video2zero

Abandoning traditional media the people previously known as the newsmakers are joining the people previously known as the advertisers in taking matters into their own hands.

As newspapers and regional TV stations continue to be blinded by Youtube and the creative excesses of the “people previously known as the audience”, advertisers are forced to take things into their own hands -
The study compares corporate adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the Inc. 500, a [...]

When it comes to online video innovation, “big media is the tail of the dog,” says Rich Moran, a partner with Venrock, the venture investing fund of the Rockefeller family.
As newspaper and TV websites flail in the morass of “citizen journalism” they have created for themselves, advertisers (the folks who pay the bills) are forced [...]

Although users of the popular video-sharing site view clips more than one billion times on most days, the site hasn’t been as popular with big corporate advertisers. World-wide revenue from YouTube ads has fallen short of Google’s expectations this year, and is likely to total about $200 million for the full year…
One complaint from mainstream [...]

A 12/8 article in TVweek notes that Beet.tv generates $15,000 per month in ad revenue and iJustine $1,000. BeetTV “includes video interviews with top technology executives”. iJustine’s “video sendup of her gargantuan iPhone bill drew about 8 million views”.
Alexa shows that iJustine has twice the traffic of Beet.tv. [...]

Spurred on by the spectacular success of YouTube, media departments and newsrooms around the country rushed to flood the net with 3rd rate video under the banner “no-one cares about quality anymore”.
Now it seems that advertisers and viewers do care.

Noting the enormous costs incurred by traditional media newsrooms Michael Rosenblum has a suggestion:
Go over the local University. Get yourself a dozen bright and eager young journalists. They all have their own cameras and laptops anyway. And start your own local [online] news channel.
The one stop Michael omits is on the way back from the [...]

From Editors weblog: “Y BYD (’The World’) will be the first ever daily newspaper in the Welsh language. It will be launched on 3 March 2008“. Encouraging news for anyone  who values the role of newspapers in defining, enriching and informing the communities they serve. 

Excellent summary of the World Editors Forum from the always insightful Rebecca McKinnon. The good news from Capetown:
“newspaper companies aren’t on the verge of death….whatever the format, people recognized that ultimately, newspapers’ survival will depend on journalism. Credible, accurate, and relevant journalism.”