3 ms·

I don't think branding is the hard part either, but it does take some non-trivial amount of time to build up a brand that becomes a common household name. I was

I don't think branding is the hard part either, but it does take some non-trivial amount of time to build up a brand that becomes a common household name. I was merely pointing out that some of the existing content publishers aren't that far away from figuring it out, and they have excellent existing brands on their side. Interestingly, old publishing technology (delivering a mass-produced hard copy into people's hands with no way to electronically communicate a typeset soft copy) essentially acted as an anti-trust barrier for newspaper publishers - having a national newspaper monopoly was not feasible (unless a magnate would buy up every local newspaper in the country). Today there is no such limitation - there's no reason for multiple newspaper publishers to exist, in the same way there is no reason for multiple video streaming sites to exist - YouTube can take it all. I don't think we can call this a solved problem until there's a YouTube for news content. I can't wait for a startup (or for one of the existing publishers) to establish an infrastructure compelling enough for all of the best writers from all newspapers to switch to it (in addition to a huge number of really good guest authors who aren't professional journalists). It drives me crazy that the NYT is sitting on an excellent brand and a perfect position to do it, and they're basically doing nothing about it. They hire great journalists, and provide a medium for great guest authors, but they just won't take the leap and take this to it's logical extreme. When this happens, the poor excuse for good journalism we call "news" can finally die off and we'll be left to consume really good, valuable content.

roundsquare 17y ago
When this happens, the poor excuse for good journalism we call "news" can finally die off and we'll be left to consume really good, valuable content. I guess I'm drifting a little more off topic, but oh well. Do you think there is potential for harm in a model where straight news isn't presented? One of the advantages of instant news is that there is little time for someone to weave their own views into what they write[1]. Despite how much I enjoy The Economist, its impossible to call their writing unbiased. [1] I suppose its possible to take the opposite view on this. A responsible journalist will try to keep their views out of the article, but that is difficult and takes time, so their instant writing will be full of personal views. I guess it depends on how opinionated the journalist is on the news they are reporting and how unbiased they want to be.
- coffeemug 17y ago
  Do you think there is potential for harm in a model where straight news isn't presented? I don't think straight news will disappear, to the contrary, I think the volume and level of detail of straight news will increase exponentially. It will just move to Twitter (or a similar platform). Build a good UI for Twitter trending topics, and you've got straight news. But I do think there will be little money for straight news content providers, since anyone can post a tweet - all the money in that space will just go to the publishing platform (looks like it's going to be Twitter). The reasons why news and journalism are tightly coupled are completely rooted in old technological limitations - newspapers were the only ones who could deliver breaking news, and they were also the only ones who could publish opinions. So journalism is traditionally perceived as a mix of the two, to the point where the idea the two can be separate is alien to people. But once we take modern communication technology to its logical conclusion, it looks like news and journalism will go their separate ways - there is no longer a reason for them to be tightly coupled. Twitter will handle the news delivery, and some other platform will handle original commentary delivery. So no, I don't think there is any danger at all.
  - roundsquare 17y ago
    Thats a really good point. I see what your saying about the decoupling of straight news and journalism and it seems reasonable in a number of situations (tech news, local news, political news, etc...). But there are situations where this model isn't feasible. Two that come to mind: 1) Investigate journalism. In this case, someone is digging for facts and looking for connections. Tweeting, or any other instant platform, may not be the right medium for this. This looks like one area where news and journalism would need to remain intertwined. 2) Reporting from dangerous areas or areas without good wireless coverage. If someone is reporting facts from Darfur, it seems unlikely that any instant publishing platform could work. Still, it appears you are probably right for a large number of situations. It looks like the situations I'm describing would need to stay closer to the current model for some time.
    - coffeemug 17y ago

roundsquare 17y ago

When this happens, the poor excuse for good journalism we call "news" can finally die off and we'll be left to consume really good, valuable content. I guess I'm drifting a little more off topic, but oh well. Do you think there is potential for harm in a model where straight news isn't presented? One of the advantages of instant news is that there is little time for someone to weave their own views into what they write[1]. Despite how much I enjoy The Economist, its impossible to call their writing unbiased. [1] I suppose its possible to take the opposite view on this. A responsible journalist will try to keep their views out of the article, but that is difficult and takes time, so their instant writing will be full of personal views. I guess it depends on how opinionated the journalist is on the news they are reporting and how unbiased they want to be.

coffeemug 17y ago
Do you think there is potential for harm in a model where straight news isn't presented? I don't think straight news will disappear, to the contrary, I think the volume and level of detail of straight news will increase exponentially. It will just move to Twitter (or a similar platform). Build a good UI for Twitter trending topics, and you've got straight news. But I do think there will be little money for straight news content providers, since anyone can post a tweet - all the money in that space will just go to the publishing platform (looks like it's going to be Twitter). The reasons why news and journalism are tightly coupled are completely rooted in old technological limitations - newspapers were the only ones who could deliver breaking news, and they were also the only ones who could publish opinions. So journalism is traditionally perceived as a mix of the two, to the point where the idea the two can be separate is alien to people. But once we take modern communication technology to its logical conclusion, it looks like news and journalism will go their separate ways - there is no longer a reason for them to be tightly coupled. Twitter will handle the news delivery, and some other platform will handle original commentary delivery. So no, I don't think there is any danger at all.
- roundsquare 17y ago
  Thats a really good point. I see what your saying about the decoupling of straight news and journalism and it seems reasonable in a number of situations (tech news, local news, political news, etc...). But there are situations where this model isn't feasible. Two that come to mind: 1) Investigate journalism. In this case, someone is digging for facts and looking for connections. Tweeting, or any other instant platform, may not be the right medium for this. This looks like one area where news and journalism would need to remain intertwined. 2) Reporting from dangerous areas or areas without good wireless coverage. If someone is reporting facts from Darfur, it seems unlikely that any instant publishing platform could work. Still, it appears you are probably right for a large number of situations. It looks like the situations I'm describing would need to stay closer to the current model for some time.
  - coffeemug 17y ago