So The Wall Street Journal, owned by the News Corporation, which also owns Fox News, is about to venture into social networking.
Here's the way Dow Jones (the technical name for WSJ Inc.) puts it:
The Wall Street Journal will launch a redesign of its Web site Monday night, marking the latest transformation at the newspaper acquired by News Corp. (NWS) in its $5.6 billion takeover of Dow Jones & Co.
Gordon McLeod, president of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, declined to specify how much News Corp. invested in the redesign of WSJ.com but said the company made "a big financial commitment." He added that the new site will be more effective in monetizing the newspaper's online content, with larger display advertisements and more sponsored sections of content.
News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has overseen many changes at the newspaper since the acquisition, but the site redesign may represent the most crucial effort as print media struggles to find its footing in an increasingly digital age.
"Rupert Murdoch wants The Wall Street Journal to be the preeminent brand for news everywhere in the world and on any technology platform, and this is one step towards that goal," said Alan Murray, deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.
The preem is tonight!
NWS is familiar with social-networking, of course, having bought Myspace three years ago. But it's clear that the "socnet" phenomenon is destined to stay strong for the foreseeable future, as companies seek to build a closer relationship with their customers. That is, in a world of lots of choice, branded entities need to give their customers a greater reason to stay on the site (or channel), because it's so easy to click away, and there are so many choices. As they say, sites must become "sticky," keeping eyeballs glued for longer periods of time.
Such stickiness is obviously important to media companies, but other companies are doing the same thing. Amazon.com, for example, recently bought Shelfari.com, which is a social site for booklovers. (The Internet is often said to be bad for print, but this is not so--the Net has led to a surge of writing and reading--it's just not on paper, it's online.)
Meanwhile, the old-line book business is going through an upheaval of its own, as detailed by Boris Kachka in a must-reader inNew York mag. It's march into the future, or die, for the paper-based pubsters.
Otherwise, the same Amazon.com will eat the publisher's lunch, not only by discounting books, (and accelerating the market for used books, from which, of course, the publishers get nothing) but also through such products as Kindle, the first really cool e-book device.
Amazon is moving toward its own kind of vertical integration: Having also acquired Booksurge, Amazon is now virtually a book publisher. And we know that it sells books. And with the Kindle, it also sells its own book-reading machine, which, in many ways is a significant improvement over a traditional book. In addition, Kindle can be used for magazines, newspapers, and even blogs.
In a way, then, Amazon is starting to resemble Apple--a company that sells you the hardware and software for a closed proprietary system. And there's nothing wrong with that, unless, of course, you are on the outside of that closed system, as is the case with the New York City-centered publishers.
This discussion of Amazon is relevant to The Cable Game in two ways.
First, both FNC and CNN are inside parent companies with substantial print-publishing interests--everything from HarperCollins to Time magazine.
Second, one can look at the Kindle and see that within a few years, it will be possible to watch video, or even streaming TV, on an upgraded Kindle device.
That's the point of Convergence. At all times, through the history of technology, people invented different tools to do different things. And then, with total predictability, someone came along and said, "Why don't we combine several functions into one tool, so that there's less to lug around, or otherwise deal with." And so the spear and the musket became the musket with a bayonet in the 18th century. Similarly, the radio and the phonograph became one in the early 20th century. And in this century, the computer, the telephone, and the TV will be Converged.
So Amazon looks to be a pretty big player in not only the book game, but also the entertainment game--and maybe even The Cable Game.
UPDATE: NWS' Myspace is reportedly doing a deal with Amazon:
MySpace Music is expected to launch with a song download service provided by Amazon.com but few other details of the new venture's attempt to be a comprehensive player have emerged.
Which is a reminder: You can be sure that Jeff Bezos is looking at his Kindle, and thinking to himself, "How can I get this thing to become a music player"? If he can, he could have another iPod on his hands.
