In his conversation with John Battelle kicking off the Web 2.0 conference, billionaire Barry Diller made some comments disparaging those who create content on the Web that only a handful of people will ever see. “When you get into forms of entertainment, talent always wins out. There isn’t that much talent in the world. An audience of 8 to 12 people might be interested in someone’s individual expression, but the process of people with talent and expertise making entertainment products won’t be displaced by 18-year-olds making videos, except maybe on ‘Funniest Home Videos.’ “
So I stood up and asked the 60-year-old CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI) to clarify his comments. I asked something along the lines of this: “Mr. Diller, as John just noted, you’re a media mogul who’s now an Internet mogul, and yet you’re still speaking in the language of a media mogul. Why are people peeling away from the mainstream media and turning to the new media forms of the Internet and digital media? Why are millions of people creating their own media at sites like Flickr and Ourmedia, and how is that any less worthy than the mass entertainment turned out by traditional media?”
Diller finessed the question but didn’t backtrack, maintaining that there’s a limited supply of talented people who create content worth viewing.
He ought to read Darknet.
Dan Farber has a post about the exchange in ZDNet, and Rob Hof has a short writeup in BusinessWeek Online.
Technorati tags: Web2con, HonorTagJournalism
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
Even if Diller is correct … he misses the point that “the top” that he says talent rises to is no longer owned by the MSM.
You don’t have to be published in the MSM to be an A-list blogger … and you don’t have to be on staff at a major newspaper to earn 6 figures for writing. Actually, there are probably fewer (if any) MSM journalists earning six-figures than Bloggers who do.
Barry Diller is the punch line to many a Web1.0 joke … look how he ripped every shred of value & momentum out of expedia … why let him do the same to Web2?