The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Beating The Drum on On Line Opinion > Comments

Beating The Drum on On Line Opinion : Comments

By Graham Young, published 25/7/2016

I'm never happy to see a publication die, but this was one that should never have been started, doing damage to On Line Opinion, amongst other online publishers.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. Page 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. All
Dear Graham,

I met an Augusta Power Station worker on holidays when I was over in South Australia recently. He and my wife got talking about cameras on a walk around Granite Island off Victor Harbour.

I asked him what he felt about the closure of the power plant after working there for over 30 years. He told me while the company was bleating in the press about competition from renewables and a price on carbon they had been on a breakdown regime for over a decade. This is what some companies do. Rather than preventative maintenance they wait until something fails and then fix it. It is cheaper and more profitable in the short term but always comes to bite them in the medium term. No investment in new machinery and no willingness to innovate.

There is a general acceptance in the maintenance trade that when a company goes to breakdown only the writing is on the wall. Wyalla Steel works is another. This is also how much of the media landscape looks right now, particularly the big print and television players.

You write; “But newspapers everywhere are struggling, with a major reason being the haemorrhaging of revenues because of free content online.”

I have a good friend who works for a Murdoch owned major regional paper as their digital editor. The cuts they have endured have been savage, often incomprehensible, and in many ways self fulfilling. All the while the smaller more nimble publications are flourishing and filling the vacuum. I do some work for a local free paper with a circulation of 5,000 and online readership of around 2,000. It is a viable business attracting numerous advertisers, some national. Some of our coastal publications are just brilliant. I stopped reading the main Murdoch paper and get most of my news from the ABC, the smaller local papers (with which we spend our advertising dollars) and Reddit.

cont..
Posted by SteeleRedux, Monday, 25 July 2016 11:55:34 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
cont..

What the ABC did very well was innovate, partly because of the funding cuts but also they were prepared to take risks and experiment. They truly led the industry in this regard. Their apps were outstanding, the iView functionality came out well before the commercial stations which still haven't caught up and as a bonus their coverage is relatively unbiased plus they aren't a right-wing cesspit.

Media players bitching about losing market share because of the ABC just don't seem to get it, or they go and purchase Myspace.

Take OLO for instance. Where is the mobile friendly format or the app with alerts? It isn't too hard nor too expensive because this is something I do for clients all the time and it is just par for the course now. To claim the ABC has stifled innovation seems a little hollow.

I have owned and operated a number of small businesses and managed, possibly with some luck, never to have one fail on me. That would not have happened if I had not been constantly striving to stay ahead of the curve, seeking niche markets to exploit, and coming up with new ways of engaging the public.

Perhaps you are a little jaded and if so I know the feeling of having to find ways of re-energising myself, but I for one would love to see OLO return to the product that drew me here in the first place, though in a modern format.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Monday, 25 July 2016 11:56:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear phanto,

Of course you can 'savage someone with words'. It is a perfectly legitimate use of the word.

The online Cambridge dictionary includes in its definitions;

very serious or cruel: savage criticism

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/savage

As to your wanting names I'm certainly happy to furnish one; onthebeach. It was his 'savaging' that saw an OLO stalwart Belly off. I personally don't engage with him at all and find his treatment of female posters to be particularly obnoxious. He and his 'Tonto' ttbn would certainly fit the mold of rabid rightwingers.

I really do feel it was the Abbott era that gave licence to these types and they undoubtedly have made OLO a different place, less conducive to constructive dialogue. I have not been above dishing it back either, not something I'm proud of, so my default is now just to ignore.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 12:16:07 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Phanto, it seems you are protesting too much about the so-called loudmouths of this forum. Feeling guilty maybe?

Having been on the end of the poisoned pens of posters such as OTB, ttbn and runner many times before, I can vouch for the underlying nastiness of this site.
Certainly, labelling yourself as a 'right-winger' is not a good sign.

The ABC is a great station, hated by all those who hate anyone different from themselves...
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 1:57:21 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I used to be an avid poster to the Drum, but I haven't commented there for several years. The reason I stopped was because of technical frustration. I'd post a comment, but it wouldn't appear sometimes for 2 hours or more. By the time the comment appeared, about a hundred other posts went up at the same time, so my comment got lost in the throng and its immediacy was lost.

One reason I keep coming back to OLO is because it is a smaller forum and very comment-friendly. I also like the diversity of opinion - mainly in the articles. Regardless of this diversity, the commentariat is decidely dominated by right wing perspectives. I'm very lefty in my orientation, but I don't see this as a problem - indeed I welcome the chance to read articulate and mostly intelligent right-wing views.
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 3:28:17 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Roses1

I agree that the level of intimidation, particularly towards left-wing, and especially feminist, commenters is unacceptable - and I've made my share of complaints to Graham. But I try to accept the OLO commentariat for what it is. It's still a very engaging forum.

Perhaps, now that the Drum is gone, we might see an influx of lefties to the forum. One can only hope.
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 3:51:55 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. Page 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy