Attention : London 2012 Olympics

Hey, the 2012 London Olympics games have started! Actually, the games began two days ago, on Wednesday, with the commencement of the Women's Football tournament, followed by the Men's Football tourney on Thursday. But the Opening Ceremony only just took place today. The 2012 London Games thus have had 'two beginnings'.






The 'first' beginning - the start of the Football tournaments - announced the arrival of the Games from an attention standpoint. This made sense, seeing as soccer/football is the most popular sport in the world, and is played at so many different levels of competition, it seems as if the sport never 'stops'. Football/soccer is the attention sport.





It's fitting to note that the second and third most-popular sports are 'Cricket' and 'Field Hockey', if only because their popularity would be news to many people. Why? Because these two sports pale in comparison to the amount of attention they garner, compared to soccer.


But the same thing can be said about the majority of events that comprise the slate of competitions contested at an Olympic Games: they are 'what's that' sports. They are largely ignored for 3.5 years or so, only to be thrust back into the consciousness of the world with the start of the 3 week Olympic games. Sometimes, the events contested are so strange, they take on a cult-like 'ironic attention' wave, like the winter Olympic sport of 'curling' :






But, for the most part, obscure sports in the Olympic games can anticipate being overlooked for the more glamorous events, like the 100m sprint, the Soccer/Basketball tournaments, swimming, and gymnastic events. This phenomenon was quite understandable in the 'pre-broadband' era of cable-provider  dominance of live events. Knowing that they had a 'captive audience', the broadcasters could guarantee that if the event shown was compelling enough, the ratings would reflect that.  After all, if everything that is broadcast on the television is some form of 'entertainment' (it is), it's natural for the broadcasters to only show stuff they know viewers in their markets want to watch. Anything else would be out-of-sight-out-of-mind.


But we entered the 'broadband' era about 8 years ago, in the year 2004. It was at this time that, due to many Americans' desire to stream, download, and share various multimedia files, many bought cable modems, and dsl lines so as to more easily accommodate the amount of digital data they were trafficking. Smart broadcasting companies and networks followed suit, realizing the magnitude of the paradigm shift that had occurred with America's 'broadbanding.' It was the digital equivalent of a phenomenon tv networks confronted in the late 90's: audience splintering.


from dmnews.com

Bill Dean

May 19, 1999

Internet Creates Splintered Audience

The niche orientation of cable TV programming is smoothing the transition or convergence of that medium with cyberspace. Just as cable tries to offer entertainment programming meant to satisfy nearly every conceivable curiosity, hobby or interest, the Internet offers Web sites filled with specific information. This individualized attention has appeal not just to consumers, but also to advertisers.
"Unlike TV, the Web is not as much breadth in programming as it is depth in detail," said Sean Finnegan, a partner and media director at JWT Digital Communications, New York. "The types of mined-down content that lends itself to the Web platform are sports, stats, recipes, court transcripts, personal gaming, empirical data on historical events and breaking news feeds that cater to [the individual's] schedule."
"Anytime a viewer is engaged with a program, the advertiser benefits from that focus and personal attention," he said.
"What makes all this exciting is that we're not going to be limited to desktop computers for linkage to the Internet and all its wonderful interactive opportunities," said J.G. Sandom, president, Ogilvy Interactive, New York. "All of the hand-held mobile, personal devices, like the PDAs, are rooted in similar technology, Internet Protocol, which is the one completely global telecommunications standard."
"What's compelling is this technology that can send the same signals to any interactive device, whether it's broadband, like cable TV, or hand-held technology," Sandom said. "Convergence simply brings together the best aspects of broadcast and digital technology. It's all about parsing out content and funneling it through interactive devices, whether a cable-modem, a PDA or interactive TV."
What the Internet and interactivity brings to direct response advertisers is the increasingly precise ability to identify target audiences and customize personal messages to those particular consumers.
Even for marketers, such as Ford Motor Co., which have not yet reached the point of actually selling their products over the Internet, a priority is to develop "sticky" Web sites that have the ability to keep users on site for long periods of time and keep them coming back regularly.
In April, Ford launched the latest edition of its iCollection online store, filled with licensed merchandise, from clothing to collectibles.
"The overriding goal is to ensure we're building online relationships, and that means a lot of different things, because the Ford Motor Company itself means a lot of different things to different consumers," said Tom Cornellier, Internet Retail Strategy Manager, Ford Motor Company, Detroit. "For some, there's information about collecting. For others, it's a chance to buy licensed merchandise and apparel. For others, there's a chance to configure a car and become directly connected to a dealer for a quote."
The company plans to launch interactive Web sites for local Ford dealers this year. "This is important because the Internet is a user-driven, interactive medium," says Cornellier. "The customer wants to do business electronically. So we have to shift the way we view our relationship with our customers, understanding that choice today is a mouse-click away. We have to do this in a meaningful and engaging way so that they come back to Ford again and again."
From the customer's standpoint, there is a tremendous amount of information that can be gathered from Internet sites like Ford's. For its part, Ford is also gathering information about the visitors to its site, which in turn can be turned back into more useful Web site attractions.
There are many elements that can be borrowed from cable TV and direct-response advertising and incorporated into Web sites, said Ogilvy's Sandom. "The idea is to make this entire Web experience an interactive and engaging one, because each step of the interaction with a Web site can impact the brand's image."
All of the elements of direct response can be put to greater use on a Web site, since the site itself can pose leading questions to visitors, that can be used immediately to customize the experience, Sandom said.
"One of the advantages of this converged world, with faster speed, video, audio and broadband ability, is there can be more utility value embedded in the advertising itself," Sandon said. "The more complex a product is, and the more expensive it is, the more marketers should be driving customers to Web sites, and using interactive means to keep them there."

