10 Years of “New Media”

Here’s a fascinating look back at the challenges of creating “new media” back in the early 1990’s. The bottom line: The more things change, the more they stay the same…

As Steve Outing says in the original post, the lesson for today “is to free up your media company from old ways of doing things – to permit new ways of doing business and practicing journalism that directly challenge the status quo.” He lists “citizen journalism” as the biggest challenge to traditional media thinking. Although it’s easy and obvious to point this out for the world of newspapers and magazines, the same is true for books, television and basically every and any other type of delivery mechanism.

I’m almost finished reading The Long Tail and I really like the way Chris Anderson characterizes the citizen journalism phenomenon. He refers to it as the “Pro-Am” model and talks about how professionals and amateurs can come together to create an offering that’s far superior to anything either could do on their own. That’s the future, but tomorrow’s market leaders are already working to implement that model today.