Thursday, January 15, 2015
Media Spike #26 – Hurry, hurry now, get out while you can, please hurr…
Welcome, get inside quickly.
The sky is falling!!!
The sky is falling on all traditional media.
Get out while you can.
So one panicked industry colleague warned.
Traditional Media – you know the kind, Radio and Television, and that printed stuff like Newspapers and Magazines- all Toast. Oh and don’t even get me started on Outdoor. They are all going the way of the dinosaur. Such dire warnings have been sounding for the past decade and longer.
Perhaps instead of the Chicken Little panic button, we acknowledge the evolution of media vehicles, the changes in technology, the proliferation of Social Media channels, and the changes in consumer tastes, demands, and capabilities.
There is no question the ‘Internet’ has long ago eclipsed ‘in its infancy stage’ and now is a major player in local and global communications. What disturbs me is the sudden desperate abandonment of the tried and true and successful media en masse in favour of a multi-faceted vehicle which is spinning off madly in all directions.
History is littered with ‘the next thing’ which was supposed to cannibalize everything that preceded it.
A brief timeline:
When Johannes Gutenburg made his first Printing Press in 1450, it revolutionized communication as multiple copies of news and information could be spread faster. Newspapers would begin to arrive in earnest through the next century.
When Samuel Morse sent the first Telegraph in 1844, traditionalists of the day feared all print messages would be lost to this newfangled wirelesss technology that relied on dots and dashes.
When Mr. Marconi had Transatlantic signal success in 1901 with what would become Radio, pundits at that time feared print and telegraph would be rendered obsolete.
Electronic television was first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 1927. The system was designed by, Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor. He had lived in a house without electricity until he was 14. But full-scale commercial television broadcasting did not begin in the United States until 1947.
The mid 1950’s- deemed the Golden Age of Television, became the foundation for advertisers and networks to ultimately reach a nearly global audience. The prevailing attitude became one of scoffing at all those archaic pioneer media who came before them.
Sitting in the weeds was the development of technology that would lead to the launch of the Personal Computer as mass-market consumer electronic device in 1977. Clearly this new device was going to obliterate everything in its path and there would soon be no need for print as we’d have a paperless office. Certainly no need for magazines and TV’s and radios since the ‘Personal’ computer was the composite of all these vehicles and more.
Today, more than 550 years since Mr. Gutenburg’s printing press success, you can still print a copy of this page, or thousands of others- right on your own desk. Or simply store it digitally forever...until the next technological revolution.
Hmmm? Does this mean- the more things change, the more they stay the same? Because even that expression has multiple rebirths since it was first used by French novelist Alphonse Karr, in French. The original wording is: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Attributed to circa 1850.
Is there more?
Stay tuned.
P.S. No it is not time to abandon ship. Nor do we need to start bailing- we are not taking on water. Rather these new social media venues- personal, professional, grapevines, ‘Dear Diary on Steroids’, have given passive consumers a voice beyond all historic proportion. The Goliath of media and advertising is behaving as it’s always done, adapting to the tools and talents of its age.
The sky is falling!!!
The sky is falling on all traditional media.
Get out while you can.
So one panicked industry colleague warned.
Traditional Media – you know the kind, Radio and Television, and that printed stuff like Newspapers and Magazines- all Toast. Oh and don’t even get me started on Outdoor. They are all going the way of the dinosaur. Such dire warnings have been sounding for the past decade and longer.
Perhaps instead of the Chicken Little panic button, we acknowledge the evolution of media vehicles, the changes in technology, the proliferation of Social Media channels, and the changes in consumer tastes, demands, and capabilities.
There is no question the ‘Internet’ has long ago eclipsed ‘in its infancy stage’ and now is a major player in local and global communications. What disturbs me is the sudden desperate abandonment of the tried and true and successful media en masse in favour of a multi-faceted vehicle which is spinning off madly in all directions.
History is littered with ‘the next thing’ which was supposed to cannibalize everything that preceded it.
A brief timeline:
When Johannes Gutenburg made his first Printing Press in 1450, it revolutionized communication as multiple copies of news and information could be spread faster. Newspapers would begin to arrive in earnest through the next century.
When Samuel Morse sent the first Telegraph in 1844, traditionalists of the day feared all print messages would be lost to this newfangled wirelesss technology that relied on dots and dashes.
When Mr. Marconi had Transatlantic signal success in 1901 with what would become Radio, pundits at that time feared print and telegraph would be rendered obsolete.
Electronic television was first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 1927. The system was designed by, Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor. He had lived in a house without electricity until he was 14. But full-scale commercial television broadcasting did not begin in the United States until 1947.
The mid 1950’s- deemed the Golden Age of Television, became the foundation for advertisers and networks to ultimately reach a nearly global audience. The prevailing attitude became one of scoffing at all those archaic pioneer media who came before them.
Sitting in the weeds was the development of technology that would lead to the launch of the Personal Computer as mass-market consumer electronic device in 1977. Clearly this new device was going to obliterate everything in its path and there would soon be no need for print as we’d have a paperless office. Certainly no need for magazines and TV’s and radios since the ‘Personal’ computer was the composite of all these vehicles and more.
Today, more than 550 years since Mr. Gutenburg’s printing press success, you can still print a copy of this page, or thousands of others- right on your own desk. Or simply store it digitally forever...until the next technological revolution.
Hmmm? Does this mean- the more things change, the more they stay the same? Because even that expression has multiple rebirths since it was first used by French novelist Alphonse Karr, in French. The original wording is: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Attributed to circa 1850.
Is there more?
Stay tuned.
P.S. No it is not time to abandon ship. Nor do we need to start bailing- we are not taking on water. Rather these new social media venues- personal, professional, grapevines, ‘Dear Diary on Steroids’, have given passive consumers a voice beyond all historic proportion. The Goliath of media and advertising is behaving as it’s always done, adapting to the tools and talents of its age.
- Dennis Kelly
About Me
Dennis Kelly
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Dennis is the author of “ 9 Secrets of How To Improve Your Advertising” and is available to Masthead Reader for $197 through a special offer at this link
Most Recent Blog Comment
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| Dennis Kelly says: | |
Thank you Gloria. What a perfectly apropos link. Thank you for sharing that. You are quite correct. ... |
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