The boiling frog

I had the chance to attend the Media and Money conference (link to conference site) last week. It's not part of my current world but was a chance to take a peek at my old world, for which I still have a great deal of fondness. However, I also harbor a great deal of frustration at how slowly "mainstream media" is changing. A few observations from sitting in the back rows with the bloggers.

Protection. Until recently I haven't really appreciated why these companies are so slow to change. It's because they have so much to protect. Only a tiny percentage of all advertising is online and cash flows at many big companies are still quite decent. It still doesn't excuse the snail-pace many are following but it explains this a bit better, at least to me.

All about content. Several of speakers pounded this home. Michael Eisner and Sumner Redstone were the most prominent. I think they're right (maybe I think that because that's my sweet spot) but I don't think it's just that. It's also all about the conveyance (channel) and the way it's delivered. Along with that comes credibility. And that's where many mainstream outlets suffer. Not because of Jayson Blair but because they're viewed as the establishment and not part of the leading edge.

Be afraid. I don't think enough are. Michael Schrage (bio) asked the people on his panel (James Brady, washingtonpost.com, Nora Ephron, Huffingtonpost.com, Susan Lyne, Martha Stewart, Susan Whiting, Nielsen Company) if they weren't the least bit concerned that Google (which professes to be a technology company, not a media company) had already figured out how to sell ads against content and make a damn good living at it. All the panelists said no, or something to that effect. Not the right answer in my opinion.

Don't ignore the techology. Several executives professed to not know very much about the technology now conveying content. Nora Ephron made several comments about how little she understood how blogs work other than her posting comments. Susan Lyne talked about seeing her child's Facebook account on occasion but not about joining Facebook or understanding it. (She did mention she viewed Facebook as a modern day Filofax. Interesting comment but I think it sells Facebook, and other social networking sites, short.) In short, if I were one of those executives I'd be diving head first into all these tools to get a better understanding of how this stuff works. The perception is already out there that many mainstream media types haven't a clue. (See example.)

Google won't hire me. Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair columnist, (news clips) made a great point during his session, The New Frontier in Media Investing. I am not sure if he was making a statement or a question but he wondered aloud if anyone on his panel (or at the conference) could be hired by Google today. Michael's answer was probably not. Call Google whatever you want but it is shaping the way we experience getting information and the fact that the most powerful people are not hireable by Google means something. It means these people better understand the new frontier and, more important, use it.

Other coverage:

paidContent.org
Silicon Alley Insider
Read/WriteWeb