• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Social Media: The Emperor Has No Clothes

wadio said:
Digital technology and social media have virtually NOTHING to do with each other.
Click to expand...

"Nothing" over-states it a tad, but CB Radio demonstrates your point.
There was home video before DVD, but no Netflix-of-VHS.

As Kodak learned, sitting-out/wishing-away/dismissing the digital game-change is risky biz.

RE: "this cut & paste & run approach seems counterproductive. It's symptomatic of the way many people use social media:"

...which is what-we're-doing-here, a more-facile, higher-velocity, more-participatory, AND VOLUNTARY conversation that the IBM Selectric & snail mail afforded, eh?

Bottom line: They TOOK my Kodachrome away.
 
...and dammit don't tell me I need a Linked In profile to get a job, my application was good enough in 1975 and it damn well better be good enough now!
 
WOW !!! And I thought the "OCCUPY" and DIXIE CHICKS threads touched a few nerves! This social media debate is great!

I too am a "BOOMER". For me life used to be simple-- my siblings and I grew up in one home with one phone, one radio, one car (station wagon, of course) and, for most of that time, one TV. We had one mom and one dad. "Cell" was something we studied in biology. CDs were savings features offered at the bank. Microwave ovens were making news, but were otherwise still gadgets of the future. DVD, IP, VHS, VCR, weren't the household euphemisms they've since become, and were among the letters of the alphabet more commonly heard at the top of every hour, when Radio & TV stations gave their FCC-mandated station IDs.

Like Microwave ovens, our cell phones, I-Pods, VCRs, and a host of other brain-softening media-mouthpieces are amenities we didn't know we needed until we had one. I am grateful to live in an age when such innovative commodities serve to advance the quality of life, and yet I yearn for the days when I didn't.

Do I sound like Andy Rooney?
 
Holland Cooke said:
wadio said:
Digital technology and social media have virtually NOTHING to do with each other.
Click to expand...

"Nothing" over-states it a tad, but CB Radio demonstrates your point.
There was home video before DVD, but no Netflix-of-VHS.
Click to expand...

CB Radio is a good analogy, but not in the way you mean.

- Analog broadcasting made CB Radio possible. CB Radio was a valuable tool for those (such as truckers) who needed it. CB radio was a hobby for some, and for others a huge time-waster. Radio management had the good sense to not demand that their air personnel communicate with listeners via CB Radio. The were focused on PROGRAMMING.

- Digital technology makes Social Media possible. Social Media is a valuable tool for those (such as job seekers) who need it. Social Media is a hobby for some, and for others a huge time-waster. Radio management make sure their air personnel communicate with listeners via Social Media. There is little focus on programming and the result is declining interest in the medium. Somehow management believes that this shotgun approach will be radio's salvation.

RE: Kodak -- different situation entirely. Kodak didn't destroy itself by lack of focus -- the focus was always photography -- but it focused on old instead of the new technology. Had Kodak started early to develop (so to speak) a line of digital camera equipment, the company might still be in business. Had they diversified into making automobiles, that might well have hastened its demise.
 
wadio said:
RE: Kodak -- different situation entirely. Kodak didn't destroy itself by lack of focus -- the focus was always photography -- but it focused on old instead of the new technology. Had Kodak started early to develop (so to speak) a line of digital camera equipment, the company might still be in business. Had they diversified into making automobiles, that might well have hastened its demise.
Click to expand...

Actually, Kodak DID develop early digital cameras. I have one and it works just as good today as it did when new. But what they didn't do was to keep up with the development of digital cameras. They continued with proprietary software and non-standard cable connections which did not allow the camera to act as a Windows disk drive. They also fell behind in the megapixel race.

Unfortunately, the end result was the demise of an American icon.
 
If my memory is not playing tricks on me... I think I read a business article recently indicating that Kodak as a corporation still has considerable value because of all the DIGITAL PATENTS they own. They didn't have the combination of drive and smarts to keep up with others in marketing their devices and concepts.
 
Kodak invented the digital camera in the 1970s.
http://www.techradar.com/news/photo...ak-invented-the-digital-camera-in-1975-364822
Their real demise was missing out on the trends in the photography industry after 2005 when cell phones began to integrate cameras. Kodak mostly made commodity point and shoot cameras between $50 and $130. Kodak was never a real presence in the high-end SLR cameras that support Canon and Nikon. The commodity camera market evaporated in the last few years.

