This guest post was written by Dustin Michels and originally posted on Dustin’s View.

You might know about Pandora.com- Internet radio. It’s a website where you enter a favorite song or artist and it starts playing music similar to the kind you like.

You can rate a song with a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down so it better understands your taste in music, and you can have multiple stations that play different kinds of music. Pandora is free, but you can upgrade to Pandora1 to get higher music quality without the ads, for $36 a year. That’s like buying what, four albums? A year? It’s a steal!

A little while ago the founder of Pandora, Tim Westergren, came to Denver to meet-up with Pandora users and discuss the company. My dad and I decided to go and see what he had to say. He started off talking about himself, and then the company; its history, where they are right now, and where they want to go in the future. The rest was Q&A, and open for discussion. There were maybe 300 people there, and I thought it was really cool. Here’s some of the stuff he talked about that you might not know about Pandora.

- The guy who started it all, Tim Westergren, is a musician- a piano player. He was in a rock band that played smaller venues around the US for a while. He was serious about his music, and at some point decided that the rock band wasn’t enough.

His next big career move was to compose music for movies. He would talk to the director about how they wanted the audience to feel, and created music accordingly. He found that he had skill in matching music to certain people and certain needs, and thus came an even greater ambition: to change the way people listen to music. To create Pandora.

- Pandora is based around something they call the Music Genome Project. Every song on Pandora has been ranked on more than 400 different attributes giving it a kind of fingerprint, a gene. It gets ranked on things like melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, singing, and vocal harmonies. And it’s all done manually. It’s all done by people, employees that have studied music theory in a university, that come in every day, put on a set of headphones, and listen to and rank songs.

- Pandora operates under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This limits some of the ways it can distribute music. For example, you can only play Pandora in the United States, Pandora can’t play a specific song on demand, and it can’t tell you what song is going to play next, (for concern that you’re going to record it). The Act gives Pandora the ability to play any artist on Pandora, the artist has no say in it.

- I always thought that artists didn’t like Pandora, as people could listen to their music without buying their albums. But actually, Pandora is extremely helpful to artists in a few ways. Pandora pays an incredible amount of money to artists in royalties. In a year where they made $50,000, they payed $30,000 to artists in royalties. Radio doesn’t have to pay anything. What’s up with that?!

Pandora also helps artists get discovered. It may play a song you’ve never heard before, and you really like. You can easily see who the artist is, and even read more about them. But more than that, Pandora can really help new bands because almost anyone can be on Pandora. To be on the radio, you generally need a contract with some big record label. To be on Pandora, all you need is to have your CD for sale on Amazon. You could record a homemade CD in your own home studio, and as long it’s on Amazon, it could be played on Pandora.

- The really cool thing about Pandora, is it finds music based on, and only on, the characteristics of the music. It has no way to measure how popular a band is, where they’re from, what they look like, what genre of music they play, or how modern they are. Pandora doesn’t care who else listens to them, if it’s “cool” to listen to them. The only thing it recognizes is the music itself.

- The designer of the Pandora website worked previously as a designer of interactive museum displays. Simple things where you just push a button or pull a lever. He carried that over to Pandora with the thumbs up thumbs down. The simplicity of the Pandora website makes it easy to use, friendly, and appealing to almost everyone.

- Pandora went through a rough spot while they were starting up. They were struggling to get licenses and pay royalties, and with everything else involved with starting a company. As a result, for more than a year no one at Pandora got paid. They worked there just because they believed in it and wanted to make it happen. The business slowly came together. One day Tim summoned them in for a standard meeting, and astounded everyone by producing a paycheck for all the time they had worked. Everyone had given up on ever getting paid, and this was a very nice surprise.

- Pandora almost got shut down because the government was going to change laws around music streaming. Pandora sent out a note to all of their listeners basically saying ‘This is it guys. Pandora’s going away because the laws are changing. If you are against this, here is your local congressman’s contact information. You can contact them if you want, see if it helps anything.’ There was an overwhelming grass-roots response. The phones were ringing non-stop all day in every congressman’s office, pushing them until they finally decided not to change the laws.

- It now has more than 60 million listeners, which they have gained without advertising. They have grown simply by word of mouth, and their policy to always listen to and talk to their customers. They have also been doing these meet-ups across the country. A big part of their growth is mobile, the Pandora app allows people to stream music on their phones, and even in their cars.

