“As of today…” is the key word for me in this case. For some time already, I am trying to focus on what’s actionable today.

“…Google folks involved in the VRM community.” Now, that’s a good thing to hear!

Thank you again for this post and discussion.

As of today, advertising is the best we can do for many purposes. That doesn’t mean it’s not wasteful or flawed in fundamental ways. Still, it’s the best we can do if we’re producers trying to reach consumers. And Google has made it better in some fundamental and profound ways.

Still, we have hardly begun to explore market improvement from the customer side — by equipping demand to drive supply, by providing each of us with tools to serve our intentions first rather than those of sellers.

VRM is about equipping customers, not vendors. You can stretch advertising in a VRM direction, and make it better with VRM, I suppose, but it’s still a sell-side development. So I don’t see advertising, even greatly improved advertising, as a form of VRM. In fact, I very much don’t want to see it that way, because it just helps us rationalize improving the old when we need the new.

This is not to say that you’re doing a bad thing in any way. Helping the ad business is just not what we’re about with VRM.

By the way we have Google folks involved in the VRM community. The company is not monolithic, nor is it tied forever to its current business models.

If we are to believe Google (I still do), the ad spots will eventually evolve into smart communication interfaces – ideally – VRM devices. This may sound a little bit like the idea of “nicotine-free cigarettes”, but I don’t think that the analogy would be correct.

I wanted it to be a general comment about the difference in these three things.

1. Creating something authentic just because you want to be creative
2. Creating something creative and getting paid as a result
3. Creating something (a “product”) with the only intention being to make money.

If it (my prior comment) came across like I was taking a shot a JT that is *not* what I wanted.

Take care.

-N

I think we’ve long since passed the point of advertising saturation online. I’m reminded of cigarette smoking in the 50s. It was beyond normative: a bad thing sold successfully as a good thing. The whole culture was pickled in smoke. What you see on Mad Men is no exaggeration. Worse, tobacco companies ran ads with testimonials by medical doctors about the health benefits of smoking.

My father was a heavy smoker. Eventually killed him. But in the meantime our house and car stank of it. I grew up with it, and remember not liking it, but also not being able to do anything about it.

I feel almost the same way about advertisng. But I’m also doing something about it, with ProjectVRM. One purpose of VRM is to eliminate guesswork about what customers actually want, and waste in trying to “drive” customers who just aren’t interested.

Most advertising is wasted. That’s the bottom line. And it’s a problem we can fix. My work may not do it, but somebody’s will, eventually.

But read carefully how JuiceTorrent works – it is exactly about freeing the creators of good content from the “monetary aspect.” With JuiceTorrent, it is the supporters’ blogs who “make the money”… JT is basically a new way of giving – fluid, ongoing, flowing along relationships of admiration, fanship, and support for worthy causes.

As a JT star – you don’t have to have ads on your site. You don’t blog for money.

As a JT supporter – what you make as a (miniscule) ad revenue – you give. You don’t blog for money.

The motivations are the best possible. As you say, “getting paid is a by-product of creating good music/content” and having fans and supporters.

Doing new media as an amateur is NOT something to be looked down on. In fact I’d argue that it is something to be celebrated, because it is such authentic forms of expression for expressions own sake.

I sort of look at new media the same way that I look at musicians. I don’t see anything at all wrong with a musician getting paid to make music. But, I think that most musicians make music out of a love of making music, rather than out of a love of getting paid to make music.

i.e. getting paid is a by-product of creating good music / content.

I believe that when people who make music or new media focus too much on the monetary aspect of content creation and distribution they frequently lose sight of creating quality content for its own sake.

If the authentic joy that flows from self expression is diminished, or disappears all together, the quality of the content sufferers as well.

Am I making sense?

-N