Blurring the Media Lines
Published by Toronto Mike on November 14, 2008 @ 12:54 in My 2 Cents
The media lines continue to blur. I know this because I have a great view from where I sit. As a blogger with some Google juice, I've seen first-hand a dramatic expansion of the term "media" the past six years.
The traditional media are the journalists who write for newspapers and magazines or radio and television reporters. The new media consists of bloggers and web personalities who publish content that is only available via the internet. More and more marketers are reaching out to this new media, seeking web-based exposure that includes an additional and significant SEO benefit.
I've been given free concert tickets, theatre tickets, movie tickets, a ten-day Ford Focus test drive, Easton apparel, iPod skins and media seats for Walking With Dinosaurs, all in the past couple of years. Tomorrow I'm taking my daughter to a media-only preview of a new Disney animated feature. Next week I'm taking my son to the media box to watch the Marlies game. XM Canada will soon be giving me an XM Radio MP3 player and a year's subscription to the service, just so I'll review it. And unlike the cell phone I turned down a couple of years ago, I won't have to give this back.
This is my hobby. I blog because I enjoy the exercise and, as an emarketer in my 9-5 gig, this is an ideal way to keep my ear to the ground and see where things are going in the world of SEO and Web 2.0 initiatives. I find the recent push to blur the lines of "the media" fascinating, and so long as it remains fun and includes some decent swag, I embrace it fully.
I just wonder how the traditional media folk feel about a dude like me encroaching on their turf. When Disney starts to recognize members of the new media, you know it's gone mainstream.
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Chemmy
November 14, 2008 / 15:38
Ugh, XM Radio. I've been a subscriber since 2006, and two days ago with no warning they merged their channel lineup with Sirius.
XM ditched it's aweasome rap station 66 Raw to replace it with Sirius' weak Eminem run hip hop station (ugh). They also sent the best DJ on 66 Raw to a censored station. Gross. Nothing's worse than listening to a song where every fifth word (including MTV censoring words like "drug") is silence.
They also got rid of both XM and Sirius' punk rock stations, and XM's indie rock stations to replace them with a channel each for AC/DC, the Grateful Dead, and Jimmy Buffett.
Satellite radio will be dead in a year.