All the news, new and old, related to GAZM.org - your digital campfire for creativity, humor and intelligent discourse.
Syllabus (Technology for Higher Education) - October 1, 2002
Online Journalism Review - May 16, 2002
Brooklyn Courier Life - October 27, 2001
Jacob Shwirtz live interview on CNNfn's "The NEW Show," Leading Edge segment: Low Quality | High Quality - July 11, 2001
The Brooklyn Papers - June 20, 2001
Jacob Shwirtz, GAZM CEO, Live Radio Interview on IMG2.com (no longer online) - June 7, 2001
Jacob Shwirtz speech at the HOBY NY event with 300 High School leadership students. - June, 2001
GAZM Hosts Brain-Storming Session at Cannes Film Festival - May 17, 2001
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Hits #1 Spot for First Time in More than Two Decades! " - April, 2001
Music Fans Will Create The World's First "Living Chart" Through HMV And GAZM.ORG! - March 8, 2001
Business 2.0 - March 8, 2001
Billboard Magazine - March 3, 2001
Syllabus - October 1, 2002 (link)
Blogs: A Disruptive Technology Coming of Age?
By Phillip D. Long
To blog or not to blog, that is increasingly the question for those of us supporting our academic communities. Lest you think the editor fell asleep and missed correcting that last sentence, some background is in order. In 1997 Jorn Barger coined the phrase Weblog to describe a site that combined links, commentaries, and personal thoughts and essays from the perspective of the Weblog author. The promise of the Web, however, was that everyone could publish, that a thousand voices could flourish, communicate and connect. But only those people who knew how to code a Web page could make their voices heard. For early adopters this was enough. Today it’s not.
The desire to communicate is powerful and technological innovations are frequently driven by our basic needs. After all, e-mail was developed by Internet network engineers who needed to communicate about what they were doing. No one had a clue then that the text message system they hacked together was the first killer app of the new network they were building. Blogging software makes the expression of writing, including the incorporation of hyperlinks for publishing on Web pages as easy as word processing (and, given the bloated state of today’s word processors, I’d say much easier). Ordinary mortals with little or no knowledge of HTML can easily put their writing on the Web. People can expound ideas, describe their daily routines, or reflect on what matters to them as easily as sending an instant message.
Not surprisingly, blogging, the verb form, has been viewed as a public form of journalism, giving anyone who wishes the opportunity to comment on events of the day. Indeed, as of this fall (Sept. 2002) several journalism schools at major universities have added courses in blogging to their curricula (see U.C. Berkeley School of Journalism, http://journalism.berkeley.edu/-program/courses/weblogs/index.html, and the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, http://www.ojr.org/ojr/future/1021586109.php, for examples). This is viewed by the blogging community as either vindication of their efforts, or the usurpation of their private reserve by the establishment media.
But blogging has exploded beyond journalism. Web entrepreneur Jacob Schwirtz likens this growth to the digital equivalent of sharing stories around the campfire, almost a primal urge. The New York Times estimated in August that there were now over a half a million Weblogs, with the number growing.
Blogging is well ensconced in the education community. Educators in K12 and higher education are using blogging tools for:
-Student logs (writing with various intentions) and portfolios
-A place for students, parents, and community members to collaborate
-Peer coaching environment for faculty
-Classroom management tool, e.g., place for posting assignments
-Knowledge management tool for compiling research logs, reference tools, policies and forms
-Many sites offer hints at best practices and guidelines for new educators interested in getting started. There is even an emerging discussion around the theory of Weblogs and their use
Blogging software can be as simple as using your browser. This is the approach taken by some basic Weblog hosts (e.g., Pitas, www.pitas.com, or, Blogger, blogspot.blogger.com). A variation on the hosted blogging approach is those sites in which your blog is part of a community of users on the site. A directory of the members of the community, including optional interest profiles and related services bring together otherwise anonymous voices broadcasting personal journals to the world. Among the more well known of these are LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) and Xanga (www.xanga.com). Xanga has all the appearance and functionality of a portal community, with news feeds and featured blogs on the home page.
Using your browser is convenient, but working on your site depends on connecting to the net. More features are available with software tools that when installed on your computer allow you to work on your site offline and synchronize when you connect. In addition, these tools permit setting up feeds from other sites that support syndication, that is, automatically inserting content into your site through channels based on the World-Wide Web Consortium’s RSS application (Resource Description Format Resource Site Summary), an XML-based lightweight syndication format that can carry an array of content types: news headlines, discussion forums, software announcements, and various bits of proprietary data. For details see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/files/specification.html)
Another approach to bringing the publishing and editing process from the Web to your desktop is the use of server based publishing software. In this case, the tool for editing your blogs is accompanied by the server software that you install on your server. Your server could be a machine you run and manage on your campus, one that is hosted by an Internet Service Provider, or one that is offered by a blogging hosting service.
Several Perl application suites for blogging are available (e.g., the popular Moveable Type blogware, www.moveable-type.org, or Blosxum, www.oreillynet.com/~rael/lang/perl/blosxom). There are powerful content management tools that provide feature rich blogging support from Userland (www.userland.com) who produce the popular Manilla dynamic content management system. Userland offers a client application, Radio, to connect to their hosted backend object-oriented content server (Frontier). You can download and install Radio to use on their site or run the whole thing on your own using Manilla.
A relative of the blogging world is the techie haven Slashdot (www.slash-dot.org). Slashdot has a personal journaling feature, but it is primarily a moderated community discussion space. However, the software that powers Slashdot is itself an open source community effort provided under the GNU Public License to anyone interested at http://slashcode.com. It powers a number of sites around the Web including Harvard Law School’s blogging site for the dissemination and discussion of legal news concerning information technology, http://grep.law.harvard.edu.
The growth of blogging may actually portend something else. The explosion of blogging is in part due to the march of technology, which has made what was once difficult—publishing Web content—extraordinarily easy. E-mail was around in universities and government labs for years before a simple interface and increasing reliability made it accessible and attractive to the general public. Note that Manilla software from Userland is described as a content management system. As it and products like it continue to evolve, what happens when content management becomes as simple to use as Web logs? When technology becomes simple enough, and leverages a basic human need, like communication, it becomes ubiquitous.
Companies that follow good business practices can dominate their markets and succeed. But in periods of rapid technological change, all bets are off. This was the argument made by Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen, in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (1997). Who will recognize when changes of this sort are occurring in the world of blogging? Or is it content management?
Blogs: A Disruptive Technology Coming of Age?
By Phillip D. Long
To blog or not to blog, that is increasingly the question for those of us supporting our academic communities. Lest you think the editor fell asleep and missed correcting that last sentence, some background is in order. In 1997 Jorn Barger coined the phrase Weblog to describe a site that combined links, commentaries, and personal thoughts and essays from the perspective of the Weblog author. The promise of the Web, however, was that everyone could publish, that a thousand voices could flourish, communicate and connect. But only those people who knew how to code a Web page could make their voices heard. For early adopters this was enough. Today it’s not.
The desire to communicate is powerful and technological innovations are frequently driven by our basic needs. After all, e-mail was developed by Internet network engineers who needed to communicate about what they were doing. No one had a clue then that the text message system they hacked together was the first killer app of the new network they were building. Blogging software makes the expression of writing, including the incorporation of hyperlinks for publishing on Web pages as easy as word processing (and, given the bloated state of today’s word processors, I’d say much easier). Ordinary mortals with little or no knowledge of HTML can easily put their writing on the Web. People can expound ideas, describe their daily routines, or reflect on what matters to them as easily as sending an instant message.
Not surprisingly, blogging, the verb form, has been viewed as a public form of journalism, giving anyone who wishes the opportunity to comment on events of the day. Indeed, as of this fall (Sept. 2002) several journalism schools at major universities have added courses in blogging to their curricula (see U.C. Berkeley School of Journalism, http://journalism.berkeley.edu/-program/courses/weblogs/index.html, and the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, http://www.ojr.org/ojr/future/1021586109.php, for examples). This is viewed by the blogging community as either vindication of their efforts, or the usurpation of their private reserve by the establishment media.
But blogging has exploded beyond journalism. Web entrepreneur Jacob Schwirtz likens this growth to the digital equivalent of sharing stories around the campfire, almost a primal urge. The New York Times estimated in August that there were now over a half a million Weblogs, with the number growing.