 

 

 

 As more and more Americans would likely be in front of computer screens for longer amounts of time, they would watch tv less. They would also be more likely to pursue a wider range of personal interests in their online sessions than would be catered to by tv networks. There would emerge a larger number of 'niche' audiences, and user-driven 'viral' media. The tv networks would lose the ability to dictate to the people what they could consume. The tv networks would have to take the backseat, and let the interests of the people emerge organically.

 

 

And a number of tv networks did just that, mostly the newer 'cable' affiliates of the older 'basic cable' channels, the dinosaurs of broadcast. Two of  the most notable - and influential - of these networks to 'respond' to the new trend of media consumption were channels like ESPN, MTV, A&E, and others. ESPN and MTV in particular created a close link between their tv and online content, making it so that the digital and 'tube' versions of their 'brands' were virtually seamless.

 

 

Fast forward to 2012, and the results are impressive. If 'audience splintering' began in the late 90's , it did not get too serious until very recently. Up until maybe 4 years ago, tv was still a larger influencer than the digital world. But it was also at that time that America evolved from merely a 'broadband' nation, to a 'wi-fi' nation, and the boom in mobile device usage, from smart phones, to macbooks. It was therefore conceivable that a person with a broadband desktop at home, a smart phone, and a laptop, could spend most of their time 'online', surfing the internet for all manner of media important to them. How could a CBS or an NBC be sure that such an individual would tune it at 9 for whatever programming it had to offer?

 

 

 

Truth is, they couldn't. The tv networks faced a tough decision: do stay the course and try gimmicks (slick ads) to draw back viewers, or do they embrace 'streaming' their content online? In the case of networks like ESPN and MTV, they realized the importance of meeting their - mostly younger-skewing - consumers half-way: they would put their content online for free.

 

 

 

 

So, the two biggest 'attention-era' tv networks have embraced the necessity of 'free' digital distribution. But what about old General Electric NBC, the 'official network' of the Olympic Games, a tradition begun in 1964:

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above, the 2012 European Championship soccer tournament that recently concluded, was streamed live on ESPN3, from the opening game to the final. Anyone with an internet connection could watch.  The process to do so was simple and straightforward. This has been the case since at least the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. NBC has for the first time ever initiated a plan to stream the Olympic Games digitally. This is great right? Not after one reads the details of the plan:

from medialifemagazine:

 

 

Behind NBC’s online Olympic gamble

It will stream every event live on the web for the first time
By Diego Vasquez
July 24, 2012
This year for the very first time NBC will air every Olympic event live, either on the internet, on television or both. Viewers and media critics have long clamored for such coverage, arguing that in the age of the internet it makes little sense to present taped events in primetime as though they were happening live, as had been NBC's policy in the past. But the move is not without risk. Showing the events live as they happen online could eat in to NBC's primetime coverage, where it will still show the most highly anticipated events, such as swimming, gymnastics and track and field, on a tape delay.

NBC will limit access to the streams to viewers who can prove they subscribe to cable either via traditional carrier, telecom or satellite.

