The Digital Media Product Innovation Imperative

The media meltdown continues its slow burn across the media industries. Yet, enlivened by new devices like the iPad and audience enthusiasm for the content that new technologies have generated, many media companies have successfully launched themselves headlong into the rebuild phase of the digital media transition. So far, they have largely replicated their traditional analog products — TV shows, movies, books, magazines, and newspapers — in digital forms. While this is a good start, they won't complete the digital transition until they have created entirely new digital media products that fulfill the promises made by digital technology. If today's media companies don't do it, a host of outsiders like Facebook, Google, and even Microsoft will be happy to do it for them. Forrester recommends that media companies get a jump on these outsiders by establishing formal organizational priorities for product innovation.