So Hype is Bad?
Sep 28th, 2005 by Mark
A survey of Brits, presumably “normal”, aka “everyday-man” shows that that most people are not geeks. Well duh. Thanks for that bit of vital need-to-know information.
LONDON (Reuters) - Proponents of the latest Web trends were warned Tuesday that the rest of the world may not have a clue what they are talking about.
A survey of British taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers — often seen as barometers of popular trends — found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging.
The only people shocked by this are the people who live in the world of technology, or hype, or advertising. The rest of us have known it for years.
“Our research not only shows that there is no buzz about blogging and podcasting outside of our media industry bubble, but also that people have no understanding of what the words mean,” Carter said. “It’s a real wake-up call.”
And no one will answer. Is a “real wake-up” call is different from a “fake wake-up” call?
There are currently several people, errr hypesters pushing things like RSS, blogging, and podcasting as a way to reach “the world”. I have generally found that when something is new, and the hypesters are on it; it won’t be a big deal.
Do these technologies serve a purpose? Yes, they make it easier for people to post their thoughts, useless information about themselves, or vital info about whatever. Sort of like a web-site! Yes I know, this is different. It’s so cool! and way bitchin’ better than a web-site! Yea right.
Is it possible to use blogs/podcasts/feeds to further a company’s goals? Maybe. Blogs/podcasts/feeds just are not the right tool for what most companies or people need. Quite frankly they are not much different, if at all from what has been done in the past. Different name, slightly easier, ‘cool’ factor; but that is about it.
To start, most people don’t have a feed-reader running. Without it you have to check the web-page constantly. Not exactly time efficient, and not much different than going to a normal web-site. This of course is why email is still used by most companies. Blogs were supposed to supplant email, because email was clogged by spam. Nice theory, but until email clients have RSS built-in and easy to use; it won’t happen. Even then it may not.
The structure, what there is of it leaves much to be desired. For the most part it is form-less. This of course appeals to the usual collection of socialists who tend to be in technology, or maybe they are the ones who get the most press. Time-line posting leaves much to be desired.
For anyone who is not an information ‘jockey’ if you will; blogs are pointless exercises in self-absorption, or management by fad. The only improvement that blogs have over web-sites, is that anyone can do it. Not always a good thing.
“We spend too much time talking to ourselves in this industry, rather than getting out there and finding out what’s really going on in the world,” DDB’s chief strategy officer David Hackworthy said.
*lmoa* No getting the message out is not the problem. That is a lame excuse used by people who don’t want to see that the message or the idea, or the technology etc… is the problem. It is not the audience. More advertising! If only they knew about it, then they would fall in line like good little sheeple.
I find it ironic that this type of thinking only plagues certain people of a particular political persuasion. Interesting.
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