Just the Facts Please - Online Seminar Limitations

Online Seminars, webcasts, and podcasts have really exploded on the tech scene over the last year or so, but I remain skeptical about the potential of these to change things very much. An "old style" online information gathering approach still works very well. Generally it takes only a few online minutes to search, find, and quickly scan a topic you need to understand better or learn about for the first time. If you need to become an expert in a topic I'd suggest it is better to surf a lot of sites and participate in blogs and forums rather than spend the same amount of time watching a webcast, though of course there are exceptions to this. Unfortunately it is hard to know which of the millions of videos on millions of topics are great vs. a waste of your time. Sorting the wheat from the chaff - at least for me - is much easier if I'm scanning search engine listings, text snippets, and websites rather than listening to podcasts or video clips.

Webcasting and Podcasts in some way bridge the human gap we have with simple surfing where you have a very limited connection to the purveyor of the information you need. Yet thanks to blogging and forums you are able to to get direct feedback from experts by simply commenting or participating in those formats, which to my way of thinking have the huge advantage of allowing you to jump in and out and quickly scan for the good stuff without enduring a lot of information that is not relevant to you.

Certainly a podcast would be a better choice for some specific types of learning - languages for example - where audio and repetition are key parts of the learning experience. Also obviously there are times when the online picture can "paint a thousand words" and thus may trump any amount of text reading. Real time breaking news could benefit from webcasting, especially if pictures are a key part of the story. However I think these exceptions are relatively few. In most cases your best information bet, in terms of return on your valuable time, is the same as it has been for some time - good old Web 1.0 search, surf, and find.

Enterprise Social Media Adoption Ramping Up

A report issued by Society for New Communications Research reveals that many companies are adopting social media as a marketing tool however they are struggling to find effective metrics.

The report is based on findings from a survey of 297 advertising, marketing, PR and corporate communications professionals, 57% felt social media tools are becoming more valuable, 27% of whom say that social media is a core element of their communications strategy.

The most popular social media tools used were;
1) Blogs - 78%
2) Online Video - 63%
3) Social Networks - 56%
4) Podcasts - 49%

Awareness and engagement were cited as the most important criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the social media in addition to the following:

* Enhancement of relationships with key audiences
* Enhancement of reputation
* Search engine ranking of website
* Customer awareness of program
* Click-thrus to website
* Comments/posts relevant to company or products
* Social media coverage
* Unique visitors from influencers’ sites

Researchers expected social media to be more effective when targeted at younger age groups, with 18-25 being the most likely to be influenced. However, the over-65 age group closely trailed the under-18 and 26-35 age brackets.

ABC Reshapes News for the Web

Interesting story out by the NY Times about how ABC is now tapping into a new frontier/platform of news syndication...the Web! They are now producing, an albeit short, 15-minute news webcast dubbed "World News" with a different style and approach suitable for the younger online audience they are hoping to capture. It is apparently decidedly less stuffy and scripted and more Web 2.0-esque including video blogs, personal essays, and interviews not dictated by TV time constraints. Based on the story, this foto does not appear to be representative of the style of the webcast and hopefully the tone is not like typical newscasts out there where they feign concern and do cheesy stories and bad reporting.

Webcast often features Mr. Gibson in the anchor chair, but the similarities end there: the segments can run long, and they purposely look raw and personal, as if they were made for MTV rather than ABC.

It is intended in part for people who view Web pages on iPods and cellphones, and ABC executives say they are deliberately aiming to please the 25- to 54-year-olds whom every news organization covets. "World News" reaches a tiny fraction of the broadcast audience — 4.5 million views and downloads a month, most of which come in the form of podcasts downloaded automatically by iTunes users.

It is currently not ad-supported so there are no noisy commercial interruptions, however, the podcast version is preempted with advertising. But it is also "competing with newspapers, radio and Web-based organizations" for ad dollars.

They are apparently the only ones doing this and have been for 1.5 years about. CBS and NBC offer only a re-packaged version of their regular news programs.
Read article.