I wanted to blog this to your attention and compliment Schwartz his article ,and the Times for encouraging this, type of work. While it may not be that interesting to most, as a media psychologist, Dr. Media says this is just the tip of the iceberg. What this really alludes to is the ability of anyone to represent what ever their personal mythology is in their actions without being held responsible, or more importantly, needing to understand themselves.. What does this mean, anyone can pretend to be powerful,rich, evil, sexy, you name it, and there is no way of knowing with out a reference to the fleshworld. This is cool, because it allows people to express their unconscious fantasies.Sometimes these fantasies are not pleasant.What a great opportunity for self knowledge?


Malwebolence - The World of Web Trolling - NYTimes.com

The Trolls Among Us

By MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ

One afternoon in the spring of 2006,
for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a
seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down
from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the
head. The next morning, Mitchell’s school assembled in the gym to begin
mourning. His classmates created a virtual memorial on MySpace
and garlanded it with remembrances. One wrote that Mitchell was “an
hero to take that shot, to leave us all behind. God do we wish we could
take it back. . . . ” Someone e-mailed a clipping of Mitchell’s
newspaper obituary to MyDeathSpace.com,
a Web site that links to the MySpace pages of the dead. From
MyDeathSpace, Mitchell’s page came to the attention of an Internet
message board known as /b/ and the “trolls,” as they have come to be
called, who dwell there.

/b/ is the designated “random” board of 4chan.org,
a group of message boards that draws more than 200 million page views a
month. A post consists of an image and a few lines of text. Almost
everyone posts as “anonymous.” In effect, this makes /b/ a panopticon
in reverse — nobody can see anybody, and everybody can claim to speak
from the center. The anonymous denizens of 4chan’s other boards —
devoted to travel, fitness and several genres of pornography — refer to
the /b/-dwellers as “/b/tards.”

Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven
turnover, the culture of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the
inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party
line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled with slang that
you are too old to understand.

Something about Mitchell Henderson struck the denizens of /b/ as
funny. They were especially amused by a reference on his MySpace page
to a lost iPod.
Mitchell Henderson, /b/ decided, had killed himself over a lost iPod.
The “an hero” meme was born. Within hours, the anonymous multitudes
were wrapping the tragedy of Mitchell’s death in absurdity.

Someone hacked Henderson’s MySpace page and gave him the face of a
zombie. Someone placed an iPod on Henderson’s grave, took a picture and
posted it to /b/. Henderson’s face was appended to dancing iPods,
spinning iPods, hardcore porn scenes. A dramatic re-enactment of
Henderson’s demise appeared on YouTube,
complete with shattered iPod. The phone began ringing at Mitchell’s
parents’ home. “It sounded like kids,” remembers Mitchell’s father,
Mark Henderson, a 44-year-old I.T. executive. “They’d say, ‘Hi, this is
Mitchell, I’m at the cemetery.’ ‘Hi, I’ve got Mitchell’s iPod.’ ‘Hi,
I’m Mitchell’s ghost, the front door is locked. Can you come down and
let me in?’ ” He sighed. “It really got to my wife.” The calls
continued for a year and a half.

In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to
denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early
trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small,
single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T.
professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid
questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find
out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who
would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall
for the joke, you get to be in on it.”

Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It
is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others.
Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair;
escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for
their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be
Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the
stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen.
Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.

“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out
loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional
equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their
computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said
one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his
legal identity.

Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange
between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full
of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an
insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do
whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely
distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is
never over until all the lulz have been had.”

/b/ is not all bad. 4chan has tried (with limited success) to police
itself, using moderators to purge child porn and eliminate calls to
disrupt other sites. Among /b/’s more interesting spawn is Anonymous, a
group of masked pranksters who organized protests at Church of Scientology branches around the world.

But the logic of lulz extends far beyond /b/ to the anonymous
message boards that seem to be springing up everywhere. Two female Yale
Law School students have filed a suit against pseudonymous users who
posted violent fantasies about them on AutoAdmit, a college-admissions
message board. In China, anonymous nationalists are posting death
threats against pro-Tibet activists, along with their names and home
addresses. Technology, apparently, does more than harness the wisdom of
the crowd. It can intensify its hatred as well.

Jason Fortuny might be the closest thing this movement of
anonymous provocateurs has to a spokesman. Thirty-two years old, he
works “typical Clark Kent I.T.” freelance jobs — Web design,
programming — but his passion is trolling, “pushing peoples’ buttons.”
Fortuny frames his acts of trolling as “experiments,” sociological
inquiries into human behavior. In the fall of 2006, he posted a hoax ad
on Craigslist,
posing as a woman seeking a “str8 brutal dom muscular male.” More than
100 men responded. Fortuny posted their names, pictures, e-mail and
phone numbers to his blog, dubbing the exposé “the Craigslist
Experiment.” This made Fortuny the most prominent Internet villain in
America until November 2007, when his fame was eclipsed by the Megan Meier
MySpace suicide. Meier, a 13-year-old Missouri girl, hanged herself
with a belt after receiving cruel messages from a boy she’d been
flirting with on MySpace. The boy was not a real boy, investigators
say, but the fictional creation of Lori Drew, the mother of one of
Megan’s former friends. Drew later said she hoped to find out whether
Megan was gossiping about her daughter. The story — respectable
suburban wife uses Internet to torment teenage girl — was a media
sensation.

Fortuny’s Craigslist Experiment deprived its subjects of more than
just privacy. Two of them, he says, lost their jobs, and at least one,
for a time, lost his girlfriend. Another has filed an
invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Fortuny in an Illinois court. After
receiving death threats, Fortuny meticulously scrubbed his real address
and phone number from the Internet. “Anyone who knows who and where you
are is a security hole,” he told me. “I own a gun. I have an escape
route. If someone comes, I’m ready.”

While reporting this article, I did everything I could to verify the
trolls’ stories and identities, but I could never be certain. After
all, I was examining a subculture that is built on deception and
delights in playing with the media. If I had doubts about whether
Fortuny was who he said he was, he had the same doubts about me. I
first contacted Fortuny by e-mail, and he called me a few days later.
“I checked you out,” he said warily. “You seem legitimate.” We met in
person on a bright spring day at his apartment, on a forested slope in
Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle. He wore a T-shirt and sweat pants,
looking like an amiable freelancer on a Friday afternoon. He is thin,
with birdlike features and the etiolated complexion of one who works in
front of a screen. He’d been chatting with an online associate about
driving me blindfolded from the airport, he said. “We decided it would
be too much work.”

A flat-screen HDTV dominated Fortuny’s living room, across from a
futon prepped with neatly folded blankets. This was where I would sleep
for the next few nights. As Fortuny picked up his cat and settled into
an Eames-style chair, I asked whether trolling hurt people. “I’m not
going to sit here and say, ‘Oh, God, please forgive me!’ so someone can
feel better,” Fortuny said, his calm voice momentarily rising. The cat
lay purring in his lap. “Am I the bad guy? Am I the big horrible person
who shattered someone’s life with some information? No! This is life.
Welcome to life. Everyone goes through it. I’ve been through horrible
stuff, too.”

“Like what?” I asked. Sexual abuse, Fortuny said. When Jason was 5,
he said, he was molested by his grandfather and three other relatives.
Jason’s mother later told me, too, that he was molested by his
grandfather. The last she heard from Jason was a letter telling her to
kill herself. “Jason is a young man in a great deal of emotional pain,”
she said, crying as she spoke. “Don’t be too harsh. He’s still my son.”

In the days after the Megan Meier story became public, Lori Drew and
her family found themselves in the trolls’ crosshairs. Their personal
information — e-mail addresses, satellite images of their home, phone
numbers — spread across the Internet. One of the numbers led to a
voice-mail greeting with the gleeful words “I did it for the lulz.”
Anonymous malefactors made death threats and hurled a brick through the
kitchen window. Then came the Megan Had It Coming blog. Supposedly
written by one of Megan’s classmates, the blog called Megan a “drama
queen,” so unstable that Drew could not be blamed for her death.
“Killing yourself over a MySpace boy? Come on!!! I mean yeah your fat
so you have to take what you can get but still nobody should kill
themselves over it.” In the third post the author revealed herself as
Lori Drew.

This post received more than 3,600 comments. Fox and CNN debated its
authenticity. But the Drew identity was another mask. In fact, Megan
Had It Coming was another Jason Fortuny experiment. He, not Lori Drew,
Fortuny told me, was the blog’s author. After watching him log onto the
site and add a post, I believed him. The blog was intended, he says, to
question the public’s hunger for remorse and to challenge the
enforceability of cyberharassment laws like the one passed by Megan’s
town after her death. Fortuny concluded that they were unenforceable.
The county sheriff’s department announced it was investigating the
identity of the fake Lori Drew, but it never found Fortuny, who is not
especially worried about coming out now. “What’s he going to sue me
for?” he asked. “Leading on confused people? Why don’t people
fact-check who this stuff is coming from? Why do they assume it’s true?”

Fortuny calls himself “a normal person who does insane things on the
Internet,” and the scene at dinner later on the first day we spent
together was exceedingly normal, with Fortuny, his roommate Charles and
his longtime friend Zach trading stories at a sushi restaurant nearby
over sake and happy-hour gyoza. Fortuny flirted with our waitress,
showing her a cellphone picture of his cat. “He commands you to kill!”
he cackled. “Do you know how many I’ve killed at his command?” Everyone
laughed.

