Al Gore Says the Internet Isn’t as Powerful as TV

He must be getting senile, I mean he invented the internet right? Hehe. He says the goal is to drive content from the Internet to the TV.

From Reuters,

Although the Internet is a democratizing force, television is still the most influential form of media and citizens ought to have more control over its programming, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said on Sunday.

Gore, long an advocate of the information superhighway and now the owner of a U.S.-based current affairs TV channel that shows user-generated programs, also said the Internet is not yet technologically capable of replicating television’s power.

“Most of what’s happening in the encounter between television and the Internet has been the Internet cannibalizing television,” Gore told an annual gathering of British TV executives in Scotland.

“What is needed is to reverse the flow and find ways to use the Internet to give individuals access to the public forum, which is television,” he said.

Well, the Internet is more powerful than TV because of user generated content, be it YouTube, MySpace or even Geocities, we know more people have TV available than they do Internet, but that is changing everyday. As it gets cheaper and more and more devices access the internet, you may not even need a PC to see it. We have normal people breaking stories all over the place now, this type of stuff would not happen on television, although people can submit stories or information, they can’t use their own voice to tell it. On the Internet, they can create it just for themselves or their family, or for anyone who cares to watch or read.

I found this article via Jeff Jarvis’ Buzzmachine, in his article Jeff mentions “my West Virginia father”, so I think I will have to drop him an email and see if he is from the area, etc, you know the usual questions.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels August 2006

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