nagle@well.sf.ca.us (John Nagle) (11/10/90)
In "The Nitendo Nation" (Wall Street Journal, p. R50, November
9, 1990), Michael W. Miller analyzes the importance of smut in the
development of new communications technologies:
Minitel took off, but not because of the wonderful
information. People were glued to their screens chattering away
with each other, leaving messages on dozens of electronic
hangouts that sprang up. Not suprisingly, a good many of these
messages were what the French call "rose" -- flirtatious, racy,
even obscene. The government sensibly decided to stay in the
background and let people send whatever messages they liked.
Minitel became a fixture of the French home, with more than five
million subscribers and more than 12,000 services.
This is a little-discussed principle of new communications
media: Smut blazes the first trails. It launched the videotape
industry, creating a critical mass of hardware and retailers. It
played a big part in launching cable TV and dial-it phone
services. These all went on to attract broader, general-interest
audiences, and so has Minitel -- about a third of its use today
is for business services. (Messages are down to about 15%.)
Another way to articulate the same principle: When you open
up a good new communications channel, it tends to attract speech
that older channels discourage. This tendency is what lets
successful channels find their Darwinian niche and survive. ...
Getting the medium to take off, however, means having the
long-term vision and tolerance to accept the inevitable first
wave of adult talk. Prodigy's first wave came last December,
when its "Health Spa" conference flared into a vitriolic debate
about AIDS between homosexuals and fundamentalists. Prodigy
quickly announced the Health Spa had become "of limited appeal"
and shut it down, ostensibly for budget reasons. That solved a
short-term image problem, but it may also have hurt Prodigy's
chances of finding a new niche that will let it survive.
Miller has provided a new and original argument against censorship,
and an excellent analysis relevant to the current BBS, USENET,
NSFNET, and Prodigy situations. I recommend reading and saving the
entire Wall Street Journal article, and sending copies to
decision-makers who need to be convinced.
John Naglezane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) (11/12/90)
I read the article,and it was a good article. I also read the rest of that
section. It was quite the visionary one. What is scaring me is that
these mediums are going to go the way of television and prodigy.
The Nintendo network will of course end up having to ban controversial stuff
because the current users of nintendo game machines are mostly kids, and
parents will be afraid of giving their kids knowledge.
On the Channel 7 News in Chicago last night there was a feature on
"Profanity on TV" They discussed how the networks were using such racy
langauge as "Ass" (In the quadriped sense), "Bastard", and "Bitch" What
RACY words! After the feature in that 'banter' that the TV News shows are
apt to do, they discussed not letting kids watch TV after 8. Oh, no, they
might end up hearing words that they hear in school every day.
A portion of this scares me. I am afraid that the FCC will 'crack down'
on the networks and such and the people will be mad. Then some more rap
albums will be banned in certain states, and the people will be mad.
Then there will be a revolution against this oppresive country and anarchy
will result. Then some freak will get hold of the nuke controls.
(A worst-case scenario, but my most prevalent fear. This IS possible in
my lifetime, I am only 15)
--
zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM
dawnt@tree.uucp (Jon Cline) (11/14/90)
In article <21567@well.sf.ca.us>, nagle@well.sf.ca.us (John Nagle) writes: > > > In "The Nitendo Nation" (Wall Street Journal, p. R50, November > 9, 1990), Michael W. Miller analyzes the importance of smut in the > development of new communications technologies: > > This is a little-discussed principle of new communications > media: Smut blazes the first trails. It launched the videotape > industry, creating a critical mass of hardware and retailers. It > played a big part in launching cable TV and dial-it phone > services. These all went on to attract broader, general-interest > audiences, and so has Minitel -- about a third of its use today > is for business services. (Messages are down to about 15%.) Does this mean that the current alt.sex.pictures business is going to turn into something *good*? I'd sure like to see the day, after people get tired of the latest scan and businesses start sending data through uuencodes... If there's any publicity involved, alt.sex.* could really make the 'net take off (horrific shudder). -- ...ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!tree!dawnt "It's hard to believe that the entire fate of the world lies in the hands of the telephone company."