The web has been asking serious questions of Big Media for some time now and last year we started to see the old school respond - reverberations which have continued into 2006. But while this is all very exciting it's also quite scary, especially if you are in charge of a media-mega-tanker steaming along with your Broadcast colours flying. One issue is that the captains of these super-cruisers know they must turn but they aren't too sure in which direction - because the the new compass isn't quite set yet. Just putting the brakes on until the mists clear can just look like indecision - and there isn't a CEO alive who enjoys that look in front of the shareholders. But, as Google shovels $6bn dollars of ad revenue off the media...
...table and Apple helps itself to a healthy slice of the music industry's distribution system, it's clear the Web 2.0 effect isn't just something for Alpha Geeks to chat about over coffee. Increasingly, there is proof that we need to deconstruct and rebuild media, marketing and management models and thinking. And it's quite possible that the problem isn't the direction of the tanker, it's the vessel itself. But no doubt, the tools and opportunities are there - it's the just the strategies that remain in flux. My suggestion when mapping the way ahead is open source marketing, but there are plenty to choose from and discuss, including Umair who is currently using his surgical edge-analysis to pick, unpluck and rebundle - bouncing off Jeff Jarvis (aka Godfather 2.0) along the way.
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