Month: March 2013

Crowdsourcing On Steroids, Ctd

A reader pushes back:

Your readers are wrong on a few key points about the Veronica Mars movie.  First, depending on the deal, Warner Bros will not be getting all the profits.  Producers and others will get a cut, actors will be paid royalties, etc.  Furthermore, WB is distributing the movie and promoting it.  This costs quite a bit of money.  So there is not “no risk”, as one reader claimed.  And having that corporate muscle at your back can make a big difference.  But WB believed that there wasn’t a fanbase for this movie that was willing to pay for it, and they have good reason to be skeptical (I’m looking at you, Snakes on a Plane).  Also, if you really gave $100, you would get to see the movie for free because they’ll be sending you a digital copy of it (as stated in the rewards). As for transparency, the Kickstarter video clearly states that they need $2 million to get off the ground, but that all additional funds will be used to expand the film (able to do more action/effects/locations, etc).

Now, this shouldn’t be the model for all productions, but for a cult show with a loving fanbase that has been wanting it for years, this sounds just about right. Kickstarter is about making projects that people want but wouldn’t be funded otherwise, how does Veronica Mars not fit that mold?

Another:

Can we please stop with the crowd sourcing snobbery. I’ve never seen Veronica Mars, but this movie kickstarter is an unmitigated good. A dormant intellectual property with a passionate fan base is being used to create something new. The creators get to work on a project they love, the fans get a movie they’ve been hoping for, and yes, a studio makes money. No one loses here.

Plus, if your reader had looked at the Kickstarter page, he or she would have realized that the backers are getting much more than a T-shirt for $100. Here is how much each piece of swag they are offering would cost if they were unbundled:

Digital Script: $10
T-Shirt: $15
Digital Movie: $10
DVD: $15
Poster: $25
Blue ray: $25
Complete TV Series: $75

Just by selling these products at reasonable prices they raised ~$1.7 million. What is much more interesting is that by selling things like a 15 second voicemail greeting by one of the cast members ($500 for Kristen Bell, $350 for others), tickets to the premier and after party ($1,000), being a background actor ($2,500), and even a line in the movie as a waiter ($10,000), they were able to raise ~$1.2 million.

Some may worry that letting fans pay to get this close and even become a part of the process jeopardizes artistic integrity, but for years Hollywood and the Indie movie scene have been luring in big money by offering access to the glitz and mystique of movie making. Now Kickstarter is allowing producers to offer a piece of that to their fans too. Plus it’s a hell of a lot more transparent because everyone knows the waiter paid to be in the movie. I expect we’ll see more movies and creative endeavors take this fan involvement approach. (Maybe if the Dish can’t make it’s budget in future years I’ll hear Andrew greeting me on my friends voicemail.)

Another:

It sits poorly with me when anyone thinks they get to determine how a crowd “should” behave.  Perhaps Veronica Mars rests uncomfortably inside the current tent of crowd-sourced projects, the Dish included, that are truly independent and transparent. But maybe the tent is going to get bigger and more various, with crowd-sourcing doing something simpler: giving the people what they want. If the people want a corporate-owned franchise that doesn’t release revenue figures, so be it. I think their priority, in this instance, is spending time with characters in a universe they love. Who are we to judge?

Amazing Amazon

Readers push back against the most recent Dissent of the Day:

Amazon and the ebook don’t displace independent book sellers as much as they displace the supermarket mass-market paperback.  I see the ebook as a great technology that is inevitable and Amazon may wipe out the independents.  Just like horse, carriage and stables were all part of our economy and provided jobs, the book publishing industry is a dinosaur in the world of human advancement.  We all have nostalgia for the things we loose to technology and progress, but it does not mean we are worse off in society.  Like it or not the guy who works for a independent bookstore will become the stable boy of past.

Another quotes the dissenter:

“We need traditional book publishers to sift through endless submissions, just as we need highly-literate booksellers to promote exceptional new works to the public.” Do we? The stunning success of author Hugh Howey says we don’t and his Wool is the best new sci-fi I’ve read in ages. It’s not clear to me that publishing gatekeepers will do any better than crowd-sourcing and word-of-mouth in identifying worthy authors. But really, we’re all supposed to go talk to a “highly-literate bookseller” to tell us what to read, when we can go to Goodreads or Amazon and get the opinions of dozens, hundreds, or thousands? Please.

Another:

I agree with your dissenter that print books and bookstores offer something necessary and important in the world, and I hope they survive forever. But I have to add that, from the writers side, Amazon is offering a steady income stream to hundreds (maybe thousands) of writers who never had an income stream before.

Some breakout self-publishers are even making huge amounts of money and gathering zillions of readers. Not many of them, but beyond the stories of these big successes there is an unrecognized story of writers who are finding readers and paying their bills when they were blocked before by the gatekeepers of the large publishing houses.

I wish Apple and Google and B&N and Kobo would step up and give Amazon some real competition on this front. But don’t condemn Amazon. They have created new markets as they’ve broken old ones.

Another:

I also like to support independent bookstores when I can. So I immediately looked at the three mentioned in the dissent and searched for my new mystery novel, The Killer Wore Leather. Because like many authors these days, I do most of my own marketing, and I link to Amazon and Barnes and Noble all the time. I have also started to include Powells, the well-loved Portland, Oregon store. I would love to link to more places where people could walk in and find it!

What did I find? One bookstore didn’t have it and had no way to special order it. The other two didn’t have it, but I could order it from a warehouse, adding 1-5 business days to the shipping time.

Now, consider Amazon, which had my book listed on EVERY Amazon website all over the world, even though the book is only (right now) in English. They allowed people to pre-order it, both as a paperback and as an e-book. When the e-book went live, people who pre-ordered it got it downloaded to their Kindles automatically. People who ordered the paperback got boxes in the mail within days of the release. And Amazon offers it at a discount.

I’m sorry to see brick-and-mortar stores go. I love a good bookstore, staffed by people who read, with handwritten shelf tags, personal recommendations and a quirky selection of things not found in every airport bookstore across the country. But you know what else I like, as an author whose income depends on sales? I like it when people can find my book easily, and get it quickly, and be able to go back and recommend that book on a website millions of people use every day. If I was depending on The Strand, McNally Jackson, the Community Bookstore, or, for that matter, Rizolli to help MY job? I’d have nothing. Because Rizolli also doesn’t stock my book, or even offer it as a special order.

The Daily Wrap

ITALY-VATICAN-POPE-CRIB FIGURINE

Today on the Dish, Andrew hoped for strong leadership from a concise Pope of the Assisi tradition, but grew uneasy at his disputed role in 1970’s Argentina and his pending court appearance. To relax, he meditated by playing Angry Birds (but won’t watch the show).

In politics, Obama’s approval returned to pre-election levels, Noam Scheiber tired of Paul Ryan’s games, and Boehner risked Hannity’s wrath over Obamacare. Blackwater extended the CIA’s reach beyond the rule of law, IEDs migrated into Syria, Tik Root mourned teens executed in Yemen, and Ambers found drones to be the best of our bad options. On Pope Francis’ first full day, we corrected the record and struggled for clarity regarding his ties to the Junta, and hoped that his background would make a good recession Pope. While Garry Wills revealed that he might bring the clergy down to earth, readers threw in their views and the Daily Mail quarreled with his stance on the Falklands.

Elsewhere around the web, World’s Best Dad reprogrammed a Princess to be the Heroine, Google relegated Reader to the dustbin, new technologies paved the way for more solar power, and Bas Van Abel designed a conflict-free phone. The Onion spoiled the next episode of Girls and Kickstart got a producer credit in the Veronica Mars movie, but that may not have been a good thing. The Atlantic spouted management-speak, Christian Caryl shone a light on the worst parts of the Malaysian sponsored content scandal, and the library went underground.

Lydia DePillis worried about the future of NOLA’s 9th district, Dana Becker encouraged readers to release their stress, and Rhys Southan chose suffering over eternal sleep. Yglesias advised low-income students to aim high in their college applications, readers added another layer to the debate on racism and made the case against civil polygamy. The Pet Shop Boys gave us more than we deserve while Dr. Andy Hildebrand defended auto-tune. A Guatemalan peak filled the VFYW, Pogo remixed Kenya in the MHB, and a mustache froze in the FOTD.

– D.A.

