What’s the next big trend in online media? Money. That’s the word from the man behind a website that garners 20 billion monthly page views. Now that the world and his wife has easy access to cameras, music-making tools and online distribution, isn’t it time we started turning it into cash?
Speaking at the Monaco Media Forum, Tumblr’s CEO David Karp was vocal about the fact that social media sites are currently sitting at ‘phase two’ and need to shift into the next phase, in which we all start reaping the benefits.
“Tumblr is part of a creative ecosystem,” said Karp. “One form of the internet is social, about sharing and communication, while another form is made up of the Tumblrs and Instagrams and YouTubes where people who are making the stuff can share it across all of those networks. That ecosystem is at phase two, which is distribution, with phase one being the ability to make the stuff…the second phase was empowering creatives with distribution, the third phase has already started to show is face, the new economics.”
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The ‘new economics’? He means that with sites evolving to enable everyone to create and distribute content, surely the next step is bringing money into the equation. Karp already sees this trend with crowd-funding, but where next?
“These creators who are building their own audiences are using all sorts of tools to engrain stuff and build huge audiences – the next big step will be how we commercialise that and we’re starting to see that through Kickstarter. I’m really curious to see what else comes out there and I’d put all my money in those platforms that are producing new economics for creators.”
So if the CEO of Tumblr thinks that offering users a shop window is the future, does that mean that Tumblr’s about to turn into the next Etsy? Recent stats suggest that more people buy from social media sites than from traditional web advertising, so it makes sense.
Via The Drum
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