The changing media business model

Last week, I led a panel on the impact of Technology on the content business, at the Software & Informatioun Industry Association Content Forum. The panel was my “dream team” of social computing, and included (by topic and speaker):

-          Blogging: Six Apart, Marissa Levinson

-          API’s and mash-ups: Google, Bret Taylor

-          Wikis: WetPaint, Ben Elowich

-          Tagging: del.icio.us, Joshua Schachter

-          Social media: digg.com, Kevin Rose

The goal of the panel: to give “traditional media” attendees an idea of how new technologies are changing the way consumers interact with media. As readers of this blog, you are probably already experiencing the changes personally – everything from becoming content providers yourselves to just simply enjoying the proliferation of user-generated content.

But the question is terrifying for many media companies – the idea of letting go of control of their content and the experience flies in the face of most companies. And I got several comments from attendees that the panel participants were on average HALF the age of the attendees and other conference speakers.

One key idea I shared with the audience is my take on the role of media companies in the future. Media companies in the past derived their value from either: 1) their distribution channel; or 2) the content they created.

I believe that in the future media companies will generate the bulk of their value from serving their ability to aggregate and serve audiences better than the competition. It doesn’t matter if the media company actually creates or even controls the content that draws them. Channels will be transparent and content won’t necessarily even be owned in a syndicated and aggregated content landscape.

A case in point: digg.com produces no content of their own but has a very unique way to look into the interests of its users. Kevin showed a very cool software tool they use internally called “Trace” that looks at the stories a specific user is reading, and shows in real time how that user’s attention jumps to other topics. Kevin also showed how “diggers” were related to each other based on the stories they mutually “dugg”. The traditional “audience management” advocates like Tacoda have shifted toward behavioral targeting, but at the core, understanding users at a highly granular level will be an essential skill for media companies.

A few other examples: Google’s Bret Taylor showed two mapping mash-ups, housingmaps.com and mapmyrun.com. (The latter is particularly useful (albeit, a bit kludgy) as I’m having to re-plan all of my running and biking routes with my recent move.)

The general recommendation for media companies from the panel I think also applies to marketers in general – start small but start now. It won’t be easy or feel natural, but the sooner media companies and marketers can experience these technologies first hand, the better off they will be as more and more consumers adopt them.

So who’s doing it well in the media business? I like to point to CNET’s News.com, which has great news content targeting the tech enthusiast. Take a look at this story from today’s front page, “Microsoft making better music?” It’s a piece of news analysis, which is great original content. But they also provide a service called “The Big Picture” which “maps” how this story is related to other stories, topics, and companies. It’s a great example of an application serving as “content”. Other features on the story include 38 “Talkback” comments and Trackbacks (hopefully at least one from this blog post).

But what I think best typifies News.com’s unique approach is their “Extra” section. It started as “More News From Around The Web” where the editors selected top stories from other sites. It’s evolved into a place where you can read about tech stories from all around the Web, even if CNET’s News.com isn’t covering it. So there’s an article wireless technology from Business 2.0, and a story on Steve Ballmer’s comments on Vista includes a link to the News.com story, as well as links to stories from competitors like TechNewsWorld, PCWorld, and Wired News.

That’s akin to The New York Times linking to the New York Post, The San Francisco Chronicle linking to The San Jose Mercury News, and dare I say it, Forrester linking to Jupiter or Gartner! But if you take the social computing view that as a publisher, you can’t serve ALL of the needs of your customer yourself, then the best that you should do is to be the FIRST source of information for your audience. In that way, News.com ensures that although it may not be the ONLY source of technology news, it has a fighting chance of filtering and aggregating that news for its audience better than anyone else.

Back to blogging

Many apologies to my readers for my absence from the blogging front over the past two weeks -- I've been a bit busy between work, travel, and heavy equipment (see the photo) that's been sitting in the front yard of my house. As you may know, we recently bought a house and are in the midst of a teardown/rebuild. (If you have any interest in following our construction adventures, my husband has started a blog (his first!) about the project at my-new-house.blogspot.com.)

As I catch up on several fronts, I'm planning to post frequently to make up for my absence. I'll be at the Yahoo analyst day on Wednesday and have several posts in the works.

This brings up an interesting point -- I recently did an interview with Shel Israel for his new book on "Web 2.0" (you can read the interviews, part 1 and part 2) and he described me as a "binge blogger" which I found very appropriate. I don't have the bandwidth nor the discipline to maintain a daily blogging habit. My personality type also tends toward procrastination and keeping options open (I'm an ENFP).

So my question to you bloggers out there is what processes, tools, and tricks of the trade you employ that keep you a happy and *regular* blogger? I'm looking for any best practices you've found helpful, from offline authoring tools to scheduling time in your calendar to write. Feel free to add your thoughts below or email them to me -- I and many others will certainly benefit!

