CPM HELL

Thanks Itay Dreyfus for bringing this to my attention:

“The internet makes me blind to the scale of things. If I write a blog post that is read by 2000 people that feels like crickets (these days). But last night we had 200 people come to the opening of a new exhibition at the gallery. It was overwhelming.”

Henrik Karlsson

Let’s not forget why 2,000 people on the internet don’t feel like a lot: cost per thousand ad impressions (Cost per mile [CPM]—mille is Latin for thousand).

As that CPM rate went down, more ads went on the page. Two display ads. Three. A pop-under.

It wasn’t that 2,000 people reading your work was bad. The CPM rate was “bad,” so something that got read by 20,000 people was considered “good.” After all, we have to keep the lights on!

The problem was, as more corporate interests crept in, we didn’t just need to keep the lights on. We had to pay the salaries of lots of dude bros in sports jackets and the electric bill for keeping 27 LED TVs running day and night in the office.

CAPTURE THE LAKES

Bringing my camera equipment on my running adventures is fun because when I have a “meh” kind of run (like I did tonight), I can still take a stroll along the lake and try and capture the sounds of nature.

This is my set up; a Nikon Z30 and a Zoom H6. Both are just pretty much at their default settings, as I’m still figuring out how best to do any of his.

I’m sure at some point I’ll get into the finer points of manual controls with video. Maybe a shotgun mic at some point? At least a wind cover. I’m okay with the audio edits I’m able to make in Davinci Resolve, at least.

For now this is another thing that keeps me in the woods longer, and I’m quite okay with that.

TAKE OUR PICTURE!

On a recent morning walk about town I took a photo outside of this barbershop, and Keith (on the right) shouted “hey, come take our picture!”

Mind you, I’ve been walking around town the last few months still trying to figure out this camera. It’s a Nikon ZFC with full manual controls, so I’m always dialing in the shutter speed, aperture, and all that fun stuff.

All that noodling around paid off I guess, as I was able to get this photo in two takes, with some minor editing in Adobe Lightroom.

Here’s some more recent shots:

VIDEOS FROM THE WOODS

I love being in the woods. Usually I just take a bunch of photos with my iPhone and send them to a friends afterwards, but now I’m enjoying making some chill-vibes videos like this.

I’m hauling a real camera (Nikon Z30), a tripod, and a Zoom H6 audio recorder with me to capture these moments. I mean, to be able to capture the sounds of the birds? The movement of the creek? Oh my, I love it so much.

I’ve made a few so far and got more to learn, of course, but I’m enjoying the process.

RETURN TO THE WEB

The only thing holding us back from having the internet experience is ourselves.

“Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it’s become a lot easier. We can return.“

This from Molly White, in a piece called ‘We can have a different web.’

We can set up websites for cheap, using a multitude of tools. We can create directories, or field guides, or fan pages for anything we want.

We can link to each others things from our websites, our newsletters, our DMs, our Discords or forums.

It might feel slower, since techbros at social media giants have been feeding you the Kool-Aid that without them you’ll turn to dust, but that just ain’t true.

EARLY TWITTER USER

I’ve been going through so many old photos and images since ditching Apple Photos, and found this from 2013, a screen shot of Twitter, with my Twitter user number as evidence of being one of the first 3,000 to sign up for the service. Un freaking real that I used that service for 17 years.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE CRAZY

I got a DM today from a reader of Social Media Escape Club:

“When I first started reading your posts I thought you were crazy. Honestly.”

They went on to tell me how they’ve been ignoring social media for any sort of promoting for their project, and – SHOCKER – it had no effect.

I’ve talked to a lot of artists about all this social media / “having a newsletter” thing, and I’m telling you, people have been beating their heads against a wall with this stuff, but also suffering from a bit of Stockholm Syndrome.

“A proposed condition or theory that tries to explain why hostages sometimes develop a psychological bond with their captors.”

Yes, there are folks who have a positive or neutral relationship with social media. If that’s you, fantastic.

Just because you don’t have a problem with social media, does not mean people experience the platform in the same way.

For some, social media is dreadful, which is then made worse by the idea that without it you’re doomed. And that’s a horrible place to be.