.gif){kind=small}
Sturgeon's Law #092
30 July, 2008
http://www.sturgeonslaw.com/
RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SturgeonsLaw
Email: sturgeonslaw, gmail, you know the drill
Intro Music by Enter the Haggis
Bumper featuring GrammarGirl
Promo for Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira
July 30, 2008 is the 3rd anniversary of the first episode of Sturgeon's Law. In keeping with my low-key podcasting behavior of late, there's no contest, I didn't go panning for emails and voice comments, but instead, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do an utterly self-involved episode talking about two closely related things: new media and this podcast.
Actually, I'm uneasy with the descriptor "new media." Because, in point of fact, from our day to day perspective the whole point is that there isn't any medium, or at least, that the medium is irrelevant. You may be listening to this on your portable player, or your desktop PC, or perhaps your phone. Maybe you burned it to CD and are listening to that. Seems unlikely, but anything's possible. Perhaps you're not listening to the podcast at all, but reading the transcript on the website. Perhaps you're actually listening to a screenreader read that transcript, which seems a bit roundabout, but again, anything's possible. The point is, I don't know and, for reasons we'll get into, I don't actually care, either. What I care about is that I have something to communicate, be it a story or an essay or blatant promotion or a song or whatever, and I've recorded it and written it out and set it loose into the wilds. It's on a website and it's got an RSS feed and the rest is all details I need not concern myself with, hopefully, although iTunes has ever been a counterexample of that. On the other hand, I've never once tried to contact iTunes because I can't be bothered to wrangle with them, so perhaps not. Let's stick to my idealized form, at any rate; what I care about is producing the content and making it available in some sufficiently generic form that you can actually have whatever media you see fit. As a parallel, I have bought music on mp3s from Amazon, because DRM is pure evil and that's the end of that. In my case, after downloading that music, I burn it to CD because I am paranoid, then perhaps I listen to it at my PC, or copy it to my portable player, or indeed, frequently, I stream it to my desktop PC at work. Amazon doesn't, or shouldn't, care about any of that, and they'd better not, since they sold it in mp3, which pretty much guarantees they don't get a further say. As it should be, for the new media, which is either no media or all media.
I have now been doing this show for three years and podcasting for several months beyond that. One of the things that has occasionally annoyed me has been various fads that have turned into orthodoxies. I don't care for orthodoxy. It comes from Greek roots meaning, more or less, "true opinion," an oxymoron if ever I heard one. The notion that real podcasters were the ones who wanted to monetize their shows and quit their day jobs was an opinion, but it wasn't stupid any more than it was even sensible. On the flip side, the notion that creative people are obliged to give away their work without restriction is also an opinion; it's just a stupid one. The beauty of living in the future, as I really believe we do, is not that it'll make each and every one of us rich, or load each and every one of us up with free stuff, but that it permits the creator and the consumer -- in the purest sense of that term -- to meet on whatever ground they feel like, full stop. It is my pleasure to express my thoughts periodically this way whether or not anyone contributes to my webhosting, or anyone sponsors the show (old listeners will know I did that once, and it wasn't really much fun, nor did it line my pockets deeply), and as long as it is the pleasure of some to meet me in the middle and accept some free blather, then everyone goes home happy and who cares whether it fits a quote model unquote or whatever? If the quote model unquote I choose is loathsome, then I will find out when nobody meets me halfway. If it is so nearly vile that only three people stick around, and I'm happy creating for three people, then the quote model unquote is viable and shame on you who think otherwise. That's what new media is to me: the chance to say "get stuffed" to How Things Must Be Done.
Now, a bit about where I have occasionally gotten turned around and lost my way in regards to that last observation: the final orthodoxy we all must face down is our very own. Putting it another way, when I started the show, I had an idea of what it would be. Over three years, I have wrestled horribly with boredom, with lack of ideas, with confusion over what I should do next, and worry over what people would tolerate. I have fought, and often lost, against my own self-imposed orthodoxy, and it comes in subtle ways, down to the very name of the show. I told someone the other evening I sort of wished I'd never come up with the name Sturgeon's Law, because now I can't talk about whatever the heck I feel like unless it makes some sort of sense within the framework suggested by the name and its complementary tagline about the 10%. But really, who cares? Some of you have tried to tell me that on a number of occasions, and to you I apologize for being so thick. But orthodoxy is an insidious thing, particularly when it's your own, I think. And I am by no means the only podcaster I've heard fret about whether they could do something that seemd appealing and, quote, get away with it, unquote. Why not? In reality, the worst case is that the more forward of your listeners write or call in to tell you that kind of sucked, and then you know. Sure, you can sit around and fret that your entire audience will evaporate in one show, but I doubt it, and frankly, if what you're doing doesn't get you charged up, which is better, to labor joylessly or to lose most of your audience? I'd like to think I'd take the latter.
I am grateful to the wonderful PodcastReady.com for increasing the subscription numbers of this show manyfold. According to Feedburner, there are now 7,000 subscribers, which took me for a turn because the last I'd looked it'd been more like 4,000 for some time. Apparently more PodcastReady devices are turning up with us on it, because they're still some 95% of the subscriptions. How many actually listen to Sturgeon's Law? I have no idea. But what I do know is that I cannot be tied up by that number, be it 7,000, or 4,000, or 150 like in the old days, or 30 or 20 or 5, because ultimately, if I don't get into doing the show, either I will stop doing it entirely, which has very nearly happened a number of times, or my lack of interest will become infectious and none of those 7,000 will listen anyway, nor should you.
So in conclusion, this is not an announcement of change. This is not a proclamation of new format. Keep subscribed and you'll keep hearing me talk about whatever inspires me to sound off. I'm still the guy who is more interested in telling you about things that strike me as cool -- MOST of the time -- so you'll still get plenty of that. And hopefully, in turn, I'll say something so interesting that you'll want to talk back, because the coolest part of new media is that the conversation can happen between content creator and consumer without some idiots blocking the door. And if you've got something to share, a song or an essay or a play or a story or whatever it may be, share it. Ask for donations of you want them. Charge money if you think that works for you. Give it all away if that suits your style. Sell t-shirts. Use Wowio in a couple of days when they come back. Do whatever make the whole thing worthwhile for you and don't worry about what's internet chic, because the whole point of the internet is not having to be chic. Woody Allen said that 80% of success is showing up. Showing up has never been easier. And whatever you do, wherever you do it, drop me a line, because rumor has it I dig cool stuff.
