The Media Divide

27 Feb

Posted by Andy Brudtkuhl under Media, Web

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Scott Karp wrote a great post Sunday on Publishing 2.0 called ‘The Great Media Industry Schism‘.

In general he discusses a change in the traditional media divide which is based geographically. The new real divide, as Scott notes, is between content creators and content distributors.

The real divide now emerging is between companies that create original content and companies that create platforms for aggregating and distributing that content. Newspapers embody the old media world where content creation, aggregation, and distribution were inextricably linked. But the digital media revolution has made it possible to separate these functions.

That’s true and it’s also good to note that with new media the overhead of being a media company has dwindled to zero. It can cost nothing to create content. Likewise it can cost nothing to distribute / aggregate content.

We hope to take advantage of this model. By trimming the fat that is inherent in traditionl media operations it is possible to disintermediate them altogether. If readers provide the content, the distributor becomes the disintermediary. Not only is that good business but it creates a more valuable experience for the consumer - and that’s what matters most.

I stumbled upon this graph when looking for an image to use in the post. It’s the ‘Emerging Media Ecosystem’. Click the image below to enlarge.