Eh.

Thanksgiving Break Post

Sorry this is late... family just left this morning.

Our three bedroom rental house got the beating of its life this week with a three legged arthritic 60 lb golden retriever, twin 6 month olds, a two year old and four sets of adults.

So. I watched this.

And I loved it.

John Heilemann moderated a panel on "The Web and Politics" composed of Arianna Huffington(here,too), Gavin Newsom and Joe Trippi.

Heilemann made the statement that the 2008 Presidential election is like the 1960 election when a new medium became a dominant medium.

He asked the panelists to state if it was true or false and discuss.

Trippi- True. Sited Howard Dean. Said that the new tools, Facebook, Youtube, etc., helped to push the web as a dominate medium in this election. Also sited the fact that more users have broadband this election and Obama was able to utilize the power of free video. He made the point that the value of Obama’s free video exposure (in terms of number of views) was as much or higher than McCain’s entire budget.

He said these tools made the change from the 2004 to the 2008 election. Just like Kennedy made the first televised presidency, then Obama may make the first web presidency.

Gavin- He wants to know what the web presence will be like in the office. “What does it mean?” How will it work in changing public policy in terms of fundamentally shifting the construct of so many issues in the country?

Huffington- Agree. “Lets put it very bluntly, were it not for the Internet, Barrack Obama would not be the president.” She raised his sophisticated way of organizing and fundraising and contrasted McCain’s old ideas vs. Obama’s new ideas.

Her comment,“The internet has killed Carl Rove politics,” gained great applause.

She talked about the pundits in the blogosphere having an obsessive compulsive need to fact check and keep stories alive way after the mainstream media has “moved on to the next shiny object” (credit to Jon Stewart).

“Remember Sarah Palin?... I call it the Trojan Moose of the Republican Party,” zinged Huffington.

She referred to the online obsessive campaign to prove Palin’s statement about being against the “Bridge to Nowhere” wrong.

She concluded with this great quote. “In 2004, trust me, they would have gone on repeating it because the echo chamber would not have been so powerful. And the same thing happened with all the fear mongering around Bill Ayers, around Obama being a strange socialist terrorist, somehow it was not believable because the truth kept on intruding into people’s rooms in such a way that it was not possible for that completely delusional fear mongering to prevail. So that for me is the greatest success of the ’08 race.”

The panel continued to talk about if there was a right and left balance among the blogosphere. They contended that the blogosphere might be more about finding the truth than about towing a party line and made the distinction between how new media are approaching this differently than traditional media.

Up to this point Gavin didn't contribute too much until he began singing the praises of Facebook and lamenting the power of Youtube.

Trippi chimed in on this and sited George Allens' slip up with the

"macca" comment.

They also discussed the manipulative and "gotcha"

tactics of citizen journalists and how there is no

more "off the record" events.

Huffington spoke about Obama's fundraising comment

about "guns and religion" and how if the

Huffingtonpost had suppressed the story they would

have been no better than Fox News.

Trippi- "You're going to be who you are, and that

is healthy".

On the whole, this was a great panel. I found it

very positive in the way the panel kept things

pretty non-partisan. I appreciated Trippi's

insight and expertise as someone on the political

side and how his comments were bounced off

Huffington as someone on the web side. Gavin,

besides touting his great number of Facebook

friends, didn't have too much to contribute to

either side.

Although, his initial question of "what does it

mean?" in regards to transitioning and using

Obama's web talents from the candidacy to the

presidency does raise a few questions.

Especially in light of Obama's removal from direct

web communications.

Wish I could have seen it live.

I also watched this one.

"The Future of Music" with Chris DeWolfe, Edgar Bronfman, moderated by John Battelle.

The panel discussed how MySpace Music has been wt/out a CEO for a while and Battelle forced a squirm out of DeWolfe as he discussed some rumors.

Bronfman discussed his take on iTunes and "who is making money" there.

Then DeWolfe spoke to the difference between MySpace Music and iTunes.

Basically he said they wanted to "put together a service that paid the music companies, paid the artists, gave the users a great experience, made it so they didn't have to go out and steal the music and made sure that everyone got paid."

They talked about the difference between MySpace Music and Rhapsody, and how MySpace Music has more ads than anyone (this disclosed by DeWolfe!).

He said the main difference between Rhapsody and MySpace Music is the community factor.

DeWolfe described as such, "It's a bit like going to a bookstore and not knowing what to look for in a bookstore verses then going to your friend's house and him giving you a book to read"

Battelle then attempted to usher the panelists into an Apple-bash.

Bronfman didn't bite. Perhaps due to fear of getting on Jobs'(if you don't check any links at all, please goto this one!)bad side.

His honest opinion-

Bronfman- "Look, Apple's done a phenomenal job."

Batelle- "Besides that stuff!"

Bronfman- "No but it's true. It's really true... What is remarkable and why you have to give them so much credit is nobody else has managed to pull it off... the iPod was introduced, i think, in 03, here we are five years later and there isn't a single competitive device in the market place. there's a reason for that- they're incredible good at what they do."

Battelle might be on the MySpace Music payroll or perhaps had been dissed by Jobs' at some point- either way, this guy did not attempt to hide his feelings. Overall, Battelle pushed an anti-Apple agenda and gushed (unwarranted)praise on MySpace Music.

DeWolfe and Bronfman both had some interesting things to say as insiders, but not much was really said about the "Future of Music".

I sat in on a similar panel at SXSW and also found that they had little to really say about the future. I feel that this subject is changing too much to actually come up with any real projections.

And of course you can't talk about the "Future of Music" sans Radiohead's grand experiment, of which Battelle gushed and Bronfman and DeWolfe salivated over.

-Chris