Transforming Fairfax

What is ‘mobile’?

A printed newspaper is mobile, portable, it doesn’t break when I drop it, I can also clean windows with it and start a fire with it.

I can go ‘online’ on a tablet, on a phone, on a desktop, on a laptop. I can also go online when I am at the top of a mountain. i can read a newspaper at the top of a mountain.

There is print and there is digital.

Mobile, online…???!!!!! Old school still at the helm, evidently…

It will be interesting if Fairfax fly. News rooms eat up funds, plus so many people focus on niche and personal online publishers. I wonder what the old school publishers will look like in 10 years time – anyone got any visions?

i am not in anyway wishing Fairfax harm – good luck I would love to engage with a quality digital news company in Oz… ABC and SBS do it very well I must admit and are leavinfg fairfax and news in their trail currently.

The days of the “dead tree” medium is over. And editorial control by media groups has already been superseded by the evolution from printing press to online Curation

The notion of Content may have started with our Neanderthal predecessors as they made animal paintings on cave walls.

Then Gutenberg invented the printing press. Content got more enabled, and was now mobile.

Then came broadcasting over radio waves with TV and radio. Content became multi sensory and provided to the masses.

Then came the Internet, and the ubiquitous linked devices that enabled, Comment. Content creation was now anyone’s game, and no longer the privilege of the editors and media Barons.

Then came the many web applications both big (Facebook, Twitter, WordPress) and small (Apps, Blogs) that enabled any individual who was connected and possessing a device to become their own publisher and broadcaster. The public liked this new freedom of speech and spew forth masses of Content.

With so much Content accessible, Search gave us a means of finding anything discoverable easily and freely. The owners of Search & Social got rich and powerful, by re inventing advertising.

Then Content began being aggregated, and passed back to consumers by the aggregators rather than the content creators, publishers and broadcasters. This was called Curation.

Before they knew it the media brand owners realized they were in a pickle and needed to try and wind back the calendar, erect pay walls, etc… As their dollars and influence was being diminished.

The rise of real-time information sources such as Twitter, You Tube, Blogs, has produced such an unstoppable wave of content that we now makes Curation and filtering almost essential. And while that used to be something that only traditional media sources did, now it’s something anyone can do, regardless of whether they went to journalism school or work at a name-brand media outlet like the New York Times.

This is part of the reason why many publishers have reacted so strongly to what The Huffington Post, Zite and other digital media outlets are doing; it represents competition for them as the gatekeepers of information and the trusted oracles of what is important. And that poses a threat not just to their role in the media ecosystem, but to their financial status as well.

My belief is that Curation is an unstoppable trend that is likely to become an even bigger part of the future of media.

Storify, Flipboard, Instapaper, Zite, Pulse, the list grows daily. Many eyes are now eyeing the prizes to be had in this area.

And if you have learnt to love swiping your finger over an iPad, innovations like http://pushpoppress.com
shows you what media consumption is going to look like very soon.

Publishers need to understand that everything they know is wrong (an old Wired mag headline).

Paul G Roberts
Author of the Trilogy including (plug) “NEXT An Armchair Guide to Your Future”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLY50LNU3Qo

Fairfax, News Ltd and even The New York Times could have come up with something similar to Flipboard or Zite, but they didn’t. Instead, they’ve spent their money on Apps like “The Daily” or those that amount to flat and boring copies of their websites, hoping Steve Jobs might help them out of the hole they’ve dug themselves.

With Flipboard and Zite and similar tools, their creators have done something fresh and given a free alternate way to reach readers — and possibly monetise that relationship in some way other than just an old-fashioned paywall, if these Apps dont get shut down, and i cant see that happening. The aggregation, personalisation and customisation that such Apps allow is the future of Content consumption, and traditional media outlets better figure out how to ride that wave or be crushed by it.

This is an area i know a bit about, as my group has new several projects in this area about to launch.

Greg, Rupert etc…give me a call.

Paul G Roberts

Excellent points you have made guys. Whilst you have to take your hat off to Steve Jobs, who’s Apple share price is as high as a kite. I do actually think it is high as a kite though… There has been an air of arrogance with the operating platforms of apple (no flash etc) Plus the usability compared to some new tablets out there doesn’t cut it. Android is ever popular and soon I can truly see the Nokia’s and Samsung’s gaining far more ground on Apple. I will have a punt that the Apple share price will fall quite heavily over the next 3 years.

Hey Trigger,

Apple’s share price may seem high as a kite, but it actually should be flying much much higher. It is undervalued. And I can assure you it will keep growing at these and even higher rates. And I can explain why.

Apple’s share price has been trading at a P/E of 16.3. Excluding cash that ratio was at 13. On a conservative forward basis (my estimates) the stock is priced at less than 10 times next twelve months’ earnings. Many other in favour share prices are traded at up to 30 times earnings.

These figures show a remarkable pessimism that has persisted around Apple for years. It persisted when Apple was growing at 30% of, as now, 95% annually.

Why is Apple so undervalued when we know the ever more connected universe is just starting to become Apple devotees (note the growth path in China alone).

Android you quote is “ever popular”, and there is some fact in that. Some say Android has been the key factor in the Apple stock being undervalued.

Lately it’s become fashionable to credit Android with overtaking Apple’s IOS. But Apple has not “lost sales” to Android as it has been selling all it can produce.

Since Apple is trading at a fraction of it’s historic multiple, it’s multiple based on growth, and comparable companies’ multiples then we can assume that a “normal” valuation should be twice the current (i.e. a multiple of about 32).

But a multiple of 32 would imply a doubling of its Market Cap, so Apple should be valued at $600 Billion US.

And if the Android factor is indeed the factor that is stopping Apple being valued fairly the solution could be simple. Since Google (Android’s owner) itself is only worth about $169 billion. Apple could buy Google (it already has a third of its value in cash) and it shut down Android, and it would create $300 billion in extra value.

It could even throw away all of Google and still walk out with a profit.

Just an idea.

Paul G Roberts
Author of the Book (and part of his Trilogy)
NOW A Business Survival Guide (on sale everywhere)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhkqjyCNgoE

Thanks Paul. I am not sure if that was all spontaneous clever knowledge, or just a plug for your book, or both 😉 Just kidding. You make a lot of sense.

We shall see I guess. Apple buying Google – now there is a thought.

Goople…

Sorry, but this represents the end of quality journalism, not the beginning. You cannot put subs in one city and journos in another and still call it a newspaper. How will Fairfax source great editors from their pool of journos if all the production people are sitting at AAP?

More stories about celebrity plastic surgery and wires beat-ups is what we are in for.