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Gawker and TechCrunch are at one extreme, The Economist and The Atlantic are at the other. Both of those extremes are easy to monetize... Now that I think abou

Gawker and TechCrunch are at one extreme, The Economist and The Atlantic are at the other. Both of those extremes are easy to monetize... Now that I think about it, I'm not sure how financially stable Gawker and TechCrunch are. But my point is: Popular rags are cheap to produce and can live off ads. Intelligent content, on the other hand, can find paying cosumers. I think the problem with the NY Times and others like them, is that it's hard to find a sustainable business model for the middle ground that they are on. -EDIT- Yet a third way is a non profit news paper like The Irish Times, funded by a grant I believe. I hear the Seattle PI is going into chapter 11, if I was stinking rich, I'd turn it into a non-profit.

whacked_new 18y ago
TC vs NYT vs Economist is this really one continuum with two extremes, with NYT in the "middle ground"? It could be middle ground in terms of penmanship, but neither TC nor Economist can be a daily news source. Daily, with general relevance. Different function IMHO.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  Do we need daily news sources of any sophistication? The New York Times reports the happenings of the previous day with a bunch of pseudo-analysis. I'm fine with just a plain statement of facts from cable news networks or the AP. Then I can get my in-depth discussion with a weekly delay from a publication like The Economist, which has more meaningful analysis in a single issue than the entire history of the Times. Why do I need the middle ground?
  - whacked_new 18y ago
    I don't see it as a middle ground. I see it as a genre of news. You may not need daily news with any analysis, but that still doesn't put NYT on the same continuum as TechCrunch and the Economist. Granted, Economist is probably closer to NYT, in terms of scope, but I still don't see how NYT sits between the two as the optional "middle ground."
electromagnetic 18y ago
I don't understand why most news sources aren't non-profit to begin with. The reason they struggle so much is that they're all trying to run a huge profit to pay off their shareholders. There's no restriction in non-profits that they can't make money and pay people ridiculous wages. I mean IIRC Oxfam in the UK paid like £400,000 (probably near $800,000 at the time) for a marketing firm to do an advert. It's just the company doesn't get taxed, so long as all the 'surplus' goes back into improving the business, however all their workers can still earn an income and will still pay income taxes. I mean imagine how many people would buy a newspaper subscription if you got a tax receipt from it!
- jimbokun 18y ago
  You could call this the NPR/PBS model. They create some interesting news programming as non-profits. (And of course the BBC, and probably numerous equivalents in other countries.) Is there something about newspapers that makes the non-profit model not work as well as it does for broadcast?
- access_denied 18y ago
  This is so obvious it hurts. Another thing: why is the NYT for example unable to monetize it's huge traffic? I don't get this. There are people getting rich with a lot less traffic to their sites.
  - ensignavenger 18y ago
    This is a really good question- I wonder the same thing about Facebook.
    - Retric 18y ago
      People don't click on the links. When your looking at NYT or Facebook you are interested in their content when you using Google your looking for something. Put another way, how effective would advertising be when inserted in the middle of a phone conversation?

whacked_new 18y ago

TC vs NYT vs Economist is this really one continuum with two extremes, with NYT in the "middle ground"? It could be middle ground in terms of penmanship, but neither TC nor Economist can be a daily news source. Daily, with general relevance. Different function IMHO.

jacoblyles 18y ago
Do we need daily news sources of any sophistication? The New York Times reports the happenings of the previous day with a bunch of pseudo-analysis. I'm fine with just a plain statement of facts from cable news networks or the AP. Then I can get my in-depth discussion with a weekly delay from a publication like The Economist, which has more meaningful analysis in a single issue than the entire history of the Times. Why do I need the middle ground?
- whacked_new 18y ago
  I don't see it as a middle ground. I see it as a genre of news. You may not need daily news with any analysis, but that still doesn't put NYT on the same continuum as TechCrunch and the Economist. Granted, Economist is probably closer to NYT, in terms of scope, but I still don't see how NYT sits between the two as the optional "middle ground."

electromagnetic 18y ago

I don't understand why most news sources aren't non-profit to begin with. The reason they struggle so much is that they're all trying to run a huge profit to pay off their shareholders. There's no restriction in non-profits that they can't make money and pay people ridiculous wages. I mean IIRC Oxfam in the UK paid like £400,000 (probably near $800,000 at the time) for a marketing firm to do an advert. It's just the company doesn't get taxed, so long as all the 'surplus' goes back into improving the business, however all their workers can still earn an income and will still pay income taxes. I mean imagine how many people would buy a newspaper subscription if you got a tax receipt from it!

jimbokun 18y ago
You could call this the NPR/PBS model. They create some interesting news programming as non-profits. (And of course the BBC, and probably numerous equivalents in other countries.) Is there something about newspapers that makes the non-profit model not work as well as it does for broadcast?
access_denied 18y ago
This is so obvious it hurts. Another thing: why is the NYT for example unable to monetize it's huge traffic? I don't get this. There are people getting rich with a lot less traffic to their sites.
- ensignavenger 18y ago
  This is a really good question- I wonder the same thing about Facebook.
  - Retric 18y ago
    People don't click on the links. When your looking at NYT or Facebook you are interested in their content when you using Google your looking for something. Put another way, how effective would advertising be when inserted in the middle of a phone conversation?