the field-study research, I think I had read almost every meaningful management book written in the twentieth century, and every book on media management (my unfinished dissertation topic) that was in print.

I joined academia in 1983 and taught media management and leadership courses at Menlo College and the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where I taught media management, media economics, and media sales courses until I retired in 1998 in order to join AOL (Bob Pittman was kind enough to hire me). I left AOL in 2002 and went back to teaching media management and leadership, media economics, and competitive strategy courses at the Missouri Journalism School and The New School University. I continued to read as many management books as I could and read every issue of the best magazine, by far, on management—The Harvard Business Review.

I guess the point of all of this rambling is that I read a lot of management books not only because I am still passionate about the subject but also to keep up on the latest theories and practices so I can keep my students up to date. The books that are currently required reading in my graduate media management courses are: Built to Last, Good to Great, Leading Change, Primal Leadership, Execution, and The Strategy Focused Organization, along with about five or six articles from The Harvard Business Review.

I’ve just finished listening on my iPod to Jack Welsh’s new book, Winning, written by Welsh and his new wife and the ex-editor of The Harvard Business Review, Suzy Welsh (previously Suzy Wetlaufer). I also bought a hard copy of the book, and there is a blurb on the cover that reads: “No other management book will ever be needed.” - Warren E. Buffett.

I agree. It’s the best book I’ve ever read on management and leadership. It combines all the wisdom of a century of management books in a succinct, straight-from-the-shoulder style. If you are interested in management or are in management, buy it and read it today and begin to memorize it. Every page has an important practical lesson.

I predict Winning will soon go to the top of the non-fiction best-seller list and stay there longer than Good to Great, the current champ. The tragedy will be that too many CEOs, especially egomaniacal, me-first big media company CEOs, will ignore Welsh’s performance-oriented, results-oriented, and meritocracy-oriented wisdom. But if CEOs don’t read Winning and their managers do, rebellions will flourish because the managers will understand that they have nothing to lose but their self-centered bosses. Welsh gives the blueprint for winning and if CEOs don’t follow it, don’t follow them.

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

April 12, 2005

More On Click Fraud

The blog Search Engine Lowdown has an excellent entry titled "Click Fraud Uncovered." If you're interested in the topic, I recommend it highly. The blog author quotes Joe Holcomb, who is the Senior Vice President of Marketing for BlowSearch and who claims in his blog that major search engine management isn't eager to correct click fraud because search engines such as Google and Yahoo make a lot of money when clicks are fraudulently goosed up.

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

April 11, 2005

Click Fraud Was Inevitable

There has been a lot of flurry lately about click fraud, but it was inevitable because click-through was never a good metric for measuring the effectiveness of online advertising.

The Wall Street Journal had a front-page story on Wednesday, April 6, by Kevin Delaney, titled,” In ‘Click Fraud,’ Web Outfits Have a Costly Problem” and a sub-head that read, “Marketers Worry About Bills Inflated by People Gaming The Search-Ad System.” Delaney’s story goes on to explain what click fraud is (unscrupulous companies send out spiders to run up unproductive clicks on competitors’ search ads) and how it works. The reporter gives examples of refunds one advertiser got from Yahoo and Google because of “unusual clicks” and “invalid click activity.”

Delaney writes, “Click fraud is the latest problem plaguing the Internet, alongside spam, identity theft and online-auction fraud. Some believe about 20% if clicks are from people not necessarily interested in the product advertised, and therefore in the industry’s view, fraudulent.” But click fraud was inevitable because pricing Internet advertising based on click-through is and always has been wrongheaded—it not only encourages fraud but also undervalues Internet advertising.

There are several methods of pricing Internet advertising, as author and AOL sales executive Vince Thompson details in his chapter on Interactive selling in my textbook, Media Selling: Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-acquisition, cost-per-registration (CPR), cost-per-trial (CPT). All but CPM are performance–based pricing models, which advertisers prefer because they transfer the risk of advertising from advertisers to Web publishers. Performance-based pricing also fails to give any value to either the branding or awareness value of an Interactive ad, whether it’s a search link or a 160 X 600 pixel tower ad (standard Web units are defined and labeled by the Interactive Advertising Bureau).

By pushing the risk off to publishers and assigning no branding value to an ad impression, advertisers attempt to keep Interactive ad prices down, which is understandable, but it is also penny wise and pound foolish. Clicks don’t mean sales and all Internet ads, even one-line search ads on Google or Yahoo, have some branding value, which is why publishers such as AOL, MSN, and Yahoo (except for search ads) prefer CPM or other non-performance-based pricing models such as sponsorships, revenue sharing, or monthly placement fees.

