Things we were told about online that were wrong
Steve Safran September 11th, 2007
We make a lot of suggestions here at Lost Remote, and we get a lot of feedback. Most of that feedback is wonderful, additive and positive. Sometimes you tell us we’re nuts. (Sometimes we are.) But sometimes we hear all the reasons why good ideas can’t or won’t happen. So I thought I’d take a moment to go over the things we’ve suggested over the years that we were told would never happen - a sample of the suggestions we’ve made since 1999 that were met with resistance or outright hostility. These are things we heard from people at stations or on other sites who were flat-out wrong. This isn’t a exercise in “I Told You So.” I hope this will empower those of you fighting the good fight to realize there is an inevitabililty about convergence, no matter how loudly the naysayers say “nay.”
As we continue to discuss new ideas here at LR (stations need to create original local programming, they need to invest more in their sites, etc.) keep these old ones in mind. Every time you suggest a new plan, there will be plenty of traditionalists that will tell you it won’t happen. And then it does. And then it becomes standard. (And then, of course, you don’t get credit for having come up with the idea 18 months earlier, but at least it happened.)
13 Comments Add your own
1. Chip | September 11th, 2007 at 9:35 am
How about a list of “nay”-said things that have proven to be rtue?
2. M Gorman | September 11th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Such as? Chances are, the nay-sayers will already know that. On the other hand, they may be surprised to see how much of this has come to pass.
3. Tom Planchet | September 11th, 2007 at 11:06 am
I agree with almost all of these except one…well, maybe it shouldn’t be that “no one will buy web advertising” to “almost no one will buy web advertising.”
I think the evidence shows that web sales of local sites are still a hard sell. I believe that most newspaper sites, even those with tremendous traffic, don’t come close to make up in $$$ what they are losing in decreased subscriptions and the decline in circulation and ad costs that go with them.
Everything else is right on the money.
4. Howard Owens | September 11th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Ah, this web thing is just a fad.
5. Drew Robertson | September 11th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I can’t believe anyone was this naive “The networks will never send programming directly to the audience and ignore the locals “.
6. Safran | September 11th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Heard it myself.
7. Rob | September 11th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Howard is right … I’ve been doing Internet news in some form or fashion since 1995 and people STILL call it New Media.
We need a ‘new’ name as New Media leaves a bad taste in your mouth like New Coke did, and the old timers here probably remember how well that fad went over.
8. tdc | September 11th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
one overlooked:
“google will go public at $80 and fall from there”
9. Barney Lerten | September 11th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
How about another: “Lost Remote will never run a list of things they predicted/said that turned out to not happen (or at least not how/as fast as they predicted).” (Now watch, they probably DID that and I can’t recall it with my feeble gray cells.)
After all, NObody is 100 percent prescient. Are they?;-)
10. Steve Safran | September 12th, 2007 at 4:25 am
To be fair, Barney, at the end of every year I run a list of “Things I got Seriously Wrong.” Feel free to search it out. I’m not 100% prescient. But on the big stuff, I sitll like our record.
11. !!! | September 12th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I agree with #3 Tom. For our TV site this is truly the case. No one wants to recognize the gorilla in the room. Profit margins for the locals will never be the same. You can’t make up the difference.
12. thedetroitchannel | September 12th, 2007 at 10:07 am
i disagree with #3 and #11.
businesses will buy ‘the net’ if you get the right businesses.
it seems foolish to go after the dozen or so local businesses that currently buy the bulk of your tv time and offer them the web at a cheaper rate. but bring in the legions of business owners who could never foot a tv budget and offer them a product they can work into their budget and watch the rev. grow.
of course, you’ll need to actually want the web to succeed, so the gorilla in the room will need to be fed.
13. Mike | September 12th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Also watch local web site ad rates grow with the audience. National video ad CPMs on major sites now beat TV ad CPMs. Eventually this will trickle down to local.
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