Author: Barry Parr

Gerry McGovern has a bizarre piece over at ClickZ where he says “The Web’s Hippie Period Is Over” :

Do hippies and pioneers run your Web site? Are the same people who got things going in the mid-’90s still in charge today? Probably not a good idea. A very interesting bunch of people was attracted to the Web in the early days. They loved its lawless nature; it allowed them to experiment and express themselves.

These people tended to be techies and graphic designers. What you need today are writers and editors. The technical elements of a Web site are largely solved. The graphic design elements are relatively minor. The day-to-day job of the average site is writing and editing.

Is this the same Gerry McGovern that told us,

Content management software hasn’t worked because it was badly designed and massively over-hyped. Software companies lied about their products, charging criminal prices for crap software. It hasn’t worked because organizations didn’t understand content. They wanted a quick fix. They issued specifications that bore little relation to what they actually needed.

The techies and graphic designers didn’t buy all those lousy content-management systems or Flash-infested agency-built web sites that still plague us. Those are the legacy of the suits and carpetbaggers who never understood content or its presentation. The techies and graphic designers have brought us common-sense alternatives like PHP, MySQL, and CSS.

I agree that the technical and graphic design problems of the Web are largely solved, and good techies and designers don’t reinvent the wheel. They do help you find the right wheel for your vehicle and attach it so that it won’t fall off.

Cyberjournalist has a link to a 3D map of Iraq, saying;

Online journalist Ernst Poulsen points out an interesting 3D map of Iraq on The Jutland-Post’s Web site, which highlights a few basic things like oil-fields, cities and military forces. “In a few years time, 3D maps like this could help journalists explain stories about military tactics and the layout of the country,” he says. [3/19]

I went there to see if this site would dispel my natural suspicion of 3-D maps, which doesn’t seem like an inherently useful concept to me. But the link took me to the home page of something called TurnTool, which says

TurnTool Viewer Not Installed

Your browser either failed to install the TurnTool Viewer or does not support ActiveX content at all. To install the Viewer download and run ViewerInstall.exe.

Supported platforms:

Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT4, ME, 2000 and XP with Internet Explorer 4 or greater.

Apple Macintosh & Linux systems are currently not supported.

I will never understand why journalistic organizations continue to tie their future to Microsoft’s domination of the Internet.

Besides, does anyone still use ActiveX? Microsoft’s Activex web site has hardly been updated since 1999.

I understand why Puma was upset by the brilliant, revolting parody Puma ads that are making their way around the Net.

The real issue isn’t the ads, but that we’re all ready to believe that they’re real. And why not? The recent controversy over a FCUK ad in the Boston Globe shows how plausible it all is. The position of the advertisers and their media enablers is that of a young child caught pooping in the kitchen.

First, deny the obvious:

French Connection UK spokeswoman Laura Bernstein acknowledges that the discovery of the acronym a few years ago sparked a sales boon. She demurs on the meaning of the word. ”It isn’t the play on words people often think it is,” she says. However, a visit to the company’s online store (you can buy T-shirts with such logos as ”fcuk on the beach” or ”too busy to fcuk”) suggest otherwise.

Then, explain to Mom that “Everybody is doing it.”:

Critics, says Bernstein, should note the far more provocative ads produced by other companies. ”I challenge them to look at what other fashion magazines are doing,” she says.

As I said, the media have enabled this behavior and cloaked it in the First Amendment.

‘We believe in freedom of speech, and our inclination is to run ads rather than not run them,” said Mary Jane Patrone, senior vice president for marketing and sales.

It’s unfortunate that this attitude didn’t prevail when MTV refused to accept antiwar advertising, or when PayPal unplugged an antiwar web site.

Corporate media are eager to beat the first amendment drum in support of soft-core pornvertising, witless consolidation, or ugly know-nothingism, but they’re unwilling to permit their channels to be used for the promotion of unpopular points of view.

Today I found a link on MediaGeek to a Washington Post profile of Amy Goodman. I don’t agree with her on most political issues and MediaGeek is right about her humorless earnestness, but she’s the closest thing I have to a media hero these days. She actively defied a renegade board of directors and made huge personal sacrifices to make a difference and tell the truth. That is what the first amendment is about.