KonzeptioNerd

ZEIT for the internet

Last week’s issue of German weekly DIE ZEIT (Zeit-Website) had 5 articles on the internet.

One rather negligible one about the author’s first steps in Second Life (Kerstin Kohlenberg: Mein zweites Ich in German).

Punctum: The author wonders whether to approach an avatar “as the character or as the real person behind it”. I never thought to ask this question. An avatar is the visualization of how someone chooses to project in a specific environment, in this case, the semi-3D virtual world Second Life. One rarely gets beyond this projection, anyway, so why get self-conscious in Second Life? Unless, of course, one just stumbled into a role-playing party.

One on academic plagiarism (”Plagiate: Unis gegen Schummler”, DIE ZEIT 7/2007, p. 39, no online-version). Apparently, there are new and improved web-based tools for detecting borrowed intellectual property in term-papers. On the other hand, there’s more original material available for stealthy appropriation in the first play. However, the total number of acts of plagiarism has not risen along with the proliferation of the internet.

The third article deals with the troubles of the newspaper industry (Matthias Nass: Papier wird ungeduldig). Numbers of printed issues sold are continuously decreasing, internet viewing is on the rise. Nass quotes Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the New York Time: It’s newspaper, not newspaper. (I only wonder what happens when the demand for news on paper dips below a critical mass and producing hardcopy becomes so expensive that either no one does it or no one can afford to buy the result. That day may arrive, for certain parts of the world, at least, in 5-10 years. But the usage-occasions for paper may still be there: I do, sometimes, spent time on a beach …

The ZEIT appears to have quite an advanced view on the development of the news business (for an established print paper at least). However, the article comes with a companion article that describes the individual incidence of how the Müstersche Zeitung (”Sanierung a la Müstersche Zeitung”, DIE ZEIT 7/2007, p. 26) pushed out their team of local editors to replace it with a team of online-editors. The local guys will never find a new job …

We learn: on the business side, internet or no internet hardly makes a difference. Corporations will always find a way to keep the cash flowing. But digital technology is the enemy of us simple folks. Yikes.

And then there’s an article in the business section with lots of numbers. I like that. Let me quote (the full article is here: Götz Hamann: Neue Mode In der Internetwirtschaft werden wieder Rekordsummen für junge Firmen bezahlt. Hat sich eine Blase gebildet? - Business Section):

150 mio. registered Users at MySpace; about 80 mio. visitors / moth; they hope to generate about 500 mio. USD in the current financial year and break even. Hamann arrives at an ad-revenue of about 4 USD per user per year.
New Users at YouTube: ca. 70 mio. /month, sold for 1.65 mrd. USD (in stock)
Facebook: 21 mio. users by Dec. 2006; Hamann mentions a study (no source) that estimates a total revenue of 50 mio. USD with a profit of 9 mio. USD for 2006
StudiVZ was sold for ca. 55 mio. Euros; allegedly, if StudiVZ keeps growing, buyer Holtzbrinck-Group will pay a premium of 30 mio. Euros. Active users: 1.3 mio., half of them visit the site within 24 hrs., 80% within one week.

(If you must know, there’s a 6th web-themed article in that edition, Elke Buhr: Deserteure in der Mitte on MySpace and the music business:

Kennt jemand Imogen Heap, Colbie Caillat, Mickey Avalon? Das Internet hat sie zu Stars gemacht – ganz ohne die Marketingkampagnen der Musikindustrie.

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