There’s a wonderful debate on Slashdot.org today entitled “Blogs are eating tech media alive”.
The first post on the forum quotes an article in Forbes, which really got Greenbang chuckling.
“Silicon Valley is booming again. But if you work in tech media, there’s blood on the floor. Take Red Herring. It hung onto its offices after getting the eviction notice earlier this month. But gossip site Valleywag is breaking story after story not just on its beat — but about its woes. Meanwhile, bigger publications are hurting too: Time Warner’s Business 2.0 saw ad pages drop 21.8% through March from the same period a year ago; PC Magazine’s editor in chief walked out the door after ad pages fell 38.8% over the same period; and one-time online powerhouse CNET is reporting growing losses even as the companies it covers flourish. It may be happening in tech first, but there’s no reason the same thing won’t happen, eventually, in every media niche.”
1 Comment
Will Sturgeon
I’m with the naysayers I’m afraid. The whole thing was massively ill-considered, from the organisers, to the sponsors, to the BBC’s coverage to the acts who thought it might help sell a few extra records if they got involved.
Some acts swaggered onto stage and offered up a ‘let’s save the Earth people!’ in the same trite way they managed ‘let’s end the debt’ or ‘let’s free Nelson Mandela’ in past efforts but none of them really convinced me they were interested in the issues more than the exposure…
…and then they all flew home again. (OK, for the main part they were there to build the congregation not write, or even understand the sermon, but a little more intelligent comment or sincerity wouldn’t have hurt with such a captive audience).
Of course that’s an easy pot shot to take and the organisers will tell you the damage caused by Live Earth will be worth it because of the long term benefits of raised awareness but I guarantee you the vast majority of viewers will not have changed their feelings about climate change just because Chris Rock said ‘motherf*cker’ before the watershed or because Razorlight managed to play Wembley before getting a plane and a helicopter up to T in the Park in Scotland in order to play there. (The irony of this logistical workaround was probably lost on them.)
I imagine rock stars probably have to write on the backs of their hands what today’s worthy cause is lest they forget while on stage and shout out the name of the wrong charity/crisis/prisoner.
And also, who let Phil Collins back in the country? I thought we’d seen the last of him in 1997.
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