RyanHoliday.net:

Hollywood runs on a very peculiar model. When people call it an "incestuous town" there is a very unfortunate kernel of truth. The most egregious example is that there is little distinction between clerical and executive staff. One day you're an assistant and the next you're handling someone's movie. But an assistant doesn't go to meetings or consult on strategy, they answer phone calls and make dinner reservations. They put together packets all day and get stressed if papers aren't perfectly aligned. They are on the receiving end of the abuses of some very high-strung, opinionated and pampered people. And they fill whatever remaining time they have with yelling on the phone and being snotty to interns. So you have to ask yourself, is the kind of person you'd actually want as your representation, producer or executive--intelligent, confident, cerebral, curious--situated with the skills that constitute a good secretary? I made it one day. One day! So take someone even more qualified than me, they have their MBA, they're eager to dive into Hollywood, passionate about art, the works, and then coming in and having to answer the phone for 18 months. Who does natural selection favor to survive? What you have is a system that incentivizes the absolute worst type of behavioral traits and then puts them through a horrific hazing process. When they finally get promoted, their first instinct is to put the person below them through the same hell that they endured, to find people just like themselves.

And then we wonder why Hollywood is so out of touch with what "people" actually like. We wonder how these massive misjudgments can happen, how they can tolerate stupidity and repeated failure--well it's because we have secretaries being promoted to the highest levels of industry. Show me another business that works like that--maybe law, but Philalawyer disputes whether this "works" or not. Right now, to be a school principal you have to be a teacher first. Well Hollywood would have you be the janitor, under the guise of "making sure you understand how EVERYTHING works." Again, would you want a principal who could stand being a custodian? Of course, the justification is that being an assistant is a way to learn the ropes but these are the wrong ropes to be learning. They break you of your valuable assets--critical thinking, enthusiasm, compassion--and mold you into the same model as everyone else.

Who ultimately gets shit on the most by this structure? The artists, the thinkers and the people who refuse to buckle to the system. Someone who simply grinds out their existence, finds success by mutilating themselves on a daily basis is not going to be particularly fond of anyone with natural gifts. They are the same people who have hated artists and the popular kids since high school. They are not Lloyd from Entourage. Creativity simply cannot survive in this environment. It's why you see so much emulation and derivative work. As economics and game theory revolutionize every major school of thought, Hollywood has lagged behind. This is always a good example: What is the purpose of your average bureaucracy--say the DMV? It is not to regulate motor vehicles, it is to continue to exist. Through that lens, the actions of your local DMV clerk make sense. Why should they bring good customer service to the table? They don't get anything for it. Your average assistant in Hollywood--well their only goal is to NOT fuck up. If the simply let things take its course, they're set. If they rock the boat, put forth an innovative idea and it fails, they lose. So why should they be creative? Why should they question the system? The status quo protects and insulates their kind.

I have been absurdly lucky here. I managed to find two important people who have allowed me a pass, given me access to go around the traditional process. On my first day, there was a bit of a misunderstanding and I got put in the wrong place--I barely made it out alive. I was the assistant to an assistant--and I can't even begin to describe how much I hated it. I filled out a spreadsheet and got yelled out for not being innately familiar with their fax machine. I got attitude from a guy I could run circles around, but he had the phone headset so that was that. Ascribing my new situation to luck is still misleading however because it ignores one crucial personal detail: I wouldn't have done it otherwise. So when they tried to pawn their work off on me, I could say no. When they gave me attitude, I didn't have to take it. If the "crawl on your bloodied knees until you can walk" path was the only one available for me here, I would have just done my own thing. It's not about padding my resume until I can land a do-nothing job at 200k a year and then coasting. It has never been that. It never will be. It can be the same way for you. The only reason these traditions continue is because people are whorish enough to submit to it. So fuck the system, forget doing the busy work, or I'll just go my own way. Hard work though--as many hours as it take, real passion and dedication, I'd do that until I collapsed. The system as it is, doesn't seem to value that, it's more like high school, measuring on arbitrary standards and quantity. It makes no exceptions for people who think well from home or become entirely useless if they don't have any autonomy.

It's very easy to fall in the trap of thinking that "this is the path I HAVE to take to get where I want," when that's not really true at all. And in the process endure the sort of things that the phrase "life is too short" was invented to address. Ginsberg wrote that he saw "the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness." This system is madness, everyone knows it's madness, but no one wants to do anything about it. You see the same thing with your friends, with other interns. Beating their heads against walls because their parents told them it'd lead to a big check, because the guy two steps ahead of them in line had to do it too. It's heartbreaking. I swear one of the guys I work with is just seconds away from tears everyday...but he never does anything about it. So the caveat of course is this: You only get to cut in line if you're worthy of it. Bring something new to the table and the crowd will part before you, it's always been that way. Ultimately, there is no set series of checkpoints in the race of life. You choose your own course. Or you can cede that right to other people...

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This is EXACTLY what I am talking about:

Facebook Bankruptcy I can't keep up with the friend requests, the requests to confirm how we know each other, the requests to tell you I like you, the requests to tell you I want your to tell me what movies you want to tell me about, etc. Frankly, I don't understand why all of these startups are spending all their time trying to build inside of Facebook's walled garden.... well, I guess I do understand it: they like the quick hit of watching the apps #s run up. However, it makes no sense to me to build inside of someone else's platform when you have the wide open internet out there to develop on. I guess if you look at Facebook applications as free marketing maybe. Feels like everyone who is doing this is the Web 2.0 version of old IPs (information partners) at AOL in the pre-web days.... except there is no $4.95 an hour fee to split with Facebook! Time and the open internet has told us that model isn't sustainable. Closed gives to open.... eventually.

It wasn't the rest of the world that was clamoring for an open API--it was the tech guys. It wasn't the users who were begging FB to tear down the walls and the regulations--it was the people who wanted to be users. In fact, not 6 months ago the main appeal of Facebook was its purposeful avoidance of the chaos of direct democracy. They made their bones as a niche service that value their season ticket holders over the fair weather fans. And now look....

Literally just weeks after THEIR demand was granted, THEY'VE had enough. Of course they're calling it a failure now--it was pretty much a certainty. There is no accountability here. At least before you could say they were good at knowing what they wanted, but that's not always true either. The fact of the matter is the tech crowd is abysmal at making predictions, selecting trends and knowing what people want. It's time they stop being able to coast on past success. It's just becoming comical at this point.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I can't be the only one who thinks that Melissa Lafsky has utterly ruined Freakonomics can I?

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/07/25/and-today-is-38/
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/07/24/and-today-is-37/
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/07/24/the-freakest-links-use-myspace-lose-your-identity-edition/
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/07/26/and-today-is-39/

I'm thinking about cutting the whole franchise out of my life. How can you trust two guys that would not only put this person in charge of their blog--but unleash her on their fans?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

In March I mentioned that perhaps we ought to ignore the Web 2.0 guys completely. Now, I'm figuring we ought to actively shut the up. Everyday I wake up to discover more and more not only do these people not know what they're talking about anymore but that it's likely that they never have.

Let's compare two posts from earlier in the week, one from Marc Andreesen and one from Robert Scoble.

For the record: I will not "Amway" my Facebook friends
HP buys my company Opsware for more than $1.6 billion in cash

Now, in the first one, Robert Scoble is making the announcement that he will not spam his friends with paid for posts on Facebook--the social network that he seems to have only recently discovered. Now in the second, Marc Andreessen is announcing that he just sold his SECOND billion dollar company--the one he formed after literally inventing the world wide web.

But who do we hear from more? Who is supposed to be the expert? Maybe you could make the argument that before people like Marc started blogging we had to settle for Scoble, but that's not true, Mark Cuban has been writing for years. And even if it were true, shouldn't we gravitate towards the higher authorities when they become available? Scoble is a Top 100 Technorati Blogger, Marc is a full 500 places below him.

