How much media do you see in a day? More than you can possibly consume. Why am I asking? Because, if you’re an independent contractor or professional or business owner, you need to look out for threats. As far as media, the newspapers of the world are churning out much greater volume than any time in history – over the next 24 hours, the New York Times will write more than 700 stories, BuzzFeed will publish 500+ stories; meanwhile YouTube will publish more than 140,000 hours of new video to watch every day.
Digital media has crunched the business models of a majority of print newspaper and magazines across the globe – and we are enriched by this as information/entertainment consumers of news, stories and information plus analysis. News cannot be sold, so media must create richer experiences to attract readers and viewers. What happened to the tens of thousands of journalists, editors, typesetters, proofreaders who are no longer employed? Many have changed careers but most have re-trained and morphed into media professionals with new skills in multimedia, in publishing niche publications, in selling themselves to the corporate sector (where every company with a website is now a publisher).
You don’t wait for tomorrow’s The Age or Sydney Morning Herald or Courier Mail to read the news, you get in your smartphone or iPad app. Think of it this way: if what you offer can be obtained from anyone, you are competing against everyone. You won’t rank.
Embracing new ideas
Another stark lesson, in media: new players in any profession have been born in the digital media era – like the Huffington Post which has been fabulously successful and which embraced digital platforms from the outset and gained an exceptional understanding of what it takes to be successful.
Accounting and bookkeeping professionals may need to accelerate their transitioning (including up-skilling) from a local, non-virtual bookkeeping business model into leaner, agile, efficient and highly profitable virtual bookkeeping services. Desk-top operators may not be used to the idea of software as a service, but new digital ‘natives’ know nothing else.