Advertisers are generally happy with the move, as there's some speculation that the online streams will actually pump up interest in the taped primetime coverage. CPMs for digital ads in the Games are about the same as for past Olympics, and there are expected to be more digital advertisers during the some 3,500 hours of online coverage. Dave Martin, senior vice president of media at Ignited, talks to Media Life about why the online coverage could spark bigger primetime ratings, what sort of ad deals NBC offered, and what advertisers think about mobile Olympic coverage.

 

 

 

The portion of the excerpt I underlined is a perfect example of how a company out of touch with the times implements a plan it feels is logical, and progressive, but which is so unwieldy as to be ultimately useless. For NBC to supposedly embrace drawing more attention to its programming - especially the marginal events - by streaming it online, only to then limit the number of people who can possibly view it is asinine. The following screenshots provide an example of the frustration a person will encounter when trying to 'stream' the olympics through the 'Official' Broadcast partner:

 

 

 

 

Using a service I've never heard of before called 'Live Extra' (??), users are prompted to 'prove' they are worthy of viewing the Olympics online, supposedly by providing some documentation of authentic 'cable provison.' Not wanting to go through all of that trouble, I opted to sign up for a 'temporary viewing pass', by entering my email in a box at the bottom (fig. 175). The temporary pass is apparently good for 4 hours (thanks) of viewing, and with the time locally being about 5:50 PM in New York - thus 11:50 PM in London - there is of course no 'live' events to be seen at this time. Hmmmm.

 

 

But perhaps there are replays, in the same way that ESPN3 has an extensive replay archive for many of the events it broadcasts? It doesn't really matter, since for something like the Olympics, the purpose of 'livestreaming' events is meant to draw more attention to all of its events - not just the traditionally popular ones - by virtue of being there. Perhaps an office worker on luch break but still sitting at a terminal might navigate to the stream, and actually watch a Fencing bout? Or a Badminton game? Or replays of such events? Because one surely can't expect somebody to stay up/wake up at 3 AM to watch these obscure sports on tv?

 

 

 

 

 

So NBC shot themselves in the foot with their archaic approach to grabbing attention in an age where such a thing is harder than ever to grab-and-keep (ask James Holmes) .  The purpose of online distribution is for to expedite the rate at which you can generate attention, simply by reaching people where they increasingly are - online - and giving them what they increasingly want : access to content for free. NBC is living in the past, as is shown by their reliance on the tried-and-true formula of filling primetime hours during the Olympics with 'tape-delayed' screenings of events the public already know the results of. Or don't really care about. The network is assuming that their precious 'Games' are as golden as the medals the athletes competing in the contests will win, and that by this inherent 'magic' of the Olympics interest and attention can be counted-on. In actuality, a large number of people will be going to this place to check-in on the Olympic Games:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It won't take them long to ask the question : why aren't the Olympics on ESPN3?!

Attention Profiler : James Holmes

I wonder if mass-killer James Holmes will give a live interview from prison within the next week. Will he issue a statement? Once the police have detonated all of the ‘booby-trap-bombs’ in the assailant’s apartment, will they find some sort of manifesto, like that of the Unabomber? In other words, does James Eagan Holmes have anything left in his performance? Because, he certainly has the stage, and the spotlight:






The cyberspace editions of the biggest media outlets are all clearly latching onto this wave, milking it for every ounce of readership they can. It is no surprise to find their tv versions equally devoting wall-to-wall coverage of the mass murder:







I’ve said before that the news needs wars and crisis in order to keep itself relevant. In the absence of such attention waves, the ‘news’ – the cable variety especially – often resorts to politics. But the truth of the matter is, politics are increasingly becoming a bore to many Americans.  In fact, this recent tragedy usurped the attention that might have otherwise gone to the Presidential candidates Obama, and Mitt Romney.  Both politicians were forced to interrupt their normal speeches, and acknowledge the shooting in Colorado, likely because they knew the ‘news’ would do it anyway:

from cbsnews.com:

President Obama addressed the shooting from Fort Myers, Fla., calling for a moment of silence.

“There are going to be other days for politics,” Mr. Obama said. “This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection.”

The president thanked the gathered crowd and told them he was grateful for their support.

“I was looking forward to having a fun conversation with you about some really important matters we face as a country … the differences between myself and my opponent in this election,” he said. “But this morning we woke up to news of a tragedy that reminds us of all the ways we are united as one American family.”

Republican challenger Mitt Romney embraced the same sentiment of unity in Bow, N.H., where he had been scheduled to campaign.

“We’ll all spend a little less time thinking about the worries of our day and more time wondering about how to help those who are in need of compassion most,” he said in brief remarks to a subdued audience. “The answer is that we can come together. We will show our fellow citizens the good heart of the America we know and love.