What I have come to realize is that all the talk of these tech guys being on the cutting edge, playing with tomorrow's technology today--it's all bullshit. They don't see themselves that gate monitors but gatekeepers. If it doesn't fit their narrow interests, they'd like to get rid of it. How else can you explain their recent fascination with Facebook? When I got my account over 2 years ago, I was still a late adopter. The only thing different today is that they added some gaudy nerd gadgets and NOW, they say, it's the next big thing. They got lucky with blogs, and Myspace and YouTube. It wasn't that they predicted a few massive cultural phenomenons, it was that by chance the public interest and the nerd interest happened to be aligned. But when you throw in Second Life and Twitter and Ze Frank and Lonelygirl15 and Rocketboom their record starts to look less accurate.

If it was about studying how the internet is affecting our media, you'd see a hundred articles about Tucker's 11th week on the NYT Bestseller list. And you'd see a lot more honesty about the fact that hardly anyone plays Second Life. We'd be talking about why almost no one has successfully transitioned from User Generated Content to Hollywood consistency instead of about how YouTube is changing the world. We'd be discussing how despite all the hype the iPhone really isn't changing anything--that it's just a fancier version of the existing competitors instead of something entirely new. Or how Podcasting has not caught on with the general public and how the decline in music sales really has very little to do with technological disruption and is actually the result of an investment in unsustainable genres.

There is a real danger in getting caught up in the wrong camp here. For the first time in forever, an awkward minority of society has been given the microphone and they are not going to give it up easily. They latched onto the web precisely because they didn't fit in elsewhere. As the walls come down and the internet is more seamlessly integrated into our lives, those flaws are more difficult to hide. Here's the question that helps me align myself with the people that are doing something instead of just talking.

Have I ever gone a day without wanting better hardware or application technology? Yes. Have I ever gone a day without wanting better media--be it radio, tv, internet, cinema, books? No.

There are guys out there like Cuban or Andreessen (sometimes Calacanis) who succeed because they see what people want and then give it to them. Then there are people like Scoble, or Arrington (sometimes Rubel) who appear successful because they are always moving on to the next thing--because they are running away from appearing obsolete. Sometimes they'll get luck and end up being right, but most of the time they are hopelessly out of touch. So you can follow the ones who have made billions of dollars but don't have as many RSS readers, or you can follow the ones who cling to their online validation but have yet to turn it into anything. Your choice. I know who I'm learning from and I see the results everyday.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

But what I said before still stands. Get one because you NEED one, not because you want to seem like you need one. Trust me, it doesn't say anything about you. There is not glory in carrying around a computer in your pocket. It's no different than carrying around a calculator or a credit card--it's a tool that if you need, is worth having. Unless you actually get a lot of email, why spend $500 on an iPhone? Trust me, it's not that hard to remember dates or go an extra hour without responding. Unless you work online, what do you need to carry the internet around for? I know the Tim Ferriss opinion of them and he is right to some degree. It's a line that once you've crossed, is difficult to ever undo. But if you do it for the right reasons you shouldn't have a problem. For the love of God though, try not to be the person that says "Call my Blackberry/iPhone/PDA" instead of "Call my phone."

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Speaking of running in LA, I'm pretty sure this is the only city in which your average run could include:

*A black transvestite in a dress and fake breasts jeering "I could beat you in a race, backwards."

*Being forced to scream at a woman's incessant honking "He's in a fucking turn lane, shut the fuck up"
and having her turn around and give you the finger.

*Stopping in a park to do situps to find every available grassy area occupied by homeless people or regular people having sex.

*Stopping in a different park and noticing that "futbol" is prohibited.

*Getting one of your tear ducts so clogged with sweat, smog and grit that it swells up to the point of you being told "You look like a retard. No, you literally have the features of mongoloid." (You can guess who said that.)

*Having small children race you down the street as their parents pay no attention to the fact that their offspring running off with a shirtless teenager.

*Having a random Mexican scream from a moving car to "put a shirt on."

*Having that instant pang of shame immediately counteracted by Mexican women cat calling from the next vehicle.

