Comcast’s purchase of TV network NBC and movie studio Universal seems backwards to older media veterans who remember the ascent of upstart cable versus the powerful Big 3 TV networks in the 70′s/80′s. It proves that media itself has become a commodity to be digested across a panoply of distribution channels. It just so happens that cable, with its reliable subscription revenue streams and multiple channel assets, now has more financial clout than advertising based network TV and with it, the ability to finance programming through a movie studio as well.

Moreover, TV/cable and Internet are merging towards display across a common TV/monitor display platform. Cable channels pay significant syndication fees to broadcast relevant programming. They are curating content for their audience. However…

Social media facilitates the same content curation done by cable channels. Justin.TV allows anybody to broadcast hit movies (illegally) like a Showtime channel and now, personal broadcasters can get paid for it as a pay-per-view affiliate:

Obviously, copyright issues on Justin.TV seem to fall by the wayside just as they have done on Youtube (Google no longer seems diligent in deleting uploaded copyright content). This tolerance becomes a moral hazard that makes copyright protection unenforceable.

Like other content, video has essentially become free and curatable. For every Hulu, there will be copycat channels. Even Hulu’s exclusive licensed content are easily replicated by screen scraping video software like Camtasia.

Justin.TV’s pay-per-view channels will be the first of a new video revenue model that YouTube (which already announced this intention) and other video channels will follow. Why? Because everybody wants to be a broadcaster.

FIRST, WHY ARE THERE NO NEWS PRODUCERS ON TWITTER?

Twellow is the best application to find Twitterers grouped by occupation. I perused through the News category – noted a lot of freelancing journalists and some reporters, but no news producers or editors.

Twitter makes it easy for a community to tip the news media

News producers should understand that news sourcing has become social because anybody can now feed them story ideas. Moreover, news producers should FOLLOW others so their potential citizen news sources can DM (direct message) them with story ideas and breaking news that are best transmitted privately. News producers can provide journalistic value by positioning themselves as media hubs in their community.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA HIDES BEHIND THEIR CALL LETTERS AND BROADCASTS ONE WAY

Advice to mainstream media – don’t hide behind your call letters or mastheads on Twitter – use your real reporter and producer names like WUSA9. And don’t arrogantly just use Twitter blatantly as a one-way broadcast media- this is old media think and keeps your brand isolated from your constituency. Following others who you respect as news sources will expand the distribution network you will leverage as a media hub. And those you follow will be appreciative.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA STILL CALLING TWITTER UNRELIABLE NEWS SOURCING

Granted, individual Twitter sources are not trustworthy at face value. What makes citizen journalism credible is the aggregation of individual sources into a collective, accountable voice. This is what makes citizen review sites like Yelp more trustworthy than the Twitter-like pronouncements of a Zagat‘s restaurant review; Yelp’s statistical samples are large enough to prove its results, and Zagats is a black box.

Citizen sources are much closer to breaking news events (as seen in Mumbai and Gaza), and the “reporting” or research / interpretation of the news can be performed by either mainstream media or citizen sources. Dave Winer makes the case that the social media does vet and report news (his diagram above).

It seems obvious that once mainstream media surrenders its position that only they can report news by sending out salaried news crews and cameras, real economies of scale (think free) of news sourcing happens. Mainstream media can then add quality (and value) by filtering interesting stories arising from a magnitude more citizen sources than they have now. Twitter is, in essence, a massive extension to their 800-”hotline”. Now, if the media would only listen.

KUDOS TO MAINSTREAM MEDIA WHO ARE SERIOUSLY EXPERIMENTING WITH TWITTER

Let’s congratulate a few news media companies and individuals that have put together a comprehensive Twitter presence.

Tori Blase, CNN – the only major news producer I see out there

Dave Courvoisier, KLAS TV anchor, Las Vegas – thanks for your sincere offers of help

WUSA9, Washington DC

Patrick O’Brien, WUSA Web Director – Patrick introduced me to the whole WUSA team on Twitter.

Peggy Fox, Anchor

Stephanie Wilson, News Producer

Angie Goff, Traffic Anchor

Lindsey Mastis, Digital Correspondent

Lesli Foster, Consumer Reporter

Kim Martucci, Meteorologist

Sara Walsh, Sports / Skins Uncensored

Andrew Nystrom, LA Times Social media and tech blogger – Andrew seems to be coordinating a massive effort to build media channels by category at the LA Times.

LATimesTweets lists all 59 LA Times Twitter feeds

Related articles:

The New Web 2.5 Opportunity: Create Media Hubs

The Future is LA Times.com, not LA Times the Paper

Slow Death of Traditional News Syndication

TODAY’S ONLINE CONTENT FATIGUE

Web 2.0 could be described as a phase in the evolution of the Internet that facilitated individuals in creating content within the constructs of social websites (blogs) and social networks (as participants). User-generated content was the New New Thing when it first appeared refreshingly on blogs (in 2002 blogs were being recognized as media), MySpace (2003), YouTube (2005) and Facebook (in 2006, it opened up beyond colleges).

Now, the discovery phase of Web 2.0 is over. Thinking bird’s eye level, all the content that needs to be online is now online. For example, there are literally thousands of articles (and videos) about how to raise your credit score, and using Google isn’t really going to help you find the best or most appropriate advice. Conclusion: content creation is now not as highly valued when it’s already ubiquitous and en masse.

However, one kind of content is still prized; it’s in the taglines of CNN and Huffington Post: “Breaking News“. Breaking news, in all its forms from reporting to analysis, holds the most social and economic value – world society reacts, trades and competes with New News.

