GigaOm-ContentNext Media Buy Illustrates ... - Business 2 Community

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In a move that illustrates the constantly evolving business of ?media? these days, online media provider GigaOm is buying the assets of ContentNext Media from Guardian News & Media Limited.

That means online content sites paidContent.org, mocoNews.net, contentSutra and paidContent:UK will be part of the GigaOm family of media sites and meetings. GigaOm is better known in technology, Internet, telecom and venture capital circles than in the marketing business.

On one level, the transaction is not unusual. Media properties often are bought and sold. But the deal also makes Guardian News & Media a part owner of GigaOm. You might say that is an example of a consumer-focused media company investing in a business-to-business media company.

So here?s the point:To a new extent, venture capital and technology business interests are finding opportunities in start-ups whose business objective is to create whole ecosystems embracing content and transaction revenue streams; commerce and advertising; sales and marketing.

That leads to the development of complicated new ecosystems requiring devices, applications, communications, context, analytics, content, media, and transaction capability.

GigaOm founder Om Malik notes that ?we are in a time of chaos where the very idea of media is being questioned.? If so, lots of other businesses will be affected. That explains both the intersection of venture capital, the Internet and content businesses, as well as GigaOm?s interest in ContentNext Media.

At a more tactical level, the deal gives GigaOm more heft in European markets it seeks to grow, as well as a bigger footprint in the New York market, which GigaOm says is becoming more of a technology hub, at least with respect to online content and applications.

?New York increasingly makes sense as a headquarters for certain start-ups, especially those with ties to finance, fashion, media, retail, advertising and, increasingly, big data and location-based services,? said GigaOm writer Ryan Kim.

And that tells you something. Over the last few decades, venture capital firms in Silicon Valley have shifted the types of technology firms getting funded. In the 1980s, the focus was largely on hardware. In the 1990s, the focus shifted more in the direction of software. In the first decade of the 2000s, investment shifted to Internet firms.

Now, there is a bigger focus on firms creating platforms for all sorts of businesses whose revenue models focus on advertising. In fact, to use one analogy, Google might be the most successful example to date of a technology or software firm whose revenue comes from advertising or transactions.

Neither of those revenue models historically has been typical or significant for venture-backed technology firms. In fact, VCs historically have not favored investment in media companies.

In the past, if asked to name the category of business a firm was in, knowing only that revenue came from advertising, a reasonable observer might have suspected the firm was a media company.

Google always insists it is not a media company. GigaOm always has been a media company, albeit one whose core constituency was readers with a central interest in the venture capital business.

In 2011, venture capital fairly poured into consumer-facing mobile companies. According to Rutberg & Co., during the first half of 2011 alone, venture capitalists invested $3 billion into 358 mobile companies, with $960 million going to the media and applications sector, defined as social networks, mobile games, mobile advertising, app platforms, news aggregation, photo sharing and group messaging.

All of that ultimately will shape and redefine ?media,? with direct implications for all other participants in media ecosystems whose revenue streams are directly or indirectly based on advertising, content sales, content rentals or services to firms that produce media to support a transaction revenue stream.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/gigaom-contentnext-media-buy-illustrates-intersection-of-media-content-technology-0131578

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