Aggregators causing aggro

I was reading a blog of Seth Godin’s the other day. He comments on some senior executives who were explaining to him that their hands were tied in moving forward with the internet. Parts of their business had to be protected, prices needed to be supported and sacred cows could not be touched. After all, they argued, how could they wipe out their current business just to succeed online?

As Seth points out that’s a great argument, unless your competitors don’t agree.

When you have someone who is willing to accomplish A without worrying about B and C, they will almost always defeat you in accomplishing A.

In the short-term, the single minded have a fantastic advantage. “Sometimes, their singleminded focus on accomplishing just that one thing (whatever it is) pushes them through the dip far ahead of you and then yes, they make a ton of money and you’ve lost forever.”

The single-minded focus came to mind when I was talking to Richard Slatter, the general manager of news aggregator, Wotnews.

The site was started to satisfy a demand by time-poor people for a short list of news stories that directly suit their particular interest.

Slatter was smart. He avoided selling ads against the aggregated news because he did not want to go into competition with large publishers, selling eyeballs to advertisers. Plus, he’s small and knew the publishing giants News and Fairfax would squash him with legal action.

Instead he is tiptoeing around them, calling Wotnews a software company, and is looking for other revenue channels by coming up with new technology solutions for publishers to help them create richer, more contextual news experiences to keep people on their sites for longer.

Slatter would love to talk to these giants, but the old publishers are locked into protecting their assets and are not interested in his ideas like his.

In fact, both News and Fairfax are trumpeting major relaunches of their print publications, introducing new sections, new magazines and new features while they have teams planning what content they will lock up online.

So Slater is taking his technology elsewhere: to large companies who essentially want to become mini publishers, to small publishers who are looking for competitive advantages, to anyone who is interested in creating richer, deeper sites with news.

Much has been written about the way fledgling companies snuck in and took the rivers of gold advertising from under publisher’s noses. Now the publishers are up in arms at the way technology like Google, Wotnews and others are changing the way their content is distributed through search engines and news aggregators.

Meanwhile, bloggists and mini-sites are publishing new content and finding mass audiences, essentially changing the way content is created.

The new threat to publishers is this: further fragmentation of the marketplace as new technology will gather content from many places on the internet and let anyone turn into a publisher with mass distribution.

Slatter points out that instead of adopting new solutions and leading the way, the publishing giants are pressing legal buttons and forcing people to the negotiation table. No one knows the outcome of the content wars.

The publisher’s arrogance will also protect the Slatters of the world – at least for awhile. Content is the “sacred cow”. Ultimately the publishers believe that people will always want their content, the way they create it.

Of course, Slatter’s outfit is tiny and yet to make a profit. But remember, he won’t be the only one to challenge these established players – there are lots of single-minded folk out there like Slatter who are just focused on the As and not distracted by the Bs and Cs.