Media 03 May 2007 03:19 pm
Whither Goest Media?
Social Media Disrupting Information Channels
We are all aware of the move of consumers to get information faster online. We observe this daily and the trends in advertising that have been emerging now for some years keep showing huge growth in online services not just for search, but for ads.
Concurrent to this mass movement is the oft-cited decline in print ads.
This is a very real issue and the trend is even more brought to light by Paul Gillin’s new book, “The New Influencers,” just now being published by Quill Driver Books (www.newinfluencers.com). Social media is disrupting the media and marketing worlds, creating new dynamics of influence shaped by millions of voices.
Gillin, founding editor-in-chief of Tech Target and former editor-in-chief of Computerworld, explains his thesis in his article “How the Coming Newspaper Industry Collapse Will Reinvent Journalism.” (www.paulgillin.com)
Its key points:
- The 150-year-old newspaper business model is broken. People can get their news faster, online, and advertisers are moving fast the past few years to online products such as Google’s AdWords where ads can be placed and seen across the world in virtual seconds. Ad results can be measured by AdWords users.
- Capital costs of newspapers are extensive. In addition, the costs of people to be trained to run the presses, gather and edit the news, sell ads and deliver the papers all contribute to the high fixed-cost model of newspapers. And for that matter, of printed magazines as well.
- Emerging media—not only the Internet itself, but also podcasts, webinars, blogs—is growing in understanding and usage at warp speed. The advantage of this is instant gratification of information for Internet users and people seeking news.
Concludes Gillin:
“What emerges from the rubble of the newspaper industry will be a fresh, vibrant and very different kind of journalism. It will make a lot of traditionalists uncomfortable.
“But it will ultimately be an evolution of the profession into something that is richer, more inclusive and much more dynamic.”
Larry
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on 14 May 2007 at 8:45 pm 1.Rick Haglund said …
I largely agree with Gillin. But AOL, Google, Yahoo, other Web sits and blogs largely depend on news gathering by newspapers. If newspapers go away, where will the content that feeds the online world come from? The advertising that is migrating from newspapers to the Web is so diffused that it wil be difficult for anyone to make a profit paying the costs of producing news content. Citizen journalism and blogs are fine, but I fear the watchdog function that newspapers have historically performed will be severely compromised. Democracy may well be weakened as a result.
on 24 May 2007 at 4:33 pm 2.rebecca@eilerpr.com said …
I don’t think newspapers will ever “go away”, but I do think we’ll see increasingly more migration to their online versions. News web sites can be updated with news in real time, which drastically affects print’s ability to “scoop”.
on 25 May 2007 at 6:14 am 3.Tracy Eiler said …
i completely see where social media is a great place to further communications with family and friends, and meet new people. i get how it would help me market my company if i was trying to reach consumers (music, sneakers, books, etc.). but what about *business*. my company is selling to business people, email security and compliance solutions. sure, i realize that “the buyers of tomorrow are growing up with my space” and are used to using the internet for everything. but are grownups in business really going to seek information about business purchases (in my case technology to help their businesses run better) from social networking sites?
things we are doing:
a customer community forum for clients to help each other solve problems together (the old bible story about teach a man to fish, you feed him for life). this allows us to market out to those clients as well as for them to solve problems together; thus less taxing on our own support systems and helping to form a true community among our users.
on this site we are also featuring our founder and other key technology leaders at various times for “live chat with joe blow”. that will be popular.
but do i need a my space page for this? i am skeptical. maybe i’m what geoff moore calls a late adopter, but i don’t think so. not when it comes to business.
would welcome input…maybe i’m being an old lady about this…tracy eiler, vp marketing, postini
(and yes, related to larry and sandy eiler)
on 31 May 2007 at 5:52 pm 4.Rick Haglund said …
Responding to rebecca@eilerpr.com:
Yes, newspapers will move away from paper to Web distribution. But they’re doing that while cutting news-gathering staff and closing remote news bureaus that supplement local news coverage. (Network televsion is doing the same thing.) My employer, Booth Newspapers, recently announced it’s closing its Lansing Bureau, which has provided our eight daily newspapers with coverage from the state capitol for more than 50 years.
on 06 Jun 2007 at 11:49 am 5.rebecca@eilerpr.com said …
Rick - This is interesting perspective. What if anything do you think newspapers, especially localized publications, can do to maintain?
Tracy - I agree that myspace and other social networking sites are probably not a good fit for b2b purposes. But the idea of message boards and participation in open discussion with customers is a great one, as is the live chat idea. In addition to your own forum for clients, there are probably other blogs and discussion boards where you can become an active participant on behalf of your company (as long as you clearly identify who you are and your association with your company).
on 13 Feb 2008 at 11:48 am 6.Internet Marketing Toolz said …
Seems that newspapers, at least in smaller communities (read - smaller than New York Times markets) rely on a lot of local advertising and local news. So until web folks get their act together with local portals the newspapers will have limited competition from the web. I’m an internet junkie but still like to read my local paper. And I like a crossword I can use a pencil on.