Trent the Stock Whisperer

The tail that wags the dog

It really is amazing what can happen for an economy when physical space and time are removed from the equation. When people are uninhibited by when and where information is available it opens the door for individual discovery and development. It brings the concepts of the theory of Diffusions of Innovations to each piece of information produced/published. That eventually allows the information to reach 100% market share and be something that everyone can (not always guaranteed) know and use in their own lives.

Ultimately I feel these articles are preaching more about the existence of niche markets and the ability that the internet gives us to exploit those markets by eventually reaching everyone in that market, regardless of where and when they are. Everything is a "HIT" to someone, and there's room for it when space is "Free".

Is This Real Life?

As I consider the thoughts of Ghosh in his article about the Cooking Pot, I ask myself "Is this real life?" When it comes to an online economy, different people make the same observation as the one found in Ghosh's article, "Many things found on the Net, though, can be found off it." So which is the primary product? Is it the one that is sold online, or is the one in the world of the physical. Do they both exist? Or are we going to eventually live our lives through online Surrogates. There are so many aspects of an online economy that seem a little strange to me.  Ghosh talks about the online use of value and not money, but isn't the concept of money just value associated with a piece of paper from a specific producer?

The consideration of posts, comments, likes, and shares as economic transactions is an interesting way to approach the purpose of the internet in an economic sense where people participate in order to contribute to discussions, meet people, and share ideas. Ghosh is, in affect, claiming that the internet is a knowledge economy, and "in a knowledge economy, every exchange of knowledge in any form is an act of trade." I understand his point and believe that the major difference between online and offline interactions of this sort lies in the duration that information exchange can last, as well as the accessibility to it by others. This brings up the consideration of value. Just because the information is available to people for free doesn't mean that it doesn't have value. However, in like manner, just because information is taking up space on the internet doesn't mean that it's valuable. How, in a market of infinite size, can we provide quality/value control for the information and economic transactions of an online world?

You mean I have to switch again?!

While reading Kung's article on the internet and its impact I was struck by a few different ideas. The first was the diffusion of innovations and its role in economics because of the concepts of network effects and lock in and switching costs.  I think it's easy to remember the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Why do people seem to have one type of smart phone and hesitate to change operating systems? Cable providers? A lot of it has to do with the cost. Once you can get some people to buy-in to an idea or product then you can start to take advantage of the network effects and thereby speed up the diffusion of innovations. So what is it that makes one product more successful than another and how to I get call shotgun in that bandwagon?

That free lunch tastes so good!

In Andersen's article about the evolution of a free market, I was once again struck by the concept that not only money, but attention and reputation are forms of currency because of their connection to providing audiences to advertisers. The idea that anything that, eventually, leads to dollars can be sold, is something that may be difficult for some people to grasp, especially investors, but it should be something that everyone interested in the future of their economy should look into.

However, this shift from the mind-set of "scarcity" to a mindset of "abundance" should not cause us to give up on the concepts of quality and judgment that have helped to build the reputations that we now enjoy. If one of the scarcities that Andersen still recognizes is that of reputation, it is even more vitally important that information providers ensure the quality of the information they provide so as to improve their reputation and capture more audience attention.  It is true that with the sheer amount of information available, it is impossible to prevent things of a low-quality nature from being published and consumed. And many times people understand the restrictions to creating high-quality material in certain circumstances. It's presence does not mean that it will be consumed, the the potential it has for acquiring an individual's attention is worth more than the space it occupies on a company website or server. In this way I agree with Andersen and the argument he makes. However, where possible, the quality of information should still be high on the priority list for business and content providers.

Circle of Life

The circle of life is something that we have all become more aware of since the birth of Simba in 1994.  However, there are a lot of people that seem to be fighting the natural order of things when it comes to specific forms of journalism and/or their individual lifestyles and traditions. The fact is that change is the only constant in life and adaptation and evolution are the things that allow us to survive. Journalism is no different. The article from David Carr talks about the fact that print newspapers have been left to fend for themselves, kind of like a week and dying animal being left behind by the rest of the pack. It does seem like there has been a divergence from convergence in newsrooms across the country. What had been thought to be the future of newspapers has been left behind and is no longer being emphasized. However, as we've discussed the last few classes I really do feel as though journalism does have a future and a specific place in our society. It just comes down to how journalism is going to adapt to the technological and cultural changes that our society is experiencing.

