When emergent trends blow up business models

Adriana Cronin-Lukas, who will be speaking at our event next month (and who also sits on the Engagement Alliance advisory board), uses the social bookmarking tool Furl to flag up this FT piece on advertisers struggling to reach teens online. Upon reading it, Adriana comments:

I remember the arguments that just because some people can do things that bypass the media, a few of those individuals will not change anything… what the media industry forgets is that an emergent trend will not look the same when it undercuts and distorts their model. If it makes sense, someone will grab the oppportunity and turn it into a business. This is what MySpace has done and it’s certainly not the final word…

Emphasis mine. Definitely a point for discussion on June 21st.