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One of the most exciting, but also incredibly disruptive elements of the future of media, is the rise of the individual media companies. These are very small media companies, often based around just a single person or sometimes a very small group of people.
You might say that this is not a new trend, and you are right. For the past 15 years, we have seen many examples of successful bloggers, but there is one big difference.
Most bloggers use their blog as a form of exposure, or as a hobby. It is people with a steady job who are just blogging on the side. It is the business professionals who are using blogging as content marketing, and it is ordinary people who are just doing it for the fun of it. And even for the few who tries to make a living out of it, it has always been based on advertising and exposure.
Common to all of these is that they never defined themselves as a media company and they didn't think of themselves as publishers. But this is what is changing today.
The difference between one and the other is where your focus is. A person just 'running a blog' is doing it mostly for their own sake. They will blog about the things they like, and will only continue doing it as long as it is fun. If their moods change, the blogs do too.
But when an individual starts to think like a publisher, the focus changes to be on the needs of the reader. Suddenly, you see a shift in their mentality towards what topics they cover. We go from people just posting whatever they want, to people who define a focus and purpose that they are working to improve.
This is exactly what is happening today. We are seeing a new generation of individual media. A generation that isn't just a marketing channel for something else, or a way for people to express themselves. But media entities that, like any other media company, are defined to fill (or create) a need in the market.
Let's analyze what this amazing trend is all about.
This will be a two-part report. In this first part (this article) we will explore the dynamics of this market. We will start off by talking about the trend itself, and then we will move on to talk about the dynamics of this market (which is important for those of you who want to be a part of it). Then, in the second part, we will look at the financial side of it, which is very different from all the other forms of media.
The trends that form the new world of individual media is simply staggering, and I will illustrate this by asking you a simple question: "Name 3 celebrities that you like."
If you are more than 30 years old, your three choices would most likely be people from the traditional world of media. People like Jennifer Lawrence, George Clooney... or probably, Robin Williams.
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Baekdal is a magazine for media professionals, focusing on media analysis, trends, patterns, strategy, journalistic focus, and newsroom optimization. Since 2010, it has helped publishers in more than 40 countries, including big and small publishers like Condé Nast, Bonnier, Schibsted, NRC, and others, as well as companies like Google and Microsoft.
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"Thomas Baekdal is one of Scandinavia's most sought-after experts in the digitization of media companies. He has made himself known for his analysis of how digitization has changed the way we consume media."
Swedish business magazine, Resumé
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