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Bob Garfield on the Internet, Boiling Frogs, and Money

Posted by: Heather Green on March 26

Bob Garfield casts an eye on the new and old media landscape and his takeaway is dystopian. It’s a veritable laundry list of all that’s going wrong with advertising in the newspaper, magazine, cable, and oh yes, Internet business. Basically, the takeaway for why so many media properties aren’t prospering, whether it’s the NYTimes or huh, YouTube, is oversupply, he writes. Oversupply of stuff to read and be a part of, because of the easy publishing made possible by the Internet. And thus, an oversupply of advertising space, undercutting any models.

“Thus, the mantra: ‘We have the audience. All we need is a business model.’ As if adequate revenue were somehow guaranteed by physics or heavenly deity. It isn’t. I’ve pored over Isaac Newton and the Ten Commandments. There is no ‘Thou shalt monetize.’”

It’s the first time I remembering seeing the problem that’s affecting not just old media but new media stated this clearly. It’s a swipe at that overwhelming optimism about the Internet and that startles me. After watching the net for 15 years, there are cycles of optimism and we’re on the way down, it definitely feels like.

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Reader Comments

Ken Kadet

March 26, 2009 11:29 AM

It's a good point, worth remembering.

At some point, the third-party payer model for media has to change.

Either you need a new third party (foundations, large sponsor, other paid services that support free content), or you aim for a smaller audience willing to pay for your product.

Ken Leebow

March 27, 2009 11:05 AM

Heather,

I begin all my presentations about the Internet stating that: "The Internet is Infinity."

If we use that as the starting point, most other issues/concepts will fall into a logical pattern.

Next on the disintermediation hit list: TV/Movie Theaters. Over the next few years, they'll be in the same pickle as the newspaper industry.

Kindest regards,

Ken Leebow
http://TV.Leebow.com

marco

March 30, 2009 06:11 PM

Boil all the frogs you like....

Trouble is that the Internet is infinity, hence immeasurable.

If AT&T get their way, it might indeed go the way of the Newspaper industry.

Disintermediation is a fact of life, but once governments/regulators and lobbyists try to exert control, it could get deeply unfunny.

atm it works remarkably well.

Whether on a Blackberry or a fibre-optic link.

All I might suggest is resist all interference.

Good ideas, whether social or revenue generating can and should persist

MF

marco

March 30, 2009 06:29 PM

To follow my last comment. Net Neutrality is not a buzzword. It is an essential need. Mobile phone companies in the UK are "giving away" laptops. Why?
Because they realise that a Blackberry or other good PDA can do 90% of what a $2000 laptop could do two years ago.
The plain fact is that the telcos have not invested, but milked the fixed-line consumer by not investing.
Now reality hits. People Twitter. They mostly have GPS on their mobile phones.
Copper wires are (or rather should be) a thing of the past.
I do use Twitter on a very selective basis.
People make money from good ideas, whatever the medium. The last thing the world needs is governmental/corporate interference or terminal lassitude

Kindest
MF

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In Blogspotting Senior Writer Stephen Baker and Associate Editor Heather Green take a look at how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society. Whether its blogs or wikis, data crunching or data targeting, technology’s advances are reshaping the world that we live in.

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