I have a new gimmick for this space on Mondays. Since the day is spent pinned beneath the computer — picture it, the machine has fallen on top of me, on the monitor is a vaguely human expression of determination, I am feebly trying to crawl out from under it — I’m just going to make this the day of a great dumping of links.
Oh there’s still Monday history, for the 1.4 people who come here to find out what I find interesting. That’s been transmorgified (Now there’s a wonderful word. It means something, but as yet has not been defined. We just know it is something about a mutation, but that G sound in there just makes it sound … unpleasant.) into a little elaboration on what I put on Twitter in the morning.
And I do that every morning on Twitter. There the habit seems to be recent history, mostly American or culturally impactful things that I find in a daily history app. I’d do more meaningful tidbits, but it is hard to explain 16th Century context in such a small forum. So I limit it to the baby boomer set when I can. From there and the two following generations people just know stuff. Right? That’s why President Obama talked about Sputnik, because it has seeped into the public consciousness, even if it was someone else’s actual event. Everyone knows what “we” did with Sputnik. And certainly the recitation of that storied tale was accurately told in the brief news packages the next day. Sputnik, when Russia launched us into space! It was Sputnik that put us on the moon!
This isn’t a new phenomenon, actually. There’s a great quote by John Adams after Benjamin Franklin died, where in his most bitter, paranoid way imagined the way the story of the American Revolution would be:
The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin’s electrical rod smote the earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod and thence forward these two conducted all the policy, negotiation, legislation, and war.
The word insecure, in the psychological sense, only dates back to the early 20th Century (make your jokes here). But if they’d had that concept at Philadelphia, New York and Washington, they might have used it to describe Adams.
Stories change, is the point. Maybe it is enough that people remember Sputnik with fear and wonder, or bemusement, and tell their kids. And then one of those children grows up to inject it into a speech that his boss, the president, gives before a joint session of Congress and the nation. Anything is possible when that kid grew up with a father who used Old Spice.
Did you know there’s a new Old Spice commercial?
I wildly digress, but that’s OK because Monday, in the original Latin, means Stream of Consciousness.
If you’re really suddenly very curious about what recently historical things I’m trying to condense into 140 characters, then by all means, follow me.
From that storied feed of valuable historical information we remembered that today:
In 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed. This is oversimplified, of course. It took about two years, but on this particular day the Central Committee let loose of it’s power. They’d finally gotten around to watching Rocky IV and saw the writing on the wall.
I remember watching television when the Berlin Wall fell, but not this day in particular. So let’s make it up. This day in 1990 was a Wednesday. I was in class. I was in the seventh grade. So let’s say I was in … Coach Tucker’s social studies class. Why not?
This was before my time, but I remember reading about it on the 40th anniversary. In 1967, at a rooftop fine dining restaurant in Montgomery, Ala. a fire broke out in a cloakroom. The flames quickly spread, blocking access to the elevator and stairs. When they finally put out the flames they pulled out 25 bodies, including a prominent former state official, the wife of a newspaper editor and one of Jimmy Hoffa’s chief lobbyists. Here are two contemporary accounts, including one from a reporter who had dined there the night before, and considered returning that night.
Here are the recollections of survivors and firefighters:
And here’s the place today:
In 1964 the Beatles invaded. In 1962 the United States stopped trade with Cuba. If I could have lived in the sixties I would have stopped just after the British invasion began. After that it was a long time to sit around for something fun. Sure, there was Apollo and the moon in ’69, but that would mean wading through five more years of that decade.
My mother asked me once, I’m sure I’ve written of this here, if the moon landing meant us much to my generation as it did her’s. From the exploration and science standpoint, sure, it is incredible. But, on the other hand to my age bracket we’ve always been on the moon. The previous generation got the experience of seeing it happen.
Of course, they didn’t have Google Moon. Come to think of it, they might have won this round.
Other links of varied merit: AOL is paying $315 million for Huffington Post, approximately 10 times HuffPo’s reported last year. From a financial point of view they overpaid. From an intangible point of view, it is anyone’s guess. I’m siding with Alan Mutter:
If HuffPo’s revenues triple this year to $90 million, then Armstrong can tell his shareholders he paid “only” 3.5x more for HuffPo than its sales are worth. If HuffPo sales triple again to $270 million in 2012, then the value of the deal is likely to be about 1x HuffPo’s revenues at that point and Armstrong, assuming he remains on the job, can tell the skeptics he was right.
The question to ask yourself in evaluating the long-term financial benefit of the acquisition to AOL is whether you think HuffPo is capable of bringing in a $270 million in annual sales within a couple of years.
Poynter’s Damon Kiesow finds some problems with Rupert Murdoch’s newest venture, The Daily:
I have been reading The Daily regularly since it launched on Wednesday, and almost every time I open the app, I’ve been confused to see a message telling me that “a new issue” is being delivered.
The Daily is published every morning, but Editor Jesse Angelo also said that it wouldn’t be “static” and would be updated as events warranted.
He’s quite forgiving of the experience, which is a better reception than The Daily has received in many corners. Of course there will be problems to overcome, this is a new enterprise, after all. These things must be done in full view of your audience, which is tough, but familiar to news types.
If only they’d announced it as a beta, everyone would be more willing to accept the learning curve.
Finished up a social media presentation for tomorrow. Three dozen slides should just about do it, right?
Try to make sense of that if you like, but it is mostly images and not too much text. The places with text will be, I suspect, where notes get taken. More to the point, though, I’m hoping to demonstrate the virtue of a PowerPoint presentation where every word isn’t read from the screen. This is an entry-level class and this is meant as something of a not-quite-vague overview.
Sadly I won’t be talking about cool stuff like this, where Coke is looking to move into SMS as a mobile priority:
“If you want to reach every consumer on the planet, texting is the way to do that,” said Daly, speaking Friday at MediaPost’s Mobile Summit conference in Miami. To underscore his point, he noted that 2.3 trillion text messages were sent worldwide last year. And as one of the world’s most pervasive consumer brands, Coca-Cola is always interested in reaching as wide an audience as possible.
Texting has even helped the beverage giant sell more Cokes through vending machines equipped to handle mobile short codes and cashless payments. The unlikely combination of traditional and newer technologies has given vending sales a 14% lift where the specialized machines have been rolled out, said Daly.
That’s just fascinating. You don’t often see Coke making bad marketing moves, so if Coke says they’re concentrating on SMS, you should be the next group.
Did you know our accents are changing in the South? Seems that way. Language is a fluid thing and it is always changing, everywhere. There’s a lot of neat stuff in this story as researchers ponder how and why this happens. I’m surprised no one is thinking of mediated influence. Naturally that wouldn’t be the only cause, but certainly it could be a significant contributor in modern times. Television and radio shape and influence patters, too.
But then I’m a media effects scholar. Here’s my hammer, there’s a nail.
This week Dr. Oz is unveiling his choice of Unhealthiest Cook in America. And Paula Deen’s boys are somehow involved in the promotional aspect of this, but it isn’t Paula. That’s odd. There are less healthy cooks than Paula Deen and her sons — it’s good, food, sure, but your doc would be displeased. Would you eat this:
Place burger patties on English muffins or buns, and if desired, on glazed donuts, as the buns. Top each burger with 2 pieces of bacon and a fried egg.
I made fun of this on Twitter, just as The Yankee uploaded a picture of the cupcakes we bought this evening for dessert. The secret to comedy is timing.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you how I learned that.
Ehh? Timing! Get it?
