Peer Pressure

Hey, everybody from my Digital Media class, are you still here? I wanted to let you know that I'm abandoning this blog to posterity, but hey look! I'm still writing other things over on my other blog, Mistakes Being Made, and it'd be awesome if you'd follow me over there. If you read my blog, I'll read yours! Although, your blog is still on my Google Reader, so to be honest I'll keep reading you even if you don't read me, but anyhow . . .

Your blogs were sometimes pretty darn entertaining, so I do hope you all keep on writing them (or that you go back to writing them after your end-of-semester hangovers wear off, at least). Also, I need some words to read over summer, and your blogs are cheaper than newspapers. Come on – all the cool kids are still blogging! (By which I mean, Eleni and Marie! Those guys rock.)

So how about it, Steph & Duncan & Shilpa & Susie & everyone else whom I won't mention because a list with too many items in it would probably be too long and unwieldy to make a readable sentence out of? You know that blogging is cool. You do want to be cool, don't you?

:)

Movember!

This is my fourth article for the class assignment (website feature portfolio). The website I've chosen to write for is Triple J, which is a large site covering a fairly broad range of music and entertainment topics.

This article would probably work best as part of the Triple J website's Events section, but it could also be suited to one of the Triple J blogs. It would also work as an article in their jmag magazine, which is published both online and in print. Triple J have supported Movember in the past.

It probably goes without saying that this particular article would really need to be posted during the first week of November . . .

Yes, it's that time of year again – Movember! Upper lips across the land are already sprouting the first brave whiskers of the season, well on their way to achieving the glorious full 'stache of a proud Mo Bro. It's all to help raise awareness of men's health issues, especially prostate cancer and depression. Men have traditionally been reluctant to look after their health, and that's a big contributor to their lower life expectancy, so it's an important issue.

We know what you're thinking: "I want to be part of Movember, but I've never had a moustache before! What do I do?!"

Fear not! Luckily, popular culture provides us with many valuable moustache role models. The gentlemen below (and lady – let's not forget that Mo Sistas are a big part of Movember, too) have all brought great honour and glory to the 'stache. From the world of cinema, we present:

GREATEST MOVEMBER MO-VIE STARS!

Daniel Day-Lewis

Image © 2007 Paramount Vantage

Greatest Mo: There Will Be Blood

Day-Lewis had previously grown a grand handlebar for Gangs of New York, but his brutal oil-man 'stache for There Will Be Blood is one of the greatest of all time. Yes, he drinks our milkshake; he drinks it up. This is the perfect 'stache for your next 1890s party.

Carl Weathers

Image © 1976 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Greatest Mo: Rocky III

Honourable Mentions: Rocky, Rocky IV, Predator, Rocky II

1980s action movie moustaches don't come tougher than Carl Weathers's lip-hugger. Whether he was boxing Stallone to a standstill or helping Schwarzenegger kill an invisible alien monster, Carl Weathers's moustache remained effortlessly respectable. Proof that a moustache can look classy even when you're not wearing a shirt.

Burt Reynolds

Image © 1977 Universal Pictures

Greatest Mo: Smokey & The Bandit

Reynolds's acting is probably at its best in Boogie Nights, but his moustache was at its best during his 1970s–80s heyday – when Reynolds built an entire career out of driving fast cars, dropping cool one-liners and grinning seductively. He also lent his voice to a dog named Charlie B. Barkin in All Dogs Go To Heaven, arguably one of the better animated kids' movies of 1989. Unfortunately for all of us, however, that film did not include an animated version of Reynolds's moustache.

Salma Hayek

Image © 2002 Miramax

Greatest Mo: Frida

Hayek's face-fuzz may be even more subtle than the great Frida Kahlo's real-life moustache, but it's still a proud effort. (We're not making fun – Kahlo's visible moustache was a serious artistic statement, famously represented in her many self-portraits, okay?) If nothing else, we think it's good to know that the potential for a great moustache lies within (almost) all of us – women included.

Are you inspired yet? Check out the official Movember website. And those of you who lack moustacheability can still support Movember – if you like, you may even enjoy a variety of crafty facial hair replicas. Everyone else – get cracking and stop shaving!

Halloween Week: Scariest Music of All Time

This is my third article for the class assignment (website feature portfolio). The website I've chosen to write for is Triple J, which is a large site covering a fairly broad range of music and entertainment topics.

This article would probably be best suited to one of the Triple J blogs, but it would also work as an article in their jmag magazine, which is published both online and in print.

It probably goes without saying that this particular article would really need to be posted during the last week of October . . .

If you're planning a Halloween party, there's no shortage of scary movies to watch – it's pretty easy to find at least 10 horror movies with the word "Halloween" in the actual title of the movie – but finding scary music is tricky. What kind of music could possibly be as scary as a horror movie?

It's Not What It Looks Like

Ever since Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper hit it big in the 1970s, there have been hundreds of metal, goth and emo bands willing to dress up in "scary" costumes to look like they're part of the scene. You know, the traditional "scary metal" look: wild hair, everything in black, chains . . . how could it not be scary?

Ozzy Osbourne, Godfather of Scary Metal. Image (cc) 2009 Wikimedia Commons.

