kidmercury

Sorry for the late post, my flight got delayed, and then there were issues with baggage claim....ugh.

Anyway. While I was at the airport I was in the magazine store, happily reading magazines without paying for them while my flight was delayed. One magazine I used to read fairly regularly was Harvard Business Review, so I picked up a copy and began to read it. The cover was about the new trends in business.

Harvard Business Review is, like most of the print media you find in mainstream magazines, a complete waste. You're much better off finding smart bloggers in your niche. For Internet entrepreneurs, Fred's blog is a must read -- a billion times more educational, and at everyone's favorite price: free.

The biggest reason why Harvard Business Review sucks in comparison to smart blogs comes down to one word: honesty. And if there was another word, it'd be comments. The amazing thing about Fred's blog is the comments, it is like getting a 100 thought leaders to chime in on every single issue Fred raises.

This is worth remembering when we consider the issue of whether media will be free, which is an issue that has been a hot topic in the Internet startup blogosphere of late; you gotta check out what Fred is saying and what Mark Cuban is saying. Frankly, I can't believe we're still having the conversation, folks who think mass-produced media is going to be a paid product are living in ignorance of truths about economics and disruptive strategy. I've already outlined the new rules for selling media -- they are consistent with the economics of abundance (i.e. the world in which distribution costs and reproduction costs are zero) as well as disruptive strategy (i.e. how to make money by commoditizing something).

The only thing that makes me hesitate a bit is that Mark Cuban is a really smart guy and an entrepreneur I admire and find inspirational. He is also very media savvy and has already built successful digital media companies. So you have to take a guy like that seriously. Still, though, I'm looking for someone to refute the logic underlying the economics of abundance, as well as the logic behind how free media is disruptive, and thus is an investment opportunity -- not simply the destruction of value. Remember Clayton Christensen's Law of Conservation of Attractive Profits, which states that value is not destroyed, but rather moves to a new dimension in the value chain. While it is undoubtedly one of the most poorly named concepts in the history of intellectual matters, it is also one of the truest.

The song for the post is "Get in the Ring" by Guns n' Roses -- a song attacking old media, challenging them to get in the ring for a battle. (The song contains profanity, so perhaps not safe for work or children.)