Editor’s note: Don Day was a longtime LR blogger who has since escaped our evil clutches and has gone off to take on lots of more exciting media adventures. Don has been known, over the years, to write to pretty upfront, “I call ‘em as I see ‘em” observations. Nothing wrong with that. With the change in editorial philosophy here from covering “TV convergence,” to “The Future of the Web,” There is no shortage of echo chambers in which we can sit. And I’ve finally come to my hope for 2011: Listen to another person’s opinion, no matter its different from your own. And, sometimes, there aren’t two legitimate stories that need false equivalence.
Enter Don Day. Good to have you back – Safran
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Keep your eye on the ball.
By Don L. Day
My dad – like so many others – spent endless days with that simple bit of advice as I tried to make the leap from t-ball to little league a few decades ago. I always found it a rather silly thing to say — of COURSE I was watching the ball. At very least I wanted to be able to dive out of the way if I thought it was going to hit me.
As years went by, baseball faded away as it does for so many of us, but that figurative fascination with watching out for a fast or curve ball continues for many of us in this industry. Unfortunately, instead of one pitch from a single point, we spend our days surveying a constantly changing field of – er – dreams.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts showed up on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week and tossed out a throw away line I found interesting: “It’s not to make the big bet and get it wrong. It’s to make sure we are touching where we think the market is going – and even if we’re not sure, make sure we’re over there as well.“
While his analogy was talking about the wider media business, I think it has great truth for both local and social TV. Back in the mid to late 1990s, most television stations and newspapers started up websites as an obvious nod to a coming revolution. Frankly, it was a pretty easy decision. And while we can endlessly debate the path taken by local media in those early days, it was one ball coming at us in one direction. Build a website, make it good, and you will have the Internet base covered.
Today, while staff sizes are generally larger than they were on the digital side of things, we are watching out for a dizzying array of trends – many of them covered here on Lost Remote. There’s the “old media” website of course (when did that happen?). Next you add mobile. Whereas once mobile meant a stripped down website for a puny phone, it now includes optimized versions of your content for the smart phone browsers, plus two to three apps for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows 7. Oh – and an iPad/tablet site and/or app. Plus don’t forget your text message strategy. And specialty apps. And video on phones via UHF and VHF…
Then there is a collection of technologies we’ll generically call connected TV. We watch Google TV and AppleTV and Yahoo… Plus XBox and Wii and PS3 – not to mention Netflix or TiVo or a raft of others. The experience promises to actually drive TV viewing – a great thing for local broadcasters. But where do you put your chips down? This wheel is still spinning fast and furious and being on the early part of this trend is nearly impossible it seems.
Social media is another explosive growth area. Facebook fan pages and Twitter feeds may just be the start. Most folks are two to three years into an SM project, and the space is exploding. Foursquare, Quora, Tumblr, GetGlue and others could be the Next Big Thing. SM can tie into mobile – and connected TV – and your website.
Add in QR codes and daily deal sites and who knows what else is coming next and you quickly have dozens of separate, distinct ways to reach an audience.
The role of digital folks at TV stations or newspapers is dynamic and constantly changing. What once was a gig simply focused on “that other thing” (the web) is now about “every other thing.” Getting overwhelmed is not uncommon – but the goal for most has remained simple and unchanged: figure out where consumers want to find local content and do everything you can to be there. We may not be able to hit every ball out of the park, but we can make sure every pitch gets an eyeball.