Forty years later, this sort of look just isn't scary at all, anymore – and neither is the music. In the 1970s, church groups were terrified about the "satanic powers" of bands like KISS – but these days, who's afraid of a little hard rock?

There's only one "scary"-looking band that might be worth a fright, and that's The Horrors. Although they're a pretty obvious choice – look at their name! – they're also one of the better British bands of the past few years, and their last couple of albums were great fun. But either way, they're probably not exactly horrifying . . . so who is?

We're here to help. Give these tunes a whirl:

Come To Daddy — Aphex Twin

The music is very, very unsettling, but the real kicker is the video – directed by the great Chris Cunningham, and widely regarded as one of the scariest music videos of all time. Be warned: if you come across this one on Rage at 3am, you may have trouble sleeping afterwards.

'97 Bonnie & Clyde — Eminem, Tori Amos

The original Eminem version, with its disturbing lyrics and "googoo-gaga" toddler noises (sampled from his own baby daughter!), is creepy enough. But Tori Amos's interpretation – from her covers album, Strange Little Girls – is really frightening. While Eminem's skittish rant sounds like a sarcastic slasher film, Amos's intimate whispers create an In Cold Blood–style true-crime horror. Seriously, be warned: this song is not for the faint of heart. (Or the easily offended.)

And from the same Tori Amos album, her almost-unrecognisable cover of Slayer's death metal epic "Raining Blood" is pretty interesting, too . . .

So if you look around, there are plenty of scary songs in unexpected places. But if you want to hear something really scary, there's one musician who stands above the rest:

Why Does His Voice Sound Like That? BECAUSE HE EATS YOUR BONES

Tom Waits in Buenos Aires. (Public domain image)

That's right – Tom Waits. He began his career as bluesy, Bukowski-esque balladeer, but with 1983's Swordfishtrombones his music took a turn for the seriously bizarre. Haunted 1880s gypsy accordions, skeleton-rib xylophones, electric guitars tuned to breaking point, some instruments so obscure that they may not actually exist – from one song to the next, Waits's music ticks every box marked "creepy" and several marked "awesome".

The most intense and terrifying instrument of all is his voice, which often sounds like he's been gargling battery acid. But his vocals are surprisingly versatile; one moment he's genuinely tender and forlorn, and the next he's crawling inside your ears to eat your brain. If you want to hear a sound that will make you fear for your life, Tom Waits's voice is a great start.

What's the scariest music you know? Leave your answer in the comments below!

Happy Halloween!

(Not) The Last Post

My favourite quote (out of everything I've read on the web today):

Comma. You never want one of these anywhere near you [. . .] Every time you add a comma to the description of what you do, you suck a little bit more [. . .] Commas are for unfocused hacks.

The quote isn't quite so awesome in context – it's from an article about marketing, *ho-hum* – but what a line, huh? I dare you all to yell, "Commas are for unfocused hacks!" at a professional writer or editor, as soon as possible. Preferably during a job interview.

It's hard to believe this course is coming to an end already. I've been trying to think about what I should write about that would be fitting, in this final post, now that the course is almost over . . .

First, some trivia:

The most expensive word on Google is mesothelioma. If you want to buy a Google Ad that appears on searches for "mesothelioma", it'll cost you US$99.44 per click.

Secondly, Twitter:

It's a good and useful thing. Probably. I blogged about Twitter a while ago, but just yesterday I came across a really neat article about some ways that it might be worth your while. If you're curious about Twitter but still unsure (or if you're on Twitter already, but you have no idea what to do with it), try reading this.

Thirdly . . .

I like words. I like people. Blogging seems like a good compromise.

People often talk about the "dehumanising" effects of technology, but I don't really buy into that. I think the whole memesphere of the web is powered by people communicating with other people: it all feeds off the kick we get from exercising our empathy, from recognising differences and commonalities between ourselves and others. Jokes, stories, ideas. It's all good. (Mostly.)

Anyhow, I think it's something that we should feel good about. Sometimes people are awesome, and sometimes it's too easy to forget that.

(I think I read somewhere that happiness is "seven successful human interactions per day." I like that; it sounds achievable . . .)

Has this course changed the way you think about the internet? Have you enjoyed blogging?

I know I've enjoyed this blog. In fact, lately I've been neglecting my other blog to focus on this one instead (and to focus on my homework!) . . . but I'm looking forward to getting back to my old blog, soon. Blogging is fun and satisfying in a very unique way, I think.

When this course is over, will you keep blogging?

If you keep writing, I'll keep reading, I promise.

:)

–Tim

Email: Obsolete?

By now we're all familiar with the imminent death of newspapers, the imminent death of CDs, the imminent death of television, etc. But the other day I came across an idea that I'd never considered: the imminent death of email. That got my attention.

Email went mainstream only fifteen years ago, but it's now an essential part of daily life; to imagine it being completely replaced (already?!) is bizarre. But this article has almost convinced me that email's days really are numbered; the writer has some interesting arguments, at least . . .

To begin with, email is apparently too slow for the modern internet, because it's not instantaneous. Email is stuck in the 1990s – deep down, it's still expecting you to be on dialup:

. . . email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging on and off, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected . . .

