4Square
: I’m lucky enough to be attending the second annual Foursquare conference put on by the Quadrangle Group. But it’s all off-the-record and so I can’t quote the interesting things being said there. In fact, they announced to the 250 privileged that there are no reporters in the room. A-ha, but there is a blogger in their midst! But this blogger is no fool. It’s not often that you get to hear moguls — Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Carly Fiorina today — while noshing on sushi and oysters. So I won’t ruin a good thing by taking this gag out of my mouth (except to stuff some more shrimp in).
I can give you my own thoughts today and tomorrow, for what they are worth. But I’m no mogul.
: These events tend to be stone-skippers and the real value is the abstracted daydreaming you do while the big guys speak. I get back to basics. And the most basic of basics is that I am in the content business. We all are. That could not be more terribly obvious but daydream for a minute: This is where our opportunity lies. We can use these incredibly cheap and easy tools and this incredibly powerful distribution to create new forms of content and, if we succeed — if we create something truly new and if it clicks with even our small audiences — then any big boy with half a brain will beat a path to our door. For the big boys desperately need new kinds of content, they need to reinvent their media and it’s not going to happen from within.
So we need to look at this as more than just a fun and interactive new medium. We need to get serious about creating serious content.
If we’re creating punditry here, then what should we do to create better punditry than anybody in print or on TV? Let’s be tough on ourselves: Are we being smart enough and persuasive enough; do we have our facts in line; is our presentation the most effective it could be; does the conversation we engage in here have a point and an end?
Or we could create new kinds of radio. I have some ideas (I’m keeping to myself until I try them out).
Or we could create new forms of video.
Or we could use the interactivity of our medium to capture the buzz of what we the people think in new and amazing ways.
I am convinced that we can use this new medium to create new forms of content that will work not only online but in print and on radio and on TV — or at least inspire new kinds of content there. All we have to do is set our minds and talents and tools to it.