Blogging is well ensconced in the education community. Educators in K12 and higher education are using blogging tools for:
-Student logs (writing with various intentions) and portfolios
-A place for students, parents, and community members to collaborate
-Peer coaching environment for faculty
-Classroom management tool, e.g., place for posting assignments
-Knowledge management tool for compiling research logs, reference tools, policies and forms
-Many sites offer hints at best practices and guidelines for new educators interested in getting started. There is even an emerging discussion around the theory of Weblogs and their use
Blogging software can be as simple as using your browser. This is the approach taken by some basic Weblog hosts (e.g., Pitas, www.pitas.com, or, Blogger, blogspot.blogger.com). A variation on the hosted blogging approach is those sites in which your blog is part of a community of users on the site. A directory of the members of the community, including optional interest profiles and related services bring together otherwise anonymous voices broadcasting personal journals to the world. Among the more well known of these are LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) and Xanga (www.xanga.com). Xanga has all the appearance and functionality of a portal community, with news feeds and featured blogs on the home page.
Using your browser is convenient, but working on your site depends on connecting to the net. More features are available with software tools that when installed on your computer allow you to work on your site offline and synchronize when you connect. In addition, these tools permit setting up feeds from other sites that support syndication, that is, automatically inserting content into your site through channels based on the World-Wide Web Consortium’s RSS application (Resource Description Format Resource Site Summary), an XML-based lightweight syndication format that can carry an array of content types: news headlines, discussion forums, software announcements, and various bits of proprietary data. For details see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/files/specification.html)
Another approach to bringing the publishing and editing process from the Web to your desktop is the use of server based publishing software. In this case, the tool for editing your blogs is accompanied by the server software that you install on your server. Your server could be a machine you run and manage on your campus, one that is hosted by an Internet Service Provider, or one that is offered by a blogging hosting service.
Several Perl application suites for blogging are available (e.g., the popular Moveable Type blogware, www.moveable-type.org, or Blosxum, www.oreillynet.com/~rael/lang/perl/blosxom). There are powerful content management tools that provide feature rich blogging support from Userland (www.userland.com) who produce the popular Manilla dynamic content management system. Userland offers a client application, Radio, to connect to their hosted backend object-oriented content server (Frontier). You can download and install Radio to use on their site or run the whole thing on your own using Manilla.
A relative of the blogging world is the techie haven Slashdot (www.slash-dot.org). Slashdot has a personal journaling feature, but it is primarily a moderated community discussion space. However, the software that powers Slashdot is itself an open source community effort provided under the GNU Public License to anyone interested at http://slashcode.com. It powers a number of sites around the Web including Harvard Law School’s blogging site for the dissemination and discussion of legal news concerning information technology, http://grep.law.harvard.edu.
The growth of blogging may actually portend something else. The explosion of blogging is in part due to the march of technology, which has made what was once difficult—publishing Web content—extraordinarily easy. E-mail was around in universities and government labs for years before a simple interface and increasing reliability made it accessible and attractive to the general public. Note that Manilla software from Userland is described as a content management system. As it and products like it continue to evolve, what happens when content management becomes as simple to use as Web logs? When technology becomes simple enough, and leverages a basic human need, like communication, it becomes ubiquitous.
Companies that follow good business practices can dominate their markets and succeed. But in periods of rapid technological change, all bets are off. This was the argument made by Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen, in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (1997). Who will recognize when changes of this sort are occurring in the world of blogging? Or is it content management?
Online Journalism Review - May 16, 2002 (link)
News by the People, for the People
By Paul Andrews
Marcia Barton does not consider herself a journalist by any stretch of the definition.
The retired Seattle community college instructor "publishes" an environment and politics newsletter featuring commentary and links to stories around the Web -- especially those that highlight the follies of the Bush administration. She sends it out almost daily to about a dozen friends.
"I don't think of it as journalism as much as nagging them with alternative points of view," says Barton, who draws from BBC, The Guardian, The Nation, Democrats.com and Commondreams.org, among others.
Rusty Foster has no idea how he wound up in the information business. A physics and film studies major at William & Mary, Foster turned a programming hobby into an experimental online community site called Kuro5in (pronounced "cur-OH-shin," a homonym for "corrosion" and thus a play on Foster's first name. The Japanese translation -- "black heart" -- is "cool" but irrelevant, Foster says).
Kuro5hin offers the ultimate democratic editorial process: Impromptu discussion groups form around thoughtful postings mostly spun off the news. Regulars rate postings for quality, accuracy and depth. The site draws 100,000 regular readers.
"At its best, the site ends up being really good journalism," says Foster, who runs things from an island 2.5 miles off the coast of Maine. "At its worst, it's just bad op-ed."
Barton and Foster both operate in a journalistic gray zone corporate media can't quite figure out. They are self-made publishers who create more than content: They're building interactive communities that "meet" online to share their thoughts on the news, often writing polished commentary and connect-the-dot essays that pull together news on a topic from various sources.
Stories that are the end result of the news process in traditional media are just the starting point for online communities, which spin off discussions full of context, historical background, conjecture and related links.
Web entrepreneur Jacob Shwirtz dubs the process a "digital campfire." His site, GAZM.org, is "all about giving people a platform to share whatever creative, artistic, intellectual pursuits they're interested in." Swarms of Web users at GAZM alight on a topic du jour, then move on to something new the next day.
Once dominated by anonymous flamers and yahoos, many community news sites now boast contributors with obvious expertise and writing talent. Kuro5hin's process of authentication, modeled after the techie site Slashdot.org, ensures a certain credibility and enhances the original report or analysis through its intensive feedback loop. A posting will gain dozens, even hundreds, of commentaries, each enhancing, clarifying and amplifying the original content.
"The end result is an understanding and depth that just is not possible in traditional one-direction journalism," Kuro5hin's Foster notes.
As their identity, audience, credibility and influence grow, online communities also are breaking news on their own, seeding traditional media reporting.
"I'm about two weeks ahead of The New York Times," says Ur-blogger Dave Winer, CEO of UserLand Software and proprietor of one of the Web's earliest and most popular blogs, Scripting News.
The longtime Silicon Valley programmer turned Web evangelist can cite numerous instances where his Weblog, Scripting News, has beaten and/or seeded major news media on technology trends and breakthroughs.
For years Winer has criticized major media as "BigPubs" and "BigCos," unable to "get" the emerging open-software technological trends and viewpoints he champions. But a funny thing happened in April: The New York Times, the Cadillac of BigPubs, partnered with Winer to provide content feeds to users of UserLand's Radio blogging software. The deal "was just the tip of the iceberg," Winer says. "Things are really going to explode."
While he won't discuss details, he hints that other, bigger pacts are in the offing -- though not necessarily with traditional news publications.
Something is happening here, Mr. Jones, even if we aren't sure what it is.
Aided by the Internet and personal-computer software, online communities with their own publishing tools and networks are redefining news in the 21st Century.
Winer and Foster both call what they do journalism -- Barton's not quite ready to make that claim about her informal newsletter.
Until 9/11, most mainstream journalists would have laughed at the suggestion that blog sites might be doing journalism. Now they're not so sure.
While TV stations replayed ad nauseum footage of the plane colliding with the tower -- and while most newspapers were still running sketchy wire reports -- Weblogs throughout Manhattan provided raw feeds from street level.
Able to post text, photos and video almost immediately, blogs easily outshone anything major media could provide. "For the first 48 hours after the bombing, Weblogs were the best source of news available, hands-down," said Foster.
September 11 earned the "amateurs" some respect. Today, journalists -- the mainstream ones -- find themselves asking questions they rarely contemplated before 9/11: Are bloggers journalists? Are these guys competition?
The question gets top billing this month as one of the main stories in May's issue of Quill, an industry magazine produced by the Society of Professional Journalists.
Big Media might just ignore these independent publishers if it weren't for one thing: They're attracting eyeballs -- getting clicks and page views that newspapers and other media companies are looking to claim for themselves.
Kuro5hin generates 6.5 million page views a month. Winer -- whose wide-ranging site mixes tech, politics, culture and Winer's personal musings -- draws around 10,000 consistent readers.
There are an estimated 500,000 Weblogs; most attract a few dozen to a few thousand regular readers. These news sites are playing to a vast and growing Internet audience -- 150 million in the U.S. and 500 million worldwide.
Even as the Web news audience is growing, newspaper circulation is on the depressing end of a 30-year decline: The most recent Audit Bureau of Circulations survey showed circulation was down by .6 percent over six months ending March 31.
