> Can you even make a 'lean startup' type organization based on editorial content? I think that one issue here is that the news reader apps focus on user exper

> Can you even make a 'lean startup' type organization based on editorial content? I think that one issue here is that the news reader apps focus on user experience while most of the content providers focus on content (and frankly, provide a relatively awful user experience). I think that to have a successful news product, you have to provide both. If you look at the classic periodic news/opinion model, the magazine, you had a strong marriage of both aspects of the overall product. The confounding issue for content providers right now is that they all give the milk away for free, and so it's trivial for aggregaters to both focus on user experience AND have more quality content than any particular content provider. But if there was a shift in the content industry away from allowing aggregaters to use their content, then perhaps individual content providers could compete. However, I expect that to succeed in such an environment that the content providers would have to become desirable destinations in their own right.