The Future of Media is much like its Past

I was at the Being Digital Mashup yesterday (gave a talk there) but the subject of the "Future of Media" came up in the drinks afterwards, with various people opining on various things. I unfortunately had to leave before I could get a word in edgeways (what with the Telegraph's eloquent Mr Yiannopoulos holding court ) so I thought I would blog what I was going to say, and also I've been meaning to use the above picture (from an article in Baekdal) for ages.

So, what I was going to say...ahem:

Firstly - all media is replaced by a New Media, which then catches the main attention of its readers/watchers/etc. The diagram above shows this progression in 1998 and hypothesizes how it may run going forward to c 2018 (I put the 1998 one in so you can read all the non digital media streams. Y axis is - roughly - attention). However, some remnant of the Old Media always remains (in fact, as with vinyl, there is sometimes a revival after a while)

Secondly, the early days of the New Media are typically uncertain, it doesn't work properly, the business model is not certain etc etc (did you know Gutenberg went bust?) - but its fundamental economics are superior to what exists, so it wins. This change is very confusing as it starts. We have described this world as it occurs in Online Video in the chart below, but it describes Newspapers as well, except they are 1-2 years ahead of the Video curve. (It also describes Music etc etc)



Newspapers are now moving into this "Pirate World" period, where it seems that all is overturned and buccaneers are everywhere on the high seas. Old Order players need to remove some of the power from the existing divisions and experiment with the New, but the business models won't work - as we explained here most recently, the New Order will not attack on the Old Order's ground, they come at it from new angles. New Media just don't have much money so are trying all sorts of ways to get offset funding, and the results and compromises sometimes are not pretty. But you know which way all the flesh is going, so its pointless to waylay them.

Incidentally, its interesting to think about the naming of Newspapers as a timeline of how they got their news - the various "Times", "Chronicles", "Recorders", "Journals" and of course the ultra-modern (for 100 years ago) "Telegraph". Interesting that the frontrunning online newspaper of 2009 is the Huffington "Post", betraying blog roots*. By 2011 will it be the "Daily Tweet" (please no )

Interestingly, we think the real shift is towards more realtime media - so the old Dutch newspaper term Kourant/Courant (current) may come back in vogue....

*Yes, there are Paper Posts too