more on Jeffrey Chester: The Google YouTube Tango

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <[email protected]>
Date: October 13, 2006 5:50:01 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <[email protected]>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: Jeffrey Chester: The Google YouTube Tango
Reply-To: [email protected]

[Note:  This comment comes from reader Scott Berry.  DLH]

From: "Scott J. Berry" <[email protected]>
Date: October 13, 2006 12:14:12 PM PDT
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: [Dewayne-Net] Jeffrey Chester:  The Google YouTube Tango

Dewayne,

For the list if you like.  Couple of comments about this article:

1. Give people some credit.  We've always had an "off" switch.  We still
have one.  Walk away from the TV.  Shut off your cell phone.  Unplug.
Immersion is an option.

2. Yes, it's a shame that concentration of traditional media ownership
is reducing choices.  But what's different now is that new media
"outlets" (don't like that word, it has a broadcast connotation)
suddenly have very low barriers of entry.  Pretty difficult to start
your own TV station.  Putting up a site or a blog or a video is simple
and cheap.  The internet routes around this stuff, as others have more
famously said.

3. I certainly see that News Corp et al are trying to create this
pervasive commercial immersion for everyone.  Can't really blame
them--scorpion and the frog, you know.  But if people insist on being
passive receivers, I guess they get what they deserve.  No government,
regulation, nanny state, or impassioned call-to-arms will save us from
ourselves.  I taught my daughter what "persuade" meant when she was 4.
Now I never miss an opportunity to point out the hidden agendas in the
things she sees.

Frankly, I'm astonished at the prices that have been paid for MySpace
and YouTube.  If these were physical, or at least persistent, assets
that would be one thing.  They aren't.  Kids have always been smarter
than "Grups" give them credit for.  If the media barons become too
invasive with the ads, everyone will just fade away to another meeting
place on the net, and Murdoch and company will be left holding the (now
empty) bag.

Scott