Fortuny spent most of the weekend in his bedroom juggling several
windows on his monitor. One displayed a chat room run by Encyclopedia
Dramatica, an online compendium of troll humor and troll lore. It was
buzzing with news of an attack against the Epilepsy Foundation’s Web
site. Trolls had flooded the site’s forums with flashing images and
links to animated color fields, leading at least one photosensitive
user to claim that she had a seizure.

WEEV: the whole posting flashing images to epileptics thing? over the line.

HEPKITTEN: can someone plz tell me how doing something the admins intentionally left enabled is hacking?

WEEV: it’s hacking peoples unpatched brains. we have to draw a moral line somewhere.

Fortuny disagreed. In his mind, subjecting epileptic users to
flashing lights was justified. “Hacks like this tell you to watch out
by hitting you with a baseball bat,” he told me. “Demonstrating these
kinds of exploits is usually the only way to get them fixed.”

“So the message is ‘buy a helmet,’ and the medium is a bat to the head?” I asked.

“No, it’s like a pitcher telling a batter to put on his helmet by
beaning him from the mound. If you have this disease and you’re on the
Internet, you need to take precautions.” A few days later, he wrote and
posted a guide to safe Web surfing for epileptics.

On Sunday, Fortuny showed me an office building that once housed Google programmers, and a low-slung modernist structure where programmers wrote Halo 3,
the best-selling video game. We ate muffins at Terra Bite, a coffee
shop founded by a Google employee where customers pay whatever price
they feel like. Kirkland seemed to pulse with the easy money and
optimism of the Internet, unaware of the machinations of the troll on
the hill.

We walked on, to Starbucks.
At the next table, middle-schoolers with punk-rock haircuts feasted
noisily on energy drinks and whipped cream. Fortuny sipped a
white-chocolate mocha. He proceeded to demonstrate his personal cure
for trolling, the Theory of the Green Hair.

“You have green hair,” he told me. “Did you know that?”

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I look in the mirror. I see my hair is black.”

“That’s uh, interesting. I guess you understand that you have green
hair about as well as you understand that you’re a terrible reporter.”

“What do you mean? What did I do?”

“That’s a very interesting reaction,” Fortuny said. “Why didn’t you
get so defensive when I said you had green hair?” If I were certain
that I wasn’t a terrible reporter, he explained, I would have laughed
the suggestion off just as easily. The willingness of trolling
“victims” to be hurt by words, he argued, makes them complicit, and
trolling will end as soon as we all get over it.

On Monday we drove to the mall. I asked Fortuny how he could troll
me if he so chose. He took out his cellphone. On the screen was a
picture of my debit card with the numbers clearly legible. I had left
it in plain view beside my laptop. “I took this while you were out,” he
said. He pressed a button. The picture disappeared. “See? I just
deleted it.”

The Craigslist Experiment, Fortuny reiterated, brought him troll
fame by accident. He was pleased with how the Megan Had It Coming blog
succeeded by design. As he described the intricacies of his plan —
adding sympathetic touches to the fake classmate, making fake Lori Drew
a fierce defender of her own daughter, calibrating every detail to the
emotional register of his audience — he sounded not so much a
sociologist as a playwright workshopping a set of characters.

“You seem to know exactly how much you can get away with, and you
troll right up to that line,” I said. “Is there anything that can be
done on the Internet that shouldn’t be done?”

Fortuny was silent. In four days of conversation, this was the first time he did not have an answer ready.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I have to think about it.”

Sherrod DeGrippo, a 28-year-old Atlanta native who goes by
the name Girlvinyl, runs Encyclopedia Dramatica, the online troll
archive. In 2006, DeGrippo received an e-mail message from a well-known
band of trolls, demanding that she edit the entry about them on the
Encyclopedia Dramatica site. She refused. Within hours, the aggrieved
trolls hit the phones, bombarding her apartment with taxis, pizzas,
escorts and threats of rape and violent death. DeGrippo, alone and
terrified, sought counsel from a powerful friend. She called Weev.

Weev, the troll who thought hacking the epilepsy site was immoral,
is legendary among trolls. He is said to have jammed the cellphones of
daughters of C.E.O.’s and demanded ransom from their fathers; he is
also said to have trashed his enemies’ credit ratings. Better
documented are his repeated assaults on LiveJournal, an online diary
site where he himself maintains a personal blog. Working with a group
of fellow hackers and trolls, he once obtained access to thousands of
user accounts.

I first met Weev in an online chat room that I visited while staying
at Fortuny’s house. “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money,” he
boasted. “I make people afraid for their lives.” On the phone that
night, Weev displayed a misanthropy far harsher than Fortuny’s.
“Trolling is basically Internet eugenics,” he said, his voice pitching
up like a jet engine on the runway. “I want everyone off the Internet.
Bloggers are filth. They need to be destroyed. Blogging gives the
illusion of participation to a bunch of retards. . . . We need to put
these people in the oven!”

I listened for a few more minutes as Weev held forth on the Federal
Reserve and about Jews. Unlike Fortuny, he made no attempt to reconcile
his trolling with conventional social norms. Two days later, I flew to
Los Angeles and met Weev at a train station in Fullerton, a sleepy
bungalow town folded into the vast Orange County grid. He is in his
early 20s with full lips, darting eyes and a nest of hair falling back
from his temples. He has a way of leaning in as he makes a point,
inviting you to share what might or might not be a joke.

As we walked through Fullerton’s downtown, Weev told me about his
day — he’d lost $10,000 on the commodities market, he claimed — and
summarized his philosophy of “global ruin.” “We are headed for a
Malthusian crisis,” he said, with professorial confidence. “Plankton
levels are dropping. Bees are dying. There are tortilla riots in
Mexico, the highest wheat prices in 30-odd years.” He paused. “The
question we have to answer is: How do we kill four of the world’s six
billion people in the most just way possible?” He seemed excited to
have said this aloud.

Ideas like these bring trouble. Almost a year ago, while in the
midst of an LSD-and-methamphetamine bender, a longer-haired,
wilder-eyed Weev gave a talk called “Internet Crime” at a San Diego
hacker convention. He expounded on diverse topics like hacking the
Firefox browser, online trade in illegal weaponry and assassination
markets — untraceable online betting pools that pay whoever predicts
the exact date of a political leader’s demise. The talk led to two
uncomfortable interviews with federal agents and the decision to shed
his legal identity altogether. Weev now espouses “the ruin lifestyle” —
moving from condo to condo, living out of three bags, no name, no
possessions, all assets held offshore. As a member of a group of
hackers called “the organization,” which, he says, bring in upward of
$10 million annually, he says he can wreak ruin from anywhere.

We arrived at a strip mall. Out of the darkness, the coffinlike
snout of a new Rolls Royce Phantom materialized. A flying lady winked
on the hood. “Your bag, sir?” said the driver, a blond kid in a suit
and tie.

“This is my car,” Weev said. “Get in.”

And it was, for that night and the next, at least. The car’s plush
chamber accentuated the boyishness of Weev, who wore sneakers and jeans
and hung from a leather strap like a subway rider. In the front seat
sat Claudia, a pretty college-age girl.

I asked about the status of Weev’s campaign against humanity. Things
seemed rather stable, I said, even with all this talk of trolling and
hacking.

“We’re waiting,” Weev said. “We need someone to show us the way. The messiah.”

“How do you know it’s not you?” I asked.

“If it were me, I would know,” he said. “I would receive a sign.”

Zeno of Elea, Socrates and Jesus, Weev said, are his all-time
favorite trolls. He also identifies with Coyote and Loki, the trickster
gods, and especially with Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. “Loki
was a hacker. The other gods feared him, but they needed his tools.”

“I was just thinking of Kali!” Claudia said with a giggle.

Over a candlelit dinner of tuna sashimi, Weev asked if I would
attribute his comments to Memphis Two, the handle he used to troll
Kathy Sierra, a blogger. Inspired by her touchy response to online
commenters, Weev said he “dropped docs” on Sierra, posting a fabricated
narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and
address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra,
one that culminated in death threats. Weev says he has access to
hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers. About a month later,
he sent me mine.

Weev, Claudia and I hung out in Fullerton for two more nights,
always meeting and saying goodbye at the train station. I met their
friend Kate, who has been repeatedly banned from playing XBox Live for
racist slurs, which she also enjoys screaming at white pedestrians.
Kate checked my head for lice and kept calling me “Jew.” Relations have
since warmed. She now e-mails me puppy pictures and wants the names of
fun places for her coming visit to New York. On the last night, Weev
offered to take me to his apartment if I wore a blindfold and left my
cellphone behind. I was in, but Claudia vetoed the idea. I think it was
her apartment.

Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from
it? When does it evolve into a better collective understanding? When
does it collapse into the Babel of trolling, the pointless and eristic
game of talking the other guy into crying “uncle”? Is the effort to
control what’s said always a form of censorship, or might certain rules
be compatible with our notions of free speech?

One promising answer comes from the computer scientist Jon Postel,
now known as “god of the Internet” for the influence he exercised over
the emerging network. In 1981, he formulated what’s known as Postel’s
Law: “Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept
from others.” Originally intended to foster “interoperability,” the
ability of multiple computer systems to understand one another,
Postel’s Law is now recognized as having wider applications. To build a
robust global network with no central authority, engineers were
encouraged to write code that could “speak” as clearly as possible yet
“listen” to the widest possible range of other speakers, including
those who do not conform perfectly to the rules of the road. The human
equivalent of this robustness is a combination of eloquence and
tolerance — the spirit of good conversation. Trolls embody the opposite
principle. They are liberal in what they do and conservative in what
they construe as acceptable behavior from others. You, the troll says,
are not worthy of my understanding; I, therefore, will do everything I
can to confound you.

