Sunday June 15, 2025; 10:12 AM EDT
BTW, this piece in the NYT has a bit of wisdom that I had not considered because I don't listen to Joe Rogan it would never occur to me. He's relaxing white noise, chatting in the background while you play a game or write a blog post or text message on your phone, or just think about something unrelated. I forgot that mode of media consumption. I'm always on the hunt for that kind of content. That's why sports games are so good. You can almost completely tune out, knowing they'll replay the best stuff. #- Reminds of a meeting we had a Berkman in the early days of podcasting. Most of the faculty were of course not on board with what we were doing, possibly believing that it threatened public radio (didn't turn out that way at all, they made incredibly good use of podcasting). One of the guys from PRX which was also incubating there at the time, said at me in a challenging way -- You get the best info from public radio! Right? I thought for a minute and realized this was a good question. No, I said, it's relaxing, I can tune out while I'm driving or walking around town. Loud groans. But it's so true. Now it's great when there's a TV series that really catches your attention, I love that too, but most of my media-ingesting time is with white noise, background relaxation. The world is still okay when the background noise on MSNBC are still on the air between the ever more disgusting ads for diseases I probably will never get. #
- There must be a better way. #
- It's like the canaries in a coalmine. When they go off the air that's when you really have to start worrying! #
- BTW, PRX was a good idea. Brilliant actually. Distribute the content from the public radio sources that generate too much to the ones in less populated areas where they don't generate enough. Podcasting blew that up -- but PRX adjusted their approach, and became a distributor of podcasting. That's an entrepreneur's approach. The were able to pivot and continue to make a contribution to this day. #
- I often wonder how we missed the opportunity to build a great media incubator at Harvard in the 00s. We were right there, and the backer of Berkman wanted entrepreurial projects, I found out at the reunion two summers ago. We had it, were there, if only.. Heh when you get to be my age there's lots of that. #
- Also I wonder how I missed the potential of WordPress all those years. Ships passing in the night. But we're there now, so..#
