There’s little in this UPI article that will be of news to our long-time readers. But it definitely confirms a number of trends we’ve been discussing over the past three years:
“There is a democratization of media going on before our eyes,” said Scott Anthony, co-author of “Seeing What’s Next” (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), and a partner in Innosight LLC in Watertown, Mass. “A small number of people used to determine what was, or was not, newsworthy. Now, it is an online collective that says this is interesting, or not interesting, news.”
Anthony said this is an example of “disruptive innovation” in the media business, which has a parallel to the rise of the personal computer back in the late 1970s.
“Disruptive innovation uses relatively cheap, relatively simple technologies to give people what they want,” Anthony told The Web. “Look at the early days of the computer industry. Back then, Digital Equipment Corp. looked at the (personal computer) and saw no reason why anyone would want one in their home — but people were delighted with product.”
Anthony predicted that 20 years from now, there will be an entirely new industry based on blogs. [I thought 2014 was the target date–Ed] Just a few years ago, he noted, when eBay was launched, it was selling novelty items, such as Pez candy dispensers. Today, it is a major retail force that even sells automobiles.
“The established media companies are going to have to deal with the blogs,” Anthony said. “This pattern of starting simply and expanding will have profound effects. Thirty years ago, Digital Equipment had delighted customers, and sound management principles, like listening to their customers, but the wave of change caused by the PC overwhelmed them.”
Kind of ironic: this latest wave of change will overwhelm the PC.
(Since it was found in a post that Steve Green titled, “Linky Love“, it’s only fair to credit him for the link.)
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