And that's why, according to the article, email is steadily being superseded by various kinds of instant messaging and chat (not to mention Twitter and Facebook). The last time you wanted to tell somebody something over the internet, did you actually use your email? Or did you just update your Facebook status?

The other big problem is email's lack of finesse. We're all dealing with more information than we actually have time to read, so we need good ways to classify and sort everything – #hashtags and meta-data, blog labels, threads. Email doesn't really allow for that. Also, we now have various personal profiles associated with our presence on the net – extra information and context about ourselves, which is a kind of "passive" communication – and email doesn't really allow for that, either.

This is why, for example, Google are setting up their Wave: a new system that's supposed to combine the functionalities of email, instant messages, social networking and collaborative documents (a.k.a. wikis) into one supreme package. When I first heard about the Google Wave I was sceptical (and also slightly . . . concerned), but the more I think about it, the more useful (and plausible) it all seems.

Is this really going to happen? Will email be completely abandoned within our lifetimes? Is it going to matter, either way?

Also: should we be worried that Google knows everything about us and is building artificially intelligent supercomputers?

Image © 2002, C2 and its related entities. Via Google Image Search ;)

Rage of the Week

This is my second article for the class assignment (website feature portfolio). The website I've chosen to write for is Triple J, which is a large site covering a fairly broad range of music and entertainment topics.

Triple J web articles usually don't include many links, except to other ABC network webpages; external links seem to be discouraged, but not forbidden, under ABC editorial guidelines. However, I've included some relevant non-ABC links anyway – the assignment criteria seem to imply that "good use of links" is more important than strictly adhering to the website's existing practices).

Also, note that Triple J web articles have included YouTube videos before (e.g.). The videos below come from official sources that permit embedding.

This article is a music television review piece, such as might potentially be found via Triple J's music hub (a page which also links directly to Rage, the subject of this article). Intra-ABC cross-promotion is allowed (and certainly not discouraged) under ABC guidelines. This sort of article would probably also work as a regular category in their Reviews section.

Every week, Rage plays the best new music videos on TV. Here are our reviews of some you might have missed . . . and don't forget, you can also catch a selection of Rage music videos on demand here.

Liam Finn + Eliza Jane — "Long Way To Go"

Liam Finn has produced some impressive music lately. His band Betchadupa (currently "on hiatus") never made a huge impact, but I'll Be Lightning (2007) – Liam's melancholy solo album – was a more substantial success. Now that his musical partnership with Eliza-Jane Barnes (daughter of Jimmy Barnes) has moved to equal-billing status, there's a new enthusiasm to the music that's seriously punchy.

Both Finn and Barnes are multi-instrumentalists, and it's clear they have a passion for unusual musical arrangements. To construct this tune they've surrounded a glam bass riff with 1960s psych organ, 1970s synth bleeps and modern drums. It's an odd blend, and the central riff is very simple – you might even say, "old-fashioned" – but the arrangement overall is crafty and energetic. The guitar solo buzzes and twists like a drunk wasp, the organ chords generate great texture and tension (especially in the bridge – check out the way the organ plays against the background vocal harmonies), and the "sshhhpp!" percussion effects remind you to dance. It's great stuff.

The video shows Finn and Barnes flashing rapidly in and out of existence on their various instruments in the recording studio, showing off their simultaneous multi-instrumentalism. It's an interesting visual effect, but it's probably more uncomfortable to watch than it should be – the flashes are so rapid, it's surprising the video doesn't come with an epilepsy warning. Enjoy!

Jessica Says — "I'll Set The Night Upon You"

Lots of songs begin with only piano and voice; it's an elegant combination that flatters a nice voice, so singers tend to enjoy it. Jessica Says's new single starts with only piano and voice, but then it does something unusual: it refuses to add a single extra instrument as it goes along. (Listen carefully and you might notice occasional background vocals from New Buffalo's Sally Seltmann, but that's it.) One instrument, no overdubs – as far as pop ballads go, that sort of approach is practically punk! Luckily, the vocals are strong enough for the song to work well with piano alone, and it creates a wonderfully pure and clear, "live" sound.

It's tempting to compare Jessica Says (a.k.a. Jessica Venables) to Kate Bush – they share a similar songwriting taste for sweet-and-sour melodies, and there's even a vocal resemblance – but it'd be unfair to mark this as any kind of rip-off. Venables possesses a unique edge of her own, and this is simply a great song; the musical craft and spirit on show are undeniable.

The video is interesting, too. It looks like a homage to 1960s European art films (dubious sexual politics included); production-wise it's obviously cheap, but it's adequate. A song this good really deserves something better, but Jessica Says will hopefully be successful enough to demand a bigger music video budget next time. Looking forward to it!

2009 ARIA Awards: Nominees!

This is my first article for the class assignment (website feature portfolio). The website I've chosen to write for is Triple J, which is a large site covering a fairly broad range of music and entertainment topics.

Triple J web articles usually don't include many links, except to other ABC network webpages; external links seem to be discouraged, but not forbidden, under ABC editorial guidelines. However, I've included some relevant non-ABC links anyway – the assignment criteria seem to imply that "good use of links" is more important than strictly adhering to the website's existing practices.

This article is a blog piece, such as might be found on one of the Triple J blogs.

