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I like Steve Rubel, but I often disagree with some of his ideas. In Steve’s latest post, “The Next Great Media Company Won’t Have A Website” he argues: Because a new media company can be everywhere using “spokes” (widgets, Facebook, ect.) it won’t need a “hub” (a website.)
A lot of folks will argue Steve is right because, what is a website besides another spoke?
That’s a fair question. I don’t have a definitive answer, but here’s what I think:
I’m not convinced the spokes will replace the hub for a new company. Not with the uncertainty that comes from putting your fate in the hands of external parties.
You Don’t Own Your Spokes
I know. Twitter revised their Terms Of Service and pointed out that you own your Tweets. But Twitter is a private company that won’t be around forever.
Neither will you, but for argument’s sake, let’s assume you’ll have greater longevity than any of the companies you rely on for a “spoke”.
What happens when that company closes, or as has become common with aging social networks, becomes irrelevant?
Does your spoke on MySpace today have the same relevance it had in 2002?
Let’s say the separate Friendfeed site shuts down. What happens to all the comments that were built up over time using the service? What about the rooms you’ve set up?
But you might say, “Yeah, but I can just create a new spoke where everyone is”.
You’re right. Except about that “everyone” part.
If you’re a Millennial like me, you’re bored with Facebook and trying to avoid your parents there.
We’re only on Facebook because our slow to adapt friends haven’t bailed. They might not, as Facebook looks to be creating a monopoly so powerful that only the combined might of Google and Twitter could stop it.
That digital date with Armageddon notwithstanding, all because “everyone” is on Facebook doesn’t mean “everyone” is engaged on Facebook.
Sure. That’s just one usergroup, and maybe not your primary audience, but do you know how engaged your target audience is with the social publishing platform they choose to use?
Would it be a wise investment of a new company’s resources to develop a spoke instead of strengthening its hub?
And do I really need to talk about the stranglehold Apple has on smart phone apps? I know Google has Android, but T-Mobile is an awful provider, and as much as I loved using the Pre until I broke mine, the app store is a mess and probably won’t catch on.
That means your spoke rests at the whim of Apple and could be deleted at their whim.
You Own The Hub
If I’m the next great media company, you better believe I’m going to use video over everything else to communicate with my audience. But do I want to reply on Youtube to host my videos when I could just utilize bit torrent, make it dead simple for my audience to use it, and send my content to them that way from my website?
Or what if I built-out my infrastructure to do one thing exceptionally well: Play my videos. Why put the content elsewhere when I can simply serve it to every and any platform when people visit the website?
I guess it all comes down to how much you want to rely on other parties. I trust Google. I run my entire company in their cloud, but when it comes to creating touch points for my audience, they may not share my faith in the big G. Or any outlet, app, or service that may bring my content to them (and allow them in turn to interact with it.)
Yeah, GoDaddy and Dreamhost could pull the domain name out from under you if they were threatened with a legal notice, but that’s a moot point because the other spokes would too. Plus, you can mirror your website if you need to. You could even get your own hardware and host the website yourself.
But your content, your infrastructure, that’s on your shoulders. That’s on you to provide a friendly, informative, and easy to use experience for your audience. One that can cross over on to any platform whether it be a computer monitor, television, or smart phone.
And here, you control everything. You don’t need to gamble on the current success of the latest social publishing tool or create an app that might disappear overnight. Why when you can do it all from one central point that the audience can access from anywhere?
Not everyone uses Facebook. Not everyone has a smart phone (for the record, the iPhone’s market share is usually grossly overstated). I’d argue most people want a website and the lack of friction that comes from punching in your domain name instead of logging in to yet another network to see what you’re doing.
That doesn’t mean you can’t have the spokes, but a good hub renders a lot of them useless.
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