Blogging – Walt-O-Matic

Advertising Is Killing Distribution Platforms

Agressive and intrusive advertising techniques seem like they are the road to profitability, but there is a wake of evidence showing how it systematically destroys the very platforms intended to generate revenue.

If revenues are the golden eggs, and media/apps/websites the goose, then aggressive, intrusive advertising practices are the hatchet that killed the goose.

The evidence is everywhere.

Broadcast television used to have commercials between shows, then during shows, and eventually digressed to the point where the frequency of continual viewing interruption made it so that certain channels weren’t worth watching anymore. And, oddly enough, to make up for lost revenues, those channels increased the amount of advertising.

From this cable television was born, based on the the idea that if the consumer paid for content, the majority of it would be advertising-free. Although within not much time, advertising leaked in again, and eventually people were back to the old model that used to work: advertising between shows; only this time paying for the privilege.

Then a new consumer product arrived on the market, TiVo, which helped customers skip past commercials; but this early feature was all-to-quickly neutered to fast-forward-only so you’d still have the opportunity to at least see the commercials in the event you wanted to watch one.

While more modern TiVo units now have reintroduced the skip commercial ability, the once clean graphical interface now is littered with dynamic menu choices for products, shows, and offers that appear when you pause to view a frame or try to avoid the commercials.

In response to all this, broadcasters started injecting banners and overlay graphics during the show so you “had” to watch, consuming screen real-estate to announce other shows, products, or news changing the entertainment into a dashboard. Meanwhile producers started injecting product placements into actual content. In the process it means all the display pixels you paid for aren’t being used effectively, it’s distracting to watch, and can lead to some rather embarrassing sexual mishaps between show and ad for the network.

Overall, entertainment quality has gone down, presentation quality has also gone done, consumer costs have gone up, and it’s no wonder we now see a whole generation of cord cutters who have found other means to go straight to content.

The DVD market suffered a similar fate. There was a time when you bought a DVD, you got the movie and possibly special bonus material, and that was all. DVDs started inserting trailers and other commercials at the start of the movie. For a while, consumers would skip to the actual content. Then that capability was removed, and consumers fast-forwarded, which itself was challenged by the now famous “option not available” notice.

In response, streaming services appeared and consumers stopped stocking their media collections at the rate they once had. But now we see pay-for streaming media starting to inject previews and advertising in front of shows. We know where this leads: service termination and few barriers to exiting the moment a new technology surfaces. And it will, it always does.

YouTube’s success led to advertising, not surprisingly at the beginning of a video. And as viewers skipped as soon as possible, a new trend appeared: advertising pop ups over the video. (See a trend?) So while watching content, one is constantly distracted, having to dismiss dialogs; while dealing with that, one isn’t digesting the content. And like we’ve seen before, this leads to platform abandonment.

Other competing video streaming services have started to give rise. It’s surprising, but consumers will often take less content and less quality in exchange for less advertising. YouTube Red emerged as an advertising-free subscription service, just as the cable companies did before. We know where that goes next.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HBO were quick to discover that developing high-quality original content would lure viewers, but as more familiar advertising tendencies start to surface, enthusiasm for these platforms dwindles. At some point one starts to ask is the subscription cost justifying actual usage patterns, as consumers are slowly being pushed away. Consumers are becoming more picky while businesses look for augmenting recurring revenue.

Homes all used to have land lines, and as cell phones became cheaper and popular, house holds got them in addition to their highly reliable land lanes. However, with telemarketers invading at all hours, land lines became a dumping ground for calls we didn’t want to take. Services like Caller ID appeared, as well as the national Do Not Call list. However, due to no security in how caller ID works, numbers can be spoofed. Meanwhile, law enforcement has been ineffective at dealing to those breaking the law regarding the no call list, and advertisers for the most part ignore it. Politicians have self-servingly made themselves exempted and are often some of the worse offenders. The result, consumers have disconnected their land lines and are now mostly cell based.

However, it doesn’t take much any more for a new cell phone number to get out into the wild and make it into a robo-caller list. The net result, if someone doesn’t recognize a number, they tend not to pick up. Our cell phones are becoming spam dumps, and once direct access to someone is now fading. Meanwhile, advertisers having grown wise that people are letting content drop to voice mail, and so leave automated recorded messages, which at the end of the sales pitch, one might have the opportunity to be removed from that list (which never gets pressed), although that merely confirms the number works for other endeavors.

This has in turn led to a shift in how we even use phones to communicate, and text messaging is rapidly replacing phone calls. Even now, we’re starting to see advertising start to break into text messaging, initiated by none other than the very carriers of the service.

The home mailbox, originally intended for correspondences and packages, soon became the primary methodology of mass advertising. Consider the signal to noise ratio of your actual mailbox content between what you want verses unsolicited advertising that you have to sort through after each trip to the mail box. The difference in pile size is growing.

With so much volume introducing delay, it’s no wonder that there isn’t a measure of care during processing, and goods often arrive damaged, which in turn devalues most people’s impression of the U.S. Postal Service, their trust in it, and consequently their use.

To avoid postal mail, most people have switched to email and electronic billing; aside from the occasional package from Amazon, there’s relatively little reason to check a postal mailbox on a daily basis anymore.

We will never see postal mail delivering more than once a day as it used to not that long ago with morning and evening deliveries. And because the service is become so bad and fewer people using it, its led at least to discussions of not delivering on weekends.

Services once reserved for over night or over sized deliveries have taken on more casual load once entrusted to the post office. At the moment, advertisers find the service too expensive, so the rate structure is keeping things in check. Should that change, we know what will happen.