As shiny as the Oscars, as confusing as the Grammys, as lucrative as the Nobels? No, the ARIA Music Awards are something else – Australia's own. And the 2009 nominees have been announced! (Check out the full list here.)

In 2008, The Presets took home 6 ARIA awards. In 2009, they're nominated for "Highest Selling Australian Album" and "Best Dance Release". (AAP: Aletheia Casey, file photo)

However, I have some questions:

1. How can there be "nominees" for the "Highest Selling Australian Single/Album"?

This has always confused me. Shouldn't winning this award be about statistics, not nominations? It generates competitive interest and publicity, I know – but surely anyone could figure out the winners right now, just by looking at the sales figures?

(Moral of this story: music journalists cannot be bothered to look through sales figures.)

2. What does "Adult Contemporary" mean?

Nominees this year include Bob Evans, Josh Pyke, Little Birdy and Paul Dempsey – all indie mainstays, each one loved and supported by youth radio stations (especially Triple J). So has "Adult Contemporary" become a replacement for the abandoned "Alternative" category? The teenagers of the 1990s "alternative music" boom are getting into their thirties now, so maybe the ARIAs are growing up, too. (Either that, or Triple J is actually a station for contemporary adults. Hmm . . .)

3. How come 2009 includes AC/DC's first ever ARIA nomination, and not their 50th?

Because the ARIAs only began in 1987. And let's face it, AC/DC have released only two albums since 1987 that are arguably better than "adequate": Black Ice (this year's nominee) and The Razors Edge (1990). Razors Edge does include "Thunderstruck", one of their best hits, but it was disqualified due to the lack of apostrophe in the word "Razor(')s". You can't rock out without appropriate punctuation, and I commend the Australian Recording Industry Association for their strong and principled stance on this issue.

4. Do the ARIA nominations violate their own guidelines?

This year, C. W. Stoneking was nominated for "Breakthrough Artist – Album", despite being ineligible (because his previous album was nominated for a 2007 ARIA). He's since been stripped of this nomination – but he's still nominated for "Best Male Artist", "Best Independent Release" and "Best Blues and Roots Album", so he's doing all right.

Another odd nomination is Ladyhawke (Pip Brown), who's nominated in 6 categories despite being a New Zealander. (Not that we aren't happy to claim her as an honorary Aussie, of course.) ARIA fine print indicates that artists are eligible if they've lived in Australia for more than six months and applied for permanent residency, which may or may not be the case – we'll keep you posted . . .

5. How many nominees have an exclamation mark in their song or album title?

Answer: At least four!!!!

It's good to see a strong field this year – I don't think there are any "what the?!" nominees making up the numbers. Award ceremonies are often controversial (one way or another), but their real purpose is to celebrate the industry and create publicity for deserving nominees. On that count, the 2009 ARIAs are already a success.

What do you think about giving awards for high sales, "Adult Contemporary", AC/DC or Ladyhawke's fair dinkum kiwi-ness? Leave your own answers in the comments below!

Wassup Turps

So, speaking of blogging (which we were – don't deny it), there's been an interesting blogstorm this week over the new endorsement guidelines enacted by America's Federal Trade Commission. (KEEP READING! I promise this gets less boring.)

The FTC's new rules are all about people endorsing products – you know what I mean:

The FTC's new guidelines are much stricter on disclosure than ever before: if you say something nice about a product but you're being compensated in any way, it's now clear that you need to admit this compensation up front, or face FTC investigation. As far as this applies to celebrity testimonials and advertorials, nobody seems to be complaining; stricter guidelines for that sort for thing are probably overdue.

BUT. What's got the blogosphere in a twist are the new applications of these rules to bloggers. The new rules appear to demand that from now on, any bloggers who (e.g.) say something nice about a product or service – whether they say this on a blog post, or in a comment thread, or by tweet – must fully disclose if they (e.g.) received that product for free.

(Concise summary of the specific rules here.)

When I first read about this, I thought it seemed fairly reasonable, but the issue is turning out to be more complex. For one thing, apparently none of this applies to official news organisations or "real" journalists, despite the fact that they receive mountains of free swag all the time. Double standards? Angry bloggers are angry.

I don't know enough about the legalities to fully understand all of this. (And it's the FTC of the USA, not of the world, so does any of this – even theoretically – apply to us?) Either way, it's clearly not a simple issue. Is it unfair to expect bloggers to always disclose that they've received free stuff? Are the rules are too vague, or too impractical, to enforce? Should "official" journalists always be disclosing their free swag, too? Is there a meaningful line between professional and casual comment – one that the general public can be reasonably expected to distinguish?

Or are some angry bloggers just unethical tools, afraid to admit that they're being paid to shill because they're worth more if it's a secret?

Break!

In honour of the mid-semester break, here's some break history for you: the story of the world's most important 6 seconds of music.

If you're a music or history or music history geek, this is fascinating, I think. And after a while it also talks about the weirdness of copyright protection and intellectual property in the modern era, so it's even (vaguely) relevant to the course! Ha!

See you in a fortnight :)

Bloggo My Oggo

Logic and evidence have their place, but let's be honest: articles are most fun when they're wildly, controversially opinionative. That might be why I enjoyed reading this article, which tries to list the qualities that make a good blog.

