Overthinkers, Grats in order

I had a couple local businesses/organizations that have annoyed me recently that I neglected to mention here.  Ironically they are somewhat related.

First up is the Naples Philharmonic or “The Phil” as it has been affectionately known over the years. Recently they announced that they were going to change the name of venue to “Artis – Naples”.  The management explained that they thought that renaming the Phil to Artis better reflected the centers all around dedication to arts of all types, not just the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra that is housed there. To me it sounded elitist, stuffy and unnecessary.

She backed up that the name change was deemed necessary based on some magical surveys that were sent out and mulled over by some people whose job it is to create an issue where none needs to be.  It was deemed that somehow changing the name of the Phil would translate into an important step in the evolution of the building.  This lead to a further burning of dollars, contracting some bullshit firm to think tank new names.  Who knows how much was spent to arrive at a name that rhymes with Fartis, but I can assure you it was way too much.

Well the reaction from the local community was overwhelmingly negative.  The papers lit up with comment after comment chastising the decision to change the name for seemingly no good reason besides the recently installed new management trying to separate/distinguish itself from the founders of the Phil.  To me it sort of seemed like a passive aggressive “f u”.

I am wondering if the Phil (Phartis) management will have a New Coke style revelation, come clean, and say “our bad”?  History shows that the public reacts much more favorably to someone that admits a mistake than someone that refuses to address the big pink elephant in the room. “Hey we fcked up” can go a long way.

As I said, the feedback in the newspaper to the name change was severe, which brings me to my next rant target, that same paper, the Naples Daily News.

Last week, with no notice other than a quick post by the publisher, the paper went to an online subscription model.  This model basically means that if you do not pay for either a conventional paper subscription or an online only subscription, you no longer have access to the majority of the content on the web site and no longer can comment on stories. Instead you are presented with an excerpt of the story and a prompt to get out the credit card.

I know this model has been adopted in some major newspaper publications, although I am not quite sure how successful it has been.  Personally, I think it’s stupid.

For several years the NDN has been polluting their site with in your face ads.  Every time you would load the home page a big box ad would hover over the content with a randomly placed and intentionally small X to dismiss it.  In addition to this they also would sometimes have a huge inline banner ad that would push the news content down for several seconds and then retract upwards.

Yes it was annoying but I viewed it as a way the newspaper ensures viewership of the ads, a trade off that seemed reasonable to me.  This new pay only model does not seem reasonable.

The NDN has a very small local reporting staff.  Much of what is posted on the site is simply national news feeds regurgitated.  Taking away the ability for the community to actively participate and view local stories without digging into their wallet seems counterproductive.  The more eyeballs they get on their online content and the ads associated with it, the better.  This move is going to dramatically reduce that number.

For my part, besides this small rant here, my reaction to this change will be simply to not view the paper online, something I expect repeated by many others.  I think NDN is walking on thin ice.  When you make content unavailable to people they learn to live without it, making your existence even more tenuous and unnecessary.  I’ll get my news from the local tv channel website instead, for free. Bad move NDN.

Congratulations are in order for my brother Todd, whose divorce papers were finally signed by a judge. His divorce proceedings have incredibly been ongoing since July of 2007.  If I tried to relate some of the shit that has gone on related to the divorce it would be hard to believe.  Let’s just say simply good riddance to dead weight.  I feel a little better about my existence that I now can use the title “ex-sister in law” when referring to the worthless bitch.  No, I’m not a big fan.