When advertisers buy advertising other than search ads on a CPC model, they push risk off to publishers and typically don’t pay attention to creative execution, don’t change the creative enough, and simply don’t pay attention to their schedules, figuring that if no one clicks it’s the publisher’s problem because the publishers won’t get paid if no one clicks. When the CPC model is applied to search ads, advertisers often do not experiment with the small amount of copy in a search ad and, thus, miss an opportunity to increase clicks with better copy. Also, as we have seen, a CPC model leads to gaming the system because unscrupulous competitors can, and do, use spiders and other methods to substantially increase the clicks on competitors’ search ads, thus driving up their cost of advertising.

What pricing models are better than cost-per-click? Cost-per-acquisition models are better but are hell to administer and also incentivize cheating. Let’s say someone clicks on a search ad and buys something (and airline ticket, for example), then the airline has to keep track of all the acquisitions and pay the publisher on a monthly basis. But what if the buyer cancels the ticket or upgrades, the airline has to keep track of it all and there is a tendency (an incentive) to underreport transactions. A cost-per-impressions (CPM) model is best in my view because a CPM pricing model puts the risk of advertising on the advertiser, where it belongs, and, implicitly, monitizes the value of branding. In other words, if an Interactive ad runs, it has value regardless if anyone clicks on it or not.

I believe the current click-fraud problems Yahoo, Google, and their search advertisers are having will lead them to go to a CPM pricing model within a year. Because Yahoo has been more innovative on the sales side of the business and is run by a more business- savvy CEO, Terry Semel, than Google, I believe Yahoo will be the first to change its search pricing model to CPM, which will have a positive impact on its profits.

Posted by Charles Warner at 02:06 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

Charles Warner at April 15, 2005 02:54 PM writes:

Thanks for your intelligent comment, gregbo. I tend to agree that some form of flat or sponsorship rate not based on either impressions or clicks would be better for publishers, but I think advertisers would baulk on non-performance measurements. Perhaps a rate based on unique visitors would be acceptable to advetisers--that metric would be similar to magazines, which have a rate base based on audited circulation.


gregbo at April 13, 2005 11:37 PM writes:

In general, I agree with you, and have been saying this for at least
eight years. However, I don't see how CPM is any better than CPC,
because automated bots can still be written that generate lots of
impressions. My general feeling is that the SEs should just charge a
fixed fee per unit time for each ad. They do not have to guarantee
any # of impressions, nor do they have to limit the advertiser's
ability to run their own searches to check for placement, etc. If the
advertiser doesn't see a substantial increase in sales, they can
always discontinue the ad. Also, this will reduce the costs on the SE
of implementing fraud detection. The only question is how much money
should the advertiser pay per ad. They can still bid on keywords, if
they wish, although I imagine some advertisers would rather that their
ads be placed regardless of whether the ad is relevant to the search.
The SEs could allow this type of ad to run if it does not affect their
users' experience, and probably make more money, but if their users
wish only to see relevant results on the page, they'll just run
relevant ads. Still, no one is hurt.


federico riva at April 13, 2005 11:31 AM writes:

i totally agree with you. BTW, ppa models also suffer a lot for the 'cookie crisis'. Cookie are a veri inefficent way to track orders and leads. Only electronic coupon could substitute the cookie use or the 'less disabilited' SOs (Macromedia technology). Unfortunately, i guess that the ppc se will not re-switch to a ppi model, because they paradoxically gain much more with ppc. another short consideration; i think click fraud is not so 'dark' as the lack of transapency of the bids. With Google you cannot know how much do you oay more than other cusomers (and less too) and on overture and other ppc se you cannot know if the shown prices are real or not. so you can oay 1 cent more than one who is really paying 50 cents less than you.


April 09, 2005

Creeping Credibility for the Internet

I don't read the New York Times Book Review every Sunday, but most Sundays. This week in his "TBR: Inside the List" column Dwight Garner writes about Ian McEwan's new novel Saturday (the sub-head is "Warming up to McEwan") and Garner quotes Jesse Kornbluth:

"McEwan's novel, as Jesse Kornbluth writes on Bookreporter.com, takes over your life: 'You wish you didn't have to eat, you despise the ringing phone, you wouldn't mind if you had a catheter.'"

This is the first time I have seen the lofty Times quote an online source in the Book Review. In the same column, Garner quotes the Washington Post and NPR, both highly credible sources, in addition to Jesse in Bookreporter.com, which puts the Internet site on the same credibility level of the Washington Post and NPR.

