MediaVidea

J. Angelo Racoma of Splashpress Media has asked an important question, something that all new media must be/should be asking themselves right now:

What is our Worth?

I am cross posting the comment I made on that article.

Disclosure: They are promising a prize of $1000 to the best answer to their question but I have decided to take a broad generalist route to answering that and so winning 1000 dollars is why I am reposting it here. On to my answer:

Before we start discussing the worth of Splashpress Media, it is important to remember this:

1. WEB 2.0 IS NOT DEAD.
2. There will be no bloodbath. Most of are all mostly budget-conscious people and we don't hope to be Google one day.
3. The Web 2.0 hype is fed by clueless, out-of-touch VCs and Big Corporations like Microsoft and Google who are paying huge sums for properties just to piss on each other.
4. Steve Rubel started this ‘Web 2.0 is dead’ meme because no one was reading his blog like they did in 2005.
5. Then a VC reported that blue chip investors Kleiner Perkins were not gung ho about Web 2.0, but if you look at their portfolio, you will find they have mostly been blind towards User Generated Content.

Coming back to Splashpress Media, I think we should always remember what Jaff Jarvis said about the future of newspapers:

THERE WILL BE MORE REPORTERS. THERE WILL BE MORE JOURNALISM.

The message for Splashpress Media and all other New Media is clear:

There is a shiny, big field ahead and so the effort must be not to slip:
1. Keeping Costs down
2. Doing original, often entertaining journalism.
3. That means rising above merely rewriting that many Blog Networks/New Media startups do.
4. Established News houses are taking to blogs in a big way and many of them are indeed better written.

The Bottomline:

if Splashpress Media manages to stand above the crowd and aims for the long term, and conveys this message to investors as well (building media properties takes money, although not in Mass Media amounts), it will indeed be very valuable to its founders and readers alike.

Note:

Splashpress Media, like may other networks has been hit by Google's recent Pagerank Update. i understand their concern but I like to think that New Media startups must not get scared and moreover, we shall not let our plans be dictated by a bunch of overrated analysts. We shall keep doing the good stuff.