TREotM: Content in the 21st Century -- Searching for How to Get Paid

The Revolutionary Evolution of the Media is a book in progress Go here to read it from the beginningWith the advent of the 21st century the rapidly changing media landscape shifted into overdrive as every facet of media tried to cope with the disintermediating InternetSeemed like very business model was under sustained attack amp8230 digital monsters were everywhereamp160 It reminded me of the early navigation maps that filled in some ocean areas with the warning Here Be Sea Monstersamp160 Like now they were lurkingThe first business to capitulate was musicamp160 Digitalization had already happened as compact discs replaced vinyl records and cassette tapes making music easy to steal and then share or even sell Donamp8217t for get that an early Internet meme was content should be freeamp160 An awful lot of early adapting Internet users simply stole what they wantedLater almost everything was stolen including many individual identitiesIn 1999 three guys Shawn Fanning John Fanning and Sean Parker founded Napster amp8230 a file sharing service specializing in MP3 digital filesamp160 MP3 made copying music too simple amp8230 soon some 80million users were sharing musicamp160 They were more specifically stealing musicamp160 No one was paying copyright or performance or publishing feesamp160 Many of the songs were from bootleg concert recordings unreleased masters and copied old songsamp160 Metallica heard itself on a computer and sued for copyright infringementamp160 Dr Dre followed shortly thereafteramp160 The Recording Industry Association of America sued too beginning a series of unintended consequencesamp160 The publicity over the suit drove more users to Napster RIAAamp160won and Napster appealedamp160 The 9th Circuit Court ratified the decision and ordered Napster to halt trading of copyrighted materialamp160 Napster complied in July of 2001amp160 But the damage was doneAmong the unintended consequences and abetted by Appleamp8217s iTunes the popularity of the single song recording helped destroy the concept of a record albumamp160 There wasnamp8217t any more need for the songs you didnamp8217t want to playAnother consequence was the ability of free play to drive the selling of more concert ticketsamp160 Some bands without record deals were able for a time to tour successfully because of bootlegged song playThe overarching change was the complete disruption of the music businessNext in line for a digital demolition was the movie business It was a little harder to crack but the move of television to digital distribution helped a bit Plus the movies werenamp8217t film anymore they were digitalamp160 Easy to copy easy to steal just like musicDigitalization also upended the print businessamp160 Sales of books from Amazon via its Kindle easily passed amp8211 for a time amp8211 printed books some have resurged recently particularly some 1st editions coffee table and picture booksamp160 Amazon of course wasnamp8217t satisfied with completely changing the publishing business byebye Borders it recently passed Walmart as the most valuable purveyor of goods periodThe ebook quickly resonated with travelers amp8230 no big blockbusters to carry on airplanesamp160 Travelers also quickly added newspaper and magazine digital versions to their Kindlesamp160 Easy downloading of any new desired book with no waitingamp160 No more groaning bookshelvesamp160 No more stuffing used magazines and newspapers for flight attendants to throw outNewspapers faced with free blogs on the Web and story aggregating web sites began what has been a long decline aggravated by the fact that they were losing their major source of revenue classified adsamp160 Ebay and Craigslist won the classified advertising battles by allowing searches keyed to key words and opening up the markets nationwide instead of merely local amp8230 all the while undercutting the classified pricing system almost mercilesslyAs the value of the content which of course includes advertising dropped subscribers went elsewhere for news amp8230 mostly onlineamp160 Today companies owning both print and electronic media are busy shedding and spinning off the print assets into independent companies in order to protect the better revenuegeneratorsSome papers and magazines are doing better than others amp8230 but only because they can provide robust news information or stories and photos that cannot be provided by othersamp160 Some such as the UKamp8217s Financial Times have gained substantial subscription revenues thanks to quality hard to find elsewhereOf course the print guys fought backamp160 For example the once powerful Time Inc founded one of the earlier online socalled portals a gateway to certain data news and information mimicking a magazine called Pathfinder in 1994amp160 It burned up a hundred or so million and didnamp8217t really work it had a short afterlife as a link to all of Timeamp8217s magazinesamp160 Some think the failure of the portal approach drove Jerry Levin to call Steve CaseThe cable companies which had built their systems on packages of video entertainment provided by a growing number of network channels found themselves offering highspeed broadband access that provided their nascent competitors traveling down to the cable subscribers at no charge beyond what he subscriber was payingamp160 That led to major Internet content provider companies rallying around the concept of Network Neutrality amp8230 or the infrastructure owner cannot treat different customers to different access and service ratesamp160amp160amp160 Nothing escaped the rush toward digitalization amp8230 even the billboard companies got slammed amp8230 many had to upgrade to multimedia everchanging content amp8230 and the worldamp8217s biggest billboard turned out to be the multiblock section of Manhattan called Times Squareamp160 Everchanging evermoving amp8230 people taking pictures of the video amp8220billboardamp8221 with a camera aimed at the picture takers amp8230 using cameras within their cellphonesIn fact the billboard has moved onto the smartphone tooamp160 Not to mention the tabletAs the 21st Century has moved into its second decade the hardware has changed as much as the contentSmartphones and tablets particularly variations of the Kindles and iPads are fast replacing the desktop and laptop computers as the primary access point to broadbandamp160 Wifi or short distance broadband access is rapidly augmenting Internet access and in many instances replacing cellular voice connectionsMore changes are on the way with the iWatch Fitbit and other wearable computersNext Chapter 13 Part 1 amp8211 Monetizing the New Media MixThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggers

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TREotM: Content in the 21st Century -- Searching for How to Get Paid

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