Understanding the 4th media revolution

Rupert Murdoch’s comments this week about twitter had me thinking about the rationale behind his statement. Murdoch sees no monetary value and the future for twitter and predicts that the only successful business model on the web right now is related to search.

Even though I agree that search is the only real money maker on the web, I disagree that other meaningful business models will not emerge soon. Twitter represents more than a simple and often wrongly perceived tool that only updates live status of mundane things in a micro blogging form. Twitter represents the arrival of the new form of communication. It might take a while to monetize twitter, but the arrival of twitter business model represents one of the few moments in the history of media that qualifies for the level of revolution.

I agree with Clay Shirky (TED presentation) that there were four periods in the last 500 years when media model changed enough to qualify for a revolution – including the printing press in the middle 14th century, the arrival of the 2 way conversational media some 200 years ago ( first the text based telegraph followed by voice based telephone ), the arrival of the recorded media that came in the form of photos, recorded sound, television and movies in the early 1900s , and obviously the last one being the arrival of the Internet.

Historically, all media revolutions enabled the capability to enhance communications between people whether it was in one to one (telegram, telephone) or one to many communication formats (television).

In the case of the Internet, the impact has been exponentially larger because of its unique capability to reach masses in a revolutionary, many to many format. Even though internet provides that platform, applications like twitter (and in my opinion, at this time, twitter is the only company that understands this model well) enables individuals or businesses to practice this concept.

How often can you communicate with 5000 people on your network instantaneously?
Email is effective but twitter takes ‘many to many’ communications to the next level. Unlike with email, people on your

twitter network have already opted in, so most likely your message is received well among like minded people and you can hear from them instantaneously as well – allowing to truly focus on the message rather than focusing on the medium.

BTW, I got my first invite for a national television appearance that came in the form of a twit. I am a strong believer in adding value. As long as twitter adds value to its users, a moneymaking business model will emerge. Twitter is a great conceptual age business that offers a great tool for its users to make money before going after a quick buck itself.