- In Pandora’s future, they want to give artists the ability to log on and see who’s listening to their music; who’s ‘thumbs upping’ their songs, and who’s entering them as a station seed. They could see maps of where the most listeners are, helping them decide where to drive the tour bus. Then Pandora could notify listeners that their favorite band is coming to town. They are also considering trying to bring other types of radio into the music genome project, such as sports, weather, and comedy.

I’m a big fan of Pandora now. I think it’s one of the best ways to listen to and discover music. It’s a cool company with some cool people working there. Radio used to be one of the best ways, one of the only ways, to get you’re music out there. You could go to your local radio station, give them a CD, and hope they would play your songs. But now, there’s no such thing as local radio. It’s all owned by a few major radio companies, and they don’t play anything unless it’s already popular.

Not to mention radio is constantly interrupted with commercials. It’s the man. And sometimes you gotta stick it to the man. Pandora is the best thing for artists and for listeners. My thumb is up to you Pandora. May you grow and thrive.

This post first appeared on the Oxstein Labs blog.

Isaiah, the new Old Spice pitch man, makes the men laugh and the ladies swoon.  His commercials generated so much heat that television could not contain him.  Now Isaiah and Old Spice are social media darlings spreading viral smiles across the globe.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Isaiah is now in the pantheon of commercial celebrities like the “What’s the Beef?” Wendy’s Lady and the Burger King King who most recently showed up on chat roulette giving away coupons in a smart social media play. While Isaiah is at his peak, and after the World Cup domination of Twitter has ended, Old Spice rolled out this campaign that everybody’s talking about.

In a brilliant PR move,  Isaiah has spent the last couple of days responding directly to bloggers, journalists, celebrities and random Twitter followers through well crafted, funny and sensual You Tube videos.  He even asked a woman to marry a man who requested that Isaiah deliver the proposal for him. The “Isaiah Talks to You” social media marketing campaign hits high notes few have seen.

The Old Spice You Tube channel is bursting at the seams with entertaining videos that you can’t help sharing with others.Though you won’t have enough time to watch them all at least check out the Alyssa Milano response above (which will surely get Isaiah a date) and the Justine Bateman response.

Rick Bakas gives a good overview of why this social media marketing campaign is so effective with some points that are worth repeating. The big takeaway for anyone interested in beefing up their social media marketing is to connect with influencers who care about your product or service.

Isaiah’s first videos responded to bloggers and journalists that had written about the Old Spice commercials.  They have huge audiences, and like all people, they like to hear their own name.  If Isaiah responded to you in a You Tube video how many people would you tell?

The main ingredients of the Old Spice social media marketing campaign come together to show how online and offline branding can work amazingly well together with good strategy.  What we can all learn from this, besides the fact that sex still sells (especially when the bare chested man speaks directly to the ladies by name), is that social media marketing has hit the mainstream.

Major corporations are building relationships with their audiences in more and more creative ways.  Social media has moved the needle to being a very powerful tool that any brand can use to generate awareness, interest and more sales.  So who is your Isaiah and when are you rolling out your next campaign?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Magical thinking can kill you. Now it’s been proven. After James Arthur Ray, self proclaimed ‘self help expert’ and one of the stars of the book and movie The Secret charged 70 participants $9,933 each to attend a sweat lodge event, two died, 19 went to the hospital and the ‘law of attraction‘ will never be the same.

Somehow I’m guessing that James Arthur Ray didn’t have this or possible jail time and losing his millions on his vision board but somehow it’s in his life anyway. Hmm, how could that happen?  Do things ever happen in your life that aren’t on your vision board?

James Ray’s Twitter bio says “Create Harmonic Wealth in every area of your life: Financial, Relational, Mental, Physical and Spiritual.”  …not this time.

As I wrote awhile back, the biggest secret about The Secret is that the stars of the movie were all proven internet marketing/self help gurus with responsive opt-in lists of well over 100,000 each.

They seeded the marketing campaign for the movie on the internet to well over a million people for a year before it’s DVD release.  Remember that it wasn’t a theatrical release, it was a brilliant online marketing campaign.

The Secret movie and book had a low overhead and a high profit margin mixed with a planned back end of products and services by all of the featured ‘experts’ to offer to all the new people looking to experience “The Secret” in their lives too.

I know a couple of the people who devised the scheme, so this isn’t conjecture.  It was a smart way for them to joint venture their individual successes in order to boost all of their careers by creating a premium brand for self help.

Today they are all multi-millionaires based on how the success of the book and movie allowed them to send their speaking fees, products and course costs through the ceiling.  Self help is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it’s selling false hope at a premium price.

