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The Next Great Media Company Won't Have a Web Site
Young Urban Professional
Lately I have noticed that many of the people, blogs, news services and more that I want to track are right inside Facebook. I have even filed them under a list called "feeds."
This is very convient since their updates are integrated right into my stream right beside the people that I follow - friends, family, coworkers, etc.
This has tremendous potential. Conceivably the next great media company will be all spokes and no hub. It will exist as a constellation of connected apps and widgets that live inside other sites and offer a full experience plus access to your social graph and robust community features. Each of these may interconnect too so that a media company's community on Facebook can talk to the same on Twitter.
Facebook might be the first venue where this starts. It could become a mini news reader for millions who don't care about RSS or Twitter. Over time this may obviate the need to create large news sites. It's easier to create a rich interactive experience there than start a new news site and hope that people come to you. They won't have time to find or visit.
In some ways this is a return to the old days of AOL where media companies rushed to develop a presence. Ultimately the web won out. But I wonder if we might see a return here to the days of old now that eyeballs are aggregating on socal networks and the connective tissue exists for them to talk to each other.
I do believe it's possible to be successful here. Witness for example the New England Patriots. That said it will be very difficult for existing media companies to make such a move. What's your view?
Reader Comments (40)
This is a concept that I believe has a real potential of coming to fruition. I am seeing the FB feed becoming more and more important in people's lives. Now FB has been really adding some compelling reasons to have a fan page and the fact that it pushes content into a subscribers feed is something that companies cannot ignore any longer. The collective outbound links from the global FB feed is now rivalling referral traffic from Google. Can't argue with those numbers.
I have been very interested in this same subject. That places like Facebook might become or introduce a CMS. Right now apps allow for that, but generally the technology isn't quite there yet. I wrote about this idea of Facebook applications with some ideas for the Online Journalism Blog - NewsCloud has been doing some things along these lines of publishing straight on Facebook. People are sharing and getting their news through Twitter and Facebook more and more. The places are hotbeds for sharing news and viral activity. I don't think that this will happen tomorrow, but I think it is very possible that content could be produced straight onto these applications. And yes, you can sell your own ads too.Here is my post for a couple months back: http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2009/07/08/end-of-news-website/
Steve, I know you advised me to set my goals on becoming an A-List Thought Leader, rather than A-List Blogger -- but from my perspective [as a relatively new social media evangelist] I can't help but feel that the "streaming" aspect of "all spokes and no hub" is much too helter-skelter to pull in everyone we want to include into the conversation.Perhaps, when I am not so new, however, I may "come around."
It might not be the consumer's first stop, but an iteration of the content will certainly still be present on a traditional web browser. Consumers will also tell each other, phones in hand, 'go to this site', still conceiving it as a set of pages sitting on a server somewhere. The content will be so rich on phones that non-technical people will consider them web sites (or games even). Businesses will still point to their 1.0+ web sites, "Visit Coke.com" not, "Visit Coke on the Cloud". Sites will run on multiple devices. Someday holographic projected content, but you'll still the familiar "Experian........com"
Interesting view, Steve. I think the key to your premise is where the eyeballs are. I love Facebook, as it has captured many of my friends who are not techies or early adopters, so I think there is some staying power there for the eyeballs, and that's the first step.The next question, though, is who will provide the service platform and apps and widgets. One key here is the role of entrepreneurs. There is an incredible amount of creativity and energy in the startup community, and they will continue to find new ways and new places to contribute. I don't see them being content with developing apps and widgets for a single platform like Facebook. Then, many platforms will continue to emerge, and that adds instability to the eyeballs as they start looking everywhere.Basically, there is so much entrepreneurism that it is difficult to create a stable platform for eyeballs to settle. Does this churn play a role in your premise?
Yes, maybe. And yet... How does one pay for the content you're showing on Facebook? Show ads around it? Like the nasty advertising that surrounds apps? And what happens if people get bored with Facebook? Do you have to spend all that time creating a presence on the latest buzz-site? Your comparisson to AOL could be apt - what's to say the web won't win again?
There's an element of truth to the phrase, "There's no place like home" and for any organization and individual, there is always going to have to be some centralized place that is considered exactly that - home. I don't think sites like Facebook and Twitter will ever be substitutes for company websites. It would be like saying museums will disappear. There still needs to be place that exists where users acknowledge it as a destination place for authority-based, curated content.
Steve, excellent post. I have been thinking about this topic for sometime and how it pertains to normal businesses. I wrote a post a while back asking if you still need a corporate website - http://bit.ly/12T6OqMore and more large companies are starting to advertise their fan pages or twitter accounts instead of the corporate URL. Friday's, Best Buy and Vitamin Water are just a few examples. Why force the user to go to your website when they can accomplish the same tasks and have a better experience on a social network.
I think the importance of these spokes will continue to grow, but I don't agree that this will ultimately lead to the total obsolescence of the hub. For example, as much as MySpace has done to provide publishing tools for musical artists, every important act outgrows their MySpace page and has a branded site of their own. Even if the majority of your audience relationships happen within the spokes, you still want the option value to connect with your most engaged fans on your own terms, which can only happen on your own branded site where you fully control the experience and the relationship.
