Publishing Industry in Transition

There's this great word - disintermediation - that you should get to know. Wikipedia says, "In economics disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: cutting out the middleman."

In publishing, the traditional printed newspaper delivered to your door is being disintermediated by online sources that deliver better information online faster - almost immediately, in fact. Over the next decade you will see an increasing number of bankruptcies among print media outlets, and the continued rise of online media and blogs. The Tribune Company / Los Angeles Times bankruptcy is just the most recent example.

And you'll see citizen funded reporting grow. I'm an advisor to Spot.Us, a community where people choose and fund stories they want written. Then those stories are made available so anyone can publish them.

Apple's iTunes service has became the largest online seller of music disintermediating retail music mega stores like Tower Records, Sam Goody's and others. If we can buy music online, delivered digitally for less money, do we need the brick and mortar retail outlets and all the related waste products (plastic, plastic and more plastic) that is wrapped around physical CDs?

The Post Office and shippers are being increasingly disintermediated by email and electronic communications. DHL is halting express deliveries in the US. They lost about $10 billion in the US trying to challenge Federal Express and UPS. So they're packing it in.

Mobile DJ's can spin popular party music from an iPod less expensively than hiring physical performing musicians, disintermediating opportunities for musicians who make a living playing music live.

And the Amazon Kindle, a wireless reading device that lets me download and read books and similar devices that will follow, will (over time) disintermediate the brick and mortar book store business. If we can download content faster and less expensively than buying a physical books, the bottom will fall out of the traditional publishing business, impacting store owners, shippers, and building owners who rent space for stores.

What other areas are being disintermediated by technology?

Bush Leaves Behind a World in Crisis and Writes About It

I read in the NY TIMES this morning that the Bush Administration is creating more than a dozen crisis briefings for the Obama team. Makes sense. The inept and morally corrupt Bush team has been responsible for well over a dozen crises in the environment, economy, foreign affairs, science, and education, so it's kind of nice of them to capture on paper a global morass largely of their own making.

Bush came into office equipped to effect political change -- fill government with conservatives and cronies. So he brought in his old friends network to manage the People's House as he liked calling the White House. That worked well until everything he started a trillion dollar war, paid for it on credit, couldn't close it out, and everything started breaking down.

Obama has another approach -- hire the smartest people he can find to manage government. What a refreshing change.

Audioengine W2 is a Winner!

Is your iPod the center of your audio universe? For many of us, it is. Now you can wirelessly run audio from your iPod to your stereo or powered speakers thanks to the Audioengine W2 premium wireless adapter for iPod.

Audioengine, the maker of the A2 and A5 speakers, have created the ultimate device for those who live by portable devices like the iPod. Simply plug the W2 transmitter into the bottom of your iPod, and attach the W2 receiver to an A2 or A5 powered speaker (or use the included AC adapter and connect the W2 receiver to your stereo system) and music from your iPod is amplified.

It took me about 30 seconds to set up and it worked perfectly and instantly right out of the box. If you've ever set up an Airport Express, that can be a 15-30 minute exploration.

You want these things to be plug and play. W2 succeeds flawlessly. If you're looking to get more value from your iPod, pick up the W2. Read my Audioengine speaker review from last year.