“What’s that word again that you used for stealing content” my newspaper editor friend asked me? “Curation” I said, “and it’s not stealing content.”
I had that conversation a few years ago, but the debate is still raging. SOPA was killed, but is now reborn asCISPA. Rupert Murdoch has called Google a piracy leader, while Neil Young has said that piracy is the new radio. What’s going on?
It seems to me that at the heart of the controversy is a fundamental shift in the value of information. It used to be scarce, but now we’re drowning in it. That’s creating a fundamental shift in the economics of media. Therefore, the the answer lies not only in product innovation, but business model innovation, which is even harder.
When Content was King
Until the ‘80’s, content was truly king. There were relatively few TV channels, some magazines with a wide national audience and one or two newspapers along with a handful of radio stations in each market. In other words, there wasn’t a whole lot of choice.
To get an idea of how much has changed, take a look at TV ratings from 25 years ago:
Now look at some recent ratings:
Continues @ http://www.digitaltonto.com
