Personal musings on @ToutiaoApp, the world's most valuable startup who happens to be a news / media company, and the disruption in the media industry brought on by technology.
medium.com/@efeng/the-fut…
medium.com/@efeng/the-fut…
@ToutiaoApp is a content publishing platform, not a news aggregator (think Medium, not Google News). AI recommendation tech has been key to its success, but more important is the market opportunity in China, where bad state owned media has created an unmet need for entertainment.
The US media industry is great at entertaining audiences, so I don't think the @ToutiaoApp playbook would upend the media industry in this country, no matter how good the recommendation tech is. But then again, the US media industry is already being upended by tech.
The 4 product utilization stages for media - creation, monetization, distribution, and consumption - have all been disrupted by tech. Every part of media is different now in a digital world. More changes will come as media fully embraces tech natively in their products.
