Nerd Acumen

For my final blog post in Drew Keller’s Web Storytelling course this summer in the MCDM, I am going to diverge just a little from the exact question Drew posed for us with this entry, which was: Bill Wasik at Big Think believes shorter content on-line will always be free; do I agree or disagree?  Wasik, in this video, takes new media to task, discussing things like the beauty of what the longtail provides us,  the detriments of endless online distractions, and what people are willing to pay for on the web.  I’m less concerned about whether people will pay for content based on duration or production value, or what they will or will not pay for in terms of any type of content at all.  I’m satisfied with the current status quo – I love that the web evens the playing field for cultural commodities, that for a few bucks Spider-Man 3 on Netflix can be streamed one minute, or without any money changing hands a clip of a teenager brutally injuring himself on a trampoline at YouTube can be shared the next, and, also for free, I can finish with a live satellite feed from CNN of a breaking news event in India while engaging fellow Facebook users about what’s happening, all of it right here online and on my lappy at the coffee shop.  Obviously people are willing to pay for access to the infrastructure that provides all of this content – the DSL, the cable Internet, the FiOS and so forth.  And they’ll pay for that Netflix download and other certain things, too.  But it seems that web culture was FOREVER decided that digital = free, so content providers have to generally rely on meager revenue streams from embedded adverts and banner ads and interstitials and the like so I can still watch the latest episode of “Desperate Housewives” any time of day.  But I guess that’s just not enough for content producers and providers.  They keep asking – everyone keeps asking:

Where da money at? (more…)