Bob Cringely and Terry Heaton were on a panel at a PBS Showcase seminar for general managers this morning.
Notes:
Cringely, who does the NerdTV program and a technology column for PBS.org, said to look at the local aspect of the future. There are really only two broadband providers in your community, the cable company and the phone company. Their connection to the Internet is expensive, but their connection to you is free (you're paying for it). You ought to be putting your server at your phone company or cable company. Use consortia for distribution.
Heaton, a consultant, talked about his experience with commercial client WKRN in Nashville. He said, be careful not to paint yourself into an "on-demand" only corner. The Internet allows you to be anything -- not just a content provider. He quoted Glenn Reynolds: "We're seeing the triumph of personal technology over mass technology." Two important value propositions: 1) Media is unbundled at the point of origin and rebundled at the point of consumption. 2) Mediated people make their own media. He also quoted Gordon Borrell: "The deer now have guns. Get into the ammunition business." Why should you do that?, he asks: The barriers to entry are low for everybody. You don't have to be just a television station. People want to know what you know and do what you do. The Internet is a social phenomenon. Aggregators have the greatest value at the point of consumption. WKRN operates 16 web sites, two of which are aggregators of local blogs in the area (Nashville Is Talking aggregates 400 weblogs).
Update 5/21/2006:
Here's Terry's commentary on this session: The "broadcaster" mindset is a tough nut to crack. Link: Pomo Blog.
--Dennis
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