Why Media Must Again Stand for Something

There’s no shortage of doom-and-gloom talk when it comes to the future of media in a digital world of abundance. The “content-is-free” crowd doesn’t offer a very appealing business model for professional content creators. Andrew Weissman, a venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures, thinks it’s time media companies get back to standing for something. His thinking goes that in a world of so much information and content, media companies can recapture their mojo by having a point of view and a sense of taste.

If we strip out distribution, promotion and marketing as core competencies, the role of the media company might be, quite simply: curated products chosen by a small group of people who just have better taste than everyone else. In other words, users need to rely on someone or something for taste. Which is hugely valuable. And branded tastemakers make perfect sense. Because taste matters. This is also how it used to work in the past.

Read Weissman’s full post on his blog. Follow him on Twitter at @aweissman.