Lessons Mainstream Media Can Learn From The Porn Industry
In the early 1990s, when much of the world still viewed the Internet as a passing fad for anarchist geekazoids, pornographers were already raking in millions selling online content.
In the early 1990s, when much of the world still viewed the Internet as a passing fad for anarchist geekazoids, pornographers were already raking in millions selling online content.
Sorry to disappoint, but watching the pornography industry is not the same as watching pornography. And let’s be clear: It’s the action in the industry that matters to your organization – not that other kind of action. Matter it does. Smart media and tech entrepreneurs keep track of what’s happening in the world of “adult […]
In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was messing about in a darkened lab, studying cathode rays using a device called a Crookes tube. As he worked, a screen on the far side of the laboratory began to glow mysteriously. Even more mysterious, when he held his hand in front of the tube, a shadow of […]
When Napster and Kazaa appear in the news, it’s usually a story about digital piracy, or challenges to the traditional ideas of copyright. But the online exchange of music files is part of a change in public attitude that is both subtler and more profound. It’s the move away from mass production, toward mass customization. […]
Unfortunately, this is the lede of this article. The “lede” (journalism jargon for the opening sentence or paragraph of a newspaper article) usually serves several purposes: It describes the main issue (e.g., Is there such a thing as postmodern literature?), it introduces a person who is important to the story (such as Michael Berube, an […]
Nobody likes an evangelical atheist. Nothing ruins a dinner party like some less-holy-than-thou zealot giving a vodka-fueled sermon, pounding the table and decrying religion and spirituality as quaint superstitions left over from less enlightened times. I should know: after a few vodka-tonics, there’s no quelling my attempts to proselytize believers. But things are looking up […]
Natural selection does not plan ahead. It’s a common misconception that the evolution of species happens with some sort of foresight and will. That at some point, for instance, man’s ancestors somehow collectively decided, “OK, folks, if we’re going to dominate the world, we’re going to need to enlarge our brains, walk upright and develop […]
Historically, the dead have exploited cutting-edge communications technology to send messages to the world of the living. Their content, however, has often arrived somewhat muddled and cryptic (not, admittedly, unlike electronic correspondence originating from living sources). Thirty years ago, a spirit, whispering in Latvian through radio static, said: “Bring a halibut.” A hundred years ago, […]
“Judah is going to cure cancer in two years,” James Watson told Gina Kolata, a science and medicine reporter for The New York Times. Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the structure of DNA, was speaking about Judah Folkman, a medical researcher who had eradicated cancer in mice by inhibiting the growth of […]
It should come as no surprise that the Vatican is expected soon to announce the designation of a patron saint of the Internet and computer science. Judging by the solicitations that miraculously appear unbidden in my e-mail box, Internet users share many interests with the Catholic Church: Virgins and uniformed schoolgirls are just two examples. […]