More to come, this is only from the last week.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Running in LA has provided a new means of laziness and escape. I've never run in a city before, only the suburbs, so the concept of being inhibited by streetlights and cross walks is rather foreign. The real struggle in a run is not so much your physical limitations but your mental ones. "I was going to do five miles but I think I'll turn back here and do three." On the track and in the suburbs you're undermined by fewer temptations, fewer excuses to break the rhythm. The city is totally different--an uninterrupted mile is a rarity and a course without shortcuts, rarer still. Which, by the way, I have found to be very similar to office work. You can cut out early, drag your feet. And this too is contrasted by a running impulse--to add distance and duration regardless of the yield or return, to go slow and long instead of efficiently. But I'll address this more later on.

So I have found myself confronted by the path of least resistance on a more regular basis than usual. If you need to cross two streets in a four-way intersection (think an L) it is very easy to "arrange" waiting for an extra light. As I approach the end of a course, the desire to slow down to miss a flashing "Don't Walk" signal mounts. Even more so, crossing redundant streets or shortcuts leads to an almost siren-like call to end it early.

This is how life works. This is how opportunities present themselves. The world, our instincts, they often conspire against us. Think about it evolutionarily--if the qualities of greatness are rare then in many cases it means they are not best for genetic survival. The drive to head far from home, to push onward towards an arbitrary benchmark, has probably killed more people than it saved. Raynor talks about this in The Strategy Paradox, the system creates incentives for mediocrity and punishments for risk. You, I, can see signs of this everywhere. I find it--excuse the pun--on street signs. They tempt you with rest and slow the heading of progress. And your instincts were bred to indulge this impulse, they aim to save you from yourself.

Overcoming Bias wrote about a solution last week. Tell your Anti-Story. Pressfield in The War of Art, wrote that the stronger the resistance, the more you know you're heading in the right direction. My fix has been to push through. It is exactly when the desire to stop and rest is greatest that you ought to ignore it. Even more effective, when I find myself aching for a shortcut, I add distance to the end.

But there are limits to this too, as I mentioned with hours and the office earlier. Your desire to achieve and accomplish should never be confused with the concept of work, or spending as much time there as possible. Banging your head against a wall takes a lot of determination, but what does it do? I've made it a point to stay (or with Rudius to sit at my laptop) for as long as I am still DOING or ACCOMPLISHING something. If the results have stopped, then it is time to stop. Come back later when you can produce again. I try to buttress running with the same philosophy. If I didn't sleep the night before the run will leave me in worse shape than if I didn't. If 1pm is the only time I can do it but it's 97 degrees outside, is saying that I did it worth the subsequent dehydration? In other words, going to far with your Anti-Story is just as bad as not telling one at all.

I'll end with the definitive word that I end everyone of these debates with:

"At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I
have to go to work--as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if
I'm going to do what I was born for--the things which I was brought
into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle
under the blankets and stay warm?'

--But it's nicer here...

So you were born to feel "nice?" Instead of doing things and
experiencing them? Why aren't you running to do what your nature
demands?

--But we have to sleep sometime...

Agreed. But nature set a limit on that--as it did on eating and
drinking. And you're over the limit. But not of working. There you're
still below your quota. "

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"As you "read to lead" remember that this is the time to put the pedal to the ground. All "great" people take the time from laurels to actually use the paranoia of not winning to assume that you are losing even while winning." -The Executive*

The best part about working under people who have been we're you have been and understand how you think is that they are able to articulate concepts that you are just coming to terms with. With both Tucker and TheExecutive, I'll find that they will say things or encapsulate feelings that I'd thought were unique to me. Literally, exact words and phrases that I'd been too self-conscious to open up about.

The one above, I remember discussing with the girlfriend months ago--as though it was a bad thing. I was attempting to make sense of what I felt was a serial lack of satisfaction. That at each of my last major crests during the last year, the enjoyment was fleeting. It wasn't recognition that I enjoyed but the chase. And that when I could have been coasting or tasting the fruits of labor--all I felt was it slipping away. So you can use that to your advantage, let that drive you. At my age--at 20--do I deserve laurels? Where would I get off coasting? Such a sense of entitlement is no different than the selfishness that propels people to laziness and lethargy.