They are all master marketers who fill rooms of people with cheap tickets, and then pitch back of the room offers (their advanced courses and advanced advanced VIP courses with ever-higher dollar price tags) that promise to be THE answer to your problems.

Note the latest internet marketing technology on their Science of Getting Rich website if you don’t believe me.  They have gotten rich by selling the idea that they have the key to YOUR wealth and happiness though most of their customers have not gotten either wealth or happiness as a result of becoming their customers.

Preying on people’s hopes and fears related to their money, careers, relationships, health and death for profit is nothing new.  It’s the backbone and life blood of politics, religions and mainstream media.

Unfortunately, this time selling self-help snake oil resulted in tragic and preventable deaths.  I doubt that participants paying $9,933 to be a ‘spiritual warrior’ thought this would be what they got out of the seminar.

I have a friend who has spent $6,000 a year and used his two weeks of vacation every year for 7 years going to T. Harv Eker, the master of back of the room sales, seminars on how to get rich.  My friend is currently unemployed, but Harv’s doing just fine thank you.

Is positive thinking and visualizing a better life a bad thing? Of course not, but selling people on the fact that it will magically give them everything they want from God and ‘The Universe’ is a flat out sham.

Unfortunately, millions of people will still not wake up, even after this tragedy.  They’ll continue to part with their money to gamble on the hope that someone will deliver a magic book, CD or event to change their lives.

If you want to change your life, it’s pretty simple.  Do something.  Drop the stories and excuses and just take action.  If you do smart things and have luck you’ll have a better chance of succeeding, but there are no guarantees.  As you know and have experienced yourself, both good and bad things happen to both good and bad people.

There is no magic pill, no magic teacher, no magic course and no magic book (including ‘holy’ books written and edited by powerful men with a vested interest in amassing and controlling followers.)

There are helpful tools, but when push comes to shove you have to keep taking action with good intentions and hope for the best.  If there was a magic formula everyone would use it and we would not be in a worldwide recession.  Focus on what you can control, let go of what you can’t and be thankful you did better in the womb lottery than people born in Rwanda.

If you insist on submissively following a guru then I encourage you to follow the wisdom, um, I mean Duhism, of Bob Tzu, Lao Tzu’s long lost American cousin.  His wisdom is encapsulated in three simple, yet life changing steps: 1. Shut up and stop whining. 2. Get off your butt and do something, and 3. Repeat (as necessary.)

I am not making light of this tragic event.  Far beyond that, I’m hoping that it causes more people stop paying money to these charlatans and start creating their own destinies instead.

We have definitely hit the age of participatory media.  Old mass media is very sick and broadcast methods of interruption marketing have gone from annoying to impotent, but I don’t agree with the idea that mass media will die.  It will be re-engineered like all industries must in this time of change.

According to the loud mouths in the media, the birth of TV was supposed to kill radio.  Then cable TV was supposed to kill standard TV.  Then VCR home recording was supposed to kill visits to movie theaters.  Now the internet and video games are supposed to kill TV.  It’s just more ‘look, the sky is falling’ hoo-hah.  (And any opportunity to use the word ‘hoo-hah’ is one I’ll take because it’s fun to say.)

Even newspapers will never die.  The industries of the past are crumbling and newspaper subscriptions will continue declining, but they’ll always be around in some fashion.

That said, the era of participatory media is in full force.  It was a babe when blogs and YouTube hit the scene, but  now it’s how young people get most of their news.

As generation Y is poised to dominate the population in a few years, all communication and business marketing methods are shifting to two-way or multi-channel platforms like blogs and Twitter.  Gone are the days where advertisers could win the day by shouting unwanted messages to an unsuspecting public or when you had to wait until TV told you what was happening in your world.

I’s all about community, transparency, trust agents, authenticity and tribes.  Although, for now the signal to noise ratio is still way off as old school people and companies still try to use new multi-channel platforms to broadcast obnoxious marketing messages no one wants without being genuine contributors to conversations people are looking to have.  If they aren’t helping, they’re hurting.  But they’ll learn, or they’ll die.

On another note, you probably remember the famous “Wassup” superbowl commercial in 2000.  What you may not know is that is was originally a short film done by a college student and then Budweiser hired him to remake it into a commercial with beer.

