Faster horses
Knowledge is expensive. You could buy "How to make money in an IP-based world?", a paper offered by the STL consultancy, which sponsors the Telco 2.0 site, but it will set you back £4,950 for a group license. A bit stiff, that, but it might be a bargain if you are a Telco 1.0 company hoping to move up the food chain. If you don't have loadsa money to spare, however, Telepocalypse, the blog of STL consultant Martin Geddes, is a great resource.
Expensive, too, at $1,500, is the "European Media Consumption Consumer Survey 2006" from Jupiter Research. It made waves last week when it stated that European consumers spend more time online now that they devote to newspapers and magazines. A similar study of US habits found that Americans are spending 14 hours a week online — as much time as they spend watching television — and just three hours reading print. "The fact that internet consumption has passed print consumption is an important landmark for the establishment of the internet in Europe," Mark Mulligan, research director at Jupiter, told the Financial Times. "This shift in the balance of power will increasingly shape content distribution strategies, advertising spend allocation and communication strategies."
So, how are the players responding to this epochal shift? Well, on the other side of the Atlantic Josh Quittner, editor of Business 2.0, is moving his magazine to a new model where blogs are central. Quittner says every journalist at the title must create a blog. Such a strategy will offer "more ad revenue opportunities," he believes. On this side of the pond, the German financial daily, Handelsblatt, is taking a YouTube tack with its Elektrischer Reporter, who provides a wry look at the news. Presenter Mario Sixtus is the "brand" in the multimedia mix.
Tomorrow, here, a mag biggie goes beyond print by adding user-generated content and Web 2.0 widgets to its sites. By the way, it was Henry Ford who said, "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have said faster horses."
