http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704825504574582343994653198.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and four other publishers are coming together to create a company that will make print material available on mobile devices such as smart phones and e-readers.
This doesn’t strike me as any particularly clever idea, or one that will make that great of a difference, but at least it’s a move that’s forward-thinking rather than catching up. It seems like so many of print’s problems are because of or exacerbated by purely re-active thinking. Where would they be now if they had been on top of new mediums like Craigslist that undermined their monopoly on classifieds?
While this joint venture doesn’t sound all that significant to me in terms of predicting consumer demand, it is significant that competing media firms are joining forces in order to prepare for a quite uncertain future. Steps like this which seek to fill future consumer needs before someone else steps in to do so are what Big Media need to take in order to survive and thrive. The article says that executives in the news industry don’t want to lose control of their business the way the music industry did. To avoid that they must embrace new technology and adapt quickly to it, just as consumers do. The article states that this joint venture is considering technology that hasn’t even been invented yet. This is what needs to be happening.
