NOS and the public library: the new school of journalism?

A few months ago I talked about the new developments in libraries. The age of just lending books is over. Libraries are looking for new forms of service in addition to the existing services. Possible new services are an art library, a place to meet for several target groups or a central information center. The library is getting some help from an unexpected corner. The NOS (Dutch broadcast association) has announced to cooperate with the public libraries. The newsarchive of the NOS will be merged with background information from the libraries.

Tagged with: social media, library, nos, young people,

Pandora’s Neocracy #5: Give back the Internet to the people

A couple of weeks ago NOS (Dutch Broadcasting Corporation) announced that they would focus on Internet applications solely instead of forcing themselves into complicated and expensive different apps for different operating systems. At the first glimpse one may think that to be a sort of strange decision. One would expect this mastodon of digital innovation to serve as many people as possible. With all those different OS’s in the market of smart phones and other either mobile or portable devices, has NOS gone silly? Don’t they want to reach all capita? Have they no obligation to offer content to all in The Netherlands? The answer is: YES, they do. And that’s exactly why they chose to develop Internet applications instead of bringing all those different apps to all those different operating systems. And that’s smart, as far as I’m concerned. From now on everybody can obtain the contents NOS produces, aggregates and distributes, regardless of what type of OS one may have embedded in one’s smart phone. Thank God for that. Dutch public broadcaster is bringing Internet to the people – free Internet content – instead of supporting the original device and software makers. Now that’s what I call a true neocracy.

Tagged with: nos, power, people, internet,