Whisper Media
Some time ago, I came across a term “whisper media” from Todayonline.

It caught my attention simply because I had never seen it being used before, and because it seems to encapsulate the general direction that media communication will have to take in future. Top down, authority laden communication is giving way to a more peer to peer, engaging and conversational kind of dialouge.

In other words, we’re tired of the “shouting”. One cannot walk through what is arguably the icon for “loud” advertising, Times Square in New York City, without being visually accosted by the numerous billboards screaming for your attention. Ironically, the more they scream the more we, as consumers of media, will tune them out. We are desentisized to the noise.

Some communication is literally, decibel challengingly loud. These are the intrusive TV advertisements that interrupt your regular programming. Others are loud in the kind of form that they take.

The newspaper debate continues…
The latest news is that the New York Times is contemplating two different plans to charge for content on the web.
I’m not quite too sure what to make of this first one- a prototype model to charge people for spending too much time on the site.

The most pointed sentence from this response that jumps out at me is the fact that they are, ‘penalizing’ those who are their biggest fans. Countless past examples – fans who spent hours creating video and music mashups , record labels sueing of fans who truly love the content, and still pretty much not getting that the value of the new social web is the created content that all these people are producing. Looks like they still haven’t learnt then. If you’re going to start changing people for reading too many articles, or spending too much time on your news site, who will bother to stay on your site for long, or linger around to leave a comment?

I’m sure the Times has a solid base of advertising revenue, which is based upon the old advertising model that is intrinsically at odds with this new one. The old model would want you on the site for as long as possible, the new one sounds like you will get “shut out” from reading content after a certain amount of time transpires. The new model makes sense for services such as taxis, I’m puzzled as to how this could translate effectively to newspapers.

The second plan sounds a little more promising, if only because of its focus on community, some sort of a membership system as it is touted. “Bad” products surrounded by strong communities survive – just think of all the “who would buy into that?” moments you have had for seemingly ridiculous services or products, but are loved by enough to stay around.

Tags: news, newspapers, media, whisper, advertising, pay, model, business