Commentary

Pace Thyself

The media and Madison Avenue habitually perform various wrongs, but among the worst is the top-heavy coverage of popular subjects: the way new ideas and breaking news stories are quickly exhausted of meaning, overcooked by our collective magnifying glass.

Now, this practice is clearly fine if the subject for consumption is Britney's baby or P. Diddy's latest renaming; but it's clearly not fine when we're talking war and devastation. (When Fox News' Greta Van Susteren in effect apologized to viewers recently for neglecting the Natalee Holloway disappearance story because of Hurricane Katrina, I almost lost it.)

Similarly, we shouldn't overcook and lose the meaning of all the new ideas that affect our industry: blogs and podcasts and consumer-generated content and seamless streaming video and RSS and buzz and interactivity and accountable measurement...

All these ideas inspired so much attention at first -- and not just the little ideas, but Internet advertising and rich media as a whole. How many gatherings and conferences, and how much verbiage and online "real estate," have been devoted to the Web and all its marketing potential?

If you were to say "Too much!" you might be right. But the point is that none of the ideas listed above are anywhere near exhausted of worth. In fact, most have yet to get off the ground, or are achieving lift-off at this very moment. Just look at the astonishing adoption rates for blogs or streaming video, plus eMarketer's forecast that online ad spending will reach $12.9 billion this year, breaking the $10 billion barrier for the first time.

The moral of Aesop's "The Tortoise and the Hare," is worth noting here: "Slow and steady wins the race."

There are always those anxious early-adopters and impatient industry-watchers ready to move on as soon as ideas are hatched and before they have a chance to take hold. And that's fine because their pace serves a purpose --- to egg everyone on and lead the way --- as long as it doesn't conflict with an idea's potential for success.

The facts remain: There's just as much to be learned from the blogosphere today as there was a year ago, and the value of superstitials, say, or any type of out-of-banner rich media ad, is just as potent as it was two years ago. The messages might seem tired, but their promise is alive and well.

Next story loading loading..