Thoughts and Ideas on Media and the Internet
This website will begin to look at the challenges and opportunities for the Media in the Internet age during the course of the next week or so.
Basically, I just don't go along with the existing conventional wisdoms touted by the experts. Instead I see a future for the media individual, not the media institution.
The renowned author of "Competitive Strategy" Michael Porter classifies the situation traditional media companies find themselves in with the Internet very clearly:
- High barrier to entry and high exit barrier
- Markets with high entry barriers have few players and thus high profit margins
This is the traditional media environment. It excludes the individual from participating due to the high costs involved. But on the Internet things are different:
- Low barrier to entry and low exit barrier
- Markets with low entry barriers have lots of players and thus low profit margins
Big commercial media organisations can't function in this sort of environment. Their size makes them uncompetitive against an individual who can now reach exactly the same audience, on equal terms, with just an Internet connected computer.
Therefore, it's pretty clear to me that the issue is not what business model will work for big media corporations on the Internet, because there isn't one.
Instead the focus should be on what business model will work for the individual media specialist on the Internet.
And that's a perfect place to start. What is currently out there for the entrepreneurial journalist or broadcaster of today?