Many of those lost readers are going to the flashy new competitor: The Internet. Surveys show that as many as 20 percent of online users turn to the Internet as their primary news source.
Mainstream media take some comfort in the fact that most people go to newspaper sites for local news, but that could change: Software is getting better at creating personalized news feeds that reflect readers' needs -- giving readers a way to get the news they want without visiting newspaper Web sites.
And search engines like Google are making it easier to find breaking news at alternative blog sites -- drawing referrals away from the mainstream news sites.
With an eye on the potential threat -- and the potential to increase audience online -- many in the $55 billion newspaper industry are hustling to improve their Web sites; some are opening the door to more interaction with readers online.
Winer says his deal with The New York Times -- which does not even publish e-mail addresses of its reporters -- is a "major breakthrough."
The Gray Lady also put her toe in the water of online discussions, albeit "moderated," with the Enron scandal. Other newspapers, notably the Washington Post, are offering online chats with leading columnists in a sort of talk-radio online format.
MSNBC.com -- the Web's most popular news site -- added two blogs to its content lineup this week: Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log (science and technology) and Michael Moran's foreign affairs blog. A handful of other professional journalists have added Weblogs to their reporting duties, although the number is still tiny.
Other online news mechanisms, from mailing lists to discussion groups to hybrids like Kuro5hin and GAZM, have found little traction among traditional media.
Bloggers and interactive news communities may eventually further infiltrate the mainstream media; as yet, no one's suggesting they will ever replace it.
As veteran journalist Murray Fromson put it at the University of Southern California's online journalism conference in March, "without newspapers and networks, who will cover a war in Afghanistan?"
Fromson, the former head of USC's journalism department, has a point: Online communities, no matter what their size and reach, rely on traditional news outlets for their core information.
As for covering the war in Afghanistan with Weblogs -- well, not yet, perhaps. But they are becoming an important check and balance to an industry that previously had very little oversight.
I was reminded of Fromson's comment recently after the assassination of Dutch prime minister candidate Pim Fortuyn. American newspapers, locked into the binary way of casting domestic politics, referred to Fortuyn as a right-wing candidate. But he was openly gay and a former Marxist and who espoused a number of progressive causes. The right-wing label came from his advocacy of immigration restrictions -- a not unreasonable stance in Europe's most overcrowded country.
I looked through several newspapers for an explanation of Fortuyn's politics that confronted such obvious contradictions. I finally found the answer in a Weblog authored by Adam Curry, the former MTV "VJ" who lives in Amsterdam.
Full of knowledgeable asides, links to other blogs and commentaries on published reports, Curry put the tragedy in subtle and intelligent perspective, far outstripping anything conventional U.S. media reported.
In the long run, online communities and pundits like Curry may help strengthen journalism by adding this kind of nuance to the black-and-white reports the BigCos routinely produce.
Ultimately, the mainstream media will likely continue to cover enfranchised sources, and online media will continue to empower the disenfranchised while keeping the pros accountable by dinging them for every instance of superficial or careless reporting.
The end result -- until the first blogger or Kuro5hin contributor shows up in a White House briefing or Afghanistan reporter pool, at least -- will be an uneasy symbiosis of the two organisms, where host and parasite feed off each other interchangeably.
News by the People, for the People
By Paul Andrews
Marcia Barton does not consider herself a journalist by any stretch of the definition.
The retired Seattle community college instructor "publishes" an environment and politics newsletter featuring commentary and links to stories around the Web -- especially those that highlight the follies of the Bush administration. She sends it out almost daily to about a dozen friends.
"I don't think of it as journalism as much as nagging them with alternative points of view," says Barton, who draws from BBC, The Guardian, The Nation, Democrats.com and Commondreams.org, among others.
Rusty Foster has no idea how he wound up in the information business. A physics and film studies major at William & Mary, Foster turned a programming hobby into an experimental online community site called Kuro5in (pronounced "cur-OH-shin," a homonym for "corrosion" and thus a play on Foster's first name. The Japanese translation -- "black heart" -- is "cool" but irrelevant, Foster says).
Kuro5hin offers the ultimate democratic editorial process: Impromptu discussion groups form around thoughtful postings mostly spun off the news. Regulars rate postings for quality, accuracy and depth. The site draws 100,000 regular readers.
"At its best, the site ends up being really good journalism," says Foster, who runs things from an island 2.5 miles off the coast of Maine. "At its worst, it's just bad op-ed."
Barton and Foster both operate in a journalistic gray zone corporate media can't quite figure out. They are self-made publishers who create more than content: They're building interactive communities that "meet" online to share their thoughts on the news, often writing polished commentary and connect-the-dot essays that pull together news on a topic from various sources.
Stories that are the end result of the news process in traditional media are just the starting point for online communities, which spin off discussions full of context, historical background, conjecture and related links.
Web entrepreneur Jacob Shwirtz dubs the process a "digital campfire." His site, GAZM.org, is "all about giving people a platform to share whatever creative, artistic, intellectual pursuits they're interested in." Swarms of Web users at GAZM alight on a topic du jour, then move on to something new the next day.
Once dominated by anonymous flamers and yahoos, many community news sites now boast contributors with obvious expertise and writing talent. Kuro5hin's process of authentication, modeled after the techie site Slashdot.org, ensures a certain credibility and enhances the original report or analysis through its intensive feedback loop. A posting will gain dozens, even hundreds, of commentaries, each enhancing, clarifying and amplifying the original content.
"The end result is an understanding and depth that just is not possible in traditional one-direction journalism," Kuro5hin's Foster notes.
As their identity, audience, credibility and influence grow, online communities also are breaking news on their own, seeding traditional media reporting.
"I'm about two weeks ahead of The New York Times," says Ur-blogger Dave Winer, CEO of UserLand Software and proprietor of one of the Web's earliest and most popular blogs, Scripting News.
The longtime Silicon Valley programmer turned Web evangelist can cite numerous instances where his Weblog, Scripting News, has beaten and/or seeded major news media on technology trends and breakthroughs.
For years Winer has criticized major media as "BigPubs" and "BigCos," unable to "get" the emerging open-software technological trends and viewpoints he champions. But a funny thing happened in April: The New York Times, the Cadillac of BigPubs, partnered with Winer to provide content feeds to users of UserLand's Radio blogging software. The deal "was just the tip of the iceberg," Winer says. "Things are really going to explode."
While he won't discuss details, he hints that other, bigger pacts are in the offing -- though not necessarily with traditional news publications.
Something is happening here, Mr. Jones, even if we aren't sure what it is.
Aided by the Internet and personal-computer software, online communities with their own publishing tools and networks are redefining news in the 21st Century.
Winer and Foster both call what they do journalism -- Barton's not quite ready to make that claim about her informal newsletter.
Until 9/11, most mainstream journalists would have laughed at the suggestion that blog sites might be doing journalism. Now they're not so sure.
While TV stations replayed ad nauseum footage of the plane colliding with the tower -- and while most newspapers were still running sketchy wire reports -- Weblogs throughout Manhattan provided raw feeds from street level.
Able to post text, photos and video almost immediately, blogs easily outshone anything major media could provide. "For the first 48 hours after the bombing, Weblogs were the best source of news available, hands-down," said Foster.
September 11 earned the "amateurs" some respect. Today, journalists -- the mainstream ones -- find themselves asking questions they rarely contemplated before 9/11: Are bloggers journalists? Are these guys competition?
The question gets top billing this month as one of the main stories in May's issue of Quill, an industry magazine produced by the Society of Professional Journalists.
Big Media might just ignore these independent publishers if it weren't for one thing: They're attracting eyeballs -- getting clicks and page views that newspapers and other media companies are looking to claim for themselves.
Kuro5hin generates 6.5 million page views a month. Winer -- whose wide-ranging site mixes tech, politics, culture and Winer's personal musings -- draws around 10,000 consistent readers.
There are an estimated 500,000 Weblogs; most attract a few dozen to a few thousand regular readers. These news sites are playing to a vast and growing Internet audience -- 150 million in the U.S. and 500 million worldwide.
Even as the Web news audience is growing, newspaper circulation is on the depressing end of a 30-year decline: The most recent Audit Bureau of Circulations survey showed circulation was down by .6 percent over six months ending March 31.
Many of those lost readers are going to the flashy new competitor: The Internet. Surveys show that as many as 20 percent of online users turn to the Internet as their primary news source.
