Connect the Dots - The Give and Take between Old World and New World Media

As I've mentioned before, one of the things I hope to do on this blog is draw some linkages between the topics we study in the classroom and their usage in the real world.  One of the discussions from our last ITMgmt course was the pace of technology change and how it's impacting many traditional businesses.  Most of the discussion was about how innovation, specifically technology-centric innovation, was creating something called creative destruction.  

The USAir plane crash yesterday actually did a nice job of highlighting both sides of the discussion.  Initially, several people commented on the speed of content which emerged from citizen journalists using social networking tools like Twitter. They lamented that journalism and mass media were becoming dead industries as media companies weren't able to keep up with the pace of information flow that could be achieve through today's popular consumer technology.  Today, CNN representatives commented that they weren't worred about the pace of the information, but were actualy happy that they now had a free content source, instead of what they were used to paying for.  

It's interesting to look at both sides of that argument.  While I believe that CNN should still be concerned about continuing to maintain viewership to their flagship product (CNN TV), it's good to see that they are farsighted enough to embrace the technology change to the advantage of their business.