It’s an understatement to say that books have been instrumental in helping me to learn. Non Fiction Books not only provide some structure about the topic for the uninitiated reader but also provide an approach towards the topic.
Financial Opportunities Forum (FOF) is an unique medium where we discuss our learnings about many topics. Needless to say it’s been punctuated with books and other resources. This series is an attempt to highlight the non-fiction books we have referred to in our presentations. Thanks to my friend Manjeet who coaxed me to make this series.
I recently concluded a presentation series on the Media Sector. The latest presentation was on understanding The Newspaper Business.
Traditional Newspaper Business Model
The business is inherently easy to understand but it has evolved dramatically like many other businesses, with the emergence & spread of internet, smartphones & consumer technology in general.
Newspaper Business Model in the Online World
The book I referred to in this talk was Tim Wu’s – The Attention Merchants. The context of this book from a Newspaper perspective is only to highlight how advertising based model works in favour of the newspaper company. How ad revenues support the operating expenses rather than relying solely on circulation revenue.
The author walks us through the evolution of attention grabbing technologies (if we can call it that) to highlight its importance in our daily lives. It makes business sense for the medium, & it also makes great sense to Businesses to make consumers aware of various products & services. The entire advertising industry can be characterised as “Attention Brokers”.
The book also takes a philosophical stand about the pros and cons of trading our attention for free online services. It’s at the cost of not just our productivity but also our privacy. The recent issues engulfing tech giants like Google and Facebook into the worldwide privacy debate is just one way to highlight how important our attention is to all these media and platform businesses.
It’s a fairly long book but densely packed with well researched examples. It’s rare to find a book that doesn’t just take a moral stand but also provides sound business logic about why some events took place and their context in our lives today.
Hope this really short book review persuades you to learn about the media business and what’s really being sold when they earn their Income.
Nitesh N Ajwani
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic.