Members of the mainstream media seem to have trouble looking at Demand Media, understanding its success and the fact that it is pioneering a new and valuable form of content creation. This trouble is illustrated perfectly by an article by David Carr, the media specialist for the New York Times. The article is surprisingly fair, but the author's feelings are easy to read.
At least from the article, it appears that the author (along with nearly all mainstream-media writers on this subject) either isn't familiar with the Innovator's Dilemma, or is unable or unwilling to apply the concepts to his or her own industry.
It's really not that different from the transitions between disk drive form factors, an example used by Clayton Christensen in his classic book (The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail) on the subject.
In each case, the people who are invested in the older technology look at the newer one as inadequate, cheap, failing to meet crucial requirements, and so on. They fail to appreciate how the new technology opens up new markets, fills unmet needs, and satisfies new classes of customers.
In this case, the old-media establishment is stuck on the notion that any form of media production must meet the following criteria:
- a small number of
- high-priced,
- full-time workers in
- central offices, producing
- small amounts of content that are released in a
- small number of
- elite outlets that
- charge readers for access
By contrast, Demand Media is pioneering media that meets the following criteria:
- a large number of
- moderately paid,
- part-time workers in
- distributed locations, each producing
- as much content as they choose, which is
- released on the internet and is
- free to readers,
- supported by advertising
Since Demand Media knows it's pioneering, it is experimenting and iterating its way to success, largely driven by direct feedback from its new class of customers. They are learning new things every day.
Again, the Times article was a relatively fair one; but critical feelings about Demand Media are completely understandable -- simply put, the people who make them often feel threatened by DM's success. But the day is long past when a small number of highly influential media figures can sway the thinking of the public. In the end, the internet is enabling consumers to vote with their "feet" (actually, their fingers and clicks), and from all the evidence, the number of votes in favor of Demand Media is growing at a rate that the management of old media can only dream about.
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