Watch the original ad below and the follow up to it in 2008 with the same actors.  Note how this user generated content (UGC) powerfully conveys information about how the world changed in eight years.  Then think about how much information you’ve learned in the last week or month from UGC videos, blog posts, Twitter tweets and other sources.  It’s a brave new world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I just read a London Telegraph article mistitled “The Social Media Revolution is Going Nowhere.” It included statements like

No wonder the company has yet to make any money, while Facebook, too, has yet to deliver on its financial potential. None of this is to say, of course, that the internet hasn’t had a profound impact on individuals, companies and interactivity – but the fact that typical Twitter users are older than initially believed means that businesses will need to rethink how they use it.

I wrote the following comment to the article and felt it was worth reposting here:

The trouble with this, and so many other articles on Twitter, is that it’s a myopic view. There are so many different valuable ways that social media is being used and opening previously closed doors of connection and collaboration.

Have you watched the latest viral video on what’s happening right now with social media? http://bit.ly/11gDZC

Yes, 40% or more of what’s on Twitter is babble. So follow people who provide the signal you want and unfollow the noise. Isn’t what traditional media gives us arguably 40% or more babble and nonsense? That’s part of why more people choose not to give so much time to traditional media. If you don’t choose your friends and co-workers wisely isn’t 40% of what they talk about just babble? When humans communicate it’s never 100% valuable content.

As far as the ‘tips’ at the end of the article, they’re in the same vein of all ‘tips’ given for social media. They all boil down to ‘don’t be an idiot and use online communication and relationships with the same common sense way you handle your offline relationships.’ ‘Duh.’

Something people miss a lot in trying to cover this space is that it’s a ‘both/and’ proposition to traditional media and offline communication tools. It’s not ‘either the old way or the new way.’ There are times where each is helpful and they compliment each other like allopathic medicine and alternative medicine.

The perspective that social media has to be judged as better or worse than other ways of connecting is a false starting point that leads to more false opinions based on limited information and even less experience using the tools.

I’m guessing that the author of the article and the authors of the negative comments are not daily social media users. When you’re using these tools regularly you tap into their worth and understand as well experience the personal and professional benefits of using social media.

Socialnomics has put together a video driving home the reality of how social media is fundamentally shifting how we communicate, connect and consume culture in the 21st century.  Share it with anyone who tells you that social media is a fad, technology is isolating people rather than facilitating face-to-face meetings, or that Twitter is stupid.

One of the most significant shifts that social media is driving is the spirit of collaboration rather than competition in some business spaces and in intellectual property systems.  These are both driving scalable innovations that will benefit everyone.  What you don’t know won’t hurt you, but it will leave you in the dust as life moves forward with amazing changes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
13. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27. Only 14% trust advertisements
28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34. In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

If you still don’t understand what social media is this will help:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sexy time.  It’s not always at the same habitual time like breakfast or teeth brushing time, right?  Or is it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Researchers at the University of Texas did a study in 2007 with 2,000 participants that revealed 237 reasons why people have sex.  (Really, they couldn’t stretch it to 250 to get a good round number?)  But, you won’t find much published information on when people have sex …unless you’re a marketer.

We all know that sex sells and subliminal advertising sells.  Therefore one would expect marketers and advertisers to be all over research on sex, and they are.  If you’d like to know when people have sex it’s very easy to find the answer.  Just open a magazine.

If you choose any magazine randomly and flip through the pages you will notice that most, if not all, of the ads for watches feature prominent watch faces set to 10:10.  Why?  Because statistically most people have sex at 10 pm.

Some of us are morning sex people, and some of us prefer sex earlier or later than 10 pm, but the research in marketing circles says that most of us like our sexy time when we turn the lights out at 10 pm.

The question is, “Does it work?”  Well, I’ve never looked at an ad for a watch and become aroused or felt compelled to buy a watch much less look at the one on my wrist.  But maybe I’m the exception.  What happens to you when you see a big, handsome bold-faced watch set to 10:10?

I bet you didn’t know you could learn so much from a watch ad in a magazine.  When they pay that much attention to try make a watch sexy just imagine what goes into trying to sell you a pair of sexy shoes or a brand new car.

…and after you open a magazine and see this, the answer is “Yes, I am psychic and I’m reading your mind.” (It’s a side effect of studying psychology, influence and persuasion.)

This video of The Young Turks helps to point out how political pundits lie to the public while kissing up to the most powerful politicians until they begin to lose power.  Then, like magic, the truth that everyone knew all along comes out of their mouths for the first time …years after it could have helped to change what wasn’t working.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The topics of the day covered by the mainstream media are usually about 5 steps behind what’s really going on.  For instance, focusing on who will be the president or will be your next Senator distracts you from the fact that these “representatives” represent heavily monied interests, not you for the most part.

