Umair Haque's Vagueness vs. Old Media Execs' Focus on ROI

This juicy little post from Techdirt shows just how little the Web 2.0 crowd understand the quicksand they are standing upon.

The very fact that the industry is turning to tried and true managers shows how the real action is not in the "new" part of the phrase "new media".

Techdirt sounds immensely surprised that "Levinsohn's been with Fox for nearly 20 years, most recently working on rights issues and revenue-sharing agreements", concluding "he doesn't sound like a guy that's going to be any sort of visionary new-media leader".

Quite right, just the opposite; he sounds like a guy who's focussed on making some money for the shareholders. What's interesting is that that last sentence fragment can be taken both ways - either as damnation (how Techdirt meant it), or as strong praise.

To the guy who did the hiring, it was almost certainly a highly valued quality; what music it must be to their ears to hear someone talking about exploiting their rights to actually make some money from their business assets...