Today’s WSJ has two very interesting articles/perspectives. First on the front page you see a story on how TV is trying to build fences against the Web. An interesting part from this is
Baseball is just one example of how the TV business depends upon a network of invisible fences and geographic limitations. Now the Web is obliterating them. As broadcasters start to fear the consequences, some are trying new technical and legal tricks to fight back. In some cases, they are even re-creating online the same kinds of geographic boundaries that supported their business before the digital age.
Next, on the opinion page, Mr. Pruitt who is chairman and CEO of the McClatchy Company, which this week signed a deal to acquire Knight-Ridder, Inc, has a column ‘Brave New World’ . In this column he is very defensive about the future of Newspapers
To many, ink spread across newsprint pages seems old-fashioned and destined to disappear. This conventional wisdom has become so pervasive that you can buy the nation’s second-largest newspaper group, Knight-Ridder, for a price that would have seemed an unimaginable bargain only a few years ago. But while that kind of thinking might be good for our company — we were the buyer, after all — it’s wrong. The fact is, newspapers are still among the best media businesses — and the most important.
Later on he argues about the future
But of course our products have changed as we have all been forced to adapt. Today’s daily newspaper is the engine driving a multimedia company that includes popular Web sites, foreign language publications, direct marketing initiatives and much more. Replacing the notion of “readers” with “audiences,” we’re fast becoming multi-platform, 24/7 news companies — and it’s working.
Here you see, the future os new media is right here on the Web. Brave New World is the world of the Web. Both TV as well as Gutenbergean medium (Newspapers are 400 year old !!!) see that. And that is exciting because the new media is going to be media independent and message rich.