In a comment on my 4/5 "No Way, Bob" blog, Jesse asked if CBS closes CBS News, as I had suggested, "will it adjust 'news standards' to the more relaxed standards of the Internet?" I wrote that the standards of legitimate news sites such as CNN, MSNBC, AP, Reuters, and others were high and were credible.

I think the fact that Garner in the Times quotes Bookreporter.com attests to the creeping credibility of the Internet.

And speaking of NPR and McEwan's Saturday, I listened to both on my iPod. I listen to podcasts of "On the Media," which won a well-deserved Peabody Award this week and "The Brian Leher Show" and "The Leonard Lopate Show".

Podcasting gives me "sovereignty over text" (an academic term for consumer control and choice) and overcomes the linear access limitations of the broadcast media and gives me the type of random access print and the Internet provide, which is a major reason why the Internet will slowly replace the linearly accessed broadcast and cable media unless radio, television, and cable can provide random access in the form of podcasting, video on demand, and tivoing. (It's interesting that tivoing is becoming a generic phrase just as xeroxing became a generic phrase for copying paper, now it's copying programming, but it's the same concept.)

I found that listening to audio books is in many wasys more satisfying for me than reading a book, but perhaps that's because I have an auditory learning style. But what this means is that I can now choose a content input system that matches my learning style. Is technology great, or what?

Let's hear it for the creeping credibility of the Internet, for McEwan's book Saturday, for Bookreporter.com, and for The New York Times for helping turn the creep into at least a fast walk.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

No Way, Bob Redux

Jesse Kornbluth, as always, asked some very intelligent questions about my "No Way, Bob" 4/5 blog. Here are his questions and my answers:

l) If CBS does this, do viewers migrate to NBC or ABC, or to cable news, or, all day long, to the Web?
2) If CBS has success with this, will NBC and ABC follow?
3) If CBS does this, will it adjust "news standards" to the more relaxed standards of the Internet?
4) Roger Ailes has praised Schieffer. Was that...disingenuous?

In answer to Jesse's question #1 ("If CBS does this...", i.e. cancels the "CBS Evening News"), I believe that viewers will primarily go to NBC and ABC and some to cable news. The audience of the "CBS Evening News" is the oldest of the three networks (largely 55 plus) and is so used to watching terrestial TV that they won't break their habit--can't--most of them just learned how to use their remotes, let alone the Web.

In answer to Jesse's question #2 ("...will NBC and ABC follow?"), I believe that eventually they will. When they will do it is an even more interesting question. I believe that NBC and Microsoft will untangle from their joint venture in the next year (Microsoft wants out, I think) which will give NBC the opportunity to re-do MSNBC into the NBC News channel in order to compete with the Fox News Channel. Fox News runs on the cheap compared to the three networks, so an NBC News cable channel would allow NBC News to cut back on its overseas bureaus a little and glitz up the presentation of MSNBC. A young Brian Williams would be a great assest on a cable news channel and a serious competitor to Fox News. Also, NBC would be able to amortize its news costs over two news channels (CNBC) and focus on duking it out with Fox News and the new Fox business channel that Murdoch is planning will compete with CNBC.

So a split with Microsoft would hasten the canceling of the "NBC Nightly News." If NBC doesn't split with Microsoft, I think it will keep the very profitable "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" on several more years and keep the news division largely intact.

ABC will cancel the "World News Tonight" if Peter Jennings cannot continue to anchor. It's tragic that the charismatic and intelligent Jennings is ill with lung cancer and might not be able to continue. It's possible that Elizabeth Vargas, who along with Charles Gibson will substitute for Jennings when he can't appear while he fights his cancer, might be a hit. She would be the only woman network news anchor, and, who knows, she might cause enough female news viewers to switch. But if the "World News Tonight" audience slips substantially with Jennings being absent and then if he retires because of health reasons, I think ABC might dump the whole news division. If ABC bags the news division, it would give Bob Iger a great excuse to dump "Nightline" when Koppel retires at the end of the year. Who knows, ABC might even strip re-runs of "Desperate Housewives" in the "Nightline" time period. I think Iger will be under pressure to do something creative, radical, and, most of all, profitable, to turn around the late night time period.