Email used to be a way to send messages to one another, and as the population with email addresses grew, advertisers saw it ripe for exploitation. It’s lack of encryption meant that anonymous senders could forge false from addresses and perform automated bulk mailing on a scale of unprecedented magnitude. Worse yet for the unaware receiver, the spammer can often detect if the message was read and use that information to cultivate a list of active emails. If the sender could employ social engineering successfully, it was actually possible to install advertising software on the receiver’s machine — often without them knowing. And best of all for the advertiser, under this model, the receiver pays to receive and store the message!

At this point, it is estimated that 80% of internet traffic is spam. Not emails. Internet traffic. That’s a lot of bandwidth that you’re paying for with 80% of it being used to help other people advertise at little to no cost to them. And the problem is only getting worse.

Despite spam filters, firewalls, and anti-virus software email has gotten so bad that most people have several email accounts, and use one for highly likely spam and another for personal communication. However, the moment one of our contacts shares the personal email address with some bulk email list, it’s relatively little time before it gets compromised and we’re on to another new email address, where the process starts all over, just like folks eventually changed their phone numbers for a little peace.

Websites, attempting to capitalize on traffic, started presenting advertising on the sides of their pages, and later interlaced within the articles themselves. Screaming for visual attention, ads became more gaudy, employed blinking, animation, sound and video, and pop-up dialogs, pop-under dialogs, which soon overwhelmed the value content. Visitors responded with ad blocking tools.

Websites responded by waiting a little bit and then putting a pop-over that blocks out the content below, this obnoxious behavior usually leads to site abandonment as it’s just not worth it. Sometimes, abandonment can’t be avoided: say you’re using the Flipboard app to get your news on an iPhone, it takes you the ScienceNews website, they invoke a non-mobile friendly pop-up, and you can’t see the content nor can you dismiss it. Such websites become dead to visitors.

Admittedly, this may be some interaction between 1Blocker and their advertising code, but seeing that 1Blocker can dramatically speed up load times -and- save on carrier data usage, between it and visiting such a site, 1Blocker wins hands down.

A number of websites have taken the approach that if you don’t let the advertising through, they won’t show the content. Sounds reasonable until you realize they aren’t vetting the advertising content that’s being shown. And malicious advertisers are exploiting that. The consequence of opening a rectangle of any-old content makes solid brand names incidental parties into delivering malware straight to your system. GRC provides a recent list of sites, who just by visiting, have been found to infect machines via advertising services: The New York Times, the BBC, MSN, AOL, Xfinity.com, NFL.com, Realtor.com, TheWeatherNetwork.com, TheHill.com, Newsweek.com, Answers.com, ZeroHedge, and InfoLinks.

A more disturbing practice involves hardware manufactures installing advertising malware in the hardware to make a little extra profit per unit sold. We’ve seen Dell and Gateway load up cruft on new Windows systems, but laptop maker Lenovo built mechanisms into their systems to bypass the end-user’s ability to keep the system clean, even on a pristine reinstall. This practice took them from being one of the most sought after name brands to one to be avoided, all thanks to aggressive and intrusive advertising practices.

Software is no different. Oracle got busted for making the Java installer schedule a background task for a few minutes after installation and then install advertising software; this way the end user wouldn’t notice anything wrong and presumably think it was caused by something else. Both have serious ongoing damaging effects to the Oracle and Java brands in professional circles.

Likewise, many software installer products use deceptive wording to get Ask and Yahoo toolbars installed, all for their own piece of the pie. Both search engines, once considered at least respectable, have lost significant ground to other players from both reputation damage and public mistrust, as well as firewall and ad-blocking rules to prevent installation of such nonsense. Browser owners are encouraged to remove Flash, Silverlight, QuickTime, and Java extensions from their browsers, as this will greatly reduce the attack vector as well as many malicious “advertisement” payloads.

iPhone apps have the ability to show a small banner on occasion or produce a pop-up in the middle of the app. Not only are these practices distracting to the end user, but are reinforced because the more they’re shown, the more revenue made. That makes advertising apps seemingly more profitable than fixed priced apps, which in turn is driving down the amount a professional app can earn.

All of this is changing consumer behavior, and we see app abandonment on the rise, diminished purchasing habits especially in impulse buying, and a noticeable dip in quality and creativity in the available selection.

Even Windows 10 has started to put advertising in its Start Menu and screen saver, and that’s not even counting the aggressive multi-gig push, annoying notifications, deceptive wording on dialog boxes to get you to install it. Such things can not be helping platform adoption.

The evidence is everywhere, aggressive and intrusive advertising practices actually hurts the very distribution platforms that are trying to benefit from it.

We need responsible advertising, not necessarily no advertising.

The Pattern is Clear

Worthwhile content is created, a distribution channel is developed for it, the audience grows. At some point, someone gets the idea that a little advertising will generate a little bit of revenue, and in the short-term it works.

Then the fallacy of if-a-little’s-good—then-a-lot’s-better kicks in, and either the distribution channel gets saturated with ads, the content gets damaged, or the ratio between the two gets so disjoint that the over all value tanks.

Desperation and greed can push the state of things beyond recovery, and what was once a sustainable system no longer has the following it once did, and usually by this time the audience has moved on to other technologies.

Synopsis

It appears we’re great at repeating history, but neglecting consequences.
Consumers are willing to pay for great content without advertising.
Consumers do not want to be distracted by anything else while engaging with content.
Advertising requires a balance, more isn’t better. It must be done responsibly.
Intrusive and aggressive advertising leads to platform abandonment.

