Media & entertainment is a fast-changing space. It can be hard to keep track of everything that’s happening in terms of new technologies, media, formats, and consumer behaviors.
The goal of this page is to serve as a single repository for the best resources on the industry. Most of them are articles and essays, but other formats may include podcasts, videos, presentations, scientific papers, books, and, yes, tweetstorms.
My focus is not on collecting every piece of news, but on sharing insights that can stand the test of time. Some of those resources may be more time-sensitive than others, but still point to larger market dynamics.
My goal with this list is to be able to identify weak signals, understand long-term trends, and articulate my own thesis for the future of the space. I’m hoping it can help others navigate the industry as well.
For the time being, I’ve divided those resources into three categories: Industries, Topics, and Companies. Sub-categories may come to change as I refine my view of the space, but suggestions are welcome.
Happy reading!
Industries
Advertising
Brightest Before the Dark: The Impending Fall of TV Ad Spend
Matthew Ball / REDEF / June 2016
TV Advertising’s Surprising Strength – And Inevitable Fall
Ben Thompson / Stratechery / June 2016
Ads Don’t Work That Way
Kevin Simler / Sept 2014
Animation
Animation Is Eating The World
Michael Dempsey / July 2019
Film
The Absurdities of ‘Franchise Fatigue’ & ‘Sequelitis’ (Or, What Is Happening to the Box Office?!)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Aug 2019
Future of Film (Part III): The Crash of ‘Film as a Platform’
Matthew Ball / Ivey Business Review / March 2014
Gaming & esports
The players are the artists; the game is the venue
Alex Danco / Aug 2019
The Mirage of Cloud Gaming (And How to Reach the Oasis)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Aug 2019
a16z Podcast: Gaming Goes Mainstream (with Bobby Kottick, CEO of Activision Blizzard)
Bobby Kottick, Marc Andreessen / Andreessen Horowitz / Feb 2019
Fortnite Is the Future, but Probably Not for the Reasons You Think
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Feb 2019
The eSports Landscape
Blake Robbins / Medium / Feb 2016
Why the Next Sports Empire will be Built on eSports
Prashob Menon, Matthew Ball / REDEF / Apr 2015
Mobile
Ecommerce as Video’s Killer App
Connie Chan, Avery Segal / Andreessen Horowitz / Aug 2019
When Advertising Is Not Enough
Connie Chan / Andreessen Horowitz / Dec 2018
When AI is the Product: The Rise of AI-Based Consumer Apps
Connie Chan / Andreessen Horowitz / Dec 2018
Money as Message
Connie Chan / Andreessen Horowitz / July 2017
Music
Music Superstars Are The New One Percenters
Neil Shah / Wall Street Journal / June 2019
The Economics of Rihanna’s Superstarsdom
Alan B. Krueger / The New York Times / June 2019
Streaming Services Finally Care About *Old* Music
Cherie Hu / Water And Music / June 2019
New media
Novelty Decay in Digital Celebrities, AI Artists, and Synthetic Media
Michael Dempsey / Sept 2019
After Autoplay: “Interactive, Personalized & Immersive” Entertainment
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Mar 2019
Avatar-First Products & Platforms
Michael Dempsey / Medium / Sept 2018
Everything to know about digital celebrities and how they could change the world
Michael Dempsey / Medium / June 2018
Podcasting
Investing in the Podcast Ecosystem in 2019
Li Jin, Avery Segal, Bennett Carroccio / Andreessen Horowitz / May 2019
Publishing
Gutenberg’s moving type propelled Europe towards the scientific revolution
From: Jeremiah Dittmar, Skipper Seabold / LSE Business Review / Mar 2019
The Cost of Apple News
Ben Thompson / Stratechery / Feb 2019
Social Media
Status as a Service (StaaS)
Eugene Wei / Feb 2019
The death of the newsfeed
Benedict Evans / Apr 2018
Streaming
The Streaming Wars: Its Models, Surprises, and Remaining Opportunities
Matthew Ball / REDEF / July 2019
After TV: Video’s Future will be Bigger, more Diverse & Precarious than its Past
Matthew Ball, Tal Shachar / REDEF / Mar 2016
Technology
Disruption Starts With Unhappy Customers, Not Technology
Thales S. Teixeira / Harvard Business Review / June 2019
Strong and Weak Technologies
Chris Dixon / Jan 2019
If You’re Not Too Early, You’re Too Late
Michael Dempsey / Medium / Dec 2016
Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy
Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Geoffrey G. Parker, Sangeet Paul Choudary / Harvard Business Review / Apr 2016
TV
The Death and Resurrection of Live & Communal Entertainment
Tal Shachar/ REDEF / June 2016
TV, mobile and the living room
Benedict Evans / Nov 2015
The Changing – and Unchanging – Structure of TV
Ben Thompson / Stratechery / Mar 2015
The Jobs TV Does
Ben Thompson / Stratechery / June 2013
Topics
Attention economy
The Destructive Switch from Search to Social
Nat Eliason / Medium / Sept 2017
The Coming Battle for Long Attention Patterns
Matt Locke / Medium / June 2017
The Future of Medium Should Be Episodic
Matt Locke / Medium / Jan 2017
Brand & Marketing
Split Personalities and Atomized Brands
David Sherry / Art & Attention / Aug 2019
Beyoncé’s Streaming Strategy, Explained
Dan Runcie / Trapital / Apr 2019
Naked Brands
David Perell
Naked Brands: The Future of Basketball
David Perell
Celebrity & Fandom
Don’t know your James Charles from Zoella? Get with YouTube celebrity culture
Amelia Tait / The Guardian / Jan 2019
5 Things I Learned Studying Fandom
Matt Locke / Medium / Sept 2017
Stan down: When superfans move on
Ann-Derrick Gaillot / The Outline / Jul 2017
Welcome to Poppy’s World
Lexi Pandell / Wired / June 2017
Consumer behavior
The World Needs Netflix Minis
Daniel H. Pink / The Atlantic / June 2018
a16z Podcast: The Internet of Taste, Streaming Content to Culture
Ted Sarandos, Marc Andreessen / Andreessen Horowitz / Feb 2018
a16z Podcast: Addiction vs Popularity In The Age of Virality
Derek Thompson, Adam Alter, Hanne Tidnam / Andreessen Horowitz / July 2017
Formats
Memes Are the New Pop Stars: How TikTok Became the Future of the Music Industry
Alyssa Bereznak / The Ringer / June 2019
The musical genre is dead, gen z killed it
Megan Evershed / i-D / Apr 2019
The Instagram Aesthetic is Over
Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic / Apr 2019
The Kindle Changed the Book Business. Can It Change Books?