Mainstream media take some comfort in the fact that most people go to newspaper sites for local news, but that could change: Software is getting better at creating personalized news feeds that reflect readers' needs -- giving readers a way to get the news they want without visiting newspaper Web sites.
And search engines like Google are making it easier to find breaking news at alternative blog sites -- drawing referrals away from the mainstream news sites.
With an eye on the potential threat -- and the potential to increase audience online -- many in the $55 billion newspaper industry are hustling to improve their Web sites; some are opening the door to more interaction with readers online.
Winer says his deal with The New York Times -- which does not even publish e-mail addresses of its reporters -- is a "major breakthrough."
The Gray Lady also put her toe in the water of online discussions, albeit "moderated," with the Enron scandal. Other newspapers, notably the Washington Post, are offering online chats with leading columnists in a sort of talk-radio online format.
MSNBC.com -- the Web's most popular news site -- added two blogs to its content lineup this week: Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log (science and technology) and Michael Moran's foreign affairs blog. A handful of other professional journalists have added Weblogs to their reporting duties, although the number is still tiny.
Other online news mechanisms, from mailing lists to discussion groups to hybrids like Kuro5hin and GAZM, have found little traction among traditional media.
Bloggers and interactive news communities may eventually further infiltrate the mainstream media; as yet, no one's suggesting they will ever replace it.
As veteran journalist Murray Fromson put it at the University of Southern California's online journalism conference in March, "without newspapers and networks, who will cover a war in Afghanistan?"
Fromson, the former head of USC's journalism department, has a point: Online communities, no matter what their size and reach, rely on traditional news outlets for their core information.
As for covering the war in Afghanistan with Weblogs -- well, not yet, perhaps. But they are becoming an important check and balance to an industry that previously had very little oversight.
I was reminded of Fromson's comment recently after the assassination of Dutch prime minister candidate Pim Fortuyn. American newspapers, locked into the binary way of casting domestic politics, referred to Fortuyn as a right-wing candidate. But he was openly gay and a former Marxist and who espoused a number of progressive causes. The right-wing label came from his advocacy of immigration restrictions -- a not unreasonable stance in Europe's most overcrowded country.
I looked through several newspapers for an explanation of Fortuyn's politics that confronted such obvious contradictions. I finally found the answer in a Weblog authored by Adam Curry, the former MTV "VJ" who lives in Amsterdam.
Full of knowledgeable asides, links to other blogs and commentaries on published reports, Curry put the tragedy in subtle and intelligent perspective, far outstripping anything conventional U.S. media reported.
In the long run, online communities and pundits like Curry may help strengthen journalism by adding this kind of nuance to the black-and-white reports the BigCos routinely produce.
Ultimately, the mainstream media will likely continue to cover enfranchised sources, and online media will continue to empower the disenfranchised while keeping the pros accountable by dinging them for every instance of superficial or careless reporting.
The end result -- until the first blogger or Kuro5hin contributor shows up in a White House briefing or Afghanistan reporter pool, at least -- will be an uneasy symbiosis of the two organisms, where host and parasite feed off each other interchangeably.
Brooklyn Courier Life - October 27, 2001
Click On GAZM.org
By Christy Goodman
The definition of the young executive takes new form when it comes to the wide world of the Internet. Jacob Shwirtz, has a company like no other. GAZM.org is a global community and more what the original Internet pioneers had in mind for the web.
“I’ve sort of been figuring out how to make money since I was young,” said Shwirtz of his entrepreneurial skills. In sixth grade, while attending the Yeshiva of Flatbush, he bought up any baseball cards he could find. By eighth grade, he sold them back to the same people he bought them from at a profit. He even was so organized to keep records and charts of his transactions. He also began his own candy distribution company. He would buy candy wholesale and then sell it to his classmates at a price under what the corner store would charge. Realizing what a monopoly he had on the business, he hired friends in other classes to sell candy for him.
By high school Shwirtz was able to mass-produce study guides that were available in the library. It was cheaper for him to go home with one copy of the guide and mass produce it on his parent’s Xerox machine and sell it back to his classmates than for his classmates to pay 15 cents a page to copy the guide in the library. In addition, he got his “smart friends” to mass-produce the notes they took in class. “I take care of my people,” said Shwirtz when asked if the “smart” kids received a cut.
While attending Brooklyn College as part of the elite Scholars Academy, Shwirtz said, “I was struck with a lightning bolt with the key to GAZM.org.” He already had been working as a freelance website developer while working toward his degree in film production. Shwirtz learned many of the ins and outs of eco-commerce, especially how companies like to target college students. “These people were trying to make money online by exploiting college kids,” he explained.
By 1998 GAZM.org, was in the beginning stages of setting up as a real online community. Users contribute all of the content for the page. The entries range from artwork to opinionated rants to funny cartoons and more. People upload whatever they want, as long as it is legal. GAZM.org does reserve the right to remove things that are illegal. No one under 13 is allowed on the site.
“What I like to focus on is creating real relationships with people,” explained Shwirtz, who described his site as an “anarchy of art.” Currently, GAZM.org is being reworked and there is an interim site until the new site is posted, but the idea is the same. Shwirtz hopes that the newly designed site will be up and running by November. “We are taking this time to improve our website,” he said. “You can count on GAZM.org to be provocative and intellectually stimulating,” Shwirtz said. There has even been a spike in traffic during this interim period.
“The community we try to create sort of polices itself,” explained Shwirtz. “The community sets the guidelines of what it will tolerate,” he said. GAZM.org has not had to remove or edit anyone’s posting as of yet. Shwirtz insisted that his cyber-community just does not do that because it is not the typical chat room most users are accustomed to. The rating system GAZM.org has developed helps to weed the good content from the bad, as well. Based on a five-point scale, a user can rate what content they like and that will help the good stay at the forefront of the site, while the bad gets pushed to the back of the site.
Shwirtz, like many users, does not like the typical means of advertising. So he developed a system where his advertisers can either work with the site or be put on the rating system. “Advertisers can pop-on and see how their ad rates,” said Shwirtz who gives his advertisers more interesting real estate on the site beyond banner ads and the “click here” ads that most users have “trained themselves to ignore.”
On the previous site, Shwirtz built a working relationship with HMV music stores. “It was the world’s first living music chart,” said Shwirtz. Every two weeks, HMV would put the top five CD’s on sale at all of their stores according to what the GAZM.org users voted. In fact, when the movie Blow came out, the advertisement used music to catch the user’s attention. The Blow soundtrack appealed to so many users it ended up on the HMV top five list. “No one would ever be able to do that with a banner ad,” smirked Shwirtz.
“These are just examples of what I would like to do beyond putting ads up that nobody cares about,” explained Shwirtz.
GAZM.org was a start-up about the same time the most dot-com’s were going dot-bomb. He launched in January 2001, after going through a long development process with his employees. His staff consists of many international workers. His database engineering team lives in Egypt. He has Croatian and Thai flash animators, a Romanian developed the GAZM.org logo, a German man is the creative director and the list goes on.
The workers, who are all fluent in English, talk to each other using instant messenger services, at all hours of the day and night. He also gives a lot of credit to his “angel” investors, who let him run the company as he pleases. His last investor came to him in May, as most of the country was facing a recession. “We are still bringing in new investors and trying to do something good that helps people,” said Shwirtz.
GAZM.org is a place where emerging artists can showcase their talent and a place where many people can share common interests. His customer is usually American, while Saudi Arabia has the second most. There is also a lot of traffic from government and military addresses. About 60 percent of the users on his site are women.
Shwirtz went on to say, “Four hundred million people are not on the internet for a better book shopping experience, a quicker stock quote or a more accurate weather report.”
Click On GAZM.org
By Christy Goodman
The definition of the young executive takes new form when it comes to the wide world of the Internet. Jacob Shwirtz, has a company like no other. GAZM.org is a global community and more what the original Internet pioneers had in mind for the web.
“I’ve sort of been figuring out how to make money since I was young,” said Shwirtz of his entrepreneurial skills. In sixth grade, while attending the Yeshiva of Flatbush, he bought up any baseball cards he could find. By eighth grade, he sold them back to the same people he bought them from at a profit. He even was so organized to keep records and charts of his transactions. He also began his own candy distribution company. He would buy candy wholesale and then sell it to his classmates at a price under what the corner store would charge. Realizing what a monopoly he had on the business, he hired friends in other classes to sell candy for him.
