Charlie Rose

Carl  04/19/2008 12:57 PM Report

'We design it, they make it'?? That won't last.

Rob L; N Myrtle Beach SC  03/10/2008 03:54 AM Report

I was not impressed with most of what Chris Anderson had to say. He is selling his new book "Zero", but I'm not buying the premise: that important content such as articles, music, movies, etc, on the Web don't cost anything for the digital producer to make, or for the digital consumer to consume, (or soon won't cost anything), hence his title, "Zero". His premise simply is not true. He is attempting to state another paradigm-shifting truth, like he supposedly did in his book "The Long Tail". But what he ends up doing is stating the new conventional wisdom, which is handed off from one journalist to another without much critical thought. The truth is that good digital content costs both its producers and its consumers something tangible, and certainly not nothing, not even money-wise. The producers have to sweat out the creative process and all that entails, and the consumers have to give their time at the very least during the act of consumption. And this leaves out the very real infrastructure costs: the consumers' computers and their software, the monthly Internet service provider fees, the electricity that makes it all go, etc. And attractive Websites don't just happen by themselves, nor do the running of the server computers that make up a large part of the backbone of the Internet. When computers need to thrown away, they incur significant environmental costs in terms of their currently toxic metal compounds. My guess is that when the hidden and the currently-unknown costs are taken into account, there is much less than meets the eye to Anderson's notion that content costs are reaching zero. About the only thing I agreed with him on was the subject of books: they are a clearly superior medium for long-term, durable consumption of information and content in a useful, portable form. I am not saying that digital information and printed information are completely interchangable. They are not. They are complimentary technologies. One can never entirely replace the other. This could lead into the notion of fragmented audience shares, but I will leave that subject for another comment somewhere else.

reverse effetery  03/09/2008 04:48 PM Report

Carla, since you're being so picky, which are you cleaning up? Prepositions or pronouns? Further, which is the major offense: hubris or arrogance? Gotcha? Or ah hah? Me (or I) are clever, you am too as are CR. Cheers!

carla  03/09/2008 04:04 PM Report

not again!!! charlie, we have to clean up your prepositions...in this interview with Chris you say "interested in what happens between you and I" ...now just invert the pronouns - would you say between I and you? noooo. and i didn't alert you in time to prevent you from doing the same to harold pinter, of all people. he was too kind (or ill) to correct you....these are major grammatical errors. check 'em out, OK??

James Gardiner  03/09/2008 06:26 AM Report

This was a great interview. I like it in many ways but especially as it appear to explain some complex issues with media and internet very well.

One issue it does bring up in my mind is

"FREE digital Media = DRM"

I wrote a long blog post on my reasoning behind this. Find it here. Its too long for the comments.

http://www.crafted.com.au/blog/2008/03/09/free-digital-media-drm/

Thanks Charlie, great interviews.

James

YellowSpringer  03/08/2008 05:30 PM Report

Interesting, a discussion about how 'FREE' internet services survive and thrive, and yet when I come here to look for a URL I didn't quite catch, I'm asked to pay for it.

Anna  03/07/2008 11:41 PM Report

This is sort of an odd comment and perhaps beside the point, but did anyone notice that Chris Anderson was wearing the same shirt and jacket combination as the interview in July, 2006?

An enjoyable interview, at any rate!

Haz  03/07/2008 09:13 PM Report

I think Charlie did the best he could with this interview, but mining any novel ideas out of Mr. Anderson proved to be as laborious as a tooth extraction. It seemed that Mr. Anderson simply repackaged terms in Charlie's questions into answers. His use of the term "irrational exuberance" without attributing the phrase to Alan Greenspan was the last straw for me. I appreciate the interviews on technology and the future, but Charlie should look for tech nerds who are better able to critically think for themselves and offer the Charlie Rose audience a fresh perspective.

Allan Ramesh  03/07/2008 08:26 PM Report

Great interview and there really is a paradigm shift on information. There is so much good information out there for free the challenge is not whether to pay for it, but how to sort through what we want from all the free stuff. The web is even helping us with that even more effectively.

China and India and most of East Asia for that matter is jumping on this revolution much quicker than Chris seems to appreciate and that we will always be able to design here and manufacture there is not so obvious. When I lived on assignment in Asia, I found that they assimilate technology far quicker than the US (exception to Silicon Valley, and part of the rest of the US). I expect more leadership to originate from Asia. Even outside IT, technology adoption is quicker in Asia. Singapore for example has a remarkable high-tech traffic pricing strategy with variable pricing for driving in different zones of the city based on a smart chip on the dashboard. You can decide how much traffic you want to tolerate based on the price of the various options. If traffic gets too thick in an area, the price automatically adjusts higher to discourage travelers from using specific roads. LA, on the other hand, just stews in traffic every day. The lesson is that we cannot rest on our tech leadership for long.

mohan  03/07/2008 04:45 PM Report

@Shane - www.ning.com

Charlie - Thank you for yet another relevant interview.

Always wondered where this free-mania is headed towards.

Chris's explanation of the 3 economies makes perfect sense.

Nothing is really free, people are exchanging different things instead of money (attention and reptutation).

Also, the fact that Craigs List now spreads the investment/content/transaction value among many people instead of one big enterprise, gives the sense of 'free' in today's context.

Thanks again for getting us a different perspective.

Joe Hunkins  03/07/2008 02:58 PM Report

Charlie another great interview. I appreciated Anderson's optimism, which is typical of the digerati. I think this techno-optimism is justified although maybe it's just a sign of ... affluence.

www.joeduck.com

MotherLodeBeth  03/07/2008 02:26 PM Report

I so disagree with tech folk who suggest that American companies should outsource any of their buesiness. Be it web issues or computers themselves. I also so destest the double standard some tech companies have when it comes to Americans having free speech rights yet folks in places like China dont. Dont do to others what you dont want done to you. Period!

