'If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me'

Two interesting stories appeared in yesterday's Financial Times, on opposite sides of the same piece of paper: one on page 7, about the rise of Metro International,

the world's fastest growing newspaper; the other on page 8, about anime and the otaku market.

"Otaku, often translated as geek or maniac, refers to people who are obsessed about something to the point that it effects their social life."

Getting a little close to home there....

"Common subjects of fascination include computers, video games, Japanese manga comics and anime."

How about creating this blog out of whole cloth every day?

Hmm?

Think that's obsessive?

I do.

But hey, we like it.

If it seems like fun, then it is fun.

That's how I see it, anyhow.

Or, as Saul Bellow put it, in the opening sentence of his magnificent novel, "Herzog":

If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.

I've always liked that line - gee, I wonder why.

The anime piece noted that children's anime ratings in Japan are falling, but late-night shows have increased in number.

Rie Kamiyama of the Dentsu Institute of Communication said, "The market that is growing is the otaku market, not the children's market. You don't need to spend much on promotion because your audience are otaku."

Which makes my decision - made only after a heated meeting of my board earlier today - to forego, for the time being, any additional spending on promotion and marketing for bookofjoe seem quite reasonable, no?

Let's see, now: how much is $0 + $0?

Oh, wait, that's top-secret, closely-held corporate information - who leaked it?

And now CBS is gonna go and put it on the air?

Don't they ever learn?

The article about the Metro tabloid empire had its nugget buried at the end, in the final paragraph.

It read:

Traditional titles have a future but only if they take a lesson from pay-TV: exclusive content and quality that cannot be found for free.

So I'm supposed to charge for all the great "exclusive content and quality?"

No way, José: if free's good enough for Craigslist, it's good enough for bookofjoe.