New Media

The Last Thing We Need Is Another Blog

~ K. Quesenberry ~ 1 Comment

The latest number I could find was in 2008 when the Blog Herald reported that there were roughly 200,000 million blogs. Since then it seems people have given up counting. The shear number of blogs is staggering but also the number of posts each blog puts out.

New marketing guru Seth Godin has said that the problem with blogs is that they stretch. Traditional media has natural limits from broadcast time to page length. But blogs could easily post a 100 or even a 1,000 times a day (with a team). And quantity not quality leads to traffic. A look at the top 10 blogs reveals that many of them post dozens of times a day.

What are people blogging about? A recent Pew Research Center Project examined which sources shared the most “new” information. The study found that that 95% of previously unreported stories come from traditional news sources rather than blogs, Twitter, or local websites. Many blogs are out there simply reposting other people’s content just to generated traffic.

Beyond blogs Web content is exploding. A recent Wired article talked the thousands of writers, photographers and filmakers around the country racing to feed the 4,000 videos and articles large content factories like Demand Media publish every day. With titles like “How To Draw a Greek Helmet” and “Dog Whistle Training Techniques” they pump out volumes of endless regurgitated information to jump to the top of search engine results.

When it comes to content maybe new media isn’t so new. Until Google changes their search listing criteria we there’s one question we all must ask. Is it adding something new or simply adding to the noise?

Why Does New Media Matter? Because United Breaks Guitars.

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

Consumers are creating their own content and marketers are monitoring their activity to react. New media has made the single voice a force to be reckoned with. Have you seen the YouTube video “United Breaks Guitars?” It is one man’s effort to get United Airlines to pay for the guitar their baggage handlers broke. It is up to 8.1 million views. On the best nights last fall the  Jay Leno Show pulled in 6.2 million viewers. And United Airline’s own magazine Hemispheres only has an annual circulation of 4.5 million.

Why does new media matter? Because Blending an iPhone on YouTube lead to a five-fold increase in sales for Blendtec. Because CEOs are communicating directly with employees and customers. Sun Microsystems CEO Blog gets 400,000 hits a month. Because the cable company is actually changing its image. Comcastcares is improving customer service by monitoring negative comments on Twitter and responding directly. Because in three days the American Red Cross raised $7 million for its Haiti relief efforts via text messaging.

What we’re really talking about is anything that promotes interaction (consumer to consumer, company to consumer, consumer to company) through digital technology. Is it all still new? Dot coms had their boom and bust over ten years ago. The FTC suggests a six-month limit on the use of the word new in advertising. So is it time for a new name for new media? I humbly suggest “Interactive Digital Media.”

New media is digital. And it matters because it is interactive.

It’s Activigital.