Matthew Ingram posted an interesting article a few days ago: Journalism’s biggest competitors are things that don’t even look like journalism.

The point is that people have more options today.

Think of all the things you used to get from the newspaper. Classified ads. Information on style trends. Political opinion. Social opinion. Local news. National news. Comics. Deals on tires. Sports scores.

You don’t need a newspaper for any of those things now, and you don’t even have to read about it. Youtube is a popular source of information for all kinds of things.

I call this whole phenomenon “digital fragmentation.” It used to be that an information publisher’s product went to market in one (or maybe a couple) outlets. Usually print. There were other options — cassette tapes, phone conferences, floppy disks sent through the mail, etc. — but they were weird niche things.

Now everything is a weird niche thing because there are thousands of niches. For any given outlet you have tons of options.

Consider “social media.” Does that mean Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest or Twitter or ….

How about audio. Does that mean podcasts or audio books, iTunes or Audible, satellite radio, internet radio, FM, AM or … what?

The number of options has simply exploded, creating thousands of niches with very specific characteristics. It’s no longer a choice between a newspaper or the evening news. It’s a choice between hundreds of different kinds of outlets.

The challenge for modern publishers is finding the right audience(s) in this tangle of possible delivery options, knowing that little parts of your audience will always be peeling off to the Next Big Thing. Or, rather, the Next Little Thing, because most new options are going to take an increasingly small piece of the pie.