Month: January 2013

When Nature Calls

Kevin Kelly contemplates the economic choices of citizens in developing countries:

The farmers in rural China have chosen cell phones and twitter over toilets and running water. To them, this is not a hypothetical choice at all, but a real one. And they have made their decision in massive numbers. Tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions, if not billions of people in the rest of Asia, Africa and South America have chosen Option B. You can go to almost any African village to see this. And it is not because they are too poor to afford a toilet. As you can see from these farmers’ homes in Yunnan, they definitely could have at least built an outhouse if they found it valuable. (I know they don’t have a toilet because I’ve stayed in many of their homes.) But instead they found the intangible benefits of connection to be greater than the physical comforts of running water.

Millman adds:

If you don’t have plumbing, and have never had plumbing, and nobody around you has ever had plumbing, then you’ve presumably long since worked out an efficient way to relieve yourself. 

That’s what you do, and what your people have always done. Maybe it’s less private than an outhouse – but in that case you’re used to not having privacy. Maybe it involves walking further than you would to a bathroom – but maybe it seems normal not to defecate in your home. So somebody comes along and offers to build you an outhouse – would you pay good money for a luxury that solves a problem you don’t have? Or would you prefer to pay the money for something that opens up a huge range of new social and economic possibilities – like a cell phone?

Chart Of The Day

Ad_Revenues

The above chart is from the Interactive Advertising Bureau's October 2012 report (pdf) on internet advertising revenue. What it shows:

Online advertising continues to remain concentrated with the 10 leading ad-selling companies, which accounted for 73% of total revenues in Q2 2012, up slightly from the 72% reported in Q2 2011. Companies ranked 11th to 25th accounted for 9% of revenues in Q2 2012, consistent with the 9% reported in Q2 2011. Companies ranked 26th to 50th accounted for 8% in Q2 2012, also consistent with the 8% in Q2 2011.

The Car-Sharing Economy

Felix Salmon sees the logic of Avis buying Zipcar:

[F]rom Avis’s point of view, it’s buying the clear leader in what is probably the future of car renting. We’re only at the beginning of a long secular decline in the number of cars owned per household: as America becomes increasingly urban, there’s much less need for households to own a car, or a second car — and it becomes much cheaper to just rent cars by the hour or the day when you need them than it is to own a car outright and just leave it parked and useless for 99% of its life.

Yglesias goes into more detail:

Zipcar's big outstanding problem is that demand for Zipcars is highly spiky. People who want to use a car to commute to work are going to want to own their own vehicle. And people generally need to work during weekdays. Which means that demand for spot rentals is very highly concentrated on the weekends, which makes it hard for Zipcar to manage inventory efficiently. Avis says that combining its fleet with Zipcar's will make it much easier to meet those demand peaks, as individual vehicles can switch from hourly rental to traditional rental on a day-by-day basis.

Steven Pearlstein, on the other hand, fears that Zipcar's brand will be tarnished:

Oh, sure, Avis executives will say how they respect Zipcar — its culture and its way of doing business — and promise to preserve it. But a year down the road when it comes to some decision in which they will have to forgo some cost savings or some revenue increase in order to maintain those differences, the decision will be to do it the “Avis” way. And that will be it: Zipcar as we know it will be history.

Hugo’s End?

Chavez_GT

Rumors are swirling about Hugo Chavez's health. Should he die, Boris Muñoz wonders about Venezuela's future:

The struggle for a successor is in full swing. Maduro and Cabello, Chávez’s two potential heirs, represent two opposing strands of chavismo, his brand of left-wing nationalism. For fourteen years, since he came to power in 1998, Chávez has been the alpha and omega of his “Bolivarian revolution.” He has dealt with Venezuela as if it were a corporation and he himself its absolutist C.E.O., obsessed with micromanagement, relying on a few advisors to hold the country under tight control. That time is nearing an end. Deep fissures are already present. Chavismo is a political movement with marked divisions between its military and civilian wings. Chávez, a former Army paratrooper, has been a leader on both fronts, playing either military or civilian leader when convenient. But the civilian-military division reflects an even deeper one based on two differing conceptualizations of the Bolivarian revolution: a nationalist revolution or a socialist one based on the Cuban model.

(Photo: A mechanic shows a picture of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at his workshop in Caracas, on January 2, 2013. Chavez is conscious and fully aware of how 'complex' his condition remains three weeks after difficult cancer surgery in Havana, the Venezuelan president's handpicked successor, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, said Tuesday. Chavez underwent his fourth cancer-related surgery three weeks ago in Havana and has been bed-ridden ever since. By Leo Ramirez/AFP/Getty Images)

Dish Independence: Tweet Reax II

Heh. But it’s not a paywall. To reiterate: No one coming to the Dish home-page will ever be stopped. All links to individual posts will be outside the meter and as free after we launch as they are now. The only meter arrives at the “Read On” posts, whose full text you have to be a member to read. Even non-members will be able to read a certain number of “Read On” posts a month, free and in full. Dish alum Zack reiterates something else for us:

 

Subscribe to TPM Prime here. My full pitch for Josh’s new venture here.

