Local news and niche posting wrapped in hyper-local promoting are the predictable future of profitable media. Large publishing companies are planning under with the weight of many mouths to feed and long, expensive distribution channels to extend their messages to their readers’ coffee tables. As the canopy opens on this space, agile, smaller, even home-based media businesses are growing.

How has this happened? I consider it is a combination of decreasing returns on the old ‘rivers of gold’ (once controlled by the big end of community), with the introduction of a glut of media channels and technology for new delivery models. The economic ‘backbone’ of traditional newspaper publishing was always the classifieds, real estate and automotive, along with per-copy invest in revenues. To launch a newspaper or magazine you needed to currently have a dozen other titles in the steady, invariably introduced by your forefather.

Then the internet come. At first the impact was minimal, but in the last few years as readers start seeking for their information, the industry has been stirred into a storm of panic. Suddenly the same information on the homepage of a $1.50 magazine is available earlier online, with related links, videos and neighborhood opinion…without cost!

When was the last time you got a paper especially to view classifieds, real estate or automotive listings, or to discover more about a news item someone mentioned in passing? How many of your friends register to daily or even weekly delivery of a print newspaper? Now think of how many ezines you and your friends subscribe to, or how conveniently you get your news from online search engines, news websites or subscribed communities.

In tandem with changes in end-user viewing designs, technologies exploded, influencing no industry more so than the media space, which is on fire! Ideas is the most heavily invested asset on this planet, far exceeding oil, gold or development. Efforts to tap into this multi-billion dollar trade market are breeding new wealth and plenty of unique ideas.

Faster internet connections, the rise of some excellent content management programs that allow even the layman to get online and learn of his domain in a matter of days, the online social media technology and the ready accessibility to support all augur well for the imaginative businessman. Young business people no longer examine engines under the bonnet or boyfriends, instead websites, equipment and online careers.