I am two years late to Ryan Holiday's book"Trust Me, I'm Lying". Never much of a PR person, I learned quickly out of his nonfictional account of becoming a"media manipulator" that advertising can be everything once you've built a great item. Since I have to return the publication by 12/20 to the San Diego Public LibraryI figured this is a great time to write my notes down as a blog post.
Quotes from"Trust Me, I am working"
"We play with their rules long enough and it becomes our game" --
"Social networking isn't a set tinder jak zagadać of tools to permit humans to communicate with humans. It is a pair of embedding mechanisms to permit technology to use people to communicate with each other, in an orgy of self-organizing... The Matrix had it wrong. You are not the batter power in a global, human-enslaving AI, you're slightly more valuable. You are part of the shifting circuitry"
"It's a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap into the market force of what I've begun to think of as"outrage world" -- the frequently occurring firestorms stirred up on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted websites like Jezebel and also, to a lesser degree, Slate's very own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They are triggered by writers who are compelling readers to feel what the writers assert is righteously indignant anger but that is actually just petty jealousy, cleverly marketed as feminism. All these firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy business."
-Emily Gould out of Slate.com
"Companies should expect a full scale, organized attack from critics. One which will simultaneously overrun blog comments, Facebook fan pages, along with an onslaught of blogs, leading to mainstream media allure. Start by developing a social media crises plan and developing internal fire drills to expect what could happen."
"Our selves are the house where we live; they are our news, our personalities, our experience, our forms of art, our really experience."
Exercise Advice in the Book
Control your Wikipedia page (use any press mention from sites or conventional media)
Examine the top stories and you will notice a pattern: the top stories all polarize poeple. If you create it threaten people's 3 Bs -- behaviour, belief, or possessions -- you receive a massive virus-like dispersion
Compose stuff bloggers can post immediately with no work. Feed them their own lies"assist them trick their subscribers"
Loaded headlines are very popular
Silence on blogs is your worst.
Faking escapes with email editor (from different sources) can operate if You've Got the right connections
Media historian W.J. Cfambell once identified the distinguishing mark of yellow journalism as follows:
Prominent headlines that cried excitement about utlimately unimportant news
Lavish use of pictures (often of little relevance)
Imposters, frauds, and faked interviews
Color comics and a big, thick Sunday supplement
Ostentatious aid of the underdog causes
Use of anonymous sources
Prominent policy of high society and occasions
Concepts from the book
Ongoing Narrative /Iterative Reporting -damage is already done, there's no such thing. Iterative reporting is bullshit, people treat news headlines as"cultural truth", the damage is already done, even it's a baseless accusation.
Faking escapes with email editor (from various sources)
The Psychology of Error -- Errors and mistakes get rewarded, causes outrage = pageviews = cash
By way of instance, each picture is not the same load display = more pageviews (short term vs. long-term metrics). Usability vs. profitability -- publishers are concentrated liberally on pageviews, but in the longterm, consumer trust will be significant. Meanwhile, irresponsible bloggers are making countless sensationalizing untrue stories.
Snark -- mortal weapon (humour in its dark form. Example = "Your Daily Douchebag: John Mayer Edition". Another online example: Hot Chicks with Douchebags
All that occurs -> All that's understood by media --All that's newsworthy ->All that is printed as information -> All that spreads. This is the systematic restricting of this information seen by the General Public
My Action List / Courses in the Book
Websites hold a lot of power
The ideal contacts in the right sites in a certain sector hold lots of sway. Example: Apple statements
Building a brand new site with high viral traction (but with the ideal user metrics in mind) may take off fast. Sites like Watch Mojo, Ebaumsworld, Break.com, ride the tide of copying content from others, organized in a digestible manner that consumers can quickly disperse. Millions of dollars are created this way while resources are never credited. There has to be a way to do both.
There's a demand for a respectable news source, or a business specific source that does not pander to"mass hysteria". Case in point: refinery29.com