First you can listen to the show here, live noon Eastern.
The iPad is clearly something we need to discuss. The concern I want to to voice was summed up well by David Carr of the New York Times. “”This is a device for consuming media, not creating it.” Also see this compendium.
Also interesting: AOL Tries To Seed SXSW With Coverage Of 2,000 Bands via its new assignment desk system. (Link.)
Which leads to something I want to discuss with Dave: the open source assignment desk system.
Maxims: http://markcoddington.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-guide-to-the-maxims-of-new-media/
David Weinberger’s observation that the Republicans did a better job of grilling the President than the press does.
And indeed, there are some very interesting things to observe in the iPad product spec.
Regarding the AOL SXSW coverage. I don’t think $50 an article seems like a lot but 2000 x 50 = 100,000 which seems like a lot to cover a two week event. Is this operating cost effectively?
What about the proposals to turn Iceland into a Switzerland of bits/offshore publisher, with strong laws to protect Freedom of speach, press freedoms and protection from (UK style) injunctions.
Mathew-
Saul Hansell here from Seed. I don’t know whether that sort of investment will prove worth it on an ongoing basis. But we need to keep experimenting to understand both the interest in and the ways to produce quality journalism about long-tail subjects. So it is worth it this time. Moreover, that money isn’t for “event” coverage that will be of no interest in the future. We are conducting interviews with bands, some of which will become more popular over time. And we are also commissioning biographies that will be used on the AOL Music reference site.