"You have to use judgment as well."
So said Roy Price, head of Amazon Studios, to a bunch of TV critics, as reported by The New York Times.
Actually the quote began with: "It's not like you can come in on Tuesday and the computer says: 'Doot, doot, doot. Here are the shows you are going to do.'"
This revelation coming, of course, after their abject failure at doot, doot, doot programming and, needless to say, after the usual cabal of sycophantic digibabblists pronounced all other forms of programming dead on arrival.
However, it looks like their "unique" algorithm that was going to render all storytelling obsolete joins their own profit story on the heap of bad fiction.
I will let you follow the full story and read all the links....
However, I will end with one final quote from one of the great creative minds they have recently hired (at top dollar) to create great TV: Chris Carter, who said after explaining that no one had given him any "data gleaned from an algorithm as a direction for this show": "I am sure they are mining all kinds of data, but my job is to be a good storyteller."
Time to stop pitting data against insight; algorithm against judgment; computer predictability against human randomness; digibabble fiction against great storytelling; Big Data against Big Story; Amazon against Homer... you get the point.
Data have always been a part of our advertising business, despite the pretense, and as sources get better and delivery more efficient, it helps play an even bigger role -- a role that will grow and change and evolve.
What won't change ever is the power of a great story to connect.
Wake up: Data don't connect -- data are history at their best and a bet on the future at their weakest. But a good story -- a good story lives on and becomes a part of the fabric of life and culture.
Don't confuse the two. Don't force meaningless choices. Use each for what it does -- but never forget -- people don't connect with data or through data....
What do you think?