mediamachina

Now we are trying to visualize two factors of the Web that change the traditional-media environment: the speed of two-way communications, and the integration into one ecosystem of all the exchanges that are part of making a mass media. #

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figure 5: Acceleration of all communications #

Observations on figure 5 #

Once again: this is not intended to reflect reality, just a figurative way to grasp the changes of context. To visualize the effects of the new speed of communication brought by the Web, we tweak our triangle in figure 3 into circles representing continuous exchanges : #

• Black arrow, down: media to users (the usual content provided by the media).
• Blue arrows, up: users to media (readers mail, comments).
• Blue arrows, left and right: exchanges between users within the media (forums, comments).
• Green arrows: exchanges between our users outside of the media (flickr, facebook, Twitter: the whole Web).

The Web runs at the speed of electricity. This is very fast: if we want to grasp what’s going on (and where we are headed to), we have to project these exchanges as a continuum, a constant flux.
These curves will be used in the next diagrams in  the same way: to represent very fast communications within relationships. #

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figure 6: Content exchanges with speed #

Observations on figure 6 #

We are talking as media people and we continue to look at the situation from a media-centric point of view (for now). #

• In figure 4, we have placed the media at the middle of two opposites triangles: the top one showing the sources (basically the whole world) concentrating into the media, the bottom one from the media to the public (blue line).
• Now we are combining the triangles of figure 3 with the circles of figure 5, showing a series of flowing exchanges:
• Top black circle: exchanges of the editorial department with online sources: content that we get, content that we give (a part of which Jeff Jarvis named “The link economy”).
• Lower black circle: exchanges with readers; content that we send to them and content that they send to us.
• Blue ellipse: content that readers exchange between themselves within our media.
• Green ellipse: content that our readers exchange outside of the media.
• Green arrows: here we introduce a new phenomenon brought by the Web ecosystem: content that our readers exchange directly with our sources (news agencies, weather, sports franchises, news search, etc.).

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figure 7: All exchanges with speed #

Observations on figure 7 #

To complete the picture, we just add, in red, the flows of money: #

• Top red circle: exchanges between the media and its advertisers.
• Lower red circles: exchanges between the media and its readers.
• Lower red ellipse: business between our users outside of the media.
• Red arrows: direct business between our users and our advertisers who have e-commerce sites.

I love drawings: it makes everything very visible and transparent. Look at the bottom red ellipse showing our readers “doing business between themselves outside of the media”: here are the platforms like craigslist, eBay, Etsy. #

We could also add more details in each of the 9 flows of exchanges, but for now let’s keep this “simple”. #

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figure 8: The dangers: the media is bypassed and marginalized #

Observations on figure 8 #

Here we see the dangers that threaten the traditional relationship between mass media and their users: all these new forces present in the ecosystem begin to take the users away from the media. #

• Green vertical (dotted) ellipse: our users establish direct and growing exchanges with content sources.
• Red vertical (dotted) ellipse: our users establish direct and growing business exchanges with advertisers and merchants.
• Green and red horizontal ellipses at the bottom: our users expand their exchanges among themselves outside of the media, for content (green) as well as for business (red).

What we see is a worst-case scenario if the media doesn’t do anything: #

• the content of the media is marginalized because the users have growing exchanges with the content sources and between themselves (green ellipses).
• the attention business that the media did with its users and its advertisers is bypassed by the direct exchanges between advertisers and users (red dotted ellipse).
• the business that the media did with users within the media (classifieds) is bypassed by users doing business directly between themselves outside of the media (red horizontal ellipse).

As we have already observed, the Web allows very fast and continuous communications. So the bypassing and the marginalization of the media are already proceeding faster and faster. #

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figure 9: The solutions: the media has to strengthen all its exchanges
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Observations on figure 9 #

This simple graph shows that the only way for the media to survive this hemorrhage is to strengthen all exchanges opposing the forces shown in figure 8: #

• Top black circle: content exchanges with sources.
• Lower black circle: content exchanges with users.
• Top red circles: business exchanges with advertisers.
• Lower red circle: business exchanges with readers.
• Blue ellipse: content exchanges between users within the media.

This is not a road map: it’s an analysis of the situation. It shows that whatever we explore, whatever we implement for adapting our media to the Web, anything that does not contribute to strengthen our exchanges with our sources, our readers and our advertisers is probably useless. #

This can also be used as a template against which we can measure all our business model experiments: our survival as media depends on finding ways to stabilize relationships using two-way communications in an ever-accelerating environment. #

Interesting. #

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photography: Speeding Light on flickr by Alan Jaras 2009

used with permission of the artist

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Analysis, Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Mots clés :acceleration, advertisers, business, communications, craigslist, dangers, ebay, ecommerce, ecosystem, electricity, etsy, exchanges, flow, mail, media, news, readers, relationship, solutions, sources, speed, users