Going up in smoke: the future of the media

Glenn Luther wrote up a really nice post on yesterday’s Future of Media panel at DC week. I posted a comment there and am reposting it here to track back.

the elephant in the room was and is, if there is still a value proposition in associating advertising content against editorial content online. then, do media companies realize they are in the advertising business as much or more than they are in the content business? then, what are they doing to innovate the advertising problem online to raise the value for publisher, advertiser and consumer?

Bankoff mentioned that SBNation was able to build a business through scale… “off the backs of bloggers,” was the language I remember. This reminded me of google's adwords business model. while google makes the lion's share of revenue from keyword search advertising, adwords makes it on sheer scale. but if this, and other ad networks for ROS products, are the best the industry can produce, it is no wonder that the only ads that seem to work are short pre-roll video.

and that's not very innovative. the audience expected more. if these speakers had more to offer, it wasn't evidently apparent. and it was very discouraging for the future of media. when i tweeted that i felt sorry for the panelists, andy carvin tweeted back that he hoped they saw the tweckling as constructive criticism. i hope they do, and realize that a lot more than just their own jobs are riding on their ability to not just broker and leverage existing ad networks – but actually innovate the advertising space to more effectively monetize quality content. otherwise, brands will see less value in being associated with content… and continue to see more value being associated with social and participatory media and products webmail where users spend vast majority of their time already.

good luck, panel. i sincerely hope you get another shot. this town loves a comeback.

via Going up in smoke: the future of the media.