Guy Tasaka’s unique career and his forward-thinking approach to local news is a must listen for anyone publishing in today’s digital landscape.
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RSSGuy Tasaka’s career sits at an interesting vantage point poised between journalism and business. Although he went to J school with the intent of becoming a magazine publisher, that’s not quite the way things went.
A chance meeting with a product manager on a plane led to Guy creating an early desktop publishing system in 1988. The success of the product led Guy to work at a number of players in the media industry including Ziff Davis and the New York Times to build out their new technologies.
Guy’s career path has led him to what he calls “Local Media 3.0”, which is Guy’s vision for how local news publishers can adapt to the media landscape that exists in a post pandemic world. This is what we spoke about today on the podcast.
One of the core ideas behind Local Media 3.0 is a mindset shift from viewing the reader as the customer and the publication as the product, to the advertiser as the customer and the reader being the product. Although it may sound harsh, this actually provides value to all parties, as Guy explains in our conversation.
Another key to Guy’s vision is a shift from creation to curation. This involves knowing your audience well through first party data and positioning yourself as a community hub. Also key to the model is moving to a low-friction sales process and embracing omni-channel selling.
This episode is absolutely jam packed with value from Guy, who lays out his full vision for the future of local news in more detail than I can here. You can listen to the full conversation on your podcast app of choice, or on the player at the top of this page.