Category Archives: Media

Toronto Star afternoon edition in PDF format. What were they thinking?

Toronto StarJust over thirteen months ago, the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper, launched a special afternon PDF format edition of the newspaper that was targeted at commuters who might want to download and print a hard copy to read on the way home. At that time, Michael Goldblum, then-publisher of the Star said, “Star P.M. is designed to satisfy people’s craving for breaking news and the up to the minute information they need, in a format that meets their needs at the end of the day.”

My take at the time:

Add to the current mix downloadable podcast content, the ability to take emails and web content out of the office on BlackBerries and even to use these devices to surf the web for up to the minute content – and it seems to me that the Star is chasing a miniscule set of readers.

There are many innovate people at the Star and in the newspaper industry. And they will evolve the medium to compete with the new media. But this initiative by the Star isn’t really a step forward. It smacks too much of simply trying to apply the old model to a new medium. And I can’t believe that will work.

Well, news today that the Star has thrown in the towel on the PDF experiment. They’ve replaced it with a mobile edition that will offer the full text of Star stories formatted to be read on the small screen of a mobile device. The main content will be published at 3:30PM “and updated with breaking news and closing market numbers until 4:15.” Readers can subscribe to email alerts that will be delivered to their email boxes at 3:30 and 4:15.

OK. This is better. But not quite as good as it could be. Where are the RSS feeds? In the era of smartphones like the Nokia N90 and the iPhone. I can’t understand why the good folks at the Star don’t slap an RSS feed on all of their content. (Yes, I can find RSS feeds on the main thestar.com site. But why make me look on a separate site?)

So, to the Toronto Star, my compliments for learning from the PDF experience and moving to a mobile platform. But don’t stop there. Add those RSS feeds so that I can receive your news in the mobile format of my choice.

CBC blogging & Facebook policies

The Inside the CBC Blog reports on the introduction by Canada’s national broadcaster of two new policies governing use of social media by employees.

CBC’s Facebook policy

“The CBC is directing its journalists to avoid adding sources or contacts as “Facebook friends,” and to not post their political leanings on their profile.

It’s part of a short policy document distributed to CBC journalists surrounding the use of popular social networking site Facebook.com.”

CBC tells employees their personal blogs must be approved by management

“Any CBC employee who wants to start a personal blog which “clearly associates them with CBC/Radio-Canada” now requires their supervisor’s permission, according to a new policy document.”

According to Inside the CBC, “this rule applies ‘not only to CBC/Radio-Canada journalists but to any corporation employee.’”

Hang on. This sounds a lot like the policy adopted last autumn by Canada’s Armed Forces. That policy states that, “CF MEMBERS ARE TO CONSULT WITH THEIR CHAIN OF COMMAND BEFORE PUBLISHING CF-RELATED INFORMATION AND IMAGERY TO THE INTERNET, REGARDLESS OF HOW INNOCUOUS THE INFORMATION MAY SEEM.”

OK. I can accept that the army might want to go to this extreme. After all, as their policy states, the inadvertent release of sensitive information about operations could put lives at risk: “OPERATIONAL SECURITY IS PARAMOUNT. IT IS INCUMBENT UPON ALL CF MEMBERS TO CONSIDER THE POTENTIAL FOR CREATING RISK TO THEMSELVES, THEIR FAMILIES, THEIR PEERS, AND THE MISSION BY PUBLISHING INFORMATION TO THE INTERNET. SUCH INFORMATION OR IMAGERY MAY, EITHER INDIVIDUALLY OR IN CONJUNCTION WITH OTHER INFORMATION, PROVIDE EXPERT ANALYSTS INSIGHTS INTO CF CURRENT OPERATIONS, EQUIPMENT, CAPABILITIES, TACTICS, AND INTENTIONS, OR MAY PROVIDE INFORMATION THAT PUTS PERSONNEL IN SPECIALIST ROLES OR THEIR FAMILIES AT RISK.”

But what is at stake with the CBC? Not lives. The embarrassment of senior management?

In this case, it looks like the CBC wants to roll the clock back to an earlier era when managers believed they could control communications. (I emphasize “believed,” because communicators know that we’ve never really controlled anything.) It’s incredible to think that an organization that gathers news every day from countless sources – authorized and unauthorized – would believe that a policy like this will achieve anything other than to make them look foolish.

How long will this policy stand before wiser heads retract it?

The Future of Entertainment – the people formerly known as the audience

I ended my mesh day with a panel of McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves, Amber MacArthur and Ethan Kaplan moderated by Jian Gomeshi.

Jian Gomeshi: Two Sams come to mind. Sam Sniderman or Sam the Record Man as we know him. It was announced this morning that the flagship store of the once iconic Sam the Record Man store will be closing. The end of an era. Things have changed.

So, what’s the biggest change in the last 12 months that will affect the future of entertainment.

Ethan Kaplan: A new focus on the fact that things will not return to the way things were in the pre Napster era. There’s a renewed effort to create a new avenue for the music industry. Different value propositions must be created that don’t try to undermine the direct relationship between the fans and access to the music.

Amber MacArthur: Last year, she was at this conference as a broadcaster at G4Tech TV. This year as a blogger and podcaster at CITY TV. This is an indicator of the trend of movement from the traditional broadcast media to the new online media.

Jain Gomeshi: How valid is the notion that the audience of today is more actively engaged than the audience of yesterday? Are people investing more or less now in their entertainment?

Amber MacArthur: People are dividing their attention. So the length of video clips is decreasing. They also seem to jump ship between things quickly. Facebook is big today. But will it still be big in six months?

Ethan Kaplan: Passive acceptance and passive consumption was a fiction that was maintained by the major media companies. It was driven by hubris. And the notion has collapsed on itself. What’s really happened is that content has become agnostic to representation. There’s a lack of differentiation between the mode of the content. Now fans are more focused on the agent that is originating the content.

Jian Gomeshi: Does the ease of acquiring art, music devalue it or make it more disposable?

Amber MacArthur: Content is available to a global audience. You should try to get your content in front of as many people as you can around the world and then figure out how to derive revenue from it.

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: The social network that have grown up around artists show that fans really value those artists.

Jian Gomeshi: How do you get people attached to an artist?

Ethan Kaplan: We’re to the point where we have to embrace the notion that the duplicability of the content and the ready availability of the content has made it necessary to think creatively about how to market the content. Taking Michael Buble, for example. You must treat him as a personality and then market the record as an extension of the personality. The campaign began six months beforehand. No flash Websites. Have a blog friendly Website. Then begin to publish creative elements, such as photos, in the lead up to the release of the record. Treat the release of the record as an event.

Jian Gomeshi: How do you differentiate small, new artists?

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: Bloggers have shown that one person with a computer can build an audience. Use the viral tools to assemble an audience anywhere that people gather. Artists can build an audience by using the social networking sites.

Jian Gomeshi: Have the responsiblities of audiences changed?

Amber MacArthur: Artists must now know their audiences likes and anticipate them and respond to them. Tom Green has reinvented himself by actively engaging directly with his audience through his blog and his nightly online program.

Michael Geist: What about Digital Rights Management software?

Ethan Kaplan: DRM is a very small piece of a larger problem, the fact that what you have today is the availablity of both for free and for pay content. The larger issue is how to make sure that artists are compensated along a long value chain that includes any reproduction device.

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: The DRM genie is out of the bottle. What’s going on is a little like the war on drugs.

Barbarians at the Gate: New Media and Old Media

The afternoon sessions of mesh kicked off with a panel of Rachel Sklar, Cynthia Brumfield, and Loren Feldman moderated by Mark Evans.

Mark Evans: Picking up on Mike Arrington’s session … print newspapers seem to be in trouble. Is the San Francisco Chronicle staff layoff an isolated incident or a sign of something broader?

Rachel Sklar: It’s a sign of a bigger trend. But in every big change, there are opportunities. So for people who are creative, it’s an amazing opportunity. Look for how newspapers adapt. The good ones will be able to do this.

Mark Evans: Are newspapers prepared for change or are they merely scrambling for anything that sticks?

Rachel Sklar: Many of them are scrambling. You can see this as they reach out for new people who can do many things. But at the same time, they are laying off many of their elder statesmen, the people who have been there, done that and seen the evolution. The really smart media will be the ones that recognize this strength and preserve it.

Mark Evans: How about the broadcasters? Are they more willing to experiment and get ahead of the game?

Cynthia Brumfeld: Jumping into the Internet doesn’t really cost broadcasters a lot. They already have the video technology and the advertising relationships. However, the traditional broadcasters are losing audiences to cable as well as online. And they’re beginning to look like the dinosaurs of the industry.

Looking at newspapers. Their dependence on revenues from subscriptions to physical distribution of products contributes to their vulnerability to the online media. To the extent that you are dependent upon subscriptions for physical product, you’ll be hurt more by the Internet.

Loren Feldman: The Internet is not just little TV. There’s room for both. “You won’t watch people like me on TV. I do 60-90 second bits.”

Mark Evans: How about the impact of Google and RSS feeds? How do traditional media deal with these?

Rachel Sklar: “I don’t really use RSS. I don’t admit that often. I work hard on my own site and it’s presentation.” Computers don’t have the same feel as tangible media. Working with your computer is a much more solitary experience.

Cynthia Brumfeld: Traditional media will go the way of the dinosaurs. She uses the example of her parents who gave up a newspaper subscription because they could now access it online. The Internet has opened up the geographic reach of what you can reach and watch. Google adds to this. Suddenly, there’s not only one game in town. There’s twenty newspapers, twenty blogs – a multitude of sources that are immediately available.

Question: How will ownership of the pipes influence the shape of new media?

Loren Feldman: “As long as my stuff gets out, I don’t care who, how, what. Just get it out.”

Cynthia Brumfeld: The phone companies led the charge in the U.S. for tiered access. It’s too late. That train has left the station. Carriers will find a way to charge people more for access.

Mark Evans: Does that make the newspaper industry more at risk because they don’t own any pipes?

Cynthia Brumfeld: If Comcast loses subscribers to other media, it can charge its remaining subscribers more to make up for that loss. Newspapers can’t do this.

Question: Do you see your content being used differently by younger generations?

Loren Feldman: We’re in an attention economy. My videos rarely go over 2 minutes. I think that time will decrease to hold onto the attention of a younger generation.

Cynthia Brumfeld: I watch my teenage daughter and her friends. And it seems to me that they stay within fairly limited spaces. MySpace, then FaceBook. They don’t cruise. They don’t explore broadly. They stay within the area that is occupied by their peer group. And that puts limits on the number of different sources demanding their attention. Their world has shrunk as opposed to expanding.

Loren Feldman: It’s ironic. It’s a throwback to AOL.

Rachel Sklar: Quality and ingenuity are factors. Look at Harry Potter. The release of the final book will command and hold attention broadly when it is released.

Loren Feldman: Newspapers will be here in 200 years. People are tactile. They like to touch and hold information. It’s instant. It’s accessible. And remember, lots of people don’t have computers. I like reading a newspaper when I’m in a diner. I don’t want to sit there with a computer. To save themselves, newspapers have to change their content. They won’t be about breaking news. They’ll be about in depth analysis.

Question: What advice would you provide to old media in managing their concept of old media against the user generated concept of popularity.

Rachel Sklar: There’s value in being right. I’d rather be right than first (see Mike Arrington). Being right confers credibility. Every provider determines what resources to put into fact checking and background research.

Loren Feldman. The New York Times shouldn’t worry about things like Wikipedia or Digg. They are a joke.

Cynthia Brumfeld: One of the reasons newspapers were so blind-sided was because they didn’t think that competition was possible. Hubris was one of the big downfalls of traditional media.

Loren Feldman: The one hustler – a Drudge or an Arrington – is a greater threat to traditional media. Because they don’t have the overhead and they are able to build quickly. And once established, the leads and tips come to them.

Question: How do you get traditional journalists to prepare to be online?

Loren Feldman: Just tell them that they won’t have anything to eat.

Cynthia Brumfeld: I’d be very surprised if you had to convince any traditional journalists any longer about the value of being online.

Rachel Sklar: Teach them how to check their Technorati stats. Ego is a good motivator.

Mike Arrington brings TechCrunch to mesh

The mesh conference kicked off with a keynote conversation between TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington and mesh co-founder Mathew Ingram.

Some things that stuck with me:

  • “I know that when I write a post, it’s far better to be first than to be second. Because if I’m first, I don’t have to be witty, intelligent, insightful. I just have to be first.”
  • The best thing that traditional journalists can do is to start wrting their own blogs and to build their own brands. This will protect them against downsizing in traditional media.
  • On Feedback: There’s a discussion on TechCrunch everyday. Arrington gets to set the discussion topic and have first say. Then he watches the comments flow in. He says that he finds the comments to be more interesting than what he has to say.
  • Arrington admits that some of the comments get under his skin. And he enters into the conversation, sometimes with some heat.
  • In fact, we got a real like illustration of this. Ted Murphy of Pay Per Post is attending mesh. He tried to ask Arrington a question. “How’d he get in here?” replied Arrington, who then proceeded to tell the crowd how he feels about Pay Per Post. Pointing to Murphy, Arrington said, “he’s the most evil person in this room.”
  • The future of social networking sites? Three dimensional. Facebook is here to stay. But they will also incorporate elements of the three dimensional experience of Second Life. The future of MySpace is less certain. They could blow it and do a “Friendster.”
  • If you are an entrepreneur thinking of your own startup, you should be thinking of the barriers to entry that will prevent others from following you in and competing with you. In addition to the traditional barrier of superior technology, network effects can provide a substantial barrier to entry. The advantage of developing popularity and a large community of users can make it very difficult for others to follow you in. So, new startups should be looking at having either a technology edge or taking advantage of the network effect.
  • The future of TechCrunch? Video? Audio? Arrington feels that rich media is difficult to create. It takes time to record, schedule, edit and post. It’s also harder to consume. So, right now, text will remain an important part of what Arrington does.

Has Inkless Wells been censored?

Macleans political columnist Paul Wells never hesitates to weigh in with a trenchant comment or a jab at those who he feels need to be called out. And this makes him one of the more entertaining political bloggers. And he seems to be given free rein by the good folks at Macleans to take runs at just about anyone.

But has Paul met his match – in the IT Department at Rogers?

My feedreader picked up the following post:

Welcome, friends!

by Paul Wells

The good news is that, as part of the new bigger Rogers family, all A- Channel employees will be permitted to write blogs with atrocious software on un-navigable websites that will never, ever improve. Because that’s what working for Rogers offers us all. No, don’t thank us!

Well, interesting, I thought. Paul’s really biting the hand this time.

So, I wandered over to Inkless Wells to look at the original post … and guess what? It’s not there!

Yes, the headling, “Welcome, friends” appears. But when you click on the headline for the post, the following message appears where the text of the post would appear:

There are no entries at this time. Check back soon.

CensoredWells?
Only for this post. Click on the headline of any other post and you’ll see the full text of the post associated with that headline.

Has the IT Department at Rogers managed to do something that Prime Ministers, Deputy Ministers and politicians of every stripe have long wished they could do – muzzle Paul?

Now we know where real power resides.

SNAFU of the Week – PR briefing given to journalist

Wired coverOur craving for titillation is satisfied today by the coverage of a memo from Waggener Edstrom intended to prepare a Microsoft exec for an interview with a Wired Magazine writer but which found its way into the hands of the reporter.

As I read the comments on sites covering this story, I see many expressions of disapprobation at the fact that a public relations firm would invest a significant amount of energy in researching a reporter, his predispositions, interests and past writings. I can’t agree with this sentiment.

An interview with a reporter and a news outlet is a conversation. Bad media relations comes from people who simply spout their message repeatedly and endlessly without regard for the interests or perspective of the journalist they are talking to.

We should communicate to be understood, not simply to be heard. And we can be better understood if we communicate in terms that make sense and are of interest to the reporter writing the story.

Every news outlet has different readers and a unique perspective. A well prepared interviewee should be familiar with a reporter’s previous writings, the topics she has covered, the issues that interest her and the perspective she has on them.

That’s the PR person’s job. We research news outlets and reporters as thoroughly as they research their interviewees.

And let’s remember that regardless of how much preparation Microsoft/Waggener Edstrom did, the Wired reporter still had his fingers on the keyboard. No respectable journalist ever writes a story off only one source. Wired’s readers would expect it to develop perspective on the story through independent research and by interviewing a number of different sources.

I can understand the fascination with this issue. It concerns big names – Wired, Microsoft, Waggener Edstrom. And there’s an element of schadenfreude in many of the comments.

What’s really interesting here is that we get to see behind the curtain. And we’re fascinated by how things really work. So, it’s only natural that it should draw an audience. And many people will not like what they see going on. (Have you ever gone into the garage while the mechanics have the parts of your car engine spread around like so much flotsam?)

But at the end, what the Microsoft memo shows is people doing their jobs. And with one big exception, they are doing them well. That exception, of course, is that the memo ended up in the wrong hands. A pretty big mistake. But not the end of the world. And not a great scandal either.

*Thank you to Thomas Hawk for having pointed this story out earlier today.

UPDATE: Posts on this topic that are worth reading: Giovanni Rodriguez, Jon Udell, Mathew Ingram, Eric Eggertson, and Steve Cody.

Citizen Journalism: Weapon of ‘Mass’ Destruction?

The second day of ICE07 opened with a panel of Michael Tippet, Founder of NowPublic, Paul Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Orato.com, Mark Evans, VP Operations of b5media and Angus Frame, Editor of globeandmail.com discussing citizen journalism.
Angus FrameAccording to Angus Frame, Globeandmail.com expects to receive 100,000 comments in March from readers. Frame feels that this greatly enhances the online paper’s relationship with its readers and adds an additional dimension to its coverage of news.

Paul SullivanPaul Sullivan talked about dealing with the “wing nuts.” Orato exercises some editorial control by pushing better stories and contributions to the front page. Other stories “that only their mother could love” languish in a back corner.
Michael TippetMichael Tippet indicated that NowPublic does not edit material. It counts on the community to police itself. He has found that members keep each other moderate through comments. NowPublic’s group of 30 to 40 volunteer editors attempt to demonstrate leadership in this area by flagging both good content and bad content.

Mark EvansMark Evans argued that very few people are citizen journalists. Most people would be better called “citizen observers.” They write about events but they don’t practise journalism. Michael Tippet agreed with Evans, noting that NowPublic sees itself as a news gathering site, not a citizen journalism site.

Paul Sullivan says that he thinks of people as “citizen correspondents.” We’re giving people who would otherwise be voiceless access to the public discussion. “The whole idea of citizen journalism is dangerous in the same way that citizen dentistry would be dangerous.” There is a place for amateur journalism. These voices add something unique and something new.

Angus Frame said that the conversation is really one about what the pool of the masses have to contribute and how they can participate in debate. It’s a new world in how many people can participate and the instantaneous fashion in which they can do it.

And what of concerns about libel laws? Mark Evans indicated that insurance is a necessary element of b5media’s business. Michael Tippet takes the view that NowPublic is not a publisher, but is more like a telephone common carrier. They simply provide the channel for the content. Angus Frame indicated that the Globeandmail.com uses a mediated moderation process. Comments go directly to the site. However, readers can flag content they find problematic and Globeandmail.com editorial staff will then review the comment in question.

Paul Sullivan suggests that he has tried to keep people focused on writing stories more than comments. From the outset, Orato has encouraged people to communicate first person stories. That enables people to talk about things they know best. And in return, they are given final control over their content.

And what of violent and questionable content like the Saddam Hussein beheading video? Angus Frame suggested that globeandmail.com would treat this the same as its current text contributions, relying on its community and staff editors to make the call about the suitability of the content for the site. Michael Tippet argued that as questionable as some content is, it is important to get the information out. Paul Sullivan added that it is a matter of taste. The content is already available on numerous sites. So removing it from an online news site will note eliminate access to it.

Paul Sullivan added that the content on Orato comes “from a different place” than the content generated by professional news organizations. It reflects the interests and the background of the contributors in a way that professional journalism tries not to. It also comes from places that have fallen out of the catchment patterns of traditional news organizations. Remote places and places in which front page news is not being generated.

Angus Frame acknowledged that the new engagement of readers in conversation with the news outlet has led to much more feedback on the quality and content of the coverage generated by the news organization. This is humbling. But it also makes the news organization better as it receives and incorporates this feedback.

Back to the question of whether it is citizen ‘journalism.’ Michael Tippet says whether ‘it’ is journalism is not important. What is important is that people want to do ‘it’. They are writing. They are videotaping. And they are uploading new content. What is important is that it’s happening – whatever it is called. Angus Frame asked, if it’s of value and used by the audience, why does it matter what it is called? If we can achieve a discourse between citizens, then that is what is important. Webster’s dictionary can decide what to call it.

Broadcasters and distributors discuss alternate channels for media content delivery

Non-traditional media delivery of content has moved into the mainstream. And a panel of Scott Dyer, EVP of Corus Kids, Claude Galipeau, Senior VP Digital Media at Alliance Atlantis, Michael Hennessy, VP, Wireless, Broadband and Content Policy at TELUS and Brady Gilchrist, EVP Strategy and Head of BlueScience at Fuel Industries gathered to discuss its implications.

Scott: Webkinz can be thought of as programming. It’s providing a compelling content experience. It’s generating a huge amount of loyalty. And it appears to have some kind of revenue behind it. Is it a channel? Not now. A channel is an aggregator. Could it be a launching point for a channel? Yes, possibly.

Claude Galipeau: Three years ago, no one thought of social media as a likely source of assembling huge audiences. But it certainly is now. And for Canadian programmers, it’s a giant sucking sound going south. The social media sites are experiencing massive growth. And there’s no Canadian site that competes in this space. So, not only is Canada losing eyeballs, but we are losing opportunities to monetize this area.

Michael Hennessy: Telus is in the channels business. Today, half of the company’s revenue is from the wireless business. And Telus is trying to combine content and channels in new ways. We’re reinventing the business because we have to. We got into the television business because the cable guys got into the telecom business. We’re now a multi-platform company. What does this do? Well, if you look at our 5 million customers, we will have 10 to 15 million connection points as customers connect to more than one channel. The social media are bringing people together in communities of interest. And the television networks are picking up on the fact that they can tap into these communities by tapping into the different channels of delivery. At the end of the day, the traditional networks will end up owning this business.

Scott Dyer: From my point of view a channel is an aggregator of content of a particular kind. The narrowness of the niche of the aggregation is a function of the audience you trying to reach and the potential size of it. For us, television has been extremely successful. We’ve always believed that television is the best device to watch television. But if you deliver content that’s appropriate to the delivery channel – for example shorter on mobile – I don’t really care about the platform.

Claude Galipeau: The convention broadcasting channel as a brand has withered away. Channels that are developing brand now are focused on a niche or theme. We want to control the presentation to ensure the integrity of the programming. The issue for us is can we have channels that are monetizable?

Brady Gilchrist: Fuel Industries is a Canadian company that does most of its work in the US. Fuel does branded entertainment. Not a lot of this is being done in Canada. We do a lot of work with brands that are getting into brandcasting. Like Wrigleys. One thing we haven’t been able to invent more of is time. All of the channels are competing for the finite supply of consumer time. With the new generation of gaming we will see the introduction of “smarts” into set top boxes. Even with traditional television, people are using PVRs to use traditional channels as a content pipe. The brand loyalty is being shifted from the broadcaster to the content. This creates challenges for the traditional program distributors in figuring out how to diversify.

Claude Galipeau: The On Demand world is transforming the monarchy of the programmers. But if you look at the ratings, you can see that scheduling flow still works. But we’re certainly seeing the audience act as its own programmer with PVRs. And a lot of broadcasters see this as accretive to the linear broadcast schedule. And it’s particular helpful to serialized drama.

Scott Dyer: Looking at viewership, the research among kids suggests that television consumption is remaining stable, but that consumption of other media is increasing. The On Demand space is additive to the linear space. And even thought our On Demand programming may seem like we are passing control pack to the consumer, we still program it very carefully. It is another way of presenting the brand to the consumer. Linear and On Demand are two sides of the same coin. Looking at our TreeHouse On Demand as an example, it is hugely additive to the traditional lineary TreeHouse schedule.

Michael Hennessy: We really look at broadcasters as partners. Our business is On Demand. It is additive. Never forget that a lot of the drive for content in the On Demand space is the top content in the linear space. What distributors like Telus are becoming is aggregators. Aggregating channels and programming. Helping advertisers to target audiences and niches. However, a lot of this stuff that looks like television isn’t. It’s social activity. And as the time in this online social interaction increases, the opportunities for monetization grow as well. It’s a huge opportunity.

Claude Galipeau: Television is still a very strong medium. Mobile providers are functioning as brand gatekeepers. However, you don’t have this on broadband. So, broadband offers a great opportunities to reach through directly to the consumer.

Scott Dyer: When you look at an aggregation of content, those are the brands that are meaningful. The flattening of distribution gives us the opportunity to program narrower and narrower to interests. The narrower brands will inspire even greater loyalty.

Michael Hennessy: Our game is like the broadcaster did in the past: It’s to aggregate as much content as possible in as many ways to appeal to the broadest audience. The traditional broadcasters are not disappearing. We just want to deliver numbers to advertisers. We want to be huge, but we don’t want to be failures. And being a failure would come from thinking of content as a walled garden.

Brady Gilchrist: The market will dictate what it finds interesting.