In answer to Jeese's question #3, "If CBS does this, will it adjust 'news standards' to the more relaxed standards of the Internet?" Fascinating question because CBS News just won a prestigious Peabody Award on Thursday for its "report on abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a story anchored by Dan Rather and produced by Mary Mapes, who was later fired by CBS for her role in the story about President Bush's military service." Of course Mapes was the producer and Rather the anchor for the erroneous Bush National Guard story. Mapes was fired, which now makes CBS look silly.

I don't think news on the Internet necessarily has relaxed standards. I think there is a difference between news, gossip, and blogs. I think news sites such as CNN, MSNBC, the AP, Reuters, ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the sites of major newspapers and legitimate news organizations have high journalistic standards (generally). Some so-called news sites, such as The Drudge Report, I classify as gossip--in the same pot as Gawker, but not as well written.

Blogs are primarily opinion, comment, analysis, and often disinformation. Sometimes bloggers do worthwhile reporting with high journalistic standards and break stories, but the medium of blogging is primarily opinion. Just like an editorial in a newspaper is the opionion of management, blogs are the opinions of the individual bloggers and are as subject to the same vagaries and mood swings as editorials are. What blogs do, in my view, is enrich the public dialogue, which is what editorials do--both valuable contributions to the democratic discourse.

Finally, Jesse asked, "Roger Ailes has praised Schieffer. Was that...disingenuous?" Everything Ailes does is by definition disingenuous because everything he does is strategic. He is a brilliant strategist in the mold of Karl Rove (or Rove in the mold of Ailes, because Ailes did conservative political stratgegy before Rove did). Everything he utters, every move he makes is a well-thought-out strategic move made to advance his agenda. He intimidates reporters who write about Fox so they will be afraid of him and give Fox a free pass--exactly the way the White House is successfully intimidating the press to give Bush a free pass.

Ailes would do a jig (how's that for a disgusting image) if Bob Schieffer stayed on as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" because the last thing Ailes wants is CBS to change the news so that it will appeal to younger people (Fox's audience) or, worse, cancel it and put on entertainment programming that would pull younger viewers from Fox News.

This is what I think. What do you think? I'd like to know what Bill Grimes or Mike Wheeler thinks or what others think about Jesse's questions and my answers

Posted by Charles Warner at 12:44 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

mike wheeler at April 17, 2005 06:55 PM writes:

I just had a chance to listen to Charlie Rose interview with CNN's Jon Klein.

Klien talked about younger generation (in CNN's case anyone under 60) confuses awareness with knowledge---theylook at an internet headline and think they know the story.

I call your attention to the study Merrill Brown did for the Carnegie Foundation--not good news for the current state or the future of broadcast network news.

http://www.carnegie.org/reporter/10/news/


ABC or CBS News will sell to Time Warner.

My guess is that it will be CBS News selling to TW.

CNN would be a program supplier to CBS prime time so "60 Minutes" would stay. Local news gets the extra 30 minutes.

I think the more interesting question about Roger Ailes is could he have possibily done at MSNBC what he did with Fox if Bob Wright had given him MSNBC to run as an agent of NBC News?

It would have been an interesting internal battle to have watched. Business Reviews with NBC and Microsoft would have been fascinating.


Neil Derrough at April 10, 2005 03:24 PM writes:

The Inevitable Outcome

All the talk of what anchor will do what or will news remain at the three networks is all foreplay for an inevitable outcome.

Let’s fast forward through the next few years where the networks will stumble through various attempt to fix an obsolete news concept. After all, there is still a very sizable audience, even though they are the much-maligned old folks. Any cable outlet would kill to have a big chunk of this audience. The question is how does cable attract these folks to their offerings?

First of all, which network is in the best position to expedite this inevitable outcome? Not a hard question. NBC. They have already started. They have the organization and the platforms in place to become much more competitive in the news battle. Let’s remember they have three established cable channels in place, MSNBC, CNBC and Bravo. They have a news organization that can better cover the expense by using multiple outlets. Forget about how they are programming these channels today. They can be restructured in whatever way needed in the future,

Consider that ABC is in the process of getting out the news business. The benefit of the embarrassing promotion of Disney products may delay this process but believe me it is going to happen. CBS will continue to self-destruct with various attempts to rebuild. In the long run they will fail and get out of the news business.

That leaves NBC to capitalize with all of their established distribution. They have already fought and won the affiliate battle of driving NBC network audience into their cable outlets. This effort will become more sophisticated and the age-old concept of cross promotion will help NBC become more important player in cable news.

The networks, with maybe the exception of NBC, will be out of the nightly news business. Fox, CNN and NBC will become the dominant news sources. Local TV news will survive when done well. The Internet will continue to evolve in this mix with a significant role in this transition.

