"Old Media" hates the web
Last week Vanity Fair held its New Establishment Summit where it covered things like technology and education, the culture in Silicon Valley, or why old media might really want the web turned off. While Kara Swisher, co-executive editor for Re/Code is credited with the quote "old media hates the Internet and wishes it would go away" the thought is far from unique.
But that is the thing about disruption, it is uncomfortable, brash, and doesn't have to play by the established rules. Old media or what educators might call mass media has every right to want the web to go away, it won't but they have that right. Unlike the disruptions before, this new phase of human communication doesn't look back fondly on its counterparts or even use them to build and audience like the wars between radio and newspapers in the early parts of the 20th century. The Internet is a black hole that is sucking all of those mediums into its galaxy to create and recreate the world on at least a weekly basis. The response from these giants can come in only two ways adaptation or extinction.
Companies like Vice, Netflix, Snapchat, Whisper, or whatever URL the zeitgeist reflects have the benefit of using all the data from newspaper, television, radio, magazine, and movies to create products and services that are either completely new or hybrid in nature. The question I often find myself asking is why didn't the old guard follow suit? Or even see it coming?
Certainly, to be fair there are plenty of companies born out of the old guard that have gotten on the surfboard to try the web waves out, but for every one that does there are seven that do not and while this site is a parody site, the blog seems so spot on for how most of the heads of mass media think, it would be a shame not to share:
The most apt quote in the blog is this "Hollywood studios need to remember this – WE DECIDE WHO IS FAMOUS AND WE DECIDE WHO GETS TO PRODUCE CONTENT!"
While the quote in jest tells you everything you need to know about Hollywood (yes, new Nicholas Sparks movie I am talking to you) it is also completely false. You decide. You get to produce or consume as you wish in the age of the web, and that is and has been the promise of the web.