Oprah has more bearing on sales than a Pulitzer, I'd bet.

You would win. She is a better mediator.

---

It is unfair and wrong, but remains a fact.

What's the evidence for that fact? I think it's trivia. Oscar-winning movies may get a brief boost, but people don't stop watching or reading other things because they fail to win awards. And they don't see other movies just because someone involved got an Oscar.

The fact that it's an annual award pretty well guarantees irrelevance. Blogs are essentially equivalent to newspapers, only far more ephemeral. Nobody subscribes to a particular paper because it has X Pulitizer winners on staff. Or if they do, they're a tiny minority, and god help them. I read the Post, mostly, and that's despite the fact that Stephen Hunter got a Pulitzer, not because of it. Peer recommendations have far more influence on what people consume.

---

What's the evidence for that fact? I think it's trivia.

Oy! I do not have box-office scores in my immediate recall. That a particular movie received any boost from an Academy recommendation is enough. Mediation at work.

Good on you, that you do not read the Post 'cuz Pulitzer-Comm said to do so. That is you. I am not talking about the discerning public.

---

Oscar-winning movies may get a brief boost

It depends on a lot of marketing factors, doesn't it? Brokeback didn't get much of an Oscar bump because it already had been seen by its audience.

Million Dollar Baby though got a significant boost from the Oscar attention.

I don't object to there being variations on Blue Ribbon panels to bring attention to various projects in various media. It's just a form of expert vetting, and depends on what you think of the particular set of experts.

The Nobel brings attention to achievments in science in a way that simply wouldn't exist without them. Ditto for the Pulitzer and journalism.

---

Leave it to DavidS to bring out the core of the thing. Who has a Blue Ribbon?

People selling the stuff, or people buying the stuff?

---

Who has a Blue Ribbon?

Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet.

People selling the stuff, or people buying the stuff?

You do bring up the interesting point of What Is Marketing once the media is decentralized.

Of course, even something like the marketing campaign for Blair Witch was engineered to take advantage of message boards and build audience that way.

It's always going to be that way. I like to look at advertising and marketing as kind of a pure barometer. It only works by being right.

---

Of course, Bill Hicks thought everybody in marketing was going to hell.

---

First of all, the market is decentralised.

Advertising is dead.

... now, we come to the issue of marketing. Sure, Blair Witch did a thing seven years ago that was right for that time. Studios have tried to force that phenomenon since then, with marginal effect.

The pure barometer is the material in the mind of the recipient. The rest of it is about bucks.

---

Good on you, that you do not read the Post 'cuz Pulitzer-Comm said to do so. That is you. I am not talking about the discerning public.

Do you know anyone who reads a particular paper because someone on staff won a Pulitzer X years ago? I don't, but I'm sure that people like that could exist. I simply doubt that it's a significant number of people.

You said that that the Pulitzer had "enormous weight in what people consume." Even assuming that by "enormous" you only mean, "equal to the influence of an Oscar," I'm still skeptical. I have granted that more people will see movies that get, or are nominated for, best picture. That doesn't mean that they'll turn out in droves for the next movie by the same writer, or director, or actor. So the influence isn't ongoing.

Blogs are more like newspapers than movies or novels. Being deemed "great" once will get you momentary attention from a very small group of people. Hearing that a year ago some blogger did a single piece that was brilliant? I'll look, but net years are like dog years -- as a "what to read *now*" guide it'd be useless.

The Nobel brings attention to achievments in science in a way that simply wouldn't exist without them. Ditto for the Pulitzer and journalism.

Oh, I think the Nobel carries much more weight in the popular consciousness than the Pulitzer, because it's not about something the average layman understands.

---

The rest of it is about bucks.

Hence the "market" portion of marketing, right?

Blogs are more like newspapers than movies or novels. Being deemed "great" once will get you momentary attention from a very small group of people. Hearing that a year ago some blogger did a single piece that was brilliant? I'll look, but net years are like dog years -- as a "what to read *now*" guide it'd be useless.

I noticed this just from the books that I've done. The shelf-life of a book is just hugely different than that of a magazine or an online post. And it winds up engaging in a public dialogue for a much longer time.

We did the Bubblegum book many years ago but its still the definitive reference on that particular tiny niche market. So when stuff comes up, we still get media hits for comments etcetera. Goldmine - the record collector's magazine - did a huge Bubblegum issue a few years before our book, but it doesn't maintain the same kind of media longevity.

Gus, I don't think advertising is ever going to be dead. It's just going to keep mutating like a retrovirus trying to be unrecognizable as advertising. But that's what it will be.

---