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Maybe I Don’t Want A Virtual Croissant…
11th May 2009. Posted by Tara Tomes. Trackback
Photography courtesy of Amalthya
I was reading the Sunday Times yesterday morning over a nice cup of tea and croissant, when I came across this article about the new media revolution. Of late I have started to get a bit bored of reading about the social networking phenomenon and the death of traditional media, but this was actually a breath of fresh air. The basis of the article was that new e-readers are “just part of a bold new media landscape” and that traditional media could perhaps be saved, rather than killed off, by new media.
Following last month’s British newspaper circulation figures it was revealed that all but two national newspapers, the Daily Star and The Times, saw a fall in circulation figures. This is not just in Britain, there has even been talk of the nationalisation of the New York Times. So I can see why everyone is pretty much throwing in the towel on the offline media market, but perhaps it’s not all doom and gloom…?!
The Sunday Times article stated that this so-called declining industry is finally taking a stand and embracing new media. Disney is now taking a stake in Hulu, an online facility that offers hours of (new and old) US television on demand and for free. Our own broadcasters have launched various versions of TV on-demand – what would we do without the iPlayer? – and there is a UK equivalent of Hulu underway. Project Canvas is a collaboration between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, and if they get it off the ground they are hoping it becomes the TV equivalent of the iTunes Store.
The print world has been following suit too with the launch of Kindle DX, an updated version of the Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos’, electronic book reader. This tabloid-sized screen displays newspapers, magazines and books, in the palm of your hand (well, two hands, as it is quite big!) Although it will be difficult to get people to pay for something that they can already get for free on the internet, it seems that all is not well online and the model of free-content-led-by-paid-for-advertising isn’t exactly lasting the Web 3.0 development. The article talks of YouTube losing $470m this year and Facebook having to offer lower-quality services in certain countries to keep their server going and costs down.
Ashley Highfield, MD of Consumers and Online at Microsoft and the man behind the infamous iPlayer, was quoted as saying, “The idea that everything has to be free was so voguishly accepted and this is an epochal moment in the fightback.”
“That doesn’t mean everything will remain the same as always. The recession will only encourage people and publishers and producers into the digital world - it’s just now there’s a business model for survival in that world.”
I found the article refreshing because it didn’t state that ‘anything goes’ online (like everything else I seem to read). Instead, what it did was address that we (as an offline community) are developing the online world and forcing it to progress. Yes, Web 2.0 brought about some groundbreaking online services, but I don’t think that we can take the internet for granted any more. It may seem cheaper and more convenient, but surely everything needs a business model to survive?
I think I manage to balance new and old pretty well; my life isn’t quite all online just yet and I do actually leave my computer every now and then (not that much if you look at my twitter account) to face the outside world. But what I liked about this particular article was that it showed there is still a partnership between on and offline. Whilst I won’t deny that iTunes has changed my life, I don’t think there has to be an online equivalent to everything… for me, nothing can beat reading the Sunday papers with a cup of tea and (non-virtual) croissant. But if they fancy developing virtual calories – ones that stay online and not on your hips – I’d be the first to sign up.