By high school Shwirtz was able to mass-produce study guides that were available in the library. It was cheaper for him to go home with one copy of the guide and mass produce it on his parent’s Xerox machine and sell it back to his classmates than for his classmates to pay 15 cents a page to copy the guide in the library. In addition, he got his “smart friends” to mass-produce the notes they took in class. “I take care of my people,” said Shwirtz when asked if the “smart” kids received a cut.
While attending Brooklyn College as part of the elite Scholars Academy, Shwirtz said, “I was struck with a lightning bolt with the key to GAZM.org.” He already had been working as a freelance website developer while working toward his degree in film production. Shwirtz learned many of the ins and outs of eco-commerce, especially how companies like to target college students. “These people were trying to make money online by exploiting college kids,” he explained.
By 1998 GAZM.org, was in the beginning stages of setting up as a real online community. Users contribute all of the content for the page. The entries range from artwork to opinionated rants to funny cartoons and more. People upload whatever they want, as long as it is legal. GAZM.org does reserve the right to remove things that are illegal. No one under 13 is allowed on the site.
“What I like to focus on is creating real relationships with people,” explained Shwirtz, who described his site as an “anarchy of art.” Currently, GAZM.org is being reworked and there is an interim site until the new site is posted, but the idea is the same. Shwirtz hopes that the newly designed site will be up and running by November. “We are taking this time to improve our website,” he said. “You can count on GAZM.org to be provocative and intellectually stimulating,” Shwirtz said. There has even been a spike in traffic during this interim period.
“The community we try to create sort of polices itself,” explained Shwirtz. “The community sets the guidelines of what it will tolerate,” he said. GAZM.org has not had to remove or edit anyone’s posting as of yet. Shwirtz insisted that his cyber-community just does not do that because it is not the typical chat room most users are accustomed to. The rating system GAZM.org has developed helps to weed the good content from the bad, as well. Based on a five-point scale, a user can rate what content they like and that will help the good stay at the forefront of the site, while the bad gets pushed to the back of the site.
Shwirtz, like many users, does not like the typical means of advertising. So he developed a system where his advertisers can either work with the site or be put on the rating system. “Advertisers can pop-on and see how their ad rates,” said Shwirtz who gives his advertisers more interesting real estate on the site beyond banner ads and the “click here” ads that most users have “trained themselves to ignore.”
On the previous site, Shwirtz built a working relationship with HMV music stores. “It was the world’s first living music chart,” said Shwirtz. Every two weeks, HMV would put the top five CD’s on sale at all of their stores according to what the GAZM.org users voted. In fact, when the movie Blow came out, the advertisement used music to catch the user’s attention. The Blow soundtrack appealed to so many users it ended up on the HMV top five list. “No one would ever be able to do that with a banner ad,” smirked Shwirtz.
“These are just examples of what I would like to do beyond putting ads up that nobody cares about,” explained Shwirtz.
GAZM.org was a start-up about the same time the most dot-com’s were going dot-bomb. He launched in January 2001, after going through a long development process with his employees. His staff consists of many international workers. His database engineering team lives in Egypt. He has Croatian and Thai flash animators, a Romanian developed the GAZM.org logo, a German man is the creative director and the list goes on.
The workers, who are all fluent in English, talk to each other using instant messenger services, at all hours of the day and night. He also gives a lot of credit to his “angel” investors, who let him run the company as he pleases. His last investor came to him in May, as most of the country was facing a recession. “We are still bringing in new investors and trying to do something good that helps people,” said Shwirtz.
GAZM.org is a place where emerging artists can showcase their talent and a place where many people can share common interests. His customer is usually American, while Saudi Arabia has the second most. There is also a lot of traffic from government and military addresses. About 60 percent of the users on his site are women.
Shwirtz went on to say, “Four hundred million people are not on the internet for a better book shopping experience, a quicker stock quote or a more accurate weather report.”
The Brooklyn Papers
- June 20, 2001
Cannes-Do - Brooklyn tales from the frontlines of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
By Marian Masone
CANNES, France - It's called the Cannes International Film Festival, but sometimes it's difficult to find people who are actually there to see films.
In fact, the Cannes festival serves a number of functions, movie stars climbing the red-carpeted staircase to the films in competition being only a small piece of the pie.
For many, the real business of the festival is business - selling films to distributors, searching for partners for that next venture, even the exchange of ideas. The Cannes market is the section that facilitates all of this.
Given this, there are many folks who never see the inside of a theater or a screening room during the festival. I found two such specimens at the festival this year, both native Brooklynites.
Born in Flatbush and now living in Brooklyn Heights, Michelle Byrd is the executive director of the Independent Feature Project, a not-for-profit organization of directors, screenwriters, producers, distributors and festival programmers known for its annual September event, the Independent Feature Film Market. Byrd joined the Manhattan-based IFP staff in 1990, and has been executive director for five years.
For years IFP has partnered with Variety at the film festival, hosting a number of panels, receptions and seminars. Last year, at the urging of market officials, Michelle and the IFP established a booth. The IFP serves as an umbrella organization under which independent American filmmakers - this year 110 of them - can sign up for the market and network with more ease and less money than if they had come solo.
In addition, the IFP continues to present a number of events with Variety. This year, Byrd and her group hosted a press conference with American directors, and a panel on film financing - so popular that "LA Confidential" director Curtis Hanson was spotted in the standing-room-only audience. And American stars that may also be independent filmmakers - like Faye Dunaway - look to the IFP during the Cannes festival for help and guidance.
Needless to say, Byrd's days at the festival are not filled with screenings. Although she tries to catch as many films as possible - the better to be conversant in the industry - this year, she was not so lucky.
"I didn't see one film!" Byrd bemoaned. Her days were typically filled with meetings with various international film institutions, such as European Film Promotion, in order to forge relationships for future partnerings. All hard work, to be sure, but the IFP fills a much-needed void for American independent filmmakers (who don't have the national film boards or commissions that other countries have to support their work) both at Cannes and at home.
The winners are
We should devote a bit of space to the films of the Cannes Film Festival, so here's an awards recap. The Palme d'Or - the festival's top prize - went to Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti's "The Son's Room." (A retrospective of Moretti's previous films is currently playing at the BAM Rose Cinemas.)
But the directing prize was shared by two Americans - David Lynch for his long-awaited "Mulholland Drive," and Joel Coen for his latest effort, "The Man Who Wasn't There" (with a cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand and James Gandolfini as well as Park Slope resident Katherine Borowitz. She's made a few appearances at the festival, including 1998's "Illuminata," directed by and costarring her husband, John Turturro.)
The film that garnered the most prizes was Michael Haneke's "La Pianiste" ("The Piano Teacher"). The film took the Grand Prize, which is the runner-up to the Palme d'or. The two leads, Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel, won both acting awards.
The Camera d'Or, which is the prize for the best first feature-length film, went to Canadian filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk for his epic film, "Atanarjuat the Fast Runner."
Now let's see which of these films will make it to our cinemas first - that, of course, is being optimistic and assuming that all of the foreign films will get U.S. distribution. Talks concerning distribution certainly began in the halls of the Cannes market, so we're back to the market again.
GAZM.org
Park Slope resident Jacob Shwirtz was a very busy lad at the market. He was at the Cannes festival, networking for his 2-year-old company, GAZM.org, an interactive platform enabling users to share their knowledge and opinions about film, music and culture.
The topics on the site seem unlimited and include, of course, creating your own site. "Constant intellectual stimulation" is the tag line. Shwirtz also refers to it as a playground for the mind. This upstart startup also provides marketing and market research to major entertainment companies.
But why attend the Cannes market for a Web site? Easy. Shwirtz and his colleagues are always looking for partnerships with different companies; they've been working with New Line Cinema as well as 20th Century-Fox, so coming to a film festival to make new contacts seems like a smart move.
And it was for Shwirtz.
He did in fact, find new investors for his company - a nice couple, as he put it, that he met at Cannes last year. He liked them, they liked him, they went out to lunch during the festival this year, and voila - a connection.
This is Shwirtz's third year at the festival. The two previous years he worked as a computer technician at the American Pavilion by day, and got the lay of the land by night. So much so that this year, when he signed on with the market and brought five other colleagues with him, he knew exactly what he needed - and wanted - to do.
He held a small cocktail party at the Market Club (one of many sites for entertaining at the festival), with champagne donated by the club, "because the head of the place liked me, I guess," Shwirtz admitted.
And this may be why he's still in business. You have to wonder, with all those dot-coms crashing and burning, why GAZM.org is still going. (Last year, there seemed to be people hawking their Web sites on every corner; this year, most of them were gone.)
