lunarchy

AfterTV

I heard Andrew Keen promoting his book The Cult of the Amateur: How today's internet is killing our culture on the radio, wherein he decries the celebration of the anonymous, unedited, citizen hacks, high on cheap kit and broadband, who are devaluing the media. He then rather brilliantly disproves his own point in his blog AfterTV, as he manages to bring some interesting and diverse opinions on the media to light, via his own amateur business TV news service.

Sock Puppets Keep It Shill on YouTube -

I recently gave a presentation on viral marketing at a conference called Promax in Berlin. This is a subject I've long been a hobbyist observer of, and it was very interesting to talk with a bunch of people who make promo videos and do marketing and branding for media companies and the like, about the "science" of trying to get people to talk about you. This just in from a Wired correspondent, also in Berlin:  Sock Puppets Keep It Shill on YouTube, highlighting the fact that the EU are planning on banning "posing as a consumer" in advertising. Whatever next! Johnny Brussels telling us that, in future, the only word-of-mouth recommendation you can get are from people who genuinely like what you do and haven't been paid to say it? The Wired piece quotes The Onion's Kyle Pafrath who nails it thusly.