There are many battles to be played out but it clear to me who the major players will be. It’s now just a question of how long it will take to reach the inevitable outcome.


William Grimes at April 9, 2005 02:05 PM writes:

I forgot to add that my 12 year olds would recieve $1000 for their sole appearnce, which would help education because these CBS Evening News newsreaders would become the "star" of their schools and every kid would want to become the best reader possible and "Literacy Rates Soar in Gotham" the NY Post would scream.


william grimes at April 9, 2005 11:02 AM writes:

CBS missed a huge opportunity to satisfy a number of their many constituents when they named another old white guy to read the news.

Before I explain what they should have done let's first review the challenge that CBS Eveneing News faces today (and has faced with increasing seriousness for two decades).

Several weeks ago that parapet of intellectualism, The New Yorker magazine, reported in a tedious, too-oft-told and rather (no pun intended) weepy farewell to Departing Dan that that the combined three-network news programs had lost over 70% of their audience (50 million to 23, I recall) in the past twenty or so years. Because of poulation increase and growth in overal viewership of television the networks share of viewing has diminished by a larger precentage than its total viewership decline. Point is more people each day, month and year are not watching newtwork news and certainly not on CBS which has ranked third among the "Little Three" with the Danster generating a 7 rating. At a reported $10 million in salary a year (does not include those Viacom options which admittedley have been "deep under water" since 2000----the year of the Sumner Blockbluster----or the frequent free rides on company aircraft), Dan Rather's S2R ratio (salary to ratings) is 1.33 which makes our Hero the most overpaid reader of usually stale information in recorded media history. ANy network, any form of media. The most overpaid. Cool for him, eh?

The next revelation in the New Yorker article is----surprise, surprise-----young people are hardly watching Network Evening News at all. An understatement here. Only 13% of viewers to Patriarchal Dan are under 34 years of age. Why would any one young watch an old white man read information that is not "news"? Intersted people and the young are included have ingested that info moments or hours ago if they are indeed interested in what is going on around them in their world. If they don't care a whit, as many apparently do not, they are busy fondling XBox or an IPod or texting for dates. Either way they are lost audience to the networks until perhaps they turn 55 or 60. So the second conclusion for the geriatric Evening News is that it can no longer attract even a small audience of under 34s. Teen viewers? Nielsen cannot find one, not a single solitary Dan Fan. Even in a Great Neck or Greenwich High Scool. And, wow, further, even with 70% of US college students (survey in Economist magazine) responding that they are oh so Liberal and that they gave their tender hearts and sturdy backs to Kerrey cause, they either are too busy on campus working the Young Democrats Club, reading the New Yorker's bi-monthly reports of the death and destruction of Iraq (will they acknowledge last week's vote?), or these students are like Tom Wolfe's college smarties in "My Name is............" too busy fucking and scoring hoop tickets for the final 128.

Anyway, problem two is young people don't watch white guys that can't jump anymore....and Dannny could only jump when the competitors numbered two and they were 1950 point guard readers.


Here is what you have been waiting for and what I am so pleased to reveal to you: what should CBS have done in replacing Dan.

Before I reveal keep in mind that each of the following CBS constituencies would have gained substantially more by my solution than they will by Lesleee Moonvees, captain of the Tiffany ship.

1. Viewers of TV and non-viewers would win. They would be dlighted. Total audience would soar-----viewership would likely double--- because of the spectacular buzz and criticism of my selection.
And the freshneness of my Dan-replacers.

2. Under 34 year old viewers would jump on day two and also soar in numbers. They would forgo all other toys while CBS Evening News lit up the screen.

3.Teen viewewrship would instantly adopt the Evening News and bring this diversity demo back to television, to network television and, nearly all of them to CBS Televiison. Lesleee, we hardly knew ye.

4. The shareholders of Viacom would celebrate and whoop it up like Hollywood and Soros would have had doltish John made the layup against the Man. That's because my replacements of Dan costs Viacom/CBS about $500,000 per year!! Not the $15 million (all counting) that the grey man is paid. The stock price would be up, up, and away benefitting not only the V share owners but all lucky fools owning WD and GE.

5. Finally, for those "news purists" you know who they are--- those scions of public opinion who scoff at the morons in WVA and Ohio--- who strive mightily for "Truth" in journalism-----they would get the best reward of all. They would get Honesty from Danster's replacements. Total Honesty.

And here is the Replacement Plan for Broken Dan:

Everyday a different 12 year old student initially from New York area is given the day off school and he or she is picked up in the morning by a CBS limo-----not the white stretch that Dan fiddled in but a comfortable town car.

