| Subject: Fwd: Vanity fair |
| From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
| Date: 7/4/10, 13:41 |
| To: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> |
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: Vanity fair
To: Robert Green <
robertogreen@gmail.com>
Howdy-
Whos this presentation aiming towards?
This particular presentation is meant to serve as a more concise description than has existed thus far of the actual mechanics of Project PM's blogger network, and will be distributed to all interested parties as part of a larger package including some of the other materials you allude to below.
Heres why I ask: these kind of documents can be written for any number of constituencies. They may be client facing, consumer facing, venture facing, angel facing, something for family and friends, whatever one thinks is appropriate to the circumstance.
Exactly, and we'll have additional materials prepared - in fact, have some already but which I intend to revise further over the coming days - with those constituencies in mind.
So heres the key to this whole thinggetting their buy-in. Now, you may get them based on the cleverness of the idea alone (and it is clever, for sure). And you may get some of them on an emotional pitch (though thats missing right now I thinkthe fuck you mainstream media side of things.) you may get them by personal imprecationyoure a persuasive guy and youve created a space for yourself on the media criticism side quickly and effectively.
Again, exactly, and the fuck the mainstream media portion has already been put into play within some of my articles as well as my personal conversations with those we've recruited, such as Michael Hastings. I will be composing a final version of this emotional pitch (although it will couple emotion with a logical argument I consider to be unassailable) over the weekend, and this will be incorporated into our various constituent packages and presentations as we deem appropriate.
My feeling is this needs to more ideas: one, how this will directly benefit the content creatorsaid benefits may come in many ways, some remunerative, some emotional, some thought-leader-y. Two, how will this benefit society, culture, the media. I really need number two to be something strong in order to see how to take this to the next level, and I suspect that youve been doing that verbally, though Ive seen you do some serious work on this on your blogs as well.
Indeed, and in fact Robinson and I just conducted a video conference the other evening in order to better compose that facet, the one in which we make the case that content creators have everything to gain in a variety of facets by working with us. We do have some documentation on this already, but again, I would like to revise and extend it further in order to produce something succinct and persuasive. As you say, I've expressed number two to some extent, and now it's time for me to package these arguments into a singe document/argument as well. I will begin this evening.
Then there needs to at least be some discussion of revenue generation. Something. Anything. Or there needs to be an explanation of why there shouldnt be revenue generated.
Before you got in touch, we had been planning on proceeding with no revenue generation whatsoever, as part of our larger goal was to demonstrate what is now capable without capital simply through good ideas and proper use of the internet. The only costs we had in mind involved (1) paying a programmer to produce the widget and (2) printing pamphlets for distribution in African villages as per our Africa Development Sub-Program, which I don't believe I'm mentioned to you but was among our few original ventures to be conducted by the Project PM governing network (which I have referenced in some of our previous articles but which I must also elucidate further for you as well as potential investors). I had planned to pay for both of these with money I've been making from Vanity Fair and other such things, as well as the remainder of my book advance. Having said that, Robinson and our hedge fund fellow Scott Mintz had been looking into the possibility of obtaining grants on the order of $3,000 or so in order to pay for any incorporation costs and also to provide me with some money in order to allow me to concentrate more on PM and less on writing for things like Vanity Fair and NY Press.
Now, of course, you have upped the ante by providing us with the potential opportunity to raise a great deal of money. This would allow us to perhaps provide compensation to our bloggers, or at least those whom we deem most valuable, in order to help free them from the necessity of doing what we've all had to do for survival in terms of writing for amoral outlets simply to feed ourselves. It would further provide us with the chance to fund the governing network and thereby provide them with wider berth in their experiments in the realm of improved charitable work. Basically, I myself have been living on less than $1,000 a month for the bulk of my adult life (and grew up largely in poverty, having shared a bed with my mom for a portion of my childhood, though I was able to go to private schools on full scholarship), spent much of the last year living on friend's couches in NYC while turning down advertising headhunters, and thus I have a lot of thinking to do now as to how money can best be implemented for our agenda, as I'm simply not used to having access to any. The advantage to all of this is that my mentality is forged in terms of stretching financial resources as best possible, as well as implementing things in such a way as to require no money at all.
So, for now, let us say that Project PM does not necessarily need money to operate; not a dime has been spent in recruiting our 100-plus participants. Money could certainly be useful, I imagine, but I will have to give some additional thought as to how we might use it. Thus far I had explained to our bloggers that joining us is to their benefit by requiring no extra work on their part while also providing them with the opportunity to gain additional readership, to be linked to by other, more prominent bloggers who could champion their work, and, of course, by being a part of something that is wholly necessary for the survival of our republic, which is just as much theirs as anyone else's. Helping them to obtain a living wage would certainly be an additional arrow in our quiver.
Having said all that, the money we'd raise would, as is my understanding, largely intended to take the next step towards building the cable news outlet, correct?
Those are my extremely preliminary thoughts. I have some other ideas as well: this is prolix and needs some tightening in areas in order to be more impactful, but thats easy to do. The above is something that requires more thought.
Absolutely, and I will provide you with the next round of additional materials over the next few days, as will Clark Robinson. I also would like to speak to you more about the governing network, which I see as our most potentially effective weapon against the status quo. Feel free to give me a call at your convenience in the meantime. And again, thank you for taking the time to hear me out and to consider our ideas.
On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 6:01 PM, Robert Green
<robertogreen@gmail.com> wrote:
One question:
Whos this presentation aiming towards?
Heres why I ask: these kind of documents can be written for any number of constituencies. They may be client facing, consumer facing, venture facing, angel facing, something for family and friends, whatever one thinks is appropriate to the circumstance.
Given that there isnt even the discussion of revenue here, I assume that this is directed at least in part at potential partners, e.g. The writers/bloggers/reporters who would become a part of the network.
So heres the key to this whole thinggetting their buy-in. Now, you may get them based on the cleverness of the idea alone (and it is clever, for sure). And you may get some of them on an emotional pitch (though thats missing right now I thinkthe fuck you mainstream media side of things.) you may get them by personal imprecationyoure a persuasive guy and youve created a space for yourself on the media criticism side quickly and effectively.
Thats all good.
My feeling is this needs to more ideas: one, how this will directly benefit the content creatorsaid benefits may come in many ways, some remunerative, some emotional, some thought-leader-y. Two, how will this benefit society, culture, the media. I really need number two to be something strong in order to see how to take this to the next level, and I suspect that youve been doing that verbally, though Ive seen you do some serious work on this on your blogs as well.
Then there needs to at least be some discussion of revenue generation. Something. Anything. Or there needs to be an explanation of why there shouldnt be revenue generated.
Those are my extremely preliminary thoughts. I have some other ideas as well: this is prolix and needs some tightening in areas in order to be more impactful, but thats easy to do. The above is something that requires more thought.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, Id 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 theyve 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.
Im interested in hearing/learning further about project PM.
Ive got my own nascent project that Im working on. I come from a background of production/development/finance in the feature/tv/web world. Ive 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 Ive 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. knowthat information isnt he said she said, that information isnt better with access, that information isnt 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 onlyhow informed is your audience after hearing/reading it.
Heres how to do it:
Grab about 1 billion dollars approx (give or take) and create the new CNN. Thats it. Theres no other way. You cant hope to have any useful impact around the margins. You cant 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 cant.
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 whats your buyout number, and pay it. Make them the figureheads. Figure thats 50 million right there.
Im sure you have your own plan, and you dont 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 dont 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
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Regards,
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302