What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [33]
The fragmentation of media threw business strategies into a dither. Advertisers still wanted to buy us en masse, so media had to work harder to find a mass to satisfy them. It was then that People shifted from covering the event in the star’s career to the event in the star’s life, and other publications followed the lead. Bodily fluids journalism, I called it: stories about celebs’ deaths, diseases, affairs, scandals, weddings, babies, divorces. The balance of power at mainstream publications—at least on their covers—shifted from news to celebrity, journalism to gossip, editor to PR person, hack to flack. Stars realized the dollar value that their names and faces brought to magazines, and that’s when their publicity people took over. Editors used to act as gatekeepers to the most valuable commodity—the audience. But then PR people became gatekeepers to a more valuable asset—celebrity. They would negotiate access, guarantees of covers, photo approval, selection of reporters, and even the ability to pick and change their quotes. PR people held such power because they now held the key to magazines’ ability to attract large audiences. Magazines all wrote about the same celebrities and scandals—they went more mass—but that was because there were fewer topics that would attract lots of buyers. Too many of us were busy watching Discovery instead of Dynasty. And that, in turn, changed the economics of TV content. Networks seeing their shrinking masses could less afford to gamble on expensive dramatic shows, let alone miniseries (remember them?). They were replaced by so-called reality TV, which was not only cheaper but also more sensational.
What replaces the mass? The aggregation of the long tail—the mass of niches—does. We each gravitate to our own interests and, thanks to the new and inexpensive tools of content creation online, there’s sure to be something for everyone—and if there isn’t, we can make it ourselves. The 500-channel world never materialized. Instead, the billion-choice universe emerged. Internet tracking service comScore said in 2008 that we watched 10 billion videos a month online. Of course, none of them individually had the ratings of the Super Bowl. But together, those 10 billion videos captured a huge amount of our attention. eMarketer says 94 million Americans read 22.6 million blogs in 2007—more than there are newspapers and magazines: blogs about knitting, blogs about heart disease, niche blogs about writing niche blogs. As I write this book, Wikipedia has 2.3 million articles and even it has new competitors, including the Star Wars version, Wookiepedia. Everyone, and every interest, has a place online.
Advertisers, addicted to one-stop shopping, still spend huge budgets on TV that are way out of proportion to the time the audience spends there versus the time we now spend on the internet. That can’t last forever. Soon, agencies will have to work for a living. Instead of reflexively buying slots on primetime TV, they will need to put together networks of smaller media with smaller audiences that add up to a critical mass. This approach is harder but more targeted and more efficient. Why advertise diapers on a show I watch—next to my teenage kids—when instead Pampers can now advertise on mommy blogs?
As advertisers and agencies catch up with the death of the mass market, money will flow online that will, in turn, support the creation of new content, which will draw a greater audience, which will earn more money. On and on this virtuous circle will go until broadcast TV is a shell of its former self. There will still be hit shows—the Deal or No Deals that pass for our grand shared experience today—but there will be fewer of them.
Google figured out how to navigate the universe of niches and profit from