This is great. I look forward to digging in. I will have something coherent to say tomorrow I hope.
Robert green USR Content Another green world productions 310-804-1812 cell 310-559-5725 usr office 323-446-7639 fax www.usrcontent.com
On Jul 3, 2010 11:58 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Robert-
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you; had to finish up a couple of
articles, but am now deadline-free for a while.
My colleague Clark Robinson and I will be preparing further materials for
you over the weekend, but in the meantime, I’d like to provide you with a
written overview of Project PM to supplement what we went over in our
discussion the other evening.
Information flow is fundamental to the success of every manner of human
collaboration. Nonetheless, the processes by which information is gathered,
handled, transferred, and acted upon receive far less attention than is
warranted. The purpose of Project PM is to change this dynamic by developing
new techniques with which to more efficiently conduct information.
Because the great preponderance of information crucial to the success of a
representative government is transferred through the media, Project PM
focuses primarily on media reform. Our first and foremost effort has been to
establish a distributed media cartel made up of bloggers as well as
journalists who work at least in part through online media. Rather than
simply assembling this group of exceptional media professionals into an
online outlet similar to those currently in existence, we are instead
organizing our participants into a network which itself operates under a
unique schematic designed to take best advantage of the internet as a medium
while simultaneously avoiding the drawbacks common to even the best online
communities.
In order to seed the network, we have recruited around two dozen bloggers
and journalists whom we have identified as particularly competent and
intellectually honest. Each of these individuals is encouraged to bring
other bloggers into the network based on their own judgment; these new
participants are then connected to the blogger who has brought them in and
may likewise bring others into the network,and so on . As such, the network
grows perpetually while maintaining a high average quality in terms of its
participants, as is explained further below.
Upon the launch of our network, each of the initial bloggers will be
connected to each other via a widget which is embedded on their respective
blogs, as well as connected to those whom they’ve recruited. When a
particular individual composes a piece of work that he considers to be of
particular merit, the individual pushes a single button which causes the
article in question to be sent to all of the bloggers to whom he is
connected. Each of those bloggers in turn then decides whether or not they
agree that the article is worthy of greater attention; if so, they push the
button and thereby send it along to every blogger to whom they themselves
are connected. Thus it is that information deemed worthy of attention by
some great number of erudite and honest individuals from a variety of
backgrounds will tend to perpetuate through the system and gain a larger
audience than they might otherwise receive.
As the network expands by way of the process described above, it is
inevitable that there will be failures of judgement on the part of
participants when choosing additional bloggers to bring into the network.
Let us say that Blogger X, who is rather competent, brings in Blogger Y, who
is only moderately so, and who in turn brings in Blogger Z, who is a giant
douchebag. Blogger Z begins composing and pushing forward posts to the
effect that Barack Obama was born in Tehran or that ethanol subsidies are
awesome or some such thing – but these posts only initially go to Blogger Y
and whatever horrid bloggers Blogger Z has brought in himself, assuming he
has brough in any. Blogger Y may or may not be inclined to push forward
these nonsense posts, but Blogger X will almost certainly delete them
immediately and is quite likely to disolve his connection to Blogger Y for
displaying such poor judgement. Thus it is that the system is defended from
deterioration by the high competence of the initial round of bloggers and
consequently comparable competence of those brought in gradually afterwards,
coupled with the nature of the schematic itself. No supervision is necessary
for the network to expand while maintaining a high level of quality.
A few other characteristics bear noting. Any participant may connect to any
other participant who agrees to the connection, no matter “where” each
participant resides in the network, and thus the network is likely to evolve
from the shape of a pyramid to that of a web, which is advantageous in terms
of ensuring that good information does not become overly “regionalized.” All
participants are equal regardless of the order in which they joined.
Participants are free to bring on as many other bloggers as they would like,
although they will find that it is to their own advantage to be selective in
this regard.
The system is capped off with another widget distinct from that used by the
bloggers – the reader widget, a downloadable application which displays
those posts which have been pushed forward a certain number of times (as set
by the individual reader). The end result should be the best system of news
and information filtration that has ever existed.
That is the elevator pitch, at any rate. I have also sending you a link to a
makeshift Google presentation that my lawyer and second-in-command Clark
Robinson has prepared for you. Having just moved in to a new apartment, I
only have sporadic internet access for the next few days, but Robinson is at
your disposal and may be reached at robinsonchicago@gmail.com. I may also be
reached via cell phone at all times. I will have Robinson share with you
some additional documents including an incomplete list of our participants
thus far.
Meanwhile, I have spoken to Michael Hastings and a few other of our best
journalists and commentators and all of them are more than willing to get
involved and will be quietly talking to various colleagues in the coming
days without providing any details. I have also asked a couple of our people
to begin thinking about ways in which a cable station could be most
effectively implemented, emphasizing that we would of course want to rewrite
all the rules of such things and take advantage of the internet as best we
can.
On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com>wrote:
> Great article about hastings, barrett.
>
> I’m interested in hearing/learning further about project PM.
>
> I’ve got my own nascent project that I’m working on. I come from a
> background of production/development/finance in the feature/tv/web world.
> I’ve produced a TON of stuff in all different media over the years (bona
> fides in the signature below, check my imdb page). I also come from a
> background of a dad on the board of The Nation, and your basic view of the
> world that such will engender.
>
> Between these two worlds I’ve reached the following conclusion:
>
> The time is NOW to create/fund/finance a 21st century news media org that
> takes what you/me/jay rosen/michael hastings/etc. Etc. etc. know—that
> information isn’t “he said she said”, that information isn’t better with
> “access”, that information isn’t better with “one consultant from x, and one
> consultant from y”, that information IS better when transparent, that news
> should be measured by one analytic and one only—how informed is your
> audience after hearing/reading it.
>
> Here’s how to do it:
>
> Grab about 1 billion dollars approx (give or take) and create the new CNN.
> That’s it. There’s no other way. You can’t hope to have any useful impact
> around the margins. You can’t hope to do anything important at a Current TV
> level, or blogging for a magazine as hopelessly addicted to horseshit
> celebrity as VF, and really change things. You just can’t.
>
> I know some people with some real money. And their hearts are movable to
> the right place. The thing is to aggregate all the people who are a)smart
> b) doing it already c) energetic and put together the plan.
>
> Starting point, and yes, this is a tendentious one: just say to jon
> stewart and colbert “what’s your buyout number”, and pay it. Make them the
> figureheads. Figure that’s 50 million right there.
>
> I’m sure you have your own plan, and you don’t know me, so take all this
> with a grain of salt. But if you ever do have time to spend 5 minutes
> discussing this further, please don’t hesitate.
>
> In the meantime, keep up the great work.
>
> best
>
> Robert Green
> Another Green World Productions
> 310-804-1812 phone
> 323-446-7639 fax
> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1299657/
> http://linkedin.com/in/robertogreen
> http://twitter.com/robogreen
> skype: monazu1
>
>
>
>
> --
>
>