Deadspin Goes Medieval On ESPN – Is It Too Much?
It was a bad weekend to work in Bristol, Conn. Last week, the friction in the sometimes friendly, mostly unfriendly, four years of co-existence between ESPN, the sports broadcasting and online behemoth, and Deadspin, Gawker Media’s popular upstart sports blog, finally ignited a huge, flaming ball of holy-crap-this-should-be-interesting. What had been a long-standing, contentious relationship turned into a bitter feud that’s not likely to be resolved, or even cooled off for a while, after Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio posted a story with headline, “ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sexual Depravity.”
The post was a response to the New York Post’s revelation that Steve Phillips, a high-profile ESPN baseball analyst, had been suspended for having an affair with an ESPN production assistant. Daulerio had been sitting on the story for a couple weeks and felt he had been lied to by ESPN’s communications arm, and thus, scooped by the Post. Needless to say, Daulerio wasn’t happy about it and retaliated by unloading his inbox of rumors about the indiscretions of ESPN executives under the … well, hilarious tag “ESPNhorndoggery.”
Reactions since from both the traditional media and the sports blogosphere have been, for the most part, critical of what Daulerio did. Right or wrong, this is a fascinating story because it tiptoes so close to that imaginary ethical line that the traditional media always hysterically yell about about when talking about the blogosphere. But nobody has actually ever attempted to define exactly what that line is. Is it legal? Is it ethical? Is it based on long-standing journalistic standards?
I’d say it’s purely legal, because, well, that’s the ultimate measure of right or wrong here. Obviously, Gawker boss Nick Denton has Daulerio and Deadspin’s back here, and Daulerio was a trained, professional journalist for years before joining Deadspin, so it’s his call as to where the ethical line is drawn and if he cares about the long-standing journalist mores. Absent restraint from his bosses and from himself, defamation law is the only check on Daulerio. Clay Travis, a former lawyer and former Deadspin writer, has a pretty thorough run down of the legal issues involved and concludes that Deadspin and Gawker are pretty much in the clear, legally.
That really is the final word here. If, in the eyes of the law, Deadspin’s war against ESPN is legal, than so be it. ESPN can call it “despicable behavior,” Daulerio’s sports blogging brethren can complain and members of the traditional media can hold their noses at the messy kerfuffle that’s so obviously beneath them, but the law is the final call on legal or not, and Daulerio and Gawker have the final say on right or wrong.
And something that’s been missing from the discussion as well, is that Deadspin might have exposed a pattern of sexual misdeeds that point to a widespread institutional rot within ESPN. Not to suggest that Daulerio is today’s Upton Sinclair, or his “Horndoggery” posts an update to The Jungle, but in a sense it’s akin to modern day muckraking, just on a smaller scale. ESPN though, might argue it’s more like yellow journalism. But this is the new media environment, and these issues need to be worked out. Who knows, if ESPN files suit against Gawker, this case could establish future precedent.
Under its founder and editor emeritus Will Leitch, Deadspin basically founded what is now a thriving, interesting and exciting sports blogosphere. Under Daulerio, Deadspin might also pioneer less comfortable, but massively important new territory around standards, ethics and exactly what the new journalism is. It’ll be exciting to see.
The New Creative Economy
Great music, video games and films continue to be created and enjoyed by huge audiences, while many large traditional distributors in these industries are seeing steady declines in total revenue. The Internet is chipping away at the role of the middleman, whether it is a record label, game distributor or film studio. Simultaneously, the Web is empowering the artist and providing unprecedented channels for direct distribution and now, major sponsorships. Is this the future of the entertainment industry?
Panos Panoy, Sonicbids founder/CEO, recently wrote a very interesting post on the changing guard of the music industry. His post “Are Consumer Brands the New Record Labels?” analyzes the stream of deals that major brands are increasingly offering to independent musicians via Sonicbids. Panos notes, “major (and niche) consumer brands have figured out that music can help them sell whatever product they produce,” and thus have started to work directly with unsigned artists to provide them with music for a variety of promotional campaigns. One can certainly see how this scares record labels – if bands can produce high quality, professionally recorded music on their own dime, completely own their publishing rights and then make a profit on their music through licensing songs to Coca-Cola directly through the Sonicbids online platform, why would artists ever want to sign on to a record label who will take the lion’s share of the profits from their music?
Similarly, game developers are now releasing games online that people would normally have to pay to play, but large brands are starting to come in to sponsor the games to make them free, here’s an example. Online game network and LaunchSquad client, Mochi Media, has steadily seen more game developers leave big distribution companies to start their own production companies, allowing them to create their own games, retain all rights to their intellectual property and distribute their games to the world via the Web and mobile platforms like the iPhone. A good example is the wildly popular game catalog created by Sean Cooper, a former game developer for EA Sports.
Even in film you are starting to see some similar trends. Though distribution to theaters will always be a big money game, increasing bandwidth speeds and HD quality video players are making the Web a real platform for film distribution. An interesting example is the recent short by Director, Barry Jenkins, who is known for directing the indie film hit ‘Medicine for Melancholy.’ Jenkins created a short film called Tall Enough, which was funded by Bloomingdales of all companies, and now streams on the company’s site.
