One of the most exciting things we’ve observed during the Create WV initiative so far is the creation of new media businesses bursting forth around West Virginia. The media industry – news, entertainment, etc. – has gone through dramatic changes with the explosive growth of the Internet and the advancement of media creation tools that put the power of content creation into the hands of anyone with the ambition to create. Blogs, regional news and information sites, digital music labels and other new categories are popping up every day.

In West Virginia we’re seeing some exciting new businesses exploiting this opportunity. I was really excited to learn about Two Lane Livin’, a new regional news, information and culture site based in Stumptown, WV (Gilmer County), for Central West Virginia. They have an impressive online-offline value proposition for advertisers and will be launching later this summer. The Gazz, the pioneer and largest of these types of new online-offline media companies in our region, continues to innovate by offering exclusive Mountain Stage podcasts.

IQ Media in Fayetteville, also featured during our Create WV launch, is the kind of media production services company required to help build an infrastructure of new media talent in our region.

With easy, relative inexpensive accessibility to the technology required to create new media, we should continue to see fast growth in this segment. The only limitation? Talented people who know how to use the tools. Towards this end, here’s hoping West Virginia State’s Media Studies graduate campus in downtown Charleston gets moving towards development a lot faster, and that we see additional new media centers of excellence pop up around the state.