Is it really that bad if news begins to take on a more entertaining stance?

Isn’t the real issue whether the message is getting through?

The Swiss have found that what is being covered in their constituency is entertainment and less news.

The Swiss media tends to prioritise entertainment over news, according to a report into the country’s media released by Zurich University on Thursday.

It found that disasters, football and scandals dominated reporting in 2010 – ahead of the Swiss diplomatic spat with Libya, cabinet elections and the UBS tax crisis.

The Swiss Yearbook on media quality found that the media was reaching fewer people.

Maybe it is time they though more about how the news is reported?

Why is entertainment or soft news so much more engaging?

What does the Swiss media think?

The report into media quality in Switzerland is the second of its kind, with last year’s inaugural study causing a furore after it suggested that the popularity of news websites and free newspapers was eroding journalistic standards.

Maybe the standards of journalism are evolving and maybe there is no such thing as the news media but news medias!

Malcolm Gladwell spoke about this idea of there not being one definitive product but products!

Maybe it is time to stop thinking of media in singular terms.

Watch this video and think in terms of medias.

This is literally food for thought!

I know in my Zayed Media Lab course I mix mobile, laptop and Web2.0 tools for no better reason than we live in a mobile saturated environment.

Students get it, sort of.

The problem is mixed messages about what is professional media and what is amateur media.

Somehow professional=expensive and fixed location.

Research is telling us that mobile media is certain to eclipse all other media in the near future.

Mobile breaks down barriers to access and defies time and space. That makes mobile the newest — and potentially most potent — form of engagement media. Not only do SMS, MMS, and GPS-enabled tools support this, but mobile engagement is also driven through the explosion of social networks. In a survey conducted by eMarketer, 77% of respondents identified social networking as the mobile tool or application that will be used the most in 2015.

How we understand media is mutating before our eyes.

Companies recognizing the value of this engagement are changing the way they do business, taking advantage of mobile’s possibilities. Cars.com’s mobile-enabled version of its site takes consumer value to a new level. Users search new- and used-car listings, find dealers and get directions, and even view Kelley Blue Book values and calculate loan payments right from the dealer’s lot. Cars.com is the now media for the automotive consumer.

If you needed a further validation of the value of mobile and its impact on breaking down media barriers, look at the latest news from Netfix. Netflix and DreamWorks jointly announced Monday that Netflix would be the exclusive subscription streaming provider of DeamWorks’s titles. This deal signals a real shift in how content is being viewed by consumers; it’s the first time a major Hollywood studio has put its money on streaming video over pay TV. Streaming is the new media (and if you were not aware of it, you can get streaming Netflix on Verizon 4G handsets now, which came in really handy last week when I was stranded on the Tulsa tarmac for two hours due to flight delays). DreamWorks studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg, quoted in yesterday’s New York Times, predicted that consumers in the near future will not distinguish between the two — “We are really starting to see a long-term road map of where the industry is headed,” he said. “This is a game-changing deal.”

Again I ask are we as teachers, parents and business people reading the writing on the wall?

Mobile media is professional media just as TV, radio and newspapers are.

Mobile media is different just like TV, radio and newspapers once were.

Do we really understand the change manifesting itself as far as information exchange and interaction is concerned?

I think we see the change coming but as we run beside the change train  we have not figured out how to climb on.

The irony is the users seems to have things figured out while the content creators are still pondering.

No surprise the journalists, content creators, are not the people to look to.

And designers might also be caught in the hype of what was and this idea that new media is short, sweet and and and.

This month’s Monocle has some very interesting reading.

The question is what does our new media environment need to be?

There is no one answer and that in itself is a big hint.

Too many people are looking in one direction and that is a problem.

Too many people are dumbing down and that is a problem.

Designers and editors are losing track of their talent and focus as they try to do each others jobs.

In the end we are left with media that is for the lack of a better word, broken.

Maybe SLATE is an example of keeping on track.

What is happening in this case was the technology behind their web offering was not as good as the editorial product, what if that could be bridged?

The Neimam Journalism Lab has been looking at what is making Slate work.

But what is the key to success in the end?

Community, keeping it and growing it.

Alienate the audience, insult the audience, ignore the audience and they are gone and maybe for good.

No!

The old media is not preparing for the new media environment and new media enthusiasts are failing to actually figure our how to connect with an audience in a meaningful and sustained way!

But it is not all doom and gloom.

In fact there are some very interesting projects taking place with audio broadcasting!

My question is very simple, why are we not doing this int he UAE?

Maybe our schools, high schools, maybe our broadcasters, ARN and GN, need to be thinking a little more laterally.

Check out the idea of Localore.

Localore, a new initiative produced by AIR, builds on the groundwork laid by MQ2 to drive the continuing transformation of public media. Our 10 Lead Producers, in collaboration with their local station radio and television incubators, will focus their ingenuity on blending digital and traditional broadcast tools and platforms to expand the reach of public media in local communities and establish new capacity for R&D at stations. Collectively,  our producers and their teams will help lead us to a new vision of 21st century public media.

