The Australian media editor: ‘Twitter could go the way of CB radio’
ABC's Annabel Crabb; The Australian's Stephen Brook
Twitter could go the way of CB radios and die off, Stephen Brook, media editor of the Australian has said.
The comment came from Brook at the Mumbrella360 conference in a session about the relationship between Twitter and journalism.
The session also included The ABC’s Annabel Crabb, Ten’s Breakfast presenter Magdalena Roze and Crikey cartoonist First Dog On the Moon, also known as Andrew Marlton.
Brook said: “I came up with a slightly provocative idea that Twitter could be the new CB radio, i.e. something that was hugely popular for a short time, but became faddish and then died away. We have to remind ourselves that Twitter is only six years old. Predicting its future is somewhat difficult.”
Brook went on to say that Facebook is not only three times more popular, but engaged users more than Twitter.
“What is apparent now and will always be the case throughout our lifetimes is that Facebook is much more popular. We think there is about 140m active users worldwide on Twitter. Facebook has something like 800m.”
“For news platforms and media organisations, Facebook is often far more useful in directing traffic to your website. All the metrics show Facebook users are more engaged, they spend longer on that platform than Twitter. They’re bringing more audiences into websites.”
Brook went on to explain the slow adoption of some sectors of the Australian public, such as the elderly, the poor and those in regional and remote areas, to new technologies combined with a struggling mainstream media could widen a gap between journalism and the consumer.
Brook said there are still 21% of Australian homes without a home computer and 25% without broadband. The number of the public online who don’t have a smartphone is more than half while the number of households without a tablet is 80%.
Nevertheless, Brook said: “They still deserve quality journalism and as newspapers circulation dwindle and distribution areas are cut, we need to be very careful they don’t get left behind.”
Brook did however give reasons as to why his initial dismissal that Twitter was not a place for serious journalism was out of hand.
Elsewhere in the session, Crabb discussed the moment she fell in love with Twitter while Marlton explained why Twitter is excellent for hanging shit on journalists.
The next Mumbrella360 conference takes place on June 5 and 6, 2013.
The journalism and Twitter session was curated by Kym Druitt of EckFactor PR.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I think Brook’s comments once again show a fundamental lack of understanding by a traditional media figure as to what these platforms do.
Of course Facebook has longer engagement time than Twitter – Facebook’s format allows for a much deeper experience in terms of consuming content, Twitter is 140 characters to tell a story.
And if you’re judging them as traffic sources to your site, you’re missing a fundamental piece of the puzzle. People want to consume the content on their terms – take it to them in the format they want it and see how they engage with it – not how many of them come back to your site.
So while he may be right, I’m going to say that newspapers will be going the way of CB radio before Twitter. Oh wait, they already have.
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“Six ears”? How long is that in real time? But seriously, if the time I spend on Twitter compared with the time I spend reading The Oz is a guide, it’s The Oz that ought to be worried.
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if i hear one more Gen Y reflexively whine about how ‘old media’ don’t geddit i’m going to scream
AAAARRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
and in this case Ben there is no logic at all to what you have posted. NONE.
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+1 to Ben’s comments
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Love your comments Golum (sic).
But I suspect you are in a similar age bracket to myself and therefore have abrogated all rights to have an opinion on anything digital. How would the generation that invented personal computing, GUI, pointing devices, tablets, mobile computing and phones, laser printing, digital music and television, the internet, the microchip … be in ANY position to pass informed comment. (And in our spare time we put a man on the moon as well … all said with due deference to Vint Cerf)
And Ben, if newspapers have gone the way of the CB that means that Australians buy over 18 million CBs a week – because that is how many newspapers are purchased in Australia every week.
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All technology goes the way of CB radio eventually
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Twitter will always be where narcissists meet sycophants. Only a small percentage of the population use it and care about it, and lazy journalists use it as a source of topic.
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“Ring ring”, hello, can I speak to Golum and John Grono?
