Lie #2: The Myth of Homogenous Web Content

I get flak because I majored in Cinema Studies instead of Linux, and as everyone knows, a BA is worthless. So, see if you can detect the flaws in the following argument:

The great dream of the early Web was to "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" but it's rapidly beginning to resemble cable television. It has all those channels and there’s still nothing to watch. The Web, like cable, has run into an economic and editorial wall. Running a Web site is expensive. The expense forces sites to attract huge streams of traffic which produces a homogenization of content. It's as American as Wonder-bread and AOL/Time-Warner. The twist here is that Web usage is rising.

Bob Sambrio may be a hot-shot analyst, but he doesn't know his Web history. The allusion was made by RU Sirius in a 21.C magazine article (the Mao-pun subheading was: "Let a Million Technozines Bloom") written six years ago. Here's the key passage:

Meanwhile, a plethora of smart, independent, technoculture magazine (like the one you hold in your hands) are appearing from all over the world. Assuredly, diversity will reign. A million technozines will bloom. The new world may not be Mondo, but at least the revolution will not be Wired.

At its peak Feed Magazine struck me as being the Web equivalent of independent print magazines that feature incredible content (assembled by a top-notch editorial team) and stretch content boundaries yet fold after several issues.

The cable television analogy has floated around in the business press since the early 1990s; the high-profile crashes of DEN, Pop.com and Pseudo should have killed it off. "Web-based television makes about as much sense as radio-based television," Nick Mamatas once noted. The Web has plenty of gems if you're prepared to actively search for them. Nor has the Web run into an editorial wall (editors are notoriously cheap). The suggestion that Web sites are expensive is also wrong: "barriers-to-entry" are cheaper than any other mass-media form and take advantage of Metcalfe's Law on network effects: the value of a network equals n squared (n x n), where n is the number of people using the network. The power of Open Source software, for example, is that it harnesses the power of openness and proliferation (the 'cost' of new members inclines to near-zero).

While a rapidly growing audience may outpace a site's servers to load-balance the incoming traffic or its ability to generate income, the cost blow-outs on the major 'original content' Web sites are exorbitant content production and marketing costs. Case in point: according to their 10-Q SEC filing, which was analyzed by NetSlaves journalist Steve Gilliard, Salon.com “generated $2.3 million revenues in Q4 2000, and spent $2.5 million on content alone.” San Francisco's finest lost $5.5 million in Q1 2001 and has been put on the market for a quick sale. Gilliard's next column on Salon.com's subscription scheme received a response from CEO Michael O’Donnell.

Pressure for homogenous Web content comes from 'fast-cycle time'-savvy management (who embed formulas-as-expectations into their organizational culture) and demographics-obsessed advertisers (who dislike scandalous issues), and rarely from the editorial teams who are responsible for content production.

Sambrio also ignores Charles Darwin's writings on evolution-as-process (since a rule of natural selection is that differentiation emerges from generality), and the Media Studies school of cultural determinism (I bet he's never heard of IndyMedia, either). One paragraph filled with half-truths and analytical misperception. What's the frequency, Bob?

Endnotes: [1] Michael J. Wolf. The Entertainment Economy (New York: Times Books, 1999). 92.

The views expressed above represent the writer and not necessarily those of The Disinformation Company Ltd.