Joined by guardian, parent or whomever, our twelve year old student in good standing at school (English skills very important) would arrive at 10th Avenue News Studio One around noon and be given the script of the moment for the Evening News to read, reread and still reread again. No comments from our Dan-replacement of the day. Just get that reading down good so everyone in America can understand it. During the day as the Big Moment approaches and as developments occur in this wild and crazy world of ours, the writers change the scripts. The producers fix pre-teen Angel's hair or young Yong's earring.

Soon it will be Eveining News time and our reader of the day will be prepared and will perform just wonderfully.

When the lights go on and the producer gives his authoritative "Go" (it's like a jump ball to let the games begin), our star gazes directly into the camera with the solemn determination of his great predessor but then says with a warm and expanding smile:

" Good evening, I am Angel Corebberra. I live on 146th street in Manhattan, New York. I am here to read you the news tonight."

Teenagers everywhere are bursting with peer celebration. The "Purists" are saying "right on, brother and sister". It is true he is only reading! (Remember the next day's show will be hosted by Mary Maloney from Bayside or somewhere).

Wall Street extends trading hours until 6:30PM and fifty million shares exchange hands as Angel insures us that the Pope was really buried today in Rome and that John Kerrey met with Jimmy Dean and Hillary who could not join her hubby at the Vatican to plan his 08 campaign. And, yes, Merck responded with alacrity to the FDA's request to remove that bad pill from our reach.

The show ends. The producers are thunderstuck with delight.

The nation's many long distance carriers are handling more traffic than on any Mother's Day.

Instant Messaging is bringing down ISP from coast to coast.

Cell phones literally sings as text messages crash into each other in cyberspace. Headers are lost and Cisco's CEO Chambers assures the nation that service will be retored at any minute.

Bill Gates announces a deal with Bob Wright to produce a teen News Network and we will e-broadcast in evey digital form in evey one of the world's 4895 languages.

AT 8PM President Bush calls Sumner to say, "Congratulations, Mr.Chairman, on a plan well-executed.I would like in one year from today to host all 365 News Readers----the very best of America's twelve year olds to a dionner at the good ranch. And, yes, Jeb will be there---he's gotta get some game-like reps for his big run."

Meanwhile back at what used to be called "Blackrock" which is now housed appropriately at Times Square, the CBS Research Maven of so many years, that frequent quoter/defender of networks' disapearing viewers ("It's the Sample, Stupid!")----forget Mr. Vanilla's name------------anyway he is in phone with the King of AC Nielsen and Company.
"Oh God O What News I have for Lesleee........
yes, thank you King. Nielsen is good , Nielsen is great.........it's a wonderful company. I love it.........Bye now"

And this is the way it could have been at CBS>



April 08, 2005

Movable Type Responds

I sent my blog, "I Hate Movable Type," to Ben and Mena Trott, founders of Sixapart and president and CTO respectively, and to David Hornik, General Partner at August Capital, who's on the board of directors and a major investor in Sixaprt. I thought I might get some respnse to my squeeking wheel, and i did. Here is the string of emails:

First I sent them my April 4, blog, "I Hate Movable Type," and I got the following reply from Mena Trott on 4/5:

"Hi Charles,

I’m sorry that your experience with Movable Type has been far less than optimal. We, as a company, are willing to refund you the money you paid for your installation and software.

Additionally, because Movable Type is geared towards though who are more familiar with tweaking code and installation environments, I’d be happy to offer you a 3 month free trial to TypePad, our hosted service. The focus of TypePad is to get people blogging and not forced to deal with HTML, CSS or programming.

Let me know if you’d be interested.

Mena Trott"

Here is my 4/5 reply to Mena (I guess I can be familiar, because she was):

"I don’t want to use TypePad and pay a monthly fee after three months. I’ve invested too much time, effort, and money in getting my MT blog to work the way I want it. I’m taking a course in web design and construction and am familiar with HTML and CSS and can tweak code to some degree. I want the notifications on my blog to work like they worked before the upgrade. It’s absurd that it’s taking a month to fix the bug when a third party has figured it out.

It seems to me like you are doing everything you can to get me to switch to your paying service by not fixing the bug in MT. This is a classic and unethical bait-and-switch tactic in my view. Also, you are arrogantly blaming the victim by suggesting that the problem is that I’m not experienced enough to use MT when the real problem is that you sold me faulty, buggy software that is taking way too long to fix. Stop blaming the victim (the same attitude your support people have) and work on fixing your problem--the update. I’m not the problem, the updated version of MT is. Please be an adult and take responsibility for your faulty software, fix it, and install the fix on my blog."