In never taking the heat of, you press on harder while everyone else is resting. When the "scared to death of reality" crowd is spending their parentally funded year in Europe, I'll be out doing what I love--setting the framework for a lifetime of it instead of taking a deep breath before going under. As the self-congratulators stop moving in order to pat themselves on the back is exact moment at which you can sprint ahead. It's sort of an internal Peter Principle that infects people. They rise to the equilibrium where accomplishment and a diminished fear of failure meet and find comfort and insulation. It's what creates 35 year old assistants and permanent middle-managers. The allure of security is there for those that want it, but if you want to rise to a position of power, connection and wisdom then listen to the quote from a man who has been there.

I've felt this way for a while. I finally realized that it was that tendency--to never stop and say "It's safe now, I can walk."--that has separated me from others. But the benefit of the mentor/protégé relationship is the ability to have these conclusions validated. Or in other cases, to have mindsets corrected and paths set straight. I like to be very cognizant of the fact that I could have easily gone the wrong way. What if I'd decided that I had a problem, was too driven for comfort? Instead of being here in Hollywood, writing I'd be at home like every other summer, having worn out my welcome in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As you gravitate towards those who understand you--whatever you happen to be--you're able to eliminate much of the trail and error aspect of it. When Aurelius said that we ought to look at time and how little we have of it, I think he had this in mind. Cut waste ruthlessly, always look for ways to avoid dead ends, and when you do fuck up, learn all you can from it so you don't have to do it again.

Of course there is a very fine line between being driven and being obsessed. If that sense inadequacy never goes away then you are chasing an addiction. If accomplishment is the only cure for depression then it is the depression that is the problem. I have been there. Sometimes I feel like I am still there. But that fear is healthy, for there is nothing noble about being a dressed up endorphin addict. You don't want to be Sammy--you want to know why you're running and be proud of it.

*I've been scarce on the details of my new job, but I got permission to write about some of it. My boss doesn't want to be named so we're going to call him TheExecutive and we'll call the company TheAgency.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Here's the list since I posted last. Doing a lot of Hollywood reading which is interesting but not very inspiring.

Heart of Darkness--Joseph Conrad
Moneyball--Michael Lewis
Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student--Anonymous MD
The Road--Cormac McCarthy
Anabasis--Xenophon
Which Lie Did I Tell: Adventures in Screentrade--William Goldman
Hit and Run--Nancy Griffin
My War Gone By, I Miss It So--Anthony Loyd
Rickles Book--Don Rickles
Billion Dollar Kiss:The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing-- Jeffrey Stepakoff
The Godfather--Mario Puzo

Unprotected is really cool if you're at all interested in analyzing the current college generation.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From The Godfather:

The policeman believes in law and order in a curiously innocent way. He believes in it more than does the public he serves. Law and order is, after all, the magic from which he derives his power, individual power which he cherishes as nearly all men cherish individual power. And yet there is a smoldering resentment against the public he serves. They are the same time his ward and his prey. As wards they are ungrateful, abusive and demanding. As prey they are slippery and dangerous, full of guile. As soon as one is in the policeman's clutches the mechanism of the society the policeman defends marshals all its resources to cheat him of his prize. Judges give lenient suspended sentences to the worst hoodlums. Governors of the States and the President himself give full pardons, assuming that respected lawyers have no already won his acquittal. After a time the cop learns Why should he not collect the fees these hoodlums are paying? He needs it more. Why shouldn't his wife shop in more expensive places? Why shouldn't he himself get the sun with a winter vacation in Florida? After all, he risks his life and that is no joke.

Is this not very similar to how the artists sees the fan? The producer and his public? The creator and the consumer? It is a very human tendency. But it leads to bad art. And the Hollywood system is prone to facilitate it.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I was working in the office the other day, off Wilshire, at my desk in the corner when I heard "Hey whatcha doing over there buddy?" "Uhh..nothing," I said "Just filling out this spreadsheet." I turned around, and it was Andy Dick. "Is it fun?" he said, looking rather haggard on crutches. "Not particularly." And then he wandered into his agent's office.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I like Ben Casnocha's blog and I read all the stuff he writes but at the risk of sounding like I hate all the tech bloggers, I have to voice my objections. I feel like he's not being entirely truthful. If Ben is the rarity that we're rightfully to believe he is (one of the Philalawyer Ten Percenters) then he has not met his ethical burden. What I am talking about it the sunshine and rainbows tone of everything he writes about his time as a 14 year old entrepreneur, and now successful author while still in high school. The implication that the path to success at an early age, the ballsy choice to screw convention and bet it all on yourself is an easy road.