Mr. Obama canceled a second appearance scheduled near Orlando, Fla., and was returning to Washington. Romney, too, canceled some media interviews. And both candidates moved to pull ads against each other airing in Colorado.

So then, where does this James Holmes attention wave go next? By tonight, much of the ‘developing’ aspect of the story will be in the books. The wave will move into the next phase stories like this always move into: analysis of the culprit. In fact, it has already begun:




Mr. Jack Levin (and his moustache) is obviously, a criminologist. He studies crime and criminals. He was on MSNBC today trying to explain to the viewing public the ‘type’ of person Mr. Holmes is. After all, as pop culture has shown, ‘oddball’ criminals like serial killers, mass murderers, bombers, and terrorists fascinate Americans. These individuals, due to the bizarre (and rare) details of their crimes, are remembered as ‘stars’ of criminal history. James Holmes is now a mass-murderer. Will he ‘join the canon’ of the ‘star’ criminals America has produced? I’m not so sure. But he has given himself a chance, due to one detail unique in his line of ‘work’: he’s still alive.


I’m no criminologist, but I am an avid reader of true crime books. Some of the best stuff I’ve read was written by John E. Douglas, a retired FBI special agent, and one of the  first ‘criminal profilers’.  He’s an expert on criminal psychology. In Douglas’ Anatomy of Motive, the author provides analysis of crimes falling under broad categories of ‘special crimes’, like serial killings, mass murders, spree killings, mass poisonings, etc. The fascinating thing about Douglas’ analysis is that it shows the importance of spotting sometimes minute differences between the different types of offenses, and offenders.


from wikipedia.org:

Mass murder (in military contexts, sometimes interchangeable with “mass destruction” or “genocide“) is the act of murdering a large number of people (four or more), typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time.^[1] According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location in which a number of victims are killed by an individual or more.^[2] Most acts of mass murder end with the death of the perpetrator(s), whether by direct suicide, or being killed by law enforcement.

James Holmes is a mass murderer. Pay close attention to the very last line of the excerpt, and you come to the conclusion that, statistically speaking, Mr. Holmes should have shot himself, or gone out in a ‘blaze of glory’ with the police, much like Seung-Hui Cho, or  the North Hollywood Shootout of 1997,

Mass murderers are generally of a ‘doomsday’ mentality. They are – like most criminals – individuals who are greatly frustrated by the disconnect between their (usually narcissitic) view of themselves, coupled with their general failure in societal achievement. But, unlike, say the serial killer – who is most interested in ‘repeating his crimes over and over – the mass murderer plans for a ‘final day’ of revenge against what he feels is society’s failure to acknowledge his supposed ‘worth’. Thus, the details of Holmes’ known bio reads like a broken record:


from cbsnews.com

• One federal official told CBS News that at this time Holmes appears to have been “under the radar.”
• CBS News reports Holmes doesn’t appear to have a criminal record in Colorado or in San Diego, Calif., where he graduated from high school in 2006.
• there’s nothing to suggest the family had any involvement.
• a retired electrical engineer who lives next door to Holmes’ family, told The Associated Press that Holmes was a loner.
• Holmes couldn’t find a job after graduating from a public university in California. (Holmes graduated in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience.)
• There was no immediate word of any motive for the attack.

The usual fascination with ‘odd’ criminals such as Holmes comes from the fact that they appear ‘out of the blue’, just some ‘regular guy’ who one day ‘freaks out’ and kills lots of people. The ‘holes’ in the story behind such an innocent facade beg to be filled-in, each new detail a riveting piece to the puzzle.

Such bizarre and ‘grisly’ details have already been filled-in to some degree already in the Holmes case:

• Police recovered four guns at the theater, including two pistols, a shotgun and an assault rifle, Oates told reporters at a news conference. All four guns were purchased legally at three Colorado gun stores between May 22 and July 6, Orr reports. Authorities also recovered a ballistic helmet and a gas mask.
• The suspect in Friday’s (July 20) shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” had been planning the attack for at least two months, new reports indicated. According to NBC News, James Holmes, 24, the suspect in the Friday massacre that left 12 dead and 58 injured, began legally purchasing weapons and ammunition in May. Holmes also extensively booby-trapped his apartment, located roughly five miles from the theater.

