Another Social Network Play by An Old Media Player
Another old media attempt to play. Publishing company Hearst is getting into the social network game with the launch of High School Playbook whch is still in beta, it will include sports stats, profile pages, team pages, school groups, SMS-based voting, messaging with competing schools and lots of video clips. The initial launch will only cover a few places including Orlando, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and a few others. Although I am not quite impressed with the design, hey it's for the high school kids. No one ever complains about the look and feel of MySpace. I think we will see more old media play in the next few months. My thinking in general is that there was not enough good thinking on how to integrate between these sites and the core publishing business. My business partner Scott Friedmann and I have numerous discussions on what opporunties can be opened up if only they can use a totally new starting point instead of we-can-do-that-too. They need to think "open-innovation" not just "publishing assets". They must think "democratization". Google is an excellent opportunity and also a terror to old media players. The old world is moving into a new one. It's hard to give up a model you are so used to and partner with the dominant player. Old media firms have benefited by the inefficiencies of the old world. Google wants to democratize the advertising world. The economics of the media business will be changed forever. It is almsot inevitable that Google and old media companies will join forces in the near future. See who gets left behind.
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