My take on the (OS X) App Store so far

The App Store … it’s Terrific, Average, and Awful all at the same time.

I’ve been asked a few times now what I think about the app store. Never before has a feature scored terrific, average, and awful all at the same time for me. Here’s the break down.

What’s Terrific
Apple has made the integration as sweet and easy as System Update, with a trivial installation process that just works universally.

But that’s not the part that has me whistling Dixie — it’s that applications no longer use serial numbers nor do they phone home, instead they use cryptography. Nothing to pollute your network traffic. No software failing validation checks on a plane unable to reach a server.

And, given that I can now run software I paid for on machines owned by me, that’s a big win.

Plus, it unifies the Apple-culture a bit more in that upgrades work the way you expect: you don’t have to always reach for your wallet or buy stupid subscriptions.

What’s Average
The user interface, while simple, still isn’t hammered out in that perfect design that ever-so-well fits the problem space that Apple’s known for. For instance, under certain circumstances, buttons don’t behave the same way potentially causing one to purchase an unexpected item.

The store is missing a CONFIRM button before purchases, a CANCEL button as it’s happening, and more importantly a RETURN UNOPENED if it gets to the doc.

Many apps that have been acquired from other means don’t show up as INSTALLED, making for a very bumpy upgrade path. Others work just fine. Hopefully that will stabilize in the future.

What’s Awful
Some apps are dumbed down in terms of functional restrictions of the features we know and love due to Apple’s Terms of Use. There’s also fears of rejections by Apple, in addition to dealing with the approval process that still doesn’t feel completely worked out or entirely equitable between similar applications or that could be considered competitive.

Browsing the App Store, one notices the gross lack of a Genius mode.

Plus, while there are supposed to be a bazillion apps out there already, only a small handful appear to be browseable. This raises concerns that a popular app may drown out a cheaper and better competitor. Hopefully there will be more ways to slice and dice the browsing experience.

However, two major complaints are still outstanding and pretty valid.

One is that most of the apps on the App Store are crap — the easy distribution mechanism has flooded the market with apps of low interest of quality. It’s like when everyone published a flashlight app for the iPhone, and iFart was the talk of the town. For the historically minded, it was like when Atari opened its console system, and while it had the most game, only a handful were worth playing. Hopefully the rating system will help this problem. In the meanwhile, each ugly app drags the reputation of the App Store down a notch; unless the ratio reverses, the App Store will take on the same appeal as a yard sale.

Two is that many of the apps are priced in ways that don’t make a lot of sense. Someone produces a fantastic game, and it’s a dollar or less. Someone else produces a horrible looking monstrosity and charges $19.95 for it. The costs don’t reflect the features or quality. And, while good in the short term, and just the short term, we may see a plunge much the way that most iPhone apps cost 99 cents.

WordPress FTPS is not SFTP

Is WordPress giving you server errors when you try to update or upload themes? Are your only two options FTP and FTPS (which is not SFTP)? Here’s how to fix that, make WordPress work with SSH, giving you an SSH2 option for updating. And it works.

A major shout of thanks goes to Jon for his WordPress post entitled Enabling SSH/SFTP Updates.

I’d been struggling with making WordPress updates work properly for the longest time, setting up file ownerships and permissions. Things always seemed to be mostly right. If I tried to do an update of any form, I’d see this:

Error: There was an error connecting to the server

WordPress offers FTP and FTPS (SSL).

I’d try the secure option and things just would not work. Then I’d go examine my SFTP connections and my SSH, and it’d all be working fine.

It took bdawson‘s post on FTPS vs. SFTP to make me realize I was so falling into the habit of typing STFP that I didn’t realize that wasn’t what WordPress was offering!

With Jon’s post, enabling SFTP in WordPress becomes trivial.

# apt-get install libssh2-php
# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

The SSH2 option then presents itself, and all is right in the world. Thanks guys!

Seeing in Black and White

I just had an interesting thing happen: I saw in black and white. That’s what my brian actually saw with the unaided eye. Here’s the cool part, I tell you how I reproduced it. It was like nothing I’d experienced before. It was beautiful.

A few moments ago, I just had a very interesting and unique experience. I saw in black’n’white. I’d never had this happen before in my life. First I’ll describe the experience, then how I did it, which, curiously enough was repeatable.

“It was clearly not imagination… It was a greyscale world that I physically saw, like a black and white movie, but a zillion times sharper, far more dynamic range, and in 3D.”

With the totally unaided eye, my brain saw my surroundings, in broad daylight, in black and white. The only exception was that objects which were normally bright red had an ever slight red hue to them, but it was only brilliant red objects that did this.

The effect lasted about 7-10 seconds in duration before the color faded back in, almost as if the saturation was being brought up from near nothing to normal.

To convey the effect, this is much like the image I saw:

When I moved my eyes to look at other parts of the scene, the effect diminished, but if I kept focusing on one spot, like a child’s staring contest, the effect would hold longer. This was very much the inverse of the behavior of an after-image, where if you stay still it fades, but if you rapidly blink, it returns.

The black and white effect composed of the entire field of view. And as it gently faded back to normal, it affected more of the center of the field of view first:

It only took 2-3 seconds for normal color to return. There was no pain or any form of discomfort before, during, or after. I’m in very good health.

It was as if the signals from the cones were being ignored by the brain, but the signals from the rods were fine. I remember that the detail was astounding, and that the tone of the grass was very similar to the sky, though I’ve been unable to represent that as closely as I’d like in my photographic simulation.