Yahoo! Tech: A good start but editorial challenges remain

In it’s first new content module in five years, Yahoo! Tech (tech.yahoo.com) represents Yahoo!s vision of how many pieces of its vast network of content and services will work together. In many ways, Yahoo! Tech is a great glimpse into Yahoo!’s future strategy.

The goal of Tech is to create a more “mainstream” approach to technology, and at the same time, to tap into the lucrative technology advertising space. To date, the biggest site for consumer technology is CNET.com, which provides not only technology reviews, but also excellent news coverage. Yahoo! positioned itself as being more accessible and easier to use, primarily because the content pushes decision-making tools and content to the front, while also incorporating more “people” into the experience. Yahoo! also has the significant advantage over CNET of turning on the traffic spigot simply by adding links to its home page.

So I took a quick side-by-side test drive of computer monitor content on both Yahoo! and CNET for a comparison to see if it really WAS easier to use. Why monitors? Because digital cameras as an example is overused, and also because I know almost NOTHING about monitors! I’m also in the market to buy a new monitor for my kids’ computer, so I figured, kill a couple birds at the same time.

Yahoo! Tech’s monitor section has right off the back an area called “Basics” that explains some key things to know about monitors, such as the difference between LCD and CRT. It then had a selection of the top rated monitors, which I found very helpful. These are based on consumer reviews of the product, drawn from Yahoo! Shopping. Clicking into the product section, I could see all of the monitors.

Now here’s where I think Yahoo! does a great job – on the left hand side, I can adjust a “slide” to narrow prices down. I don’t want to spend more than $250 on a monitor but I want it to be big. It quickly narrows my choices down to 76 products, all without having to refresh the page. I could then sort those selections on “top results”, which is based on consumer reviews. Unfortunately, there are only 1-2 reviews on each of the monitors, which makes it a bit suspect.

Back on the main monitor page, there are also buying guides from the “Dummies” series, as well as some interesting articles on how to adjust your monitor or keep Windows from shutting it down. But my favorite was pulled from Q&A section, which comes from Yahoo! Answers – the Q&A selections rotate through, but the one I saw was spot on, recommending that unless you were a serious gamer to ignore the refresh rates.

Now on to CNET. I really liked the ability to narrow down the criteria based on price, manufacturer, or other criteria. But this presumed that I actually knew anything about the monitors, which I don’t. I’m interested in getting a 19-21” monitor and that wasn’t one of the options. Further down, there were some articles on monitors, which frankly, were irrelevant (I didn’t really care what monitors look like from behind!).

But the strength of CNET is its strong editorial reviews, as well as a huge community of committed consumer reviewers. On the monitor page there is a list of monitors garnering top editorial reviews, and a similar list generated by consumer reviews. For example, the top consumer rated monitor is the Dell UltraSharp, which had an average score of 9.3 from 106 users.

So which is “better”? Yahoo! was easier to use initially, as it gave me a great starting point to learn more about monitors. I would return to it again and again for basic information. But for detailed reviews on products I’m planning to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on, I’m going to rely on CNET’s deep editorial content, both from its editors as well as its users. Granted, Yahoo! Tech does have excellent reviews of products from Consumer Reports, but not in all categories.

This is going to be a content challenge for Yahoo! Tech, as it is built primarily from content drawn from other parts of Yahoo!. In order to be competitive in this space, it had to pull content from other areas to kick-start the product. And it’s done it well, especially because Yahoo! could tap into Shopping and Answers for content. It will get richer with the addition of content from the “Advisors” four (soon to be five) people who will blog 3-5 times a day about technology from different viewpoints.

A bigger challenge that I foresee for Yahoo! Tech is the need to go beyond simply gadgets buying and provide a deeper resource for technology on par with what Yahoo! Finance and News have done in their respective categories. I can easily see a technology news sub-section drawn from Yahoo News put on Yahoo Tech, but it will detract from its current mainstream approach.

But even tougher will be Yahoo! Tech’s ability to review products and services that Yahoo! offers, such as Yahoo! Mail. CNET has a review of Yahoo! Mail, as well as several other services offered by Yahoo! and its competitors. To what extent will Yahoo! be able to advice and information on such services when it provides them as well? Yahoo! Tech manager Patrick Houston (who was formerly the editor in chief of CNET.com) said that in the past, his editorial teams were able to cover CNET’s quarterly earnings objectively. But I think it’s one thing to report on the facts of a financial report and quite another to host and encourage reviews of some of your and your competitor’s key products.

To be really a good tech resource, I think this is where Yahoo! needs to go, but unfortunately, because there are few advertising dollars associated with online services, and also because of competitive reasons, I don’t believe that this will be the case. This leaves a significant opportunity for CNET.com to retain its leadership position in the technology content space.