May 28th, 2008
Deathwatch for Old Media Dinosaurs in the Sports, Outdoor, Athletics & Recreation Industries
I’ve now been “officially” working in the Sports, Outdoor, Athletics and Recreation industries for slightly more than 3-and-a-half years now, and I must say I continue to be shocked at the overall lack of new media sophistication I see within these industries.
Understand that this is not meant as a slam against all companies in these markets (although it may come across as such).
I also recognize that almost every company I now find in any industry has a Web site. But for many companies, that’s it. And in some instances, companies have little more than a brochure-ware Website.
Others are beginning to step forward and are beginning to embrace newer forms of interactive media, sometimes known as Web 2.0 technologies. These solutions and tools include
- Blogging,
- Online video,
- Social networks (MySpace and Facebook being the most popular, but not the only ones),
- Microblogging (through such tools as Twitter and Pownce, to name two), and
- Podcasting.
What’s even more amazing to me, however, is the seeming lack of interactive / Web 2.0 sophistication among the media companies serving the outdoor and recreation industries. Here again, I’m not attacking every media-publishing company serving clients and/or end-users in the recreation, sports, athletics and/or outdoor industries. Just most of ‘em.