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> if a newspaper company wanted to make a real splash on the Web, it would be better off inventing an original website—the next Business Insider or BuzzFeed—and

> if a newspaper company wanted to make a real splash on the Web, it would be better off inventing an original website—the next Business Insider or BuzzFeed—and not remodel its newspaper copy. I have to disagree with Chyi here—"create the next BuzzFeed" is not a strategy; it's extremely hard, competitive and they don't have the skills to even attempt it. That said, I think there's a strong argument for having never put anything online, or at least behind a strong paywall with no trials. That way they could have maintained an air of premium information instead of going head to head with a gazillion clickbait factory paying peanuts to underemployed college grads. Of course the problem is this is all hypothetical, and if someone had made this bet they'd be getting hung out to dry based on the declining revenues even if they wouldn't have been as bad as they ended up being in our current reality. In other words, it was just too risky a bet to not try to "win the web" even though it is a race to the bottom newspapers are ill-equipped to compete in.

sjbase 10y ago
To continue the speculation, the hard-copy + pay wall approach would have culled a lot of the lowest quality newspapers. Bad for the broader industry, but great for the reader.
gozur88 10y ago
The problem with paywalling the news is 1) news can not be copyrighted. You can keep people from copying your story word-for-word, but you can't keep them from repeating the news in different words and 2) nobody will ever see your news because it doesn't show up on Google. You have a chicken and egg problem - without subscribers you won't get a reputation for a quality product, but if you paywall everything nobody will know you exist.
- dasil003 10y ago
  But according to the article 82% of revenue still comes from the print edition, so it's not a chicken or egg problem it's a lose-lose. That's why I'm suggesting a strategy where you maintain the perceived value of the print content could be more successful long-term.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    But you can't really talk about revenue in the absence of expenses. It costs money to print and distribute newspapers. If it costs you a dollar to print a newspaper and you have a million subscribers, you have have a million dollars in revenue even if they're only paying seventy five cents for a paper. She's made a compelling argument that news organizations are having a lot of trouble making money online. But it's not at all clear they can make money off the print edition either. Newspapers are in a vicious cycle - they have fewer subscribers so they cut costs, which makes the paper less compelling, which leads to fewer subscribers... News organizations aren't moving to the web because they want to. They're moving because their old business model was destroyed (by craigslist, mostly). I haven't read him in awhile, but Jeff Jarvis (buzzmachine.com) used to be a good read on the subject.
coriander2 10y ago
The obvious answer to this is extending public broadcasting funding to private outlets. Sadly there are too many techno-libertarians out there to see this great techno-socialist solution.

sjbase 10y ago

To continue the speculation, the hard-copy + pay wall approach would have culled a lot of the lowest quality newspapers. Bad for the broader industry, but great for the reader.

gozur88 10y ago

The problem with paywalling the news is 1) news can not be copyrighted. You can keep people from copying your story word-for-word, but you can't keep them from repeating the news in different words and 2) nobody will ever see your news because it doesn't show up on Google. You have a chicken and egg problem - without subscribers you won't get a reputation for a quality product, but if you paywall everything nobody will know you exist.

dasil003 10y ago
But according to the article 82% of revenue still comes from the print edition, so it's not a chicken or egg problem it's a lose-lose. That's why I'm suggesting a strategy where you maintain the perceived value of the print content could be more successful long-term.
- gozur88 10y ago
  But you can't really talk about revenue in the absence of expenses. It costs money to print and distribute newspapers. If it costs you a dollar to print a newspaper and you have a million subscribers, you have have a million dollars in revenue even if they're only paying seventy five cents for a paper. She's made a compelling argument that news organizations are having a lot of trouble making money online. But it's not at all clear they can make money off the print edition either. Newspapers are in a vicious cycle - they have fewer subscribers so they cut costs, which makes the paper less compelling, which leads to fewer subscribers... News organizations aren't moving to the web because they want to. They're moving because their old business model was destroyed (by craigslist, mostly). I haven't read him in awhile, but Jeff Jarvis (buzzmachine.com) used to be a good read on the subject.

coriander2 10y ago

The obvious answer to this is extending public broadcasting funding to private outlets. Sadly there are too many techno-libertarians out there to see this great techno-socialist solution.