Niche Media’s Unlikely Savior: Offline
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the real and virtual worlds — where they intersect, where they depart, how they are the same, how they are different.
As we spend more and more time (and money) in the virtual world, elements of the ‘real world’ seem to actually increase in importance. While authentic real life experiences and interactions can be augmented significantly, they cannot be completely replaced.
For this reason, the live event business continues to thrive as many traditional media businesses struggle to survive.
Live sporting events are an immediately obvious example — anyone who’s been watching the NBA playoffs knows how powerful they are. The only part of the music business that makes money today are concerts. See Irving Azoff’s comments at D7 yesterday. Speaking of which, conferences such as D are a big business. Nothing can ultimately replace that live interaction.
Of course the current recession has a negative impact on the live event business as well. But it’s woes are temporal rather than the systemic ones of traditional media.
Niche media brands will increasingly struggle if they are solely reliant on selling banner ads against limited online inventory. While these brands will begin and end their engagment with the customer on the web, and they must be really smart about how they leverage the broader social web to do so, they will distinguish themselves from the evergrowing pack of competitors for consumer attention by actually touching their consumer in tangible ways.
A perfect example of this is an email I received yesterday from New York Magazine, 
advertising a unique culinary experience they are offering their devout readers. They have done a great job engaging a very targeted, high value audience, both on and offline, and driving meaningful revenue opportunities beyond the advertising they sell on their site.
This is only going to get more widespread and more targeted, audience by audience.
I recently spoke at an event with Scott Heiferman, and I couldn’t help but marvel at what Meetup is tapping into in this regard. What began as a community organizing tool, may actually turn into one of the most engaging platforms for advertisers to reach authentic *live* communites. Is there anything better for Pampers branding efforts than sponsoring 5000 simultaneous mommy Meetups across the country complete with free diapers?
The niche media businesses that tap into these authentic connections and experiences will survive. Those that don’t and rely on traditional publishing and banner ads will have a very hard time doing so.
