Today’s been a fun day as a result of the Sydney Morning Herald article (it didn’t appear in the Age for those asking). I finally managed to get a copy of the hard copy and was amazed to see it as a half page spread on page 3. I was half expecting it to be buried in the technology pages (must be a slow news day in Sydney).
The results of the story are quite interesting so far. I was awoken this morning by a call from a TV station wanting to run a story on b5media (probably Monday) and have a lot of positive feedback via email from new readers during the day.
There’s also been a bit of a buzz around the Australian blogosphere as a result also today which is nice (here, here, here and here for starters).
I should also mention the author of the piece – Tom Burton – who I spent a couple of hours with this week in my favorite cafe. My time with Tom was probably one of the more enjoyable interviews I’ve done over the last year or two. He was genuinely interested in the whole topic of New Media and Web 2.0 and while he said he didn’t know much he has obviously done some pretty good research on the topic and knows his stuff.
It was a refreshing conversation having had seen a couple of instances recently where well known and respected Australian journalists have blown off New Media as insignificant. Perhaps these two people are in the minority they left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth. Tom’s approach to this article (and hopefully more to come) was quite the opposite and went a long way to restoring my believe that Mainstream Media and New Media can both exist side by side – and perhaps even work best together (as Reuters head Tom Glocer said a day or two back).
PS: A few people have asked about the picture. It was taken yesterday by photographer Justin McManus in the hallway of our house (lucky we finished the painting last week).