(btw, I found it via a Guy Kawasaki tweet – so I guess Twitter is useful after all, huh?)

Here's the list:

Merlin Mann's 9 Things To Do to Make a Good Blog (Paraphrased)

1. Have a personal voice

2. Show your obsessions

3. Show where your obsessions take you – the trail of attention, the evolution of your interests. Blogs are an ongoing narrative of this – a story!

4. Write in paragraphs: craft, not crap

5. Use style and format creatively

6. Be weird

7. Inspire – make other people want to start their own blog

8. Try harder

9. Know when to break your own rules

I think #3 might be the most interesting. I'd never quite thought of blogs as being like narratives in that way, before. It's a clever analysis, don't you think?

(Except for #7; it might be true, but it's not useful advice!)

Anyhow – listen up! Based on this list, I have a game for you. A game of death.

No, wait, not a game of death. This is the game: think about how many of these qualities your blog has. If you have 6 or more, you win! If you have all 9, you are lying. How many (& which) would you like to have?

(I'd be happy if I thought my own blog maybe had #1, #4, #6 and #8 so far, but I don't really know; either way, I'm sure I still need to try harder . . . )

Do you agree with the list? What qualities are truly important, do you think?

Something That Grabs Your Attention

An interesting, unusual statement. An elaboration, less unusual but possibly amusing. A longer sentence, a clarification; and a hook to keep you reading.

A clearer statement of what I'm actually talking about. A piece of information relating to this. However, a modification of this information; a complication. A subtle contradiction.

A less formal sentence, framing a more personal context. Consequences of a possibility. A modest disavowal of judgment. A more contentious statement or dubious piece of information, presented as an uncertain possibility.

Gesture towards a summary. A more definitive statement. Hint of personal opinion. Something intended to inspire you to leave a comment.

Pithy conclusion.

Be nice, I know your name

As a bit of a follow-up to my last post about net anonymity . . .

"You can claim anonymity, but there is a range of things that a judge will use to determine whether you have used your anonymity responsibly" [my emphasis]

That's a provocative quote from this article about recent legal decisions unmasking people's internet anonymity, and the precedents being set. What's also interesting about the article, though, is its discussion of how and why this might not even matter.

See, the article argues that the rise of social networking (among other things) is undermining net anonymity on a basic, socio-cultural level. In the future, apparently, we'll almost always be authenticated & named on the net – just as usually we are on Facebook and in real life. Correspondingly, future internet forums & chats will be much nicer than they are now, because if we're identified then we're responsible for what we say – just as we are in real life. The article points out that, for example, nasty anonymous twitterers are never popular. Only the authentically real (or known fake) identities maintain an audience.

"It might be entertaining to post anonymously, but it's not very interesting to read . . . When people are going to be named, whether it's their real name or a persistent pseudonym, it takes them more of an effort to maintain the credibility of their name." [my emphasis]

Interesting, huh? Does it sound plausible to you?

More importantly – does using your real name make you a nicer person? And is that a good thing, or a bad thing?

Enjoy yr weekend, folks :)

Assignment 1 - Evaluating Web Writing

Imagine a topic, and there will be a website for it. (This is a corollary of the infamous Rule 34.) The more popular the topic, the more numerous the websites; with movies as popular as they are, it's no surprise the web teems with movie websites of all kinds.

One of the most popular movie websites is Ain't It Cool News (AICN), which has been around for more than a decade. Of all the popular sites to survive since dialup days, AICN is rare in that it actually shows its age: minor tweaks aside, the design of the website has barely changed in ten years. The colour scheme and font choices are so old-fashioned that they've gone past 'daggy' and out the other side; they might now seem simply idiosyncratic, or quaint. But beyond cheesy browns and thick capitals lie more serious design flaws.

AICN's articles are categorised into only a few different sections, but the general organisation is inconsistent and confusing. Following the blue bar which heads every page on the site, articles fall under one of three basic categories: Reviews, which are reviews by site founder and 'HeadGeek' Harry Knowles; Coaxial, which includes all TV-related news and DVD release information; and Cool News, which is everything else. Under the Cool News category are posted rumours, news, interviews, reviews by people who aren't Knowles (a team of regular contributors, plus anonymous reports), miscellaneous spoilers (promo images and set reports, both official and leaked), and competitions. The site also posts articles focusing on comics, tabletop role-playing games, cinema in Australia, and anime. These are categorised as Cool News, too.

AICN's categorisation and structure could easily be improved. Modern websites commonly tag their articles with multiple keywords, which efficiently streamlines organisation and search. AICN does not: its three header categories are all that is. However, the site's actual homepage also lists new articles under a confusingly different set of headings. 'Harry's Reviews' corresponds to the Reviews category, 'Coaxial' is Coaxial, and 'Latest News' includes all new articles that aren't Coaxial (including Reviews). Cool News articles are posted again under more specific headings, too: 'Contests', 'DVDs', 'Comics', and 'Animation'. And there's a 'Top Stories' heading, too, but it's hard to say what classifies any particular story as 'Top'. If all this sounds confusing, that's because it is.

