Eoin Purcell's Blog

There is a great article by Richard Siklos in the New York Times about money and the web (or perhaps more accurately the lack of it).

The following gives you a good idea of the tone:

We’re still in the early innings, but given how much the Internet has already transformed the media and society, it’s surprising how little money traditional media companies make directly from it.

Don’t take my word for it. Flip through the financial statements of some of the biggest names to see what they say about their Web sales and profits. You won’t find separately broken-out figures at Disney, Viacom, or Time Warner (aside from AOL).

While towards the end we do see some shards of light:

A while back, I paid a visit to Sumner M. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, at his home in Beverly Hills. While perusing his collection of saltwater fish — the world’s largest such collection, he says — I ran by him my theory that strikingly little money is being generated online despite all the activity among the media cabal. “I’m expecting we’ll have a $500 million business in three years’ time,” Mr. Redstone said. “That may not be a lot of money to you, but it is to me.”

The overall tone is downbeat in the medium term.

And the same issues were raised by the Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, on a few occasions over the last while. I have linked to the most relevant speech. Companies are forced to move rapidly to the web and to hope the revenues will eventually follow them.

Book publishers are taking a more relaxed approach. They are doing what the Music industry did. Waiting and waiting. Meanwhile rivals who would like slice of the pie are moving in on book publishers’ territory and very soon I fear profit base. Unless publishers start reacting and even better leading the money will not only be in short supply in the medium term from the web but it will be re-directed into the pockets of their rivals long-term.