The war for your attention is a zero-sum game. If Netflix retains four hours of your day, that’s four hours HBO can’t get. The way for companies to remain competitive is to ensure a never-ending stream of content, which is how we reached the era of content overload. This is how boredom, as a state of existence, died. – OneZero
Tag: 03.17.19
Quality Versus Quantity: Has “Engagement” Become A Meaningless Measure?
The quantity-vs.-quality debate is now meaningless. Quality is in the eyes of the beholder. We may yearn for a narrative to explain how and why, but that’s not how the digital world works. The algorithmic curation that controls what you do or do not see on every social media company’s newsfeed isn’t programmed to provide you with an emotionally satisfying narrative; it is continuously tuned to keep you engaged and clicking or tapping. So if your key metric is engagement or completed views, “5 Ways to Bounce a Quarter Off of Kim Kardashian’s Butt” or a video of a horrible disaster will always outperform less clickbaity titles or subjects. – Shelly Palmer
NY’s Antiquarian Book Fair: A Marketplace Of Fascinating Stories
For people with modest bank accounts, a tour of the fair amounts to a trip to an exhibit or museum, with dealers happily telling the often fascinating stories behind their wares, even if a potential sale is nowhere in sight. The 59th edition of the fair took place March 7 to 10 at the Park Avenue Armory. – The New York Times
What Exactly Constitutes ‘Cultural Democracy’? And Should State Arts Funding Be Paying For It?
Nan van Houte: “This is not an attempt to discredit cultural democracy; I am convinced that access to the arts and the stimulus towards personal creativity are basic human rights and needs. This is, instead, an attempt to analyze my growing uneasiness when I read yet another arts fund, council, or ministry in Western Europe is opening a strand for ‘everyday creativity.’ … Why? I am afraid that soon we will no longer have to fear for the instrumentalization of the arts, because the artists themselves will be instrumentalized.” – HowlRound
Apple’s Plans To Compete In Hollywood Are Becoming Clearer
Apple didn’t need stars before, but it needs them now. Although the company was the first publicly traded American firm to be valued above $1 trillion, its most recent earnings report showed flat profits and falling revenue. So the plan now is not only to sell devices, but to fill them with content. That has led the company into the alien territory of Hollywood, where local customs can clash with Silicon Valley folkways. – The New York Times
MySpace Finally Admits It Lost All The Music Its Users Uploaded Over 12 Years
“As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest that you retain your back up copies.” Boing Boing
Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Expansion: A Game-Changer For Telling The Stories Of Inuit Art?
When complete, the gallery says the new centre will be home to a collection of contemporary Inuit art unlike any other in the world — and will bring new stories to the forefront. “This is a game-changing museum,” said WAG CEO and director Stephen Borys. – CBC
Some Concerns About “Cultural Democracy” And What It Means For Artists And The Arts
Cultural democracy is, in its essence, anti-elitist. It denounces the superiority of one form of culture over others and includes amateur arts, lifestyles, folk creativity, and traditional practices. Diversity and free choice are key, and culture should be available as an integral part of everyday life. It was the kind of thing I benefited from in my childhood. It comes as no surprise that the term “cultural democracy” is still on the table as the buzz answer to the figures that show only a small slice of society benefits from the subsidies for the arts. – Howlround
My remarks at the 8th World Summit on Arts & Culture
The Theme of the 2019 Summit, which took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was Mobile Minds: Culture, Knowledge and Change. And the panel on which I spoke was listed as a provocation called: Actors in Change. Below is a transcript of my remarks. – Diane Ragsdale
When Rich People’s College Fraud Stories Outstrip Your ‘Pretty Little Liars’ Spinoff
So The Perfectionists – a show on Freeform “about a scandal involving college students striving for excellence by any means necessary” – premiered Saturday night. The pay channel’s president said, “We have the best marketing and PR team in the business, but even I was not sure that they would be able to create a college cheating scandal this big to launch our show. … But we’re very grateful that they did.” – Variety