QandO

September 10, 2004

As usual Lileks nails it
Posted by McQ

Seems Lileks likes the "old media/new media" characterization as well:

Blogs haven’t toppled old media. The foundations of Old Media were rotten already. The new media came along at the right time. Put it this way: you’ve see films of old buildings detonated by precision demolitionists. First you see the puffs of smoke – then the building just hangs there for a second, even though every column that held it up has been severed. We’ve been living in that second for years, waiting for the next frame. Well, here it is. Roll tape. Down she goes. And when the dust settles we will be right back where we were 100 years ago, with dozens of fiercely competitive media outlets throwing elbows to earn your pennies.

It would appear that if the old media is to survive it needs to quickly recognize the sea change at work here. It needs to join the new media instead of looking down its nose at it.

The old-line media, like its Boomer components, got old, and like the Boomers, it preferred self-congratulation to self-reflection. And so the Internet had it for lunch, because the Internet does not have to schedule 17 meetings to develop a strategy for impactfully maximizing brand leverage in emerging markets; the Internet does not have to worry about how a decision will affect one’s management trajectory; the Internet smells blood and leaps, and that has turned the game around, for better or worse. So we’re back to where we were in 1904 – except that the guys on the corner shouting WUXTRY, WUXTRY aren’t grimy urchins selling the paper – they’re the people who wrote the damn thing, too.

In the military there's a term for what is happening. We're told that in order to beat an enemy we need to "get inside his decision cycle". If you do that you're calling the shots and all he can do is react to your moves. In a sense that's what is happening here. Bloggers are on the story immediately and continuously. Its like the work of a hive, with information and bloggers coming and going, sharing and comparing. The product is scrutinized, parts of the theory are dumped, new parts are added as more and more information becomes available. Thousands participate through articles, comments and cites.

Meanwhile, plugging along at their relatively sluggish pace, with their limited staff and fixed publishing or broadcast times, the old media is simply overwhelmed.

Look at the stories out there today. They're essentially reporting today what bloggers knew and reported yesterday. They've been overwhelmed and they are figuring out there's no chance the "old way" will ever return.

This is an amazing thing to watch.

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