The Now Literal Reality of a Virtual Age

The US election starkly demonstrates the internet’s power to shape our lives, our world and our future.

The exasperation of the Democratic Party in the United States is as much the result of generational and technological advancement as it is of political and cultural change. It should not be a surprise. The embrace of technology by younger generations is a typical catalyst for cultural change that older generations often disregard or simply perceive only once in full swing.

It is also an investment opportunity. Put another way, it is an opportunity...

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3 Comments

What I take from this is that the audience is an increasingly important metric for both investors and advertisers in M&E. For the “creator economy” this has to become better defined. The number of “followers” is misleading in my view. Social Media is being manipulated by AI bot account and “Influencer Pods” that artificially inflate follower counts. The engagement rate of the audience is really what matters. Out of the total number of followers, how many have actually interacted (financially or otherwise).

AdTech has always used a “click through rate” to measure engagement. Maybe that can be adopted by D2C content creators.

There is a clear change in thinking by investors in this sector. The audience is, absolutely, the most (if not only) metric for evaluating media companies today (my opinion; shared widely in my circles). Emerging platforms, app developers and FAST channel operators are of increasing interest because they are delivering greater audience engagement with the data to back up it.

I have no doubt that messaging delivered via these “channels” transcends traditional political affiliation.

A lot of very large investors with strong political motivations are keenly aware and actively investing for more than financial performance. The game has now truly changed.

This is an interesting proposition. The “Audience” has become the central source of both political and economic power in our modern world, enveloping both consumer & voter. Whoever taps into the audience best, wins both financially and politically.

The transition from those in control of media holding the “king-maker” mace to the Audience (if not yet consciously using it) seems to have happened without much notice. I think this article is the first I’ve read that articulates this. Well done!

The other article on this site, the Masters of Media article, becomes even more reverent.