Paying for the internet?

According to the New York Times, the London Times and the Sunday Times will soon be charging for their internet news site. (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/26/business/AP-EU-Britain-Times-Web.html?_r=1&ref=media) Now charging might be risky because advertisers are less inclined to advertise on sites that people have to pay to see. On the other hand, this would not be happening if the papers were making sufficient money from the advertisements on their sites. To many of us this sounds like an idea destine for failure. Rupert Murdoch would have to disagree with the masses. He is the owner of News Corps. witch owns many newspaper companies including these two. He also owns The Wall Street Journal. The Journal is one of the most successful pay per news sites in the entire world.
I, for one, do not think that pay for news sites will work in the long run. For sites like the Wall Street Journal, it is the best economic newspaper in America that hundreds of thousands of investors use every day. Other papers like the The London Times are easily replicable by the Daily Mail or another prominent British newspaper. With sites like google news that brings articles from all different sources to one page no one has the need to use just one news site. One way this would work is if all the major news sites began charging people for a subscription. This way people would have no choice but to buy it. For the average internet user this seems completely outrageous that they would have to pay to see a site, but we have to remember that there are journalist and editors who's job it is to report the news and post it online. So why shouldn't they be paid?
Jason

The next generation of reality TV is all celebrities, all the time

More and more celebrities are having reality TV shows for themselves. Ami Angelowicz, writer for The Frisky, reports, "I thought the whole point of reality TV was for some unknown Joe or Jane Schmo to have their 15 minutes of fame." The famous who want a reality TV show include David Hasslehoff and Sarah Palin. Hasselhoff will have a show on A&E about his life as a single father and his struggles with alcohol addiction. Palin wants a show that features her and her family in Alaska.
Why would famous people who are already in amazing financial condition want a reality TV show? Do they want attention, more money, or just have nothing else to do? Attention and boredom are decent answers, but I think money has something to do with it. Reality TV shows are very inexpensive to produce. This is why non-famous people can have their moment to shine. In the case of the already well-known, it's pretty much a winning scenario (and if they lose it didn't cost them that much).
I used to wonder why reality TV was so popular. As I was continually watching too much TV starting a few years ago, show after show started popping up on so many different networks. The shows used to feature people that had a quick stint of stardom then faded just as fast. It does seem there are more and more well-known celebrities (most of which are past the prime of their careers) being featured in a reality TV show. The answer to why these shows are popping up is now clear to me. The show is going to hit or miss, but either way the cost of doing the show won't make the stars wallets that much lighter.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/15/the.frisky.next.gen.reality.show/index.html

The new gatekeeper and consumer

Everyone should read this article because it talks about the evolving times in media and it exciting. Think about it, who are the gatekeepers of todays news, and what system are they using to expose the happenings, transformed into promotions, which they make glow in a sort of natural, omnipresent, worthyness? This article found at , talks about the revolutionary tools in which media gatekeepers display their news, including the ipad, amazon kindle, and even the culture of blogging. The author, Lachlan Markay, made us privy to the times, that old news gatekeepers are dying out. Record newspaer lows have emerged this year with more people getting their news quicker and faster and freeer from places like google news. It seems as though apple is the gatekeeper for the format in which the news is being displayed. With millions of people around the world using iphones to check email, watch sports highlights, read up on desired news.

This article tells us that the times are changing. We as consumers might not even notice it because we are all doing it. Ask yourself, are you more prone to go to a news website for news or bye a newspaper? It seems as though apple and google hold the key to how the future of news will be displayed. With more and more consumers going to their applications it is evident.

Of course it matters to us because we consume it and we will be more prone to use one of the new applications than the old, but i think there is a subtly here that matters to all of us, news, in any form is ideological. Google just this year allowed christian and pro-life ads on their website, showing that they along with the progressive news media, are more liberal. So we will be consuming more liberal based news than conservative, or whatever. That means that we as consumers need to be active consumers. We should not just take our information from one bias. The new news media allow us to search in a myriad of places for news. So we should us that to our advantage in being a new generation of active news consumers.

Batman comic book beats Superman auction, sets record

A copy of 'Dectective Comics' #27 was sold for $1,075,500 in an online auction. This is a rare comic of Batman in 1939. 1939 was when Batman was first shown on the comic book scene. It was a big deal to a wide range of people, because seven bidders from three different countries were bidding. The comic book was sold from Heritage Auctions in Dallas to an anonymous and apparently wealthy comic book collector. The previous record for a comic book being sold was for one million dollars. The record was held for three days by Superman's debut in 'Action Comics' #1 in 1938. Vincent Zurzolo, who is co-owner of ComicConnect.com, said "Records are meant to be broken and this week will forever go down in comic book history."
I believe the reason a batman comic book was sold for more than a superman comic book three days later is because of the idea of hegemony. I believe this person who bought the batman comic book for $1,075,500 was making a statement. The person is actively trying put the idea out that batman is better than superman, and its the universal way of thinking. The anonoymous collectors' ideology might be that his/her culture should like an overall more realistic (tentatively said) superhero by choosing batman over superman. This theory is the only explanation I can come up for the buyer paying over a million dollars for a batman comic book.
I am convinced that in some way, shape, or form someone was trying to prove batman is better than superman. The online auction proves that either someone really likes batman, or that someone who very much dislikes superman was upping the bids to make the batman fan pay more. I believe the reason for the high bidding was the batman lover. This recent auction proves how much superhero's mean to some people. One should take note of how much the media pushes superhero's importance onto our culture. But for now, I am glad for batman beating out superman. I'm more of a Bruce Wayne kind of guy anyway.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/26/news/economy/batman_comic/index.htm

Google It

As Americans we are used to seeing Google everywhere. For years, as soon as we logged onto the internet on our computers we would see a product of Google in their search engine. People who still see Google as just a search engine would be missing the majority of what Google does. They also own Youtube, have their own web browser, and have Google news, maps, and many more internet sites. Now the genius of Google is that, to the consumer, their products are completely free. They rely on add revenue to make money. I personally use Google every day of my life. I have Gmail, Picasa, and I am even blogging on a Google's Blogger and I do not pay them a cent. In the recent years Google has been expanding to outside of their traditional internet realm. They have recently incorperated themseles into the world of smart phones and according to this NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/technology/18webtv.html?ref=media) they are at it again.
According to this article, Google has teamed up with Intel and Sony to create Google TV. What Google is trying to do here is stick their foot into a new market. More importantly to them is that they are trying to monopolize horizontally. If they have a branch of their company involved in computers, phones, and TVs they will have their bases covered in the world of technology. So why would they expand horizontally. One huge reason is that they now have the advantage of synergy. They can connect and integrate all of their different technologies and endeavors, making everything cheaper and easier for them.
The real winners in this are the consumers. Because Google does not charge their customers anything to use their product everyone with a computer uses some sort of Google product. With Google expanding it will be easier for the consumer to use Google's synergy for them. It will become so easy for us to jump from our computer to our phone and then to our TV because all the Google programs will be compatible with each other on all these different devices. Google's expanding empire will make it easier for us to use our Google technology anywhere.

Jason