Transparency (continued)

The digital revolution is making it harder to hide stuff. And that has profound implications for society that we are just starting to realize.

Back in Vietnam, it was the nightly news broadcasts and the weekly news magazines that brought home the horrors of war.

Today, the digtal camera has "outed" the atrocities of Abu Ghraib.

You can't stop digital content. The music labels have found that out the hard way. So has the Pentagon.

What's next? Who knows?

But one thing is for sure. It's a lot harder to keep things quiet these days. And I think that's good thing.

Comments

[Charlie Sierra]

Yes the digital revolution produces raw content and enables phenomenal distribution, but the caveat is that 'context' is being overwhelmed, and that historically leads to bad things, the least of which is just demagoguery. (cough, Kerry, cough)

You may be of the opinion that the Abu Ghraib story is compelling in an of itself, and that's an opinion which I don't hold, but having been a longtime media investor etc. the real deal on this story is that its an easy sell on TV.

I use a very simple test to self-select who I think has an media related investment opinion worth listening to. I just ask 'What is King in media, Content or Distribution?'

If anybody selects either option, I no longer take them seriously because neither is King.

What drives media, and the current new cycle, is AUDIENCE. Media doesn't sell content, they sell audiences. period. stop. eos.

So, wrt to the grossly out of context news from Iraq and elsewhere, the real question a viewer must be asking in the background is, 'Is this story driven by its merits alone, or is it an easy story to tell and sell?' (the News division has a budget, ya know)

Its all about the benjamins, err eyeballs, baby.

Kinda makes you wonder, 'Would the TV networks ever attempt to make an election race closer than it may really be just to continue to squeeze AD dollars from the canidates?'

Please say it ain't so, joe.

And thus the blogsphere really is a good thing. Something I think we can all agree on.

[hugh macleod]

Totally agree with you, Fred. And you too, Charlie.

The fact is, the price of content is in freefall... or if it isn't, it should be.

As a conternt provider myself, I saw the writing on the wall a few years ago. Changed my business model completely, away from "paid content" to "increasing the value of other people's intellectual capital".

It wasn't rocket science, but it did require lots of thinking.

More nimble, organic business models will solve problems, not building new roadblocks to content.