What we never see him write about is the isolation it entails. Anyone, more so the adults who have already arrived than the youths on their journey, can tell you about the burden you're forced to shoulder. He doesn't mention the awkwardness of being in a room where the majority doesn't think you deserve to be there. He doesn't tell you that you have to learn to thrive on it or it'll crush you. Nor is their a mention of what it feels like to understand that most of the people your own age have a vested interest in seeing you fail--hell, many of them wish for it. It's very easy to sit there with your Jr. brass ring and talk like anyone else can have one too. The difficult part is understanding why you have one and most people don't. It's not fair to everyone else who comes to you for advice to tell them that there's nothing to it. The perils of such a pursuit are great and there are some very, very real trade-offs. Some of us might get lucky, but as Machiavelli said, virtu is the only way to ensure it. That means cunning, and dedication. It's ditching your friends to handle an emergency, it's working every weekend, it's forgoing day dreams for mental strategy sessions, and it's accepting the strain it puts on relationships.

But more than the work load and the responsibilities, it is something more intangible. In order to be the kind of person that it takes to run the marathon, the way you look at the world must be different. Those who are there or a struggling with it can speak to you of the hardship in cutting whole segments of society out of your life. The pain period is nothing you have dealt with before. Watch as you shed the deadweight, the haters, the distractions and see how much is left. If it's 5 people then you're lucky. And even then, count on most of them letting you down. Bet on asking yourself over and over "Why does it always have to go this way, why do they always have to do that?" Consider it part of the job to predict meltdowns and let downs and betrayals. Consider it your "philosopher's burden" to talk yourself hoarse trying to convince people that they deserve and are better. Accept that you must acknowledge objective disparity between you and some others, and that you'll feel coldhearted and shitty having to do so. And most importantly, understand that you are constrained by things that do not concern others and that you'll miss the Hobbesian freedom that they partake in.

Some of this may seem condescending or whining, but those too are labels you must endure. It is simply the truth. Clearly they do not outweigh the positives, the accomplishments and the meaning, but they do exist. In order to truly overcome them, they must be put out in the open--to both discourage tourists and prepare the idealistic next generation. I would never complain about the gifts I have received--and like Frederick Douglass said, it is often in the darkest of places that we are reassured of humanity and kindness--and I have never been as happy as I am today. But again, it is not an idyllic walk through the countryside and it never will be. Only when you know and accept these as forces you're willing to take on, are you mature enough to deserve the potential success--and you can actually appreciate it.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Robert Scoble has a good enough sense of humor that he ended up linking to yesterday's post and dropping me a comment. But one person took issue with my comment that there aren't 600 good blogs on the internet. I'd like to make a clarification: I don't think there are 600 good sites on the entire internet. Blogs are just a subset.

But this illuminates a very real opportunity for exploitation--both the reality and the delusion. First, good content is INCREDIBLY rare. Think of all the sites you read, how many of them actually produce what you read? Most of them are just portals to the people who are the real producers. At this point, almost all the A-list, high traffic bloggers have been done book deal. They all failed for good reason: They have very little to offer. They couldn't expand their stories, delve into issues they'd only scratch the surface of. The idea that the internet is any less susceptible to the woes of Hollywood is ridiculous. It's not so much that we have a system or a platform problem--we have a people problem. The wrong people are gatekeepers, the wrong people are creating, the wrong people are marketing and the rest of us simply have to accept it. So just like I can't think of 600 good sites, I can't think of 600 GREAT movies or 60 current great musicians. The opportunity then--as it always has been--is original and passionate art. Now, the mantra of "just have good content" is too easily tossed around but that doesn't make it untrue. The problem is no one takes it seriously, no one really tries. But the idea that we can replace Hollywood megalomaniacs with Silicon Valley dorks isn't going to cut it.

