IP Democracy: Old Media versus the Internet -- It's All Just Media

It’s that time of year again — the media moguls are meeting in Sun Valley, Idaho for Herb Allen’s annual powerfest. Old moguls Murdoch, Parsons, Bewkes, Diller, Bloomberg, Weinstein and Whitman are there along with former moguls Semel and Freston who are sitting side-by-side with new moguls such as Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom and soon-to-be mogul Blake Krikorian, among dozens of noteworthies. (The New York Times’ David Carr is clearly have a fun job keeping track of the spectacle from a mandated 100 yards’ distance.)

Reuter’s Kenneth Li is doing a valiant job of covering the “news” of this high-powered smoozefest, which is closed to the press, and has this piece today about how the Internet superstars are co-existing peacefully with the old media greybeards at the swanky confab. Joost, in particular, seems to be a particularly welcomed new member, perhaps because it’s trying very hard to bridge the unruly Internet with the media establishment.

“The time in the market is good for traditional media and digital to come together,” Mike Volpi, Joost’s newly appointed chief executive, told Reuters. “Technology has matured to a point where rights can be protected properly.”

SlingMedia’s Krikorian is finding a friendlier crowd this year, or so it seems, compared to last year’s event when Sling’s place-shifting technology was viewed as somewhat threatening. The difference? This year Sling has a deal with traditional media partners CBS and the National Hockey League and, in something of a scoop for Li, Krikorian is showing off a new Sling service, slated for a September launch, that will allow viewers to save and send clips of TV shows, replete with revenue-generating ads.

As this co-mingling of young and mature, rich and super-rich attests, the distinction between the Internet and “the media” is an artifical one. Although the Internet radically changed the rules of the communications game, injecting an abrupt technological shift that upset everybody’s business plans, it’s simply just another mode of communication and entertainment.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on July 12, 2007 11:35 AM to IP Democracy