Bloggasm

Whenever journalists speak of disseminating news in the online world, they’re usually referring to blogging, social networking, and other Web 2.0 technologies. What you don’t hear about very often are the millions of mass emails that are sent out on a daily basis — they’re sometimes referred to as “chain emails.” A person gets some kind of news item in his inbox and then forwards it to his entire address book. This allows a piece of information to be spread quickly to thousands of people without being formerly published online or in print.

Unfortunately, these mass emails provide an easy outlet for groups to widely promote propaganda and misinformation. Because there is no permalink or publication to trace it to, falsehoods can quickly be disseminated in such a way so that it’s almost impossible to trace the writing to its original source. And because the writing isn’t published anywhere — at least right away — it can float under the radar undetected by those knowledgeable or skeptical enough to cry foul while thousands of emails continue to be sent.

Eventually, readers start copy and pasting the emails into online message boards and blogs, but by then the misinformation has become so ubiquitous that it’s considered fact.

Philip Pullman, the author of The Golden Compass, which has been made into a major motion picture, has included anti-religious themes in his books. Naturally — as we saw with The Da Vinci Code — Christian groups have begun to form protests against it. Today, I received a mass-forwarded email from a Christian relative that quotes Pullman as saying this:

The Golden Compass, A movie you might want to avoid.

In the words of the author, “I want to kill God in the minds of Children…. I want them to decide against God and the Kingdom of Heaven.”

As you might have guessed, this is a quote that Pullman never actually said.

After hitting thousands of inboxes, this false quote eventually spilled over onto dozens of webpages. Notice that some of those sites are run by churches.

I meticulously went through every single direct reference to the quote, and never once does it cite a source. A few of these webpages claim that this quote came from a mysterious 2003 interview with the author, but we never actually find out where.

In fact, the only quote that Pullman actually said that comes close to this appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald:

“I’ve been surprised by how little criticism I’ve got. Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak. I’m a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the people – mainly from America’s Bible Belt – who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven’t got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God.”

This, of course, is entirely different from the author saying “I want to kill God in the minds of Children.”

This email that was sent to me was CC’d to 20 other people. These chain messages typically fan out in a pyramid-like fashion. Because of this one email, thousands of people actually think that Pullman said those words. As for who actually falsely attributed them to him? We’ll never know.

***
Related posts:
1. At least one reason to like starbucks
2. The Sideways offensive: Will Merlot sales ever recover?
3. Missionaries sent into Second Life

Though the arguments surrounding the Writers Guild of America strike are often complex and involve a good deal of number crunching and indepth knowledge of the DVD and online advertising market, one of the most salient demands that have made it into the media echo chamber is that writers want a cut of the profits made from the internet.

Many journalists, particularly newspaper journalists, have likely watched this debate with some interest. After all, we’re still having to figure out how to adapt to the online world ourselves, particularly when it comes to online advertising. Print advertising is shrinking, and though the online ad market is growing, it’s not quick enough. Not only that, but a good bit of it is getting sucked up by Google.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of media stories have pointed out already that the internet, the very thing being argued over, is helping to fuel support for the striking writers. They have unleashed a barrage of Youtube videos attacking the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, often employing the very writing skills that they use in their day jobs.

Part of the reason for this success is the low bar for entry: It costs very little to produce a six minute video and load it onto Youtube and then feed it through the appropriate channels. Imagine the WGA trying to do this with video tapes, the subject of the 1988 strike. The cost of production and distribution of video tapes would have been too costly to be effective.

So this leads us to the next logical step: If the internet is supposedly so profitable, and the cost for entry is so low, then why don’t some WGA members just bypass the producers completely and write solely for online content?

According to an AP article titled “Striking Writers Gravitate to Web,” some writers might do just that. “The operators of Internet entertainment sites such as MyDamnChannel, Break, Heavy and others have a message for striking writers – give us a look,” the article states. “Many writers are doing just that, with the hope of retaining total creative control over their work and collecting as much as half of all revenue – a potentially sweet deal compared to a typical TV gig.”

