Palmer Events Center
Wait, We're Still Here!
RECEIVED Mon., Jan. 29, 2024
Dear Editor,
Sorry to see you go.
Every week for 20 years I’d grab the Chronicle, quickly go through the listings on music, art openings, classical music, dance, and what you now call Qmmunity, set up the next week’s possible entertainment, then read your editorials, letters, and stories – right down to the Love Doctor. Now it is “go down the tree structure” instead of “read the phone book." Two hours to do what used to take 10 minutes, paging through 120 Friday music events then going on to 120 for Saturday, etc.
Hell, some nights I’d just get bored, open the paper and say, “Will it be the Continental Club (up or down), Radio Coffee and Beer, Donn’s Depot, the Sahara Lounge, or some jazz place I’ve never heard of on the Eastside?" Sad to say, no longer possible.
I’d hoped that you would see the opportunity there; partially automate the listing, stay with the small type, reduce the labor input, and use 1/3 of the screen for ads. That would be a software package that could be cloned in the other 50 cities in the U.S. large enough to make it pay. It works by giving the “sellers” (the music venues, the art institutions, the theatre, classical music, and LGBT organizations) accounts and make them fill in the database of time, day, event, etc. You just take the formatted data and publish.
And if you can’t identify one “I want to make a name for myself and get into shows for free” talented young person in love with punk, drag, classical music, art openings and the like … well then you think that people like the ones who used to write for the Chronicle no longer exist. Margaret and Steve Moser are still out there waiting to get quasi-famous and quasi-laid.
The least you might try to do for people like me is to simply “publish the database”: 120 characters, maybe 50 lines/page of events and a scroll and the rest of the space for the related ads, and see which choice the readers prefer. And a good UT CS major intern to make it happen. I seriously believe that, just as with Craigslist, the software is what matters and the content just rests on top of it … potentially in many cities.
Of course Nick is now old and tired, the money is elsewhere, and the building has been eminently domained.
I watched the Village Voice and the Washington, D.C., free newspaper go down the same route to oblivion. And the political loss … wait till you see who funds your replacement.
In any case, good luck. I’ll miss you.
Sorry to see you go.
Every week for 20 years I’d grab the Chronicle, quickly go through the listings on music, art openings, classical music, dance, and what you now call Qmmunity, set up the next week’s possible entertainment, then read your editorials, letters, and stories – right down to the Love Doctor. Now it is “go down the tree structure” instead of “read the phone book." Two hours to do what used to take 10 minutes, paging through 120 Friday music events then going on to 120 for Saturday, etc.
Hell, some nights I’d just get bored, open the paper and say, “Will it be the Continental Club (up or down), Radio Coffee and Beer, Donn’s Depot, the Sahara Lounge, or some jazz place I’ve never heard of on the Eastside?" Sad to say, no longer possible.
I’d hoped that you would see the opportunity there; partially automate the listing, stay with the small type, reduce the labor input, and use 1/3 of the screen for ads. That would be a software package that could be cloned in the other 50 cities in the U.S. large enough to make it pay. It works by giving the “sellers” (the music venues, the art institutions, the theatre, classical music, and LGBT organizations) accounts and make them fill in the database of time, day, event, etc. You just take the formatted data and publish.
And if you can’t identify one “I want to make a name for myself and get into shows for free” talented young person in love with punk, drag, classical music, art openings and the like … well then you think that people like the ones who used to write for the Chronicle no longer exist. Margaret and Steve Moser are still out there waiting to get quasi-famous and quasi-laid.
The least you might try to do for people like me is to simply “publish the database”: 120 characters, maybe 50 lines/page of events and a scroll and the rest of the space for the related ads, and see which choice the readers prefer. And a good UT CS major intern to make it happen. I seriously believe that, just as with Craigslist, the software is what matters and the content just rests on top of it … potentially in many cities.
Of course Nick is now old and tired, the money is elsewhere, and the building has been eminently domained.
I watched the Village Voice and the Washington, D.C., free newspaper go down the same route to oblivion. And the political loss … wait till you see who funds your replacement.
In any case, good luck. I’ll miss you.
Dave Miller