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August 22, 2006
Stop Crying Web...
I don't know why this is, but why is it that everyone always overestimates how quickly the internet is redefining the rules of the game?
It's frustrating to me too - Mr. Early Adopter - but the truth is:
We don't all have blogs.
Most people don't read blogs.
I doubt anyone within 100 yards of here knows who Jason Kottke is.
"Uh, Derek, where can I look up what a wikipedia is?"
Very few know what an RSS feed is let alone use an RSS reader for their information foraging (although their boss may have sent them to a lunch-hour training where they learned what it looks like). Until web browsers make this thing painfully simple, the grapes of RSS are going to be too high for most people.
On the whole, we still reads print magazines and newspapers far more than we read online magazines and newspapers.
I'm not sure there are any truly bona fide internet celebs in the public consciousness.
I can't download a movie from Hollywood studio like a I can a song from iTunes.
Short of porn, most video is broadcast via cable companies and satellite providers.
There's very limited us of IM apps in the workplace.
Hardly anyone over 30 sends more a few text messages per month.
Most of the ad budgets go to TV and print.
Let's face it, the pace is slow. There's no big stick out there beating us over the head to change other than our own desire to do so and the habits of the more younger, more technically savvy redefining the face of the average buying consumer. And that takes years to make a difference...
It'll be 60-odd year until the seniors of the time grew up with the internet their whole life. That's a long time away ...
In the meantime, the new order of things slowly settles in. The quicker ones among us will be identify oportunities and build businesses around intellectual property they'll likely sell to an established player rather than take to market themselves. A few of us ad-type will do something interesting and maybe get in an article somwhere but the rules overall will change slowly for our trade.
Fact is, for every year that goes by, we only get one year older (I know, I'm brilliant...) so it's going to take time for the wallets of a new generation to take over from the baby boomer economic powerhouse.
Till then, pine away you yearning futurists... pine away...
Posted by Derek Leverington at August 22, 2006 6:57 PM