Havas Media Lab

What is media today?

We’re used to thinking of media in terms of yesterday’s categories - largely focused on either inert information or passive entertainment.

But do they apply anymore?

LinkedIn, for example, has just raised a final round of financing, before a long-awaited and long hoped-for IPO. LinkedIn is very much a media business - but it doesn’t fit neatly into yesterday’s categories.

Here’s a more radical example: Carbonlimited, the first C2C carbon trading market. It’s media too - but doesn’t fit into yesterday’s categories at all.

Why is expanding the definition of media important? Because it’s only by fully understanding new categories of media that we can begin reinventing media strategies and business models.

It’s hard to imagine Carbonlimited utilizing orthodox media revenue streams, like simple, unidirectional advertising. And LinkedIn learned to rely on different revenue streams entirely, like subscriptions from recruiters.

Redrawing the boundaries of value creation doesn’t begin with CPMs - it begins by understanding the relationships between supply and demand across a new world of media.

The highest-value forms of media tomorrow may not look much like those of yesterday - especially if Google and Amazon realize their visions, which will radically alter the balance of supply and demand across  traditional media markets.

There’s a deeper truth there. In an interconnected world, media is everywhere: it’s the stuff that plugs consumption and production together. The opportunities for value creation are greater than ever before - but we must expand our vision of what media is to begin realizing them.