Online Publishing: The Long View?

"We live in a time in which the media business is undergoing its greatest change in the 500 years since Gutenberg. ...One main factor affecting media is the sheer supply of news and information available to consumers. Thirty years ago, the average U.S. consumer had access to only three TV networks, home delivery of one or two daily newspapers, and perhaps 20 newsstand magazines. Today, she has access to hundreds of topical networks on TV, two or three times as many daily newspapers, and hundreds of thousands of Web sites.



This radical increase in the news and information supply shifted not only media supply and demand economics but also the balance of power between publishers and consumers.



When information was scarce and channels few, publishers had great control over consumers. Consumers had little choice but to give those few publishers and broadcasters their attention.



Publishers built business models based on control and intrusion. Consumers could see the content, but only at the times publishers predetermined and only if consumers saw intrusive or interstitial advertising along with that content.



Now, the balance of power is reversing. Consumers have such an overabundance of news and information that publishers clamor for ways just to capture consumer attention. Publisher and broadcaster business models, built on control and intrusion, are fissuring or collapsing. New technologies allow consumers to see content when they want, how they want, and without any intrusive or interstitial advertising.



...This is a revolutionary change in the media business.



It began about 10 years ago, when consumers gained access to the Internet. The change will be patently obvious by 2024. We're now only beginning the second decade of this perhaps three-decade-long generational change."



Outside of the time estimate in which this is going to happen, Vin Crosbie is the right on the mark in summarizing the media revolution we are being witness to.
The swift revolution will take much less time to disrupt the present status quo of news media. And Mr Crosbie will certainly be one of the first to notice. I am sure. Just give him time.