The homepage headings are useful in principle, but they only show the most recent articles. The headings aren't tags, so if you want to search for articles under a particular heading you simply can't; if an article is older than a month or so, you can't find it except in the all-encompassing Cool News archive, or via Google. It's long been asserted that readers need efficient devices to help them skim pages (e.g.), and you could argue that AICN's homepage is an adequate way to present constantly-updated information in a skimmable format: it's all headlines, all concise, all large clear type. However, as a sensible archive it fails terribly.

AICN's clumsy design extends to articles, too. Although it's long been asserted that webpages should use 'multiple signs' and include appropriate graphics (e.g.), a typical AICN review is a simple block of text. Although relevant images and videos are often embedded in news or rumour articles, they are almost never included in reviews. And while an article may mention dozens of linkworthy items, there are usually few or no links (aside from the author's email and Twitter). News and rumour articles will link to their primary sources if possible, but that's about it.

Some designers and theorists are wary of links, worrying that they 'disrupt the flow of content . . . inviting the user to leave your site' and warning web writers to avoid excessive linking. But in general, most recognise that links are a good thing (e.g.): links are well-liked by readers and are a key element of web life. Given this, is AICN's continued success an argument against the modern design principles that it flouts (i.e. links, images, clear organisation)? Or does it simply prove that content is more important than style?

In contrast to AICN, movie website Cinematical has a far more professional sheen. Cinematical is part of the Weblogs, Inc. blog network, and it may be this tangible connection to a commercial overlord that motivates its design and architecture. Certainly, Cinematical is more blatantly commercial than AICN: where AICN advertisements are few and unobtrusive, Cinematical employs multiple images in a way that is sometimes distracting. Cinematical also devotes significant space to advertising its blog network partners (although mostly at the bottom of pages, where it is relatively unobtrusive).

Cinematical's most obvious advantage over AICN is its organisation. Articles are tagged by keyword and arranged into logical category headings on the homepage, so they are always easy to find; the inbuilt search bar has multiple options, too. Cinematical's abundance of information and advertisements could easily render the site incomprehensible, and it does look 'busier' than AICN at first. But once actually using the site, it's soon evident that Cinematical is much better for clarity and ease of use.

Compared to AICN, a typical Cinematical article is also far more web-optimised. Articles consistently provide more links, every post includes at least one image, and there is a reasonable amount of multimedia content. The authorial tone is typically less gonzo and more professional (or 'journalistic') than AICN, but it still reads more like a blog than a newspaper. There are playful articles like 'Our Favorite Montages: Rocky IV' – the kind of fannish geekery that once would have been unthinkable from a serious news outlet, but is the blogosphere's bread and butter.

Cinematical and AICN are both relatively large and comprehensive sites, but many movie websites operate on a smaller scale. In Film Australia began as a site covering all movies, presumably with ambitions to match the larger sites, but it recently relaunched to focus wholly on Australian cinema. This is not surprising: there are already plenty of sites covering the world of cinema, and it can be difficult for a new site to compete against the entire Internet. In fact, it's statistically inevitable that web traffic will cluster around only a few key sites. If a site like AICN is the undisputed king of movie news, why would a reader go anywhere else? What surfer would defy their own bookmark? (This may be the ultimate secret of AICN's continued success, despite its old-fashioned design and confusing architecture.)

With In Film's new focus on Australian cinema, there's an immediate difference to the site. Without any emphasis on breaking Hollywood news and rumours, the tone becomes immediately more sedate and intellectual (or at least, 'not populist'). This may also be a consequence of the Australian focus, given that so many Australian films possess an 'artsy' and quasi-academic (dare one say, 'not populist') feel. The increased prevalence of retrospective articles enhances this mood, too; unlike AICN, there's no sense of immediacy or obsession with what's coming next.

In Film's site follows the same basic blog structure as Cinematical, although simplified. Articles are tagged by keyword, but in In Film's case it's a tagging that seems to miss the point. Reviews are tagged as 'Reviews' and nothing else, but they also include the heading 'Review:' as part of their title. Other categories follow this redundant pattern. And despite this simplicity, I noticed that at least one article had been wrongly tagged. Nevertheless: it may not be a very sophisticated system of categorisation, but at least it's clear.

A typical In Film article looks as if it was written with print in mind. There are practically no links in text, although articles do feature occasional multimedia content. Oddly, this apparent focus on text might contribute to In Film presenting a more 'respectable' sheen than Cinematical or AICN. It certainly feels more thoughtful and literate, language-wise; on the other hand, the aura of intellectual respectability may be due to visual cues as much as anything else. Note the sedate earth tones, the comforting slabs of serif text, the moderately-sized type.

In Film's more detached, intellectual tone may be its downfall. Popular blogs usually have a strong personal voice, and it's difficult to feel that coming through at In Film. The question of 'voice' in web writing is a difficult one; as some have noted, what sounds 'perfectly normal' in a traditional press editorial may sound 'distant and pontifical' when used in a blog. This is especially important because websites, far more so than traditional press, rely on interactions and contributions from their readers to survive.

It is easy to see a correlation between authorial tone and reader participation. The resolutely informal AICN has a vibrant message board culture, and many AICN articles acquire hundreds of comments; Cinematical and In Film, more formal and less personal than AICN, average only a few comments per article. It seems obvious that 'an informal and personal style of writing . . . invites interaction and sharing, the most powerful features of the web'. By resisting an overly personal tone, In Film resists audience collaboration; whether intentionally or not, it reinforces a more traditional model of authorial authority.

