Most of you know that I'm a mad fiend for Web stuff. Love it.
Now I know why ... because the Internet is officially bigger than newspapers.
According to Pew Research, the internet "has now surpassed all other media except television as a main source for
national and international news", and they included this chart which I think illustrates the role of this technology in our lives today:
Even more importantly, "six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national
and international news online; an identical percentage cites television."
This also illustrates the growing influence of non-traditional commentary, such as blogs, to our thinking. Y'know, hundreds of people worldwide are being influenced right now, today, just by this one. Others might be influencing tens of people or tens of thousands.
They all have a voice and are all important to those who view them regularly.
That's the real impact of this technology. The fact that anyone, anywhere can post something that can influence everyone, everywhere.
From a student recording their views on camera for YouTube to mother sharing her family's Christmas on Facebook, from an indepth analysis of the economy by a Keynesian expert to a commentary on real life by a prisoner in Broadmoor, all of it can be found, viewed, consumed, borrowed, cut and pasted through this ubiquitous and pervasive connected world of the web.
It's the complete fragmentation of dialogue and media, and anything can be morphed into anything else overnight.
By way of example, I found this video on YouTube yesterday:
This was only posted on Sunday and has been watched by 500,000 people already.
The most important point about this video is the comment from its creator, WormyT: "Thundercats live action trailer using Hollywood actors Brad Pitt, Vin Diesel and Hugh Jackman among others. All the effects were done frame by frame in Photoshop. The footage was edited in Adobe Premiere."
In other words he made it, at home, on his PC.
The footage comes from other films, such as the X-Men and Troy, and he has edited and coloured each frame to fit with the Thundercats movie which doesn't exist yet. It hasn't even been filmed.
Amazing.
I wonder what banks will be doing with this sort of tech in 2009?
More on January 5th.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