Why Not Chase Ad Dollars?

Maria Popova explains why she asks for donations instead of running ads on her site, Brain Pickings: 

There's a really beautiful letter that a newspaper journalist named Bruce Bliven wrote in 1923 to his editor. It was about how the circulation manager had taken over the newspaper, deciding what went on the front page. Today, search engine optimisation is the "circulation management" of the internet. It doesn't put the reader's best interests first – it turns them into a sellable eyeball, and sells that to advertisers. As soon as you begin to treat your stakeholder as a bargaining chip, you're not interested in broadening their intellectual horizons or bettering their life. I don't believe in this model of making people into currency. You become accountable to advertisers, rather than your reader.

Dish Readers: Who Are You? Ctd

Dish Readers: Who Are You?

Back in December 2011, we posted the Urtak survey seen above as a quick and easy way to get a better sense of you, the typical Dish reader. We first brainstormed questions we’d like most to know about you, and then we allowed you to brainstorm and add your own questions – and answer them. The reaction to the reader-driven survey was overwhelming – responses nearly eclipsed the 1.5 million mark. If you didn’t respond to the questions at the time, or think you may have missed some added by readers, go ahead and click through the quick and easy Yes/No questions above. Analyze the results of the survey here. Some cross-tabs from the Urtak blog:

[Andrew Sullivan’s] readers under the age of 35 are less likely to have cried in response to a Dish post. Cold-hearted youth! His married readers would be less interested in attending an annual conference of Dish readers. His Jewish readers are almost three times more likely than their gentile counterparts to have attended Ivy League colleges. His Republican-voting readers are more likely to have emailed him. And his gun-owning readers are more likely to make more than $100,000/year.

Readers also sifted through the data:

I was shocked to find out that FIFTY percent of your readers who took your poll were atheists like me. I’ve always respected your Catholicism and read every word of your debate with Sam Harris years ago, but I think that this is living proof that there are a lot of nameless, faceless, intelligent skeptics out there – many of whom are aligned with you on most other important issues. I think it just goes to show how independent and anomalous you are.

Well, that’s a nice way to put it. Another writes:

I suspect you already knew the rough answer to this question, but it still must be jarring to see that 78% of Dish readers answered yes when asked “do you consider yourself a liberal?” while only 9% answered yes when asked “do you consider yourself a political conservative?” As you know, I’m one of those liberals, tried and true. I think people like me read The Dish because we’re craving an actual intelligent, well-reasoned political opponent. A point of view based in reality but skeptical of liberal political thought. We want to have real political arguments, but they’re impossible to have with know-nothing movement conservatives.  The Dish is where we come to grapple with the patriotic, intelligent, small-c conservative, loyal opposition we wish we could get from the GOP.

Another:

Holy cats, Andrew. The survey of your readership is an eye-opener in many ways, but my greatest take-away from the results so far is: I am one of only 22% of your readers who is female, and the rest of your readership appears to be largely comprised of straight men around my age, a good percentage of whom are unmarried, non-religious, liberal, and voted for Obama. And many of them have dogs!

You’re damn straight I’d come to that annual gathering …

Explore the data for yourself here. Thanks again to all our readers who took a few minutes to answer and submit questions. The most original submission among them:

Would you pay to see Andrew shave his beard live on The Dish with proceeds going to “cure” Marcus Bachmann?

Dish Independence: Your Questions, Ctd

A reader quotes a previous one:

"Please consider allowing comments in the paid site." NO! NEVER! PLEASE! In general, I HATE comment sections; they so often turn into cesspools, despite everyone's good intentions.  But your "curated comment section" is one of the best things about your blog. I've already signed up for the paid site, but if I get wind that there will be an open comment section, I'll probably try to get my money back.

Another reader reminds us that "if people want comments, they can go to the Dish Facebook page and comment there till their heart's content – and I don't have to see it." Another:

Delighted to see you striking out on your own.  I think it's high time.  I pay for the NYT, the FT, and the Economist, and I think your move is another signal of the quality differentiating itself.  I wouldn't pay for just any newspaper, and I wouldn't pay for just any blog.  But you've set yourself apart. 

That begs a separate question, though.  If we give enough, would you all consider setting aside the resources to build dedicated apps/web apps for your subscribers?  I'd love to have a clean, specially designed iPhone/iPad interface, and with the web apps the NYT and FT are now using, you wouldn't need to go through Apple (and for that matter, you could probably do a pretty easy port to Android).

