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You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.

February, 2011

Era of White Noise

A discussion about the era of white noise in content and media.
Yesterday I went to a Social Media Week panel hosted by Barbarian Group on "Technologists as Publishers." The whole thing was good, but what especially stuck out was a quote from Rob Harles from Bloomberg Paul Berry, CTO of the Huffington Post (at least I think he's the one who made this point). Anyway, he said we're in an era of white noise content. I think it's a super interesting thought. When you look at something like Gawker's redesign you get this combination of original reporting and enough other stuff (links, videos, pictures) to keep people satiated for a day. The idea is made all the more amusing to me in the face of this quote from Nick Denton on what he calls "fake news":
To follow the daily or hourly news cycle is the media equivalent of day-trading: it's frenzied, pointless and usually unprofitable. I'd much rather read an item which just showed me the photos or documents. And if you're going to write some text, take a position or explain something to me. Give me opinion or reference; just don't pretend you're providing news. That's not news.
I guess the difference is one of label: Are you calling it news or filling?
February 9, 2011
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Noah Brier | Thanks for reading. | Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk.