The Nightmare Grows

TragicLad continues the nightmare meme....

 My name is Rob, but I've also used the net-name TragicLad.
I am 30, married and have a child.
I work at a professional association and run my own business.
I've got cash in the bank, a line of credit and a growing investment portfolio.
I ride public transportation, but have a license to drive.
I rarely watch TV - The West Wing, The Apprentice, The Daily Show and BattleStar Gallactica sums it up.
I only listen to the radio when I drive - perhaps an hour every other week.
I never buy a newspaper or magazine.
I read. A lot.
I do my banking online.
I buy my books and movies from Amazon.ca.
I visit a dozen webcomics or so each week - many I've subscribed to at ModernTales.com
My preferred news source is Google News.
My first stop for reference is Wikipedia.
I've started using Skype.
My browser is FireFox.
My documents are created in Open Office and my web pages authored on Notepad.
I'm using more and more open source software.
I don't own an IPod, but my wife's had several MP3 players from Creative.
I write a blog - you're reading it now.
I track over 350 professional's, executives, pundits, experts friends' and acquaintance's blogs using Google Reader. Daily.
I talk. A lot. A few people listen. Then they talk. A few people listen to them. Lots of us are talking. And listening. TO EACH OTHER.
I am becoming your worst nightmare. You know who you are.

Comments

[Rob Barac]

Yes it does my friend.

[Rob Irwin]

And yet, the thing is, a lot of the things people talk about in the oft-quoted "the conversation" aren't talking from a first hand point of view. This is the part where I think bloggers go totally delusional that they are usurping the world's media. For instance, yes, I can give you a comment on Industrial Reform, or the scores in the cricket, or whatever, on my blog... but I wasn't physically there. And neither were 99.9% of other bloggers, either. I think the real proof of the pudding is seeing where blogs, podcasts, alternate buying methods, etc, integrate with society, rather than being some kind of bogeyman, which it can never actually be. Currently it's akin to a little kid dressing up in a Dracula cape and saying, "Bwahahahahahaha..." in a funny voice. Cute, but not scary or nightmarish at all.

[Cameron Reilly]

Rob, you think the MSM are usually "there"? Come on man. Ever watch Media Watch? They are often just regurgitating Reuters feeds. It doesn't matter to me who is where. I'm reading and listening (and will soon be watching) content produced by non-traditional outlets. Every hour I spend engaged in non-traditional content, is an hour I'm NOT spending engaged in traditional content. It all adds up buddy. Economic models are fragile. A few points here and there and they can be white-anted quite quickly.

Anyway, the point is this - the world is changing. And the businesses that didn't get it in the late 90s are going to struggle in the late 2000s. The businesses that aren't consumer friendly can be easily replaced by businesses that are and that use technology to subvert traditional restraints in supply.

And those of us that live on the bleeding edge of this stuff are harbingers of things to come.

[Rob Irwin]

Ah, but there's the thing. These companies, or MSM organisations, or whoever else you want to mention, *will still exist*. You infer as much in saying, "The businesses that aren't consumer friendly can be easily replaced by businesses that are..."

This is what I'm saying. These things are still going to exist - and the ones that exist best, will be integrating these things. That's why I think it's dumb for MSM to ignore these outlets, totally! But I do think there's this attitude in alternate sources like blogs, podcasts, etc, that they're taking over. Nuh. Aint gonna happen.

I forsee a future where the two live in harmony. I'll be happily pulling the cricket scores straight off a live feed, courtesy of the MSM, but I might tune in later that day to some armchair critic who does a podcast. That's ideal. That's harmony. That's what I see happening. Not one side squashing the other.

[Rob Clark]

As Shel Holtz says, "when the IT dept. brought in email, they didn't cart away the fax machines."

I don't expect television or newspapers will dry up and blow away because there's blogs and podcasts. They serve a need and have a particular function. On the other hand, their relevance and standing is most certainly going to change. After all, the fax machines didn't get thrown out the window when email came into the office but are they used with anywhere near the volume they once were?

Radio didn't kill the newspapers. Movies and Television didn't kill radio. Video didn't kill television and the movies. Each new technology will simply create additional avenues and means of expression and communication.

What made the 'nightmare meme' resonate for me are the final lines. We're talking to each other. Ten years ago it doesn't matter what Rob Irwin or Cameron Reilly had to say because the odds are good I'd of never heard either voice. Today I hear you and you hear me and we can communicate. What you have to say may affect how I view a company, brand, organization, ideal or belief. I personally find that idea exhillerating. There are those who find the idea terrifying.

[Ewan Spence]

Oh it won;t kill them, but people have a fixed amount of lesiure time per day (generally 24hours less work, sleep, food, ablutions, watching the latest episode of Doctor Who, drink) and there are more and more activites to take up that time. TV and especially Radio are figuring less and less as MP3, podcasting, playstations, World of Warcraft and kids take up more of my and many others time. So how many listeners can a Commercial Radio station loose in an hour before they start to loose advertisers money due to loss of listeners? One point? Two? Five? And there you go. The death of a thousand [percentage] cuts...

[Rob Irwin]

It's not death. Not if they're smart and integrate things like podcasting and blogs and whatever else - properly - into their organisations. People will still be doing all the stuff they love and consider themselves oh-so-clever for doing (like time-shifting when listening to a podcast), but the content can still be mainstream. Because, frankly, Joe Public doesn't give a **** about indie cred or whatever else. He just wants a good read/show. MSM is still in the game, bigtime.