I’m certain you’ve personally woken up in the morning and upon your eyes adjusting to the light have seen the image fade in, not focus, but as your brian assembles bits of the information into meaningful images, like it’s adapting to light after not being exposed to it for a long while.

Here’s how I did it.

I’m going to err on the side of giving too much information, some that might not be relevant, primarily because I don’t know what actually caused it. However, I was able to recreated it, on demand, several minutes later by experimentation; the effect lasted even longer. It was wondrous.

Being inside for the better part of the morning, I figured I’d go outside an lay in the sun for a few minutes. So, I lay down on my back on our driveway which has a slight incline. It was about thirty minutes past noon, and the sun was slightly overhead just off center to my right, enough that it was still bright enough that just closing my eyes was uncomfortable, so I criss-crossed my arms over them to put them in shadow, though I could still tell it was very bright out with my eyes closed. The weather was 89°F, I was in direct light, and there were few clouds in the sky.

I rested this way for about 10 minutes, and I did so just to the point where my eyes were fully relaxed and no longer concerned about the brightness of the light though my eyelids. Also, I wasn’t quite drifting off, but relaxed as you might be just taking in warmth of a nice day at the beach.

What led to the discovery was that I heard a car drive by and so I sat up quickly, opening my eyes. Two things stood out. One, this gave me a slight head-rush, though I’d describe it weak at best. Two, my eyes had not adjusted to the light fully. And, although while bright, it wasn’t uncomfortable, there was no blinding whitewash, no pain, and no caused for squinting required — I was looking away from direct light.

That’s when I noticed the scene seemed extremely washed out and monochromatic; it looked like a black and white photograph.

Thinking my mind or eyes were playing tricks on me, I moved my eyes, but the effect lasted longer than a second, though faded as I looked at more “new” material in my field of attention.

The reds came rushing back in first, with greens right after. It wasn’t one color than another, it was overlapped. I became visually more aware of reds, as that happened, greens started replacing the grey tones as well, and by the time greens were normal, the other colors like purples and blues from the nearby flowers in our garden were already present.

This part will be hard to describe because there’s no English equivalent for it, but it wasn’t like I was seeing in black and white, but rather the absence of color.

I know that sounds identical from a logic standpoint, but the perception was an absence of something, not the presence of something. Intellectually, I knew there had to be color, I just wasn’t seeing it.

It was a greyscale world that I physically saw, like a black and white movie, but a zillion times sharper, far more dynamic range, and in 3D.

It was clearly not imagination, nor dream, it was very real and perceptible.

That’s what made me want to try and repeat it.

Though this time around, if I could get it to work, I’d plan a more scientific excursion. So I selected an area of our yard with brilliant colors, our flower garden, which would be my baseline.

First, I waited about 5 minutes and looked at the area, taking in all the things I should be expecting to see. The area was already in normal color after the effect had faded long ago, but I wanted to be sure.

So, I laid back down with the intention of trying to get the head rush. I shielded my eyes in shadow, and waited for them to relax and get comfortable, and then waiting a moment, quickly sat up and stared at the area I knew had colorful flowers, a bright red car, and tons of green grass. I made sure I would focus only in one area, trying to stare out to infinity, much as you’d do for those 3D posters, though I was more trying to keep my eyes in a relaxed state because I wanted them in focus.

The preparation this time around took merely a minute or two. The head-rush was again weak from sitting up quickly. I turned in the direction I had planned and opened my eyes.

It’d worked.

The effect returned just as before, but lasted this time about 20 seconds and the effect was just as strong until I couldn’t help myself and look at the astounding detail in scene around me, which caused the effect to fade.

Since I had more time to study the scene, this is when I actually noticed the reds within the black’n’white image in my head. The B/W effect seemed more pronounced when I didn’t move my eyes, relaxing them.

When I turned to look at other things, color would seep in, and if I held my eyes relaxed in the same spot, the color would fade back out partly, much the same way as you can make objects in your blind spot vanish by holding your vision still long enough. That same kind of fading away was what I saw, but with color.

I suspect the effect is caused less by the head rush and more by the eyes being exposed and conditioned to bright light (even with the eyes closed, or maybe the red light through the eyelids saturates the cones like a red filter, though I did not see a green after image). When the eyes are opened, there’s a whole rush of visual information, and I suspect the brain is compensating for the overload by taking in shapes, detail, and tone and then overlaying color after the signal settles. I wasn’t aware that visual processing of color was an independent process.

This led me to two very interesting side thoughts.

One, I’ve always wondered if while under hypnosis people really saw things but said they didn’t, or whether their honestly perceived it. I now know it’s possible to perceive things differently than the visual input as actually providing.

Two, the black and white image was astonishingly detailed in greyscale, much like an Ansel Adams image. Being able to produce this effect on demand to view how a scene might be photographed in black and white is a fantastic tool to have in one’s photographic arsenal.

I hope science doesn’t declare this is bad for you, because I’m going to do it again!

[UPDATE: I can’t get it to happen inside, seems bright sunlight is required.]

Policy Backfires

Ever wonder how a well-intentioned policy turns into a horrible nightmare for the very people it was designed to serve? I found the perfect example at Apple’s WWDC where going to the restroom isn’t permitted for adults.

Ever wonder how a well-intentioned policy turns into a horrible nightmare for the very people it was designed to serve? I found the perfect example.

Let’s take the case of Apple’s technical WWDC ’09 conference in San Francisco. Brilliant talks. Amazing speakers. Fantastic audio and video. It’s good stuff.

Now Apple is a company that is on the forefront of user experience, they pioneer usability and design, and their big presentation this year is on efficient resource and queue management. You’d think this innovative thinking would hold over into how they actual manage crowd control, but you’d be wrong. Apple has totally missed the mark. I know, it seems impossible.

