Time to reinvent media for the Internet

There's a strange feeling in the media business, almost eerie. People talk about it in hushed he’s-got-cancer tones. There’s a sense within newsrooms that the industry is changing forever. Some say it’s dying. The question turns to who is to blame. Inevitably, the finger gets pointed at Google. This is Jim Spanfeller, CEO of Forbes.com, writing earlier this week on PaidContent:

In the end, in attempting to “do no evil,” Google has done exactly that. I say this not just as someone running a content site but also as an end user. If this inequity of support continues along these lines, we will see a continuing destruction of our journalistic enterprises—enterprises that are one of the core building blocks of our democracy.

Spanfeller is someone I’ve known for years and respect quite a bit. His bill of particulars is long and some of it is quite sensible. (The last click metric of attribution, most agree, is outdated and gives too much credit to search over branding efforts.) The underlying theme, however, is Google is ripping off publishers. I understand what he’s doing here. Forbes is suffering like everyone out there. As a member of the Online Publishers Association, he’s got reason to paint Google as the villain. If only it were that simple.

Google is just the representation of the vast changes in delivery and consumption of media that digital technology has caused. The thing is, the media companies themselves are mostly to blame for what’s happened. The other day, I went to a panel called “Seven Minutes to Reinvent the Internet (for Advertising).” Quite sensibly, the majority of the seven speakers chose to spend the their time on the reinvention of advertising for the Internet. This was partly a cop out but partly a smart acknowledgment that there’s no changing the Internet. Ty Montague, the chief creative officer at JWT, showed a clip from The Thing of the monster mutating and growing stronger in the face of attempts to subdue it. His message: “Ain’t gonna happen.” Ask the music industry.

That’s instructive to media companies grousing about Google. There are many things wrong with how it ranks stories, I agree. Too many bloggers regurgitate original reporting and game Google to get their stories more play than the people who did the real work. Aggregation, in many cases, has become license to simply steal. That’s wrong.

The root problem does not lie with the Internet, it’s with media. I’ve seen it in my own career. Media organizations haven’t adapted. They’re structured in much the same way as they were before the Internet. They bought this fallacy that it would be an additional distribution channel. So instead of radically changing their businesses and cost structures, they fiddled. Newspapers were content with their local monopolies. Magazines kept churning out glossy puff pieces so long as there were ad pages. It was all bound to come crashing down. Google is an easy scapegoat.

That doesn’t leave me necessarily in the Jeff Jarvis camp of Google worship. It’s an amoral enterprise that will take whatever steps it can to build its market cap. Sometimes it’ll cross the line. But focusing on Google is pointless. It’s time to reinvent media properties rather than look for government subsidies or trying to shake down Google. My bet is the innovation won’t happen within media companies. They’re too slow, too conservative and too culturally wedded to defunct processes to make the leap. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost. I’m encouraged by the strides made by publications like NewWest.net and all the independent technology publications (I won’t call them simply blogs) that have filled the void capably. The media model for the Internet will be nimbler, have a drastically lower cost base and figure out new ad models that actually excite marketers.

Martin Sorrell wrote in WPP’s annual report that the new "frenemy" is not Google but change. That’s true. The other night, I commiserated with a fellow reporter. He said he wonders sometimes if he would make the same choices he did nearly a decade ago when he went into journalism. I couldn’t agree. What’s going on in the media industry is actually pretty exciting, if a bit messy in the short term.

Comments

[Gerard Babitts]

As someone who has spent the bulk of my professional life working with content and media, I have not only witnessed the digital disruption of these businesses firsthand but have also been a downsizing victim as a result of these changes. But as a fan and consumer -- and this is what I was and will continue to be first in my life -- it has made my ability to consume and embrace content all the better. At the end of the day, I will side with the fan and consumer over the industry. After all, I don't hear consumers complaining about their access to music, news, or content. The only noise is coming from a quarter that has a vested interest in maintaining organizations and lifestyles that do not have a place in the new, evolving order.

Change, progress, and technology are to be embraced and celebrated. As with newspapers, the music industry scapegoated too. P2P and Apple's iPod were trashed, sued, and/or attacked for taking away the record industry's bloated businesses and overblown sense of entitlement built on controlling access and distribution for 50+ years. Meanwhile, both P2P and the iPod made more music accessible to more people than ever before. Both made music that much richer for consumers.

While the institutions and companies that controlled content in the past may be on their way out, I have no worries that something better will take their place. It is what happens -- the public won't have it any other way.

