The 2021 edition of the Newhouse School’s annual report on emerging trends and technologies that are disrupting the media industry is now available.
“Media-Nxt” is researched and written by students under the auspices of the Newhouse Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship.
“I am really excited about this year’s edition,” says center director Sean Branagan. “It feels like we’re at the top of a new cycle of startups—very similar to the feeling I had in 2006-2007, before the iPhone came on the scene. All the ingredients are in place: technologies, trends and consumer behaviors. Now media companies and startups need to get in the kitchen and cook something up.”
Topics covered in this year’s report are:
An additional section of the report, “Launch Your Innovation Convoy,” calls on media companies to introduce more innovation by using the convoy model, which allows for the launch of big and small projects in all areas of business.
The report also includes a curated list of 20 early-stage media technology startups, providing media executives with potential partnership, investment or acquisition opportunities.
The inaugural Media-Nxt report was released in 2017. Of the 123 early-stage media and media tech startups featured since then, at least 16 have been acquired by companies such as Apple, Adobe, Baidu, CenturyLink, Facebook, Leap Motion, LiveNation/TicketMaster, LivePerson and Superleague Gaming, and one has gone public. “Dozens of other startups we have featured have received follow-on investment, totaling close to a billion dollars,” Branagan says.
Seed funding for Media-Nxt was provided by Newhouse alumnus Tom Boyle ’83, founder of Boyle Ventures and former marketing executive at Coca-Cola. Alumna Maya Kosoff ’14 served as editor, and alumnus Luis Rendon G’11 was the designer. Researchers were alumna Julia Fontana ’19, G’20 and students Jonathan Harris, Marisa Mastropieri, Emily Rawson and JD Scribner.
To receive a copy of the 2020 “Media-Nxt” report, contact Branagan at startups@syr.edu.