Steve, I think that you are right on point with your observation about media consumption habits. The mindset is rapidly accelerating towards 'I want what I want, when I want it, in the method that I choose right here right now'. Will there be one dominate online destination? I haven't honestly given it much thought and here's why. From my point of view media/entertainment entities - I took the liberty of expanding the pool - need to focus on assembling an underlying dispersion platform that allows the consumers of the content to tap in however they desire. I purposely used assemble to express two beliefs. 1) A media producer's value is derived from good content and the trust earned from consistent performance, not selecting the distribution network.2) People desire experiences that don't stop or start at the edge of the online world. Do I have the answer? Obviously not these are just my observations and musings.
Steve, You are right on the money. The key construct, beyond the "all spokes" meme is the interoperable "mesh".
This sounds like an interesting idea, I think my mindset finds it hard to not have a hub somewhere, but I can still see it existing. But this article made me think about a what if. What if Facebook found a way to "dummy" rss and make it available for the masses. I mean how many people currently use rss compared to the number of people currently on Facebook. Why not have sites allow a "Publish to Facebook Feeds" link next to their RSS feeds...
hmmm . . . all this talk about spokes and no hubs and its all happening off the social grid on a website. Linked from Twitter but landed out in WEB 1.0. We're definitely talking about the future here but hopefully one that reaches us quickly.
Well, me (= Geeklistings) is something like what you describe: a classifieds service whithout a web site. Classifieds are first published here in posterous and then propagated to blogger, twitter and, of course, Facebook. So far, it is a proof of concept, not a real service. But it works well. The idea is this: the social web is the platform.
As a web designer I can definitely confirm a trend to move brands to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (still) and other social networks. A lot of work these days comprises out of building full-fledged social media homes. I doubt the website will go away though, considering the volume of traffic corporate clients are still receiving and the greater ability to control their message (most of our clients tend to allow significant user input on their sites). The trends seems to be towards greater integration of corporate (mini-)sites and social networks - brands that focus on this will be the winners of the share of voice game.
It's always amusing to read left-field concepts like this -- and they're almost always from marketing types who are far too divorced from the tech they're discussing to really understand what they're saying.First, though, your analogy dies an amusing death: A wheel needs a hub, otherwise it either breaks or becomes worthless (what can you then attach it to?).Regarding the actual trend you're proposing... in order for it to happen, as has been mentioned here, there needs to be a way to monetize your content, otherwise all the spokes in the world won't make your business profitable.Unless you're trying to get by on advertising (which seems doomed to failure when all of your content is embedded in someone else's delivery systems), you need to be offering something. If you're going without your own website, this means you either need to be putting your content on sites that provide you with some way to process sales or subscriptions, or redirect users to a third party service that will handle this for you.Granted, this is not a technical impossibility... but it does get you in trouble, as you're necessarily depending on third parties to handle all of your income, as well as your content distribution.Is this possible? Yes, perhaps. Is it a good idea? That's subjective, but from a technical standpoint, it leaves your entire business (not least of all your income stream) open to too many uncontrollable issues. It also makes branding more difficult, as you're very limited in what kind of content you can deliver and how it will be presented.Will companies operating in this way have enough potential and be able to generate enough momentum to become "the next great media company?" I seriously doubt it.
I'll believe it when I see the business model.
Very interesting !People have been saying that Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux will soon be obsolete as the browser (Firefox, Chrome ?) is the new OS.What you're saying is that not even the browser is the new OS, but a single (or several related) browser-application "is the new OS" :-) !Initially I thought this sounded a bit silly, but when you look at Facebook, I think a lot of people spend ALMOST all their time online in one "application"...Maybe you can create a viable business 100% inside Facebook ?
I agree with sharisax and also think that this concept puts too great a limit on content. Yes, people's attention spans are diminishing and messaging has to be more concise, but at the end of the day educated consumers, businesses, participants want more complete information and more thorough back-and-forth than these venues effectively provide...at least, in their present forms.
I agree partially. But I don't think it's going to be Facebook. I believe it's going to be Google Reader or Wave. The socially improved GReader is so amazing that it's starting to move all my conversations from Friendfeed to my "shared items" page.
SO totally true. We don't even say we run a website any more - we are a news service - delivering via web, rss, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and wherever else there is to go next - also why I feel better about not having developed a really whizbang website, either - it's the CONTENT, baby!
The decline in traffic to most news sites online and corporate sites and the rise in traffic to social networking sites is clear. But its the context which is important. To be of relevance to peoples lives. And this is why media needs to disrupt and why brands can play an ever more important role in the lives of their customers. Hugh potential for the brave... http://aresonance.posterous.com/the-death-of-the-website
While social networks and Twitter etc are great ways to connect and have conversations, I think there'll still be room for websites - and blogs. It's useful to have a hub where people can go back to for repeat information or archived information/ conversations. Facebooks and Twitter streams, well, stream on and if you've missed an item there, you've missed it - archiving and the ability to search for older items is not one of their strengths
"Lately I have noticed that many of the people, blogs, news services and more that I want to track are right inside Facebook. I have even filed them under a list called 'feeds.'"Steve: I have several Facebook lists created to separate friends and family members, but I'm curious how you created your "feeds" list. When I attempt to create a new list, I'm directed to my current friends. I would like to have a list showing the groups to which I belong and companies/organizations in which I am a "fan."
I think from the beginning, of Clearspring (where I work) and our sharing platform, the importance of having a distributed online presence has been a central thesis. Time and time again we see clients utilize our widget platform and end up getting more traffic to their widgets then they do to their Web site.It makes sense. Our attention spans aren't big enough to allow us to remember to check 20 or 30 Web sites on a regular basis. I regularly look at 5 or 6. That's why being able to distribute your content into many venues is so important. It decides whether or not people discover and utilize your content.