There’s an absolutely stupid policy that’s being enforced, and while the best of intentions are there, the policy isn’t helping anyone. It actually makes things worse. Follow this.

You’ve figured out your course tracks for the day, bunkered down to do some work on your laptop, and are watching a series of presentations being held in that room with your development buddy. It finishes, and so you tell him “Can you watch my stuff, I’m going to hit the restroom before the next presentation.” He says ‘sure’ and you leave. After all, being a convention center, the restrooms leave little to be desired in terms of personal space.

On the way out, you’d tell the Apple guy at the door “be right back” and empty handed you walk across the hall to the restroom, return in minute, and reclaim your equipment-occupied seat. At least that was how it was at the start of the conference. All was fine. Things ran like clockwork.

Mid-conference someone revised the policy. Instead, if you leave, you now have to go wait in line to return.

Why did Apple do this? I asked. Two reasons.

First, by only letting people out and not back in, this is supposed to make things easier for the presenters to set up.

Second, it’s supposed to establish an order of fairness for those people coming into line.

On the surface it appears to make sense, but what this policy really does is prevent grown adults from being able to go to the restroom. Instead, you’re standing there with a full bladder and Apple’s staff is literally telling you that you’ve got three options:
a) Hold it until the session starts.
b) Abandon your equipment (as you might not have a buddy to watch it), and then wait in line to see if it’s there when you get back.
c) Go get your equipment and hold it while you do your business, and potentially miss the session (although you already had a seat).

Let’s examine this.

1) Does the policy improve seating fairness?
No. There’s equipment, and most likely a person, reserving the seat until you return. No one standing in line is going to benefit whether you reclaim it now or later. And, realistically, every talk that has been “filled to capacity and people were turned away” had plenty of chairs mid-row, plus people are willing to stand.

2) Does this improve the line?
No. It actually makes them longer, meaning Apple has more to manage. And, as the lines wrap all over the halls, it makes them more cramped, confusing, and uncomfortable.

3) Does it make conference attendees happier?
No. It’s annoying, bordering on rude, telling someone they have to return to their seat and wait for the presentation to start in order to relieve themselves. It’s a frequent conversation topic to overhear, Apple is putting a lot of people off.

4) Does it make Apple look corporately smart?
No. In fact, even its own employees are mocking the policy behind Apple’s back, all the while blindly enforcing it (most of the time), at the door. Even their own realize how ludicrous it is. This makes Apple look bad in a very self-aware Dilbert way. Of course there’s an insulting double set of standards, as the guy managing the gate preventing people from using the restroom calls on his buddy to take his place while he goes to take a piss.

5) Does it make the presentations go smoother for the presenters?
No. In fact, worse. Now one has to wait for the presentation to start, interrupting the speaker, and by going in and out letting more light in the room. It causes distractions. Plus I’ve seen one attendee fall over a chair during a presentation, and two people trip during a presentation, all trying to temporarily exit.

6) Does it make viewing the presentation go smoother for the attendees?
No. Being seated in the middle, one now has to navigate over other people who are trying to watch the presentation. I’ve had my equipment kicked as well as my foot stepped on by someone telling me “whew, now I can go.”

7) Is it safer?
No. There is now less room to get out, where before the row was empty. Plus, there are power cords, laptops, cases, drinks and other obstacles to navigate, crush, and trip on.

8) Does it provide accurate metrics for seating?
No. In re-entering you get counted a second time. This messes up Apple’s counts and artificially makes room seem more full, turning away people who could be viewing.

9) Does it make it easier for the presenters to set up?
No. The presenters are up on stage, a good distance from the audience. No one is trying to interact with the presenters before the talk.

Got more reasons it’s a bad idea? Let’s hear them.

So, what starts as a “good idea” ends up impacting far more people than it should. Compare this to a simple first-come first-serve policy, which would allow everyone to get settled before a talk begins. If seats are full, stand; if you don’t want to stand, sit; if you don’t want to sit, find another session; if you don’t want that to happen, get there on time or before, just like everyone else does. It’s acceptable to leave a session during Q&A in order to find a good seat at the next session.

Unfortunately, as with most failed policies, the solution usually is to add more policies (rather than correcting the root problem). Kudos to Apple for not going this extra step. The slippery slope would be to kick everyone out in order to have them stand in line again; that however would be truly idiotic, especially given the equipment people carry and set up to attend these things.

Skipping Out on TFP

Photographers make note that a good number of models don’t take TFP arrangement seriously, often ending in a no-show or abrupt cancellations. This can make a photographer hesitant about offering them in the first place. But, as a model, should you accept a TFP? Should accepting them as work be in your written profile? Will it get you paid gigs too? And does the ‘F’ in TFP stand for “free?” If so, what do TFP arrangement gain you? Well, here are the answers and some things you didn’t know.

A photographer’s unwritten rule is that if a model is a no-show without an advanced cancellation, never use her again, much less extend a TFP deal to her or her friends, and warn my fellow colleagues that there’s a high element of risk to consider if they think about using her.

Conversely, models that are amazing to work with and are professional, I personally cut steep discounts for, retouch more photos for, provide actual prints to, use as often as I can, bend my schedule for, extend projects to first, and share news of them with everyone I can find.

Obviously, many models are looking for paid work, and many also have a greater sense of their worth than their experience, looks, or willingness commands. Luckily, a model’s portfolio tells a great deal about her than just her looks. If she’s got a lot of photos from a number of different photographers, she’s most likely reliable. If she has a variety of poses, she’s most likely willing to try new things. If she looks great universally, she most likely has actual experience.