Simply review the laws passed last year or over the last decade or the last century to see who benefited most from the laws and who sacrificed or suffered as a result of the laws.  While the media pretends that we should focus on the us vs. them B.S. of Republican vs. Democrat or conservative vs. liberal, the elephant in the room is that it doesn’t matter.

Politics today is all about PR.  Billions of dollars are spent on public relations to frame the way the public views issues and current events.  If you talk to anyone who consumes talk radio or cable news they will regurgitate the repeated talking points drilled into their minds and they will not be able to go deeper on the issues than this.  It’s time for people to wake up, think, listen to their guts and stop swallowing these tactics.  Just say no to being blindly influenced.

George Carlin explains this humorously – but be warned that foul language comes with the medicine.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have you watched your local nightly news lately?  Probably not if you’re like most Americans under the age of 61, but you’ll still get my point.  I’m guessing you’ve watched more financial news in the last month than usual in reaction to fear around money, stocks and the economy in general.

I accidentally saw the first few minutes of local news recently and noticed that it looked just like it did when I was a kid and my parents watched it.  They have the same formula as always: An intro with visuals that include flashing police car or fire truck lights and an audio track of a reporter talking in that ridiculous reporter-sing-song voice telling you that the content they’re sharing is VERY important and significant.  If they’re lucky they can splice some security camera footage into the piece too for an extra scary effect.

I’m sure they still cover the weather at exactly 17 minutes after the hour too, but for the sake of this post we’ll stick with the intro.  News, whether it is on broadcast or cable television, on the web or in newspapers, generally leads with some story aimed at reminding you that the world is not a safe place.

It’s probably even a little worse since they created the oft-used phrase, “In a post-9/11 world…”  The truth is that we don’t live in a country where suicide bombers are blowing up cafes and you’re more likely to get hit by lightning or win the lottery without a ticket than to be harmed by a terrorist in America.

This truth is exactly the same now as it was 5 years or 50 years before 9/11.  That’s just a fact and it has nothing to do with how much our president has or has not protected us or that you aren’t allowed to carry a regular sized can of shaving cream on to an airplane anymore.

It has to do with the low number of terrorists who have the inclination or means to harm us.  We don’t live in Columbia or Israel where terrorist violence is a reality. We live in America where impoverished drug addicts with guns are actually a bigger threat than terrorists.  And when was the last time you or someone you love was car jacked by a crack addict or directly threatened by a terrorist?  That’s my point.

Back to the media, it’s not that they like to scare people.  (At least I hope not.)  It’s because consumers are reactionary creatures that respond to emotional content.  That’s also why they always ask the asinine question of, “How do you feel?” to the woman whose son got killed an hour ago in a car accident or the guy who made the 3 point shot to win the basketball game.

Have these interviewees ever given a surprising answer even once in the history of the world?  Nope.  Guess what, the guy whose house burned down says “I’m in shock and upset that I lost everything, but I’m grateful that my family made it out in time.”  Surprise!  You never here him say, “I’m excited and going to Disneyland on the insurance money.  It’s a godsend that my shack is gone and I can cash in!”

The fact that many news consumers forget is that the news is a product.  Therefore, if you study advertising you’ll understand why the product of news is sold with the same methods as selling the product of beer or the product of voting for a politician.

Consumers are emotional creatures that unconsciously react to advertising.  Add to this fact that people react more strongly to negative advertising than positive advertising.  If my news program makes you afraid by making you think crime is up it concurrently attracts you to watch my news because you think I’ll give you information on what’s happening that will make you feel safer.

I create the problem that you should be afraid while positioning myself as your answer to feel safer.  It’s the same schtick for self help gurus who tell you they have the answer for your health, relationship and money issues.  The day you feel safe is the day you lose dependence on being a daily news consumer and the day you believe your life is not broken you lose the desire to spend money on books, CDs and seminars to fix yourself.

Ironically, crime in America has consistently been going down for well over a decade even though most people who regularly consume news think it’s always going up.  If you see a petty crime reported as the lead story every night the images of flashing lights repeated daily is what your brain remembers.

Perception is reality when you’re being blindly influenced.  If they want good ratings they need to give you a perceived threat so you’ll tune in to “stay informed.”  It may be worthwhile to question how informed you really become blindly consuming what others determine is “news.”