So, clearly Mr. Holmes – remember a ‘smart’ guy – had envisioned his final ‘day of glory’ in minute detail. The fact that the man ‘planned his attack for weeks’ is logical; whether or not he had a criminal record, he had a criminal ‘mind’. Like many of his ilk, he lived largely in a world of fantasy. There is clearly a sort of militaristic theme in this crime, with the wide selection of gun-types and ammo recovered from the theater, along with the (unnecessary?) ballistic helmet and gas mask. I’ll bet Holmes looked really scary in the theater, his face hidden behind the mask, helmet secured tightly, for the ‘second act’ of his ‘performance’: the shootout with police.

Only there was no ‘second act.’ After Holmes’ carnage inside the theater, and after police descended on the crime scene, Holmes was ‘Officers found Holmes near a car behind the theater.’ Strange. Colorado is a death penalty state. It is likely that though Mr. Holmes both spared his own life, and did not force police to kill him after his ‘final act’ (suicide by cop), he will die by lethal injection in prison. Hence, the logical decision made by most mass murderers to just ‘end it all’ right at the crime scene, or soon thereafter; you’re gonna probably die anyway if you get caught.


But yet Mr. Holmes declined to take his own life? This reminds me of the Anders Behring Breivik case from almost exactly one year ago (July 22, 2011):

from wikipedia:

On 22 July 2011, Breivik bombed government buildings in Oslo, which resulted in eight deaths.

Within hours after the explosion he arrived at Utøya island, the site of a Labour Party youth camp, posing as a police officer and then opened fire on the unarmed adolescents present, reportedly killing 69.^[19][69][70] The youngest victim was Sharidyn Svebakk-Bøhn of Drammen,^[71] who was 14 years old.^[72] Another victim was Trond Berntsen, the step-brother of Crown Princess Mette-Marit (the son of Princess Mette-Marit’s late stepfather).^[73]

Breivik confessed and stated that the purpose of the attack was to save Norway and Western Europe from a Muslim takeover, and that the Labour Party had to “pay the price” for “letting down Norway and the Norwegian people”.^[74]

When an armed police SWAT unit from Oslo arrived on the island and confronted him, he surrendered without resistance.^[75] After his arrest, he was held by armed police on the island, and interrogated throughout the night, before being moved to a holding cell in Oslo. On the way to his first jail meeting, Breivik’s police escort was met with an angry crowd, some of whom shouted “burn in hell” or “traitor”, while some used stronger words.^[70][74][76]

Breivik is described as a ‘terrorist’ for some unknown reason. This is likely due to the fact that, after his arrest, he made an outrageous statement about his personal mission to ‘save Norway from a Muslim takeover.’ I recall being equally surprised that the perpetrator in those killings declined to end his own life after such compiling such a high body-count in his crimes. Again, the psychology of the mass murderer is such that by the time they ‘act out’, they’re usually at the end of their rope; living in a world they hate makes no sense to them. Unless, of course, they have ‘something to say’, as Breivik obviously showed.

So, then, does James Eagan Holmes have ‘something more to say’ to whoever will listen? Is there a rhyme to the ‘reason’ the 24 year old ‘neuroscientist’ / mass murderer  chose not to follow the normal course charted for him by other ‘stars’ in his line of ‘work’? A friend of mine said yesterday, ‘..these motherfuckers want to make history,’.  Time will tell how much ‘remembered’ the ciminal act of James Holmes will be.  His deed speaks for itself. Unlike  Seung-Hui Cho, however, Holmes elected (against type) to separate himself from his deed. He’s managed to prolong his attention wave just a bit longer. Now, then, what – if anything – does the man  have to say?

Rain Changes Everything : Google Trends Thu, July 19 @1038

As I wrote previously, New York City was mired in an intense heat wave for about the past week. This heat wave lasted up until the late afternoon  yesterday, Wednesday, July 18th. At that moment, the skies blackened, and a massive summer squall materialized over Manhattan, a storm which lasted much longer than an ordinary thunderstorm.This is is what a squall looks like:

This weather system was no mere thunderstorm. It was a paradigm shift.

In New York, people’s attitudes change in lockstep with the weather. In the Summer, on a clear, hot day such as the city experienced the last week, the mood is voyeuristic, and exhibitionist. Females display ample flesh, bosoms, and buttocks. Males of suitable body types make every attempt to boost the size and definition of various muscle groups, so as to also draw level 1 attention from onlookers in the streets. However, since the consciousness of the average New Yorker nowadays is ‘wise’ to such simplistic attention scams as physical attractiveness, that awareness cancels out the effectiveness of the scams. But, since we are still in the early stages of the transitional phase from the Industrial Money Economy to the Attention Economy, most New Yorkers are still unable to convert the attention they get in passing to any lasting consequence. They are walking on the stage, but not putting on much a performance.