I suspect the starting out model doesn’t know her worth and sees it as just standing in front of the camera will turn on the cash spigot. But she also knows that if she can’t demonstrate experience, a photographer will pass her over during casting.

So, to combat this, she tries to cheat the system by indicating she’s willing to work for TFP, when in fact she’s not necessarily fully committed to the idea. An inexperienced model thinks that TFP means “free photos” and doesn’t realize that the photographer is paying her with his time, which often dollar-for-dollar can be very much in a new-model’s favor.

By assigning no “value” to the TFP, she feels it’s something she can walk out on without consequence because it must also be of no value to the photographer, too. Wrong. A number of photographers hold multiple jobs, and if he takes off a day to do a photo shoot and goes through the trouble of setting up the equipment or renting space, the photographer takes it in the shorts not once, but twice. No wonder he may become embittered.

As such the model thinks that she’ll get TFP deals and paid deals, and then elect to only accept the paid ones. Conversely, she might tell herself that she’ll do a TFP deal, but only if it’s a famous, rockin’ photographer. What she doesn’t get (we’re talking new, inexperienced models here still) is that she’s killing her chance to build a portfolio, by extension get a paid gig, or be sought by Mr. Super-Shutter.

Not having anything pan out quickly fuels that impression that there is something wrong with the industry, clearly not her or her attitude, and after one or two cycles of this, the model fades away — being very put off with photographers in an unfair over-generalization.

Photographers: one solution I’ve found that has worked well is to offer TFP deals to scouted new discoveries. Because they aren’t seeking to be models, they are very appreciative and are willing to follow directions. When the reward of fantastic photos pops out the other end of the workflow, they do more word-of-mouth advertising than I could ever afford to purchase for other outlets. The trade-off is that you have to be able to work with inexperienced models and be very, very patient with them. I personally find it rewarding to be there first-hand as someone learns a new, marketable skill. Many valuable friendships follow.

It turns out this kind gesture can open doors for people: other modeling offers, and in one case a small part in a movie that’s coming out soon.

TFP/CD deals are gold mines for models, which explains how some smart models always seem to have that really rich, diverse portfolio with a competitive edge.

For models just starting out

If you scan through many modeling websites, you’ll see there’s a common question asked by new comers who want to be models: “What do I need to do to become a model?” Ironically, that question often goes unanswered, even on professional sites. Maybe it’s that the answer is a little more complex than a quick answer. However, as a photographer, I decided to take a shot at answering the question.

If you scan through many modeling websites, you’ll see there’s a common question asked by new comers who want to be models: “What do I need to do to become a model?”

Usually members skip that question. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s that the answer is a little more complex than a quick answer. Perhaps it’s that a good portion has to deal with genetics. It could even be experienced models don’t want the new competition entering the field.

I decided to take a shot, however, at answering the question.

Q: What can I do to become a model?

A: To a writer, the advice is read as much as you can. To a model, I’d say look at as much as you can — in particular other photos of models.

Analytically, try to figure out what it is about the models you like. Is it their pose, is it their facial expression, do they look into the camera? Try to emulate that pose in the mirror.

Study books on posing. And if you’re really clever, study books on photographic composition. If you can deliver what the photographer is trying to capture, you’ll make life so easy he’ll be raving about you.

Another thought is to find pictures of models that look like you. There are some web sites where you can beam up a picture of yourself and it will give you celebrity matches. Perhaps hair styles, makeup, and clothes that work for them will also work for your looks and body type.

Take care of your body; keep your skin clean and healthy. Apart from good diet, steer clear of all the things you know you should. Modeling is based upon looks, and you have it in your control to keep them.

Know your body, be comfortable with it, and find make up that works for you. Photographers often go for the natural look, so keep that in mind the next time you want a sprawling tattoo or obvious body piercing. These won’t necessary stop you from being a model, but it can raise unnecessary barriers to entry. Imagine a bank looking to fill a teller position, which candidate has the higher probability of landing the job: someone dressed in punk with a lip ring and colored spiked hair, or, the candidate in an pressed shirt, tie, and jacket. Both might be equally capable and friendly, but one will have a harder time than the other.

Work on building a decent portfolio. The best way to do this is to find local photographers you trust and negotiate a Time for Prints/CD shoot. It costs you nothing but some time, and in return you get some great pictures.

Ideally, you want more photos that you know what to do with. Cull them down to the best of the best, you don’t need to show every photo you have. Make sure you get a variety of looks. You want to show you’re versatile. Demonstrate that you’re adaptable.

Post your portfolio where photographers can see you, and let them know about your availability, interest, and boundaries. You may get more TFP offers, you may get fixed rate sessions, you may get a set hourly rate. Take only the jobs you feel comfortable with.

Seek opportunities where the photography is going to get exposure, even if you have to do it at a reduced rate. The more exposure you get, the more you’ll be able to command later.

It’s important not to let things get to your head. When a model without serious experience wants to be compensated as someone who’s done it as a career, opportunities can start to dry up. Photographers just want to take the picture, not deal with a diva. Think of it much like a job interview; you wouldn’t hire someone to be your doctor if they simply wanted to be a doctor all their life and took a class in first aid. Experience is important. And you can get all you want with TFP/CD.

Be professional, be on time, and know when to say no. Consider setting up a website, something which doesn’t say “I got a MySpace account.” Show your styles and answer the who/what/when/where/why about yourself; let people know how to contact you, and get back with them promptly. Sometimes photographers are working under horrific deadlines, and reaching a viable model is all that’s needed. A quick response can give you the edge.

