To the point: and they do exist
I'm referring to innovations in the media industry. There have been quite a few in recent months and weeks—some still just ideas, some in the planning stages, and some already implemented. Not only abroad, but also in Switzerland.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has bought the Washington Post. David Pogue, the New York Times' sometimes controversial tech journalist, is joining Yahoo to launch a tech news offering. E-Bay founder Pierre Omidyar is planning a $250 million joint venture with Guardian investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald. In early 2011, online giant AOL bought the Huffington Post from founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington for about $315 million. Huffington, a former author of biographies who unsuccessfully dabbled in politics and eventually founded the Huffington Post with a partner in 2006. Now AOL has launched a German edition together with Tomorrow Focus, a Burda subsidiary. After all, this is already the sixth foreign edition.
Hansi Voigt, the former editor-in-chief of 20min.ch, is quietly working on his online news project Watson, which notably also includes AZ publisher Peter Wanner. Ringier is thinking aloud about a Buzzfeed-like product based on the Blick am Abend. There are similar considerations at Springer Germany. And finally, Jean-Claude Biver, the gifted communicator and watch manager, can imagine buying Le Temps.
Are there any similarities? There are two. What is astonishing - or perhaps not so astonishing - is that the majority of the investors are from outside the industry. And they are all known as lateral thinkers; in many cases they have built up something that did not exist before. And they are looking for journalistic partners who are also not just ordinary journalists.
At this year's Media Congress, Eran Davidson, ex-CEO of the venture capital company Hasso Plattner Ventures, spoke about the "Clash of Innovation Cultures" between the USA and Switzerland. One example: "You have a great idea and want to share it with an engineer: The response in the US: Let's do it today. In Switzerland: It can't be done." Perfection is the goal in Switzerland in the US Perfection means Inefficiency. He also gave advice on how to successfully stifle any innovation: An established company that buys a startup should immediately integrate it into the existing organization and keep it on a short leash. Why is all this coming back to me right now? Guess.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief [email protected]
