One of the ideas that gets branded about whenever slumping circulation numbers are screamed from headlines, CD sales are found to be tanking, movie ticket sales slumping, or broadcast TV viewers disappearing, is the notion that because the Web disintermediates the middle-man between content creator and content consumer, people are going to the Web and abandoning “traditional” media.
There is some truth in that to be sure, but there is also truth in that human nature abhors a vacuum. We seek out sources of information and entertainment we decide to trust. And as such, the Web has always created a new opportunity for intermediaries, bundlers of information and entertainment, and aggregators to help manage the flow we partake in each day.
A simple out of the box example – What is a good link blogger like Eschaton, other then an aggregator of sorts?
How about YouTube? What of Google or Yahoo!?
Something to chew on as you read the following stories:
paidContent.org: Why Aggregation & Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are King in Entertainment (source for the graphic)
Philly Future: MyFox Philadelphia – Fox News Wants Your Blog
Philly Future: DigPhilly.com – NBC 10 Wants Your Blog (includes a who-who in local social media efforts)
Washington Post: Howard Kurtz: At the Inquirer, Shrink Globally, Slash Locally?
Center for Citizen Media: Newspaper as Blog Portal