David Pierce/ Wired / Dec 2017
‘Stranger Things’ and the Limits of the Netflix Model
Ciara Wardlow / Film School Rejects / Nov 2017
‘They could destroy the album’: how Spotify’s playlists have changed music for ever
Eamonn Forde / The Guardian / Aug 2017
Phones Are Changing How People Shoot and Watch Video
Clive Thompson / Wired / July 2017
The Linguistics of ‘YouTube Voice’
Julie Beck / The Atlantic / Dec 2015
YouTube: The Medium Is The Message (video)
Evan Puschak / The Nerdwriter / Aug 2015
Economics
The Long Tail: When A Famous Theory Got (Almost) All Wrong
Willy Braun / Medium / Nov 2017
Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality
Clay Shirky / Feb 2003
Intellectual Property
Ryan ToysReview Is This Generation’s Mickey Mouse
Chris Stokel-Walker / Medium / Aug 2019
How Disney grew its $3 billion Mickey Mouse business–by selling to adults
Elizabeth Segran / Fast Company / Apr 2019
SpongeBob is fashion now
Marc Bain / Quartz / Dec 2018
Entertainment Brands of the Future will be Built on Mobile First.
Andrew Stalbow / Medium / Aug 2014
Investing
Announcing Audiocamp (by Betaworks)
Danika Laszuk / Medium / Sept 2019
Is this the real life (by Betaworks)
Danika Laszuk / Medium / Nov 2018
Monetization
The Monetization of Digital Content
Tanay Jaipuria / Medium / June 2018
You still don’t understand today’s media industry
Anthony Bardaro / Medium / Sept 2017
Companies
Disney
Disney and the Future of TV
Ben Thompson / Stratechery / Apr 2019
Nine Reasons Why Disney+ Will Succeed (And Why Four Criticisms are Overhyped)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Mar 2019
‘Star Wars’ Fatigue Is a Myth (but Disney’s Mistakes Were Real, Costly and Avoidable)
Matthew Ball / Stratechery / June 2018
A Modern Marvel (podcast)
Web Barr, Noah Chestnut / The Kingdom / June 2018
Disney, Economic Gravity, and Vibranium Physics
Matthew Ball / REDEF / May 2018
Kingdom Come (podcast)
Web Barr, Noah Chestnut / The Kingdom / May 2018
Disney as a Service (Pt. II) and the Future of the ‘House of Mouse’
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Jan 2018
Disney’s Choice
Ben Thompson / Stratechery / Aug 2017
Disney as a Service: Why Disney is Closer than Ever to Walt’s 60 Year Old Vision
Matthew Ball / REDEF / May 2016
Netflix
Matthew Ball / REDEF / July 2019
Netflix’s Competitive Resiliency Is Here to Stay (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 7)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / May 2019
‘Quality’ Is a Distraction – If It Exists at All (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 6)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Mar 2019
Big Media Isn’t Ready to Fight Back (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 5)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Mar 2019
Ben Thompson / Stratechery / Jan 2019
Matthew Ball / REDEF / Aug 2018
Netflix Isn’t Being Reckless, It’s Just Playing a Game No One Else Dares (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 3)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / July 2018Netflix Is a Product & Technology Company (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 2)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / May 2018
Netflix’s Content Budget Is Bigger Than It Seems (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 1)
Matthew Ball / REDEF / May 2018
Nintendo
Nintendo’s Little-Known Product Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered (“Weathered”) Technology
Adam Ghahramani / Medium / Sept 2015
Snap
Ben Thomson / Stratechery / Feb 2017
Ben Thomson / Stratechery / Mar 2016
Spotify
Ben Robinson / June 2019
Spotify’s Podcast Aggregation Play
Ben Thomson / Stratechery / Feb 2019