[Armando Duran]

I think there is an aspect that for me shapes how the media evolves, there is always the temptation for more. It is probably unfortunate that after all, the interest is in how much money is made out of ads, media and so forth as opposed to how much benefit there can be created for humanity.

If we look at wonderful inventions like TV, I am not sure if as it is now, watching it brings enlightenment and progress to people. I once read something about it that goes like this: "The TV is an invention that allows a person whom you would not invite to your home, project what ever he wants in you own living room".

So, I agree that "the problem does not lie with the internet" because (I believe) the main reasons for the media are more of profits than benefit for the audience.

[Jason Wallis]

Absolutely DEAD-ON BM!
Google cannot be stopped that is true. We have to focus on new ways.
Jeff Jarvais has got it all wrong with his failing newspaper schadenfreude and blogger hero worship.
He seems to think we should have one overall news disseminating overlord and a bunch of blogger pseudo-reporters working for free.
Easy to support when you make a ton of money with your Google ads on the website

[Alan Wolk]

B: Clay Shirky has a great piece called "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable" (link: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ ) where he compares the current climate to that of Europe in the 50-100 years immediately following the printing press.

It's a long article, but well worth reading - for the time-pressed, however, his chief conclusion is that many of the more significant changes were accidental and that things were in flux for a while so we need to keep experimenting with new models. Which can sound like a cop out, but saying "I have no idea" is a lot braver than the usual "Company X should buy Twitter and the world will be right again" garbage that so many have been spewing out.

As for why: I've always maintained that the media did it to themselves as you ably lay out in the third paragraph from the bottom. The word "spin" exists for a reason, right? There was a feeling that so much of what we saw from the mainstream media was spun and altered and tweaked and corporatized that the truth got lost in the shuffle. And that went for everything from celebrity magazines to political rags.

The one prediction I'll make is this: fame is not going to have a whole lot of shelf life as the primary reward for content creation. It's the current model: make the cool YouTube video, write the hip blog and you'll become famous. (Okay, internet famous But unless there's a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, people aren't going to keep creating things on a regular basis. So something's got to change. How we'll figure out a way to pay the professional content creator (or serious and prolific amateur) is anyone's guess.

[Thomas]

Yes indeed, I'm sure that when Gutenberg's invention began to catch on, the Towne Crier's Guild were all in an uproar.

[Mike Mohan]

The online Publishers Assoc would be wise to choose another member over Forbes.com as a spokesperson.

The Forbes.com history is a case study in how to destroy the confidence of a valuable subscriber base. With no customer service response the forbes.com site failed subscribers year after year with its force another ad on the reader program. Quality control of ads and ad pages was so poor that more times than not you were unable to gain access to subsequent pages of an article online. Printing articles were a second joke on subscribers. Unable to gain access to the final page of an article featuring a client and with no response from customer service, I later received an email that could best be described as an argument for little interest in the online reader from a then senior online rep for the publication.

By comparison the wsj.com (Wall Street Journal) took another approach in building an online publication, while presenting the same number of ads per story as forbes.com(I counted them more than once over the years). The colors chosen, the user friendly page design,all from a demonstrated knowledge of the new medium. The personal service investment in making sure the subscribers to the online publication were part of building a great media product.

Many newspaper media leaders aren't new to the www. They're however, proving to be new at providing a product to keeps up with the needs and wants of their customer base. Content creation and profitable delivery of content are not at risk. The only thing at risk is the bad judgment of some past players.

I predict the next cry babies will be the telephone and cell phone carriers. Buying, legislating and suing your way to control future technology trends rarely works even in the short run. I happily say a heartfelt good bye to those who try it and loose.

[Uncle Bernie]

however they "reinvent" themselves, it is vital that they stay politically correct and far left, inserting their opinions into every column.

[John Peebles]

Great points. An an advertiser, I'm constantly shocked by online ad sales reps who cling to a CPM model and think that they can deliver value.

Over the past 2 years, ad networks have used the explosion of social media to create most of the online advertising inventory.

Also over the last 2 years, our online spending has overtaken television media. But traditional publishers like Forbes.com are no longer a part of our online media mix.

[Vince Stevenson]

I think that the internet is a great tool for each people to explore their creative talents and deliver content to their strengths. Some people are writers, some are photographers, others are great with video. You just need to find an audience and let them decide whether it's relevant to their needs. Rgds Vince