As many know, I am a motor sport nut. But being in the country, I do not get the digital channels that play it live for my city cousins and at this stage “selected country areas”.

The ‘net is slowly making things better with for example, One HD playing the Formula One live through streaming, but last weekend on 7 / GWN, the V8 Supercars which were in Queensland that weekend were a delayed telecast at 10pm so that some one-sided AFL match that had no bearing on the competition as a whole could be played.

(For the record, I am also an AFL fan).

Now in general, I can live with this. Being somewhat in the business, and in the past been directly involved, there are schedules to maintain, sponsorship commitments in the millions of dollars to keep and so on. While a level of blame can be placed at the TV stations, overall, to a large degree their hands are tied. And it is a known phenomenon that you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

Thank your lucky stars you get it at all I say; so many sports don’t get any TV coverage (or any other for that matter) at all!

What I do disagree with though, is the propensity for some, well there is no other way to say this, bloody selfish people taking apparently great glee in announcing the results of competitions in all sorts of sports before many have even seen it. And how do they do this? Via social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Why do they do this? What is the motivation? I have heard the argument that these services simply allow people to say what they are thinking at the time of thinking it. But to announce that say, Vettel has won the F1 race that evening achieves what? It is akin to leaning out of an electronic window and shouting at no-one in particular.

My critics say that if it bothers me, just stay off Twitter and Facebook to which I say, why should I? I might be doing legitimate business on either of these services, so I don’t understand why I should have to curtail my activities just so you can yell out electronically that the Sydney Swans have won. Just WHO are you telling? The people that are interested either already know, or are waiting for their own telecast.

So try this for an idea. SHUT UP!

There is already a HUGE signal to noise ratio on social media; how about not contributing to it? Is what you have to say REALLY of any interest to the great masses? Or is it just adding to that already cacophonous noise. The latter I’d suggest.

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com