Oh hai, this is the present calling. Australian Newspapers are not profitable TODAY. It’s not getting better tomorrow and it’s going to be a lot worse next year. Your head is under water in the deepest part of shit creek and the paddle is not lost, it’s firmly wedged up your whoopsie.
No one cares that (part) of your generation doesn’t get digital or that you put a man on the moon or how many wars you started in Asia or how many mum’s you fed thalidomide or how many gays you bashed or how many times you lied about cigarettes (if you play the generation card you’ve got to take to good with the bad, bro). It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand digital. All that matters is that you understand this:
If you spend more money than you make you will go broke.
You might sell 18 newspapers, 18 million newspapers or 18 brazillion newspapers. If your advertising falls to the point where your costs are higher than your revenue you will not survive irrespective of circulation. Whilst you’re going broke you will attempt to ride out the storm (praying the drop in revenue is cyclical not structural) by writing down the value of your business by billions of dollars, you will post record losses and jettison thousands of staff. At the same time you will lash out at the perceived problem (those damn digital kids are always on my lawn) whilst doing next to nothing to fix it for over a decade.
Does that sound at all familiar Golum and John?
I don’t care if you’re 18 or 88 if you don’t adapt to change you are as dead as a dinosaur. Age/Generation has nothing to do with it.
Cry me some more paper tears, newspaper tiger. The day of the Newspapers roaming the earth as an apex predator is over. My advice is to:
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/i.....61/afc.gif
For the record I am (relatively) old and in a senior national position with a major media organisation. We are choking on the biggest shit sandwich in the history of the industry and most of us aren’t going to make it back to the bread part. Your pointless comments about circulation do nothing to help, they only give ammunition to the other ostriches in my company who pray that the internet is going to magically disappear.
As I walk down the rows of empty desks and avoid eye contact with the few faces still here – faces that look like they were painted by Edvard Munch – praying might be the only thing left to do.
The Edvard Munch reference was for you Golum, scream all you like. You’re at the bottom of the well, keep rubbing that lotion in or you’ll get the hose again.
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um…unevenly distributed….are you ok? have you burst a blood vessel yet?
i dont recall remarking that newspapers were profitable, so could you please take your medication and try again
nor do i work in newspapers so no vested interest there. What i have a nose for is bullshit, and it’s produced in spades in relation to social media
given your distress at what you feel is an inevitable axing, you should perhaps be directing your hostility at yourself for failing to see the writing on the wall around the time Hilmer failed to buy Seek (i know, i tried to sell it to him)
meanwhile, i’ll just take another look at Facebook’s fabulous share price chart and gain comfort that the hot air is slowing being let out of the social media balloon
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Thank you for your rant Unevenly. I suppose you are hiding behind that moniker because of your ‘senior position’. Fair enough.
I made no comment about the current business models of the publishers. My belief is that they have changed far too slowly. My second belief is that they will have a devil of a time changing quickly enough now.
But it doesn’t alter the fact that there are still almost as many newspapers sold every week as there are people in Australia. If they average a buck a copy cover price that is approaching a billion bucks a year. And yes newspapers’ reach exceeds that of online – but the day is rapidly approaching (hail the NBN) when that will no longer be true. (P.S. Advertising revenue can fall below costs because of cover revenue – but I suspect that is a slip of the keyboard).
It doesn’t also alter the fact that the publishers are booking massive losses (a lot to do with write-downs and not trading). I cry no tears but am merely an independent researcher. I’ve observed first hand the slowness to adapt and from a research persepective have done my share of pushing a cajoling but the beast has been difficult to move.
All I am saying is that there are few other media products that are purchased at such levels every week. The hardest thing to do is to get a consumer to put theire hands in their pocket and pay for something. But time is running out fast to generate sufficient masthead revenue (paper plus digital) concurrent with cost adjustments. Personally I hope ‘paper’ is around for a long time to come – albeit as the support delivery medium I suspect.