The next day, on 4/6, I got the following email from Ben Trott:

"Hi Charles,

As Mena said, I'm very sorry that you've had such a difficult time getting this current version of Movable Type to work properly for you, and that the upgrade broke a piece of functionality that you were using. I can verify that this issue is fixed in the upcoming maintenance release of Movable Type--we've been working to make sure that this release is rock solid, and in total, the upcoming release fixes about more than 50 issues in the system.

We're currently finalizing documentation and finishing a final round of testing, and the new release will then be ready. If you'd like, I'm sure we can arrange to have the specific fix applied to your installation personally prior to the release--and of course, we'll be happy to upgrade your installation for free to the new release once it's released. I'm certain this will resolve the issues you're having with sending notifications.

Hope this helps,
Ben"

My reply:

"Yes, I would like very much "to have the specific fix applied to your installation personally prior to the release." Thank you so much for your customer-friendly, thoughtful response in language I can understand.

I will post your intelligent response on my blog."

And so I'm posting it.

What are the lessons here? Unfortunately, that the squeeky wheel gets the grease because too many Silicon Valley programmers write softare to impress their code-writing peers and believe their customers are all high-tech elites like themselves. They tend to look down and patronize real customers, as Mena's email indicated.

Ben and Mena Trott are married and Mena is the president of Sixapart and Ben is the Chief Technology Officer, but it was Ben who had the mature, customer-oriented approach. Maybe the tech department ought to take over customer service. Now wouldn't that be a switch.

Finally, I'd like to thank Ben Trott for seeing that the problem got fixed.

Posted by Charles Warner at 09:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

Kimmy at April 9, 2005 12:45 PM writes:

What's wrong with movable type?


April 05, 2005

No Way, Bob

Jacques Steinberg wrote in a story by on page B1 of the The New York Times on Monday, April 4, titled “At CBS News, Some Temporary Changes May Stick,” that CBS chairman Les Moonves said that he never expected Bob Schieffer, who took over for Dan Rather on the “CBS Evening News,” to “move so quickly to address what Moonves perceived to be some of the broadcast’s most glaring shortcomings.” Steinberg went on to indicate that Schieffer was angling to stay past his three-months temporary assignment, perhaps to hang on until he is 70 in two years.

Forget it, Bob, the changes won’t stick. Moonves is under the gun to lift the ratings of the “CBS Evening News” time period, because if the program can’t be competitive, which it isn’t now, the entire fate of the CBS News division might well be at stake.

Larry Kramer, the smart entrepreneur and founder of MarketWatch, this week was named president of CBS Digital Media. Kramer “will have oversight of all online operations and business development for CBS and UPN,” according to TelevisionWeek. Kramer will report to Mooonves. Kramer will be aggressively pushing for news to go online, which means that CBS News could migrate to primarily an online medium; that way CBS could cancel the “CBS Evening News” and turn the time period back to affiliates, which could make a lot more money with syndicated programming.

Also, if CBS cancelled the evening news, if could close its few remaining bureaus and terminate a lot of correspondents. The only programs that CBS News would produce would the two editions of “60 Minutes,” “48 Hours,” and “The Early Show,” which don’t necessarily require news bureaus and scores of correspondents. The appeal of saving money and getting higher ratings will prove to be too tempting for Moonves to resist. That's how I see it.

Posted by Charles Warner at 12:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

Jesse Kornbluth at April 8, 2005 10:58 AM writes:

Riveting.
Some questions:
l) If CBS does this, do viewers migrate to NBC or ABC, or to cable news, or, all day long, to the Web?
2) If CBS has success with this, will NBC and ABC follow?
3) If CBS does this, will it adjust "news standards" to the more relaxed standards of the Internet?
4) Roger Ailes has praised Schieffer. Was that...disingenuous?


MSM Gives Bush Another Free Pass

The MSM (main stream media), or what Jay Rosen in his Press Think blog calls the Legacy Media, gave another free pass to George Bush last week when he commented on Terry Schiavo’s death. Among other things, Bush said, "The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak."

Reports of Bush’s comments on CNN’s web site, for example, didn’t even mention the above remark. The New York Times didn’t pick up on it either. Why not, when it’s obvious that Bush was using Schiavo’s death to make a blatant political appeal to the religious right and was being totally hypocritical by saying "The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak," because every policy of his administration, from the war in Iraq, to trying to kill Medicare, and trying to privatize Social Security, is based on the strong trying to marginalize the weak?