"There's nothing wrong with bad companies going out of business," he said. (He didn't want to sound arrogant, he said. But he didn't - I knew what he was talking about). He manages to keep costs low, with database engineers in Egypt and animators in Croatia.
He also manages his time carefully at the festival. Parties? Not really, he said. He got over the party factor in his first two years here.
"After a while you realize the parties are all the same. If you have to wake up early the next morning for a meeting, you want to get to bed early the night before," he says. A lot of Shwirtz's meetings are in the morning, so socializing is selective. If there are networking possibilities, well, that's another story.
"It's work!" he says. And so it is. But it seems to be an energizing sort of work for him. "Everyone is very approachable in Cannes," he says, because you never know who that person will turn out to be.
So, did he see any films at the festival this year?
"I saw one, the first day," Shwirtz said. It was a film only being shown in the market (that is, not in any of the official festival programs) made by some people he met on the flight over. But then it was back to work.
That's how it is for everyone - work in the cinemas, work on the beach, maybe work on a yacht. I promise you, it is work, but you won't catch either of these Brooklynites complaining. They'll be back at it again next year.
Cannes-Do - Brooklyn tales from the frontlines of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
By Marian Masone
CANNES, France - It's called the Cannes International Film Festival, but sometimes it's difficult to find people who are actually there to see films.
In fact, the Cannes festival serves a number of functions, movie stars climbing the red-carpeted staircase to the films in competition being only a small piece of the pie.
For many, the real business of the festival is business - selling films to distributors, searching for partners for that next venture, even the exchange of ideas. The Cannes market is the section that facilitates all of this.
Given this, there are many folks who never see the inside of a theater or a screening room during the festival. I found two such specimens at the festival this year, both native Brooklynites.
Born in Flatbush and now living in Brooklyn Heights, Michelle Byrd is the executive director of the Independent Feature Project, a not-for-profit organization of directors, screenwriters, producers, distributors and festival programmers known for its annual September event, the Independent Feature Film Market. Byrd joined the Manhattan-based IFP staff in 1990, and has been executive director for five years.
For years IFP has partnered with Variety at the film festival, hosting a number of panels, receptions and seminars. Last year, at the urging of market officials, Michelle and the IFP established a booth. The IFP serves as an umbrella organization under which independent American filmmakers - this year 110 of them - can sign up for the market and network with more ease and less money than if they had come solo.
In addition, the IFP continues to present a number of events with Variety. This year, Byrd and her group hosted a press conference with American directors, and a panel on film financing - so popular that "LA Confidential" director Curtis Hanson was spotted in the standing-room-only audience. And American stars that may also be independent filmmakers - like Faye Dunaway - look to the IFP during the Cannes festival for help and guidance.
Needless to say, Byrd's days at the festival are not filled with screenings. Although she tries to catch as many films as possible - the better to be conversant in the industry - this year, she was not so lucky.
"I didn't see one film!" Byrd bemoaned. Her days were typically filled with meetings with various international film institutions, such as European Film Promotion, in order to forge relationships for future partnerings. All hard work, to be sure, but the IFP fills a much-needed void for American independent filmmakers (who don't have the national film boards or commissions that other countries have to support their work) both at Cannes and at home.
The winners are
We should devote a bit of space to the films of the Cannes Film Festival, so here's an awards recap. The Palme d'Or - the festival's top prize - went to Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti's "The Son's Room." (A retrospective of Moretti's previous films is currently playing at the BAM Rose Cinemas.)
But the directing prize was shared by two Americans - David Lynch for his long-awaited "Mulholland Drive," and Joel Coen for his latest effort, "The Man Who Wasn't There" (with a cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand and James Gandolfini as well as Park Slope resident Katherine Borowitz. She's made a few appearances at the festival, including 1998's "Illuminata," directed by and costarring her husband, John Turturro.)
The film that garnered the most prizes was Michael Haneke's "La Pianiste" ("The Piano Teacher"). The film took the Grand Prize, which is the runner-up to the Palme d'or. The two leads, Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel, won both acting awards.
The Camera d'Or, which is the prize for the best first feature-length film, went to Canadian filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk for his epic film, "Atanarjuat the Fast Runner."
Now let's see which of these films will make it to our cinemas first - that, of course, is being optimistic and assuming that all of the foreign films will get U.S. distribution. Talks concerning distribution certainly began in the halls of the Cannes market, so we're back to the market again.
GAZM.org
Park Slope resident Jacob Shwirtz was a very busy lad at the market. He was at the Cannes festival, networking for his 2-year-old company, GAZM.org, an interactive platform enabling users to share their knowledge and opinions about film, music and culture.
The topics on the site seem unlimited and include, of course, creating your own site. "Constant intellectual stimulation" is the tag line. Shwirtz also refers to it as a playground for the mind. This upstart startup also provides marketing and market research to major entertainment companies.
But why attend the Cannes market for a Web site? Easy. Shwirtz and his colleagues are always looking for partnerships with different companies; they've been working with New Line Cinema as well as 20th Century-Fox, so coming to a film festival to make new contacts seems like a smart move.
And it was for Shwirtz.
He did in fact, find new investors for his company - a nice couple, as he put it, that he met at Cannes last year. He liked them, they liked him, they went out to lunch during the festival this year, and voila - a connection.
This is Shwirtz's third year at the festival. The two previous years he worked as a computer technician at the American Pavilion by day, and got the lay of the land by night. So much so that this year, when he signed on with the market and brought five other colleagues with him, he knew exactly what he needed - and wanted - to do.
He held a small cocktail party at the Market Club (one of many sites for entertaining at the festival), with champagne donated by the club, "because the head of the place liked me, I guess," Shwirtz admitted.
And this may be why he's still in business. You have to wonder, with all those dot-coms crashing and burning, why GAZM.org is still going. (Last year, there seemed to be people hawking their Web sites on every corner; this year, most of them were gone.)
"There's nothing wrong with bad companies going out of business," he said. (He didn't want to sound arrogant, he said. But he didn't - I knew what he was talking about). He manages to keep costs low, with database engineers in Egypt and animators in Croatia.
He also manages his time carefully at the festival. Parties? Not really, he said. He got over the party factor in his first two years here.
"After a while you realize the parties are all the same. If you have to wake up early the next morning for a meeting, you want to get to bed early the night before," he says. A lot of Shwirtz's meetings are in the morning, so socializing is selective. If there are networking possibilities, well, that's another story.
"It's work!" he says. And so it is. But it seems to be an energizing sort of work for him. "Everyone is very approachable in Cannes," he says, because you never know who that person will turn out to be.
So, did he see any films at the festival this year?
"I saw one, the first day," Shwirtz said. It was a film only being shown in the market (that is, not in any of the official festival programs) made by some people he met on the flight over. But then it was back to work.
That's how it is for everyone - work in the cinemas, work on the beach, maybe work on a yacht. I promise you, it is work, but you won't catch either of these Brooklynites complaining. They'll be back at it again next year.
HOBY NY gathering of 300 High School Leadership Students
- June, 2001
Speech from Jacob Shwirtz:
Hi, my name is Jacob Shwirtz, I started a company called GAZM.org almost three years ago. GAZM is a source for intellectual stimulation on the net. It is a platform where people can share whatever creative or artistic pursuit they are involved in. We went live in late January and have since worked with companies like HMV Record Stores, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Lycos and others.
But I'm not here to speak about GAZM. Rather, the topic of entrepreneurship brought me here today. I am honored to be speaking with you because you are the future. That's what you are called - right - "the future"?! Well, I'm here to tell you that that is complete bull shit. You are not the future any more than old people are the past. The question of "what do you want to be when you grow up" is likewise bull shit.
What do you want to be now? Here, right now! Are you a CEO, designer, publicist, congresswoman, what?! The future is for those who lack focus and none of you would be here today if you lacked focus. What are you passionate about? It doesn't matter what it is, go and start doing it, now. Are you waiting for some magical moment in time when someone will tell you that it is ok to begin pursuing your destiny? Stop waiting and start doing. William Jennings Bryan said "Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not something to be waited for, it is something to be achieved." So as soon as you get home I want you to write the plan for whatever it is that you want to do. Figure out your goals and then a plausible way for attaining them. If you need some help or direction, feel free to email me at Jacob@GAZM.org and I promise that I will respond.
