A Visual History of The Next Big Thing

And how to see The Next One coming

UPDATED: December 13, 2016

In business, vision isn’t some mythical ability to see the future. It’s about being able to recognize a pattern and apply it to something new, before others see it coming.

Using a visual history, I’ll introduce you to one such pattern, the incubation of new media within old media. I’ll review some examples of how the pattern has repeated itself over the past 30-years, from one Big Thing to the Next.

I’ll then apply the pattern in the here-and-now, to see how it points to The Next Big Things.

A visual history of new media emerging as features within old media

New Media as Features in Old Media

Incumbents, reluctant to relinquish their positions of power within old media, are slow to recognize and embrace innovations in new media. This dogmatism gives new media the opportunity to first gestate as features within old media, and eventually emerge as a powerful independent force.

In the vignettes that follow, you’ll see the same pattern, repeated over and over:

An incumbent player, when presented with…