With the move to digital distribution of media, content and physical distribution have been untethered. For example, a decade ago a consumer would get her music by CD — she would buy an entire album in order to get the one or two songs she really wanted. Or she would pick her favorite paper and get her political news, sports news, and the time and locations of movies in her area all from the same paper. The separation of content from physical delivery is well known and has been widely discussed. Yet, media companies haven’t really changed their approach to business. The New York Times online is a digital replica of its atom-based cousin. Fifteen years ago I read the New York Times cover to cover just about everyday.
The New York Times used to be a place where people started their day. It was also an authoritative source of news and entertainment. And being both of these things was possible because of the delivery mechanism physical paper. Now many consumers start their day with the Yahoo! homepage or MyYahoo, Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, or even with Google Search (in the past year, I find myself starting my day with Twitter and Facebook). On the content side I still get some of my political and international news from the New York Times (much less, though), but I much prefer Yahoo! Sports for my sports news, Fandango is a much better source of movie information for Silicon Valley, and TechCrunch and Techmeme are where I go for technology news these days.
Time to focus.
Media companies cannot ignore the dramatic changes that have taken place in the past decade. Rather than try to protect their franchises they must completely rethink their strategies. The best defense is a good offensive.
First, media companies need to figure out if they are in the business of telling people where to go or if they are the place where consumers end up. They cannot be both any longer. If they want to be the place where people start, they should put strong technology executives in leadership positions and should also consider buying technology companies as a way to kick-start the revolution. Twitter is one such candidate. Their recent acquisition of Summize (now Twitter Search) would make a great homepage for a media business. Big media executives must get comfortable with the fact that they should focus on getting the consumer the best product even if that means sending users to the competition.
If a media business would like to keep its focus on content, that’s a fine alternative. In fact, while “winning” is likely a much smaller outcome than the “place to start” path, it’s a much higher probability bet — particularly because the DNA of these businesses is deeply content centric. But rather than have just another one-size-fits all solution, these business must focus like crazy on doing one or two things really well. So, for example, the New York Times might want to consider dropping sports, regional news, technology, science, and travel and instead nail politics, arts, and style? It would be a painful transition, but the alternative is likely to be far more painful.
In ten years, most of the existing media giants will be a shadow of their former selves or gone altogether. The winners will either focus on being the best place to start or nailing a relatively narrow content category and becoming the definitive place to go for just those things.
5 Comments
September 8, 2008 at 7:27 pm
This is a tangent, but inspired by your title, “unbundling media.” Have you seen the albums you can buy from Starbucks that are album covers printed on hard plastic and have a key you can use to download the album from iTunes? Brilliant way to “unbundle” new media, feel excitement of the transaction of a physical good, and do a point of sale / impulse buy.
More on topic, this distinction is completely on point: “media companies need to figure out if they are in the business of telling people where to go or if they are the place where consumers end up. They cannot be both any longer”
I foresee old media companies (nytimes, NBC) heading more toward the destination side, and tech companies that provide a filter ( friendfeed, twitter ) managing distribution channels.
September 8, 2008 at 8:46 pm
As a Times fan, it seems sad that they’d abandon other subjects. I don’t read the Times because of expertise alone, but because of a trusted, respectable worldview and quality of journalism. Any idea how much goodwill and loyalty they’ve generated during this presidential election? It must be tremendous. They’ve built a great foundation for all subjects, just need patience and good hires. Evolution is on their side, I think. Anyhow, the point is well made and taken. Thanks Mike.
September 9, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Today, more then ever, consumers have so many more choices in the content they consume. RSS brings to consumers the freedom and choice to create their own content experience by stitching together media from multiple sources. Nearly 50% of online consumers are choosing to consume content outside the website. This fragmentation causes new challenges for media as well as advertisers that support that media. It will be an interesting next few years as we start to understand the patterns you describe above. Consumers content consumption habits are evolving but will big media evolve with them?
Bill Flitter
CEO/Founder
Pheedo, Inc
September 11, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Newspapers (as delivery) have become the “comfy robe” of media. Predictable in strength, presentation, bias (ouch), audience and capability. I don’t know of any reporting outside of Chicago that can properly present our politics, cultures and challenges better than the Trib or Suntimes.
Tip ONeil said, “All politics is local politics.” The corollary is “All news is local news.” I think the confusion in the “what’s next” discussions of unbundled content has to do with lumping news and diversions into the same bucket.
I will not let a day pass without visiting Boing Boing, VentureBeat, Green Car Congress, Craigslist Chi Bikes and Science Daily. These and 30 other sites are nicely organized within my Netvibes. But, there is nothing in my unbundled/rebundled bag of goodies that resembles news as defined above.
What is “local?” Sports, politics, live performance, food/dining, events, shopping, culture venues and the ethnic diversity of a place. News is “anti-virtuality.” It is about some place and the people that are affected by it.
My point - Entertainment and diversion are easy to deliver without context of place, mashed together in favorites, indexed links and “whereless” gobs.
Real news, on the other hand, must be treated differently to retain its total value.
My rant.
September 12, 2008 at 6:14 am
“The winners will either focus on being the best place to start or nailing a relatively narrow content category and becoming the definitive place to go for just those things.”
For content producers focused on a narrow content category, how narrowly focused do they need to become to be successful? That’s obviously a question that needs to be answered by the audience. Techcrunch has done a good job for me in the tech world but I struggle to find great sites for all my interests. In fact, for some subjects I like following certain writers. I wonder if popular writers will be better off breaking away from their traditional media employers and growing their own audience based on their personal brand?
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