TechWag

It is hard to argue with real numbers, and that is exactly what the traditional media is arguing about right now. The real number declines that have been happening in their industries as people move away from one media source to another media source, mainly blogging and citizen journalism.

We all hear about the bloggers who do this as a single employee in their own home based office, doing their own thing, and writing about the things that inspire them. Some go pro or at least can turn it into a job where they can at least pay some of the bills, if not all their bills.

The question is at this point is what is traditional media going to do to survive in the new world, and the new marketing schemes that have gutted many of the traditional models.

Time Warner’s Business 2.0 saw ad pages drop 21.8% through March from the same period a year ago; PC Magazine’s editor in chief walked out the door after ad pages fell 38.8% over the same period; and one-time online powerhouse CNET is reporting growing losses even as the companies it covers flourish. Source: Forbes

Depending on where you are in the food chain, and how well the person is doing with Google ads, Adbrite, or AdEngage as a way to supplement their income, most bloggers will barely see a dime. The lessons learned from blogging all indicate that it takes time to build an audience, and a short time to loose it if the blogger does something stupid or gets too weird for the audience that they have established.

What to do though if you are a traditional media source, and page views (not time on site) drop 1/5th in a year, or worst, drop by near ½ of the page views that they got a year ago. Media should be busy re-inventing self, but not many people see that happening. Rather we see some half hearted attempts at integrating blogs into the standard media systems like on the NY Times (the blogs are actually pretty good when they get it right). We really do not see a valiant attempt at the complete reinvention of the major media sources.

Some do not need to do this, the systems like AP and Reuters really do not need to reinvent themselves right now, and later on, they might. But those sites like NY Times, Forbes, and others all need to step back and wonder why the blogger in the back room is gathering audience like you would not believe, while the standardized media is dropping like a rock.

Big media should be adopting the things that make blogging successful, and the experimentation is good to see, but to make it part of the core business is going to be difficult because of the way that the entire system is structured. That is where the reinvention needs to happen, at the root of the system, change out the way that people relate to their audiences, and big media might just start seeing some improvements in their numbers.

Tags: funding, education, layoff, business //