The Future of Print Media

I've been tossing this one over ever since I visited the FT a few months ago and saw what they were doing with Alphaville and their other online properties. I'm still in "muse mode", though I've been playing around with the new vs old economic models and their discontinuities, but haven't committed pen to pixel yet - there is a lot of chaff around this subject, finding the kernels is elusive

Anyway, I think this is some of the kernel - here is an interesting piece by Paul Conley on the misconceptions print & online have (hat tip Adam Tinworth):

Here are some of the things I saw at the start of the Web era and their counterparts in today's era.

Print publishers greatly overestimated the weight of their brands. They looked down their noses at upstarts without a history or a "recognized" brand. Print publishers assumed that their previous success would translate easily to the Web.

Web-only publishers are overestimating the implications of their recent success. They look down their noses at the dinosaurs who failed to adjust to the Web. Web-only publishers assume that their early successes can be scaled.

Print publishers put their faith in volume and expertise. They produced great amounts of "must-have" content at high costs, hired large editorial staffs, emphasized reporting over writing and dismissed the potential of one-man operations and bloggers. They assumed that "quality" was what the market wanted.

Web publishers put their faith in brevity and insight. They aggregated content rather than produced it, using part-timers and contractors to keep costs low. They emphasized writing over reporting and dismissed the ability of large operations to keep up. They assumed that the market wanted "speed."

Print folks underestimated the difficulty of working on the Web. They assumed that, if the time came, they could create blogs, aggregate content and run online communities as well as any Web native. But when the time came, they found they could not.

Web-only folks underestimate the difficulty of creating content. They assumed that, if the time came, they could do original reporting, create data and run trade shows as well as any old-time B2B executive. Now the time is here, and they are finding they cannot.

Print guys think Web guys are lazy (aggregating content rather than creating it), unprofessional (prone to snarky writing) and stupid. Print guys are breathtakingly arrogant -- and they are most arrogant about their superiority to Web guys.

Web guys think print guys are lazy (unwilling to work in the 24/7 world of the Web), unprofessional (prone to hiding bias behind "objectivity") and stupid. Web guys are breathtakingly arrogant -- and they are most arrogant about their superiority to print guys.

Apart from reminding me of that song from Oklahoma!*, it also I think makes a good point re what an online business starts to take on as it scales.

* We did it at school, this clip reminds me of that!