In a famous essay written in 1996, Bill Gates declared that content is king. He presciently foresaw that faster connection speeds would make content the “killer app” of the Internet, creating a “marketplace of experiences, ideas and products.”
Yet unfortunately, Gates mistook the transaction for the product. While his vision of the future was correct and he moved quickly to create and acquire valuable content assets, he largely failed. Today, almost 20 years later,Microsoft MSFT +0.74% has no significant content business…