The PM spoke recently about green shoots starting to poke their way through but to my great surprise this past weekend, I finally saw the fruits of my winter labours in planting a thousand bulbs in the garden.
Far be it from me to try to one up the PM, but my green shoots have just turned into the first golden blooms of spring. They are the Narcissus Tazetta - otherwise known to our occasional readers of this column as the daffodil. Louise says that I shouldn’t explain too many of the long words as it lets a certain level of riff raff into the column.
I disagree. Common folk can do with a learning experience.
In the depths of winter, I planted many different bulbs so that they would continue to arrive progressively over the next six months. And with each new arrival would come a new experience of the wonder of life. No big bang theory for me with everything arriving all at once and then nothing. Not like my wife’s tomatoes. I am sick of pickles and chutney.
With my bulb planting strategy I was trying to replicate the revolution that is taking place with the media with the arrival of the internet which has something new emerging continuously.
The digital age is the greatest structural change in the media since the arrival of television more than 50 yeas ago. Charlie tells me TV built brands, changed attitudes, found heroes and villains we never knew we had, quicker than any other media in history.
In just ten years the internet is doing the same thing at a far greater rate. Just like my bulbs, there is something new every minute. And once it’s arrived and weaved its magic, it disappears.
This is a major change to the modus operandi of our current media that had always relied on the daily fix with a couple of updates.
A constant flow of information is what the increasingly avaricious consumer demands. Like that word Louise? I am not going to tell them what it means.
Charlie hates me talking about average people. As a leading researcher he says there is no such thing. But I will take a chance and tell you that the average person now consumes the internet for more than an hour a day. This is not lost on the advertising world - more than 14% of all ad dollars go to the net. More than radio alone or magazines.
Charlie’s assistant John tells me that if the Government’s broadband plans kick in, within five years internet advertising will be the biggest medium of all - exceeding TV and newspapers. It has already happened in the
Who would have thought that we would be looking at Google maps to see what has changed and be annoyed when the image is a few months old. We used to have to wait years for a new edition of The Altas.
Louise likes to have the final word, in fact she likes to have every word. “Harold, if the readers don’t keep up with this internet thing, they will be on gardening leave – permanently.”
Final word “Oh do be quiet Louise our readers get it.”
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