The Revolution will not be monetized.*

I attended a lecture given by Bob Garfield of On The Media on December 8 at WNYC's Greenspace. The lecture was a platform for Mr. Garfield's book, The Chaos Scenario. The Chaos Secanario describes the end of advertising, news, entertainment and marketing as we know it.

The lecture provided lots of frightening statistics, some great anecdotal evidence. Bob Garfield is an entertaining and informative speaker. I'm a huge fan of On The Media's radio show so much of presentation for me consisted of details around concepts to which I was already was familiar.

It was some questions from the audience that really challenged me.

One audience member asked why should we care if the News, Advertising and Entertainment industries collapse? If you don't work in the effected industries, is their demise really going to effect us?

THE MISSING PIECE
Relevancy. It's hard to illustrate what we're missing (and what we're going to miss), when we're "getting" so much more now.

But are we? We're drinking from the firehose, people and it's bowling us over. Without credibility, criticism and curating, it's impossible to navigate relevant, interesting, and valuable content. So while we may now have vast choices in media, are we really better off?

Another audience member felt they were better off, they had more information than they ever had - think Tweets from the Iranian election in June and recommendations of books via friends on Facebook or videos of charming kittens on YouTube. And that's all true. We never had those outlets before. They allow The People to speak out publicly and account for a huge rise in citizen journalism. But how long can that last?

HERE'S THE RUB:
Not one of those companies that we have come to rely on has a workable business model.

Seriously. One of the stats I heard in the Bob Garfield lecture was that YouTube was on track to lose close to a half a billion dollars in 2009 in spite of their advertising-based model. And Twitter and Facebook have no such business model to support themselves.

So in all honesty – how long can these companies continue to run? Remember the late '90s with all those internet companies that were "post–profit"?  What happened to them?

And if we as a society require these mechanisms for all our media, what happens to us?

*I totally stole my headline from Bob Garfield.

I admit it, nytimes.com I find you highly crushable.

A sample of the work by the New York Times Interactive DepartmentIn a data visualization sort of way. I sneak peaks at you when you're not looking. Just to find out what you're up to. Because I'm always interested in what you've got to say, and, more specifically, what you're wearing when you say it.

In all seriousness, the good folks at the New York Times Interactive Department do fantastic work. They create some beautiful interactive pieces that are informative, compelling, insightful and they look gorgeous. There's a stellar article in New York Magazine that tells the department's origin story, describes their team composition + process and walks you through a project on a detailed level.

GREAT RESOURCE FOR QUICK AND DIRTY RESEARCH

One of their more recent pieces was so useful I quickly filed it away for future reference. The interactive How Different Groups Spend Their Day supports an article about how the ranks of the unemployed spend their day. But the interactive doesn't stop with the unemployed -  it illustrates how many different segments of the population spend their day.

From an ethnographic point of view the snap shots are fantastic. There are views into: men, women, black, white, hispanic, varying age segments, family types and levels of education. So when you see that no more than 1% of seniors 65 and older are using a computer at any given time, you may confidently suggest to your client that perhaps this isn't the time to launch a new poker site targeted to seniors.

CAPTURING A MOMENT – OR TRACKING A TREND

Twitter Chatter During the Super Bowl captures a moment in time when a huge portion of the population is engaged in one activity: rooting for their team. Ok, a team. But whatever -  it's a joy to watch. The "People saying go" slice is a gem and was clearly driven by the data – not a preconceived idea of what folks might be tweeting.

What Your Global Neighbors Are Buying offers a view into how much Americans spend on household goods than the Italians (hint: waaaay more) and that alcohol and tobacco purchases are apparently the great equalizer.