Media companies facing threats to their business models from Internet companies might want to stand up and defend themselves by investing in better technology.

That was the message delivered by Arturo Pereyra, Oracle's marketing and business development director, at the Contentonomics conference in Los Angeles on Monday.

"Companies in the digital space have to learn how not to be victims," said Pereyra.

Like the telecoms. Once upon a time, the telecoms owned the directory business. It was a nice little business. Everyone was happy. Then along came the Internet, and the telecoms got disintermediated. The directory business started moving online and the migration continues.

Pereyra pointed to a service called Walk Score, that provides consumers with Yellow Pages-style local business listings in conjunction with maps of businesses within walking distance.

The telecoms could have been in that business had they been more nimble. But they're far from nimble. It takes telecoms nine months on average to set up a new product for consumers. The problem, as Pereyra sees it, is that the back-end systems at these companies just aren't up to the task.

"That's just not scalable and that's not the way they're going to survive," said Pereyra.

Conveniently, Oracles sells business support systems (BSS) and operations support systems (OSS) for media, entertainment, and marketing companies, software that enables "complete value chain management."

Pereyra discussed how Orange, a mobile service provider in the United Kingdom, and MTV did a deal that allowed Orange to sell music services to its customers. Orange used Oracle's billing and revenue management software to pay MTV in real time, he said, rather than six months later, as is common. The rollout was quicker and Orange and MTV were happy with the results.

Pereyra also cited the successes that Dow Jones has had under News Corp. "They're a great example of a company that has figured out how to stop being a victim."

To read more about Contentonomics, go to Contentinople.com.