Content Matters

Eric Schonfeld at TechCrunch has a fascinating post today, based upon an interview conducted with web innovator Marc Andreesen.

Andreessen's advice to traditional media companies: burn the boats, a reference to the legend that Cortes ordered his men to burn their ships upon arrival in Mexico, so there was no option of going back. Andreessen has long suggested that print media abandon its roots, killing their print offerings and fully embracing the web.

The comments have spurred a spirited debate on Twitter, and ignoring the chatter about whether or not Cortes actually issued such a command, the debate is a good one. 

John Robinson, editor of the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record says "My advice to Andreessen: Buy a newspaper & show us how to do it, big talker"

While of course, Marc can raise these issues without personally worrying about how to deal with laying off thousands of employees or explaining massive short-term losses to shareholders, he brings out some very interesting points in the discussion.

I found most interesting his comments about the iPad:

”All the new companies are not spending a nanosecond on the iPad or thinking of ways to charge for content. The older companies, that is all they are thinking about.”

But people pay for apps. Wouldn’t he pay for a beautiful touchscreen version of a magazine? Maybe, if it were something genuinely new that blew him away. It would have to be more than an article with video and graphics though. (I agree, otherwise it’s no better than a CD-ROM).

Oh, and he points out, that the iPad will have a “fantastic browser.” No matter how many iPads the Apple sells, the Web will always be the bigger market. “There are 2 billion people on the Web,” he says. “The iPad will be a huge success if it sells 5 million units.”

I think that's a huge point. The iPad, Kindle and new eBooks to come cannot save traditional media. Sure, they can provide a short-term revenue bump, but they are not going to replace the classified ad business and it's not going to restore paid subscription rates to where they once were.

As for Cortes, I can't answer whether he made the famous "burn the ships' command as they entered Mexico or only later, when he feared his captains would leave for Cuba. But I'll use a different analogy, one familiar to any New Yorker.

In 2000, after trading Patrick Ewing, the NY Knicks went into a downward spiral. They threw good money after bad, putting themselves deeper and deeper into a hole. Rather than cleaning up their balance sheet when they could, they brought in Isiah Thomas, who took on horrible contracts for players like Stephon Marbury, Tim Thomas and Vin Baker. At each step along the way, Isiah seemed convince that adding one more high-priced former star would turn the team around. Predictably, the team's record got worse while their salary cap situation worsened.

As with newspaper companies, who say their shareholders would not tolerate years of painful losses in order to transition the business, we always heard that New Yorkers would never accept a few years of rebuilding by the Knicks.

Fast-forward a few years and the Knicks finally fired Isiah, replacing him with Donnie Walsh. Walsh set as his top goal to get the team below the salary cap in time for the free agent class of summer, 2010. And while it's still months before we'll learn whether the Knicks will be able to sign Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh or the ultimate prize, Lebron James, Knick fans have been incredibly patient and supportive of the turnaround. Will it all end well for the Knicks? No one knows, just as we can't yet know whether a clean break from print for media companies will ultimately pay off. But, as with the Knicks, following the same failed course does not seem to be an option.