Fred Harteis News Articles - All Web sites are alike

Fred Harteis News Article - All Web sites are alike. Regardless of their owners, they can all do the same set of things. In that fact lies the profound crisis facing all aspects of the media industry.

It doesn't matter whether a Web site's owner once focused on publishing newspapers or magazines, broadcasting television or radio, making music or producing movies, or even selling soft drinks. Any Web site can host text, audio and video, it can facilitate connections and communication between users, and it can enable those users to create and display their own text, audio or video.

Coke can release music; ABC can publish articles; and Forbes or The New York Times can broadcast video.

The Web is one big level playing field of competition for the customer's time and attention. The quality and relevance of the content will be what drives viewers to devote that attention - not whether the host happens to be Coke.com, NYT.com or Disney.com.

So should a magazine like Time, Rolling Stone or Fortune still think of itself as in the magazine business if a growing portion of its readers are seeing the content it produces online? Or should it produce content of all types under its brand there? This kind of existential question burdens - or should burden - anyone who creates or distributes branded information or entertainment.

How should a sports fan decide, for instance, whether to go for his or her news fix to ESPN.com or SI.com? Most likely the decision will not have much to do with the fact that one organization was historically a TV network and the other a magazine. The sports fan seeks good sports content - which can now be distributed in all forms online. And indeed, SI.com has scored a hit with regular video segments on its Web site from columnist Rick Reilly.

But this new media egalitarianism strikes an even deeper blow against conventional thinking - and existing business models. While it hasn't much happened yet, what if big consumer brands decide to take their audiences and become media brands as well? If Coke, for example, could in effect operate its own TV station online, would it still buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads in other media?

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. With a background in Agriculture Fred Harteis has lead many successful business ventures.