www.TED.com - now this is cool

I've always loved 'ideas'. That's perhaps why I love PR, because you get to interact with so many different ideas and help communicate them to the world (if you are lucky that is).

Today I stumbled on a site dedicated to ideas - www.ted.com.

This is the kind of stuff that one has to ask why there isn't more of? Sure, there's Through the Wormhole (which I watch every week), but that's about it, and even that is just about science.

So this site looks really cool, with unique videos on all kinds of different 'ideas'.

It's also a great example of stimulating, interesting content that you just can't find on television (but you can on the Internet). One of the things that sucks about growing up is that you don't have time or access to lectures on things like you did when you were in university.

But why do people have to go to university to access this content? Why can I hear experts on any subject whenever I want? I mean, in the past I understood why, because to produce a video was a HUGE pain in the butt and very expensive (filming, post production, shipping costs, etc.). Unless there was a profit to be made it wasn't worth the time, which is why no one did it.

Yet today, there's no reason why every university course can't be available on YouTube for instance.

Video is not just the future of PR and marketing, it's how our species will evolve, with access for the masses to ideas that will shape how people think.

As it stands, if you want to learn about Alan Watts one of the best places to do so is YouTube. People have taken all his lectures and posted them there.

I think it would be awesome if 'educational' material become so accessible online that people started giving up traditional tv for a new wave of 'ideas' based tv.

Comments

Morgan Freeman Botches Reddit IAmA - Black Eye on PR

For those not familiar with Reddit it's basically a forum where people post interesting things on a wide variety of subjects. Postings gain popularity when people 'up vote' them and become more visible in their particular subreddit (a subreddit is simply a subject category, like politics or videos). One of Reddit's most popular subreddits is the IAmA subreddit - which allows reddit users to ask questions of various people. Over three million people subscribe to IAmA, which is also widely used by celebrities. An IAmA can last a couple hours during which Redditors (the term Reddit users call themselves) can ask the person doing the IAmA questions. The term "IAmA" comes from the concept of "I Am A doctor, ask me anything", "I Am A movie star, ask me anything" - you get the drift. IAmA's are not just for celebrities, lots of common folks do them as well. Recently Morgan Freeman did an IAmA and it turned into a PR mess. To make a lo...

Mainstream versus Alternate Media - Where is the news now-a-days?

It's well known that CNN has been suffering an exodus of viewers, losing over half their viewership over the past couple of years. Yet Fox News has not lost viewers, but has increased its viewership slightly. It's an odd phenomena given that Fox news is clearly biased in their coverage. Mind you, so is CNN according to many. But I'd suggest it comes down to something much more simple. While Fox may be holding its ground, the rise of alternative media is taking off where CNN left off - a focus on hard news. For those of the under 40 crowd, that's what they are looking for, NEWS. The simplest way to highlight the difference between mainstream media and alternative media is to take a look at their homepages and the stories they highlight. It becomes very clear why people are turning away from CNN and turning to alternative media. Let's look at five media sites and their homepage (click on pictures to enlarge): CNN Feature stories: CNN heroes Top t...

E-cigarettes: A PR battle Health Canada cannot win?

So I've now been using an e-cigarette (e-cig) for two months and thought I'd talk a bit about how I see the upcoming battle between Health Canada and e-cigs going. First though, let's do a quick overview of what exactly an e-cig is. Basically an e-cig vaporizes liquid that contains nicotine. The vapor is then inhaled. People who use e-cigs are called vapers (not smokers). Because the liquid is atomized (ie. vaporized), not burned the way tobacco is, vapers do not consider themselves 'smokers' in anyway. An e-cig is comprised of basically three components: The tank - this is the component that holds the juice (sometimes referred to as e-juice or e-liquid). The atomizer - this a coil and wick unit that atomizes the juice. When the coil is heated (from the battery) it atomizes the juice that has soaked into the wick. The battery - batteries for e-cigs come in various capacities (some last 8 hours, others 40+ hours, depending on their size). The ba...

Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Search This Blog