On 12/29/95 at 01:53 AM, Richard Layman  mused:
>What happened to CB radio as a 
>many-to-many phenomenon and are there lessons for this medium?

Do you remember the old line that 'If it looks like a duck, waddles like a
duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck'? Well, 'it' could
instead be a mechanical wind-up toy.

There is a lesson here for our medium (which depends upon whether one
defines 'our medium' as publishing or as online). The lesson is actually
what is beneath the surfaces of the superficially similar, but mutually
exclusive forms of media that are CB radio and many-to-many communications.

Let's not mistake toys for fowl, no matter how feathery they look. Just
because a phenomena involves 'many' people, does that make it a
'many-to-many' phenomenon? For example, if I shout out my apartment window
and many other people shout back, is this 'many-to-many' communications? Is
it Citizens Band radio without the extended range of six-watt transceivers?
Or is it just a typically noisy night in Manhattan? [Hint: the last two].

Fundamentals, not appearances, constitute a bird, and the same with
'many-to-many' communications. Its 'many' refers to no particular quantity
except more than one, and is the same 'many' as in that older form of
communications, 'one-to-many' (print and broadcast). These 'ones' and
'manys' refer to whom controls the flow and substance of the communications
in each case:

* In 'one-to-one' (such as my telephoning you), each side equally controls
the substance and flow of the communications.
* In 'one-to-many' (such as the BBC, Time, The Des Moines Register, and the
companies where most of the people reading this work), the broadcaster or
publisher controls the substance and flow of communications to listeners,
viewers, or readers. Control, flow, and substance is one-way. The 'one'
controls the what and when the 'many' see and hear.
* Yet in the new 'many-to-many' form that has just arisen, the readers,
listeners, and viewers again control both the flow and the substance of the
communications, be the flow and substance from one source or a million. Each
of these 'many' individually decides what to see, when, and - - note this -
- - the majority of them contribute content. No, not content published in
their own websites (media company executives have a ironically myopic
definition of content), but a more generic and pervasive type of content.
Here comes the crux of this argument:

Those of you who produce media company websites know that you control what
content you put on that website and when. Hence you may think you're in
control, and that online is a 'one-to-many' medium. It looks like it, walks
like it, and sounds like it. Only it doesn't fly. The medium actually is
'many-to-many' when probed beyond superficial appearances. The many aren't
paying to see your posted content. The paying numbers over the past year are
significantly negligible, and none of you are making money at it. The many
aren't choosing to view the full-screen ads linked from that content, as
they would have no choice but to do in the unlinked, full-text adjacencies
of print or the time intrusions of broadcast. The website advertising
numbers over the past year are negligible and aren't being accepted by
Madison Ave. Most importantly, the volume of time that the many spend
emailing to, reading the comments by, and chatting with each other -- the
generic and pervasive content online -- clearly dwarfs what time the many
spend reading online newspapers or magazines. The online services are making
their money by allowing the many to email, post, and chat (the many
generating their own content), not by offering the many online newspapers,
magazines, and broadcast sites. Each survey of usage says so. Attempts to
graft 'one-to-many' into this 'many-to-many' medium have been business
failures; the many make only incidental usage of such websites. The many
clearly have control and are spending their time in 'many-to-many' usages.

I realize that I'm preaching to the wrong religion's choir on this listserv.
Yet, millions of people have embraced online technology not because they
want to read online what they can today get more easily and cheaply in
print. They aren't paying for online access nowadays in hopes that someday
it will give them TV or movies on demand. No, they have embraced online
because they want to control their access to the information they want to
best live their lives; because they want to communicate; because they want
to be heard. That's what underlies the sudden growth of such apparently
incongruous media as online, talk radio, even the brief phenomena of
Citizens Band radio in the U.S. It's what people want from new technology.

Twenty years ago, millions of Americans bought six watt CB radios because
these apparently gave them the individual control of substance and flow that
a broadcaster has. It allowed them to be heard (at least, over a 25-km.
range). However, only one of them could control or be heard at any time; one
vociferous individual could key out of the entire medium. And the government
only permitted 38 channels (frequencies). There is almost no better
definition of a 'one-to-many' medium. The control of flow and substance it
gave people was only apparent, not real (same with my shouting out my
window). It didn't give individuals the access and control they desired, so
the whole phenomena collapsed (as the online world long ago would have if it
was comprised of only 38 chat channels with 25-km range).

Online 'many-to-many' medium is fundamentally different from 'one-to-many'
CB radio. But not in what led to their rises. Not in the why behind the
phenomena that led millions of people to adopt each technology before
Madison Ave. even recognized there were demands. Many companies now want to
satisfy this demand. The telcos have advantages in 'one-to-one' marketing
experience and access technologies and the media companies in 'one-to-many'
marketing experience and content. Both can lever their advantages, but each
must remember that online, despite appearances, is a new and different
business from their old. No one set of advantages is enough. Whichever birds
of a feather (publishers, broadcasters, phone companies, et. al.) can get
beyond surface appearances and satisfy the essentials of this 'many-to-many'
demand, will take off and fly.
_________________________________________________
Vin Crosbie         FreeMark Communications, Inc.
   vin@freemark.com          125 CambridgePark Drive
      (617) 492-6600 x211            Cambridge, MA, USA
         (617) 492-6622 fax        http://www.freemark.com
            -------------------------------------------------


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End of online-news-digest V1 #452
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