You might want to forge a relationship with a makeup artist and/or a favorite photographer. If you have a solid relationship with good communication and trust, the photo sessions will go seamlessly and productively. They in turn will become part of a mini-network and potentially bring opportunities to your door that you’d otherwise not have known about.

Eventually, demand may increase, and if it does you may want to get an agent. Usually it’s a while before one gets that far. You might not even need one.

Modeling is a competitive field, with new and younger models entering all the time. Switch your mental role about how you’d market yourself and you’ll see what you need to do to become that. You’re selling an image: yours.

Why no average models?

New models sometimes raise the point that there aren’t that many ‘average’ models that show up in media, catalogs, and pin-ups. Are average people skipped over? Is the genetic bias a wider gap than it ought to be? And why do there seem to be so few casting calls to the average person waiting to be discovered?

The very question itself, “Why no average models?” raises an interesting conflict that marketing has been struggling with for a long time. Because an “average” person does, indeed, show how a given product would look on an average person, giving a truer representation.

However, the problem is that often doesn’t look very flattering — and people, in large sample groups, tend to go for superficial looks rather than actual reality. As such, marketing tends to go for those images which convey, whether true or not, that purchasing their product will raise your self esteem in the direction of the presented ideal. That’s often good enough. It doesn’t have to actually deliver perfection.

When it comes to looking at people for the sake of looking at people, which is more attractive: Brad Pitt or the average beer-gut guy you find the barbershop who thinks styled hair is pointless? The eye clearly has a higher level of attraction to one over the other. Biologically, we can even measure it, even if psychologically we pretend to hide it. Playing to that hard-wired response sells products.

So, this might explain why the “average” look hasn’t been splashed all over the media; everything is about optimizing profits, not representing reality.

Now this is something surprising that one might find very comforting. The people I’ve selected to show in my online profiles are actually are not models and have no prior modeling experience. I do this deliberately because what my studio focuses on is taking average people, revealing their extra hidden beauty, and capturing that — I want to be able to show my clients that they too, no matter how average looking they think they are, can look that good. And, if you’re going to make a bold claim like that, one better have the portfolio to back it up. If I just simply showed all my experienced model/actress shots, people think “well, yea, she’s a professional and I’m not that pretty” and I’ve lost a potential client. Customers rarely seem to be looking for how technically competent one’s photography skills are, but rather how good you can make them look.

Here’s where things get slightly obscured. If an “average” person is photographed to look like an above-average person, are they no longer considered average?

An employee at Kinko’s shared this astounding observation to me: numerous women customers bring in portfolios to have various images re-produced en masse. He’d look at the jaw-dropping photos and ask, “Who’s this?” only to be more surprised when the answer was “That’s me!” He reports the his customers almost always, without the added magic of the camera, were not hot but actually less attractive than the average woman. Sans makeup and pushup, quite a number of models are plain ordinary.

In fact, we know this to be true; browse any celebrity-stalker web site where someone has caught a celebrity when their publicist hasn’t been able to filter the image from public consumption. Such images range from unflattering to just someone you’d pass by in a crowd.

You have to compare your average self with their average self, or your modeling headshot to their modeling headshot. If you compare apples to oranges, it’s not just an unfair disadvantage, but an unrealistic one. Many people are far more attractive than they give themselves credit for. Does the makeup really make you that much prettier, or is it that your belief that it does actually turn on your self-confidence?

That said, I’ll point out that an experienced model is a joy to work with; it requires far less work on part of the photographer and one typically get a high quality product in far less shoot time.

I suspect it’s assumed that an experienced model (or her agent) will know where to go find placement casting calls, and thereby save the casting director a lot of time by skipping inexperienced labor. Running a photo shoot is very expensive, and if you can cut this time down, you save money.

This is different from casting calls which try to discover someone new; those usually happen in areas of high density to increase the odds, such as major cities.

Escorts at Photo Shoots

There’s a common concern often expressed by models: they prefer female photographers to male ones. While personal safety is expressed as the rationalization, almost always the sentiment is coupled with a side note about photographers not wanting escorts present.

It may surprise you that photographers don’t care if you bring an escort. Just share this with the escort first…

Several observations about this line of thinking: One, if you’re uncomfortable with a photographer, you shouldn’t be doing a shoot — period. Two, you should really be bringing an escort to your female photographers anyhow, especially if you go on location; what makes you think she isn’t the ‘front’ and there isn’t a load of thugs hiding in the back room. Three, you should always do your homework, talk with with references, and make sure the photographer can be located. A photographer that hides their contact information isn’t one you should be dealing with.

Professional photographers usually don’t have a problem with bringing an escort or your pet elephant for that matter. What they do dislike is the photo session being disturbed. Here are the top annoying factors, even for female photographers:

Escorts at Photo Shoots

The escort getting curious and messing with or breaking the equipment, simply getting in the way, or asking questions of the photographer during the shoot.
The escort wanting to be photographed as well. This includes “just a few at the end.”
The model being distracted by the escort, whether by talking or looking to the escort for validation.

Explain these concerns to the escort up front and they usually evaporate. With the talking and non-verbal validation, I find that male escorts tend to behave much better than “female friends who decided to come along.”

When someone brings an escort, I usually hand them a reflector which keeps them busy, fills their hands, and makes them have a vested interest in getting the job done. Babysitting an escort in this manner reduces risk of the top three issues, but the model is now getting far less attention and most likely, less photos. A good escort will stay out of the way and quietly monitor that no funny business is going on — which, after a short time, will get very boring.

