• by sondra , Jarvis Coffin , August 17, 2005

Halfway through 2005, the incessant chatter about blogs and behavior targeting seems to have mellowed. Spyware is in retreat, spam blockers are saving us all time, and the news is largely about traditional media companies starting to buy online companies again. Most of that news has me worried. Once again, traditional companies are computing the value of Internet new media in terms that strike me as old-fashioned: They are buying content.

If you own a Web site, you may react by thinking, hey, what's wrong with buying content? I wish they'd buy my content! Which is well and good from your vantage point, and I couldn't agree more. Aspiring to sell your property to a larger, perhaps traditional publishing company is a fine ambition and exit strategy after years of passionate, hard work.

If traditional media companies were able to think in very broad ways about owning very many online properties, it might be an equally fine thing for them, too. But it doesn't appear that they think that way. They still think mostly about owning big editorial real estate.

The problem with big online editorial real estate, of course, is that it cannot overwhelm the countless smaller properties that exist today in a new media economy. Owning a media property does not have to be an expensive proposition anymore.

Studios and equipment are not required online as they are in broadcast, nor are four-color presses or trucks, which are both important in the newspaper and magazine businesses. Likewise, editorial quality it is not purely accessible to the rich: One person with the passion and know-how can produce great content online comparable to, say, The New York Times Company.

Until recently, the notion that big content counts for more eyeballs and more eyeballs count toward more revenue has been accepted as the norm. But against the backdrop of a giant ocean of unique Web destinations, how big does the opportunity of any one place appear? Once upon a time, if you owned NBC, you might well have appeared to own one-third of the opportunity inherent in television. No such appearance is possible today; mass audiences and their eyeballs are dispersing.

There's an old maxim that was used to describe the railroad business in the waning days of its glory. It goes something like: "The problem with people in the railroad business is that they don't know they are in the transportation business."

At a conference years ago, I heard a very compelling speaker spin that maxim differently. She said: "The problem with people in the railroad business is that they love the railroad business." The first rendition, of course, made change hard to recognize; the second made change impossible.

The maxim applies perfectly to traditional media. They love content. They are old newspaper people, or television people, or radio people. They love the feel of the paper, the lights and action of the studios.

It's a glamorous business, content. More than one tycoon who made a fortune in some other business has chosen to invest in media. And it's primal: There is an urge to publish deep inside us.

But that's the rub, isn't it? We are all attracted to that urge. It's what makes the Internet work. It's what has caused this incredible, bottom-up new media surge in the first place, and it is why it's likely to persist for as long as the means remain with us. I don't see that urge changing.

I am worried that traditional media companies are back on the prowl for content, because I believe they are setting themselves up for disappointment--again--and propping up real estate with borders that cannot be defended and audiences that cannot be contained. I'm not sure I look forward to having to defend the medium as a consequence of that disappointment.