There was a lot of buzz over the last few days on the internet about a blog post from Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch) where he interviewed Marc Andressen and Marc’s comments were to “Burn the boats.” This referring to the legend from the 1500′s when Cortes landed in Mexico who’s attitude was all or nothing; to move forward with no possibility of changing your mind or going back. Andreessen who has the Founder of Netscape and have gone on to a number of other successful ventures and now invests in technology companies probably knows a thing or two about what he’s talking about. After all Netscape was one of the first big successes on the Internet.
It is no secret that traditional media, specifically newspapers have been struggling for years, now many of them or playing with pay wall models as they try to recoup some of the lost revenues they had become accustomed to from advertising. Consumers of course don’t necessarily want to pay for content, or do they? While some consumers will be willing to pay there will never be enough to replace the revenue dollars that newspapers have become accustomed to from advertising.
Does the newspaper industry understand technology?
According to the post by Eric:
“Microsoft is going through this right now,” he points out, “Ballmer is not complaining about it.” He’s tackling it head on. So did Intel when Andy Grove gutted it to shift from memory chips to microprocessors. So does every technology company CEO. It is ingrained in the industry Andreessen comes from, so it is just obvious to him: “You are cruising along, and then technology changes. You have to adapt.” Media companies need to learn that lesson fast. To the extent that their products are now delivered and consumed as digital bits, they too are becoming technology companies.
Looking at media companies across the country it is often a top down problem, where upper management does not take the time to understand technology’s impact on business models and does not empower their employers to make the necessarily changes or even to implement a pilot project to test the waters. The politics of change can often be so enormous that it simple chokes innovation and the company is dead in the water, or as we’ve seen with CanWest in the last few months get to a point of bankruptcy.
According to Seth Godin who was in Toronto for SES a few years ago, he suggested to implement a pilot project, as it is easier to ask for forgiveness on something small than to ask for permission on something that is big (or perceived big).
Founder of Profectio of business sites which includes 
