Obligatory Fahrenheit 9-11 Post

I finally saw the movie on Tuesday night (a late showing) and definitely had mixed feelings about the experience. The movie was definitely persuasive - walking down 86th Street after the movie let out, I saw two separate couples arguing about what they had just seen. One couple nearly launched into a full-blown fight, with the guy not really wanting to confront the allegations in the movie, and the girl pleading with him to discuss it with her.

As I walked back toward my apartment, I went through a number of distinct emotional states. At first, I was completely charged up, upset and feeling betrayed by the administration. A couple minutes into my walk, though, this started to wear off and I began to feel suspicious about Moore's version of the facts. During the film, I noticed a few things that at the time I thought were "sins of omission" - a truncated Condi Rice quote here, an out-of-context Bush clip there. Then I reminded myself that I was warned that everything Moore puts out there has to be taken with a grain of salt.

As I walked past 2nd Avenue, I was hit with this incredible wave of disappointment. As I thought about some of the things I had seen in the movie that distorted the facts, I felt betrayed by Moore. I mean, here's a very intelligent guy with a point of view who, instead of laying things out matter-of-factly and completely, leaves things out of his "documentary" that might cause people to jump to incorrect conclusions. Did Moore need to do this? Is it necessary to create propaganda in order to get a point across? Am I naive to assume that Moore would have taken the moral high road and attempted to bring clarity to the issues he discusses?

As I reached the front stoop of my apartment, frustration began to hit me. I thought about all the people who would see this movie and make decisions based on incomplete facts. I thought about all the people who would dismiss Moore's legitimate arguments after his "sins of omission" in making his case for other points of view. And I thought about all the apolitical folks out there who simply don't give a shit one way or another, or who are disillusioned from being lied to by spin doctors at all points along the political spectrum.

I'm not going to call Moore's film pure propaganda. There's a good deal of truth in the points of view he expressed in the film. But I will say that the movie's interpretation of the facts is distorted in certain instances. There's no reason to cut off Condoleeza Rice during her testimony to make it sound as if she was claiming a direct connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. I know what she really said. A lot of people who don't follow politics don't know the difference, though. And that's what bugs me about Moore's film. He could have made his points without distorting the facts, but he didn't.

With Michael Moore's elevation to hero status by most of the left, I'm worried that people will lose faith in his overarching message when they find out that F911's version of the facts leaves out quite a bit. And that would be a shame. I do believe that the Bush administration engages in cronyism. I do believe that the administration duped the American people into scapegoating Iraq for 9/11 (with the help of a lazy press). I do believe that we didn't do enough in Afghanistan. But I didn't arrive at these conclusions by believing propaganda. F911 could have made its case without the sins of omission, but it didn't. And I think that's what disappoints me the most.

Moblogs?

Someone asked me a question in my comments section and, rather than just answer him there, I figured it merited its own post. Here's the comment from Sammy James:

Tom:
Thanks for the response. What are your thoughts on moblogs? I don't know what the usage is like for audioblogs but I was recently introduced to a new platform that enables you to post pictures, video and text directly from a camera phone. ( http://www.textamerica.com ) I have not thought the b2c or b2b applications but this looks powerful. And at the very least, this looks like a natural fit for phone manufacturers and carriers to advertise at a premium rate.

I have many thoughts on moblogs. As a consumer, I think mobile platforms will accelerate us toward the Age of the Citizen-Journalist even faster than weblogs alone. Seriously, I have dreams about people or groups of people capturing news and human interest stories in their daily travels, simply by carrying a camera phone and having an account set up with a mobile blogging platform. Can you imagine what it would be like if the myriad Iraqi bloggers were to show us what it's really like on the ground in Iraq - not only with words, but with pictures?

Personally, I've run into a number of situations where my trusty Treo 600 has enabled me to make blog posts I ordinarily wouldn't have been able to make, not only with its camera phone, but with its web browser and teensy-weensy keyboard. But not everyone has a Treo, so clearly either prices need to drop or providers have to cram more features into lower-cost phones so that adoption will accelerate.

As an agency guy, I see the wireless category as something that had great potential, but never really took off. (Keep in mind that I'm speaking of the narrower wireless category - things that reach mobile phones in the U.S. - not the wider category that would include things like PDA advertising with Vindigo and AvantGo.)

When wireless advertising first really started getting onto agency radar screens, we were basically talking about two things - WAP and text messaging. With WAP, I think many potential advertisers walked away because there simply wasn't enough screen real estate in which to deliver a compelling message. Text messaging fell victim to typical advertiser ham-handedness. Too many advertisers looked at it as simply a broadcast medium in which they could pummel consumers over the head with message after message. Thankfully, advertisers realized this had great potential to piss consumers off and they backed away.

I think wireless advertising is waiting for its "killer app," and moblogs could be just the thing. Quite a few advertising execs see kids in Japan (and other countries that are a year or two ahead of the U.S.) running around with their mobile phones, constantly text messaging one another and keeping their noses buried in their phones as they go through their day. If this behavior was widespread in the U.S., you can bet marketers would be salivating and looking for ways to reach these consumers. Right now, though, wireless consumption seems to be too fragmented to reach mass audiences.

I think that's changing now. Phones are moving toward full-featured web browsing. Many are coming with QWERTY keyboards. I think once these features become mainstream, we'll see wireless content consumption explode.

In the background, many companies are gearing up to provide mobile blogging platforms. You may have noticed that this blog has a WINKsite. Right now, the WINKsite simply picks up my RSS feed and publishes my posts in a wireless-friendly way. I could do much more with it, but I probably won't because I think consumer behavior has to catch up to the technology. My WINKsite gets very few visits, but if I notice more people coming in through the wireless channel, maybe I'll beef up my presence there.

To succeed, I think blogging platforms need to be multi-channel. That is, people should be able to view a blog both on the web and on a majority of phones. Also, blog authors should be able to post from a phone just as easily as they do from the web.

Getting back to the question, I do think that moblogs are a natural fit for wireless carrier advertising. I also think they're a great fit for phone manufacturers or anyone who makes mobile access devices. If my agency were to land a client like Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile or any other carriers, you can bet that I'd be pitching the client on locking in a multi-year sponsorship deal with platform providers like Text America and Wireless Ink (the folks behind WINKsite). I'd aim to have a persistent presence all over their communities - and I'd use that space to show that the advertiser's camera phones are ideal for getting a moblog going.

I can't decide whether I'm more excited about this as an advertiser, a consumer, or a news freak.

UN Expels Iranian Security Guards

Not much detail here, but the two guards were reportedly "taking pictures of New York City and transportation systems" including landmarks. This was supposedly the third time that the two guards had been observed taking pictures and videotaping.

What isn't clear is whether the two had been warned previously about their picture-taking, what landmarks were being photographed, and whether they took pictures in restricted areas of public transportation networks.

Nice reporting. (Not.)

Anybody Got An Acetylene Torch?

We were considering awarding the Invisible Conceptual Idiot Baton to Dick Cheney yesterday, after his use of a really bad word in a conversation with Patrick Leahy. But then we remembered the baton was last seen welded to the forehead of Michael Powell, and our welding guy is on vacation.