What is the Future of Media Companies? What if there were no future for media companies? What if the Internet meant that, on the one hand, companies can go direct to their customers and don’t need them half as much as they used to, and, on the other, that the only “media” to speak of will be either algorithm-driven websites, like Google, or community-driven websites, like Facebook? Or a mix of the two. In any case, companies based on hard data and user-contributed information about what people search for and what they like, what they share, what makes them connect and to whom and why. What if it were totally over for top-down publishing venues, no matter how prestigious, and no matter how much low-cost user-generated content crap they add? Like it is! What if they knew it? My guess is that, rather than give up on their idea of being entitled to being the opinion makers and then trying to create the next Polyvore, they’d probably be launching their own branded products, just like Vogue is doing with Vogue Eyewear.
