Online media
Posts focusing on the technology and business of online media and publishing. Related subjects include:
TechCrunch offers to pay a source’s legal expenses
A recent TechCrunch post recapitulates its dispute with CBS and Last.fm, reiterates its confidence in its accusations, and closes with
And to the CBS employee who was fired and threatened based on this story – we believe certain U.S. Whistle Blower laws may protect you from retaliation from CBS in this matter. We’d like to provide you with legal counsel at our cost.
That’s a remarkable offer to make, one that is very rare for traditional media to match. As such, it’s a strong (albeit very partial) answer to the ongoing handwringing about the future of investigative journalism. Read more
| Categories: Blogosphere, Online media, Social software and online media | 4 Comments |
Monetization strategies for the New York Times
In his remarks about my recent post that he aptly characterizes as “A Consumer-Centric View of Business Models for Publishing,” Daniel Tunkelang notes that I didn’t directly address the premium/freemium strategy he favors for the New York Times, namely monetizing community. As Daniel puts it,
But community can’t be copied. Even if you mirrored all of this blog’s content and put someone else’s name on it, the comment threads would still live here. You could copy those too, but only the readers who came here could participate in the conversation, and I believe that would still draw most of you.
Frankly, I don’t think that would work. Good blog commenters are precious, generously donating their own time and thought to build up your content. Could one charge people to read that? Maybe. But charging people to write great content for you seems like one barrier too many, and I’m not sure how to charge them to read without also charging them to write. That said, various forums (i.e., message boards) offer premium forums, so at least for some lifestyle business owners the approach seems to be worth pursuing.
Other strategies to consider include: Read more
| Categories: Online media, Social software and online media | 6 Comments |
The 4 reasons anybody ever consumes information (or opinion), and what that tells us about business models
The online world is abuzz with discussion about the future economic models of the publishing industry. It might help in evaluating various proposals to consider why anybody might possibly want to pay money or attention for information or opinion, whether delivered in published or personal-communication form. Since this is a very long post, I’ll put a few of the conclusions here up top, namely:
- “Freemium” models, in which one gives away some good information but charges for the best stuff, can succeed. I do that, in a way. So does ESPN.com. Rupert Murdoch, so far as I can tell, proposes to make WSJ.com more like ESPN.
- Charging by some kind of usage metric doesn’t make sense. This seems to be what the New York Times is thinking about. It may also be what Murdoch is suggesting for some of his other properties.
- Grand cosmic all-you-can-consume-of-all-but-the-most-highly-valuable-information subscriptions — e.g., an “ASCAP for news” — could be marketable. And I don’t even think they’d require the antitrust exemptions the newspaper industry is whining for.
Those conclusions, in turn, are based on the theory that the the best selling proposition for decision-supporting information and information technologies is:
Keeps you fully and conveniently informed about subject area X, where X is important to you. Read more
| Categories: Online media, Social software and online media | 2 Comments |
April Fool’s spoof re newspapers, social media
The Guardian says all its articles will be published on Twitter, in 140 characters or less. Very well played.
A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper’s archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include “1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!”; “OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5×6e for more”; and “JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?”
| Categories: Fun stuff, Humor, Microblogging, Online media, Social software and online media | 1 Comment |
Where I think the information ecosystem is headed
The debate about the future of the information ecosystem rages on. As you might surmise from my choice of words, I’m on the side that says something new will rapidly evolve to fill niches vacated by the demise of a teetering economic model. To a first approximation, there are two major reasons to believe this:
- People have deep-seating cravings to opine, educate, and otherwise expostulate. Many will gladly do it for free. And labor represents the lion’s share of information-industry costs.
- What’s more, a significant fraction of news is something large organizations have a vested interest in releasing. To the extent that’s true — and there certainly are major exceptions in areas such as debunking and investigatory journalism — ordinary enterprises can be and indeed already are a major source of resources for the information ecosystem.
Here are some of the species I believe will thrive or at least survive in the part of the ecosystem focused on enterprise IT news: Read more
| Categories: Blogosphere, Online media, Social software and online media | 11 Comments |
The grand discussion on the future of journalism
The past few weeks have seen a huge outburst of commentary about the perilous states of the newspaper business in particular and journalism in general. Having been a little busy, I haven’t found the time to chime in seriously. That said, my views include:
- People are increasingly unwilling to pay money for news or commentary.
- People are increasingly resistant to conventional advertising.
- Therefore, traditional journalistic business models are indeed fried, both in their original media and online.
- However, lots of people are willing to provide some of the functions of traditional news media — whether news, commentary, or both — with very different economics. For example, my blogs are a classic “freemium” operation: I don’t get paid for writing them, pittances from Network World and Intelligent Enterprise excepted. However, they drive a huge fraction of both the credibility and leads for my real businesses.
- To the extent there ever was one, the wall between news and commentary is crumbling. This is true in print, broadcast, and online media alike, and indeed was happening before the internet became a big part of most people’s lives.
- But the blurring of news and commentary can be and is overdone. E.g., press releases get mixed into news headline feeds all the time, and that isn’t necessary.
- The old graph, in which events passed from fact to reporting to mass dissemination, in a fairly linear and simple manner, is becoming much more complex. Not coincidentally, the technology to handle that complexity is evolving rapidly.
Highlights of the recent discussion include (but in no way are limited to): Read more
| Categories: Online media, Social software and online media | 3 Comments |
