Get Your Own Buzz

(C) 2010 Stan Spire


I've got a few questions for Jeff Jarvis, CUNY J prof and media consultant.

Over at his blog, http://www.buzzmachine.com/, Jarvis holds forth on different issues pertaining to mainstream and newstream media.

In his post, "The price of privacy," Jarvis talks about a book he's working on, raising certain issues. Towards the end of his essay he writes:

"I’m exploring these ideas for my book so please help me tease them out. What are the implications of abundant publicness and scarce privacy?"

Crowdsourcing your book, Jeff? You got a book deal with HarperCollins so that means a bit of profit in your pocket. Nothing wrong with that but why should I help you write a book unless I get a cut of the action? I thought there were plenty of college students around to exploit. (I'm aware of this from being an exploited student when I was in college.)

Why don't you write a post for me at this crappy blog for free?

If you're so gung-ho on new media, why not release your book as a free e-book? I'm assuming you're making a decent income from your teaching and media consultant gigs.

That's what the newstream has to offer: bypassing the gatekeepers and making your work widely available. Screw HarperCollins.