Content Marketing Strategies Conference: David Smith Content Generation & Distribution-The Seismic Shift

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2/27/2011

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Content Generation & DistributionThe Seismic Shift

© Copyright Mediasmith 2011, all rights reservedwww.mediasmith.comvisit us:

Past and Present

Historically, content and journalism has been inextricably linked…

…Is the future of journalism and the future of content intertwined?


The Significance of Journalism

Journalism has performed a great service for society, and will always be needed

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

-Thomas Jefferson


One More Quote…

“A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”

-Napoleon Bonaparte

From Heat and Light: Advice for the Next Generation of Journalists

By Mike Wallace and Beth Knobel


The Lay of The Land

• Newspapers and magazines are folding in droves– Costs start to outstrip their

revenues

• Almost every print publication is shrinking– Fewer and fewer readers are

willing to pay for something they can get for free on the Internet

• Network television, too, is attracting fewer and fewer viewers to its news programs


Journalism’s Constant Unique Power

Here are a few modern examples… Edward R. Murrow: brought down

McCarthy who was destroying people's lives by accusing them of being Communists

Walter Cronkite: helped bring down Vietnam when he said after visiting there in 1968 that the war was unwinnable

Woodward and Bernstein: Watergate

Egypt: real time reporting in the current crisis (a combination of Journalism and Social Networks)


60 Minutes Changed Journalism

• Bill Paley built CBS News on a premise that it did not have to make money— Yet 60 Minutes did so in such a

way that it made news a profitable venture in broadcast

— And as a result, large news organizations were built out profitably

• But the technology of the Internet has the risk of bringing all of that down


The Future of Journalism

• The vast majority of print publications will no longer print hard copies

• All media will change

• News on demand will become the rule

• News will become more focused and more personalized

• Multitasking will be the norm


The Future of Journalism (cont.)

• Technology will continue to drive news coverage

• Information overload will be omnipresent

• Trusted providers will still be important

• News will still made by people

• Content comes from everyone, not just journalists

• Resources matter


Pressure on the Financial Model

• Brought on by the low or no pay factors like Demand Media, HuffPo and others

• The long tail of publishing and news will cut into some organization’s ability to survive

• But resources and brands providing the content matter, and always will


Some Good News

• According to Reason Magazine:

– Before the merger, AOL, already employed 900 journalists, or more than the L.A. Times does now

– Gawker Media, reportedly employs 130 people

– SB Nation, a sports blog network has a reported 410 paid writers

• So the question is… Are there really fewer jobs in journalism or less total journalist compensation?


• It used to be words on a page

• But that changed with radio, then the movie newsreels, then TV and now with the Web and social media

• Content is Words

Music

Video

Games

Entertainment

Applications

Data

And much more

What Is Content?


Is There An Effect?

• How content is being generated and how it is being consumed is undergoing a drastic change

• Do these drastic changes affect understanding?

• Andrew Heywood of CBS…

– “Research by CBS among teens and pre teens showed that even though few of them finished a single article or show about a current events topic, they snacked from enough sources to have an amazingly complete picture of the overall issues. He calls this Media Impressionism.”


Your Old Models Are Rapidly Changing

• Publishers with specific dates– Agency mindset has been on

monthly scheduling and bars on a flow chart

– Publishers survive on edit calendars

• We are in an “always on” dialogue with the consumer– Bars on a flow chart with

hiatus periods do not work any more


New Models

• Articles become available when written, edited, curated and posted onto content server

– e.g., WSJ on iPad, SkyGrid, Google News


New Models (cont.)

• Published centrally vs. shared via social (push vs. pull)

– Informal posting of news via various feeds on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

• Central curation by “friends” as curators

– e.g., Flipboard


Aggregators and Social Distribution

• Aggregators ranging from Skygrid to Pulse to Yahoo! will continue to be a threat to content providers

• Brands will also serve as content generators

• Some brands will have their own APIs

– RSS and Twitter feeds are an early example of this

• Twitter feeds

• Facebook pages


Summary

• Content providers will be increasingly pressured by low paying competitors

• It will take more than high quality for the current providers to survive

– They must change the way that they do business with everything from technology to format to timing of release to how they deal with distribution through syndicators and aggregators

• But the public will continue to consume more content than ever

– And they will snack on a lot of different options


The Hope

“Television saved the movies. The Internet is going to save the news business.”

– Matt Drudge (The Drudge Report)

catalyst for media innovation© Copyright Mediasmith 2011, all rights reservedwww.mediasmith.comvisit us:

Thank You!

David L. Smith Founder & CEO, [email protected]: @mediadls

mailto:[email protected]

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Content Marketing Strategies Conference: David Smith Content Generation & Distribution-The Seismic Shift