Robert Pollard  03/07/2008 02:02 PM Report

An excellent description of the dynamics of free information - although Chris Anderson omits the key underlying material basis of the evolving free information economy, namely, the nature and properties of information and the fact that information has zero mass and zero physical size, so its reproduction and dissemination is free from the constraints of the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

Charlie, you might consider inviting Yochai Benkler, Co-Chair of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society as a guest. Professor Benkler's highly-acclaimed book "The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom" (Yale University Press) goes beyond Chris Anderson's analysis in many respects, and he walks the talk by releasing his book under a Creative Commons licence. Chris Anderson would do well to follow suit if he believes in the thesis of his book.

Btw, Don's comment above is right on target re the fallacy of Chris Anderson's advocacy of "Design in the U.S.A, build in China".

Don  03/07/2008 12:48 PM Report

Design here, build there has limits. Ask the car manufacturers who had their lunch eaten by the Japanese which keep the two activities tightly linked. Eventually high end products come down the learning curve and the distribution curve and become more generic and price sensitive. So I agree with Charlie's concern that China, one day, will design as well. The Japanese clearly learned how.

Our culture - freedom, creativity, and flexibility gives us an edge, and it may just edge out the competitors down the road.

Charlie, your programs, are always a breathe of fresh air in an increasingly crowded, noisy, and low quality media world. Thank you.

Don

Shane  03/07/2008 12:11 PM Report

Thank you Dave

Dave Pollock  03/07/2008 02:59 AM Report

ning.com Robotics DIY Drones

Shane  03/07/2008 01:13 AM Report

what was the robotic blog service mentioned? Begins with N?

Grace  03/07/2008 01:13 AM Report

With regards to the question, "what do we have that China doesn't have" -It's called POP (TEENAGE) CULTURE - it's been exported throughout the world, but Americans, it seems better than any other citizens on the planet, seem to be able to â??manufactureâ?? it best. Thatâ??s our major export - Thatâ??s iphone, that's itunes, teenage, pop, culture - Americans spends more time, indeed can spend a life time in a state of â??beingâ?? that in a country like China - would be considered â??adolescentâ?? - we're a young nation - unlike China or Europe or even South America - and forget Russia â?? they havenâ??t created "culture" for many a generation.

Americans are "young" at heart â??- they like their "games" and toys and "thingsâ?? in a word CAPTIALISM - China will never understand capitalism in the way that almost all Americans- be they the rich or the poor that aspire to sneakers, leather coats, whatever. To perpetuate the â??American way of lifeâ?? there always has to be a better, greater toy.

I'm sure that in China, everyone, first day out â?? that considers themselves "hep" - if such types even exist - didn't go out and buy an iphone. It's just not part of the mentality - survival, churning out the whatever - America is prosperous in that it's people like being prosperous for the "toys" - especially men, 50 year old "teenagers"- if you know what I mean, seem to like to collect. THE DIFFERENCE IS POP CULTURE - that's why China will never be able to create the kinds of â??thingsâ?? that American's do â??

WE ARE YOUNG AT HEART - AND YOUNG IN NATIONHOOD - for better or worse we're almost innocent babes in the woods - all ego, testosterone, war, fighting, money, THE MATERIAL LIFE - spirituality is so small in the lives of most Americans - when you suffer you turn to God - and compared to the history of most nations - Americans have not suffered enough to turn toward the "God" within â?? weâ??re like infants - we, men, like the bright, glittery things - anything too complex won't "sell" even diplomacy seems to be too far out of reach for the biggest baby we ever have had as President - KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID is his Motto -

Hence - ... the reason why China could never be like America. It's so old it could never be young! For better or worse - we are the babies of the world and THAT, MR. WIRED, is why, in my humble opinion, China nor any other place where labor is cheap could ever "invent" like â??usâ?? Americans.

"Leisure" ......... you need a culture that promotes leisure - weekends and "holidays", not "living" as the French and Italians have mastered, and pop culture comes right out of that - The "TEENAGER" was created in the States along with Elvis Presley and Levis.... and that my fine fellow, is not what's being promoted to the people in China. Mindless leisure is something that Americans love. Hence - they can make, but never create mass pop cultural iconographic items, like the iphone. Why make a toy - an expensive "toy" for adults - "they're adults" for heavens sake, to paraphrase Cindy Adams, only in America, kids, only in America.

PS. "ASk.com" is not as good as Google, please... if he's "testing" the engines that's really scary. Perhaps, if he actually had a life and needed to find information, he would never say the work Ask.com and Google in the same breath; there's just no comparison.

Give it a "try" yourself and don't leave it to another "authority" to tell you what's happening.... Who is this blow hard, anyway, who can't even tell the difference between Ask.com and Goggle...? "Editor, techcrunch"??? He "blogs" for a living????????? A Chinaman might say, "That's a job for a grown man?" Pop Culture ... like I said, weâ??re a nation of. Blah, blah, blah. This guy wouldn't even have a job in China; and. right there is the difference between China and America. Weâ??re "living the American dream" â??Oyâ?? that a Chinaman or woman can only "manufacture."

racetoinfinity  03/07/2008 01:06 AM Report

I was with him more or less, until he advocated: "Design it in the U.S. - make it in China" (is the right course).

I'm not sure the "designers" of the poisoned toothpaste or lead painted toys in the U.S. were thrilled with the production quality coming out of low-wage, environmentally degradating, low human rights China and on and on. The shareholders here might have been, but not the "sophisticated" consumers; I doubt they appreciated being poisoned or driving on unsafe tires because of corrupt shortcuts, etc. in production in China.