Happy Monday War & Peaceniks - Time For Summer School!
As you may know, I teach Media Studies at NYU and Fordham U. I love it. Each semester, I get to re-examine the state of the Media World through the eyes, ears and zooms of the next generation of media consumers and leaders.
As you also may or may not know, these classes were the original inspiration for my maps of the Media Universe. The spring semester just ended, which means I have just a few weeks of rest… before the summer semester begins!
The end/start of each semester is when I jump back into the map for major overhauls. So, this weekend I took the whole thing apart and started (almost) from scratch…
What’s changed and what it tells us:
Bytedance is right-sized. Since Bytedance is not a public company, until last week I had been using the last valuation of TikTok only (based on the 2020 acquisition offer from Microsoft) as the total market cap for its parent company. Shame on me. Based on the combined value of TikTok and their Chinese version Douyin, Reuters values Bytedance at $300 billion. The reshaped planet of Bytedance rightfully portrays the power TikTok now has, overtaking Facebook, Instagram and now even YouTube for time spent, and as the fastest growing ad platform on the planet. TikTok is also the competitor that all the other major media players say is their biggest fear/threat. Given its usage and influence, OG media should be afraid. Hence the bigger sphere and fancier coloration.
Alibaba is back. As the number one ad platform in China, and one of the most powerful video platforms on earth, I’m not sure why I ever dropped them off!
Charter and Comcast are connected. While their Roku-esque JV has yet to be named, we do know that the pair will be teaming up for streaming services and devices built on the Flex platform, with Xumo serving as the backbone/aggregator and Peacock as their home-team programming channel. Look for this partnership to take more shape here and IRL.
Districts have been redrawn…
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