Beliefnet Brand Study

As a follow-up to my study of the Disinformation brand, I thought it would be interesting to [...]

I do miss the old format, but I think in many ways Disinfo may have completely mined the internet for links to the bizarre. While it could all stand updating, especially the dossier links, it seems to have covered just about damn near everything. I subscribe to their newsletter, and Burns actually mentioned recent editorial discussions of having a Wiki format.

Disinfo TV, some of it was good, some of it was boring. Metzger’s Infinity Factory talk show worked better–Metzger gives off a strange, awkward vibe during the Disinfo TV interviews, but seems focused and confident during the Infinity Factory.

Tim and others, I think a useful aspect to study is Disinfo’s actual history of funding and ownership, in relation to the various mutations the site has undergone… They have gone from being an internet portal to a publishing house, basically by baiting-and-switching on corporate sponsors: “You want hip and unusual? We’ll give it to you…” Very “When the going gets wierd the wierd turn pro.” It seems to me like the current focus is on publishing, and it’s kind of revealing. I like their anthologies, and I think that the Book of Lies is fairly focused: look through the essays by P-Orridge, on Burroughs, and on drugs, which is all very much post-modern magic, if you will; the rest, though, does seem like fluffy filler. There’s a lot of theory but not much in the way of practical application. I’m a theorist myself, but lacking a real occult teacher, I need some hand-holding with the “how-to” part sometimes, like you said, “impersonal.”

Nitpick time. According to BoingBoing and Wired’s Xeni Jardin, it’s all contrariwise:

Well actually, Richard Metzger should be calling Napster asking for *his* logo back. My understanding is that the disinformation guys were using that logo when the source code for napster was nothing more than a twinkle in Sean Fanning’s eye.

Also, one of the fellows responsible for the Guerrilla News Network was in the works with many big names to bring about what was then known as “Channel Zero.” It was to be this new international channel, from what I remember, that would focus on the legitimate news un-polluted by corporate influence and ad dollar pursuasion.

Fortunately, he raised quite a bit of money for the endeavour and had a lot of people behind him.

Unfortunately, he blew the money on partying and blew himself up into a bag of wind. After he lost the capital and investors, he re-focused himself and got involved in the GNN movement online.

Recently there’s been articles in the alternative newsweeklies and I believe in The Globe & Mail, one of Canada’s nationals, about a new start-up. Except that this one is being hosted by big name journalists from Canada, United States, England, and elsewhere. The technology is being discussed as it’d be a pay-per-view news service â la CBC Newsworld, BBC News Service, and CNN. Because it would be supported solely by subscriptions, there’d be absolutely no commercial pursuasion (except to keep itself on-air). It would not be limited to one continent either, as they’d be focusing on world news with, I believe, region-specific content online or something.

I wish I could remember the name of it, or those involved. I was reading of it a couple months ago, but I can’t find anything online cuz I am at a loss for searchable terms.

A note on the scattershot-ness of the Disinfo anthologies: All of the content from the first book was pulled straight from the dossiers. So, having read all those, I had no reason to buy the book, unless I wanted to just show how cool and underground I was to the squares. I wonder if that’s how they put together the other anthologies as well.

WHat do you mean by “develop authors”? WHo does that?

Yeah I guess you’re right

I actually wrote back and forth with Metzger a couple of times cause he was gonna start a gnosticism section (can’t remember if he ever did or not)

Then their whole thing goy huge and basically turned into a licensing/portal mosel as you mention above

WHat do you mean by “develop authors”? WHo does that?

The WIki model is a good idea, I have thought about that too, even have a wiki set up on enemies.com but haven’t decided what to do w. it

http://www.occultopedia.com/ is taken unfortunately and not that great either

They do have a few good articles mixed in, but they are hard to find. And the site is impossible to browse and lacks coherency. I think what they ought to do might be to change over a lot of their information into a Wiki format - take their profiles and histories of groups and individuals and open it up to public revision and control. Might be very successful.

I only have one of their books, the Book of Lies. I found it mediocre at best. It’s just too many authors spewing on too many topics without a clear voice or focus. Kind of a scatter-shot approach which is very impersonal, though there are some good pieces within it. I looked through one of their non-occult books at one point and it was the same problem except a lot worse in terms of focus.

Really, I can see how that’s a successful business model from their end though (if not from mine). They don’t have to write content, they just license it. They don’t even have to work with or develop authors - they just snap up anybody who reaches a certain status, and then they do the combined cash-in on their collective name recognition bundled under the Disinfo brand name. It’s a lot less work for the actual company, cause they’re just farming it all out. The content suffers in an enormous way though, in my opinion.

SOmeone would order a pizza, he’s show up a few minutes after the regualr pizza delivery guy with a cut-rate pizza and offer to sell it for less than the one they ordered.

He had all of the garnishes and toppings in a toolbox unde his arm so he could add them as needed in order to compete

Several people were so enraged by this stunt they literally chased him down their driveways, screaming and flailing their arms

“No I’m not interested in competive bididing on a friggin’ pizza!” LOL.

“No, but look, it’s day-old dough, that means big savings for you!” he’d reply, scampering backwards away from the fists and the flying spittle.

One time I posed as a delivery guy from “Undercutters Pizza,” and we followed a real pizza-delivery guy around. We’d run up to the customers at the same time and say, “We’ll give this to you at half price.” The pizza guy actually didn’t give a shit, but there was this one pissed-off customer working on his car. He basically tried to kill me with a hammer.

In that spirit might I humbly suggest MISINFORMATION as a brand ID

The discount conspiracy clearinghouse, LOL

No fresh news here, we just recycle the old crap that nobody believed in teh first place, not even the hardcore conspiracy folks

LOL

Might be a funny parody anyway