Online Media Trends

Comprehensive tech news and reviews from GetConnected. This video focuses on different online media trends.

Mike: We got Jack Kapica with us today from the Globe and mail. Thanks for joining us Jack. Jack: Hey thanks Mike Mike: Wanted to talk about an article you wrote recently about a people being driven away from the old medium, television for example into some of the newer mediums, what are you seeing here? Jack: Well, I'm seeing, I supposed would something that we never seen before at least in our life time but not much in our life time, just the effect of what people are spending their time on as a whole new entertainment medium comes online namely the internet. The studies are showing what people are doing, you know, they’re shifting their viewing habits from television to internet, they’re renting movies, they’re downloading videos from YouTube, they’re reading the news online and so on. So of course the inevitable conclusion if one were to be so jumpy as to jump to one is that the traditional media meaning radio, television, newspapers are suffering and the, that’s the conclusion that they’ve come to. I don’t trust that myself. Mike: Well, it’s interesting because I’ve seen some of the stats on online advertising and how fast this is growing. I think it is 40 billion dollars last year growing to 80 billion dollars in 2010, so obviously the advertisers believe that more people are using these new mediums aren’t they? Jack: Yeah, well there’s often a lot of movement toward the internet, I mean what’s happened is that the advertisers now beginning to realize that there’s a large and measurable audience for their product out there Mike: Who knew? Jack: And that they’re now moving their advertising dollars to that medium whether that it’s a stable audience are not I'm not entirely sure Mike: Well it’s interesting because you wonder how much of that content, what type of content people are watching on the internet, I mean is this affecting, you know, like television series, like first run series or are they more watching like smaller clips on the internet? Jack: No I think it’s much more smaller clips in the internet right now but remember I think if you take a very long look at it what you’re going to be able to see eventually is complete streaming video everywhere for like just like on television, you turn it on there it is, you watch it for hours, you turn it off, you go to the bathroom, you take your lunch whatever you know but it will be there. That’s what’s gonna happen sometime in the future. It’s not happening now. It’s hard to see how it’s gonna happen but it will happen, I mean 15 years ago we couldn’t conceive of the internet at all. So what's gonna happen of course, if we measure this at any one given moment, you know, like take a snap shot of it in time and try to project something from it, it’s going to be rather awkward thing. I don’t think you can never actually take something that is in spasmodic growth, let’s call it and predict anything from anyone snap shot of it. That being said however, there are couple of things that are interesting, the new media much valley hood, citizens journalism, bloggers sites and so on and so forth has somehow I don’t know how does it happen set itself at war with traditional media and suggesting that the new media are terrifying the old media and that the old media have a good reason to sweat. In fact what happened is that there's another study done by IDC Canada recently which discovered that people in fact are using the old media just as much as they ever did before. If they get it online, they’re still getting it from the old media online such as the globeandmail.com website, that doesn’t mean they’re using, you know, the medium is really not particularly important to this case whether it’s online or on paper. They’re still getting it from the globe and mail. The suggestion is that what's happening here is that people are getting their information, their news from sources that are trusted. People still are not trusting the citizen journalists or the bloggers that much. I mean, after all, it takes an awful long time to earn people’s trust and respect and you can't do it by just simply arriving in the internet saying “Hi I'm a blogger, believe me.” Mike: So old world brands are still very important than even coming to the new medium? Jack: What you’re talking about trust here, I mean I put a very provocative title on that. Does medium matter anymore as tweakingly the years of those people who interpret Marshall Mcluhan and they tend to mark, interpret them every which way I’ve never quite understood what the pattern was. Mind you, I never understood that Marshall Mcluhan said either, no that’s another story. Anyhow, the factor main is that it’s a matter of the trust, credibility. The global and mail has no offer to lose, for instance has the CTV, CBC and any other major network has no offer not to lose as they get something wrong. A citizen blogger has nothing to lose, you know. Okay maybe some will say something bad about them but the next day he’s online again and everything is just fine right? But this does not earn your trust, it earns you a presence, it doesn’t earn your trust. Some people will believe the bloggers over us and that’s their privilege, you know, but if they really want to have trust, a trust where they source then they should go to the old media. Mike: Well Jack I want to thank you for joining us again today Jack: Thank you Mike Mike: That was Jack Kapica from the global and mail, you can check all of Jack’s articles and blogging up at globetechnology.com