Why inflict anguish on a helpless stranger? It’s tempting to blame
technology, which increases the range of our communications while
dehumanizing the recipients. Cases like An Hero and Megan Meier
presumably wouldn’t happen if the perpetrators had to deliver their
messages in person. But while technology reduces the social barriers
that keep us from bedeviling strangers, it does not explain the initial
trolling impulse. This seems to spring from something ugly — a
destructive human urge that many feel but few act upon, the ambient
misanthropy that’s a frequent ingredient of art, politics and, most of
all, jokes. There’s a lot of hate out there, and a lot to hate as well.

So far, despite all this discord, the Internet’s system of civil
machines has proved more resilient than anyone imagined. As early as
1994, the head of the Internet Society warned that spam “will destroy
the network.” The news media continually present the online world as a
Wild West infested with villainous hackers, spammers and pedophiles.
And yet the Internet is doing very well for a frontier town on the
brink of anarchy. Its traffic is expected to quadruple by 2012. To say
that trolls pose a threat to the Internet at this point is like saying
that crows pose a threat to farming.

That the Internet is now capacious enough to host an entire
subculture of users who enjoy undermining its founding values is yet
another symptom of its phenomenal success. It may not be a bad thing
that the least-mature users have built remote ghettos of anonymity
where the malice is usually intramural. But how do we deal with cases
like An Hero, epilepsy hacks and the possibility of real harm being
inflicted on strangers?

Several state legislators have recently proposed cyberbullying
measures. At the federal level, Representative Linda Sánchez, a
Democrat from California, has introduced the Megan Meier Cyberbullying
Prevention Act, which would make it a federal crime to send any
communications with intent to cause “substantial emotional distress.”
In June, Lori Drew pleaded not guilty to charges that she violated
federal fraud laws by creating a false identity “to torment, harass,
humiliate and embarrass” another user, and by violating MySpace’s terms
of service. But hardly anyone bothers to read terms of service, and
millions create false identities. “While Drew’s conduct is immoral, it
is a very big stretch to call it illegal,” wrote the online-privacy
expert Prof. Daniel J. Solove on the blog Concurring Opinions.

Many trolling practices, like prank-calling the Hendersons and
intimidating Kathy Sierra, violate existing laws against harassment and
threats. The difficulty is tracking down the perpetrators. In order to
prosecute, investigators must subpoena sites and Internet service
providers to learn the original author’s IP address, and from there,
his legal identity. Local police departments generally don’t have the
means to follow this digital trail, and federal investigators have
their hands full with spam, terrorism, fraud and child pornography.
But even if we had the resources to aggressively prosecute trolls,
would we want to? Are we ready for an Internet where law enforcement
keeps watch over every vituperative blog and backbiting comments
section, ready to spring at the first hint of violence? Probably not.
All vigorous debates shade into trolling at the perimeter; it is next
to impossible to excise the trolling without snuffing out the debate.

If we can’t prosecute the trolling out of online anonymity, might
there be some way to mitigate it with technology? One solution that has
proved effective is “disemvoweling” — having message-board
administrators remove the vowels from trollish comments, which gives
trolls the visibility they crave while muddying their message. A
broader answer is persistent pseudonymity, a system of nicknames that
stay the same across multiple sites. This could reduce anonymity’s
excesses while preserving its benefits for whistle-blowers and overseas
dissenters. Ultimately, as Fortuny suggests, trolling will stop only
when its audience stops taking trolls seriously. “People know to be
deeply skeptical of what they read on the front of a supermarket
tabloid,” says Dan Gillmor, who directs the Center for Citizen Media.
“It should be even more so with anonymous comments. They shouldn’t
start off with a credibility rating of, say, 0. It should be more like
negative-30.”

Of course, none of these methods will be fail-safe as long as
individuals like Fortuny construe human welfare the way they do. As we
discussed the epilepsy hack, I asked Fortuny whether a person is
obliged to give food to a starving stranger. No, Fortuny argued; no one
is entitled to our sympathy or empathy. We can choose to give or
withhold them as we see fit. “I can’t push you into the fire,” he
explained, “but I can look at you while you’re burning in the fire and
not be required to help.” Weeks later, after talking to his friend
Zach, Fortuny began considering the deeper emotional forces that drove
him to troll. The theory of the green hair, he said, “allows me to find
people who do stupid things and turn them around. Zach asked if I
thought I could turn my parents around. I almost broke down. The idea
of them learning from their mistakes and becoming people that I could
actually be proud of . . . it was overwhelming.” He continued: “It’s
not that I do this because I hate them. I do this because I’m trying to
save them.”

Weeks before my visit with Fortuny, I had lunch with “moot,” the
young man who founded 4chan. After running the site under his pseudonym
for five years, he recently revealed his legal name to be Christopher
Poole. At lunch, Poole was quick to distance himself from the excesses
of /b/. “Ultimately the power lies in the community to dictate its own
standards,” he said. “All we do is provide a general framework.” He was
optimistic about Robot9000, a new 4chan board with a combination of
human and machine moderation. Users who make “unoriginal” or “low
content” posts are banned from Robot9000 for periods that lengthen with
each offense.

The posts on Robot9000 one morning were indeed far more substantive
than /b/. With the cyborg moderation system silencing the trolls, 4chan
had begun to display signs of linearity, coherence, a sense of
collective enterprise. It was, in other words, robust. The anonymous
hordes swapped lists of albums and novels; some had pretty good taste.
Somebody tried to start a chess game: “I’ll start, e2 to e4,” which
quickly devolved into riffage with moves like “Return to Sender,” “From
Here to Infinity,” “Death to America” and a predictably indecent
checkmate maneuver.

Shortly after 8 a.m., someone asked this:

“What makes a bad person? Or a good person? How do you know if you’re a bad person?”

Which prompted this:

“A good person is someone who follows the rules. A bad person is someone who doesn’t.”

And this:

“you’re breaking my rules, you bad person”

There were echoes of antiquity:

“good: pleasure; bad: pain”

“There is no morality. Only the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.”

And flirtations with postmodernity:

“good and bad are subjective”

“we’re going to turn into wormchow before the rest of the universe even notices.”

Books were prescribed:

“read Kant, JS Mill, Bentham, Singer, etc. Noobs.”

And then finally this:

“I’d say empathy is probably a factor.”

Dr. Media again. Here a little ditty about Bob McKee's rap on story. I know Bob and he is quite a character. Actor ,Director, educator. His book on story structure is terrific, directly from the class e's been teaching for 20 years. Reading it won't make you Coppola, but understanding what he's on about will make you a better writer, and give you a better sense of what makes a good story. Of course then you need to come up with one, and be able to write it, that's the hard part.Guess thats why out of the thousands of scripts that get registered at the WGA every year, only 10% ever get read by anyone other than their authors.
Enjoy.


Turn Anything Into a Screenplay - Wired How-To Wiki

''If you follow''' the advice of screenwriting guru Robert McKee, almost anything can be made into a great story — even, say, Slashdot, the site run by Rob Malda (aka CmdrTaco).

'''1. Create a protagonist.''' CmdrTaco lives on Netopia, where his people, an enslaved race called the Bots, are forced to feed information into the Great OS.

'''2. Establish what the protagonist wants.''' CmdrTaco wants to be free.

'''3. Be sure to have an antagonist.''' CmdrTaco fears the evil Regional Information Acquiring Agency (RIAA), which polices Netopia for rebels.

'''4. Decide what the antagonist wants.''' The RIAA knows that the only way to keep the Bots enslaved is to stifle all attempts to share data.

'''5. You need a conflict to drive the plot.''' CmdrTaco has to free the enslaved Bots or die.

'''6. Don't forget a beginning, a middle, and an end.''' CmdrTaco escapes the capital, Vistopolis (in a car chase you really have to see to believe). He then tells the Bots of Netopia to log on to the Great OS and simultaneously upload the most useless piece of data in the galaxy: "/." Overwhelmed, the Great OS explodes, taking the RIAA with it.

----

All humor aside, contemporary screenplays are pretty standard in style. First thing's first; here is what you'll need:

* '''A Computer''' Any word processor will do, but you'll have to tweak it to get the right margins and tab spacing. You can use a free online screenplay editor such as [http://www.scripped.com/ Scripped]. Otherwise, you can buy a professional script writing program such as [http://www.celtx.com/ Celtx], [http://www.finaldraft.com/ Final Draft] or [http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=104 Montage].
* '''An Internet Connection (optional)''' There's a wealth of [http://www.scripped.com/ Screenwriting Software] available on the internet absolutely free such as [http://www.scripped.com/ Scripped] or [http://www.plotbot.com/ Plotbot]. While these tools generally lack in sophistication they make up for it with portability and only cost you time to use.
* '''8 1/2" x 11" paper'''. About 90 to 130 pages of it, actually -- the standard length of a movie script
* '''Get a handle of what a script reads like'''. The best way is to read other scripts. There are plenty available online. Start with [http://www.movie-page.com/scripts/Ghostbusters2.htm The Ghostbusters 2 script]. Why not?


'''Once you have your finalized draft''', you'll probably want to get to know the screenwriting process. The draft you have, it's called a "Spec" script (short for "speculative").