Two, people are so desperate to consume content that they're willing to accept up to 600 sites a day. That means there is a ton of opportunity, and being talented makes you a commodity. So what you have is a massive market and no one is serving it. The latent demand for quality is there but the people who can satiate it have fallen down on the job.

But you tell me: Is there anywhere near 600 blogs worth reading on a daily basis? I have a solid 150 and maybe--and I mean maybe--6-10 posts a day do I find myself glad I to have read. If so, where are they hiding? And why is Scoble the only one who seems to have tracked them down?

And as a sidenote: Where I'm working now in Hollywood is gobbling up anything of quality it can find, so if you have friends or are fans of anything, pass it along and I'll vet through it.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

SpeakingFreely which is a GREAT blog posted yesterday on something I've been meaning to talk about.

I've been really busy lately, so I had to find a way to gain some more time. So I started by eliminating feeds from my RSS reader. What did I cut?

Every feed that regurgitates news, comments on news, has nothing but opinion on news, etc. There's simply no reason to hit 3 fora and 30-300 blogs all letting me know that Terry Semel is no longer the CEO of Yahoo.

He is exactly right. Whenever I find myself marking "All as Read" on Google Reader more than a few days in a row, i immediately unsubscribe from the feed. Your reader is supposed to be a means to a more efficient internet, one that tolerates little waste and puts the power in your hands. What seems to have really happened is that with the imposition being so little, people are just accepting garbage posts. As you move down the Long Tail and down the newsroom hierarchy, the simple reporting of news has less and less value. I lost count of how many awful and uninformative posts I read about the Facebook Platform or Semel stepping down. And you know, thank God Steve Rubel wrote about the iPhone, otherwise I would have had NO idea it was coming out.

The point is this: Your time is valuable, don't let people waste it. Robert Scoble brags about reading 600 blogs a day. That doesn't make him smart, it makes him an idiot. I haven't found 600 good websites on the entire internet--and my job is to sit at a computer all day and look. If a feed starts getting redundant and derivative, unsubscribe. How else will they know that users are finding their content less than satisfactory? Only when they see the numbers decline will they bother to do anything about it.

And writers: Blogs rose to prominence not for their ability to break news but to provide more detail and more perspective. What good are you doing if you turn my reader into a nerdy AP Wire? If you can't ADD to the discussion, just sit back and listen. Not every story needs to be commented on by everybody.

UPDATE: Robert Scoble has a good enough sense of humor that he ended up linking to yesterday's post and dropping me a comment. But one person took issue with my comment that there aren't 600 good blogs on the internet. I'd like to make a clarification: I don't think there are 600 good sites on the entire internet. Blogs are just a subset.

But this illuminates a very real opportunity for exploitation--both the reality and the delusion. First, good content is INCREDIBLY rare. Think of all the sites you read, how many of them actually produce what you read? Most of them are just portals to the people who are the real producers. At this point, almost all the A-list, high traffic bloggers have been done book deal. They all failed for good reason: They have very little to offer. They couldn't expand their stories, delve into issues they'd only scratch the surface of. The idea that the internet is any less susceptible to the woes of Hollywood is ridiculous. It's not so much that we have a system or a platform problem--we have a people problem. The wrong people are gatekeepers, the wrong people are creating, the wrong people are marketing and the rest of us simply have to accept it. So just like I can't think of 600 good sites, I can't think of 600 GREAT movies or 60 current great musicians. The opportunity then--as it always has been--is original and passionate art. Now, the mantra of "just have good content" is too easily tossed around but that doesn't make it untrue. The problem is no one takes it seriously, no one really tries. But the idea that we can replace Hollywood megalomaniacs with Silicon Valley dorks isn't going to cut it.

Two, people are so desperate to consume content that they're willing to accept up to 600 sites a day. That means there is a ton of opportunity, and being talented makes you a commodity. So what you have is a massive market and no one is serving it. The latent demand for quality is there but the people who can satiate it have fallen down on the job.

But you tell me: Is there anywhere near 600 blogs worth reading on a daily basis? I have a solid 150 and maybe--and I mean maybe--6-10 posts a day do I find myself glad I to have read. If so, where are they hiding? And why is Scoble the only one who seems to have tracked them down?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)