Breaking Down (Then Rebuilding) the Media Industry, One Atom Of Content At A Time

When the Twitter account of NPR’s Andy Carvin emerged as a premiere destination for information about Egypt, Carvin took it to a simple next step: suggesting that followers give to NPR.

To continue the analogy of music, Andy got really good at making playlists with news from Egypt. In that curation, that aggregation, there was value to his employer, though not in a way that either he or they could have predicted. The curation couldn’t have happened without atomized bits of information – links and on-the-ground reports that he could easily share.

If you’ve seen the revamped Times Magazine in which Keller’s screed appeared, you may have noticed the new letters to the editor. Emails, now the “traditional” form of response, are supplemented with Twitter and blog feedback. A graphic in the corner tracks how often their content, once atomized, was shared or mentioned on social media tools. 2,600 times on Twitter. 833 “Likes” on Facebook. And they got one piece of actual mail.

The Times has always been in the business of curation (as Keller notes in his follow-up), but now the editor of the magazine is doing what Carvin did – encouraging and curating atomized content. It’s what LaForge has been doing on his own Twitter account. It’s a smart integration of what people are saying anyway. And by using it, by not waiting for content to come to them, they create value for the paper.

Curating atomized content isn’t a cure. But it’s an emergent opportunity in a landscape where such opportunities are hard to spot.

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Newspapers are LPs: charming, nostalgia-laden, and wonderful. But the era of each is over – and ends of eras are hard.

For the music industry, the new landscape is settling, with new dominant forces. Music is different than news; it retains its value more easily each time its experienced. The model for news won’t look like iTunes.

What that model does look like is uncertain. Journalistic institutions may buy ink by the barrel, but not one of them has yet purchased a time machine. As they figure out how to move forward, many will collapse. But for a Web now predicated on people as nodes, the most valuable assets media institutions have is their journalists, particularly those savvy enough to experiment with the new ecosystem. It’s what made Alan Taylor so valuable to The Atlantic, or Carvin to NPR.

Media companies need people who can build excellent playlists. Once they have them, they have more time to answer the harder question: who makes the songs?

It may not be them.

Postscript: For those interested in curating atomized content, check out the exceptional Storify, which makes the process simple and intuitive – and makes sharing the curated results just as easy.