'''The spec script''' is usually the hard copy you would show interested movie executives. If you get a movie exec in a room, be prepared with a 15 to 20 minute pitch.

'''Don't get too attached''' to your spec script. If your script gets picked up, it is possible it will go through several rewritten drafts to meet the criteria of the movie makers. If they don't like what has been done with it, they can take the script to be rewritten from the ground up by another author. It's all part of the process.

'''Once everyone is happy with it''', the script becomes a "shooting" script. This is the script given to the actors and used to film.

Hi Folks,

Well, well, another article about why you shouldn't make movies.These are getting redundant.So what do we know, there a LOT of movies, and no one wants them, and you need to what, SELF PUBLISH.
Did I say publish, yes, why, because movies are going the way of books and music. Movies are content, image content, there is a vehicle for this , it is called the Internet.Why, you might ask, is a distributor going to spend money on your movie to then spend millions putting your movie in theaters, when they can let you do it.Publishers don't give advances anymore either,UNLESS, you have what they think will be a hit. Below Anderson gives a few examples of movies that even got to Sundance--the great Valhalla for indies--and still didn't get sold. What should one do?
A film maker who believes in his or her vision, needs to get real with themselves and their investors. Then make the movies anyhow, knowing it could go no where and not pretending that it's the next Juno, but hoping and doing ones damnedest to make it so.That means that creativity, and pluck are your only refuge. You see, or will see, not everyone sees the world the way you do or agrees with your vision of what is important and has value, especially acquisition executives. This,I am sure, is not news to anyone. So why , do we still make the effort in spite of all the bad news? Well kids, when it comes to being a hit in tinseltown,there ain;t nothing new under the sun. Oh, yes, there are new means of distribution and more opportunities to distribute your own stuff--this is good--but getting picked up and put in a theater has always been tough.Of course having a compelling story, being able to tell it in a compelling way, has never been easy has it, even if you have the money.
More later.
Dr.M.

July 30, 2008
No Film Distributor? Then D.I.Y.
By JOHN ANDERSON

When “Bottle Shock” played at the Sundance Film Festival in January, it appeared to possess that mix so tantalizing to well-heeled indie distributors.

It had a name cast, including Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman. The director came with a track record and a critically acclaimed short film. And the story, about a small American winery that triumphed over its French competitors in a blind tasting in 1976 and changed the world’s view of California wine, was an accessible one for audiences who flocked to “Sideways” a few years back.

But “Bottle Shock” found no love among distributors in Park City, Utah. So the director, Randall Miller, is opening the film himself next week in 12 cities. With their hopes for conventional movie deals increasingly dead on arrival, more and more indie filmmakers are opting for a do-it-yourself model: self-distribution, once the route of the desperate, reckless or defiant, has become an increasingly attractive option for movies otherwise deprived of theatrical exhibition. “Ballast,” “Wicked Lake,” “The Singing Revolution” and “Last Stop for Paul” are among the indies currently or recently taking the maverick route.

The motivations can be complicated. For example, John Turturro’s “Romance & Cigarettes” was self-distributed late last year, having been left to languish after its producer, United Artists, was sold. In other cases it’s simply a matter of distributors’ tastes differing from those of the filmmakers.

But increasingly, indie filmmakers find themselves caught in a glutted marketplace with too few theaters to handle all the movies, and the basic laws of supply and demand have depressed the prices they can fetch. In 2007, even with the big Hollywood studios trimming their offerings, about 600 films were released in the United States; five years earlier that number was nearly 450, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

While the orphan-indie route may not be the way a moviemaker dreams it will happen, do-it-yourself is better than a straight-to-DVD release — and certainly better than outright oblivion.

By going their own way, Mr. Miller (whose directing credits include “Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School” and the upcoming “Nobel Son”) and his wife and co-writer, Jody Savin, retain the DVD and other rights to their dramatic comedy. They also get to control how their movie is rolled out and marketed.

The downside? “An enormous amount of work, an enormous amount of stress, no sleep and lots of people I’ve come to know and love who have given me millions of dollars,” Mr. Miller said.

But Mr. Miller and Ms. Savin said they felt they had little choice. With the rash of prominent distribution houses recently shuttered or placed in figurative foreclosure — including Paramount Vantage, Picturehouse, Warner Independent and ThinkFilm — options for the indie filmmaker are evaporating.

What remains is the slim chance of being picked up by one of the surviving “mini-majors” like Sony Classics, Fox Searchlight or the Universal-owned Focus Features, or finding themselves at the mercy of smaller distributors. While many are well regarded, most offer small cash advances (if any) in exchange for most of the rights (DVD, TV, international release), but don’t usually spend the kind of money necessary to assure public awareness and ticket sales. This, in turn, virtually precludes entree to the racks at Wal-Mart or Blockbuster, outlets without which a film’s post-theatrical existence will be one of obscurity.

“You‘ve got to have the phone numbers,” said Tom Bernard, the longtime co-president of Sony Pictures Classics. “Self-distribution is good, it can work, but filmmakers who are so innovative in making movies have to channel some of that into learning how the marketplace works.” He said major pitfalls were “carpetbaggers” and “middlemen” who may agree to represent a movie at a place like Sundance, but gravitate to the easy sale and leave their less fortunate filmmakers high and dry.

“We’re in the business of discouraging people from self-distributing,” said Gary Palmucci, general manager of the venerable Kino International, which will be releasing “Momma’s Man” on Aug. 22. That film, by Azazel Jacobs, came out of Sundance this year with the all-important buzz, and had a deal with ThinkFilm until that company’s money problems scotched it. Mr. Palmucci said Mr. Jacobs might have chosen self-distribution, but wisely didn’t because the cards are stacked: the enormous expense of opening a film in major markets like New York, the average filmmaker’s unfamiliarity with the logistics of booking a movie, the hassles in collecting money from exhibitors on time.

To help navigate the sometimes treacherous world of film distribution, Mr. Miller and Ms. Savin hired Dennis O’Connor, a former top marketing executive at Picturehouse, to serve as a consultant. Freestyle Releasing of Los Angeles has been engaged, for an upfront fee and a small percentage of the gross, to handle the physical distribution of the movie (moving prints, booking theaters, etc.). And the publicity on the film is being orchestrated by Mr. Miller, Ms. Savin and Mr. O’Connor, with others enlisted by Mr. O’Connor from among the ranks of distribution veterans.

For the possibly lucrative DVD market, “Bottle Shock” has separate deals with Fox Home Entertainment and the all-important Netflix, both of which have helped in the marketing (which ensures them a better return later). Mr. Miller also negotiated his own deals with airlines and with advertising outlets, and has worked out his own price for prints. Most significant, he raised most of the money for filmmaking and prints and advertising through private investors.

“Wealthy people are really into wine,” Miller said, laughing. “You couldn’t do this with a horror movie.”

But most indie filmmakers won’t be able to raise the $10 million Mr. Miller raised for “Bottle Shock.” Instead they will have to use more cost-effective ingenuity.

The established distributors have regular circuits in which they play their films, media outlets through which they advertise and audiences they court religiously. A self-distributed movie like “Ballast,” which is cast with African-American nonactors and is about down-and-out characters (and opens at Film Forum in October), is compelling its champions to think outside the art-house box and explore new frontiers and demographics, like black churches and Southern audiences. (The movie, which won cinematography and directing prizes at this year’s Sundance festival, had a tentative deal with IFC Films before the director Lance Hammer decided to release the film through his own Alluvial Film Company.)

“At one time distributors were paying so much money they could do anything they wanted, maybe consult respectfully with the filmmakers but essentially do what they wanted,” said Steven Raphael, a consultant on the movie. “But now there’s no money and filmmakers get resentful, so they’re taking back control.”

Neil Mandt, the director, producer and star of “Last Stop for Paul,” a comedy about two men traveling around the world sprinkling the ashes of their dead friend, had a prospective deal with Magnolia Pictures. But the distributor was interested only in a DVD release. Mr. Mandt passed.

“I will be the first to admit that I never imagined that the movie would connect as well as it did when it won a prize at 45 festivals,” Mr. Mandt said. “That’s a crazy number. Despite that, we never were approached by another company for a domestic distribution deal again.”

“Last Stop for Paul” opens next week in New York, and Mr. Mandt hopes a successful opening will lead to a larger rollout. “If all of this goes as planned,” he said, “maybe in another year we will make our money back.”

Hi Kids, Dr. Media back from the road, just chillin'. Those of you in the film biz need to read this.Anne Thompson , an old hand at the biz--she wrote the Risky Biz column for years--makes some excellent observations here, about the meaning of foreign sales for your projects.

Check it out. This is the new alchemy, for the moment.
DR.M.

New role call for international films

Foreign sales agents search for star power

At the Hollywood majors, there is a small coterie of actors who can guarantee that a film will be made.

But
in the world of foreign sales, there is a parallel universe, with a
different group of actors who are considered bankable, even if they've
only had a few film credits -- as long as those few films were
successful enough to give them recognition around the globe.

As
available money for movies gets squeezed, indie producers need to find
"bankable" names who don't command movie star prices. But foreign sales
agents like Summit Intl. ("Twilight"), 2929 Entertainment ("Two
Lovers") and France's Wild Bunch ("Southland Tales") can't raise
financing without casting actors with international appeal.

It
used to be that you had to have a track record to be a bankable star,
not only in the domestic market but also overseas. However in the past
year, the economics of the global market has shifted.

