Bringing all the tools of the intertubes into play, NYU journo prof and social capitalist Jay Rosen presents yet another beta:
Oddly enough for a fellow teaching at a school best remembered as the fall back school for kids from New York who didn’t get into their fall back school, Jay has raised a healthy sum to spend on his beta effort. He says,
We need $1.5 million over two years; we’ve raised about $450,000 of that. Take a look at who’s supporting us— MacArthur Foundation, Craig Newmark, Reuters among them. Do contact me if you can assist.
Meanwhile, on another planet, a similar collaborative effort is spreading its wings… Bob’s Yer Uncle. Perhaps a bit less organized, and certainly less boring, the Avunculists selected the free version of WordPress.com to launch their effort. Rosen’s Zeroids are flogging away with Drupal.
The Avunculists do it for love. The Zeroids do it for money.
The Avunculists seem to be boogie boarding in the general direction of millennial dada. Rosen’s effort has already degenerated to mere wikilalia. Built on a neologism seeking a meme, Assignment Zero is a threshing floor for last year’s pop cultural insights. Contrast any of the Zeroids’ journo-mob efforts with this insightful posting on “Interent [sick] Entrepreneurship 101” by the Avunculists.
The Zeroids will undoubtedly produce lavish copy, exploring some of the less important stories of our time and keeping the funding flowing. The Avunculists will likely careen into the future, either to crash and burn or to jump the track and head off in new directions. The world needs the likes of Jay Rosen, but more it needs art and literature, truth and beauty and graphic representations of horrible reality and bats with baby faces in the violet light whistling and beating their wings and crawling head downward down a blackened wall…
I think in six months you’ll change your mind, Frank. But not about our first project. You’ll still hate that.
Cheers.
ahh, yes… I guess it’s good to hear that those darned “avunculists” are at it again. To their credit, it didn’t take ’em long to do so either.
Perhaps that says a lot. Especially considering that the ‘crash’n’burn’rodeo-doodah-fest” that resulted in sudden and virulent carpet-bombing, totally destroying their former playground (the one where alla those darned ‘mean kids’ were known to hang out), occurred only days ago.
“Milennial dada”? Oh heck yeah – to be sure. (And big kudos for that deliciously apt modifier, by the way)
There’s an old Spanish proverb that says, “If I die, I forgive you. But if I live… well, we shall then have to see…”
and so… we’ll wait and see I guess.
Backatcha…
http://unclebobism.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/satyric/
I’m getting dizzy 😉
So Jay… are you saying that Frank will, um, uh, change his mind about…..er. Or maybe you mean we have another project of yours to look forward to? or is it instead that……
Okay; Uncle! I give.
Just what the heck ARE you trying to say?
AssignmentZero has me completely flummoxed as to why we (or anyone) would find such a thing either mildly pertinent or even vaguely valid. (maybe if it had more cartoons…yeah! that could do it! and gardening tips!)
It IS kinda cool though that so many bucks could be drummed up for something so, oh… how SHALL I put this…. pointless. Or maybe that’s the part that bothers me the most.
And as to WHY exactly those seemingly rational organizations would give you that kinda money for such a lark…. ay, now THERE’S the real puzzler. I don’t know if that should trouble or amuse me. Heck, maybe even both.
I dunno. I just don’t “get” the “Assignment Zero” thing a bit. (I do suffer from SFB though so perhaps that’s why I can’t “tune-in”) to its glory.
And yes, I did go clicky to alla those nifty little “here, here and heres” that was spoda ‘splain it to me.
What I’d REALLY like to read though is the “pitch” that got this funded in the first place. Now there’s something we could all no doubt learn a thing or two from!
I’m just saying…….
so perhaps that’s why I can’t “tune-inâ€) to its glory.
Its glory? Now that has me flummoxed. No glory yet. And I don’t think anyone has called it glorious, either.
So what are you trying to say?
What I was trying to say is, aw, never mind. Have fun satirizin’.
JR
Jay needs no justification. He may need satire, and he’ll enjoy it.
Hell – what we have now the thing called “news” is nearly as surreal as it gets. Only, the people doing the “news” as business don’t realize they’re actually in a Daliean shitstorm fugue flying over Sao Paolo at the speed of Alberto Gonzalez’s sphincter. The news needs to be made more insane, or its relevance will recede into the Dan Rathersphere. UncleBob, make it so.