Are we letting the web get in the way of the message?

By Mik Barton on Feb 25, 08 02:04 PM in PR

My blog starts by issuing a pardon for the rather poor quality career advice I received when I was about to leave school. I suppose I ought to forgive them, as I'm now making my living mostly from something that wasn't invented then: the internet.

When I was a lad, TV was in black and white and we had two channels that only broadcast for part of the day.

(So there you go: anyone interested in the background of the Post bloggers can now start to calculate/guess at my age - as long as I'm not bending the truth of course.)

I remember when colour TV was first invented. Schedulers seemed to think we all wanted to watch snooker. Viewers may have shown little interest in the game before - but boy, didn't it look great in colour.

It was probably not long afterwards that newsreaders started wearing garish ties and children's presenters were only allowed bright primary colours in their wardrobe. Great TV drama now needed to be great, colourful TV drama - and I remember some of my family who liked watching 'serious programmes' adjusting their set so the bright colours didn't distract.

The reason for this potted history of a small part of my childhood - as I shall expand in future postings - is to wonder whether today we may ever be guilty of letting the wonders of a new media get in the way of the message we are trying to communicate?

I'm quite happy reading stuff on the web - and written text can be very useful stuff in my line of work. So why are some people obsessed with the need to fill webpages with moving images and background music?

And like the manufactured national obsession with snooker, is there anyone these days guilty of trying to create an interest in something purely because we now have the ability to show/publish/broadcast/transmit it? Silly ring tones perhaps? Send me your ideas.

Just don't get me started on corporate websites' rush to podcast everything from a bored meeting to the chairman's chat.....