So now the AMPTP has a second problem to deal with in regards to the strike: Not only are they losing potential profits, they’re also losing potential talent. And the longer the WGA is on strike, the more writers who might try their hands at online video production.

Something tells me that this strike will not only have a strong effect on the television and movie industry, but the rise of professional online video content as well. Look out Video-of-a-Cute-Cat-in-a-Tree, the Big Guns have entered the saloon.

***
Related posts:
1. The art of celebrity profiling
2. Reality TV show overstates its effects?
3. Republican politicians don’t understand the internet
4. Youtube’s revenue sharing
5. Youtube still dominates online video industry by wide margins

This article has a cool behind-the-scenes look at the Australian porn industry, which evidently has been struggling up until now. A woman named Maxine Fensom thinks she can spark world-wide interest and has been flying in US filmmakers to help with her films.

First we have Hollywood. Then Bollywood. Now, Nollywood?

1.eBay Quietly Unveils New Classifieds Site For U.S: “Online auction powerhouse eBay is hoping you might want to advertise online, on its new site meant to rival the popular Craigslist. The Wall Street Journal says the U.S. version of the site, called Kijiji, has gone live.” EDITOR’S NOTE: Kijiji? WTF? Could they have found a more inane, hard-to-remember title for the website?

2. Voting Begins on USAToday.com For Simpsons’ Hometown: “Voting began today on the Web site of the USA Today newspaper for which of several Springfields will host the premiere of ‘The Simpsons Movie’ later this month.”

3. Gay Paper ‘Out & About’ Now Back In At Nashville Kroger Stores : “One month after Out & About Newspaper was removed from racks inside Nashville, Tenn.-area Kroger supermarkets, the regional gay and lesbian free weekly is coming back to some of the stores. In an announcement Monday, Kroger said DistribuTech, the free newspaper distribution company, had misinterpreted the supermarket chain’s policy against displaying free papers that promote specific religious, political or other agendas.”

4. Personal Traffic Alerts, With Made-to-Order Data: “For many people, getting away for a holiday means sitting in traffic while listening to staccato radio reports about rubbernecking delays and cascading backups. But during the next few days, as Americans extend their Fourth of July celebrations, tens of thousands of motorists around the country will receive up-to-the minute accident alerts and guidance on end runs around bottlenecks — without ever having to turn on a car radio.”

5. Can She Turn Yahoo Into, Well, Google?: A profile of Susan L. Decker, president of Yahoo.

***

Related posts:
1. Interview with Brian Flemming, director of The God Who Wasn’t There
2. Even gay princes aren’t safe
3. The case of the mystery gadget
4. Why is Technorati so unreliable?
5. PR companies stalking journalists
6. The text-advertising wars
7. Journalists trying to investigate Chinese businesses

The scene lasts no longer than a few moments.

Thomas Haden Church’s character, frustrated and looking to get laid, tells Paul Giamatti’s character that if the two women they’re about to meet want to drink Merlot, they’re all drinking Merlot. “No, if anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving,” Giamatti responds. “I am not drinking any fucking Merlot!”

The scene is humorous but fleeting, yet after the movie Sideways was met with both critical and popular success, news organizations began reporting Merlot’s demise. Sales within the industry dropped as casual, uninformed wine drinkers turned up their noses at the drink. And wine afficionados weren’t all sad to see the grape’s downfall.

“In the previous decade, cheap Merlot had become the red wine of choice for many folks who wanted something easy to drink,” said Alder Yarrow. “If it was 1992 and you were putting on an opening at an art gallery and you wanted to serve wine, it would have been Chardonnay and Merlot. So I guess some shallow wine lovers might have decided over time that such common affinity was a turn-off.”

Yarrow, 33, writes for Vinography.com, a wine review website that receives over 10,000 unique visitors a day. In addition to his thoughts on wine, he offers sake reviews, restaurant reviews and notes on food. He lives in California with his wife and runs a consulting firm by day.
***

***

The wine lover said that though there were anecdotal stories of diminishing Merlot sales, he didn’t know of any wineries that went out of business. There was an immediate media counter offensive against the movie, pointing out that the wine loved by the main character has a significant percentage of Merlot in it. Paloma Vineyards and Swanson Vineyards, both of which specialize in Merlot, sponsored a Merlot publicity tour to overturn the public conception.

