Lounge

Here is why the digital media advertising will inevitably be turned upside down (again). You have two incredible phenomenons occurring in the present time:

1. Mobile handsets > PCs by 2014 - the mobile device will be the primary method by which users experience the internet, a vastly different form vis a vis the PC

2. "The one-touch user profile" - people have taken to downloading apps of news services e.g., NYtimes, CNN that already have standard websites. Why do they do this? Two reasons a) you get one touch access to news vs. opening up a browser, looking up a bookmark, etc b) the content is designed specifically for the mobile form, making it much easier to consume

We are now seeing the rise of content aggregator apps (e.g., flipboard) that just repurpose existing content and make them consumbable for mobile form. In the old days, this was a portal; in tomorrow's mobile world, these apps will become the kings for user eyeballs.

Consider two different, yet plausible scenarios:

- What if flipboard or another such app became the defacto place for people to read the NY Times, WSJ, and others? These apps could control, in effect, a good part of the advertising that would normally go to the content provider. Not too mention they would have startlingly rich information on the consumer that any retailer would covet.

- What if Facebook (which recently became the 4th largest source of media traffic behind Google, Yahoo, MSN) starts keeping users within their four walls to read the news instead of linking out to the original content provider. They could attribute the content provider, but keep the user experience within Facebook with some fairly simple RSS programmatic elements.

These will not happen tomorrow, but the trend to me is clear: origination - where the user starts reading content - will become more important than fulfillment - where the content actually is created.

We can sit back, watch the digital dollars, and let the story unfold.

Aveek Guha, President, www.mbadaycamp.com