"Web researcher Gordon Borrell says, "The deer now have guns," and he's right. With a PC, a $100 web camera, a $200 piece of real-time TV production software that includes a teleprompter, free blog software, FTP access to a server, a small digital camera, editing software, and an imagination, anybody can be a TV station, a newspaper or a multimedia news operation.

In order to do so, however, the person running the enterprise needs to know how to do everything.

And here's the amazing thing about that.

Those who are learning all these new tools and languages, including simple HTML and CSS, are able to go beyond what specialized professionals can do. In an institutionalized specialization paradigm, the only way to compete with these citizen pioneers is to add more specialists to handle the flexibility that technology has given them. This is the conundrum for the mainstream media.

The "quality" argument pales in comparison with a creative mind at the helm of a control panel like this.

And nowhere is this truer than in the world of television stations and the Web. As long as a station is content to allow third-party companies (specialists) to handle their Internet activities, there is no incentive to leave professional ruts and experiment with the same disruptive technologies that everyday people in their communities are using. This is a grave tactical error, in my judgment, because it limits business opportunities driven by innovation."

The above is a short excerpt from a wonderful essay written by Terry Heaton at the Media Center blogs site, over a month ago.

The relevance of the points made and the intelligent questions asked makes it for a great read for anyone interested in the new internet television phenomenon.

Terry Heaton strikes really major chords and the issues raised couldn't be more timely:

"Those who don't at least dabble in this are sitting by as a world they can't even imagine is exploding all around them.

This is a real tragedy, for how can an organization that's bound by the rules of professionalism possibly compete with individuals and companies who can do the same job at a fraction of the cost?

This is the reality local television will be facing in the not-too-distant-future, unless they choose to explore the brave new world for themselves."

Please read its full article here:
TV Stations Must Embrace Personal Media Tools

This entry was posted by Robin Good on Friday, July 1, 2005 at 11:23 AM and is filed under Media Evolution. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 

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