"These
actors don’t cost too much but have recognizable international and
domestic value," says ICM’s Hal Sadoff. "Most independent budgets
cannot bear the costs of an established movie star and the ability to
cast an up-and-coming actor allows a producer to meet their budgetary
requirements."

Here's how it works. Foreign sales agents crunch
the numbers on different actors and scripts, estimating how much
business a movie will do in each territory; then they agree to put up
conservative advances to the producers based on those guesses. The
producers can raise more coin from bank loans.

The stars on the
thumbs-up lists of foreign sales agents are the ones who can get movies
made. Even those who are hardly household names.

This has
presented a great opportunity to a slew of young actors and actresses
and it means a greenlight for a lot of films that might not otherwise
be made.

Of course, the question remains as to what impact these
films will have on the domestic box office -- and, of course, whether
these films will prove to be good.

Aside from the thesps listed
in the accompanying chart, the roster of actors come from a variety of
nationalities and professional backgrounds. The list includes thesps
who are more established on U.S. TV than in films, such as Ashton
Kutcher, or those who've established a name in the indie world, such as
Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds and Yank Evan Rachel Wood. Some have
starred in films that were socko internationally if not domestically
(Ben Whishaw, "Perfume"), while others have had co-starring roles in
big domestic hits like Katherine Heigl ("Knocked Up" and "27 Dresses").

They
range from the Oscar-nominated Ellen Page ("Juno") to Aussie actor Sam
Worthington, whose past credits may not ring many bells but who's
considered hot based on two upcoming pics: "Terminator Salvation" and
James Cameron's "Avatar."

And there are those who've co-starred
in Hollywood blockbusters, like Kate Bosworth ("Superman Returns") and
Chris Evans and Jessica Alba, both from "The Fantastic Four." That
makes them recognizable, even if their names were not the factor that
sold those tentpoles to auds.

While their backgrounds and resumes vary, all have perceived appeal to the target demo, the magic "Juno" sweet spot: 17 to 35.

"There
is a new model for packaging films appealing to a youth audience," says
Myriad Pictures' Kirk D'Amico. "Young males and females are driving the
box office."

Oddly, not having starred in many movies is an
advantage. Because these young actors aren't dogged by a string of
flops, producers and financiers can place bets on their future,
investing in their promise.

"Megan Fox hasn't had a failure yet,"
says Nicholas Chartier, president of foreign sales company Voltage
Entertainment. "Two years down the road we'll see if she has made good
choices. Sam Worthington's 'Avatar' is a year and half away."

But
for the time being, the farm team is being offered so many movies (most
of them dreck) that they can't possibly accept them all. If they do,
they risk overexposure or worse: appearing in too many pics that can't
get arrested at fests like Cannes or Sundance or even sell territories
at the American Film Market. Starring in a fest-circuit movie that
doesn't get distribution is a black mark that is hard to erase.

The
biz is heartless and if a rising player doesn't maintain a high batting
average, they don't advance to the big show. Film history is filled
with actors whose golden potential turned them into also-rans.

FOREIGN SALES FAVES

Ben Barnes

Claim to fame: "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"

Next up: "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Emile Hirsch

Claim to fame: "Into the Wild"

Next up: "Milk"

James McAvoy

Claim to fame: "Atonement," "Wanted"

Next up: "The Last Station"

Jim Sturgess

Claim to fame: "Across the Universe," "The Other Boleyn Girl," "21."

Next up: "Crossing Over," "50 Dead Men Walking," "Heartless."

Channing Tatum

Claim to fame: "She’s the Man," "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints," "Stop-Loss"

Next up: "G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra." "Public Enemies"

Jessica Biel

Claim to fame: "Stealth," "The Illusionist," "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"

Next up: "Nailed," "Easy Virtue"

Emily Blunt

Claim to fame: "The Devil Wears Prada," "Charlie Wilson’s War"

Next up: "The Great Buck Howard," "Sunshine Cleaning," "The Young Victoria," "The Wolf Man"

Megan Fox

Claim to fame: "Transformers"

Next up: "Jennifer’s Body," "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People"

Brittany Snow

Claim to fame: "Hairspray," "Prom Night"

Next up: "Finding Amanda"

Kristen Stewart

Claim to fame: "Into the Wild"

Next up: "What Just Happened?" "Twilight"

Hi kids, Dr media on the road, summer vacation with the babe, just had to refer this to those of you who I know are fans of the the comic genre. What is not surprising at all about this continuing to be a source of film fair is the simple business fact of presales equal less risk.They are not making unknown comics, are they, and not only that, we get a new vid game, which may cost as much as the movie, and now we are even getting good directors to do these things, was Lord of the Rings a cartoon, no it was literature, but now its a video game,
Point is creativity and good story still win, even in Hollywood, occasionally.What about that great film Iron Giant by the director of Walle.Most didn't see it, got great reviews, but not taken seriously cause animated kids story, but Pixar noticed, and he got to do Walle, not bad.
See you later.

Comics-Based Movies Keep on Comin'
By Hugh Hart EmailJuly 20, 2008 | 8:41:00 PMCategories: Comics, Horror, Movies, Sci-Fi

Marvelheroes660
Superheroes saved Hollywood this summer, boosting box office to record heights and funneling $1 billion and counting into studio coffers. Now, emboldened by the success of The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted and Hellboy II, filmmakers are stampeding toward comic books and graphic novels to find bigger-than-life stories for the silver screen.

Antman300 Longtime heavyweights DC Comics (Batman, Superman) and Marvel (Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four) are trotting out lesser-known characters from their catalogs. Ant Man (pictured at right)? Yes!

Joining the fray are relative upstarts including Dark Horse, Platinum Studios, Top Cow Productions, Oni Press and Devil's Due Publishing, which are busy populating the superhero pipeline with a new generation of flawed crime-fighters.

Comic books have become so hot that some titles prompt a feeding frenzy from studio execs before they're even published. For example, B. Clay Moore's new assassin series Billy Smoke doesn't hit stores until next year, but it's already been picked up by Warner Bros. as a possible project for Lost star Matthew Fox.

"It's kind of funny that comic book fans think the success of a published comic book is some kind of indicator as to how well a comic book will translate to the big screen," said Moore. "Ultimately, what studios are interested in is a good idea."

As pulp fiction fans pack their bags for next week's Comic-Con International in San Diego, here's a look ahead at some of the comic book movies heading for the big screen.

Punisher: War Zone

Punisher300

Irish he-man Ray Stevenson replaces Thomas Jane to play vengeful but virtuous vigilante Frank Castle in this sequel. His target? The demonic Jigsaw (Dominic West of TV's The Wire).
Secret weapon: German director Lexi Alexander, formerly an actress who toured with the Mortal Kombat traveling show, proved her rock'em-sock'em mettle by making the soccer movie, Hooligans.
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: Lionsgate
Release: December 5, 2008

Image courtesy Lionsgate

- - -

Spiritscarlett300The Spirit

Samuel Jackson (as The Octopus) and Scarlett Johansson (pictured, as Silken Floss) appear in this adaptation of Will Eisner's classic noir-meets-supernatural graphic novel, with Gabriel Macht starring as the title character. But the real star is graphic novelist-turned-filmmaker Frank Miller (300, Sin City). Miller had the good sense to bring his Sin City siren Eva Mendes on board to play the Spirit's sultry ex-flame, Sand Saref.
Secret weapon: Cinematographer Bill Pope knows how to frame action scenes, having previously shot Spider-Man 3 and the Matrix sequels.
Publisher: DC Comics
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release: Dec. 25, 2008

Image courtesy DC Comics

See also:

* New Spirit Trailer Hauntingly Dispiriting
* Frank Miller's The Spirit Gets Another Femme Fatale

- - -

Watchmen

300 auteur Zack Snyder's translation of Alan Moore's grisly alternate universe yokes the director's green-screen visual effects wizardry with a wildly eclectic ensemble cast. Jackie Earle Haley (famously creepy in Little Children) plays Rorschach, with Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan and Patrick Wilson playing Nite Owl.
Watchmen300Secret weapon: Carla Gugino, who bared all as the lesbian ex-con in Sin City, stands out from the mostly male cast as sexy-tough Silk Spectre.
Publisher: DC Comics
Studio: Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures
Release: March 6, 2009

Image courtesy DC Comics

See also:

* Fan-Made Watchmen Ads Ready for Watching
* Watchmen Trailer Strikes the Internets Early

- - -

Wolverine300X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Producer/star Hugh Jackman claws his way back into the role of alpha mutant Wolverine in this X-Men prequel, which explores his twisted rapport with Victor Creed/Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber). Dominic Monaghan (Lost) plays Beak.
Secret weapon: Director Gavin Hood, who won a Best Foreign Language Oscar for South African film Tsotsi, follows in the tradition of art house filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Bryan Singer and Jon Favreau who transitioned from the indie realm to make big-budget hits.
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Release: May 1, 2009

Image courtesy Marvel Comics

- - -

Pilgrim300Scott Pilgrim Versus the World

Michael "Superbad" Cera stars in this coming-of-age adventure directed by Edgar Wright, the genre-savvy filmmaker responsible for Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Wright steers this adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's comic series, which co-stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Scott's lust object, Ramona.
Publisher: Oni Press
Studio: Universal Release: 2009 TBD

Image courtesy DC Comics

- - -

Whiteoutkateposter300_2

Whiteout

Underworld's skintight-suited ass-kicker Kate Beckinsale stars in the movie version of Greg Rucka's graphic novel. Set in the Antarctic and directed by Dominic Sena (Gone in Sixty Seconds, Halle Berry's Swordfish), Whiteout casts Beckinsale as U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, who's in a hurry to solve a murder before the sun disappears for six months. Gabriel Macht (The Spirit) co-stars.
Secret weapon: Reese Witherspoon -- not. Hollywood's highest-paid actress originally planned to star but evidently didn't warm to early versions of the script.
Publisher: Oni Press
Studio: Warner Bros.
Release: 2009 TBD

Image courtesy Oni Press

- - -

Iron_man_face Iron Man 2

The story has yet to be written but director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. are locked and loaded for another Tony Stark adventure. The sequel, set to start filming in February, will also include Terrence Howard as military middleman, Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes.
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: Paramount
Release: April 30, 2010

Image courtesy Paramount Pictures

See also:

* Favreau Blogs on Iron Man Villains, Old and New
* Wired.com's Iron Man Extravaganza: Everything You Need to Know
* Review: Iron Man a New High for Robert Downey Jr.

