Regular readers will know I have a bit of a bromance for Alan Kohler.
Business Spectator is great and he is easily the best Business presenter on TV, for my tastes anyway. However, the main reason I think the guy is great is because he writes really bloody good articles.
This one is exceptional and timely considering recent events – http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/The-internet-doesnt-exist-pd20091020-WYRBY?opendocument&src=rss
The internet is merely a delivery mechanism for bits of data. It’s equivalent to the paper on which newspapers are printed or the air through which TV and radio signals are transmitted.
We never called newspaper journalism “paper content” or TV journalism “spectrum content” and the fact that it’s now online is, it seems to me, quite irrelevant.
In fact it is a colossal miscalculation to think that consumers distinguish between stuff they read on paper and the stuff they read on a website, and that they have somehow decided they will pay for one and not the other.
Have a read. It’s a great piece of writing and content, dare I say it, worth paying for.
4 responses so far ↓
Matt Costain // October 20, 2009 at 5:40 pm
A good read. Thanks for the heads up!
Liam // October 20, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Ya of course Alan is good. Barth’s is no rookie either.
Comes back to a similar theme that seems to be misunderstood.
The concept that media could be commoditised is somehow bad?
I don’t see how that is bad.
News isn’t art. The news is the news.
It has value. That value will be high or low.
Emotion about that is for the lounge room.
MargB // October 21, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I’ve been in love with Alan ever since 2003 article: “There’s an awkward secret at the centre of Australia’s superannuation system: the socialists are winning.” Who would have thought that an article about superannuation could be so entertaining, as well as intelligent and informative?
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/15/1060936057198.html
Jonathon Oake // November 12, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I’d stumbled on this article and just blogged a love letter to it myself
http://spongeist.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/the-internet-doesnt-exist/
it’s a really good, really simple exposition of the core issue around paid content that has some good lessons for both sides of the debate. Alan nails it again!