If you're a news/talk station, how do you respond to an environment where everyone potentially has a bullhorn?
 
If you're a news/talk station, how do you respond to an environment where everyone potentially has a bullhorn?
Click to expand...

Focus on PROGRAMMING! Not everyone has talent. Radio needs to find uniquely talented hosts and provide them with the right environment (right dayparts, reasonable program-to-commercial ratio, for example) in which to flourish. The billions of bullhorns out there are just noise.
 
Quote.

"- Analog broadcasting made CB Radio possible. CB Radio was a valuable tool for those (such as truckers) who needed it. CB radio was a hobby for some, and for others a huge time-waster. Radio management had the good sense to not demand that their air personnel communicate with listeners via CB Radio. The were focused on PROGRAMMING."

The reality is they were focused on sales. There were all night truckers shows who did communicate with their listeners via CB, especially since truckers in that time period only had access to landline phones in truck stops. Sounds like you'd be in favor of telephones being removed as well. After all, why should some DJ or personality be distracted by some request line caller, instead of concentrating on the next break?

Quote- "Digital technology makes Social Media possible. Social Media is a valuable tool for those (such as job seekers) who need it. Social Media is a hobby for some, and for others a huge time-waster. Radio management make sure their air personnel communicate with listeners via Social Media. There is little focus on programming and the result is declining interest in the medium. Somehow management believes that this shotgun approach will be radio's salvation".

---You would then be in favor of removing the station website or making it only a static page? No additional content posted anywhere? Dammit, you want breaking news, wait until the top of the hour! We aren't going to put anything in your Facebook feed because dammit, you need to be listening to us on the air! And no we're not providing you a smartphone app! I actually like a meteorologist for a TV station who does the regular, dumbed down forecast for TV, and also provides a detailed, weather-geek forecast online, which many people enjoy. There will be no more of that! Weather at 11 and you WILL wait!

quoting "RE: Kodak -- different situation entirely. Kodak didn't destroy itself by lack of focus -- the focus was always photography -- but it focused on old instead of the new technology. Had Kodak started early to develop (so to speak) a line of digital camera equipment, the company might still be in business. Had they diversified into making automobiles, that might well have hastened its demise."


-----You're seem to be saying radio stations should be a transmitter and tower and ONLY a transmitter and tower, but suggesting Kodak could have started making automobiles. Either radio engages elsewhere or it doesn't, and this whole thread has been about radio not engaging the listener outside of the on-air signal.

One final point....whether the station does or does not particiate in social media, if you are an on-air personality or programmer, you had best be engaging and building a following outside of the radio station. You realize that sooner or later you are going to be fired. I know several people who spent years building a social media following, and when the ax fell, they already had the groundwork for their own media business. The alternative is getting fired and being on Radio-Info day after day bithing about consolidation and yearning for radio in the 1970s.





[/quote]
 
"MILK IT," while you still can.

borderblaster said:
if you are an on-air personality or programmer, you had best be engaging and building a following outside of the radio station.
Click to expand...

AMEN to your point about building a portable following, while you still have access to the transmitter!
Advertisers pay to do what you can do for free, say your name.
 
borderblaster said:
I know several people who spent years building a social media following, and when the ax fell, they already had the groundwork for their own media business.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah? And how did that turn out?
 
RE "Oh yeah? And how did that turn out?"

SO-FAR-SO-GOOD for Glenn Beck, whose do-it-yourself GBTV.com in pacing to gross TEN TIMES the salary Fox News paid him before he got canned.

And Adam Carolla seems undaunted.
And cultivating the tribe as he did SO well, Paul Harris transitioned from one St. Louis station to a bigger one.
And there's what's-his-name-in-Chicago...and others.

Admittedly this sort of migration is nascent.
And note that Beck is buying Fox News and The Rush Limbaugh show to drive GBTV.com sampling.
"MILK IT, while you still can."
(As Howard Stern did, plugging his move to Sirius on-air for 18 months while CBS Radio snoozed.)

But it's now tough to get an agency to CONSIDER a pitch that doesn't include digital.