What surprised Yarrow was that such a simple, short-lasting scene could have such direct repercussions.

“I never would have guessed the movie would have had such an effect on the U.S. wine industry. Not in a million years,” he said. “Mostly because Americans famously drink so little wine and because I didn’t think that there was a huge overlap between serious wine drinkers and the general Hollywood moviegoing public. I was clearly very wrong.”

But Mary Baker, owner of Dover Canyon Winery, thought that not all movie viewers came away from Sideways with a bad taste for Merlot.

“[I]n the movie, Miles (Giamatti’s character) isn’t really protesting about Merlot, the grape. What he’s protesting against is the tooty-fruity, bland Merlot styles that are often found on restaurant wine lists,” Baker said. “There’s also a misconception, among men mostly, that women prefer white wine and Merlots. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Women, as Miles was about to find out, like gentle men and strong wines…you didn’t hear Miles complaining once he was captivated by two stunning, assertive, wine-savvy women. There are a lot of layers of humor in both the book and the movie.”

Dover Canyon is located on the west side of Paso Robles. Baker and her co-owner, Dan Panico, worked for large wineries before opening their own place that produces limited productions from small, elite vineyards. They have limited editions of mountain-grown Merlot, and she said that their sales weren’t affected at all.

“It’s interesting that no one wants to be the ‘geeky Miles,’” she explained. “Miles apparently hated Merlot, and that made people curious about Merlot because no one wants to come across as such a navel-lint-gazing wine snob. But Miles adored Pinot Noir, (and who wouldn’t after Maia’s beautiful speech?) and so people want to be cool . . . they want to be into Pinot Noir.”
***

***

California isn’t the only place where the grape is widely grown. It’s also planted in both France and Italy, among other places. Andrew Barrow, a UK resident who writes for Spittoon, a wine blog that receives 2,000 visitors a day, said that the film didn’t influence oversees Merlot sales.

“We have the most extensive wine range available in the world in the UK but Sideways was viewed as little more than a fun film,” he said. “A good film but insignificant to the world’s wine centre in terms of influence on sales.”

Of course, Merlot isn’t much of a UK wine, but there hasn’t been any significant evidence that Sideways was able to cross over the language barrier enough to negatively affect wine sales in France and Italy.

In addition to the Merlot offensive, many wineries in the US found other ways to adapt to changing popular tastes.

“I know of one good Merlot vineyard that grafted over to other varietals,” said Jeff Stai. “But I couldn’t even tell you if it was a direct reaction or multiple factors.”

Stai owns Twisted Oak Winery, which is located in Calaveras County, CA, what he likes to call “the best wine region you’ve never heard of.” His winery doesn’t make Merlot, so most his commentary was anecdotal, but he asserted that the movie had its positive effects.

“If the movie had an effect, it got people thinking about alternatives to Merlot – which is good for people making Tempranillo!” Stai said. “But maybe even more importantly it brought wine back into popular culture again, and that will help us all, even the Merlot producers.”

But, in the end, the question remains: Will Merlot sales ever recover? Sideways debuted in 2004, surely the bad PR ripples must have subsided.

“American consumers are a fickle lot, but I would say that Merlot did not suffer so much in sales that any wineries went out of business,” said Fredric Koeppel, who wrote a national weekly print wine column for The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis and the Scripps Howard News Service from 1984 to 2004. “The proper response to Sideways would have been to make better, more distinctive Merlot and Pinot Noir, but, honestly, I don’t know of any producers that got into a snit because of the Sideways situation; trends come and go.”

Most wine experts seemed to agree with this opinion.

“If every time a cheap version of a varietal got popular in the US, we scorned the grape completely, we’d all be drinking Mourvedre,” said Yarrow, the Vinography writer. “Which, come to think of it wouldn’t be that bad.”

The Guardian has compiled a list of the 1,000 best films of all time.

UPDATE: Looks as if Rotten Tomatoes has the best 100 scifi movies of all time