This is not another post about Gawker or Felix Salmon. I promise. It’s about something far more dry: weighing the comparative value of technology and content
Deep within the Felix Salmon piece on Gawker Media (Wait! Keep reading. I don’t dwell.) he explores the viability of Gawker as a technology company, focusing primarily on its content management system. While he dismisses the notion after a couple of paragraphs—noting the technical problems Gawker has had in the past—there is a lot of wisdom in the question itself: Should media companies like Gawker be as focused on technology as they are on content? Yes, absolutely.
While this may seem like an obvious point, it has yet to really catch on. Investing in technology is expensive and since the business of online publishing is still unproven, publishers are reticent to dump too much cash—at least enough to develop and support products like a content management system—into their websites.
When they first made the foray into publishing online, many media companies—especially those with print antecedents—adopted, developed and grew proprietary content management systems that are no longer supported. They invested millions upon millions in maintaining these systems, yet in the end, since the knowledge and technology is now obsolete, have little to show for it.
Media companies should be hotbeds of development and experimentation. Where else is there such a fertile ground of interesting content and imaginative people? The problem is that these companies rarely invest enough in development—and if they do, they rarely if ever structure their development departments so that they can sell their services or products to others.
It seems clear that there is as much value these days in development, if not more, as there is in content. Publishers should be stockpiling development talent. (Someone buy Instapaper and hire Marco Arment now!)
Which brings me to The Times, who started licensing Press Engine in August (something Salmon mentions). NYT seems to be one of the first major publishers to invest deeply in development and innovation with an eye to creating products. Am I right? Are there others? Who am I missing?
