In the golf media world, the denial may have lasted a bit longer than it did elsewhere, but today even the die hard print evangelists are recognizing...if not fully embracing... the internet.
There's no denying that the economic downturn...the major one that began circa September...added a certain urgency to what was an inevitable shift. Over just the past few months I've seen veritable tsunami of golf publishers... both established and brand new, rushing in... They're creating and revamping and enhancing their sites while hastily creating Facebook and Twitter accounts and attempting to understand these new media platforms.
This is a huge topic. One that elicits substantial emotion, and one with far reaching implications for both consumers and producers of golf content. I'll be exploring it here later today as I update this post. In the meantime, if anyone... reader or writer... has an observation, comment or opinion I'd love to hear it.
Oh how I love my glossy golf magazines!
ReplyDeleteIt IS emotional, particularly for those of us currently... playing the back nine... but as you point out, if you look at the rise of the interntet combined with the economic meltdown, the "dead tree" business model makes less and less sense.
Environmentally we're much better off with less paper and printing. I don't know what we'll do in the waiting rooms of the future though. :)
ReplyDeleteI think your going to see a lot more golf companies, PGA, and LPGA players embrace social media in 2009. As more of these companies become aware of the importance of the internet as not just a marketing and sales tool, but as way of interacting with their customers.
ReplyDeleteIt won't be long until you start to see twitter handles on business cards, etc.
Rob
Golf Media...it is a changin'!
ReplyDeleteThere are quite a few golf writers for major monthlies being canned in recent months. They are starting to realize that there just are not as many people waiting at there mailboxes for the next mag to reach them.
You will see most if not all the major golf companies start blogs, facebook, twitter, etc accounts like you said.
It will also allow for some of the smalled companies to have bigger impacts with less out of pocket marketing expenses.
MyGolfSpy.com
GolfSpy X
How can we humans ensure that future generations will enjoy the cleansing effects of our North American forests? Those forests absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide and emit billions of tons of oxygen.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should provide incentives to landowners to plant trees. Oh, but wait! The market for paper products already provides exactly the incentives we desire!
A paperless world would have fewer forests.
Save the trees! Buy more magazines and newspapers!
The reality is that the golf media landscape has been evolving for more than 10 years. However, many of the shifts we are currently seeing are much more acute and apparent because they are magnified by the lens of today's current economic conditions.
ReplyDeleteThe entire publishing industry, including the production of newspapers, magazines, and books, is hurting...and hurting badly. Golf media is no excpetion, and represents a small sub-set of the larger picture. Quite frankly, I am very surprised that some minor print publications are still in existence, and have not yet migrated to pure-play digital editions and/or more robust Web sites for posting content. I am convinced we will see a much more intense shakeout as 2009 continues.
And in case Golf Girl's readers haven't noticed, the entire golf industry -- from equipment manufacturers and apparel makers to media outlets, public courses, and private clubs-- has been in a financial funk since 9/11. All one has to do is look at the share prices of publicly-traded golf concerns and the tons of data compiled by the National Golf Foundation to learn that our beloved sport is really under the gun.
I am just hoping that many of these fine establishments are able to weather the storm...
within 5 years there will probably be wi-fi everywhere and most of the people who used to read paper magazines will have small light weight computers and will access them online. thus i think few paper magazines will survive save for national geo and others similar
ReplyDeleteLots to say on this topic, but the most salient point is that this transformation will (hopefully) put the "creators" of the media more in touch with the "consumers" of the media. Currently, they are way too out of touch...
ReplyDeleteOk so now I have another blog too.
ReplyDeletehttp://secondstreetgolf.blogspot.com/
You rock.
ReplyDeleteThe way that we receive and send information is changing more quickly than some people can cope with and not quickly enough for others. It is a murky world for publishers and I think that cost effectiveness will drive most of them out of the "tangible" paper world into the "digital" world.
ReplyDeleteI think many of us will miss the paper but the newer generations will probably grow up without it and won't miss a thing.
To quote (or possibly misquote) a famous book "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."