This is a very important column by David Carr on the effects the Web 2.0 Games are having on the containment of content by the mainstream media. Very important. This is it ladies and gentlemen. Image of little boys with their fingers in leaking dikes comes to mind. Take 10,500 athletes, give them video cameras, cell phones, whatever, and watch them share what they see with the world.
“On Friday, NBC spent the day trying to plug online leaks of the splashy opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in order to protect its taped prime-time broadcast 12 hours later. There was a profound change in roles here: a network trying to delay broadcasting a live event, more or less TiVo-ing its own content.
Consumers have no issue with time-shifting content — in some younger demographics, at least half the programming is consumed on a time-shifted basis — they just want to be the ones doing the programming. Trying to stop foreign broadcasts and leaked clips from being posted on YouTube — NBC’s game of “whack-a-mole” as my colleague Brian Stelter described it — was doomed to failure because information not only wants to be free, its consumers are cunning, connected and will find a workaround on any defense that can be conceived.
The Media Equation – All of Us, the Arbiters of News – NYTimes.com.
Hm, well, important trend yes, but the article itself isn’t really saying much new. Is it?
Also the bit about the mainstream media having ‘mostly passed’ on the John Edwards affair — I had just read a rather lengthy explanation from the AP (I believe) which pursued the story with some vigor but refused to publish anything until they could confirm it. I thought that was a nice bit of restraint on their part – typically they get knocked for charging ahead in the interest of being ‘first’.
On the Edwards thing, there was so much smoke for so long, that one just had to assume there was a fire somewhere. I honestly don’t recall as much restraint when the issue was McCain and a potential affair with a staffer though…
I was one of the folks that watched the opening broadcast due to what I’d been hearing online. I might not have otherwise.
Meanwhile, Google screws up and puts a pin in Savannah on their news page for the Russia-Georgia conflict, proving why we need real humans looking at our news before we get it. (I’ve got an image of the error on my site)