"For readers of The Innovator's Dilemma comes an incisive new approach to one of the key questions of our time--how to thrive rather than be destroyed by digital transformation--from Harvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand. Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, from The New York Times to The Economist, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Companies that now flourish are finding that the connections they foster are more important than the content they create. Success comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers' connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors' best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the frontlines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves. Advance praise for The Content Trap "As Bharat Anand shows in this eminently readable book, connections are now more important than content. His insights will bring you several steps closer to understanding the digital revolution and how you can avoid its many perils."--Daniel H. Pink,New York Timesbestsellingauthor ofDriveandTo Sell Is Human "A very smart book--creators, ignore this at your peril. This revolution has been twenty years in the making, and Bharat Anand makes the past (and the future) a lot more clear."--Seth Godin, New York Times bestselling author of Meatball Sundae and Linchpin"-- "How did the Economist increase revenues from subscriptions when Newsweek and Time were hemorrhaging? How did Tencent create a cash machine from largely free and virtual products in a market with a GDP per capita ten times lower than the U.S.? And in the midst of an industry revolution, how are we to understand these and other media organizations, their fates, and their markets? Combining insightful analysis with an accessible, humorous tone, Harvard Business School Professor Bharat Anand juxtaposes the media strategies of The New Yorker and Britney Spears (they're more alike than you think) and uses analogies like the success of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and Chuck E. Cheese's in-house currency to illustrate broader points about Amazon's dominance and the rise of Netflix. A revolutionary and much-needed analysis, this book presents a way for media companies to survive and thrive amidst industry-wide upheaval. Indeed, as Anand reveals, media evolution is not always a celebration of "free", "media democratization", or entrepreneurship. Rather, the story unfolding in media markets across the world remains one centered around familiar ideas in business - of power, pricing, and strategy"--