Mark Glaser writes great online media commentary, and this column is no different. If you’ve ever worked for a newspaper or other major media outlet, you’ll understand what he’s talking about: Newspapers, like many other industries, have tons of industry awards. If you enter all the contests, you’re bound to win something. The same holds true for Web sites. Like Glaser, I too remember when everybody was a Lycos Top 5% site.
Basically, what’s happening is that the value of awards is going down. The other problem, writes Glaser, is that newspaper awards more about “bells & whistles” on online-news sites rather than excellent writing for the medium.
I agree and disagree. While writing for the online medium is generally shovel-ware from the print addition, I agree with Steve Outing on this one: online writing is important, but I think I’d give the awards to the folks who take advantage of the medium to its fullest — from the writing, but also the multimedia aspects that are possible. Extra writing for the Web is not what’s going to attract and keep readers on your site, but a good video or interactive presentation will.
Comments
Yeah, Jake, I’d love for bend.com to be able to offer video, interactive stuff etc. some day. (But not video shot by ME, between the shaky hands and the constant zoom-in-out, I’d have folks barfing around the world;-)