I'd just like to make one more point. I can not stress enough the importance of networking, which is a fancy way of saying not to be an idiot. Your ability to do anything is exponentially increased when you have friends, acquaintances and are not selfish. This weekend is a great chance to befriend lots of people who you can work with for the rest of your life. If you know someone needs something, figure out a way to help them. When you need something, don't be afraid to say so. I would be hard-pressed to point to anything my company has done which didn't stem from a previous relationship. You will be surprised to see how much people are willing to help if you are likewise helpful. And it doesn't matter what you want to be or what the stranger sitting next to you wants to be. You never know. I can't tell you how many times I say the phrase "you never know." Because you never know who will be what when or who will know whom and how.
I am not just talking about getting favors from friends, I'm also referring to how you build and execute your venture. You must be honest with yourself and realize where you excel. Are you the visionary, the foot-soldier, the planner, the accountant, the designer or the masseuse? Know what your strengths are and then bring in others who compliment your strengths and can compensate for your weaknesses.
So there you have it. Get off your behinds and start doing whatever it is that you want to do. While on your journey do not forget the importance of others and of building a strong team. I hope you think about what I've said and take it to heart so you never have to live in a van down by the river. My email again is Jacob@GAZM.org. Thank you.
Speech from Jacob Shwirtz:
Hi, my name is Jacob Shwirtz, I started a company called GAZM.org almost three years ago. GAZM is a source for intellectual stimulation on the net. It is a platform where people can share whatever creative or artistic pursuit they are involved in. We went live in late January and have since worked with companies like HMV Record Stores, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Lycos and others.
But I'm not here to speak about GAZM. Rather, the topic of entrepreneurship brought me here today. I am honored to be speaking with you because you are the future. That's what you are called - right - "the future"?! Well, I'm here to tell you that that is complete bull shit. You are not the future any more than old people are the past. The question of "what do you want to be when you grow up" is likewise bull shit.
What do you want to be now? Here, right now! Are you a CEO, designer, publicist, congresswoman, what?! The future is for those who lack focus and none of you would be here today if you lacked focus. What are you passionate about? It doesn't matter what it is, go and start doing it, now. Are you waiting for some magical moment in time when someone will tell you that it is ok to begin pursuing your destiny? Stop waiting and start doing. William Jennings Bryan said "Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not something to be waited for, it is something to be achieved." So as soon as you get home I want you to write the plan for whatever it is that you want to do. Figure out your goals and then a plausible way for attaining them. If you need some help or direction, feel free to email me at Jacob@GAZM.org and I promise that I will respond.
I'd just like to make one more point. I can not stress enough the importance of networking, which is a fancy way of saying not to be an idiot. Your ability to do anything is exponentially increased when you have friends, acquaintances and are not selfish. This weekend is a great chance to befriend lots of people who you can work with for the rest of your life. If you know someone needs something, figure out a way to help them. When you need something, don't be afraid to say so. I would be hard-pressed to point to anything my company has done which didn't stem from a previous relationship. You will be surprised to see how much people are willing to help if you are likewise helpful. And it doesn't matter what you want to be or what the stranger sitting next to you wants to be. You never know. I can't tell you how many times I say the phrase "you never know." Because you never know who will be what when or who will know whom and how.
I am not just talking about getting favors from friends, I'm also referring to how you build and execute your venture. You must be honest with yourself and realize where you excel. Are you the visionary, the foot-soldier, the planner, the accountant, the designer or the masseuse? Know what your strengths are and then bring in others who compliment your strengths and can compensate for your weaknesses.
So there you have it. Get off your behinds and start doing whatever it is that you want to do. While on your journey do not forget the importance of others and of building a strong team. I hope you think about what I've said and take it to heart so you never have to live in a van down by the river. My email again is Jacob@GAZM.org. Thank you.
GAZM.org Hosts Brain-Storming Session
at Cannes Film Festival
- May 17, 2001
Cannes, France - May 17 2001 Yesterday at the Cannes Market Club in Cannes, a brain-storming session discussing the impact of the entertainment industry on global challenges was hosted by GAZM.org and The Global Goals Institute. Instead of having speakers or panels, all attendees contributed their ideas in the interactive and engaging 2-hour session.
GAZM.org CEO, Jacob Shwirtz, invited New York Stern School of Business Professor Jeremy Wiesen to moderate the event. Professor Wiesen, a board member of the Hampton's International Film Festival, was Chairman and Co-CEO of Financial News Network (now CNBC) and is a founder of The Global Goals Institute. The Institute is an unaffiliated non-profit organization that seeks innovative solutions to important and unaddressed world problems.
The thirty attendees included screenwriters, producers, directors, distributors, film festival programmers and others from the industry. Innovative ideas were developed for a greater role that films might play in the problems of violence in the world, such as genocidal massacres and school shootings:
- "Conscience-raising" films, to have an impact, must be first rate entertainment and, therefore, foundations and other non-profit organizations should consider investing in movies that feature leading actors and directors.
- Schools should routinely show movies, particularly documentaries, that make points about social concerns and the unleashing of individual creativity.
- Film festivals can contribute to achieving social goals. For example, the Hampton's International Film Festival received a $1 million grant to show "conflict resolution" movies. In fact, a program on "peer bullying," showing movies such as "Lord of the Flies," received an offer of funding at the conference.
Mr. Shwirtz says that "when we set up GAZM.org, our intention was to create a vehicle for people to speak their minds and come together with like minded thinkers to discuss important topics. Partnering with the Global Goals Institute for this forum helps us fulfill that aim."
Cannes, France - May 17 2001 Yesterday at the Cannes Market Club in Cannes, a brain-storming session discussing the impact of the entertainment industry on global challenges was hosted by GAZM.org and The Global Goals Institute. Instead of having speakers or panels, all attendees contributed their ideas in the interactive and engaging 2-hour session.
GAZM.org CEO, Jacob Shwirtz, invited New York Stern School of Business Professor Jeremy Wiesen to moderate the event. Professor Wiesen, a board member of the Hampton's International Film Festival, was Chairman and Co-CEO of Financial News Network (now CNBC) and is a founder of The Global Goals Institute. The Institute is an unaffiliated non-profit organization that seeks innovative solutions to important and unaddressed world problems.
The thirty attendees included screenwriters, producers, directors, distributors, film festival programmers and others from the industry. Innovative ideas were developed for a greater role that films might play in the problems of violence in the world, such as genocidal massacres and school shootings:
- "Conscience-raising" films, to have an impact, must be first rate entertainment and, therefore, foundations and other non-profit organizations should consider investing in movies that feature leading actors and directors.
- Schools should routinely show movies, particularly documentaries, that make points about social concerns and the unleashing of individual creativity.
- Film festivals can contribute to achieving social goals. For example, the Hampton's International Film Festival received a $1 million grant to show "conflict resolution" movies. In fact, a program on "peer bullying," showing movies such as "Lord of the Flies," received an offer of funding at the conference.
Mr. Shwirtz says that "when we set up GAZM.org, our intention was to create a vehicle for people to speak their minds and come together with like minded thinkers to discuss important topics. Partnering with the Global Goals Institute for this forum helps us fulfill that aim."
ManHunt.com
- April, 2001
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Hits #1 Spot for First Time in More than Two Decades!
New York, NY – April, 2001: Music fans have spoken…and for the first time in more than 20 years, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is back in the number one spot at music retailer HMV Record Stores, thanks to a unique interactive chart on GAZM.ORG.
The world’s first “living” music chart is a joint venture project between HMV Record Stores and GAZM.ORG – which promotes “constant intellectual stimulation.”
GAZM users are invited to vote for their favorite CD each day and the top five are put on sale and on the chart at HMV Record Stores in New York. This is the first time a music retailer has given its customers direct input into chart positioning and sale pricing.
The chart was launched last week and the top five CDs, which will go on sale at HMV starting this weekend are:
Madonna – Music
Moby – Play
Sting – Brand New Day
Firehouse – No Name Face
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
HMV marketing director Ken Feldman says he is “delighted” by the eclectic range of CDs, which will be placed on the chart this week thanks to GAZM.ORG users.
"This chart allows real music fans to have a direct say in the music which goes into our chart and which ultimately goes on sale", says Feldman.
GAZM.ORG CEO Jacob Shwirtz said his site has been inundated with music fans voting for their favorite album.
"Our users realize that this is the first time they have been able to really make a difference in what a bricks and mortar music retailer decides to put on their chart, and they have responded very positively", said Shwirtz.
