This is what I tried to establish at the very beginning of the MobCon when I said that today’s media is all about Find Me, Find You and Let’s Exchange .
As I said at the time of writing that old post: At the moment on the web Google owns Find You. Twitter and Facebook dominates Find Me while eBay owns the Exchange.
The reality is the old media has missed the web moment. It is time to move on. As I said in Imagine all the people, living a Mobile Life, it’s time for the media to work out how they are going to plug into their customer’s Mobile Life. Otherwise they won’t be profiting in the future from the everyday discoveries, transactions and exchanges of the increasingly fragmented mobile lives of their long departed audience of content consumers.
Should it come as a surprise to discover that the exchange was always more important than the content? Not to anyone versed in the history of media economics. The ribbons of gold were always more important than the content to the audience. That’s why eBay’s revenues are now 3 times that of the US online newspaper industry.
So what is the key lesson here for the content industry in general and newspapers in particular? Simply this. In a market economy content serves either one of two functions.
It can be entertainment or it can be information.
If it is entertainment then the content provider must be in the business of creating a compelling user experience.
An experience that is so compelling that customers are willing to pay for it. (i.e. the experience is the subject of the exchange)
On the other hand if it is to be information then it must be information that is instrumental to conducting the exchange and secondly it must profit from facilitating this exchange. (i.e. the experience is the platform for the exchange)
In both cases the content provider profits from the exchange.
If the content provider cannot discover a method by which they can profit from the exchange then they should exit the platform.
So what does this mean for local, regional, national and international newspapers whose traditional currency is news and information?
What it means is they have to reinvent themselves as platforms for conducting local, regional, national and international business.
What does that mean in practical terms? Start using your imagination…
And what does this return to market fundamentalism mean for Journalists, illustrators and photographers… content creators in general?
After all there isn’t much of market for news or in-depth reporting on eBay.
Very simply content creators are now in the market of creating engaging experiences and memorable events.
Unless you want to join the great unwashed (i.e. the Blogosphere) then the reality is the future for content creation is more performance art than New York Times. More cottage industry than “pig pen” production line. I anticipate in the near future, if they aren’t already, advertisers will be in the market of commissioning performance spaces from creative teams with the vision and the verve to reimagine and reconnect the fragmented mobile world on demand.
Again, what does that mean in practical terms? Start using your imagination…
Posted on March 31, 2011
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