One other interesting point is worth mentioning, some models get self-conscious (even professional ones) when someone they know is watching them; this can ruin a shoot, which ends up wasting everyone’s time. If the escort sits in a waiting room only a shout away, often you can get around this problem.

The best solution I’ve seen is to bring the escort, let them sit on the sidelines until both they and you feel comfortable with the arrangement, at that point let them leave with the photographer’s business card, the address they dropped the model off at, and a known pre-arranged check-in time for the model to call via her cell phone. Having the escort call to check in is even the worse than being there, it totally breaks the pace to stop and locate a purse.

If you do bring an escort, let the photographer know in advance — especially for location shoots — as if an extra person is riding in the vehicle, sometimes alternate travel arrangements are necessary (e.g., taking the van instead of the two-seater car).

Follow this simple advice and you should have no problem bringing an escort, thereby doubling the number of photographers and broadening your portfolio photo contents.

Model Compensation

This blog addresses solutions that are fair, as well as touching on factors that go into deciding amounts, why that’s the case, and what models can do to their profiles to avoid being skipped over aside from not making common photographic mistakes.

It’s understandable that models would prefer paid shoots, but it’s also important to recognize that the photographer does as well.

For a model, the photo session ends with the last shutter click, but for the photographer that’s when the real work begins. This reveals why photographers can be so expensive. Add risk, like missing an important wedding moment, at the pricing tier jumps again to astronomical levels.

In all cases, I believe a model should be fairly compensated. The debate will boil down to what that compensation is and that expectation should always be spelled out up front before anything progresses.

There are many factors that go into what value compensation should be set at. There are three big ones.

Expertise, in particular, plays a large part because an experienced model arrives on time (and sober), knows how to interact with the camera and the photographer with minimal direction, assumes appropriate poses naturally that fit the context of the scene, pauses at the right times as to minimize the number of discards, and she can make facial expressions look genuine. The higher compensation comes from making the photographer’s job easier and producing higher quality product in a shorter timeframe.

The model’s looks also play into the equation, primarily because that sets the demand for the model and in turn that affects availability. Basic economic models of supply and demand clearly state the higher the demand, the more things cost. Hence a model that isn’t in as much demand will likely be unable to command rates that one is. This is why models should to TFP deals to build their portfolios in order to raise their demand, even if just from gaining additional experience.

And the other primary factor which affects cost is how much skin the model is willing to show and what she’s willing to do in front of the camera. Unlike looks, this is one area where all models have total control. It can also be one of the bigger money makers.

The photographer has to determine a rate that factors these accordingly, and many other things (availability, short-term notice, …) as well into the compensation rate.

Just because both models are willing to stand in front of the camera for equal time does not mean they are providing equal value to the photographer. [It is also true that multiple photographers do not provide equal representation value to a model, which is why one looks at a photographer’s portfolio before accepting a trade-based assignment. Skill, equipment, and post-processing abilities are the parameters the photographer has to measure up to.]

Here’s a reasonable compensation paradigm that is actually fair to both parties equally:

If a model is hired by the photographer, the compensation is cash. (Pose for me.)
If there is a trade of services, her compensation is the photos and his the model’s time.
If the photographer is hired by the model, the compensation is cash. (Make me a portfolio.)

This makes sense from other business methodologies: if you were hired to do a task, such as frame a painting, you get paid, you don’t get a copy of the painting, free frames, or free framing services. An expert framer, incidentally, would be paid more too, and the resulting craftsmanship would be obvious. Quality, not time, is what’s sought.

The task a photographer is hiring for is to have someone take specific direction so they can produce a precise product. To get cash and photos would be double compensation and thereby a double hit on the photographer; most likely that would be the last time the photographer ever cast or recommended the model.

That said, there is nothing wrong with the model requesting some pictures in leu of some portion of the cash. Sometimes the photographer can do this, but quite often if the photographer has been hired on behalf of client, it’s stipulated in the contract that he can not. Hence the cash, which usually comes from a budget that the photographer may, or may not, have control over.

If a model wants photos and tear sheets, that should be negotiated up front, not after the shoot. Again, the photographer may have contractual bindings.

Some models will be fortunate enough to find photographers who will give away photos in addition to cash. Models, if you get cash, don’t expect this, but be grateful if it happens to you — the photographer has figured out a win-win situation that you both can benefit from. Don’t be mistaken, this action is somewhat self serving to the photographer, as he’s looking for extra visibility and word of mouth advertising from you to widen his client base.

Paying gigs are more likely for models when the client needs a specific look. If there’s just a generic need, photographers are going to draw more from TFP/CD deals. Knowing this, the more variety a model can pull off in her portfolio, the easier she just made it for the photographer to just to cut a check than to keep searching.

There does seem to be a subset of models that have a higher impression of their own market value than the market will actually tolerate. New models don’t seem to have this problem much, experienced models have a very good sense of worth (and a portfolio to prove it), but it’s most common among the narrow my-portfolio-is-cell-phone-pictures / I-want-a-job-pay-me modeling-wannabes. These models are usually difficult to work with and are problematic after the shoot, having shifting expectations of the deliverable. Photographers will actively try to avoid them and anyone that fits that stereotype.

Models: if your portfolio reeks of indicators that you fall into this pile (whether you really do or not), be aware that you’re hurting your chances to get a casting call, profile comments, TFP/CD deals, and valuable experience. If you want higher compensation, simply do what those did who are earning it. Their profiles are right there in the open on many modeling sites. Your chances of getting directed casting calls will increase.