Just another CRAM Connect weblog

in reply to my previous post, I'd like to clarify that I am definitley not a glass half empty guy. I try to be much the opposite. It was just when i wrote my evaluation it was very spur of the moment - thinking about it more, there are positives that i have gained from the experience, mainly being the discovery of Newspaper Club. I think they're really doing a great thing, allowing avid writers and journalists to have their own publication. although archaic in it's choice of publication, i think it's very forward moving, more so than blogging - it's great knowing there are people that want to preserve the physical aspects of media e.g. newspapers, cds, vinyl, etc. If everything does become digitized life would be a very predictable and monotonous experience.
I believe a large part of the fun in media is the idea of collection - there is something about having many or all products from a particular company or practicioner that gives people a feeling of faith and respect which in term rewards them with a positive feeling of accomplishment.
although an overused example, Pokemon cards are a great way of describing this phenomenon - i've never actively tried to collect something as much as them. When i was young they were pretty much a currency of their own - if you had a good enough card you could probably trade it for someone's lunch.
I think that this avid follower behaviour is in everybody, and being able to get something that requires physical effort to aquire makes things so much more of a reward, thus being the reason why there are still big-time collectors of older mediums of publications - because they're rare, the quest to acquiring them is often very interesting and worth it, usually introducing the person to new things on the way.
In comparison to simply logging in to Blogger and checking your RSS feed, doing so requires zero effort. you might jump for joy at the release-date of Avatar on DVD but it wouldnt be anyway near as much fun as knowing the date will be released in next week's issue...
The hype that builds up to these things can sometimes only be created by forms other than the internet. as a newspaper doesnt update itself, you need to wait, and in that time that you're waiting, you get excited with anticipation - chances are, on the internet, if some page has advertised upcoming information on release dates, it would have been leaked elsewhere before, making users tension get pacified too early, dumbing down the interest and revisitability of a page.

So. This is why Newspaper club are definitely doing the right thing - although they're an interesting and unorthodox amalgamation of online "we-media" and offline physical media, it still works in a way that delivers users that priceless enthusiasm - i get the feeling that printing off your work in big batches and publicising them would acheive you far more success than using the internet. A: because there is'nt the maddening requirement of advanced HTML programming, And B: because it saves you spending a long, long time trying to gain recognition for your work over the net - instead, you can garantee that if the front cover is flashy enough, someone will definitley read it and possibly even be up for getting hold of the next issue...

Introducing me to Newspaper Club has opened a big new door to me, i definitely feel that i will be using their services again soon - this time for a personal project with no set brief but my own.