Digital content must be free

I for the most part agree with Anderson's argument. In order to gain a customer base you must decrease the amount of barriers for them. The leading barrier is usually the cost of the product. If a quality product is free and easily accessible to the masses, you can eventually create sources of revenue. This is why broadcast television, radio, and social platforms are free. This is Spotifiy and Pandora have became a giant player in the music industry. This will eventually become the main business model for all of the newspaper industry. 

I don't agree that they should make cut throat deals with Amazon. Newspapers need to collectively create a digital marketplace for their content thats driven by advertising revenue. By having the content be digital, free, and available on all platforms, they decrease the barriers that have been crippling physical newspapers.

I find flaws within Gladwell's attempt to refute Anderson's arguments.  The reason cable television and the iPhone have been so popular is because of the variety of content they offer. This is why Amazon was able to low ball the DMN, they bring the variety of newspapers to the public. Newspapers aren't able to do unless they work collectively together, which is why a middle man like Amazon is able to charge so much. 

Furthermore, you cannot compare Youtube's ad revenue model to the future business model of Newspapers. Taking an unlimited about of amateur videos and writing a limited amount of professional journalism are not exactly the same. $0.00 will be the future purchase price of the journalism because all digital content must eventually become free. This generation and future generations will demand it. However, worry not because everyone will still ample revenue through advertising. 

How to create the future

The present is digital. All forms of analog technology is becoming digital. All digital technology is being created on more mobile platforms. Smart phones are currently the king. Everyone is attempting to create the future. However, no one actually has any idea what the future will be.

If mobile technology has become the norm, as stated in the "Why mobile is the future" article, is time to disrupt it? If businesses don't start to innovate mobile technology will they be left behind? The Harvard article entitled "Disrupting Technologies: Catching the Wave" leads us to assume that if companies don't begin to innovate, those companies will be left behind.

I don't disagree with the fact that eventually the smartphone will be overtaken by a new technology. The main question for me is that if the smartphone surpassed the PC, what will surpass the smartphone?

One would argue that it may be VR. However, VR has been around for the last 50 years! Only now is VR becoming popular. Corporations couldn't have expected the VR boom to happen almost 5 decades after its inception. In fact, in order to "catch the wave" Apple released Quicktime VR in the early 90's. It's safe to say the tool was never used to its maximum capability. I bring up VR because it is a prime example of technology being pushed onto consumers by established corporations for decades, but inevitably it was made popular by "small and hungry organizations" like Oculus.

My argument is that established corporations cannot truly predict the next "disruptive technology." Corporations cannot know for sure what will be successful in the market. They can simply improve the hardware of their current technology. Thus, we have a new iPhone every other quarter. The only other viable option for them to disrupt technology is to eat into their own market. Apple ate into the iPod market with the iPhone. They are currently are eating into music sales with the creation of Apple Music. This is the only way established corporations know how to innovate and disrupt the market. The corporations who fail to do this will get left behind.

Is ramen noodles good enough?

Robert Capp's article ""The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine" is very interesting because it sheds light on the market of inferior goods. Technical goods that are not better than their competitors but are widely popular if mass consumers can afford it and need it. The good must also be able to fulfill the intended purpose of the finer good, even if it has lower quality. Every technology based consumer good that is based on the "cheap and simple" platform will inevitably end production or become a superior good because technology will continue to improve. Thus, the demands from customers will continue to change.

For example, in the article Capp explains the process Jonathan Kaplan went through in order to fail in the camera market and than have temporary success in the video market. The Flip camera is the prime example of a "good enough" product. It was able to fulfill the intended purpose of the finer good but with less quality. It had temporary success as in inferior good but was not able to keep adapting to the markets needs as technology became better. Moore's law applies must also apply to inferior goods. As the video market became better, Flip released better versions of its camera. However, an inferior good must not only improve its product but continue to innovate itself. Flip's motto was "We will always prioritize accessibility over features." But this motto led to their failure because as video became integrated into other products Flip lost its share of the market to smartphones. It could not adapt and become more accessible than smartphones and the camera did not have better features. Most can agree that smartphone cameras are inferior to DSLRs and also more convenient than a Flip cameras. Flip became the inferior good to the new inferior good. The ramen noodle to the Big Mac.

Some inferior products don't fail. They become superior products within their market. Skype is a great example of this.  Capp explains that originally the platform lagged and dropped calls. Clearly, it was the inferior good to international calls. It only accounted for 38 million users when the article was written. Over time the service drastically improved its quality and added numerous features for their customers. It innovated as time went on and became a superior good. Today Skype has over millions of users and is a leader in many telecommunication markets.

I overall agree with Cabb. There will always be a market for cheap and simple consumer goods. However, in order for a product to became a sustainable company their overall selling point/features must improve along side with the market. In fact, if they innovate ahead of their competitors the inferior good can become the superior good. Ramen noodles can become pad thai. All it takes is a cheap price, convenience, and some innovation.

Future generations will be different, all bets on digital media.

I agree with the Ramen Noodle Theory in some aspects. Currently, online news is the inferior good when compared to print newspapers. However, aside from the current statistics, I truly believe we all know that eventually the print newspaper will die. Young children today do not read physical text as my generation did and as Iris's generation did. We were conditioned to believe that there is value in reading and collecting physical text. In fact, most families in my neighborhood had small libraries in for their children. That is no longer the case in homes for new families. Every type of text, including online media, is easily accessible for children on their iPads and Kindles.

As we discussed last week in class, children are being pushed to use e-readers through out their education. I have participated in focus groups that have tested future textbooks. Future generation will create a dependence on technology that will eventually cause an end to the Ramen Noodle Theory. I may be one of the few that find the theory to be hard to swallow. I am biased because I believe that as technology progresses our habits as a society will change.

I believe that print is not the steak of news media. Many print news publishers are no longer around. Print media is a bubble that has lived a very long life and will continue too for the next two decades, but change will come and this bubble will pop. No one has effectively disrupted the power of print media, but I'm sure silicon valley will create something soon. The pros within Business week's article are growing and the con's will be less relevant to future generations. It is not necessary for publishers to change their ways and adapt now because many in my generation will still be inclined to pick print over digital.

Digital publishers 101

“If I was invested in one of these businesses, I would want to exit in 2016.” I do not agree with this statement from Seth Alpert, of AdMedia Partners. The opportunity to be successful usually arises when many are failing. Ricardo Bilton of Digiday is correct when he explains that there is an overabundance of media publishers who do not make the cut. The reason many media publishers do not make it is because their business models do not have sources of competencies that differs from their competition. 

Buzzfeed, BI, Mashable all provide value to a specific target market. They are all able to generate revenue. However, they cannot sustain a competitive advantage for the long term because they fail to innovate how their content is created and leave the fate of their distribution to social networks. 
Cha explains that in order to sustain a competitive position for the long term firms must have unique resources, marketing, and resource leveraging. New media publishers have the same access to the old resources, marketing tactics, and leverage on social media that Facebook provides to its most viewed media publishers. In order to increase unique viewership, popular media outlets must begin to create their own marketing campaigns and leverage other platforms. Buzzfeed's extension into Snapchat and other social media outlets is a great example of this. 

This article explains that BuzzFeed uses a unique one to 13 ranking to decide which mediums to focus on when it comes to distribution. This structure, along with the creation of   Buzzfeed Distribution and Buzzfeed Motion 
Pictures have changed the way the company will do business in 2016. They have drastically changed their sources of competencies for the better. This positioning will allow them to grow their viewership. Article: Distributed news: How BuzzFeed curates stories for social platforms