Culture: Purpose-Driven Media

Richard Siklos of the the NY Times has written a very interesting article about the future of media.

Excerpted:

Media Frenzy
Death by Smiley Face: When Rivals Disdain Profit

"The tectonic changes facing media companies are by now the topic of an often-recited sermon. Put briefly, digital technology is placing control over much information squarely in the hands of consumers and creating all kinds of opportunities for new entrants who can push the revolution forward.

Understandably, attention in this race is focused on the companies that are, as the management consultants like to say, transferring value from conventional outlets to new disruptors that deliver personalized media more efficiently and hence with greater profitability. In other words, to the victor go the spoils.

The obvious standouts are Google and Yahoo with their aggregation software, prominent brands and ability to layer advertisements all over the Internet and perhaps beyond; or Apple Computer with its iTunes and iPod and their utter dominance over portable music.

Consider Monster Worldwide, the online employment advertising company, where the numbers tell the story: Monster, the owner of the www.monster.com site, has a stock market value of $6.2 billion, some 40 percent greater than the amount for which Knight Ridder, the newspaper chain owner, is being sold. But Monster has only one-third of Knight Ridder's $3 billion in annual revenue.

There is another breed of rival lurking online for traditional media, and it is perhaps the most vexing yet: call it purpose-driven media, with a shout-out to Rick Warren, the author of "A Purpose-Driven Life," for borrowing his catchphrase.

These are new-media ventures that leave the competition scratching their heads because they don't really aim to compete in the first place; their creators are merely taking advantage of the economics of the online medium to do something that they feel good about. They would certainly like to cover their costs and maybe make a buck or two, but really, they're not in it for the money. By purely commercial measures, they are illogical. If your name were, say, Rupert or Sumner, they would represent the kind of terror that might keep you up at night: death by smiley face.

Probably the best-known practitioner is Craigslist.org, the online listing site..."


Could this be a sign that society is reflecting some kind of "new moral resurgence"?