In the July/August issue of EContent Magazine, SIIA’s vice president and general manager of the content division, Kathy Greenler Sexton, explained how in the age of Web 2.0 news moguls can come from a variety of small social media spaces.
“When you think of a mogul … it’s all about relevancy and context, and a mogul has the influence,” says Greenler Sexton. “But influence on the web, depending on who you are, you don’t need that money to match the old moguls of the past. But you will have the influence.”
With cheap or free platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress available to all, news “moguls” can be companies of one working out of their living rooms, not just the wealthy tycoons of the past. Yet Greenler Sexton warns EContent not to assume that means old-fashioned news resources are doomed or can not adjust to the times. Content can come from anywhere – it is quality that differentiates the wheat from the chaff.
“I do think that there are very thoughtful news providers out there that will continue to provide very thoughtful news,” she says. “You have these aggregators who are helping people skim everything and keep up with [the news]. You’re going to have the ‘news of the moment’ or the ‘tycoons of the day.’ You’ll also have very thoughtful writers who might be setting up their own blogs and building very thoughtful businesses out of it…A lot of the traditional players shouldn’t be counted out because they have resources and they have a lot of talent, they’re going to find a way to thrive in this new world. So those traditional moguls, I wouldn’t count them out either.”
With new content providers popping up every day, and new modes of delivery like tablets and mobile phones transforming the way content is presented, the content industry has become an increasingly personalized experience for consumers. It’s up to these providers to determine their value, whether it is up-to-the-minute news updates and discussion (the role of the blogger), highly developed research and analysis (research firms and companies like LexisNexis) or unprecedented access (traditional journalists). For content today to thrive, finding this identity is key for reaching the desired audience.
Tracy Carlin is a Communications and Public Policy Intern at SIIA. She is also a first year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology program where she focuses on intersections in education, video games and gender.
