A toast to the New Media

Arun Katiyar

RECENTLY, there was news of a toaster made in Britain that connects to the Internet. At breakfast, along with your morning paper, out pops your toast with a tiny cloud and rain drops browned a little deeper than the rest of the toast. Don't forget to carry that umbrella to work!

The toaster works by connecting to a site that carries the weather forecast for your city. Thundershowers expected? Add a lightning strike to the cloud. Weatherman thinks there's going to be snow? How about a couple of snow flakes? Next thing you know, your toast will carry the day's headlines and even perhaps some neat contextual advertising: rainy? Perfect for a Duckback ad. Next in line on HypeStreet -- customised headlines, e-mail alerts, stock updates, reminders. Plenty of gee-whiz value here. Don't be surprised if they make it sound like the `next big thing' after sliced bread. On the other hand, imagine biting into toast that says, ``Famine claims sixty in Bihar.'' Not exactly my idea of the perfect way to start the day.

But, if you think that the increasing use of the Internet is going to change traditional media, your reputation will soon be toast. Print and television will continue to be the most-preferred ways of acquiring and consuming news, information and entertainment. Traditional media will, of course, become swifter and more fleet-footed in what it does. Since it can't deliver e-mail or help create communities around events using chat rooms -- for that you can continue demonstrating elegant prose in the `Letter to the Editor' section -- it will simply create more editions or alter the frequency with which to publish or add new channels and stations to meet growing demand. In its own way, traditional media will upgrade, offering consumers far superior choices than had before.

One way to view this is to exclaim, ``New Media forces change! Print and television affected!'' In reality, traditional media is simply responding to the needs of the time. Around the early 1980s, when colour television first made its entry into India, media pundits told us that they could hear the bells toll for colour advertising in print. In reality, they were peals of joy: savvy advertisers discovered that print and television offered differing ways to impact the consumer. Today, both co-exist, with very little having changed except the column cm rates!

This is exactly what the New Media is going to achieve. Print, television, hoardings, radio, leaflets, books, booklets, stickers, posters, Web pages, e-mail, WAP, SMS, PDAs, CD-ROMs and, who knows, even a slice of bread will co-exist, each offering a new dimension to our understanding of news, events, products and services. At different points of time, the consumer will be forced to make a choice between the options. The advertiser will be forced to give us more information. The editor, DJ, veejay, whoever, will be forced to work harder for the attention of his audience. In the end, the consumer will win.

As an advocate of the online media, my credo should be, ``Digital or Death.'' True, the Internet is capable of much that traditional media cannot deliver. But the fact is that online media -- as it exists today -- has a long way to go before it truly begins to replace or displace traditional media. But the funny part is that we needn't wait for this to happen. Because, anyway you view this, it would be silly to ignore the opportunities offered -- some of them quite revolutionary -- by New Media even as it exists today. Take, for example, the ability to send a hot, new tune to your cell phone, replacing the existing, boring ring or the ability of an e-mailed newsletter or commercial to reach you regardless of where you login from. Many consumers and advertisers already appreciate and understand this. More are waking up to the possibilities each day. These are the people who will help push the envelope. These are the people who will actually help deliver `Choice' to the consumer of tomorrow. Here's a toast to the possibilities of New Media.

The author is Executive Vice-President, Content & Services, indya.com

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