Digital business model - but who profits?

Vin Crosbie from ClickZ writes that media and digital publishers have been ignoring the obvious  business model for online publishing all these years - aggregating all content and allowing users to choose what they want to read/view. Think iGoogle, on a wider scale.

Traditional publishers toyed around with this concept years ago, but as Crosbie points out they never picked it up and ran with it because it would mean collaborating with their competitors (I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in a post that was inspired by another piece Crosbie wrote).  He calls it “not mass media, but individuated media on a mass scale.”

I understand what he’s getting at, but, frustratingly, he doesn’t go into details about how people actually make money out of this approach. One reason traditional media companies didn’t go down this route is that they correctly realised that if they just shift their traditional advertising models to the web in a format that shares profits with all the players, none of the players is going to make anywhere near the same revenue as they used to. To me, that’s where the digital business model is still missing - what do you make money out of besides banner ads?

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Posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am under Journalism, Media companies, Technology, Writing.

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2 Responses to “Digital business model - but who profits?”

  1. Vin Crosbie Says:
    November 17th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    Sorry to frustrate, but the only reason that I didn’t go into details about how people make money from this business model is because ClickZ.com has a thousand-word column limit (which I slightly overran).

    I hope to explain that business model in early December either on via posts on rebuildingmedia.corante.com or on my own blog (digitaldeliverance.com). I wish I could do it this week, but I’m traveling on business in Europe this week and then have family obligations next week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday in America (the biggest annual holiday in the U.S.)

  2. ray Says:
    November 17th, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    Thanks for replying, Vin. Not criticising your piece, because it has great insights; I’m just really keen to see and debate the revenue/profit options. Look forward to your future postings on this - will keep an eye on your blog. Enjoy your Thanksgiving (I am from Ohio originally and miss the big turkey dinners and football down here!).