Publishers and the Smiling Curve

That meant there were three strategies available to media companies looking to survive on the Internet. First, cater to Google. This meant a heavy emphasis on both speed and SEO, and an investment in anticipating and creating content to answer consumer questions. Or you could cater to Facebook, which meant a heavy emphasis on click-bait and human i... See more

We are so focused on evaluating our social networks and broadcast platforms from a distribution perspective that we often forget to analyze the other side of the two-sided content marketplace: creation. But our current internet culture is as much driven by frictionless distribution as it is by frictionless creation.

“Content is king” became a cliche because it was the hallmark of the media business. Without great content, not much else matters. But the platform and scale era scrambled that. Distribution became the gamechanger. Publications had BuzzFeed envy. By the same token, media’s indirect business models -- content in some publishing organizations can be ... See more