But I suspect Unevenly that we are of a different generation. My generation fought against participation in the Asian wars. We supported the work of William McBride in revealing the true horror of thalidomide. We protested in the campuses and streets for gay rights (and indigenous rights). We celebrated when (finally) cigarette advertising was banned. I don’t know what you were up to. Probably pacing the corridors looking at empty chairs and doing nothing as seems to be your wont.
So, no, not a lot sounds familiar to me.
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touche Mr Grono
Unevenly Distributed’s idea of activism is probably to buy the Kony2012 wristband and click “like’ on facebook
most of the time i suspect s/he spends most of sh/its time wearing out his/her thumbprint on the Iphone keyboard, sending digital buddies hilarious pics of banjo playing siamese cats
OMG ROTFL
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My apologies Golum, you got lumped in with the criticism of John. Now that I’ve taken my medication I can see that that’s not fair, you’ve more than earned your own dunce cap.
Is that you Matthew Rockman? One of the founders of Seek? Is Golum an obtuse reference to the Jewish Golem (man of Clay/Rockman)?
I agree in part with your assessment of social media. The instagram purchase price was ludicrous. Mostly isolated but still ludicrous. But, don’t make the mistake of confusing Facebook’s spiralling share price with how many real dollars they took out of the advertising pie (more than $4 Billion USD).
And don’t forget the flow on effect. An advertiser may never give Facebook a cent, may never hire people to run their twitter account, may not spend money on their website integrating the social graph, may never register a Pinterest account et al BUT, the every company that does those things (and it’s most of them) takes budget and competition for advertising away from Mainstream Media (MSM). We live in an age where inventory is far outstripping demand for advertising spots. So even if they agree with your assessment that social is hot air they’re still paying (much) less for their ads on traditional media.
In a nutshell that’s the problem with criticising social media. I agree that there are large parts of it that are entirely specious but it is taking real dollars from real advertisers away from mainstream media. Advertisers are no longer enslaved to MSM. We’re seeing a power shift away from MSM (and their associated parasites – media buyers, advertising agencies) to the client side. The advertisers themselves have had to smile and swallow when MSM gave it to them over the last 100 years. The worm has turned, client side is where the power is now and it’s growing every day. 10 years ago the average marketing manager sat enthralled as the media buyer laid out graph after graph and plan after plan. They knew they couldn’t compete with the buying power (or the kickbacks) and they had no other option so they did what they were told.
Those days are gone. The average marketing manager has more options than ever before (social being just one of them) and the stink from MSM and media buyers is stronger than ever. They don’t give a crap about the quality of media, or how much it cost per hour to make television. They only care about how much it costs to acquire a new customer. I’m on the wrong team and I (now) know it.
You can bag social media all you want, you might even be right most of the time but advertising in traditional Media is sunk and it’s never, ever coming back. As Stephen Brook gets the chop and the Australian sinks beneath the waves for the last time, cast adrift without Rupert’s life jacket, Facebook and Twitter will fart in their general direction.
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The above is an example of why people don’t want to enter the media/advertising world.
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Unvevenly distributed …have you not heard of social media’s most epic fail?
the Pepsi Refresh project?
have your spirits refreshed by the following read:
http://adcontrarian.blogspot.c.....ilure.html
The Refresh Project accomplished everything a social media program is expected to: Over 80 million votes were registered; almost 3.5 million “likes” on the Pepsi Facebook page; almost 60,000 Twitter followers. The only thing it failed to do was sell Pepsi.
It achieved all the false goals and failed to achieve the only legitimate one.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Pepsi-Cola and Diet Pepsi had each lost about 5% of their market share in the past year.
For the first time ever Pepsi-Cola has dropped from its traditional position as the number two soft drink in America to number three (behind Diet Coke.)
In 2010, Pepsi’s market share erosion accelerated by 8 times compared to the previous year.
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…my point being that the pendulum will swing back to a more rational, evidence-driven centrist position and social media will take it’s place alongside the rest of the media, all of which eventually becomes mainstream
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