Death of mainstream media greatly exaggerated

Our position on whether or not mainstream media (MSM) is dying a slow death, as we've expressed on this blog, is that, to quote one Mr. Steve Jobs, "the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." The latest reason we're sticking with this position is because of three new syndication deals unveiled in the last two days whereby content from popular tech blogs are being distributed by MSM outlets.

Today, the New York Times announced content syndication deals with several blogs, including GigaOm, Venture Beat and Read/Write Web.  This is part of an unveiling of a new technology channel on New York Times.com, which is marked by an expanding scope of coverage, including enterprise technology. This actually is the third such deal for GigaOm, as yesterday, Om Malik announced that GigaOm will be syndicated by CNN Money (owned by Time Warner, his former employer), and BusinessWeek started syndicating its content last July.  And in May, The Washington Post began syndicating TechCrunch content.

First of all, we congratulate those three blogs for the deal. It shows how well they have established themselves in terms of delivering high-quality content and becoming an influential voice in technology. On the other hand, it also shows how important the well-established MSM is to expanding the reach of those blogs. Even TechCrunch needs these kinds of deals. To us, this gives us an idea of exactly how social media is impacting MSM media, and that what we'll see is more of a blurring of the lines.