Is Live TV the Answer? To Be Continued...

How can traditional TV survive in the era of DVR, On-Demand, and Netflix?

The answer may lie in TV's roots, as a source of convenient and timely home entertainment. In a story today on Quartz, writer Jason Lynch suggested five ways that TV can "save itself in 2014." The ideas ranged from abandoning dying genres like talent competitions, to developing more "limited series" like last year's The Bible and the upcoming 24: Live Another Day. His solutions, however, that I found the most compelling were based on the foundations of television:

• Live TV: Instead of relying on taped programs that people can easily record and watch later, Lynch suggested that networks need to increase their live programming -- something that was the hallmark of the "Golden Age of Television." He pointed to the recent live production of The Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood that attracted 18.6 million viewers to NBC. (In case you were wondering, the movie is still far better). 

• To Be Continued: Netflix appeals to millions of people, in part, because they are able to view entire seasons in one sitting. Lynch said networks need to adapt this new habit of "binge-viewing" and acquire the rights to air multiple episodes back to back.

For sure, these ideas would help TV appeal to today's viewers. But they are not enough. At the core of TV's decline is the rise of online video. It's not DVR and Netflix that's making TV less appealing; it's the web. It doesn't matter whether you're using a highly publicized platform like Hulu.com or a Bit Torrent site with pirated shows, at the end of the day you're not watching TV.

Unfortunately, the future of TV will be the same as the history of American manufacturing: without government regulation, people will always choose the cheapest way to get what they want. So should the government make the survival of TV a priority? Should TV be saved? I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out.

A Legendary Singer Who Blends "Sound and Sense"

 Source: BillyJoel.com

All five of the the Kennedy Center honorees this year made major contributions to the performing arts. But it was the last honoree who received the biggest applause and the most touching tribute: the one and only Billy Joel. The reason can be summed up in three words from Alexander Pope: "Sound and sense."

Bill Joel's tunes are as catchy as they are diverse. He's written ballads and barbershop, jazz and rock, classical and pop -- all with melodies that everyone can follow.

But it was not just the music that captured the attention of so many. It was the stories he told. Joel didn't just write about love. He wrote about the emotions we face trying to perform ("Pressure"); the challenges of growing up ("Movin' Out"); and ordinary people just trying to make a living, from the "Piano Man" in a bar, to the factory workers of "Allentown." It's that combination of the music and the words, the sound and the sense, that allowed Joel and his songs to become so popular.

In September, I'll be seeing Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden. You might think it's a long time to wait for a concert. But in the lifespan of a legend, it's only a moment.

The Key Ingredients for a Great Corporate Bio

When you meet someone at a party, the first words you say are usually your name. And if you want to keep the conversation going, you talk a little about yourself: where you’re from, how you know the host(s), or what you do for a living. Should the process be any different when you visit a startup’s website?

To some degree, yes. After all, people visit a company’s website to find out more about its products or services, not its name. That process, though, should only take a few seconds. Immediately after, people will want to know who’s running the show.

There are many articles online about how to write a corporate bio, so I won’t bore you with them. I will just say that bios should be:

• Short and achievement-based: Ideally a paragraph or two, and highlight specific achievements in your career that relate to your new company. For instance, if you’re creating a new social media site for donut shops, then you will want to talk about your visits to donut shops across the country, your popular blog about donuts, and your experience in small business and social media.

• Relevant to your company: You don’t want to mention random information: that you love Star Trek, enjoy waterskiing, and have a wife, two daughters, and a dog (that is unless you are creating a social media site for families that eat donuts, in which case you’d want to talk about your family’s passion for donuts early in the bio). If you want everyone to know about your life outside of donuts – just include links to your social media profiles.

• Feature a Current Photo: This is very important. You want people to know what you look like. It makes them feel connected to you and your company.

Want to learn more? Stay tuned for a future post where I will share some examples of outstanding donuts corporate bios. By the way, I like Boston Cream and Jelly without the powdered sugar.

Speak Softly and Post a Lot of Pics

In case you hadn't heard: text is out, photos are in. So in that spirit, I gathered and arranged the photos below to tell a story.

If you can't figure out what I was trying to say, you're not alone. Photos without any context are hard to understand. That's because, as Neicole Crepau of Clipsi.com points out: "civilization thrived when humans moved from pictographs to the written word." The written word, she explains "enabled humans to convey the same information faster and in a much smaller space."

Once language developed, it revolutionized communication, allowing us to learn by reading words. And today, those who read novels have been shown to develop greater empathy and interpret social cues more quickly. In one study, people who read novels were better at reading people's emotions just by looking at photos of their eyes. Now while that study was comparing fiction and nonfiction readers, it still shows the tremendous benefits that the written word has had for understanding images. (For more on this research, check out this article by psychologist Keith Oatley).

So  to sum up: don't give up on text. It's gotten us quite far, and it's here to stay. And if you are wondering what I was trying to say in the images above, here it is: It's sad that the world of writing is dying, and a galaxy of photos is taking its place. (If you didn't get that, I completely understand. I have to work on my pictography:)

140 Characters: More? Or Less?

I was reading the news online yesterday and soon found myself checking out a new website for reading and writing: Medium.com. The site is being led by Ev Williams, one of the founders of Twitter, and is designed to take over where Twitter left off. "Medium is a new place on the Internet where people share ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters and not just for friends," Williams writes on his site.

So as a blogger looking to to grow his readership, I joined and was quite impressed. The text is clear and easy to read. The ability to comment in the margins of articles allows for focused conversations about each post. And while not everyone is allowed to post yet, the ones that I checked out were good reads.

But there still is one feature that I found a bit odd: each post is labeled with the number of minutes it should take to read. Aside from the fact that everyone reads at a different pace, the timing of writing raised a basic question: if we're worried about how much time it will take to read, why not stick with Twitter?

As someone who worked as a newspaper reporter and has witnessed the demise of both print and long-form journalism, I always thought that people just don't read as much anymore. Skype, Twitter, text messaging, and mobile phones have all replaced writing letters and sending postcards. So are we moving back into the golden age of reading? Are people going to suddenly start checking out 20 minute articles and books, and discussing them with their friends? Or are photos and six-second videos going to become the way we keep in touch? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do believe that as a society we will find a happy medium.
  

Top 10 Reasons Why Lists Are Listless

If you haven't noticed it yet, lists have become among the most popular posts on the web today. Mocked by some as "listicles", loved by others addicted to BuzzFeed -- for now, they are here to stay. As readers, we like lists for a variety of reasons, including our increasingly busy lifestyles and our preference for finite and easily remembered facts. Content producers adore lists because they increase their sites' SEO rankings. For a great top 10 on why lists are popular, check out this list from NPR:)

So in that spirit, I am going to give my top 10 list for why lists are listless. But so I don't sound like one of the top 10 hypocritical bloggers of 2013 , I will write my thoughts in a short essay:

Lists are listless because they're lists. In a mobile minute, the "best" lists tease us with ways to improve ourselves or laugh at others. But as quickly as we share them on Facebook and Twitter they're forgotten.Who remembers the "Top 10 Ways to Lose Weight Without Dieting"? (How does that work again?) Or the "Worst Five Hairstyles of the 2012 People's Choice Awards"? The best way to write memorable content is simple: take one item from your next list and write about it. You and your readers will be happy you did for more reasons than you can ever list.