You may think some these ideas are crazy.  This Paid Content article, that uses World of Warcraft as a case study for how to attract users to subscribe to a service, has some interesting observations on why people pay to use a game or an online service.  I found this idea particularly interesting:

—Reader rewards: The addictive quality of WoW comes from “leveling”, the process whereby players earn points and progress a series of ranks to gain new skills. News sites should consider whether they can drive usage, loyalty and payments by similarly encouraging readers to unlock different “levels” of membership, each with its own unique rewards.

Food for thought, isn’t it?

(Hat tip to Mathew Ingram http://twitter.com/mathewi for sharing this on Google Reader.)

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Newspapers, serendipity, and the time to browse

Yesterday I received a free lesson in how easy it is to miscommunicate.

SCENARIO

I Tweeted the following last night on Twitter:

Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience. But not as much as publishing print is.

Andrew Gorham, the Toronto Globe and Mail arts editor (who would know a lot about writing for print media, right?) picked up on my Tweet and said the following:

@MarkDykeman Dream on, mon frere. Wishing does not make it so.

Followed by:

Riddle me this: Why do non-print writers have such hostility to print?

Liz Hover, who blogs here, asked:

@andrewGorham They do? I write for both print and web. What gives you the impression folks are hostile?

To which Andrew replied:

@lizhover stuff like this: RT @MarkDykeman Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience. But not as much as publishing print is.

And they basically dropped it there.

I Tweeted Andrew a couple of times, as per the following:

@andrewGorham wishing what? just describing how it does feel at times, regardless of the reality. But, shrug, that’s the way it is.

and

@andrewGorham @lizhover look, I think you are misunderstanding me. It’s not hostility. I’m describing the lack of contact with audience.

EXPLANATION:

I was trying to say one thing and I believe that Andrew misinterpreted what I was saying.

Let’s break my original Tweet into two pieces:

Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience.

In retrospect, what I should have written was:  “Publishing to the Web is like doing a show without a live audience.”  Note the word “live”.  This refers to having an audience in person that is actively watching and listening to your performance.  The thing about a Web audience is that it varies both in size and when it actually occurs.  You could have 10,000 people read an article on the Web, but they wouldn’t all be reading it at the same time.  In fact, they might be reading it over the course of days, weeks, months, or even years.  However, even with statistics packages, you only get an imperfect view of how many people are reading and when they are reading.

In a way, this is similar to movie or television performances which are broadcast after the work is done.  You normally don’t have much of a live audience when this happens, so you have no real idea who is watching or when it happens.

But not as much as publishing print is.

As imperfect as Web statistics are, print reading statistics are even harder to come by.  Sure, you can get sales statistics, but they do not correlate to when (or even if) print media is being read.  Moreover, print media does not have the same commenting and feedback mechanisms built in that Web publishing does.  The only way a print author knows they are being read is if there are told in person, by phone, by E-Mail, or by the old faithful standard of communication, the letter.  Thus, if writing for the Web sometimes feels like you’re performing without an audience, print publishing can feel even more like that.

(NOTE:  I have been published in print before:  a local newspaper column and a freelance magazine article, so I have seen both sides of this, at least a little bit.)

TAKE-AWAY

If I left Andrew with the impression that I think there’s no audience for print writers, then I guess that’s my fault for not communicating clearly.  There is obviously a huge audience for print media.  Personally, I prefer to read print than online text, but the barriers to entry for online media are virtually zero.

I was trying to describe the feeling of writing to, or playing for, a quiet void which is occasionally broken up by some form of feedback.  Web content tends to get faster, possibly more, feedback due to the tools present in that medium.  That doesn’t make it any better (or worse) than print media in terms of quality or content.  It’s just that print media has a more delayed feedback mechanism that comes with the limitations of the distribution system.

Who says you can’t learn anything on a Friday?

EDIT:  I have received subsequent communication from Andrew Gorham and I think we understand each other’s point of view now.  Interestingly enough, I don’t think that I really understood his point of view until I started writing this post and really thought about what his Tweets meant.  Educational on a Saturday!

