3 illustrations of old media vs new media

by andrew pascoe on November 9th, 2008

The first: A pretty straight-forward example of using a digital site as a replacement distribution mechanism (coupled with extra kudos because of the talkability it will get, simply because it’s more in the continuing use of digital that has been his whole campaign): Obama didn’t release the behind-the-scenes photos from election night to a major press outlet, but instead continued posting them on Flickr, along with the rest of his campaign photos. See them here (first found via Lost Remote).

The second: An example of building a media property from the ground up digitally and how that lets you build a dedicated community around that property. Yes, the chances are high that the community will start smaller when compared to having a TV show with its ready-made audience of millions all rush over to a website, but this community is far, far more dedicated, and will help ensure growth at a high rate. This is regardless of where final audience numbers for the site fall - after all, surely the millions of eyeballs available to TV shows is only a function of the channel/network as a property having been around for 10,20,30 years+, so of course it’s not too suprising that any pure-digital media property isn’t quite there yet. And besides, there are far greater benefits than just using the community to grow audience: they become quasi-reporters and photographers for the site (read: help reduced editorial staff costs and production costs). The example: the Londonist Flickr pool (Londonist itself is here - a site I really love by the way ; the Flickr pool is here, with its 1600 members and 35,000 photos) check it out to get an idea of the free, crowd-sourced content that comes knocking on their proverbial door every day.

The third: I’m not really sure what to call this, except that it carries on the theme of "personal branding" and this is increasingly becoming a factor in new media. It’s from Gary Vee (the Wine Library TV guy) whose intensity can be offputting for a lot of people (I flip-flop on the guy, personally, some days I think he’s great, other times not so much). He’s responding to a section of Howard Stern’s radio show. It’s well worth a watch - see it here on Charlie’s site (where I first found it).

Me, elsewhere