SpectatorBytes

Over the past few years, I have been amazed about how much time is spent by analysts discussing the differences between media and technology companies. Are companies like Google, Yahoo, Amazon media or technology companies? What I have come to realize is that they are neither one nor the other.

Digital media companies represent a new breed of companies. These companies marry both technology and traditional media principles to create a new set of principles. These principles are designed to foster new approaches to product innovation, marketing, distribution, operations and organization. These principles are optimized to the dynamics that digital technologies are creating such lower production costs, global distribution, on-demand delivery, technology openness, hyper co-opetition and consumer empowerment.

Driving these digital media organizations requires a new breed of business executives. These hybrid executives have both a deep understanding of technology capabilities as well as sensibility to consumer wants and needs. They are equally comfortable appreciating the merits of platforms, and greenlighting the launch of new franchises. They are able to speak in multiple languages: Madison Av, Hollywood and Silicon Valley. They need to develop visions that assume exponential curves while developing actionable plans to deliver quarterly results. They are few of these hybrid leaders today but many more are being developed in startups and digital divisions in large corporations. The future will likely belong to them.

These companies and business folks belong in a new category. We should not try to fit them into old definitions. The sooner we do that, the quicker will advance our understanding about what it takes to win in digital media.