Distraction Culture: Reality Check

November 2005

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Fantastic! According to Reuters via Yahoo, we (in the UK) are unsure of the difference between dogging and blogging, and are more likely to know about happy slapping than pod casting.

A survey of taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers -- often seen as barometers of popular trends -- found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging.

"When I asked the panel whether people were talking about blogging, they
thought I meant dogging," said Sarah Carter, the planning director at ad
firm DDB London.

Dogging is the phenomenon of watching couples have sex in semi-secluded
places such as out-of-town car parks. News of such events are often
spread on Web sites or by using mobile phone text messages.....

"Our research not only shows that there is no buzz about blogging and
podcasting outside of our media industry bubble, but also that people
have no understanding of what the words mean," Carter said. "It's a real
wake-up call."

A blog, short for Web log, is an online journal, while podcasting is a
method of publishing audio programmes over the Internet -- a name
derived from combining iPod, Apple's popular digital music player, with
broadcasting, even though portable devices are not necessary to listen
to a podcast.

DDB, a unit of New York-based advertising group Omnicom, said the survey
results indicate that agencies may be pushing their clients to use new
technology -- that is, to advertise on the new media formats -- too
quickly.

"We spend too much time talking to ourselves in this industry, rather
than getting out there and finding out what's really going on in the
world," DDB's chief strategy officer David Hackworthy said.

That last bit is true enough. However, I've been to some of these research get togethers of "real people" (aka hairdressers and taxi drivers) and they are rarely very large and in truth one vocal respondent can influence the rest. Also - the sheer numbers reading and writing blogs suggest that this is far from a "media industry bubble". Fun headlines, shallow content - again.