Zac Echola is muffin but trouble

Say it: Reflections on 2007

Published on 27/12/07
by Zac Echola

Besides starting this blog this year (and this one and this one and this one), I have to say despite all my screaming and yelling and general frustration, I’m pretty pleased with what’s been going on over the last 12 months.

Newspapers seem to be getting it. It’s slow going, for sure, but many newspapers now see the power of the Web. The greatest coups for online staffs have come from breaking news situations like the Virginia Tech shooting and the California fires. This is good. I’m not one for predictions, but I expect to see some really awesome stuff happening in 2008. I expect TV sites will finally start to come around to the Web and I expect many of them to fail miserably again. I expect to see more sites fully embrace simple technologies like RSS and I expect them to figure out how to monetize them. I expect to see a large blog network or two purchased by a traditional media powerhouse.

We’ve seen some truly great things happen in the world of community journalism, the smuggled Myanmar videos being the prime example. We’ve seen many newspapers hand local TV stations their asses with online video (and we can still do better). New York Times tore down their pay wall and they’ve only begun to see the benefits. Reporters and editors, although still somewhat begrudgingly have taken blogs under their wing.

Declining print readership and online advertising sales not making up the loss continue to concern publishers. Eventually those streams will cross. But only if we do things right this time. The fact remains that I can find breaking news faster on twitter and Wikipedia than the papers that supposedly serve the markets where these events occur. Omaha.com was a disaster to never be repeated. Pay walls unfortunately still block thousands, possibly millions of readers from content. Papers still fail to understand search engines. Papers have no idea whatsoever how to turn print-comparable profit on the Web. It’s still being sold like the print product. Site designs must improve. We can do better.

Believe it or not, this was my first full year as a full-time “web guy.” My background is in TV and before that, alternative print. If I can jump head-first into this, so can you. I hope publishers start to take the time to understand their “web guys.” Let’s make 2008 awesome.

The end. Or is it?

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