Robot Loves Kitten

The thing I’m probably most worried about when it comes to the future of all this media is that, knowingly or not, these companies are moving from a past of plentitude, where they enjoyed two overlapping revenue streams, to a single-stream future.

I don’t see any of these new media experiments, regardless of platform, supporting the traditional double-dip of subscription and advertising revenues. And it’s probably safe to say that the two revenue models are themselves diverging, advertising moving toward advanced behavioral targeting, and subscriptions moving toward micropayments, making it even harder to blend them successfully together into a lux, Conde Nast-style cocktail of profits.

The following is an interesting presentation about outsourcing production tasks. This likely won’t work for smaller orgs, but it might get you thinking about ways to trim time and money by tweaking your processes. Think Pareto Priniciple, wherein 80% of effects come from 20% of causes — i.e., keeping it simple can still deliver most of the benefits.

Newspaper Outsourcing –

So, how are you going to make a better, profitable product in a more competitive future where you’re making less money? It’s a tough question. The landscape’s changed forever.