Imagine a very attractive musical performer, like Shakira. As attractive a woman as she is, Shakira would still have a hard time holding her fans’ attention if she merely stood on stage looking good (level 1). People will only continue to pay attention to Shakira if she makes it worth their while by doing things like this:

Likewise, the exhibitionist who is covered in tattoos, and counts out a stack of 20 dollar bills while riding the A train in Manhattan, will elicit a comment of ‘I like your tattoos,’ but nothing more. New York City is bursting with level 1 attention scams. People in the city will soon learn that they’ll have to ramp up the sophistication of their scams if they want to become ‘stars’ in attention era New York.

And their time is limited. ‘Rain Changes Everything’ is a concept I developed through observation of how the mood of New York City – the attitudes and disposition of the people – mirrors the local weather. The  basic factors  are whether or not the day is wet or dry. On a dry day with clear skies, the mood of New Yorkers is extroverted. On ‘wet’ days, they’re introverted. The reason for this is simple: New York City is a very dirty place.

For anyone who has traveled to other large cities either in the US or the rest of the world, a trip to New York will show how filthy the fixtures of New York are by comparison, especially Manhattan.  Such filth can be ignored on a pleasant, sunny day in the middle of the summer, with all of the ‘attents’ strutting up and down the sidewalks. But it is still there:

Now, when it rains in Manhattan, and the ‘attents’ are cowering under umbrellas, their bodily flesh now covered by long pants, boots, and overcoats, the paradigm shifts dramatically. Now, with such exhibitionist / voyeuristic ambitions thwarted, one of the ‘downsides’ to living in the #1 ‘attention City’ in the world becomes apparent: the city can be physically disgusting:

So how do New Yorkers  respond when the ‘outside’ New York of the city’s streets is not an outlet for attention-grabbing? They do the logical thing: they hunker down indoors, in ‘clean’ and ‘dry’ environments like offices, cafes, bookstores, and private homes.

The summer squall that passed over Manhattan yesterday shifted the paradigm of New York; for how long who knows. But as I looked out of my window yesterday, and observed the sheets of rain coming down from slate gray skies over the Hudson River, I knew that this was a key event. I was therefore not shocked to see this when I scanned Google Trends this morning:

Three of the 5 ‘hot searches’ are weather-related? Hmm. I wondered if my own observations of yesterday’s powerful storm were proving to be accurately aligned mentally with other people in my city/region? So I clicked on a couple of the results.

The results showed that I was partially correct. The articles top-listed on ‘Trends’ were coming out of the ‘Jersey Shore’ area, as well as Lancaster County, PA. But a quick stop at 7online.com showed that New York had the story covered:

So, then, as New Yorkers were driven inside to the safety of their ‘inner worlds’ (offices, homes, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble) by this freak storm, many  turned their attention to their computers, their focus solely on the weather. This is shows that in any attention-based society such as that which New York (and perhaps surrounding regions) is rapidly moving towards, there is  an acute awareness of the factors that directly affect how the ‘attention flows’ shifts. Daily weather, as well as seasonal changes, are two of the biggest physical determinants of how people’s attention will shift.

Apparently, my own attention did not shift enough to realize that while it was 98 degrees yesterday, today’s high is only going to be 84. As I type, it is only 72 degrees (a 20+ degree dropoff), and I put on shorts. So it seems that like yesterday’s squall did, I too have to change everything………

‘..where attention flows…..’ : Jeremy Lin

‘….I have suggested that money
increasingly flows to those who get attention. It is simply that attention-payers
(or fans) are willing to do much that attention receivers (or stars) want,
including, often paying them or sending them money, or simply sending
money to something such as a charity that the star supports.”

-Michael H. Goldhaber

  Like many people in America (and the world as you’ll see), I followed the Jeremy Lin ‘Linsanity’ attention wave closely during its arc this past Spring. Lin is one of many ‘stars’ coming into some fame during this attention era. Without going into all the details of Lin’s bio, the gist of the Jeremy Lin attention wave is this:

   A stereotypical Asian man plays the game of basketball in a non-stereotypical way.

  There, I said it. Much has been made of Lin’s ancestry ( he’s Taiwanese) ; his education (went to Harvard) ; and his struggles to remain in the NBA (got cut 3 times). That’s material for a great book. In fact, a few  biographies  have  already been written:

The truth, however, is that Jeremy Lin, through no conscious intentions, lucked into becoming a ‘star’. As I’ve written before, there are two essentials for stardom: a platform, and a ‘performance’. Jeremy Lin is an athlete, who happens to be of Taiwanese descent, Ivy League educated, and a ‘point guard’ ; things which are all uncommon in the NBA. So, Jeremy Lin is a ‘unique’ individual, with a stage upon which to display his talents.  That’s rule 1 for stardom.

Rule 2 is of course, 'performance'. Part of the motivation for this post is the recent news that Lin might be leaving the ‘..bright lights of Broadway,’ as Stephen A. Smith (himself a star) said in this ESPN Youtube clip:

Jeremy Lin joined the New York Knicks last summer, after a brief stint in his ‘hometown’ team, the Golden State Warriors. He was an unknown at that point, and would remain so until the night of  February 4, 2012, when the young Point Guard scored 25 points in a 7 point win over the ‘rival’ New
Jersey Nets
:

Lin continued his outstanding offensive output for the next 3 weeks, his ‘debutante’s ball’ coming in a 38-point performance on an ESPN-covered Friday night win over Kobe Bryant’s LA Lakers. ‘Linsanity’ had reached its peak; a star had ‘arrived’.




reprinted from the Washington Post:

Jeremy Lin, a celebration

By Alexandra Petri

Go Jeremy go! (Frank Gunn – AP)

Much is wrong in the world today. Primaries. Scandals. Economic turmoil. War. General discord. It is all deeply serious, and we will have to go back to talking about it soon enough.

But first, let’s take a moment to acknowledge one truth on which everyone can agree: Jeremy Lin is amazing.

This is an incontestable fact. Jeremy Lin is the best story these days, in sports or out of it.

If you aren’t living under a rock where the ESPN reception is spotty, you have heard this before. It’s the tale of the 23-year-old Harvard graduate, unsought by Division I basketball recruiters, not drafted, benched by the Knicks until the 11th hour — and then unleashed, to score 136 points in five starts (more than anyone since the ABA-NBA merger, as our actual sports columnist points out) and lead the Knicks to a string of six victories. He’s magic. He’s like Midas, but everything he touches turns to really excellent basketball.

I have nothing to add. For me to compliment or criticize an athlete would be like Beethoven complimenting or criticizing a piece of rock music. After he went deaf, that is. I know nothing about basketball. The only thing I know about basketball is that it’s something I wasn’t particularly good at in the eighth grade, which does not narrow things down particularly.

But watching Jeremy Lin play, I almost feel as though I understand the game.

If only I were as good at praising Jeremy Lin as Jeremy Lin is at playing basketball, this would be the Greatest Ode of All Time, and you would love it and be impressed by it no matter your creed or heritage or political persuasion, unless you were Floyd Mayweather, about whom the less said the better.

If all of us were as good at what we do as he is, the world would be an incredible place, although robberies would be a lot more efficient.

It will come almost as a relief to me when Lin stops playing Insane, Superhuman Basketball and starts playing merely Really Excellent Human-Level Basketball. To sustain this sheer level of perfection is — mind-boggling. I have no words! And I never run out of words, a quality that does little to endear me to people at cocktail parties. But in Lin’s case, I am content to gape silently and bow in homage.

It feels strange to wax semi-lyrical about someone who was in my college graduating class. But this Lin phenomenon is like discovering too late that you went to school with Zeus — a friendly, pleasant Zeus who was outstanding at basketball and never attempted to do weird things to swans. And you were too big an idiot to show up at any of Zeus’s basketball games. Now you have to pay twenties of dollars for the privilege, and it serves you right. True, you never went to any sports games, except once when you wandered into a hockey game by accident, mistaking it for experimental theater. And it took you a whole act to realize your mistake.

This is different. Someone quipped that this is the only time people have ever been surprised by the success of an Asian-American Harvard graduate. But no one thinks of Harvardians as being good at sports. The only time the Big H won at football was in the era when no other schools had teams. And no one expects this level of excellence. So Lin’s success really is expectation-shattering — and beautiful.

But to borrow a bit of the Gettysburg Address, what Jeremy Lin does on the court is far above my poor power to add or to detract.

He makes me proud to be an American. This national pride would not happen in France, mainly because basketball does not seem very big there.

