I displayed the little totem pictured to the left in my office for the past 7-8 years as a constant reminder to myself and anyone who came to visit of how things aren’t always what they seem. Flush times could simply be masking bad ideas and stupid money. Tough times can present opportunities to think different(ly).
The only constant is that, in the words of Don Ameche’s character in the David Mamet movie, “things change.”
Right now, we’re all living through a big change. In a downturn, money dries up. People spend less. Businesses advertise less. News organizations struggle to cover their markets on less revenue.
But even in the current tough scenario, online looks to grow in the coming years. We’ll see if the predictions hold, but recent prognostications by some key analysts, while ratcheting their projections downward, still hold out hope for mild improvement in digital ad revenues.
The problem is, of course, that these are just projections. You have to look only as far as last December to see how far ad projections can be off when conditions on the ground change.
But if we don’t invest our efforts and our dollars where the growth is, we might as well pack up and go home.
steve says
October 9, 2008 at 7:16 pmHow funny – I thought I was the only person alive to still have a :cuecat! It sits on a shelf of obsolete technology, next to my Qube console. Back in the late '90s when they launched I wrote an article for, I believe, Broadcasting & Cable, about the technology. At the time, Belo had jumped on board and NBC was planning to use the thing during the 2000 Olympics. Some Cajun by the name of Jovan Philyaw was championing it at the time. Like lots of other emerging technologies at the time, it worked, but was sort of a “so what?” piece of equipment.
Anyway, glad to have tripped across your blog. Good reading.
steve says
October 9, 2008 at 8:16 pmHow funny – I thought I was the only person alive to still have a :cuecat! It sits on a shelf of obsolete technology, next to my Qube console. Back in the late '90s when they launched I wrote an article for, I believe, Broadcasting & Cable, about the technology. At the time, Belo had jumped on board and NBC was planning to use the thing during the 2000 Olympics. Some Cajun by the name of Jovan Philyaw was championing it at the time. Like lots of other emerging technologies at the time, it worked, but was sort of a “so what?” piece of equipment.
Anyway, glad to have tripped across your blog. Good reading.
steve says
October 10, 2008 at 1:16 amHow funny – I thought I was the only person alive to still have a :cuecat! It sits on a shelf of obsolete technology, next to my Qube console. Back in the late '90s when they launched I wrote an article for, I believe, Broadcasting & Cable, about the technology. At the time, Belo had jumped on board and NBC was planning to use the thing during the 2000 Olympics. Some Cajun by the name of Jovan Philyaw was championing it at the time. Like lots of other emerging technologies at the time, it worked, but was sort of a “so what?” piece of equipment.
Anyway, glad to have tripped across your blog. Good reading.