Why Google May Own All the Future Printing Presses - Steve Blacker - MediaBizBloggers

1. Today's ongoing technological digital shift is of greater magnitude than the momentous evolution from monkish scriptoria to movable type launched in Gutenberg's German city of Mainz six centuries ago.

2. Gutenberg himself did not foresee how his invention made possible our modern world of communications.

3. At present, no one can foresee except in broad and sketchy outline the far greater impact that digitization will have on our own future.

4. Print publishers have one foot locked into the crumbling past and the other seeking solid ground in an uncertain future. Thus, they hesitate to seize the opportunity that digitization offers them to decentralized, expand and promote their brands.

5. While Publishers ponder what to do next and limit their digital investments; new technologies are as nonnegotiable and disruptive as earthquakes.

6. Perhaps the resistance today by print publishers to fully embrace digital does not arise from a fear of digital but from a fear of their own obsolescence. The complexity of the digital transformation will eliminate their traditional infrastructure and make them redundant.

7. Ironically, the strongest media brands are still magazines. And their loyal readers form solid communities that share common interests. Yet these strong media brands allow outsiders to create Web sites that would be a natural extension for their brand.

8. Why does this happen? Because print publishers are too committed in their structure, priorities, business models and investments to protecting archaic business models that are slowly going bankrupt.

9. Digitization makes possible a world in which anyone can call himself a publisher. With so many new digital offerings emerging there is a chaos of choice. Consumers can be guided by the brands of reputable publishers.

10. Unfortunately the reputable print publishers with great brands are not creating the "hot" new sites. The Yelps, Rotten Tomatoes, Daily Candy, TMZ and others keep coming, for the most part, from entrepreneurs, venture capital and engineers who have much more digital talent than those at a traditional publishing company.

11. If this continues some day GOOGLE may control the magazine and newspaper printing presses as they do the digital highway today.

Steve's new book You Can't Fall Off The Floor - The Insiders' Guide to Re-Inventing Yourself and Your Career chronicles his 50 year career working for over 25 different companies with 189 lessons learned and insider tips from Gayle King, Cathie Black, Chuck Townsend and 28 others; Blacker is still going strong today as a partner in Frankfurt & Blacker Solutions, LLC. His web site is blacker-reinventions.com and e-mail address is blackersolutions@aol.com

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