Different media require more than a direct translation
I became less freaked to see books changed when they become movies when I finally realized that movies are a different medium. Different creative people are showing their vision of the work. You may or may not like the final product, but I’m sure you’ll be happier once you realize you’re looking at the work through a different lens, and should be prepared to accept things like the exclusion of Tom Bombadill (LOTR) and the giant squid monster (Watchmen), the inclusion of Whybie (Coraline), or the nerfing of Molly Brown (Titanic) (OK, that last one pissed me off.)
It’s like becoming fluent in a language. The truly bi- (or tri- or more) lingual understand that when you take a sentence and put it into another language, it’s not just a word for word translation. Bablefish can show you that much- you have to understand a culture, their idioms, how they speak, etc. It’s much more of an issue than testicles/tentacles (Better Off Dead).
Along the same lines, companies who are understanding that the Internet is a different medium are the ones who are succeeding, while the ones who demand a direct translation of their current product/message are not so much. When I did freelance web design I had a client who demanded, despite my constant explanations, that the website look just like their brochure. I tried to explain it was a different medium and was so much more versatile than a folded piece of paper. They wouldn’t hear it. So I made a website that looked just like their brochure, and they loved it. I was not terribly proud of it.
Our local paper just laid off 21 more employees. If you look at most newspapers, their websites are direct translations – to the point that they don’t even link relevant words in their articles, even when they mention web sites – of their newspapers. They’re taking a complex sentence in their own language and translating it, word for word, into Internet language. And it doesn’t work. Then they wonder why they are not making any money, why they’re dying. It’s not a secret that I write and podcast for Tor.com, so take that caveat, but I really do admire what they are doing. The Tor.com site is not a direct translation of the Tor catalog, with business and submission info. Instead it’s a destination for SFF news and discussion, for original storytelling in both text and comic form. Book reviews and podcasts, with long comment threads for further discussion. Baen also has an innovative way of using the web for their customers and prospective authors. These are new and innovative ways to translate your company in the new medium.
I can’t tell newspapers and other companies terrified of the web how to survive. I’m not a big picture innovative thinker. Anything new or special that I do is always on the myopic scope of me, “Hey, this sounds like a neat idea, I’ll try this.” But we’re seeing it happen in certain places. People are doing it. Don’t be afraid of translation, real translation, into a new medium. If you run your company through Bablefish, people will understand your words, but not your meaning.
Category: Sundries
You’re so right that the newspaper industry needs to do a complete re-think of their mission and how to accomplish it. They need to embrace how the online, interactive media can help them serve their audience. (I started to say “their readers,” but, that’s almost as out-of-date as the word “paper.”)
It’s especially ironic that Raleigh’s News & Observer, now owned by McClatchy, continues to lay off staff because of competition from online media. When the Daniels family owned the N&O, Frank Daniels III demonstrated how the newspaper industry could compete using online media. You can get a sense of how Frank III viewed online technology in a brief item from 1994: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0REL/is_n3_v94/ai_15097571/
I’m just not sure that the news organizations that still call themselves “newspapers,” instead of “news media,” will make the transition that Frank III had in mind.