Old Dogs New Tricks

In this new media revolution that has been fueled by technology the old rules and old players are dying.  The survivors of big media have been forced into new revenue models and it seems that all the rules they knew have changed. 

Print media organizations position changed with the advent of television.   Print media seemed to have a rebirth in electronic form in the early days of the web. 

Video was certainly present in the early days of the web but was not the player it is today.  Video has gotten so much easier as bandwidths as a whole have increased and video codecs and technologies have evolved. 

Print organizations now can easily do video for the web and provide rich web content.   The survival of the fittest media conglomerates evolves adapting, adopting, enveloping, and embracing the real time web. 

The old dogs have learned new tricks that the rest of the web has quickly shown them.  Some of the old dogs are more adept at learning than others. 

The value of the traditional media is the big picture.   The little picture real time story has forever been lost to new media. 

Real-Time Web

The real time story no longer belongs to the old dogs.  Social Media plus the cloud has changed that.  

Twitter and Facebook users report in real time what is happening.   FriendFeed aggregates it.  Conversation happens minutes and hours before CNN can pick it up.  

Anyone with text messaging can be a pseudo-street reporter.  Video via mobile phone is streamed live as events unfold.   QIK and many others are speeding along with live streaming. 

So simple print media and video are happening on the web getting swallowed up by FriendFeed.   Meanwhile as the event continues to unfold it is getting commented on, video commented on, rebroadcast live, blogged on and podcasted on.  

CNN will pick up the story but it is too little too late for the live coverage.  The best big media can do is what they are doing. 

Folding the external sources of eyewitness accounts, photos, and videos into their coverage.   They can sift the noise for quality eyewitness media and recap the story.  They can do this relatively quickly but not really live and besides the live accounts, pictures, and video are in the wild of the web.

The real-time story is over for traditional media.   As the web improves and evolves it will be more and more apparent.  But, traditional media can provide value. 

Iran Example

Iran is a great example of where a big guy can provide value.   My wife and I have 3 children and she is stay at home mom.  Her day is filled with children not media and rarely news.  

At the end of the day I will occasionally tell her of the significant world news.  I turn to traditional media to recap the days events.

Traditional media is valuable for the big picture.   I read the New York Times almost daily.   The quality of the reporting and writing is great.  

I read for news not commentary all opinion pieces aside.  The blogosphere contains some talented writers but the polish of an international desk writer at the Times is valuable.  

You know what to expect and you get it.  No writer is perfect everyone swings and misses occasionally.  But, the quality average is second to none. 

I read an article today to give wife an update on Iran it was great.  Here is an excerpt:

“Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly cut off any compromise over the nation’s disputed elections on Friday. In a long and hard-line sermon, he declared the elections valid and warned of violence if demonstrators continue, as they have pledged, to flood the streets in defiance of the government. “

The article was just what I required a well written summary of the days events. 

The real-time web and social media will continue to evolve as the web becomes more of a part of our daily lives.   Succinct, well written, reporting, of the big picture will give traditional media a role for a very long time.