It's raining pink slips in the online media world, creating new doubts as to whether content is really king on the Internet. But the shakeout isn't limited to old media companies trying to wing it on the Web. Industry watchers are saying that these cuts are just the first cuts in what they see as a large-scale retrenchment in online media. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that CNN News Group will announce massive layoffs, eliminating between 500 and 1,000 positions at its Internet and TV operations as early as next week. The layoffs could be seen as inevitable fallout from the imminent merger between CNN's parent-company Time Warner and AOL .
Consolidation is a possible trend of the future.
Late last year rumors swirled about a possible merger between Business 2.0 and The Industry Standard . Although both publications deny any such thing, the rumors underscore a feeling that consolidation within the industry will occur in the near future. Media companies may decide to share the cost of producing content, Dan O'Brien, an analyst at Forrester Research, said. Not only are experts questioning what role the media will play on the Internet in the future, but whether such an enterprise will ever be profitable on its own. Online content has moved out of the experiment stage.