Which Old Media Gets Social Media?

Author: Jay Deragon

06 4th, 2009

In Kevin Kelly’s book, “The New Rules of The New Economy” he states “The new economy is about communication, deep and wide. Communication is the foundation of society, of our culture, of our humanity, of our own individual identity, and of all economic systems. Communication is so close to culture and society itself that the effects of technologizing it are beyond the scale of a mere industrial-sector cycle. Communication, and its ally computers, is a special case in economic history. Not because it happens to be the fashionable leading business sector of our day, but because its cultural, technological, and conceptual impacts reverberate at the root of our lives.”

Kevin’s perspectives lead us back to the issues of what methods create the best results. With any transformational changes in society and businesses a trail of issues can be tracked which drove the emergence of the new order of things. In the world of networks the trail is hits which represent activities, communications—- traffic.

Traffic represents attraction which creates engagement of people and things, a transaction. Google’s whole economic value is driven by the hits economy, traffic. While most of the major media has “gone social“, one wonders which branded media is doing it right. After all, the news is the news and you can get it anywhere for free.

Using traffic as one medium of measure we can see, statistically speaking, the major brands like Business Week, Wall Street Journal and Fox News have created a stable “system” of traffic. However, a stable system is not necessarily a good thing in the world of attention and attraction. While the brands illustrated draw millions of viewers to their sites statistically speaking the traffic patterns suggest the attention and attraction methods have not increased the traffic or their draw hasn’t increased attention and attraction. A systemic shift is simply not indicated by the data.

Comparing Old Media vs. New Media

Traditional media use the web to facilitate the distribution of news, not relationships. Which creates increased traffic patterns?

In the opening of this post one of the major media brands illustrated is Business Week. As with the others their traffic patterns are stable. Now examine Business Weeks initiative called Business Exchange, a portal of blogs added to a taxonomy of subjects. Now look at the charts illustrating the grown of Business Exchange. Do you see the obvious?

Statistically speaking the growth rate exceeds the rate of change for the old media sites of Business Week, WSJ and Fox News combined. Rate of change is the factor of conversational currency. Overall traffic, if not changing statistically, is an indication of “static interest“. A bank makes money based in the rate of change in interest using other peoples money. Conversational currency drives a rate of change in interest. Traffic precedes relationships and transactions follow relationships.

When you examine the traffic of Business Exchange against the old media sites which site create the greatest rate of change? The answer is obvious. The reason for the change is that “interest in media” has changed from the old model to the new model driven by the consumer. Business Exchange has grown exponentially because it is driven by the media created by the people rather than by the traditional model of media. However the journalist from Business Week and elsewhere are learning from the Business Exchange model. Learning is an attraction.

John Byrne’s, Editor in Chief of Business Week, engineered Business Exchange as well as a strategic relationship with Linkedin. If you wanted to place bets on which old media wins the new media game who would you bet on? What would happen to Business Exchange if they adopted the new model of journalism?

Follow John and his team and you may witness a disruptive force of talent on the horizon. One other thing. If your not involved in the community of Business Exchange your missing conversational currency, traffic. Get it?

What say you?

Highlight any portion you want:

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