It seems as though the Bush administration has succeeded in intimidating the press. No wonder many bloggers are gaining importance and credibility, especially with younger people.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

April 04, 2005

I Hate Movable Type

In the fall of 2004 I decided I wanted my own domain name instead of having my blog hosted on Blogspot.com. I had no problems with Blogspot--it worked very well, even though I had trouble setting up comments. Therefore, I registered my cute domain name, Media Curmudgeon, had it transferred to my server, and looked for some blogging software.

I noticed that several blogs I read used Movable Type and I asked several people who blogged what software they used and some of them said, "Movable Type, but it's hard to use." Stupid me, I didn't pay attention. I said to myself, "I'm smart enough to learn it. I learned how to manage my web sites with Front Page." Boy, was I wrong (nothing new there).

I went online and purchased MT and downloaded it. It was impossibly complicated to install on my server. When I put in Help Tickets I was arrogantly told to use typepad.com because it was for novices like me who were technically challenged (not literally, but that's essentially what the non-helpful, technobabbling support person meant). When I refused to give up, I was told that MT would install the software on my server for a fee of $60, so I bought it.

After MT was installed, it took stupid me (or that's how the support people made sure that I felt) about a dozen Help Tickets to get MT to have the colors and layout I wanted. I was told to go to a third party web site to get functionality for emailing my blog to people (of course, MT didn't support the third-party stuff). Because I couldn't get any interpretable, helpful support, I hired a free-lance web designer for $200 to get my comments right and put an email icon on my blog so people could email entries to others. Finally it was working the way I wanted. Notifications were being sent to a list of family and pals and I was finally, after four months of hassles, blogging away.

Then, disaster struck. MT informed me that a software update was available. I bit again and I even paid to have the update installed. I blogged and no notifications were sent out. I put in a hated Help Ticket and was told ooops, the upgrade had a bug. When I asked when it would be fixed, I was told “next week.” I was told to watch the MT web site for an announcement when the bug was fixed. When I complained bitterly about the way I was being treated, MT said they’d email me when the bug was fixed. It’s been a month. Nothing, nada, zero, zip.

MT is an awful company, with awful support, and with impossibly complicated software. Don’t even think about using it.

Posted by Charles Warner at 08:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon at April 9, 2005 12:42 AM writes:

Anil - Please see my entry of April 8 titled "Movable Type" responds. MT fixed the bug and the notifications work now as they did before MT installed the buggy update. In the 4/9 blog entry I explain why I don't want to use TypePad.

I do appreciate your desire to help, but as I said, the problem is not me, it's the bug which MT should fix, and they did.


Anil at April 4, 2005 11:12 PM writes:

Hi Charles, I work with Six Apart (we make Movable Type) and I think I might be able to address some of the issues you've brought up, if you don't mind.

I saw that you said " When I put in Help Tickets I was arrogantly told to use typepad.com because it was for novices like me who were technically challenged (not literally, but that's essentially what the non-helpful, technobabbling support person meant)." I don't know whom you spoke to, but generally our support team's rated among the best in the business, so I'm guessing this was probably a miscommunication.

To put it briefly, I *do* think that TypePad might be the right choice for you, judging by the experiences you've had. If the support messages, customization process, or updating process for Movable Type are frustrating or confusing for you, then TypePad's probably the right tool for the job. I am *very* familiar with Movable Type and its technical details and still usually prefer TypePad because I don't have to worry about those things and can do things like customizing my layout or design just by clicking on the look I prefer. Is there a particular reason that didn't seem like a viable choice for you?

In addition, we're definitely not happy that notifications are having problems in some environments that Movable Type runs in. As may have been mentioned, there are temporary fixes to this if you're willing to edit the code for the application, but that's again something we wouldn't advocate to someone that doesn't want to bother learning how to do that. This is another case where TypePad's automatic software upgrades might make things easier.

I'd like to do what it takes to make things right by you with your experience with blogging and with Six Apart. Please feel free to email me with any information you can provide on how we could satisfy your needs. I'd be particularly interested in finding out how TypePad doesn't meet your needs, because I think that using TypePad is hardly "giving up" on a desire to use Movable Type, it's more of freeing yourself to focus on writing and being creative. If that's not a message we're effectively communicating to people, I'd like to remedy the situation.

Thanks for taking the time to list your specific complaints, and I hope you'll give us the chance to make things right.