MSM = mainstream media and the cover of The Economist captures it well this week with their cover and content inside.

I've banged on about this for a while in different posts and noticed Frank X Shaw from WaggEd discussing it over in GlassHouse. There is also a great interview with the big man in media - Rupert Murdoch - in Wired that captures this well. For a dude who has a lot of vested interest in MSM he really does get it. Rock on Rupert.

Seriously though, I feel bad for the people in MSM who can't see the train coming at them. Many can of course but there are plenty more who are burying their heads in the sand and hoping RSS, blogs, podcasts, Digg, Techmeme, Technorati and others will just wither. It ain't gonna happen. This stuff is here to stay and it's amazing - it's changing the authoritative voice from the few (MSM) to the many (the people) and it's only going to get bigger. Other industries need to be mindful of the change - where the few hold the ability to sway public opinion. How about estate agents (realtors) where their ads always say "a lovely leafy street in Chiswick" whereas what they really mean is "often used by large trucks as a shortcut off the main road". How long before people power and the Internet's reach affects that business? Equally that same business could be radically improved using these technologies - I'd actually like to be able to subscribe to a feed from my local estate agents that tells me when my dream house gets posted.

On and don't get me started on the impact of Google's AdWords and our own AdCenter . The Observer captured this well recently and whilst searching for that article (which was surprisingly hard) I found this seminal stat:

"Recent statistics from the government statistician, the Office for National Statistics, show that 84% of adults who used the web in the past three months searched for information about goods and services"

KACHING!

There is a glimmer if hope though that Frank points out:

"there is a huge role to be played by the MSM -- good writing, good reporting, is not going to be replaced by user generated content, and people will pay, and advertisers will advertise, in areas where there is great content -- online and off"

He has a point - I'm sat here with my hardcopy of The TImes but only got to page 2 before I put it down and logged on....that tells it's own story!

Link to The newspaper industry | More media, less news | Economist.com

 

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