Well, bear with me as I embark on one of my newest tangents. It’s not so much a tangent than a trend. For some reason the last month I have been posting about the media industry a lot.
After thinking about it a lot it’s not the media that intrigues me but the convergence of old industry with new technologies into new industries. Lines are being blurred as media mixes with the internet to create new advertising avenues. Advertising uses new mediums to attract new markets with technologically motivated media. (That’s kind of a mouthful).
As old media such as newspapers, magazines, publishing and television adopt new mediums as distribution methods they are in essence adapting before our eyes.
One idea proposed last week by New York Times writer Richard Siklos is that of ‘Purpose-Driven Media’ akin to that of purpose driven software where it’s not about the money but the purpose (Firefox).
“There is another breed of rival lurking online for traditional media, and it is perhaps the most vexing yet: call it purpose-driven media, with a shout-out to Rick Warren, the author of “A Purpose-Driven Life,” for borrowing his catchphrase.
These are new-media ventures that leave the competition scratching their heads because they don’t really aim to compete in the first place; their creators are merely taking advantage of the economics of the online medium to do something that they feel good about.”
So what happens when old/big media takes advantage? As you may have read in ‘Dynamics‘ I discussed the management philosophy of ‘Event-Driven Management’, an idea from Robert Sutton. Consider an analagous situation to Microsoft’s that I described in ‘Dynamics’. What if old media sat back and watched the grassroots movement brought to media through Web 2.0? They figured out what works and what people like.
That’s still not solid evidence — but money is. Old media has watched circulation fall at an adverse rate as the number of online users increases. Obviously spotting this trend is essential for media companies as they must embrace the Internet as a primary, not secondary medium.
In the last week we’ve seen several moves in this direction. The New York Times redesigned their site (more on this later) to better organize their online content. The New York Times had an article about the publisher Conde’ Nast’s move away from a magazine focus to an online focus. Statistics just released showed a 65% increase in online advertising expenditures in the United Kingdom.
“The internet is totally transforming the ways in which we find, buy and consume products, services and entertainment and we anticipate more growth in online advertising as advertisers simply follow their audiences.” – Paul Pilkington, director at the Entertainment and Media practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Other recent studies show new trends of online traffic, focusing more on localized content and social networks. No wonder major media companies like News Corp and Viacom are interested in the likes of MySpace and Facebook at billion dollar price tags.
There’s not a better situation for major media companies than moving all their content online, localizing advertising, and incorporating social media outlets. I think it will be the natural progression for old media as it adopts the latest ideas.
tags: media, internet, business, advertising, web 2.0
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