Future of Newspapers

[guywithashovel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090529...NuZXdzcGFwZXJl

At a meeting comprised of newspaper executives, the topic of the newspaper industry's future wasd discussed. Several of them think that news agencies should start charging for online news content.

Thoughts on the matter?

[MystyGlyttyr]

We started charging for our's already.

So far all it seems to have accomplished is that I have more angry people calling me to bitch about how they can't find great-great-great-Gam-Gam's obit from 1742. Or some other such ricockulous argument.

No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?

Seriously, though, I'm not 100% sure about what our profits from web subscriptions are yet. Considering that we've had it in place for almost a year now, yet we're raising the price of our dead tree format at the start of June, I'd guess not good.

I've already updated my résumé and started putting out feelers to other places just in case.

[Boozy]

They should have been charging for online content to begin with. Aside from those with user-generated content, most websites don't earn enough from advertising to cover their costs. Running a full-scale news reporting organization is not cheap.

I don't know where they found the marketing geniuses who decided to put their entire content on the web for free, but I've seen countless papers do this. Brainless. This isn't like print circulation, where 50 cents gets you a paper and the profit comes from ads. There are thousands of competitors on the web, instead of just the few print news competitors.

What's more, many advertisers can now track how successful their ads are based on click-through rates. That was never possible with paper ads. It's no longer enough to claim a large audience. Advertisers are now demanding targeted audiences. Which they can get with better results on Facebook and the like.

The future of news is online, and news organizations need to figure out a way to get paid for it. I suspect that will require readers to pay for a subscription. Which I don't mind if I can now get world-class newspapers at home. I couldn't do that ten years ago.

[AdminAssistant]

Right, Boozy. I'd much rather read the NY Times or Chicago Tribune than the local papers. (Or, when my French is better, Le Monde).

[Rapscallion]

They should have been charging for online content to begin with. Aside from those with user-generated content, most websites don't earn enough from advertising to cover their costs.

Advertising - I've always taken a stance against having adverts on CS.com etc, partly because it's a pain in the bum to update every time there's an upgrade, and partly because there wouldn't be much revenue in it. It would turn an enjoyable hobby into work, where I'd have to meet certain targets to pay for the server that month etc.

My experience of browsing is that I ignore the adverts anyway - I just mentally filter them out. Anything that pops up or floats over the screen earns my ire. I'll admit that I have bought the occasional item from adverts, and by this I don't mean that a webcomic artist was advertising their wares to support their site and I bought, but genuine third-party advertisments.

However, most of them just don't even attract my eye. I really don't see them as effective.

Rapscallion

[DesignFox]

I will purposely refuse to buy products from certain companies when their adverts annoy the shit out of me.

For me, it is in a company's best interest to make their ad as unobtrusive to my web browsing as possible. The more flashy and annoying, the more likely it is to get ignored, or worse, I'll go to lengths not to buy their product.

Same goes for advertising that I consider trite and sexist. But that's another thread.

[kiwi]

Anything that pops up or floats over the screen earns my ire.

If something pops up at me I wont go back to that site anymore. I used to love reading snopes, but when their pop ups started getting past my blockers I stopped going to their site.

[guywithashovel]

If I remember correctly, back in the "earlier" days of the Internet, I believe you had to be subscribed to most newspapers in order to read thier online content.

And by "earlier" days of the Internet, I mean the 1990s. I know that the Internet was around before then (in other various forms), but that's when it really got popular amongst the general public.

[lordlundar]

In it's current business model, newspapers have no future. Sorry if this stings people working in the business, but it's true. The current model is dependent on the same manufacturing and delivery design that has been in place for over 100 years, with the only real improvements into accelerating the amount made and delivered. If nothing came along to challenge this, it would have lasted probably forever.

But it did have challengers, in radio and television. Newspapers overcame this problem by reminding people that they could get their news when, where, and at what pace that they wanted, as opposed to the rate given in radio and television. The ability to let the news "soak in", so to speak.

Then came the internet, which was capable of doing everything that a paper could, but for cheaper and faster. The only real advantage that a newspaper had was that it was more mobile than the internet access at that time, which still allowed it breathing room. It's what they did during this time that effectively damned them.

Nothing.

They could have taken this time to get involved in this new technology and use it to expand their business. By the time that laptops with mobile net access, ebooks, netbooks, etc came into play, they would have thrived. Instead they took the same stance that they did when radio and television came along and declare this new technology as insignificant and a fad. Now that the internet has effectively outmatched newspapers in every way, all they are doing is try to demonize it.

And now, that they are on the ropes, they FINALLY decide to make minor changes to their model, in such a way to try and prove that the net is evil, while at the same time try to salvage the dead horse of paper plants.

What they need to do is look at the technology and see how to work with it, instead of demonizing it. But this is going to require a complete overhaul in the business model, which most paper executives just don't want to commit to out of fear they will lose too much money. Meanwhile, they hang on to a old, rusted out and degraded model until they can no longer afford to keep it alive.

These policy changes are a simple matter of too little, too late.

[MystyGlyttyr]

I'm not sure newspapers have no future. After all, whenever people of all races, creeds, ages, genders, or sexual orientations need a question answered that they could find the answer to in a telephone book, online, in our paper, by looking outside, or by taking the pillow from over their face, they call me.

[AFPheonix]

Even beyond that, the cost of obtaining the information found in newspapers is pretty high. That information is something we all take for granted and think we should get for free, but if the newspaper staff that actually goes out and does the nitty gritty pavement pounding to get that story gets laid off because the newspaper goes under, all of us that benefit from that information, either because it got spread to other outlets like the AP or it got opined on in someone's blog or whatever, loses out.

If they can come up with a really easy universal pay system that is safer and more convenient even than pay pal, then newspapers could probably survive just fine by charging a nickel or maybe even less per story view.

[lordlundar]

hey, I would LOVE if the newspaper industries would develop a system to make profit while supplying the news. I personally like this idea myself.

The problem is those who are making the decisions don't want to give up their precious paper mills and want people to go back to reading the news THEIR way. They have power over the public and refuse to surrender it. So instead of embracing new tech and working with it when it first comes out, they choose instead to ignore it until it's a threat and then try to demonize it.

Now they have to make a decision and either way, it's going to hurt people. This decision should have been made a long time ago when the impact wouldn't have been so large.

[Boozy]

Even beyond that, the cost of obtaining the information found in newspapers is pretty high....
all of us that benefit from that information, either because it got spread to other outlets like the AP or it got opined on in someone's blog or whatever, loses out.

Exactly. Real investigative journalism (as opposed to the editorialized crap on some blogs) is expensive. If no one can get paid for it, the quantity and quality of news reports will go down. I don't want to see that happen.

You get what you pay for, and good information is no different.