You are spot on! There are many wine bloggers who do not regularly post and their blogs sit idle for weeks or months with nothing. They occassionally post a wine review (sadly only when they get a sample in some cases) and occassionally post something else. You are correct, seek out those that post regular, interesting, engaging and knowledgeable content and enjoy them. The rest will, pun intended, die on the vine.

Michael

Print media is here to stay!

I think Kindle will make print journalism stronger because it needs content, and print journalists have content to spare. All of the existing print journalists have data bases that run into the tens of thousands of reviews. Kindle is a natural for that–as is virtually any other form of moving reader of content from laptops to pdas.

And there will be no way to get all that content unless you pay for it. I have no doubt that people and sources not now in traditional media will make inroads there as well, but Kindle ain’t nothin without content. And valuable content that runs deep does not exist without lots and lots of hard work.

My overall conclusion is no surprise. It is all about the quality and quantity of content. People will flock to wherever they find it. So far, it’s still mostly on paper.

I would suggest taking a look at the very best companies in America who are using social media successfully. There is a great report on brand engagement here – http://www.engagementdb.com/Report. Take a look at how they are executing in terms of brand engagement, using social media to attract talent etc. and how that is turning into revenue. Then look at the professional organizations and industry specific online communities, information sources etc. who are talking about those companies and have utilized social media to create robust and lively communities of people sharing information and educating one another. There is revenue being generated in these examples. How is that converted to offline traditional media? The answers are there to be found.

Roger is completely correct, the real pioneer is rarely the one who capitalizes to the maximum. It is those that come later and find solutions to the vexing questions the pioneer was unable to answer who capitalize in such a way. I would argue that the pioneers of online and social media have long since passed (yes, it hasn’t been that long but the pioneering part is over) and it is up to us to figure it out.

I do want to reiterate, I don’t believe that traditional print media will go away EVER. I merely suggest that in its current form it will not survive. There will be some who figure it out and go in a different direction. The rest may not make it.