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Three posts on reading plus a bonus tip
• Thoughts from Skellie of Skelliewag.org
• Thoughts from Jonathan Fields Career Renegade
• Just Write Blog Carnival entries
• Why do you blog if not for money?

There are times when I’m a contrarian, going against the grain with my thoughts and my actions.  At the same time, I tend to place a certain amount of trust in authors that I respect.  And so I thought I’d try a little experiment to try, at least mentally, to challenge an existing trusted source of information.

Clay Shirky wrote about the current age of chaos the world media are entering as newspapers are starting to collapse, with no obvious replacements in sight.  He compared the current dilemma that some newspapers (probably lots of newspapers) are facing with declining ad revenues and increased competition from many sources on the Web to the introduction of the printing press and the changes that it brought to the world.  Shirky got a lot of kudos for his article from various sources, including Tim O’Reilly.

Profoky Neva attempted to critique Shirky’s blog post.  Somehow I came across Profoky’s article via some conversations that I was monitoring on Twitter and decided to give it a read.  I had been following Profoky Neva on Twitter for awhile and I had a vague sense of this person being unafraid to ask questions and stir things up a bit.

I have been pretty clear in my support and admiration for some of Clay Shirky’s work.  I figured that it would be a good exercise to try and look at his article from a critical point of view.  I spent a fair amount of time reading and thinking Shirky’s blog post and Profoky’s as well.

Some thoughts on the Profoky article:

• I admire Profoky’s willingness to critique Shirky’s article.
• I think the author has some good points about questioning the real impact on free services like Craigslist on newspapers (no question that classified ads were hurt, but they haven’t died either AND they faced plenty of competition from other printed publications that offered free ads).
• Generally speaking, I think it’s fair that Profoky did try to poke into specifics a bit.
• However, Profoky did themself no service by taking an antagonistic stance toward Shirky himself and Shirky’s other writings and activities instead of sticking to the subject at hand.  I didn’t seen the same “anti-Catholic bias” in Shirky’s article that Profoky did, as an example.  And, the whole Bolshevik theme running throughout the article grew tiresome, frankly.  Basically, it seems to me that Profoky amped up the venom and hyperbole in order to get some attention.

And now the Shirky article:

• Shirky is a very good writer and has talent for explaining concepts in an easy-to-understand manner.
• At the same time, you have to go on the leap of faith that Shirky knows what he’s talking about and has done his homework, because this article deals in generalities and contains references to some information that I haven’t read.
• I think he’s correct in that newspapers took a typical approach to dealing with competition (they tried to neutralize it.  Unfortunately, for them, they failed.)
• I think his overall analogy of the introduction of the printing press (and its effect on society and culture) is similar to the lack of willingness that many consumers have to pay for content.  It’s a shift of power from one group to another that can take a long time to sort out.  I’d argue, however, that it wasn’t just the fact that the Bible became available to many via the printing press that lead to massive cultural change.  It’s also the fact that you eventually didn’t need to know Latin to read the book, nor be forced to hear about it through the clergy, that led to such change.
• I think that Shirky overemphasizes the role in corporate advertisers in subsidizing news coverage (e.g. the Iraq bureau).  He seems to imply that corporate advertisers knowingly subsidized specific types of journalism,  which I just can’t fathom.  There’s no way they could knowing do that, especially without compromising editorial integrity.  Later on, Shirky seems to contradict his previous assertion, which confuses things a bit.
• The fact remains that there are still numerous news outlets, albeit small ones, across North America and other parts of the world, which are still in business and they will undoubtedly survive in some form.  There are still millions of people who are far more comfortable reading a newspaper than looking at a computer screen, even if the computer version is essentially free.  IMHO, newspapers are at least one generation away from serious trouble, when Generation Y hits the late 30s/early 40s.  However, newspapers which have a significant number of web savvy readers are probably going to see their print editions hurt and hurt quite badly.

And so on.

I still have a mainly positive outlook on Shirky’s article after reading and thinking about both articles.  However, I’m glad that I did read the contrarian opinion, despite any misgivings that I had about it.  I think we need to question our beliefs from time to time, even when they come from trusted sources.  These types of checks and balances are important in any system… or society.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Backslapping, or linking, or whatever