Errors and Omissions

Blogs and mainstream media - parasitic or mutualistic?

The Times today has an interesting article on how certain celebrity blogs (Gawker, etc.) scooped People magazine by posting pictures of the Jolie-Pitt baby in advance of the magazine's release date. People had paid $4 million or so for the exclusive rights to the pictures.

Most interesting was the debate within the article where people weighed in on whether the scoop was hurtful or helpful to People. Here are two separate quotes from People's managing editor Larry Hackett:

"As a guy who went through all the efforts to get these pictures, my initial reaction was anger," Larry Hackett, the managing editor of People, said in an interview on Friday. "Someone's taking your stuff...."

"I must confess, I think it helps," [Hackett] said. "Clearly, the blogs have betrayed a huge amount of interest in these photographs and people want to see them."

Here in a nutshell is the mainstream media's conflicted relationship with new media. Whether it's blogs and magazines, record labels and fan sites, film studios and pre-release rumor mills, the media companies hate that they can't control these forums but love the publicity that comes from them.

Is the relationship parasitic (where one benefits at the cost of the other), or mutualistic (where the engagement is good for both)?

To me it's obvious. The pre-release photos served to amplify people's interest in the legitimate photos, in the same way that freely sharable mp3's can build buzz for new bands, gossip about a movie before release can energize the box office.

The companies' legal departments don't agree, of course (Gawker got a cease-and-desist letter within one hour of posting). And the marketing departments seem conflicted too.

media, Blogs, marketing, celebrities

posted by Unknown @ 6/12/2006 04:21:00 PM