Recommendation engines and “lean-back” media

The failure of “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” and linear programming.

Cory Doctorow

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A potato resting on a couch, with a TV set looming in the foreground. The background has been replaced with the Matrix ‘waterfall’ graphic. The potato is wearing a Trump wig. Image: Ian Burt (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oddsock/267206444 CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

In William Gibson’s 1992 novel “Idoru,” a media executive describes her company’s core audience:

“Best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I…

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