In an attempt to provoke the 'interaction and sharing' of its readers, most movie news websites straddle a fuzzy divide between 'fan site' and professional news. AICN started out as the former and is resisting a transition to the latter, despite its increasing importance in the media landscape. Cinematical is undeniably commercial, but it still attempts to maintain a fannish sense of enthusiasm and (relative) independence. Meanwhile, In Film attempts another model altogether: the non-commercial niche blog, building an audience through quality and focus. As the web evolves, time will tell which models are most viable. But the promise of the Internet is that viability only matters if you want it to. As long as fans want to talk about movies, there will be plenty of sites to do just that.

REFERENCES
Ain't It Cool News
Best Movie & Film Websites
Bowles, D. A. and D. L. Borden (2000) 'Editing for the Web' in Creative Editing. Belmont: Wadsworth
Buckmaster, L. The Buck Stops 'ere
Cinematical
Cinetology
Dube, J. (2003) 'Writing news online', Poynter.org
Dark Horizons
DuVergne Smith, N. (2003) 'Thoughts in progress on writing for the web', self-published at AOL
Heron, A. (2008) 'The Most Useful Movie Websites 2.0', FILMdetail
HitFix
In Film Australia
Internet Archive Wayback Machine
Kaplan, N. (2000) 'Literacy Beyond Books' in A. Herman and T. Swiss (eds) The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory. New York and London: Routledge
Levine, R. et al. (1999) The Cluetrain Manifesto
Lynch, P. and Horton, S. (2008) Web Style Guide (3rd edition)
Morkes, J. and Nielsen, J. (1998) 'Applying Writing Guidelines to Web Pages', Useit.com
Nielsen, J. (1997) 'Concise, scannable and objective: how to write for the web', Useit.com
Nunberg, G. (2004) 'Blogging in the Global Lunchroom', UC Berkeley School of Information
Pajiba
Shirky, C. (2003) 'Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality', Networks, Economics and Culture (mailing list)
Sholin, R. (2009) 'Why we link: A brief rundown of the reasons your news organization needs to tie the Web together', Publishing2.0
Smashing Editorial (2008) '10 Principles Of Effective Web Design', Smashing Magazine
Urban Dictionary
US Department of Health and Human Services (2006) Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines
Variety
Wallace, N. (1999) 'Web Writing for Many Interest Levels', e-gineer.com
Weblogs, Inc.
Wesch, M. (2009) 'Participatory Media Literacy: Why it matters', Digital Ethnography
Wikipedia

Self-Indulgence

This isn't a post about "Anonymous", the 4chan meme (although that is a fascinating story, so maybe I'll have to do that some other time)*. I want to write something now about being anonymous. I've been thinking about blog anonymity a lot lately, but I'm still really uncertain about it. Maybe writing will help me make up my mind. Maybe you can help me out in the comments.

First: I started a blog a while ago. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it, but I thought it would be good opportunity (and excuse) to force myself to practise different ways of writing. Which is what it's actually been, more or less, I think. I posted as "Thoapsl" because in my mind, that stood for "think of a pseudonym later". (Yeah, I know, I know...)

BUT. As of Wednesday, I'm no longer anonymous: my blog now carries my actual name. So? Even before, it was possible for people to figure out my identity if they tried hard enough. But I'd always had a vague paranoia that without anonymity, I was more vulnerable; that I couldn't post anything without fear of it haunting me irl. Anonymity meant the freedom to relax.

That's what I thought my motivation was. But in fact I've always cared about what I post, anyway, whether anonymous or not. Thoapsl's reputation isn't my reputation, but it's a reputation that I care about. I've even gone out of my way not to swear online, mostly, despite the fact that my natural inclination is to swear like a m*therf*ck**g c**tf*xed tro**er.

So if it's not really about freedom, what's my real paranoia? Am I maybe worried about potential employers not hiring me, because of something on my blog that they don't like?

I know I'm definitely conflicted about angling for employment via my blog. I want my personal blogging to be for fun and random – I don't want to feel constrained by purpose. I definitely don't want to seem mercenary. But if someone actually emailed me tomorrow and said "Hey Tim, I read your blog and I would like to give you money for something" – that would be great, wouldn't it? And if there's nothing on my blog that would actually lose me a job – at least, any job worth having – then what's the worst that could happen?

Maybe I've talked myself into it. Maybe I'm still unsure. Either way I probably need to work on my blogger profile some more. (Maybe I'm just embarrassed that I don't have a real "occupation" to fill in on my profile, yet.)

Is anonymity worth it? Do you care about it, yourself? Would you (or do you?) blog anonymously, or under your real name? Best answer wins a prize.

*Hey, wait a minute! I just noticed, I am totally jumping on the mentioning-4chan-but-then-not-actually-talking-about-it-although-still-leaving-open-the-possibility-of-talking-about-it-later bandwagon. What a weird coincidence. Hat-tip to Carla!

I'm Like A Bird

I've resisted joining Twitter for a long time because, you know, Twitter? Only journalists, nerds and stupid celebrities (and their stalkers) use Twitter, everybody knows that! It's just a wank, right? Worse than blogging, even. Forget about it.

