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WWW. Is it ?World Wide Waste??
Up until 2000, newspapers regarded Internet media as a 'pet', writes Deepak Mankar.
No news is good news? Not anymore, folks. These days, on a slow- or no-news day, they try to ‘manufacture’ news. And, they sink to ludicrous depths too doing it as I noticed just the other day. It was midweek and raining quite heavily. At a certain traffic junction I pass quite frequently, the business in the pirated version of the latest Harry Potter was as brisk as ever. Then, in the evening, I read in an eveninger splashed on the front page a ‘scoop’ about this everyday happening treated like a ‘sting op’. Headlined predictably “’Dirty’ Harry”, it revealed the price charged was Rs.600/-, Rs.295/- lower than the official rate.
The week before, I’d noticed The Strand Book Stall quoting Rs.674/- for the real thing. The sting operator’s office is within easy walking distance of the famous bookshop where the present President of the Indian Republic used to shop regularly once upon a time. strandbookstall.com. All of which made me pause and think. Who got the most out of the sting op? The new learning, if any, for the hapless reader seems far outweighed by the free publicity for the pirates. Rowling seems to be the definite loser in the bargain. Dirty Harry, indeed! Learn what ‘sting op’ means: ’http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_operation. (Did you realize that an ‘agent provocateur’– and in computing, a ‘honey pot’ – are akin to a sting op?)
WAG THE TAIL? Or, wag the dog?
“Outside of a dog,” proclaimed Groucho bobbing his famous eyebrows, “a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” quotationspage.com. Now the dog is getting flogged for a downright solemnpurpose. By researchers in South Korea (of the Korean Press Foundation) who claim that the World Wide Web is wagging the dog. Warming up to their ‘pet’ theme, they elaborate: "Up until 2000, newspapers regarded Internet media as a 'pet,' and would not mind much even if they share (sic!) some news articles with portals.
Today, the pet has grown up to be a tiger that eats up much of newspapers' power in both revenues and impact," the researchers said according to theTaipeiTimes. taipeitimes.com. Diana Day sums up the situation as follows: “The Taipei Times reports that rising use of Internet news is undermining the ad revenue of daily newspapers in South Korea. Sites like Naver.com, Yahoo! Korea and Daum.net are gaining popularity as primary news sources, particularly among young people, ‘who would not otherwise even try to read newspapers at all’.” www.ojr.org.
WWW. Is it ‘World Wide Waste’ in fact?
Productivity enhancer, the Internet is most definitely not. At least, a survey of 10,000 US workers by America Online and Salary.com doesn’t remotely suggest the likelihood. The average US worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours in an 8-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time by Internet surfing for personal use. The second biggest time waster, said the volunteer respondents, is socializing with co-workers (23.4 percent).
As for the rest, ‘conducting personal business’ (6.8 percent), ‘spacing out’ (3.9), ‘running errands off-premises’ (3.1), ‘making personal phone calls’ (2.3), ‘applying for other jobs’ (1.3), ‘planning personal events’(1.0), ‘arriving late/leaving early’ (1.0) and the familiar ‘Other’ (12.5) complete the line-up of the usual suspects. Salary.com calculated that employers spend $759 billion a year on salaries for which real work was expected but not in fact performed.Want to know the top 5 time-wasting excuses? Here’s the list: (1) “Don't have enough work to do” (33.2 percent); (2) “Underpaid for amount of work” (23.4); “Co-workers distract me” (14.7); “Not enough after-work time” (12.0) and our old friend “Other” (16.7).
The younger the worker, the more time-wasting (s) he likely to be. For instance, those born between 1930 and 1949 are known to have wasted 0.50 hours out of an 8-hour workday as compared to compared to 1.95 hours wasted by those born between 1980 and 1985. In the first five places among the time-wasting industries rank (1) insurance (2.5 hours); (2) non-education public sector (2.4); (3) R&D (2.3); (4) education (2.2); and (5) software and Internet (2.2). Is it any wonder thenthat the US employers are gung-ho about outsourcing work abroad to be done by low-paid workers who at least give value for money? salary.com.
WHAT SEARCHERS SEEK. Who are ‘cyberchondriacs’?
A recent Harris Interactive study with 2,100 adult respondents shows that three out of four people who are using Internet search are looking for driving directions or maps. Other popular search objectives included getting specific information about hobbies and health and medical information. Looking for news is high on the list (64%), followed by shopping (51%) and looking for entertainment Web sites (47%).50% of respondents admitted to using a search service every time they went online.
Harris also said Google users are most often looking for news and current events information while MSN Search users are likely to be hunting for medical information. In fact, the number of ‘cyberchondriacs’, i.e., US Adults who go online for health information, has risen to an estimated 117 million in 2005. (In 2002, the cyberchondriacs numbered 66 percent of the adult population. Now they stand at 74%.) harrisinteractive.com.
PODCASTING. Future imperfect?
Mark Cuban who founded and later sold for billions of dollars Broadcast.com, a streaming Web outfit,is giving podcasts about three years. After that, "the phenomenon will have run its course and will be just a normal part of the digital media landscape,"he predicts. Cuban wrote about podcasts a few days ago (8 and 13 July) on his blog, BlogMaverick.com, cautioning that they should not make the mistake of thinking there could be a business in producing the audio files for download. He expects the number of podcasts that will be produced in a year to be much larger.
The programming is easy and cheap to make. "This will create a massive dilution in the audience size of the early podcasters. Everyone's audience will fall," he argues. Shrunken audiences will mean less interest from advertisers. When podcasters tally up the revenue from the advertising they do sell, Cuban cautions, "they will realize they made about 17 cents an hour." blogmaverick.com.
Meanwhile, Adam Curry of Podshow.com and Cameron Reilly and Mick Stanic, co-founders of the Podcast Network, that up to 90 percent of their listeners are streaming files or saving them to desktops for later listening. "iTunes has done wonders for us, but it's only 10 percent of our user base," observed Reilly. thepodcastnetwork.com. QuiteATake.com last covered podcasting here: hindustantimes.com (‘GOING MAINSTREAM? Podcasting’s future perfect.’)
That's all for now though there's plenty more out there. Join me again next week, same place.
Copyright (c) 2001- 2005 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved. Deepak Mankar, an advertising practitioner on the creative side since 1965, is also intensely passionate about the web and web content creation. Read his online articles athttp://www.asiaondemand.com/. Website:http://www.addgandhi.com/original/. You may e-mail him atdmankar@bom8.vsnl.net.in.
