SmartCompany - Digital media in dire straights

Well, maybe not the whole digital media industry, which is continuing to grow nicely ... but certainly the road has been a bumpy one for the various roll-ups and aggregators of digital media businesses. BlueFreeway, CommQuest, Q and Destra have all performed well under the expectations that their investors might have once had - if they have survived at all. Is there a chance for those that remain, or is the model fundamentally flawed? You can check out my story for SmartCompany by clicking here.

Comments

[Oliver Palmer]

Great article Brad, has been amazing to watch the process unfold over the past 3 years, especially as we have been very close to a number of companies who were rolled up as well as the larger entities themselves. I do tend to agree with Richard Webb and Paul in that the model is not without merit, but it remains to be seen if anyone can get it right in the Australian marketplace.

[David]

One typo: straits, not straights ;)

[Chris Simon]

Top insightful article as usual Brad and incredibly interesting examples and quotes. I’m a tad out of my depth, but have been around a lot of the trends discussed, (here and in other countries). In incredibly Simplistic-Simon terms, I wonder if too many chiefs and still never enough indians causes erosion to the success of what has always been a business built on strategic change process. Credit crunch or whichever economy is always an easy blame. Personally, I've experienced hungry and lean able to move faster and more efficiently than larger groups. One factor has always been how tightly you can apply and aggregate output of human teams. In a world always ruled by so many claims and counter claims of technology, it is still proven that six people understanding the relative virtues can apply the appropriate technology to the appropriate task more efficiently than the 60 people evangelising each separate technology. In other words, in 2010 and beyond, teams of the right 6 should be capable of winning large chunks of successful digital application over teams of 60 (?)