Is this direct consumer brand/artist relationship the future of the creative economy? And if so, will artist development suffer as a result of the lack of artist rep firms like record labels who (supposedly) nurture the talents of the artists on their roster? If nothing else, it does seem that if this type of consumer brand/artist relationship increasingly becomes the norm that the modern artist will need to have the somewhat rare combination of very strong creative and entrepreneurial skills to reap the rewards of this new system. But maybe that is what the digital generation is all about – only an Internet connection needed.
We Accept Mastercard, VISA and … Your Mobile Phone
As someone who’s constantly trying to downsize baggage, I’m always looking for ways to consolidate devices and accessories. One of the first reasons I chose to buy an iPhone was to consolidate my iPod with my cellphone. Of course, with the iPhone’s newer models and App store, a mobile phone can hold more than just a handful of devices: everything from video camera and game player to personal assistant and running trainer. Now, with new mobile payment companies launching left and right, the phone is taking over yet another accessory: the wallet.
The U.S. has been waiting a long time for mobile payments. When I was in high school in Japan, I remember mobile technologies being second nature to metropolitan lifestyle. It wasn’t unusual for student, businessman, and housewife on the train to be immersed in a text message, novel, or game on their mobile phones. It’s not surprising that telecommunications companies replicated Japan’s Suica smartcard technologies to work with mobile phones, allowing consumers to pay for train rides, convenient store purchases and more, with a simple swipe of their phones. A Forrester Research survey found that 15 percent of Japanese mobile phone users make payments and purchase products in stores with their phones, and most Japanese cell phones today include the standard FeliCa wallet phone chip that makes this possible.
Phone payments have also been successful in countries like Kenya or India, where ATMs and credit cards aren’t as accessible as mobile phones. Some have speculated that the U.S. hasn’t adopted mobile payment technologies as fast as these developing countries because the adoption of mobile devices isn’t growing at the same exponential rate. Although a recent Nielsen report showed that only a quarter of mobile users accessed the Web via their phones in July, that’s a 34 percent increase over last year. Mobile seems to be ramping up in the U.S., and it shows, now that several new startups are coming out of the woodwork to promise the convenience of using your phone as your wallet:
Within the social networks and gaming space, two companies that have been competing mobile micro-payments are Boku, which charges your monthly cell phone bill instead of requiring a credit card or bank account, and Zong, which partnered with Facebook this summer to allow mobile payments for its virtual currency, Facebook Credits, and was selected by LaunchSquad client Mochi Media last week as its mobile payment platform.
For small businesses and merchants, Seattle-based start-up Billing Revolution just announced last month a partnership with credit card processor Authorize.net, which will allow its more than 200,000 retailer partners to offer “one click” mobile purchasing. Freeddom, a company that just launched at DEMO last month, has already built a business in Brazil helping retailers, telecommunications companies and banks turn consumers’ phones into their own private label credit cards. Sellers simply enter the purchase on their phone or Point-of-Sale device and customers enter in their personal identification numbers (PINs) to pay. If you think about all of the street vendors and food trucks around, especially in NYC, it’s obvious that there’s a need for a better, wireless payment system.
There’s even a solution for the average Craigslist or IOU transaction. A few weeks ago, while at nextNY’s @shakeshack II, event (which LaunchSquad sponsored), Megan Soto and I got a chance to demo a new mobile payments solution, Venmo. In under 5 minutes, founders Iqram Magson-Ismail and Andrew Kortina helped us set up accounts, transfered us each $1, and showed us how to transfer funds to each other through SMS texts. Venmo, based in NYC and Philadelphia, has a set of helpful how-to guides on their sites around practical use cases – like how to use Venmo for Craigslist transactions or how to sell music at a gig. I can think of a dozen more examples where I’d text-to-pay micro-payments to friends, and as someone that occasionally sells and buys on Craigslist, I’d appreciate the ability to skip the “CASH ONLY” on every post.
Obopay is 4-year-old company that’s partnering with big players to bring mobile payments to consumers and merchants. In 2010, Obopay and Nokia will launch Nokia Money in undisclosed markets, allowing users to send money to other mobile users, pay merchants and utility bills, or top up prepaid cellphone minutes. Obopay is also working with MasterCard on a person-to-person mobile payment service called MoneySend.
There’s also been talk that Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey is working on a mobile payment gadget (hardware) start-up code-named “Square.”
So what does this recent bevy of mobile payment companies mean? Several smart people thinking about and betting on (investing in) this technology means that we’re likely to see a major shift in the way we pay, in the same way that PayPal and Amazon have done online. Speaking of PayPal …
On November 3, PayPal is holding an event, PayPal X Innovate 2009, where it’s going to open its API to third party developers, allowing others to innovate and find new ways to pay and get paid online. TwitPay is an early example of this, combining Twitter and PayPal accounts to essentially allow you to update your status to pay someone instantly. PayPal already has a mobile application, but perhaps its open API will encourage more innovation into new forms of online and mobile payment solutions.
It’s hard to tell if consumer behavior change to support these new forms of payment. Even if it does, mass adoption will probably take a long time (Gartner predicts only 3 percent in North America will make mobile payments in 2012). Nonetheless, it’s certainly impressive to see all of the companies tackling this space, and I look forward to someday lightening my purse of a wallet, its cash, cards, checkbook and all.