MEDIA 2.5 – POSITIONING AS THE HUB OF BREAKING NEWS

The mainstream media finally figured out that journalist content creation also didn’t need to be salaried. Breaking news can now be reported by anybody in Mumbai or Gaza. Media measures its worth by traffic, and solidifying the market position of being the hub of Breaking News is where Media 2.5 is headed. That means having producers like CNN’s Tori Blase on Twitter‘s front lines receiving and monitoring news stories and alerts from her Twitter network. This reinforces CNN’s status as the breaking news hub when it has dispatches at the borders of citizen journalism. News sourcing is social, every news producer must do this to stay connected with the new citizen news sources and be relevant in the future.

WEB 2.5 – EMPOWERING WEB 2.0 INDIVIDUALS TO CREATE BREAKING NEWS MEDIA HUBS

The New New Media Properties have none of the mainstream media overhead and infrastructure for collecting breaking news – Huffington Post, Politico and video-based Funny or Die are the collaborative media that Web 2.0 facilitates. All they need are writers/video producers who want syndication, and what aspiring journalists/producers will turn that opportunity down? These sites have become talent agencies that trade talent exposure for content quality, and in turn elevates their online presence and traffic.

The window is open, but nobody sees it’s open yet. Any organization, company or even a team of like-minded individuals can now create Politico-type blog network/breaking news distribution properties cheaply by leveraging Web 2.0′s blog and website design applications. A key distinction needs to be made in developing a media property – the content being created and distributed must be quality controlled to attract traffic. Social networks built on platforms like Ning won’t work due to noise and content credibility arising from any yahoo who wants to be a participant. The mainstream media understands this distinction and have been augmenting their journalistic offering with a J-School trained blogger corps (examples: NYT, SFGate), basically trading in the name “column” for “blog”.

Web 2.0 facilitates individuals. Web 2.5 facilitates the development of collaborative websites. The real estate industry in particular can leverage Web 2.0 tools to create collaborative websites that position real estate agents as local “reporters”. Properties like Homescopes leverage Web 2.0-savvy real estate professionals to break local news like the details of recent home sales only they would know about. Seth Godin mentions today that real estate brokerages should create local e-newsletters… this idea aligns with the idea of real estate agent as reporter.

You wouldn’t buy GM stock today without checking Marketwatch.com, and consumers will soon understand they won’t put an offer on a house (in this weird market!) based on month-old data. Breaking news is the killer app.

WEB 2.5 – LEVERAGING THE MEDIA HUB TO ATTRACT TRAFFIC (AND ONLINE FAME)

If you want evidence that content creation is taking a back seat to content distribution, see Justin.TV, an online streaming media application initially launched to allow the masses to chronicle their lives in video. Unfortunately, most people’s 24-by-7 lives are excruciatingly boring, and Justin.TV has evolved into the leading do-it-yourself online Cable Access channel network that facilitates anybody who wants to “program” online TV. Naturally, the most in-demand content are the free broadcasts of subscription streams of sporting events and movies… value-based content is king.

And just so content creators won’t complain that I’m positing the “death of content”, on the contrary, good content creators will now flourish, and gain access to exposure and fame much more easily with the proliferation of the new Web 2.5 content distribution channels (and let’s just call them media).

Media hubs/channels are the antidote to content fatigue by facilitating relevant filtering for discovery of great stuff. Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop and Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo are based on nothing more than the collaborative insights of what is online good “breaking news” content. Somewhat autocratic, but a simple formula. It’s no coincidence that both Guy and Jason have attuned themselves to real time trends as well-networked Twitter celebs.

What I’m trying to say is – the opportunity is build these media hubs is wide open and easy to do… the challenge is to convince your network to participate in your hub. This is the spirit of post-Web 2.0.

Twitter should position itself as the defacto platform for broadcast micro-blogging/messaging, and establish universal access standards for public use. They’re executing on the strategy with integration together with both Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect, allowing Google/Facebook users easy to access to Twitter and offering content distribution channels for their broadcasts.

Twitter’s Open API platform has spawned a feast of applications that port into the Twitter stream. It’s unlike any application – one is usually directly on Facebook, LinkedIn or a browser add-on to interact with the application. Twitter can be accessed through third party clients like Tweetdeck or Twhirl, or through value-add porting applications like Twitblogs which gives user enhanced blog-editing features.

The problem with such portability is the risk of Twitter account hijacking. I divulge my Twitter password to each third party application, and change the password often. There have been calls for solutions – i.e., master password and guest password, but the elegant feature of GFC and FB are its automated logon through a PC’s cookies instead of an online password exchange. This will make Twitter a broad population application.

Three snippets of recent buzz about Hulu:

1. Hulu has attracted advertisers used to the TV advertising model (Alley Insider 11/10/08)
2. Hulu is easier to use when searching for TV and movies. YouTube is a mess (NYT 11/10/08)
3. YouTube is playing catchup to Hulu by offering brand name content – announces MGM film distribution deal (Wired blog 11/10/08)

Six observations about Hulu:

1. Hulu is a replica of TV. No user-generated surprises, all programming has been broadcast traditionally.
2. Strange to say, but Hulu’s success is based on copying the old world broadcast TV business model. This reinforces the fact that advertisers like the plain vanilla advertising model.
3. Hulu gets complete support from the media industry because it’s one of them. YouTube / Google is still sparring with Viacom in court.
4. Hulu is evolving naturally as a mass media, not a social media, model. It says a lot that the masses will go to Hulu when they are tired of the amateur quality of social media.
5. Cable companies, a natural play for developing their own Hulu-like content distribution systems, hesitate to break their lucrative cable subscription fee model. Online media is perceived as a threat, just like newspapers thought last decade.
6. Consumers have gotten used to fighting content distribution bottlenecks. Hulu delivers what they want free.