6 August 2008

Time-Warner segregates content from carriage

The message is clear.

Nearly a decade ago, Steve Case was the big man at America On Line, which, like a tail wagging the dog, acquired one of the world's most reputed media content companies, Time -Warner Inc, because AOL owned the Net connections that would carry content to homes.
Then came the dot-com bust...and then Web 2.0 and all that. It is now clear that content and carriage of content need not be, and in fact, better not be, in the same company.
AOL's carriage part is being separated from the content part.
This is the future of the Net - and indeed the media.
A few decades ago, publishers owned presses.
One decade ago, the pipe-wallahs took content.
Not any more.
My next prediction: Ad sales will be increasingly separated from content. It is happening already on the Web with publishers and ad networks working as partners, and not as one entity.
Why can't that happen to old-world old media houses?
I see it happening, though the pace could be painfully slow.

1 comment:

Aqui said...

This was lovely tto read