“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moment’s notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-18 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from the week of October 28, 2018
This Week’s Podcast
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Shopping Changes
Today’s program isn’t really about the media. It’s about the impact that the digital media has on real world issues. I’ve done a lot of programs like that over the last decade. In most cases, they are mostly about how digital media is affecting old line media like print and broadcast. This is slightly different.
The advent of the internet meant that shopping could now be done from the comfort of our homes. That wasn’t a new concept, we’d been doing that out of the Sears catalog and other similar methods for more than a century. The immediacy of digital shopping turned the market on its head.
What got me thinking about this was a story that some grocery stores are redesigning the front of the store to make room for coolers for customers who shop online then come in to pick up their orders. I wondered if any other brick and mortar type stores were doing anything similar.
The answer was a resounding, YES!
There was one aspect that kept coming up that fascinates me. It’s stores not getting stuck in the digital world. One of the things that is bubbling up is extending the social media aspect of store apps into the stores themselves. At the House of Vans in London, England, they opened a custom BMX and skate park in the store. Give your customers the chance to do something they love that ties into your product line. Victoria’s Secret has an app aimed at a millennial audience called PINK Nation. In addition to all the stuff you would expect from an app, they also have on-campus events designed to bring together customers at colleges in real life for networking and socializing.
Even malls are getting the message. You may have heard that malls are dying like flies. It’s not true if you look at the statistics. The business experts note that we build too many malls over the last 20 years and the shakeout has begun. Some malls are thriving by becoming more like communities. They offer reason beyond buying stuff to pull people away from home. A modern mall is very different from the old style. It may include mass transit hubs, office space, outdoor plaza space and lots and lots of food. These malls aren’t intended to be a place you buzz into buy a few things and buzz back out. They want you to consider spending the day there, and are providing plenty of reasons to do just that.
Digital media changed how we shop once, and it looks like it might be doing it again.
Bot News
So we begin the week with a question. Do you know what a “bot” is? According to the folks at TechTerms.com, “bot” is short for “robot”. In this case, it is an automated internet program. Some of them run automatically while some only do their bot-ty thing when they get the correct input. That could be anything from you visiting the website where they live, to asking them a question. Bots have been in the news most recently because they have been spreading false information about people and events in the news.
The folks at the Pew Research Center did a survey at the end of the summer asking about our understanding of bots. Most of us have at least heard of bots when it comes to social media. About two thirds of the respondents said that were aware of the concept, but only 16% said they knew a lot about them. When it comes to the question of are bots doing good in the digital world, or are they forces of evil, the overwhelming majority are convinced that they are a bad thing. The numbers run 80% bad versus only 17% who think they work for good. The primary field for their nefarious practice, we believe, is in spreading fake news on social media.
There is an interesting note that in a survey two years ago, 84 percent of us felt we could identify bot on our own. In the latest survey, that number drops to only 47% who are at least somewhat confident they could identify one.
So is there a good way to identify these cockroaches of the internet? Here are some easy ways to spot the bad actors out there.
Check the accounts biographical details. If it doesn’t sound like a real person, it probably isn’t. And the profile picture? There are some easy reverse image search programs out there that will tell you if it’s been pulled from somewhere else.
Another quick check is this – do they post constantly? Like every hour for a day or more? Even the most dedicated human takes a break now and then. Bots often won’t.
What do you do if you think you’ve found a bot account on your favorite social media? Do yourself a favor and don’t argue with it. Remember, it’s a robot. It’s got all day. Report it to the platform, then mute or block it. Denying it the air of being shared is the best way to kill the pesky buggers.
Shopping Changes
Recently, an ad keeps popping up in my smartphone. It’s not something that comes with a malware attack, just something that seems to be following me at the moment. It happens periodically.
In this case, I had no idea what it was for. The only reason why it stuck in my head was because it features an attractive young woman with her blouse open, showing off her underwear. Now that’s an indication that the algorithm bots have indeed figured out how to catch this middle aged guy’s eye. But I still had no idea what they were trying to sell me. I had a sneaking suspicion that it might be something that Mrs. Phlipside would approve of for my viewing. So I skimmed right by.
There was one other thing in the add. Well, two actually. Two words. “London Fields”. And it turns out that THAT is the name of a movie. So, the bots are really doing well in the whole “What Jay likes to look at” thing.
If you’ve never heard of this movie, it’s not surprising. “London Fields” is one of those legendary movies that has had to fight past all kinds of hurdles to make it to the big screen. It’s based on a book of the same name by Martin Amis, and it stars some pretty big names – Amber Heard, I’m pretty sure she’s the woman in the ad, Billy Bob Thornton, Johnny Depp. That should get some buzz, right?
Well, not so much. Turns out that the movie is entering into legend in another way. It’s one of the biggest flops in recent movie history. On its opening weekend “London Fields” opened on 613 screens in North America. It brought in a total, a total I say again, of $116, 470. That’s $190 worth of tickets at each theater. At 600+ screens this is considered “wide release” in the movie industry. So it got a legitimate shot at making it.
It appears the problem is that the movie is awful. I haven’t seen it, and it’s unlikely that I will, but the critics hated it. To the point that it has a 0% on the ratings aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes. The production team, the director and Heard are now all suing one another over this fiasco.
Ranking behind only 2008’s fiasco “Proud American”, “London Fields” has the dubious distinction of having a failed advertisement be more interesting than the movie itself.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2018
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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