Jim Bankoff, chairman and CEO of Vox Media, described the three phases of online media at his keynote presentation today at the International Symposium on Online Media in Austin.

The first phase is porting to the web. This is probably 15 years ago and involved publishers taking what they did in print and reproducing it online. Mostly this was an experiment that no one expected to make much revenue from.

Phase 2 is what Bankoff describes as the “race to the bottom.” This was driven by engineers who focused on how things could be done more cheaply and directed by intelligence gained from data. It was characterized by SEO farms and content farms.

Phase 3 is “race to the top” according to Bankoff. The goal in phase 3 is to create quality at scale. He described the keys to producing great quality as great talent, great stories and making it look good.

The International Symposium on Online Media is taking place at UT Austin today and tomorrow. It is sponsored by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at University of Texas.