Depend-on towers-in-pastures for your livelihood at-your-own-risk.
While many of those towers sounded oblivious to Whitney's sad passing, Twitter spread the news.

"This just in..."
LAST YEAR, Apple sold more portable devices than all-the-Mac-computers-they-sold-in TWENTY EIGHT YEARS.
(http://e.businessinsider.com/public/613365)
 
Ahhh. At last some well developed arguments as opposed to Holland's cryptic drive-by link postings. Thanks!

A few comments:

The reality is they were focused on sales.
Click to expand...

Of course! But the concept back then was to use programming, not external chit-chat to drive sales. Pre-social-media sales people wouldn't suggest, "You should buy our station because we'll include you in our newspaper ads!"

... why should some DJ or personality be distracted by some request line caller, instead of concentrating on the next break?
Click to expand...

This is a news/talk board. The host should be busy between the breaks. :)

You would then be in favor of removing the station website or making it only a static page?
Click to expand...

NO!! You and Holland are completely missing the point. Stations can control their websites -- they're a third party to social media.

... if you are an on-air personality or programmer, you had best be engaging and building a following outside of the radio station.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. First you need a website (as many personalities have had for years) so that people can type your name into a search engine and fine you. THEN, if you wish, a Facebook page, Twitter account, etc. so that you can subject yourself to the lack of privacy and lack of control. That's your business. Radio station should have more sense.
 
SO-FAR-SO-GOOD for Glenn Beck, whose do-it-yourself GBTV.com in pacing to gross TEN TIMES the salary Fox News paid him before he got canned.

And the NET?
 
How did it work out? Great...more income than the TV station paid, plus controlling your own business rather than depending on a fickle corporate employer. but the years spent building the brand paid off. Of course starting from scratch after the TV gig went away would have been much, much harder.

Oh and by the way, a personality can do a "Public Figure" page and not a personal profile thus no more loss of privacy than being an on-air personality in the first place. But, I know this crowd will hear none of that, so radio should completely and totally disengage from social media, and dammit WE ARE OLD MEDIA and we will NOT use anything but old media to promote ourselves. Let's do that newspaper trade but no damn website ads!

Like my old boss said in the 80s....."don't be talking about TV shows on my radio station!"
 
Re: RE "Oh yeah? And how did that turn out?"

Holland Cooke said:
SO-FAR-SO-GOOD for Glenn Beck, whose do-it-yourself GBTV.com in pacing to gross TEN TIMES the salary Fox News paid him before he got canned.
Click to expand...

This whole thread was to address the empty-headed world of SOCIAL MEDIA, not websites. Glenn Beck VIEWERS knew what he was going to be doing well in advance of his departure from Fox---and it WAS NOT because of social media, but instead TELEVISION and his WEBSITE. Social media is one big spaghetti bowl of fragmented, all-over-the-road, scatterbrained nonsense. Nitwits following nitwits, just to make sure not one inconsequential thought goes untweeted.

And by the way, I'm not some old geezer shaking my head at new technology or some advancement I do not understand. I've spent more time than I even want to admit reading Twitter nonsense, which is why I feel the way I do about it. It turns my stomach how stupid and lame it all is.

And Adam Carolla seems undaunted.
And cultivating the tribe as he did SO well, Paul Harris transitioned from one St. Louis station to a bigger one.
And there's what's-his-name-in-Chicago...and others.
Click to expand...

I've literally heard Adam Carolla himself say it's extremely hard to make any money doing what he's doing on the net.
 
Re: We did NOT rehearse this, right?

Holland Cooke said:
jas2525 said:
I've literally heard Adam Carolla himself say it's extremely hard to make any money doing what he's doing on the net.
Click to expand...

"Literally?"

Let's let Adam speak for himself, from today's USA Today today, page 2, Money section:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/column...2-19/adam-carolla-talks-about-tech/53161300/1

Then y'all can argue about what-it-really-means, or...take it...literally.
Click to expand...

Oh Holland, you silly consultant, you!

Carolla NEVER says he makes money from the actual podcast, does he? This is consistant with what I quoted him as saying. He DOES use the podcast to help sell books and sell out theatres. Are you suggesting that radio people now write books to sell and develop a standup routine so they too can sell out theatres....because that is apparently what you'll have to do to make money with your online show!
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom