EPublishing Innovations Forum 2008

My opening keynote speech from EPublishing Innovations Forum 2008, London, May 7, 2008. Why 1.3 billion people have gravitate online despite their already having access to mass media in much more convenient formats than online. Why the fragmentation of audiences is an illusion. Why traditional newspapers’ and news magazines’ circulations, and news broadcasts’ viewerships, must ineluctably evaporate. Why most newspapers’ and news magazines’ and news broadcasters’ Web sites won’t save their companies. Why people will be even better served by New Media than by Mass Media. And why the change today is even greater than that during Gutenberg’s era.

What is 'New Media' (redux)

At the root of most publishing and broadcasting companies problems understanding and adapting to the New Medium is they actually misunderstand what a medium is. I’ve long been reluctant to explain this misunderstanding because I’ll need a long post to do so. This is it, a new version of my 1998 essay What is New Media?. It’s long, but I consider it the most important thing I have ever written except for the original essay, and hope you’ll forebear its length. I need to have this new version online because I plan to refer to it in future postings, specifically those about what radical changes that media companies need to implement.