Each year, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity gathers thousands of innovative thinkers and practitioners in advertising and media from around the world to talk about what's new and what's next in our brave new digital world. Last year I spoke about one of the most exciting developments online: the fact that the Internet has come out of its adolescent stage and is growing up into a place where our online and our offline lives have merged -- where the qualities we care most about offline are increasingly reflected in our experience online. And where, among all the random searching that defined the Internet's early years, something new has emerged: a search for greater meaning.
On Monday, I took the stage again with Roy Sekoff, HuffPost's founding editor and president of our soon-to-be-launched video streaming network, HuffPost Live. And what was on my mind was the speed with which the Internet is heading in this new direction. A world of too much data, too many choices, too many possibilities and too little time is forcing us to decide what we really value. And, more and more, people and innovative companies are recognizing that we actually have a life beyond our gadgets. That is why one of the most exciting features of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference last week was Do Not Disturb, the new iPhone feature designed to get you off your iPhone altogether.
And Huffington is definitely a manifestation of this longing to disconnect from the hurly-burly of our hyper-connected lives and join the slow news movement.
So here are some of this issue's highlights: Katie Bindley on the psychology behind online romance scams; Michael Calderone on Politico's growth since its upstart days way back in the 2008 election; Sharon Carty on the young designers, engineers and scientists pumping new life into Detroit's auto industry; Peggy Drexler on the risks and rewards of raising children to believe they're all winners, all the time; Gary Hart on the possible consequences -- both legal and illegal -- of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision; and Priyamvada Natarajan, who asks "Can Science Be Crowd-Sourced?"
There's also Mike Hogan's review of Beasts of the Southern Wild (which won big at another festival in Cannes), a Q&A; with Meghan McCain, and a "Greatest Person of the Week" feature on Dr. Michael Good, a Marietta, GA, veterinarian who takes in stray animals who would otherwise have little chance of getting medical attention or being adopted.
I'm delighted that Huffington's first issue entered the world last week to great reviews. On the morning Huffington launched, I gave the commencement address at the all-girls Nightingale School in New York. I told the young women in the graduating class the story of HuffPost's birth seven years ago, and the negative reviews that greeted its arrival. You don't have to buy into the negative reviews, I told them. And just the same, you can't lean on the positive ones.
So, here at Huffington, our goal is to keep learning, keep growing, and keep listening to you, our readers, about what you want more and what you want less of. And to stay true to the qualities of storytelling, engagement, and community -- the kind of timeless qualities that, I have a feeling, will continue to resonate no matter how our online lives change.
This post appears in the June 24, 2012 issue of Huffington.
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This comment has not yet been postedAnd how the "Powers that Be" dictate what is good for you and what isn't? You seem to be suggesting there is no control over the "off" button, mouse or TV remote control.
OK, I want fewer top-of-frontpage leading stories with gigantic 100-point headlines with accompanying huge photo. I want the words "crushed, slammed, smashed, shocking, outrageous, etc, etc" BANNED from all stories and headlines. I want ALL of the ridiculous appeals to prurient interest removed from the front page... it makes you look like a poor copy of the National Enquirer. I want you to stop updating the front page with automatic reloads. It's extremely aggravating to be scanning headlines when the entire page blanks out, then begins flickering and shuffling with new pics,etc. I want a MINIMUM of large thumbnail photos accompanying stories on the front page instead of nearly all of them as it is now.
Look at the front page of Politico. There is a reason that site is taken more serious than yours and it's not entirely because of content.
Years ago I started adovcating for less news and more truth. In fact, I think the two are inextricably linked.
I'd go so far as to say "news"papers and "news"media should change their mission and names to "truth" papers and "truth"media. They should spend a lot less time competing with each other to get the quickest, fastest, latest "scoops" and much more time making sure what the truth is behind the stories.
Right?
http://buythecover.com
Consider that concission encourages a rapid pace and thus system 1 thinking aka heuristic irrationality. This includes the designed concission of small comment boxes.
"Concision is the practice in broadcast journalism of ensuring that only contributors who are concise enough to make their point in a limited time, get the opportunity to appear."
Concision limits information to shallow ideas that do not require a detailed explanation. Typically this means conventional ideas.
My response is already stretching the text box. If we converse back and forth - the interface provided by this site will become more and more restrictive until it completely blocks interaction.
eventually there will be invisible fibers like hair that connect us to one another. This is 150 years ago!
The internet was born...now we are just learning how to use it... after an exciting time playing with it's power to connect.
Having a "conversation" makes a better Social experience. When the "Comments" are working well we can Comment back within 20 minutes.
How about enabling the
I admit that I will check it out.
But I have a feeling that when I want to slow down, I'll still click on "shut down."
For ABC, it was the first time the network devoted any air time to Fast and Furious, a fact made obvious by the amount of catch-up reporting done by correspondent Jake Tapper. In his report, a clip played of Tapper interviewing President Obama on October 8, 2011 and describing the botched gun running as a "big scandal." Despite such an assertion, that question and Obama's response had never been aired on the network before Wednesday night.
interesting?
Williams, I bet will have talk with Kelly about "media bias"!