Key to the success of the proliferating range of business models being put to use is a solid understanding of how monetization approaches need to adapt to the Long Tail.
While mass media, bottom-up grassroots media and everything else in between can now coexist in prosperity, it is foolish to think that the same business models can be scaled from one end of the market to the other.
The cost of producing media at the tail end of the scale has lowered dramatically in recent times, and it is now possible for anyone to broadcast themselves over the web. While mass media content is associated with high production values, and can best leverage its monetization opportunities through broad, sweeping campaigns, those production businesses at the other end of the scale can better target a niche or multi-niche audience.
As such, there is no right or wrong way, but rather a multitude of potential approaches that can be utilized to define an effective business model. What that means for independent publishers is that spending time to carefully target a niche audience is a far more productive means of economic success than attempting to replicate the broad appeal and broadcasting approach of 'big media', with their large marketing budgets and costly production expenditure.
Think niche as an independent, and you will not find yourself out of business in the close coming future.
The last section of the Future of Media report dwells on the four levels of media personalization.
Social media such as blogs, online video and social network services offer an inherently more personalized user experience, which in turn allows for a far more personalized means of advertising and content monetization than mass media can get at.
As the diagram above illustrates, the Future of Media report focuses on four levels of personalization, which, to summarize are:
- Nil - The advertising delivered through mass distribution channels makes no distinction between those that encounter it. This is the blanket bombing approach
- Content - niche media delivery platforms, such as magazines and cable TV channels offer a greater degree of personalization by targeting their audience based on their interests
- Demographic - the use of Internet cookies or location-specific ISP addresses can allow advertisers to target potential leads based on geography, gender or even age, allowing further targeting
- Personalization - the final tier depends upon gathering detailed user information, whether using a registration process, an online profile, viewing history or even directly expressed personal preferences
Done badly, any advertising, even at the higher end of the personalization scale, will seem intrusive - even more so when it has had to collect huge amounts of data on the end-user. However, with subtlety and added user-generated value, such as the well-thought-through algorithms of the Amazon.com book suggestion engine, personalized online marketing can actually transform itself from an intrusion to a welcome complement, adding to the overall user experience of a service.
In short as media become more granular and expand along the long tail, it is possible to not only serve audiences with material directly suited to their personal tastes, rather than to a generic demographic, but also to apply means of content monetization that add to the overall user experience.
This, should be of course, the ultimate goal of publishers and content distributors across the board.
Conclusions
The Future of Media report 2007 closes on a positive, open-ended note, stressing the fact that in terms of media transactions and mergers:
'' the size and number of transactions over the last 18 months exceeds almost any other time over the last 15 years, with activity focused on private equity acquisitions and trade sales''
Furthermore, we are left with the very real notion that new business models will necessarily come to the fore for those with the gumption and inventiveness to stay afloat in the changing landscape.
Nevertheless, I was left with a strong feeling that the last few pages of the report somewhat lose steam and fall back on filler material. Interesting as an extended comparative chart of media transactions, a series of network analysis diagrams focused on an Australian broadcast group, and the republication of a somewhat nebulous blog post are, they fall something short of the promise of earlier material.
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The Future of Media Report 2007 does provide, however, some interesting insights and support for the claims made as to the growth of long tail niche media content, social media and social networks, not to mention the shift in advertising and business models which is an increasingly granular media landscape.
All of this would seem to bode well for both the large media corporations willing to adapt to the changes in the ecosystem, and the smaller independent publishers at the other end of the scale.
The ones that really need to worry, as the conclusion of the report makes abundantly clear, are those unwilling to adapt and change their marketing, monetization and content delivery approaches in an age of socially mediated, networked, increasingly personalized media.
As print mass media continues its slow decline as a medium, its publishers have much to learn from those enabling these new, open-ended, two-way conversation: bloggers like you and I.
Additional Resources
I you would like to learn more about the Future of Media Report, you might want to take a look at the following links:
- You can download the 2007 report from the Future Exploration Network website
- The Future of Media Summit 2007 will take place on the 17th July in Silicon Valley, and the 18th July in Sydney
- List of speakers at the 2007 event
- The FEN blog
- The pdf download of last year's report
- Future of Media Report 2007
Originally written by Michael Pick and Robin Good for MasterNewMedia and titled: "Future Of Media Report 2007: What's Coming, What's Changing"
Michael Pick and Robin Good -
Reference: Future Exploration Network - Future of Media [ Read more ]
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Distributed by Hasan Shrek, independence blogger. Also run online business , matrix, internet marketing solution , online store script .
Beside he is writing some others blogs for notebook computer , computer training , computer software and personal computer
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