Here’s an interesting conversation about online publishing between Bob Guccione, Jr. (a major figure in the magazine industry) and Gaby Darbyshire, VP of Gawker Media (one of the top web publishing companies).
One of the best bits:
Online media isn’t after all so different from offline media, though: the best content, with the most loyal readership, wins out and gets the revenue to survive while others fall by the wayside. The difference is that a niche operation can survive on a fairly small budget with staggering distribution potential online in a way that offline operations never could. So that means more choice for the consumer, which is a good thing if you are the consumer who was underserved before. But beware too much choice: it leads to decision paralysis, and so you reduce your intake to a manageable level — and that in turn diminishes the size of the available pie to sustain new content creation. There’s a lot of white noise out there, and a lot of people betting on being the voice that’s heard above the din. It’s no different with TV, or books, or any other form of media in any era.