Will Corporate (and Amateur) Journalism Eat the World?

American venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously wrote in the Wall Street Journal that 'software is eating the world.' That was in 2011.

Now, 10 years later, he has been proven right.

Over and over again.

Media companies know the reality of this. The largest and most agile among them - think, The Financial Times, The Economist, The New York Times - have been able to keep up with the digital revolution and have prospered.

But others have not been so lucky, and the reason is simple: media companies have lost their monopoly. Now, the internet has made every company a media company.

In fact, the internet has made every single person a publisher. If you have any doubts, just take a look at Facebook - or Instagram - or Twitter.

Every person is a brand, every profile is a publishing house. The tools needed to produce and share content are cheap and readily available and everyone with a story to tell wants to do it directly.

The End - or the Beginning?

Is this the end of traditional media? Maybe, maybe not.

Some portals have moved fast enough to keep up. Others have adapted quickly to include user-generated content that increases their reach and engagement by blending the amateur journalist with an agile editorial staff.

But the really interesting space to watch is corporate journalism.

No - this isn't about stuffing product fact sheets into fancy-looking blog posts. It's not about launching a podcast with senior management droning on about quarterly results.

It's about telling a company's story. That's right - it all comes down to telling a story.

If a company is doing things right, there are plenty of stories to tell:

• The people behind the products

• The battles and struggles to build awesome products

• The spirit that inspires each and every team member

• The happy and satisfied clients

If you think about it long enough, you realize that these are the same kinds of stories being told today by the most renowned media brands on the planet.

There are heroes, there are conflicts, there are 'feel-good' narratives about overcoming adversity and there are winners. (Everyone likes a winner.)

It shouldn't come as a surprise - after all, The Economist famously lures potential subscribers with the tagline: "You've read the news, now discover the story."

Companies who 'get it' know that to tell their story right, they need to build their own publishing operation.

The Business

To further reinforce the fact that business journalism is in the process of eating the world, look no further than the numbers themselves.

Over the past year, advertising spend dropped off significantly, according to the World Economic Forum. On top of that, more and more people spend time on digital platforms - and less on so-called traditional media sites.

The conclusion? Advertising-based business models for all but the biggest brands are pretty much dead. Big surprise.

Out of the ashes come companies that have their own business models - and for which media production is not a main source of revenue.

Instead, it is a valuable source of attention - and trust - and education.

So-called independent journalism may not fade away entirely - nor should it, as independent journalists serve an important democratic purpose - but companies know that if they want to tell their own story, the best way is to do it themselves.

Marc Andreessen - Photo credit: Bloomberg

Telling the Tech Story

The best case in point comes from Marc Andreessen's own venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.

In January of this year, the company announced (in a blog post entitled "Doubling Down on the Future") that it will launch a media publishing property - in addition to the many podcasts and blog series it already puts out.

In their own words:

We embraced speaking directly to our audience — from the builders of the future to the tech-curious — right as the firm was started in 2009.

Asked for more explanation in a recent conversation on Clubhouse, a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz explained that mainstream media doesn't have the technical chops - nor the general audience interest - to write well about tech.

In a 'dog-eat-dog' world, Andreessen Horowitz (like many others) has decided to go big on telling the stories that matter most to them - by themselves.

They aren't the last ones who will do so.