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Hits #1 Spot for First Time in More than Two Decades!
New York, NY – April, 2001: Music fans have spoken…and for the first time in more than 20 years, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is back in the number one spot at music retailer HMV Record Stores, thanks to a unique interactive chart on GAZM.ORG.
The world’s first “living” music chart is a joint venture project between HMV Record Stores and GAZM.ORG – which promotes “constant intellectual stimulation.”
GAZM users are invited to vote for their favorite CD each day and the top five are put on sale and on the chart at HMV Record Stores in New York. This is the first time a music retailer has given its customers direct input into chart positioning and sale pricing.
The chart was launched last week and the top five CDs, which will go on sale at HMV starting this weekend are:
Madonna – Music
Moby – Play
Sting – Brand New Day
Firehouse – No Name Face
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
HMV marketing director Ken Feldman says he is “delighted” by the eclectic range of CDs, which will be placed on the chart this week thanks to GAZM.ORG users.
"This chart allows real music fans to have a direct say in the music which goes into our chart and which ultimately goes on sale", says Feldman.
GAZM.ORG CEO Jacob Shwirtz said his site has been inundated with music fans voting for their favorite album.
"Our users realize that this is the first time they have been able to really make a difference in what a bricks and mortar music retailer decides to put on their chart, and they have responded very positively", said Shwirtz.
Music Fans Will Create The
World's First "Living Chart'' Through HMV And GAZM.ORG!
March 14, 2001 : After being released on
the wire, this press release ran on the following: (sorry most of the links no longer work)
Yahoo!
MSNBC
KCBS.com
Music.com
Go.com
Office.com
Industry
Pro
Market View
ChamberBiz
eBuy Express
Zorona.com
Business 2.0
- March 8, 2001
User-Driven Ads
By Margaret Littman
While the current market may not be the ideal one in which to launch an ad revenue-supported content Website, the twenty-one-year-old founder of New York-based GAZM.org--Jacob Shwirtz--believes he has an offer that will appeal to advertisers. The community-based site lets intellectually minded Internet users debate music, art, books, movies, and ads. Yes, even advertising.
On GAZM.org, which went live three weeks ago, users rate the advertisements they see using a system Shwirtz calls "TUDE" (which stands for "thumbs up, thumbs down"). Advertisers link to a private URL where they can see how users of different demographics rated their ads--as well as view click-through data--and then tweak the ads accordingly. The goal is that advertisers will be lured by the ability to tailor-make ads directly for a targeted, and hopefully responsive, audience.
The feedback on the ads--which are not banners, but the larger, rich media formats many Websites are now gravitating toward--is self-selected. The ratings come from the young demographic Shwirtz hopes will flock to the site, although he abhors those standard monikers of Gen X, Y, and I. "All of these [existing] sites pandered, patronized, and pigeonholed their users. I mean, when the hottest topic is whether Tori Spelling is a virgin or not, you know something is wrong."
The self-selection makes their feedback unscientific, unlike market research from Jupiter Media Metrix or other sources. But Shwirtz says that because it isn't marketed as a research alternative, it has value for advertisers who are interested in modifying their creative on an ongoing basis and in forging an interactive relationship with prospective customers. Because the site is new, Shwirtz has not yet been able to charge a premium for use of the critiques, but thinks he will in the future.
HMV Records Stores, part of the British HMV Media Group, is launching its first online advertising with GAZM.org and has developed a promotion that takes advantage of the site's customer feedback. As part of its Living Chart promotion, visitors to the site can rate which CDs HMV should put on sale in its 14 U.S. stores. The top picks then are marked down every two weeks. Ken Feldman, director of marketing for the New York-division of HMV, says the Living Chart brings new customers into the stores, which are lesser known in the U.S. than in Canada, Europe, and the Far East. The company will also use the commentary on its online creative as the chain continues to expand in the states.
"Millions of people potentially can give you their feedback," Feldman says. "We really view this as more of a partnership situation, because this is such an interactive environment."
User-Driven Ads
By Margaret Littman
While the current market may not be the ideal one in which to launch an ad revenue-supported content Website, the twenty-one-year-old founder of New York-based GAZM.org--Jacob Shwirtz--believes he has an offer that will appeal to advertisers. The community-based site lets intellectually minded Internet users debate music, art, books, movies, and ads. Yes, even advertising.
On GAZM.org, which went live three weeks ago, users rate the advertisements they see using a system Shwirtz calls "TUDE" (which stands for "thumbs up, thumbs down"). Advertisers link to a private URL where they can see how users of different demographics rated their ads--as well as view click-through data--and then tweak the ads accordingly. The goal is that advertisers will be lured by the ability to tailor-make ads directly for a targeted, and hopefully responsive, audience.
The feedback on the ads--which are not banners, but the larger, rich media formats many Websites are now gravitating toward--is self-selected. The ratings come from the young demographic Shwirtz hopes will flock to the site, although he abhors those standard monikers of Gen X, Y, and I. "All of these [existing] sites pandered, patronized, and pigeonholed their users. I mean, when the hottest topic is whether Tori Spelling is a virgin or not, you know something is wrong."
The self-selection makes their feedback unscientific, unlike market research from Jupiter Media Metrix or other sources. But Shwirtz says that because it isn't marketed as a research alternative, it has value for advertisers who are interested in modifying their creative on an ongoing basis and in forging an interactive relationship with prospective customers. Because the site is new, Shwirtz has not yet been able to charge a premium for use of the critiques, but thinks he will in the future.
HMV Records Stores, part of the British HMV Media Group, is launching its first online advertising with GAZM.org and has developed a promotion that takes advantage of the site's customer feedback. As part of its Living Chart promotion, visitors to the site can rate which CDs HMV should put on sale in its 14 U.S. stores. The top picks then are marked down every two weeks. Ken Feldman, director of marketing for the New York-division of HMV, says the Living Chart brings new customers into the stores, which are lesser known in the U.S. than in Canada, Europe, and the Far East. The company will also use the commentary on its online creative as the chain continues to expand in the states.
"Millions of people potentially can give you their feedback," Feldman says. "We really view this as more of a partnership situation, because this is such an interactive environment."
Billboard Magazine
- March 3, 2001
Your Vote Really Does Count At Gazm.org - Site Visitors
Pick Favorite Albums, Which Then Go On Sale At HMV Stores
By Trudi M. Rosenblum
NEW YORK-The decision of what albums to put on sale at record stores
is usually determined by store owners, along with input from record
labels. But starting next month at HMV, customers will make the call
by voting for their favorites at the Web site Gazm.org.
Dubbed the "living chart," the chart will automatically be updated each
time someone casts a vote, so it will continually change. The top vote-getters
each week will be put on sale at HMV's 14 U.S. stores, with endcaps
promoting Gazm.org.
"It's a win-win situation," says Ken Feldman, U.S. director of marketing
for HMV. "The consumer wins because they see that their vote counts.
Once they've affected the chart, the reward is that their favorite title
is on sale at HMV. The Web site is getting traffic and hits, and we're
driving people into our store. There was no downside to it. If it turns
out there's no interest in it, we haven't lost anything. And to be honest,
I thought it would be really cool to see what shows up based on popular
consensus and what effect it would have on sales, if there's a spike
in those titles."
Gazm.org is the brainchild of Jacob Schwirtz, a college graduate who
was "frustrated by sites out there targeting my demographic. They called
themselves communities, but really they were just second-rate magazines
telling me what's cool," he says.
So, two years ago, he set about creating a site that would "be a medium
of communication," he recalls. "It was a long road raising the money,
especially for someone with no track record, but we have a committed
group of angel investors who believe in what we're doing."
The theme of the site is user control, communication, and interactivity.
Visitors to the site can customize the appearance of the site and how
they navigate it. The content focuses on soliciting opinions. In addition
to the HMV chart, the site offers users the ability to rate and comment
on its advertising.
"We're able to give our advertisers something no one else can-what users
actually thought of the ad, not just the number of people who click
on it," Schwirtz says.
In addition to organizing the chart, Gazm.org will give away 20,000
promotional postcards in HMV stores and plans to do some live Webcasts
of in-store performances at HMV.
The chart doesn't compete with existing charts because it is not based
on sales, and it's not exactly scientific. As Schwirtz readily notes,
"People can vote often and can get their friends to vote." But, as Feldman
observes, "if someone goes to the effort of rallying their friends together
to make something No. 1 on this chart, then you know what? They deserve
to get a little discount on it."
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