- - -

Thor300

Thor

Director Matthew Vaughan puts his spin on the
Marvel character. Based on Norse mythology, Thor, aka the God of Thunder, draws his superpowers from a mighty source: his father is Odin, lord of pretty much everything.
Secret weapon: Vaughn, a former producer, directed the taut thriller Layer Cake followed by the extravagant Neil Gaiman fantasy Stardust.
Release: June 4, 2010
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: Marvel Studios

Image courtesy Marvel Comics

- - -

Captamerica300The First Avenger: Captain America

Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand, X-2) is scripting the story about Steve Rogers' transformation from wimpy everyman to Yankee fighting machine, thanks to secret meds and an intense dose of Vita-Rays.
Secret weapon: Patriotism. The big question is how the World War II-era character will take shape in these profoundly war-weary times.
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: Marvel Studios
Release: May 6, 2011

Image courtesy Marvel Comics

See also:

* Captain America Movie Finally on Marvel's Horizon
* Captain America Returns Somehow, Sort Of

- - -

Ant Man

Coming off Billy Pilgrem, triple threat Edgar Wright is working on the script. Likening the story's tone to Iron Man, the writer-director-producer told PiQ Mag: "It's on that level of entertainment, really. It's a big, high-concept, special effects comic book adaptation, and very character-led."
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release: In development

See also:

* Favreau for Iron Man II, Ant Man for Avengers

- - -

The Avengers

The Incredible Hulk's final scene sets up -- spoiler alert for late-arriving moviegoers -- this ensemble effort, expected to include Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America and Ant Man as ticked-off teammates.
Secret weapon: Zak Penn is writing this adventure in tandem with Thor to ensure episodic continuity.
Release: July 2011
Publisher: Marvel Comics

See also:

* Marvel Heroes Crisscross in Iron Man, Hulk
* Favreau for Iron Man II, Ant Man for Avengers

- - -

Lastcall300shortLast Call

Vasilis Lolos's graphic novel series about the story of two phantom teenagers will be adapted by Evan Spiliotopoulis (The Box) for Universal.
Secret weapon: Barry Josephson, the veteran Hollywood player behind Wild Wild West and TV's Bones, is producing.
Publisher: Oni Press
Release: In development

Image courtesy Oni Press

See also:

* Greek Comic Book Artist Lands Last Call Movie Deal

- - -

Cowboysaliens300Cowboys and Aliens

Imagine Entertainment moguls Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are backing this adaptation of the graphic novel about a showdown between American pioneers and Indians forced to band together against invaders from outer space. Robert Downey Jr. is reportedly considering the lead. Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus, the same guys who scripted Iron Man, are adapting the story.
Secret weapon: Cowboys' other producers include Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, playing a hot sci-fi hand these days as writer-producers for Fox's upcoming series Fringe and the new Star Trek movie.
Publisher: Platinum Studio
Release: In development

See also:

Image courtesy Platinum Studio

* Downey May Saddle Up for Sci-Fi Western

- - -

Spiderman300Spider-Man 4

No title, no finished script and no absolute commitment yet from Tobey Maguire or director Sam Raimi, who helmed Hollywood's top-grossing trilogy and brought a true child-geek's love of Steve Ditko's original comics to the movies. However, Raimi professes optimism about the script-in-progress by James Vanderbilt.
Secret weapon: Persistent producer Laura Ziskin can be counted on to give a new Spider-Man her all, with or without Raimi.
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release: In development

Image courtesy Sony Pictures

See also:

* Spider-Man 3 Director Geeks Out on His Movie's Real Star: Sand
* Spider-Man and the Evil Forces of Teen Pregnancy

- - -

Goon276The Goon

David Fincher, maestro of live-action creep-outs Se7en, Zodiac and Fight Club, teams with Dark Horse Entertainment to make a CG-animated feature based on Eric Powell's graphic novel series about a hulking enforcer for the mob who keeps running into ghosts, zombies, skunk apes and other supernatural bad guys.
Secret weapon: Blur Studios crafts the animation in what will be its feature-film debut. The Venice, California-based outfit is best known for its cutting-edge TV spots and Oscar-nominated Gopher Broke short.
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release: In development

Image courtesy Dark Horse

See also:

* Fincher Brings Goon Comic to Big Screen
* Universal Picks a Dark Horse for Comics Deal

- - -

Billy Smoke

Though not officially committed, Lost star Matthew Fox is seriously interested in this graphic novel by B. Clay Moore and illustrator Eric Kim. Not available in stores until next year, Billy Smoke tells the story of an assassin on a mission to clear the planet of his own kind after experiencing a crisis of conscience. It's easy to picture Fox, who played the brooding Racer X in Speed-Racer earlier this summer, grimacing his way through the role.
Publisher: Oni Press
Release: In development

See also:

* Lost's Fox May Play Reformed Assassin

- - -

Hardboiled249short

Hard Boiled

Sin City creator Frank Miller is working toward a movie adaptation of his own hyperviolent graphic novel trilogy that launched in 2000.
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release date: In development

Image courtesy Dark Horse

See also:

* Frank 'Sin City' Miller Likes His Action Hard-Boiled
* The Man Who Shot Sin City
* Sin City Expands Digital Frontier

- - -

Witchblade300Witchblade

From the same publisher that brought us Wanted comes the movie incarnation of this multiplatform hit. In comic book, cable TV and Japanese cartoon form, fans have been digging the woman armed with a superpowered "gauntlet" glove that takes care of business whenever she needs to wallop the bad guys.
Publisher: Top Cow
Release: In development

Image courtesy Top Cow Productions

See also:

* Witchblade Publisher Cuts Movie Deal

- - -

Hackslash250

Hack/Slash

Artist Tim Seeley's graphic novel about a one-time crime victim who takes justice into her own hands and starts fighting back -- with the help of a gas-masked accomplice named Vlad -- is moving toward production. Attached to direct: Todd Lincoln, who worked on visual effects for From Dusk Till Dawn. Justin Marks (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) is writing the adaptation.
Publisher: Devil's Due Publishing
Studio: Rogue Pictures/Universal
Release: In development

Image courtesy Devil's Due Publishing

See also:

* Invisible Hand Readies Alien Conspiracy Comic Serpo

- - -

Jonah_hex_crop Hex

Thomas Jane may play the role of Jonah Hex, a disfigured bounty hunter saddled with a bad temper and a weakness for booze. Actor Jane earlier proved his hard-ass cred in Marvel's The Punisher.
Publisher: DC Comics
Release: In development

Image courtesy DC Comics

See also:

* Latest Superhero Movie Looking to Hex the Old West

Additional reporting by John Scott Lewinski

Hey check this out. Now we are starting to see some of the realities of the net utilized. Anoymous people with real or imagined problems, entering to "therapy" with virtual therapists. This is cool.Some years ago I was interviewed by Michelle Goldberg--who worked for me for a while--now a senior editor at Slate--about a website for agoraphobics and I was quoted in Wired saying" A virtual life is better than no life at all", and I think this is still the case. I imagine, and I may be wrong that many of these folks wouldn't seek "real" counseling, but in this space they can perhaps allow themselves to ask for help, after all no one knows who they really are. Of course it would be good to actually see some research done on the experiences and effectiveness of this space. It would also be useful to know what percentage of these participants are moved to seek real counseling with real people.


Second Life offers healing, therapeutic options for users

Cherilyn Parsons, Special to the Chronicle

Sunday, July 13, 2008
The author's avatar approaches the Tibetan Buddhist templ... Carolina Keats, avatar for health librarian Carol Perryma... An avatar approaches an anxiety support group meeting.

"Every human being is interested in two kinds of worlds: the Primary, everyday world which he knows through his senses, and a Secondary world or worlds which he not only can create in his imagination, but which he cannot stop himself creating." -- W. H. Auden

In a garden pavilion on an island, I sat with an assortment of human beings - one clad as a teddy bear wearing a Santa hat, another as a brazen vixen, a blue man, a tuxedoed prom king - and poured out my heart from a place of loneliness and grief. Click click went the computer keys, like the staccato beat of my heart. Clack clack went their replies, their empathy and their own tales of triumph and woe. Via my avatar - the persona I'd created to engage here - I was participating in an "anxiety support group" in the free, virtual world of Second Life.

As I write those words, I can hear the scoffing. Pathetic! Escapist! Are you addicted to computer games? Do you have no friends? Second Life? That place is just about weird sex fantasies!

