Social Informatics and Media Studies

1) I finished the series Hacks. I was very ambivalent about the show's first season, and was not enthusiastic about the second either. But I definitely get that in order to end where we did in the last season the two characters had to start poles apart. So I felt like the final season was a huge payoff to viewers who had stuck through the show all the way through. Would definitely recommend.

I was reading a good article (about TV shows on the tech industry) that included this: "the show is uniquely skilled at depicting the complicated mix of emotions that animate creative partnerships, and makes a strong argument for the idea that your true soulmate is the person that you most love making stuff with." It was talking about a show I loved, Halt and Catch Fire, but it applies equally well to Hacks. The fact that both shows featured female partnerships is a real bonus.

2) I had wondered a while back why Disney was partnering with Max to do a bundle (whereas Hulu + Disney + ESPN was all in-house, so an obvious option). Apparently, it's because bundling is very successful in keeping people subscribed. "Two years ago, only 10 percent of every new subscription for a major streaming service was for a bundled offering…Now, bundles account for a third of all new subscriptions, and 28 percent of all subscriptions, double the share in 2024." ( Read more... )

3) I was commenting over on Pillowfort about Tumblr's latest move to make commenting more prominent on the site. As I said there "As a totally anecdotal point, I rarely follow Tumblr links anymore because so often I'm blocked from seeing the linked content. But when I do get through I'm often surprised how little response I see the posts getting." So I'm wondering if this move is because, between the repeated exodus of people and the blocking of content to visitors, that the site traffic is actually in sharp decline. One way to make it more obvious people are active and to encourage them to speak up, is to surface comments more prominently.