In Soloski's article he talks about the ability we had to predict the bankruptcy filings of different newspapers in the mid-2000's. However, he does make an interesting claim that understanding why those situations even came up in the first place is based on a complex situation. Whenever you are dealing with motivations and/or decisions of individual people it is going to be difficult to account for everything. There are too many variables and contributing factors. One of the most intriguing adaptations that journalism producers are going to have to deal with is the potential of ownership transferring from corporations to investors who are less interested in quality work and more interested in immediate profits.

I've got a heart beat (Week 4)

While reading the article about the "death" of the newspaper industry, I had many of my own assumptions confirmed. Journalism, regardless of the form that it takes, is a service that many people look to on a daily basis. It provides people with exposure to a world beyond their own sphere of influence and allows them to quickly consume information that they would otherwise not have time to cultivate for themselves. For this very reason there will always be a place for it in our society and journalism isn't going anywhere.

However, there a numerous things that obviously contributed to the newspaper "crisis" being believed to be more sever than it really was.  For example, while journalists do report facts, they also rely heavily on emotional responses from sources to frame their stories in order to seek the attention of potential readers. This limited resource that we discussed last week is also why the focus of journalism is most often placed on the people affected and not the actual numbers or state of the business that is being covered. In this way it isn't surprising to find that things become exaggerated and our view is so episodic in nature that it becomes difficult to see over-arching trends.

While journalism is here for the long-term, markets do fluctuate and competition doesn't seem to exist the same way in every industry. As reported in this article there are very few cities (just 20 in the United States) that are serviced by more than one newspaper. With those ups and downs, and our desire to understand the cause of them, it isn't surprising that journalists hesitate to place blame for their situation on themselves. This is a natural human reaction to any type of problem to first look to outside factors. If people do look to themselves first, they are admirably rare. Regardless of the location for blame, journalism isn't dying, it's just having to fight a little harder for the attention of individual people.

Isn't it about time? (Week 3)

Time is a very finite resource and inside that limited amount of time we have to decide how to balance the two different sides of attention. (1. The attention of others place on our work and the things we provide, and 2. the things we choose to place out attention in) That is the thing we have control over as individuals. Regardless of what we do, time will continue to pass by and will be used for an infinite number of things. There is nothing we can do to stop it. However, the amount of attention that we use isn't constant. We can use all of the time we have to pay attention to one thing or another, or we can choose to limit our attention to allow ourselves time to relax and recover (I personally like to sleep).

Like Davenport & Beck said, "attention is the real currency of businesses and individuals."  Every decision that is made starts with the attention of a person or group of people, so the point that they are trying to make is extremely valid. Business are trying to capture attention so they can convince you to purchase their services and/or goods. But they also have to decide which things available to them they are going to use their attention to focus on. This limited resource of attention is an extremely interesting topic and is why we have study things like selective exposure, news overload, participation etc. It all stems from someones attention. If we don't have attention, nothing matters and the work that we do is for not, regardless of the results. 

Understanding the principles of markets in association with attention is an interesting concept. The supply of information and other things that people can spend their attention on is infinite, especially in comparison to years past. Each person has a different demand curve related to the amount of information they want and the attention that they're willing to pay for it. So what is the equilibrium? What information are people demanding and how much of their attention are they willing to pay to consume it? Are they spending their attention on the right things, or are they filling their bellies with froth that does nothing to nourish the body? What are the priorities that we have for the attention we spend?

Get Specific Would Ya (Week 2)

As I was reading the article by Picard I couldn't help but agree with the point that he was trying to make. If I'm being honest with myself I have always been surprised that, as a journalist, I was getting paid to visit with people and then tell their stories for them. I know if they had the opportunity, and believed that people were genuinely interested, they would tell those stories on their own and with much more colorful detail and emotion. 

The concept of providing people with a voice is unnecessary these days. Everyone who wants to speak has a voice. The difference now is that there are so many voices that no one is listening. It's a question of supply and demand. There are so many suppliers of shallow and broad information, that, as Picard alludes, it is up to journalists to become experts in a specific area, or at least experts of a specific event or problem, and provide information that is in high demand with minimal suppliers. KXAN has decided that their expertise is investigative journalism. (see image)

Based on the writing of Patterson and the statistics that he presents in the introduction to his book, it is important that we provide more in-depth information for people to use in their daily decision making. Journalists are charged with highlighting the important information and providing context around it. 

Journalism, and the journalists that produce it, need to be less concerned with covering everything and demonstrate a better understanding of the information that is actually important and impactful to their audiences. People can get news anywhere, but they can only get journalism from journalists.