Message of the medium

Printed pubs that ignore the web ought to be terrified for their jobs.

Print media will always be around, but the only way it can be successful is to support its web counterparts, which is where most people will eventually get their news, entertainment and information.

Print content is also almost entirely structured around advertiser dollars, which forces its creators to restrict what they do.

Even if bound books and expensive paper feel more valid and lasting than the endless supply of blogs and, uh, myspace pages, online media has already won on cost and uncensored creativity.

Good bloggers who do their research, check their facts and write provoking content that’s actually made for the inturweb already have circulations comperable to the big print boys. Give it a few years and we’ll (er, you’ll) take over.

Just a thought, but is it possible that part of the difference also comes from on-line media revealing or of who they are, and thus any biases they may possess?

The more you reveal about yourself, the mor in depth people may look into your writings and the better they understand them.

As most print media lists reporters by name only, there is little additional information which may be garnered, whereas an on-line personality such as yourself will be more likely to respond to comments, and present herself in a way which would make a bias, if any more likely.

Its the difference between someone praising or panning an event, and knowing any vias the person may have had before the fact.

David, I do think you’re spot on - but it also brought up something else for me. Although online/blogging personalities are immediately researchable, many do not write under their “real” names (though this is oten true of print writers as well). Many print publications have policies against using pseudonyms, especially of people they quote, which is a major uphill battle sex workers have with the media. The name issue is a good excuse for print publications to dismiss online media. Though it is mostly an excuse, it also underlines the differences between the ways the two forms function.

1. The EEB website is ugly and has poor navigation. 2/3 of the first screen doesn’t show because it requires the Flash plug-in. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come.

2. I know I have this problem convincing the people in my work life who are north of 40 about the validity of the blogs and social bookmarking stuff.

I’m spitballing but I wonder if age makes a difference. As in the editors and bloggers of FB, myspace, SG Wired are all younger (than 30?) and very much online, so it made total sense they picked it up and ran with it.

Low or no barriers to entry are a double edged sword; they allow under capitalized go-getters to put their ideas in the market place, but they also create an incredibly crowded marketplace, which is mostly crowded with crap.

For much the same reason that “shot-on-film” will catch a distributor’s or festival director’s eye faster than “we’re doing amazing things with 24P video”, nine time out of ten (99 out of 100?) a magazine that actually gets printed on glossy paper is going to be take more serious than a purely electronic publication.

A journalist once told me that print media will be around because you can’t take a computer to the bathroom.

Today, we can conjur up a clear picture of someone sitting on the toilet, hovered over their Blackberry or PDA, surfing and shitting. I think print media is slowly moving from a position of writing off online media to a position of fear.

While online media may never fully replace print media, it will definitely take a sizeable chunk of their share of the market, and print media orgs are starting to catch on to this inevitability. Orthodox journalists sneer at the internet no matter what, but the bigger media is trying to embrace it while subversively monopolizing it at the expense of the very writers who first took advantage of this efficient medium.

Dacia, I found out about your site thru the TONY Sex Issue. I may or may not be on here if I hadn’t read that, although thru my tenacity in surfing for the whole “New Porn” shebang on the web, it’s a good bet that I would’ve come on here EVENTUALLY…but how long is that “eventually” for everyday people? If you’re running an online biz, that “eventually” is not a practical option for you getting dat green to put some food on the table. You gots to make some noise, yey? And print is where the bottom line is unless you’re really fortunate to have the noise to not need it.

Even those of us tech-savvies out there have our own particular luddite barriers up for the things we don’t need or use. As much as I like the freedom of using my laptop on my bed for reading poetry, prose, porn or whatever, there’s still nothing to compare to opening a book or magazine to read whilst being horizontal and chilling out in the summer breeze from my open winder (and maybe doing the ol’ solo slide-to-slide with the drapes closed.)

Until our planet becomes a literal Coruscant and trees are organisms found only in historical virtual reality simulations, the web is gonna have to rely on print to garner look-sees more than print relying on the web to do likewise. As much as I like to surf from time to time (mostly big titty sites), I become stationary with the sites that matter to me and don’t deviate too much unless I really want or have to. And honestly, I find out about more sites from the business cards left on bar counters and the numerous stickers plastered all over any non-pourous flat surface out on the streets. Print still rules the world, for the nonce.

“but the bigger media is trying to embrace it while subversively monopolizing it at the expense of the very writers who first took advantage of this efficient medium.”

I’m sure I saw something some years ago (well before the interet) descibing the innovation cycle along the lines of explorer, exploiter, settler; or madman, moneyman, everyman; or some such.

Paid blogging is growing in popularity. I know several people who’re doing it.