(Photo: Crib figurines’ artist Genny Di Virgilio works on a figurine depicting Pope Francis, the day after he was elected on March 14, 2013 in Naples. By STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Driving On Sunshine

Glen Hiemstra points out an unrealized opportunity for solar panels just under our noses:

What is a road? A strip of asphalt, concrete, dirt, or cobblestone on which wheeled vehicles roll. Road materials have advanced since Roman days, but not all that much, really. It is still just a hard surface, designed to support the weight of vehicles and keep us out of the mud. Twenty four hours a day, roads, parking lots, and sidewalks just sit there, and in the day time they mostly just sit there collecting heat and light but not doing anything with it.

Imagine, as Solar Roadways has, that you could replace the concrete or asphalt with solar cells beneath a layer of glass.

Operating at 15% efficiency the U.S. road system would provide more than four times our current electricity needs, or about as much electricity as the whole world uses.  … The primary complication is manufacturing glass that is strong enough for an 18-wheeler to drive on, that is clear enough to allow sunlight in but opaque enough not to emit too much glare, with sufficient traction and durable enough to last for years.

Meanwhile, Alice Marcondes heralds another breakthrough from Brazil:

What looks like a thin, flexible sheet of regular plastic is actually a solar panel printed with photovoltaic cells, which convert sunlight into electricity. This new material, totally unlike the heavy and costly silicon-based panels commonly used to generate solar power today, was created by scientists at CSEM Brasil, a research institute based in the southeast Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. …

“While the capacity for power generation is almost the same, its small size means that it can be given uses that are almost impossible for silicon panels,” said the chairman of CSEM Brasil, Tiago Maranhão Alves, a physical engineer who participated directly in the research. The lightweight, flexible new material can be used to power the electrical components of automobiles and in electronic devices like mobile phones and wireless computer keyboards and mice.

The Argument For Not Being

Rhys Southan considers it while reviewing David Benatar’s Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence:

(1)   Those who exist experience suffering, which is bad.

(2)   Those who exist experience pleasure, which is good.

(3)   The absence of suffering for the nonexistent is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone.

(4)   The absence of pleasure for the nonexistent is not bad, because there is nobody for whom this absence is a deprivation.

In Benatar’s estimation, since existence includes suffering (claim 1), it loses to nonexistence’s lack thereof in claim 3. But existence and nonexistence tie in the clash over pleasure in claims 2 and 4. Benatar calls this “the Asymmetry.” The fact of suffering means there are negative aspects to existing, but since you can’t miss pleasure if there is no you to miss it, there is nothing bad about never being born. Therefore, having a child creates suffering that wouldn’t otherwise exist, and since suffering is bad and nonexistence isn’t, let’s never breed again.

How he dismantles that idea:

Utilitarians like Benatar tend to aggregate all the world’s suffering into a unitary metaphysical reservoir of concentrated, pulsating agony – like that river of psychomagnotheric slime in Ghostbusters II that exploded from the sewers as New York City got grumpier – and who wouldn’t want to pull the plug on that? But we experience life as individuals, not as a collective mind, and one advantage of this is that throughout the entire world, there is no more pain perceived at any one moment than what a single person is capable of experiencing – and most of us are pretty well equipped to handle that.

Face Of The Day

AUSTRIA-MILITARY-INFANTRY-CONTEST

Austrian Army Master Sergant Siegfried Schaerzler has icycles in his beard as he takes part in the international mountain infantrymen contest ‘Edelweiss Raid 2013’ at the military training ground Lizum/Walchen on March 14, 2013 in Wattens some 400 kilometers west of Vienna. By Dieter Nagl/AFP/Getty Images)

The Darkest Corners Of Sponsored Content

Christian Caryl digs into the backstory of the recent revelations surrounding the Malaysian government’s sponsored content. The paid editorials of Josh Treviño and Ben Domenech were apparently part of a larger campaign to discredit Clare Rewcastle-Brown, a blogger critical of the country’s corruption:

One company, the lobbying firm APCO Worldwide, hired Texas-based conservative blogger Josh Trevino and a range of other writers to come up with content designed to blacken the opposition. His work included setting up a sock-puppet site bearing the title “Sarawak Reports” (only that final “s” distinguished it from the British journalist’s own blog) stuffed with positive stories about [government minister] Taib. (The bogus site has since been removed, though Rewcastle-Brown cites it in this expose on her own site.)

Trevino heatedly denied working for the Malaysians when challenged on the same point back in 2011; a few weeks ago, he was compelled to retract his denial when paperwork emerged showing that he had indeed taken money from the Malaysian government.