John Battelle – I Want Media “I Want Media: Is Google a media company?
John Battelle: Without question. I define a media company as a company that creates experiences for consumers, and Google does that every day. Also, a media company is often defined by the kind of revenue it collects, and nearly 100% of Google’s revenue is advertising.
I wouldn’t say Google is only a media company, but I would say Google is a very media-driven business.
IWM: Yahoo is hiring journalists and developing television programming. Is Yahoo a media company?
Battelle: Absolutely. Yahoo is also a technology company, a software services company, a Web hosting company. But if you, again, look at the lion’s share of their revenues, it’s advertising. The asset that they have is the attention of the people who come to their site. And that is, to me, a media business. “