One of the things that struck me at the Media140 conference in Sydney a couple of weeks ago is how all over the place the ABC is on new media.
That’s not necessarily a negative observation, because unlike some of the representatives of other media outlets there, at least some of them get it.
I’d embed the opening keynote from ABC director Mark Scott except that the Media140 conference’s idea of new media appears to extend only as far as streaming the event, as opposed to offering easy to find videos after it.
Scott was mostly impressive, well besides his section on widgets and his inability to understand the basic differences between links and content. Overall though, as much as I can take shots on points like that, credit where due because the ABC is actually trying new things and is willing to experiment.
There were others as well, but for every one who at least had some idea about new media and what it offered, there was as many again, primarily older journalists, who took the opportunity to simply bag everything new in favor of everything that was old. It was, as I said at the time, like watching Jurassic park, but without any cool CGI.
And this week I read that they’ve appointed one of the biggest critics on new media to run their new media opinion site. Yeah, that’s a smart move.
On the bright side at least there won’t be any traffic requirements or need to make money with the new site, because if there was I’d give it 3 weeks.