That would probably be a dumb and unfair exaggeration, but that doesn't mean it's not a common reaction. It seems that because Twitter has gone from what? to it's everywhere! with such speed, a lot of people I know already feel that it's just not cool anymore. Of course back when it was cool, hardly anyone was using it, so there was little point in signing up. But now that it's been aggressively colonised by mainstream celebrities, it's just tragically unhip.

It's the same thing that happened to Facebook after your mum and dad joined. The difference is that Facebook, unlike Twitter, enjoyed a good year or so (i.e. 2007) dominated by twentysomethings – the parents and bosses didn't make it over until more recently.

If you were born in the 1980s, you and your friends joined Facebook around 2007–08, right? That was the crucial year-without-parents that entrenched Facebook's social essentiality. And even if you've now changed your mind, even if you now openly despise Facebook, now it's too late! Because if you quit tomorrow, how will you get invited to parties? How will you flirt? How will you play Scrabble? Facebook today is like a mobile phone: it's so culturally pervasive that it's more of a hassle to avoid than it is to play along.

Twitter hasn't had Facebook's luxury of incubated hipster coolness. It has had a huge amount of press coverage and good buzz, but I have a weird suspicion that this might be due to two unusual factors:

1. Twitter is excellent for journalists. It's a 21st-century evolution of the wire service, perfect for concise bulletins and constant updates. And if a whole bunch of journalists are suddenly using a new technology, it makes sense they're going to be interested enough to write a whole bunch of articles about it – even if these journalists are actually an unusual minority, compared to everyone else.*

2. Ashton Kutcher.

Of course, I could well be wrong about this. I live in a social bubble of my own. Most people I know don't really dig Twitter, but "most people I know" is not a meaningful demographic – everything I've said here could easily be way off. And yet, recent data indicates that I might be right: it turns out that most Twitter users are older professionals, while twentysomethings are definitely in the minority. But is this the way Twitter is going to stay, or will the demographic suddenly broaden after it passes the tipping point (as recently happened with Facebook)? And so what if it does, and so what if it doesn't?

Anyhow. My point: I joined Twitter this afternoon. Why?

Because yesterday, my housemate joined. Which meant that I suddenly had a total of two close friends on Twitter. If that's all it takes to convince me to join, maybe Twitter really is the future. I honestly don't know.

Answer me, people: is Twitter cool?

And, either way: so what?

*This is only a hypothesis, unfortunately: I've been able to find some data on Twitter demographics, but nothing that talks quantitatively about journalists. So this hunch of mine may be, in fact, complete crap.

Money Money Money Money Money

Crikey pointed out this interesting article by Lars Bastholm* about the money troubles possibly looming for the content industry – "content industry" being Bastholm's neat term for the mass of commercial media on the net (press websites, TV streaming, etc). Wait, money troubles? What?

Although the content industrialists have been hoping to support their online content via online advertising, Bastholm says this might not actually work. But if online ads aren't worth enough, where does money come from? There's two big ideas: micropayments, where people pay a miniscule amount of money every time they access content, or a subscription / licence fee model, where people a larger amount of money at regular intervals.

Bastholm's big argument is that "micropayments will never work", because Gen Y aren't willing to pay for anything. I think he's wrong, though. The whole point of micropayments is that the payments are tiny and invisible, and that's the key. There's a real psychological difference between spending $10 all at once and spending it in $0.0001 increments, the same as there's a difference between eating a whole cake at once versus eating it slice-by-slice. People don't like paying $150 for a dictionary, but paying a fraction of a cent for every definition you look up? Much easier to swallow.

If the prices are low enough and the mechanism makes it easy for you, people will pay rather than pirate. Even Gen Y kids will pay – isn't iTunes the proof? Most people are willing to spend (a little) money for legality and convenience. People bought a Nine Inch Nails album via iTunes, even though it was available free & legal via nin.com!

Anyhow – Bastholm wants to abandon paying for individual websites, and instead to implement a "content fee" similar to the television licences paid in Europe and elsewhere: one unavoidable payment to cover everything, like a tax. He admits that Americans, notoriously tax-phobic, are unlikely to accept a new fee to access what's now free. Yet he envisions every American paying an extra $20 a month or so, which is then distributed to the content producers via some kind of $$-per-popularity formula.

That might be a fair model, but wouldn't it be incredibly complicated? Not to mention, impossible to work across the net's (lack of) international borders? Or will the web of USA content just wall itself off from the rest of the world? (This might already be happening – I'm constantly pissed off that I can't watch television via Hulu, for example.)

I don't think a licence fee is practical. And mini-licence fees for each website (or network of sites) are already unpopular – people hate subscribing to websites! That might change if the big sites make it unavoidable... but I'm not convinced.

Micropayments are easier for websites to implement and easier for people to accept, I think. If the money has to come from somewhere, I'm definitely expecting micropayments.

Would you pay $20 a month for all your web content?

Would you rather pay a fraction of a cent per webpage view?

What's going to happen?

*LARS BASTHOLM: Lars the Red, Blood-Lord of the Ice Wastes of Fangthor, Chief Digital Creative Officer at Ogilvy North America.