What makes Cross- Media cross?
How mainstream is Cross- Media?
Let’s take some time to review the top news of 2007 and exam the Cross-Media trends again.
1. The New Economic Opportunities
First of all, money is the most important factor. The emergence of new media provides a broader audience, which translates into more money.
Let’s look back at May 15, 2007, when it was announced that Canadian news and information groups Thomson Corporation agreed to a merger with Reuters group, a deal valued at US$ 17.2 billion.
Source: ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=3174768
This creates one of the world’s largest providers of financial news and information and as part of this plan ‘they are expected to liken the sector to the music industry, where the rise in online sales has quickly created new competitors’ (The Telegraph).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/05/14/cnthom14.xml
On one side, there is the merger of traditional media groups, whereas on the other hand companies like Google have built a Cross-Media empire across different platforms.
2. The Concentration of Cross-Media Ownership
Ownership and control of media are changing every day and Cross-Media ownership is becoming more common. An increasing number of Media Groups have restructured and established Cross-Media department to grasp the opportunities.
One of the most important news in media industry last year is ‘Rupert Murdoch Buys Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal’. In August 2007, News Corporation reached an agreement to purchase Dow Jones for an estimated $5.6 billion, adding the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to its worldwide media empire.
The concentration of Cross-Media ownership provides the possibility and conditions for Cross-Media.
Source: ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=3105688&page=1
3. The Rise of Social Media
New media provides technological tools and a community environment, which makes social media one of the hottest things in 2007.
Facebook, The Second Life, MySpace and Youtube
According to Forrester Research, these social media companies double their impact and reach every six months.
From a Cross-Media perspective the continued growth of social networking provides a broader audience, an effective tool and a new platform for building business.
Undoubtedly, 2007 is a Facebook year. By the end of the year, the company was said to be worth $15 billion. So it’s not a surprise that ‘Microsoft beats Google to Facebook shares’. Microsoft has beaten Google to be the first to invest in social networking web site Facebook, paying $240m for a 1.6 per cent stake in the company in Oct 2007.
Now, Facebook was supposed to be a PR practitioner’s dream.
It is said, 'A picture is worth a thousand words'. I think that the proverb for Facebook should have been 'one group is worth a thousand press releases'.