Of course we’re Linsane. He is someone who almost didn’t get the chance to prove what he could do. And then he did — and it was incredible. That’s the American dream, in a nutshell — to get the chance to show what you can do, and to do it so well that everyone stands up and cheers wildly.

When he made that three-point game-winning shot with 0.5 seconds on the clock on Tuesday night against the Toronto Raptors, even the Raptors fans cheered. (Are there Raptors fans?)

You can’t do anything but cheer.

It’s telling that the above post was written by a Ms. Alexandra Petri, who is not – as she readily admits – a ‘sports columnist’. She’s an ‘opinion blogger’:

An so, one week after the 38-point performance against Kobe and the Lakers, when everyone with eyes had an opinion on the ‘Linsanity’ wave, Ms. Petri chimed in with her two cents. Fine. That post, written at the height of interest in Lin, was, for Ms. Petri, ‘the thing’ to do at that time. For as with anything in the attention era (remember zombie apocalypse?), there is no telling how long any wave will last. As we would find out, the ‘Linsanity’ wave would die out fairly quickly.

Lin would not score more than 30 points again for the rest of the season. His offensive production would decline steadily after the dramatic victory over the Lakers. The low-point for Lin came  in a horrendous 1-for-11 performance (8 points) as his Knicks got blown out by Lebron’s Miami Heat.  The magic had gone, and Jeremy Lin’s dream life had been slapped into focus: he was not (yet) a superstar.

And that was the problem. During  ‘Linsanity’, I had joked to friends that Lin should ‘..start a Youtube channel,’ right away. I was only partly joking. For I could see that, while Lin was certainly a star, and could definitely ‘ball’, there was no way that he would keep up his outrageous performance for another 4 months. Statistics would take care of that. I was certain that for Lin to remain a star, he would need some other outlet to keep himself relevant. Taking for granted that his relevance basketball-wise would soon level off and settle at a more ‘normal’ level, Lin would need to distance himself from the stage of the NBA. His performances on that stage were to a large extent out of his control. Something like a YT channel would have been a perfect ‘attention scam’ for Lin.

But he did tweet, right? Well, yeah, Lin did – and still does – tweet. But as the ‘Occupy Movement’ showed, your tweets are really only as relevant as you are. Twitter is a ‘star-fan-interaction’ medium, most useful as a sort of chat room. Lin’s tweets are mostly one-way; him tweeting something or other, that will show up in his ‘followers’ feed at some point. In other words, Twitter does not make one a star, or keep anyone relevant. Because it is a star-fan relationship, there is really no incentive to ‘perform’ on twitter. The lack of any visual stimuli also means there is an element of secrecy (and therefore distrust) to the medium, unless there is a conversant quality to a star’s tweets. To date, Lin has about 900k followers. His last tweet was five days ago;

As the Google Insights graph shows, most of the hype surrounding Jeremy Lin had died out just about the time his team got crushed by the Miami Heat. He had a number of decent-to-good  performances  during the month of March, and then suffered a tragic knee injury that ended his season.

 

But the saga continues. Fast-forward to Sunday, July 15, and Lin is back on the attention radar. This time, it concerns the reality that the ‘star’ Point Guard has agreed to a lucrative contract offer from the Houston Rockets.

There is a lively debate in New York about whether or not it is wise for the Knicks – who can match the contract offer – to allow ‘Linsanity’ to leave Gotham. There are many who feel it is foolish to do this, as indeed, many of Lin’s ‘fans’ have started an online petition to keep Lin in New York:

Applying an attention-centric point-of-view to this latest Lin story, I came to the conclusion that the behavior of the Houston Rockets proves the heading quotation correct: where attention flows, money will follow. For the fans of Lin who started the petition, their passion it to be lauded, but in truth, they’re clueless. The issue in this latest Lin saga has to do with whether or not Jeremy Lin is worth about 8m dollars a season for the next 3 years. Clearly, the Knicks have reason to believe that answer is ‘no’.

The Knicks management are not ‘fans’ of Lin. They feel content in the knowledge that the ‘New York Knickerbockers’ organization is the real ‘star’ of Madison Square Garden. Sure, the ready-made marketability of Lin is a plus, but in an age where technology allows the biggest stars to be digitally consumed by millions, his presence in New York is not necessary.

But the Houston Rockets are taking a gamble. They have become ‘fans’ of Lin, and are behaving as such. They are throwing money in the direction of a ‘star’, as a show of appreciation for whatever it is they think he is. Whether or not they’ll be let down when they see him up close remains to be seen. Regardless of what happens however, Lin should still consider that Youtube channel……