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That’s the distinction John Battelle makes in an interesting piece. The “pillars” of PGM, he says, are

1. Ownership or control of Intellectual Property by the corporation.
2. Ownership or control of expensive distribution networks.
3. Established business models based on highly evolved approaches to advertising and subscription models.

The attributes of CM, on the other hand, are

1. Conversation over dictation
2. Platform over distribution
3. Service over product
4. Iteration and Speed over Perfection and Deliberation
5. Engagement over Consumption

Battelle writes

When I read traditional media interpretations of “user generated content” (last weeks New York Times piece proclaiming 2006 the year of “You Media” comes to mind), I feel extremely dissatisfied. These pieces focus on the wrong thing – they judge Conversational Media by the standards of Packaged Goods Media, then find themselves smugly satisfied that CM doesn’t measure up. However, it’s clear that CM is here to stay, so writers from the PGM world struggle to make it fit their worldview. “Now we have to figure out what to do with it,” The Times piece sniffs. “Ignore it? Sort it? Add more of our own?”

“A line,” Battelle observes, “clearly written by someone who doesn’t engage much in the world of Conversational Media.”

An interesting, well-balanced piece that respects the different character of both PGM and CM, and doesn’t try to assert that one is better than the other.

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Link: Packaged Goods Media v. Conversational Media

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