Wednesday, February 24, 2010

It bears repeating, People: "Just because a new medium arrives doesn't mean an old medium dies out"

Link to February 24 New York Times article, "Water-Color Effect: Internet Can Be TV's Friend".

Excerpt: Remember when the Internet was supposed to kill off television?

That hasn’t been the case lately, judging by the record television ratings for big-ticket events. The Vancouver Olympics are shaping up to be the most-watched foreign Winter Games since 1994. This year’s Super Bowl was the most-watched program in United States history, beating out the final episode of “M*A*S*H” in 1983. Awards shows like the Grammys are attracting their biggest audiences in years.

Many television executives are crediting the Internet, in part, for the revival.

Blogs and social Web sites like Facebook and Twitter enable an online water-cooler conversation, encouraging people to split their time between the computer screen and the big-screen TV
.

According to the Nielsen Company, 1 in 7 viewers of the Super Bowl and the opening ceremony of the Olympics were on the Web at the same time.


In so many words: how technology reshapes the reading habit.
American Demographics, March, 1997 by Rebecca Piirto Heath.

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