Apps – or at least a customized mobile version for the home-page – are definitely forthcoming, once we get our footing with the new Dish. Another reader:

Have you ever thought of a limited merchandise offering? I can't be the only one who'd love to have an official DishHead teeshirt or ball cap. It would be fun to recognize each other at the local coffee shop.

Merchandise is very much on our radar. Back in December 2010 we launched some limited edition t-shirts (the ones featured in our staff photo). We are holding off on any subsequent merch until we have stabilized with the new transition, but stay tuned. Another reader dissents:

If you are going to start off on your own, start off right. Don't go for that $19.99 crap; be honest and direct and ask for $20.00. 

I have just finished law school and have to last until I can take the bar in February. My only income is some money from my Dad; I have to make my savings last. I don't even pay for the local Sacramento Bee, but I sent in my twenty and wish you the best.

We are immensely grateful. Join him in subscribing to an independent, ad-free Dish here.

New Year, New Dish, New Media: Blog Reax

Dustyrock

Matt K. Lewis wishes us well:

Though Sullivan concedes that “no one really knows” whether or not online readers will pay for a blogger’s content, others (like Glenn Beck) have proven that it is at least possible to make money from online subscriptions. Say what you will about his politics, as a blogger, Sullivan is a visionary. And by maintaining his own brand — and “ownership” of his blog — he has proven that he is a free agent, capable of moving from outlet to outlet without losing his audience. If anyone can pull it off, it might be Sullivan.

Rod Dreher says he has subscribed:

Longtime readers know that Andrew and I have argued and fallen out over various issues over the years, and have agreed on some of them as well. The thing about Andrew’s blog is that even when it drives me crazy, I keep reading it. I have to. I want to. He and his team are scooping up stories and information that means something to me. I don’t care about pot, and I don’t care about Obama love, and I don’t care about the evolution of gay culture — three of Sully’s big themes. I think Sully is often unfair to his enemies, especially the Pope.

What I do care about is the broader cultural coverage the Dish team aggregates, which has for years given me lots to think about, and, of course, to blog about. And what I do care about is reading opinion journalism that engages me and makes me argue with it, even when it ticks me off. I love The Dish sometimes, I hate it other times, but above all, I read it, several times a day. With so many sites out there clamoring for one’s attention, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Therefore, I’m happy to support them financially, and to invest in a journalism model that means something to me personally. I encourage you to do the same.

Brad DeLong is also supportive:

Let me say that I will never, never, never forgive Andrew Sullivan for what he hired Charles Murray to do to the New Republic–or, for that matter, for any other of his manifold sins against the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless, he and his myrmidons are always worth reading, and definitely worth funding now that they go Full Utopian on us.

Mistermix compares our new business model to others in the industry:

This is a variant of the subscription model other sites like the Times and Gannett papers are using, except that it sounds like a lot of the Dish content will always be free. In practice, those subscription models end up looking a lot like public radio or TV – it’s pretty easy to get the content for free even after you’ve reached a limit, so "subscribers" tend to be voluntary. Sully has a huge readership, so I assume that enough people will pony up $19.99 a year to pay for him and his two under bloggers, and his site will still get a lot of hits since you can still view a lot of the content without a subscription. He won’t be hosting ads on the site, which is an indicator of just how badly the Internet ad market is cratering.

Just on a factual note, the Dish has seven employees (five staffers and two paid interns), not just three, so the budget is a challenge, but the rest of the paragraph is largely correct. Steven Taylor probably won't subscribe:

Sullivan has been at the forefront of blogging since the beginning, so I will be curious to see how this plays out, although I am unlikely to be a subscriber, given that I have more free content to read now than I have time for (which is the biggest threat to this model to begin with).

Drum worries that "as free access gets rarer, blogging is going to get harder":

[T]his is a trend that's a real problem for blogging. I currently subscribe to three newspapers: the LA Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. This costs me over a thousand dollars a year, but I need to have access to all these sites to do my job decently. But as more and more media sites start erecting paywalls, I simply won't be able to afford to keep up all the subscriptions. Andrew's 20 bucks a year is obviously fairly small change compared to subscription fees from big media operations, but as more and more sites go down this path, my choices are going to get harder and harder.

And Joyner does some math:

To be sure, clicking through for nothing is a different kettle of fish than being a paying customer. At least in the early going, though, a lot of people will sign up out of sheer loyalty for past services rendered. Hell, I did that for Josh Marshall’s site at a substantially higher price and most of its content is still free; I’ll almost certainly do it for Sullivan. Still, off the top of my head, I figure they’ll need at least $500,000 a year to cover salary and basic operating costs. That’s 25,000 $19.99 subscriptions.

I can't disagree on the math. And as the numbers come in, we're on our way. We'll report on the day's results when we have more data. But the trend is pretty amazing. Keep it going by pre-subscribing here.