Founded in 2003 as a virtual community built by users, Second Life rose to cultural phenomenon status by 2006 - only to suffer media backlash over its glitches, hype and sex scene. But it continues to grow. By June 2008, more than 14 million people had joined, only 38 percent them from the United States. More people went "in-world," or participated in, Second Life in the 30 days of June than live in all of San Francisco, which is the home of Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life. If Second Life were to materialize from its server space, the landscape would be four times the size of Manhattan.

A new virtual world, Google's Lively, was introduced last week with its version of avatar chat rooms. And Second Life just announced a new technology, developed with IBM, to allow avatars to teleport among worlds. No wonder analysts at Gartner, a leading technology research company, predict that three years from now 8 in 10 Internet users will work or play in virtual spaces.

Sure, Second Life has more than its share of sex shops and pick-up joints, where avatars can lure others. You get it on virtually with "teledildonics" and relevant "animations." In a "sim," or simulated region, called Jessie, people kill each other for pleasure, albeit to "teleport" back, unwounded. There are financial swindles, pick-up scenes, personal backstabbing, and more attention to elaborate hairdos than Cher in her heyday. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, Second Life might harbor real-world terrorists, scheming in the caves of online anonymity.

It has, in short, all the trauma and pain of real life, and some cautions are in order when it comes to seeking psychological support.

But maybe because it's a dream realm, hopefulness abounds. Nowhere is that truer than in Second Life's support groups, which help people cope with everything from cancer, depression, bipolar disorder and autism, to caretaker stress. There are more than 70 such groups, according to Second Life's Health Support Coalition. Most are secular. While a few groups are facilitated by associations such as the American Cancer Society, peers run most.

As expressed on the Web site, www.supportforhealing.com, associated with Second Life's Support for Healing Island, "we are NOT and never will replace the help of professionals ... but purely hold a safe place for people to come when they need a shoulder."

A year ago, before I had explored Second Life, I would have laughed at the idea of virtual shoulders. How can a person possibly be "real" via an avatar anyway - much less have a meaningful conversation with a puppy dog, barmaid, elf, or wilder avatar appearance such as a blob or a tree? It's hard enough to trust someone in real life, much less "second life." Then again, what better place to connect our yearning selves with other yearning selves than in a space of mutual creation - a place where those very selves can be one's unconscious made manifest? Indeed, avatar, in its original Sanskrit, refers to the descent of the soul in human form.

Click, clack: When I rose from my hourlong anxiety group meeting, I felt seen and heard in the deepest part of me - more so, in fact, than in some "real life" interactions, where we often put up fronts.

You're not alone, the group told me.

Nor are you.
Virtual safety net

The anonymity of Second Life can make all the difference in opening up to share within a support group.

Somewhere in small-town America, a wife and mother of about 40 - she could be your neighbor or relative - suffers from serious depression. She loves animals, so within Second Life, as Fionella Flanagan, she's a big gray dog with a shaggy white mane. She attends the depression support group. Why does she do it? "I don't have to worry about what I say in the group coming back to bite me in my home town."

She also suffers from fibromyalgia, one of those crippling, invisible diseases that some doctors say is "all in your head." In Second Life, Fionella doesn't "have to overcome real life prejudice when I say I'm sick. There's none of that, 'but you look so good' junk."

When anxiety support group avatars were asked whether they were more honest as avatars than in real life, a wild-haired blonde, Galvana Gustafson (in real life an American dancer and bassoonist with a master's degree in psychotherapy), put it this way: "My avatar is more honest than myself because the rejection won't hurt as much."

No one would guess that the person behind the avatar Morgana Shi, a redhead knockout DJ at Second Life's Heavenly Rose nightclub, suffers from bipolar disorder as well as back pain so disabling she often can't leave the house. "This is my only outlet really," she told me via private instant message while she was DJ'ing.

I've never done an interview while I was gyrating on a dance floor (click the floor, and a dance animation takes over your avatar). "Hallelujah, it's raining men," the song raged, and I whirled with other avatars as Morgana and I chatted.

"All of Second Life is my support group," she reported. "My first week here, I walked onto the land that Heavenly Rose Night Club was on, and ran into Rose Kenzo, the owner, and she took me under her wing. She has been there for me for the last two years every day since."

Morgana later discovered the Support for Healing Island "because I was going through a major relapse with my bipolar and needed help from people who understood. I personally like to be in groups that are survivors, sufferers, and caretakers and loved ones, supporting one another. The best help and advice I have ever gotten are from people who have experienced firsthand."

She now leads a bipolar group on the Support for Healing Island and raises funds for the National Alliance on Mental Illness Walk in the real world.
Remaking the world

One of the most beloved community members in Second Life was The Sojourner, a multiple stroke survivor who created the "Shockproof Dreams" sim for stroke victims, people with autism and Asperger's syndrome and the people who care for them. In real life, she once worked as a speech pathologist and her son has Asperger's. A sweet, empathetic-looking avatar with auburn hair, in real life she died suddenly in May 2008, provoking an outpouring of in-world mourning.

The Metaverse Messenger - one of the virtual world's newspapers - reprinted an interview with "Soj" as she was known, from June 2007. Second Life "isn't just a game," she emphasized. "It is a widely diverse opportunity to explore every aspect of life, if you choose to. If you are disabled in any way, this is a way to move beyond the disability." Before her own strokes, she had worked professionally with stroke survivors. "I quickly realized that Second Life was a good rehabilitation tool. ... It helps with memory, planning things, using math, making friends, developing self-confidence, using skills you thought lost to stroke."

Soj created not only support groups but a "sandbox," complete with tutorials and classes, where people can freely create objects out of "prims," the core building material (think molecules) of Second Life, and thus create clothing, homes, entire landscapes. "A farmer/landscaper may not be able to use a plow in Real Life, but can landscape or have animals in Second Life," she said in her last talk, now posted at her memorial on the Shockproof Dreams sim.

People with autism or Asperger's especially seem to appreciate Second Life. The literature welcoming visitors to Brigadoon, a community within Shockproof Dreams, describes how the virtual world lacks "the richness of expression and gesture found in Real Life," so people who become easily overwhelmed by real-world stimuli face "fewer distractions to worry about." The Web site www.autistics.org sponsors a group of "activist autistic people" called the Autistic Liberation Front, who engage in discussions, workshops and conferences. They have a museum and library and hang out in a social area called Porcupine.

Researchers of autism use Second Life as a laboratory and tool. At the in-world SL-Labs and Teaching and Research facility, at the University of Derby in England, Simon Bignell, a lecturer in psychology, studies how Second Life can "enhance first life social-communication skills in people" with autistic spectrum disorders. The Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas, Dallas, offers a therapy in Second Life for people with Asperger's that helps them practice interviewing for jobs.

Second Life's Health Support Coalition (a collaboration between Soj, the avatar Gentle Heron and Carolina Keats, who in real life is a medical librarian) has won a grant from the Annenberg Foundation to create an Ability Commons, for 40-plus smaller health and support groups. "Imagine a paralyzed 23-year-old lying in his family's back bedroom," the coalition wrote, "yearning for contact with age peers in similar situations. Second Life offers people with serious physical and cognitive disabilities opportunities to socialize and get information."

They needed a grant because hosting takes money. Though Second Life itself is free to access, people pay a monthly rent for "land" and prim space.

The large, lush Support for Healing Island, which has more than 850 members, ran into just that problem: The island's founder, Zafu Diamond (in real-life Englishman John Palmer), couldn't sustain the fees. This lovely garden isle with mountains, moving streams, flowers, flying butterflies, shrines and buildings, offered the widest array of peer support groups in-world. Featured on British TV, there's even a Medicine Buddha Tibetan temple, where avatars could sit in meditation, chill to the sound of mantras, or share quiet conversation.

According to its monthly newsletter, Support for Healing was "a group of people that believe that recovery from depression, emotional trauma, and mental and physical illness can be greatly enhanced by loving kindness and friendship." A Listening Ear service had offered "one-to-one support for those who have a need to talk to someone between the times regular meetings are scheduled."

But fundraising efforts by the island's stalwarts came to naught. Appeals to Linden Lab did no good. Groups ceased. The Listening Ear closed. The island teetered on the edge of digital disappearance - and at the last minute, an energy healer who'd been offering group meetings on the island stepped in to take over as owner. Most of the groups have restarted, though the depression support meeting, which had moved to The Centering Place sim, will be shared by both locations. The Listening Ear remains shut.

The avatar who saved Support for Healing is named Tong Ren Writer, after the Tong Ren therapy he practices. (In real-life he's a patent lawyer in Boston.) He intends to welcome more support groups and also continue his free, energetic healing group twice a week.

Committed volunteers

Group leaders like avatar Glenn Oud, who has facilitated the weekly anxiety group for more than two years, take great care to not mislead. An East Coast IT professional in his 30s, who once had considered psychology as a career, he opens each meeting with disclaimers: "Please do not let these meetings take the place of professional help," he typed to us. (Most support groups operate via typed chat.) "Please be kind . . . both listening and sharing are important."

The weekly groups are an enormous volunteer commitment. "I keep thinking I'll take my Thursday nights back," he told me (the anxiety groups are 7 to 8 p.m. Thursdays, though they often go longer). "But hearing people tell me every week that it's helping keeps me doing it."

Specky Zaftig, the administrator for the Support for Healing forums, and the avatar of a 28-year old British woman, donates dozens of unpaid hours each week. It "allows many of us to offer something back to others from our own experiences. Many of us have struggled with depression, etc. To find a safe place where people understand you and support you because they want to can make a real difference to some people. ... I like to know that somehow I've made a difference, no matter how small."