So what is it all about?

Experiment and invent new ways to find and tell stories

Discover fresh models blending old and new media

Forge new pathways between stations and their local communities.

I love the idea of MQ2.

MQ2 Takes Public Media to the Street from AIR on Vimeo.

Maybe we need to be thinking in terms of old/new media relationships from the perspective of an incubator?

I am up for it!

Worldwide mobile advertising revenue forecast to reach $3.3 billion in 2011

The numbers are pretty amazing and if they are anywhere near target wow!

My question goes back to education.

Are our business schools, IT Colleges and Communication schools onto this idea?

Worldwide mobile advertising revenue is forecast to reach $3.3 billion in 2011, more than double the $1.6 billion generated in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide revenue will reach $20.6 billion by 2015, but not all types of mobile advertising will generate the same opportunity. Search and maps will deliver the highest revenue, while video/audio ads will see the fastest growth through 2015.

Here is a chart that comes from this worth reading article.

What is for sure the landscape of media, advertising and PR is in a very clear transition and this is happening fast.

The question is who can keep up?

Or if you don’t keep up with the media transition what future do you have?

And at some point in the conversation the issue of quality is brought up.

The the issue of funding is tossed into the mix.

The conversation ends with a debate about distribution and we go nowhere.

I honestly find it shocking that every single student I teach is not creating their own little bit of UAE media content!

My thinking is that as we move well beyond the old media framework into the new social media paradigm there are no rules that constrain us.

Yes there is morality but the rules of the media environment today are being created as I type!

Yet students across the UAE sit on their hands and believe that they don’t have the equipment, ability or creativity to create compelling media content today!

Maybe what students need today is an example?

Where do you turn to for an sample of new Emirati media?

DJ Bliss and YouTube!

This is a great story.

In retrospect even Bliss will suggest he could have done this or that better.

But you know what?

Bliss got off his hands and did it!

This is the 1st, second and 3rd steps toward the New face of UAE media.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I would love to see every CCMS student at Zayed University making their own piece of New UAE media!

I wonder if we are talking to simply hear our voices?

Here we are well into 2011 and our schools don’t look much different, inside or out, than they did 30 years ago.

And I am sorry some of those teachers from 30 years ago are still doing the same old thing.

Is it possible that we are so overwhelmed with the number of issues confronting us today that we are happy to let education just continue on as it has?

Nobody will admit that they have other things to worry about but when you look at the patchwork of educational changes taking place it seems rather clear that there is no real plan and that there is no real thought being given to where we are going.

But there are people, like Christian Long talking about the larger picture.

But is anyone listening and are we ready to totally take our thinking in a different direction?

Maybe it is not a question of being ready, we will never be ready, but it is a question of political, social and cultural necessity.

We are living in a just-in-time world today, maybe we need just-in-time education?

Here is my conversation with Christian Long.

Of course successful is a loaded word.

There is no rubric for success.

There is no manual for success.

What we are confronted with, when we think about success, is our own measurement against others.

The problem with measuring our own success against that of others is that the visual side of success, that which we can see, is only a tiny piece of the success phenomenon.

There is a lot more going on in our lives that intersects to create the circumstances for success to happen.

And then there is youth today, how do they measure success?

I met Cloe Shasha at TEDActive in Palm Springs in 2011 and was blown away!

Cloe, who is just about to graduate from Middlebury College, joined me for a conversation about TED, ideas, change and youth.

But what Cloe was really talking about was the simple idea of success.

Here is my conversation with Cloe Shasha.

While in California I could not help but make my way into a McDonald’s to see what the fast food giant was doing to re-invent itself.

Well, there were the huge LCD televisions playing sports, in this case high school basketball and then there was the game consul above. And not just one but half a dozen of these machines with a variety of education games free and ready to use.

And then there was the free high speed internet!

McDonald’s knows that it is providing affordable food and in the process it is creating an environment that feeds other hungers for entertainment and distraction.

Top  marks for creating an inviting environment now we need to work on the food keeping in mind the prevalence of obesity and diabetes among children today.

I must also say that the best thing about a TED conference remains the people you meet.

Here are my audio updates for the last 2 days.

And here is Day 4 of the experience Day 2 of the conference.

But what is really exciting is the TEDActiveEDU project!

Our guiding project question was “How do we empower students to impact education.” From this question, three themes emerged.

1. How do we empower students in their own education?

2. How do we empower students to help change education?

3. How do we spread the message?

So, we think we’ve come up with a first step to address all three.

Elev8ed is now live.

We’re asking each of you to invite a youth to submit a video to Elev8ed.org, and to become part of a dialog on education that they can help curate. A global conversation on changing education. On elevating education to a higher level for themselves, for their peers, and for the world. This is a conversation worth spreading.

This is what TED is all about.