An old-media chief executive senses the birth of a media revolution and provides adoption tips
Rupert Murdoch is a classic old media titan. He’s the majority shareholder and chief executive of News Corporation, the ambiguously named media multinational that owns
- 20th Century Fox
- HarperCollins book publishing company
- Fox Broadcasting
- Dozens of newspapers (New York Post, The Sunday Times of the UK)
- Dozens of magazines (TV Guide, The Weekly Standard, Vogue Australia)
- MySpace.com
- And a dizzying list of other businesses and assets
When Rupert Murdoch speaks, everyone listens. His position in the world gives him “canary in the mine” status for the media business—and the canary is singing.
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Murdoch wrote a letter published at Forbes.com on Monday to try to explain how his business is evolving, and he hit several points that we at the Mequoda Group have been hammering into our readers for years.
“People’s expectations of media have undergone a revolution. They are no longer content to be a passive audience; they insist on being participants, on creating their own material and finding others who will want to read, listen and watch,” Murdoch said in his letter.
This is why building a community attributed to your online publication is so important. Users want to comment and add their own spin on what your publication offers. If you establish a forum for this kind of content on your website, and make it easy enough to use, it will draw more users because they will want to contribute and see other users’ posts.
“Quality is more important than ever, because the marketplace is more ruthlessly competitive,” Murdoch said.
The Mequoda Group is always pushing for more valuable content for users. Publishers should ask themselves, “will this new tool offer more value to our online customers, or is it just a flashy toy?” Also, continuously providing good content is an excellent way to protect your brand.
Murdoch concludes his letter with “The future of media is a future of relentless experimentation and innovation, accelerating change, and—for those who embrace the new ways in which consumers are connecting with each other—enormous potential.”
In short: be adaptive or die. If your company has not started embracing the digital world, then you are losing out on “enormous potential.”
To learn how to capture the enormous revenue potential online, attend our Generating Website Revenue Webinar. During the webinar, you will learn how to construct media websites that encourage users to interact with your media brand, develop a trusted relationship and generate website revenue for your organization.