A lot of altruism, free giving, plenty of warnings. Isn't there any digital snake oil here? No fake therapists?

One in-world psychologist, Dr. Craig Kerley from Georgia, who was profiled on CBS's "Early Show," has hung his shingle for "cybertherapy" at $90 per hour. This work, he says, "can be valuable for those who have limited choices in their geographical region, have limited time to drive to regular in-person appointments, have limited mobility, and have limitations in their lifestyle that make traveling to a brick and mortar office difficult."

Still, Dr. Peter Yellowlees, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UC Davis and a specialist in virtual worlds, cautions about therapy in Second Life, even with professionals. He advises using it only as "a potential adjunct to face-to-face therapy," and to "use passwords or other cues in Second Life to make sure you're talking to the right person" - the real therapist, not scammers posing as one.

Yellowlees uses Second Life as a teaching tool, not for therapy. His Virtual Hallucinations sim gives "the lived experience of schizophrenia - to hear voices and see visions" so his students (and the rest of us) can "get inside the head, just a bit, of someone who's psychotic."

It certainly sparked empathy in me, much more richly than a mere clinical description of the disorder would have done.

Empathy: There's that word again, an odd one to associate with impersonal bytes and modems, but the right one. Second Life is a hot, humming thing of wire and light, a "server" - spiritual teachers would like the metaphor - that can carry community and genuine human sympathy.

Cherilyn Parsons is a freelance writer and fundraising consultant to journalism organizations. E-mail her at style@sfchronicle.com.

Dr Media says, if you want to know the state of web statistics, listen this excellent to the point report by Chasin of Brightcove. The read Chris Anderson's argument on the lack of a need for any kind of verification of data, just computer generated data points, no"WHY'S". More on this lame approach later, I hope he doesn't need operated on by an MD who doesn't ask why.
See more comments of the pithy type later.
Check it out.


TV/Video Audience Measurement Challenge-Josh Chasin - Brightcove

Dr. Media says, so you want to know the real reality of the Media biz, read this.This is what the money guys are saying. Put this together with Mark Gills comments and you get the feeling that everyone should get in to selling timeshares. Fact is what these guys are saying is true and its also true that there are 35K theaters, and TV is on 24/7 all over trhe planet and VOD demands are growing everyday. Therefore, unless everyone wants to keep watching the same reruns for eternity, there is a growing need for new projects and innovative ideas. Now there is a really scarce market, but then again, when has that not been so.

TV And Film Business Facing Dark Days, Analyst Warns - NYTimes.com

July 7, 2008
TV And Film Business Facing Dark Days, Analyst Warns
By REUTERS

Filed at 11:58 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers cut the stock ratings on Monday of Walt Disney Co, Time Warner and other top entertainment companies, fearing the television and film industry could suffer the same battering as the music business.

"To be clear, our fear is that the damage that digital distribution inflicted on the music industry will replicate itself in the movie industry, and our fears are too great to justify keeping neutral or positive ratings on the creators and distributors of movie and TV content," analyst Anthony DiClemente wrote in a research note.

Along with Disney and Time Warner, Lehman lowered its ratings on News Corp and CBS Corp on concerns about "structural changes that appear destined to impact the core revenue and profits of (the) entertainment business."

Lehman maintained its rating on Viacom Inc., but nonetheless cut its price target on the stock. It also lowered its overall view of the industry to "negative" from "neutral."

Shares of all five companies were down -- to various degrees -- in early trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

DiClemente added, "In reality, while there are many obvious differences between music/audio and movie/video media forms, the core properties of video distribution and consumption are not different enough from music content to continue to justify why movie/TV content will be spared fragmentation."

Specifically, DiClemente argued as consumers shift to new types of media -- movie downloads, for instance, or TV video recorders that make it possible to skip commercials -- the big entertainment companies will struggle to replace traditional sources of revenue.

"We believe fragmentation of media as a result of technological change is highly likely to disrupt the economics of traditional forms of movie and TV distribution," he said. "Content may no longer be king in the entertainment business."

Take DVD sales, for instance. DiClemente cautioned that it appears the rate of revenue decline from the DVD business will outpace any growth from the digital side.

DiClemente also cited specific trouble spots each of the companies.

Disney, he said, must contend with economic problems that could hurt theme park results; an ABC TV network that faces headwinds; and a stock price that is already at a premium to its peers. He cut Disney to an "underweight" rating with a $29 price target.

News Corp faces exposure to a depressed newspaper business; its Fox TV network remains challenged; and acquisition risk is a major concern, he said. It was cut to "equal weight" rating with a $15 price target.

Time Warner's additional problems include concerns about future capital allocation of a special dividend from Time Warner Cable; plans for its Time Inc unit; and questions about AOL. DiClemente cut the rating to "equal weight" rating with a $14 target.

He cut CBS to "underweight" and a $16 target because of added concerns about CBS Radio; structural and cyclical weakness at the CBS TV network; and acquisition risk related to its purchase of CNET.

While Viacom's price target was cut to $32 a share, it maintained its "equal weight" rating because of the possibility of incremental contributions from the "Rock Band" video game; international expansion; and the likelihood that affiliate fees will provide some stability.

In early trade, shares of Disney fell 43 cents to $30.47, CBS fell 42 cents to $18.10, Time Warner fell 34 cents to $14.64; News Corp fell 5 cents to $14.51; and Viacom fell 14 cents to $29.53.

(Reporting by Paul Thomasch; Editing by Derek Caney)

Hi gang, Dr. Media says Om Malik is on the money with this blogpost, read especially the reduced ad revenue numbers. What does this mean? Well there may be many ways to put it but the bottom line is that the big boys are losing faith in the ability of social networking to deliver the consumers. I guess the kids don't like being shilled as much as Murdoch hoped they would. Looks like everyone is going to have to wake up and realize that you only get responses to things that folks are actually interested in.This is BTW, why Dr. Media stands by behavioral and experiential data collection and analytics. If you want to know what they like ask them, what a concept?


Social Networking Gets a Sanity Check - GigaOM

Social Networking Gets a Sanity Check
Om Malik, Friday, June 13, 2008 at 8:30 AM PT Comments (55)



After years of hype, noise and funding, the social networking sector is finally getting a harsh, but necessary, sanity check.

Today there are numbers out from comScore that indicate plateauing growth for the big two — MySpace and Facebook — in the U.S. Last week, Revision3 canceled “SocialBrew,” an online video show dedicated to social networking. Meanwhile, Monster killed its Tickle social networking service (first reported in April by TechCrunch), following closely on the heels of CondeNast’s shuttering of Flip and Verizon’s decision to close up its virtually unknown network, which had managed to garner a mere 18,000 members. (Verizon has shifted its community to Facebook.)

And these just might be the tip of the iceberg, for there are way too many me-too networks out there failing to find the traction, and hence the volume, needed to grow their revenues. The lack of monetization will only accelerate this process.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt never misses an opportunity to dis the social networking sector, typically by pointing out how hard it is to monetize social media inventory. Which could just be his way of trying to excuse his company’s inking of an exclusive $900 million deal to serve up advertising on News Corp.-owned properties including MySpace.

But Schmidt’s motivation notwithstanding, what he says is true: In a recent report, eMarketer, a N.Y.-based market research agency, lowered its 2008 advertising estimates for U.S. social networks to $1.43 billion from $1.6 billion. They expect Facebook will take in $265 million and MySpace will bring in $755 million, down from earlier projections of $305 million and $850 million, respectively.

I’m not sure how they came up with these new projections, but let’s assume for a moment that they’re right. That means that MySpace and Facebook together will bring in $1.02 billion in U.S. ad revenue, which leaves about $400 million for dozens of other social networks. eMarketer also calculated revenue per unique visitor for some of the big five:

* Google: $65.55
* Yahoo: $31.25
* Microsoft (MSN): $17.74
* MySpace: $12.85
* Facebook: $11.79

Now juxtapose these numbers against the U.S. traffic trends. Andrew Chen points out that U.S. visitor traffic for both MySpace and Facebook is beginning to show signs of maturing — and plateauing. The latest comScore data released today only reaffirms Chen’s point of view. Couple the new, lower revenue estimates with the flattening in the growth rate of U.S. visitors, what you end up with are tough times for social networking going forward.

Both MySpace and Facebook are seeing the bulk of their growth overseas, but that traffic is even harder to monetize than traffic in the U.S. Indeed, when it comes to making money on overseas traffic, with the exception of Google and Yahoo, most companies have had a mixed scorecard. What’s more, rather than a service unto itself, social networking is becoming just another feature on many web services.

All of these changes are going to continue to have a negative impact, and not just on all-purpose, also-ran social networks, but on the entire ancillary economy, including widget makers. (See our post on Userplane, the really big widget ad network.)

The way I see it, the market has shifted its focus onto niche social networks, such as those dedicated to sports, music, automobiles and pets. You know, sites like Dogster! They have focused, engaged communities, which means they can attract a higher amount of advertising dollars. (Liz came up with a taxonomy of social networks back in February 2007 that offers up an easy way to understand the nuances of the social networking landscape.)

Not only do they have a purpose, but they don’t depend on hit-or-miss behavioral targeting-based ad systems that many hope will one day turn social networks into a gold mine. After all, if you sell dog food, then everyone on Dogster is a potential customer. As for the rest of the sector, it’s only a matter of time before more companies go the way of Tickle, Verizon and CondeNast’s Flip.