Tag Archives: business models

On giants

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“See, the big guys have, and this has always been the case, when you have an existing business, whether you’re the record industry, the television business, or the movie industry, and you don’t want to cannibalize it so you stay away, or the New York Times [even], from these new distribution media because you go, ‘oh gosh, you know it’s going to cannibalize our TV viewing,’ that is an opening for everybody who doesn’t have all that existing relationships.” – Leo Laporte, TWiT 193 (at about 14 minutes)

If you’re an industry behemoth, it’s all about nimbly finding the balance between old and new. If you’re a startup, then it’s all about identifying and capitalizing on these weaknesses.

Using AP fees wisely

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A thought from a meeting yesterday with John Lowe and an idea I had a week ago: what would happen if newspapers withdrew their subscriptions from the Associated Press, which cost too much and offer little value online when you can link instead, and used all or part of those savings to start an incubator fund for local news startups?

Such a fund would offer a extraordinary advantage over printing day-old national news that people can get instantly online.

The innovation required for newspapers to reinvent themselves isn’t generally coming from within. There are institutional and cultural reasons for this. For instance, a friend who took an early retirement from The Oregonian said that his group of friends who wanted to discuss how to change the newspaper had to do so off company time. They brainstormed ideas over pizza and beer that were rarely implemented once they got back into the office. Google has the 20% rule. This is a significant difference in workplace, but a seed fund for news startups would promote the type of creativity and tenacity needed to survive in this new environment that corporate culture typically squashes.

Newspapers could benefit in a couple of ways. One, the contract with the startup might structured in such a way as to guarantee content to the newspaper’s print product at mutually agreeable rates. Two, if the startup pulled something particularly innovative, the newspaper could just buy the company. This is what Google does because it knows that disruptive thinking has a lower barrier to implementation on the ‘net.

Vetting advertisers

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Yesterday, I off-handedly had an idea that could be a business model for news organizations: vetting advertisers. Under the assumption that an organization practicing journalism builds its credibility though truthfulness, transparency, and accuracy, there exists the possibility that they could then monetize that credibility by taking product claims through the ringer. Not selling out, per se, but rather by selling time and attention. Companies would pay you because they want to be associated with your authority; in order to get this authority, however, they’d have to surpass a set of open source criteria. We shouldn’t be taking the human touch out of advertising because then, every so often, you get something like this:

google-reader-502

at the bottom of an article about bottled water and greenwash advertising. In my opinion, Lighter Footstep is now sending two contradictory messages: bottled water is killing our environment, and that I should pay a premium to have bottled water shipped from the South Pacific. This juxtaposition is broken because the misleading advertising has the opportunity to negate the value of the journalism.

Later: Dave Winer speculates on a “Digg for ads” which falls under this same idea of vetting advertisements (although crowdsourcing this time).

Wikis to (re)build the news

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It seems to be all of the rage these days (the first one I came across was created by Andrew Dunn).

Alexis Madrigal and Sarah Rich have started a wiki to design the next San Francisco Post-Chronicle, after hearing news that the Hearst Company could be shutting down the newspaper within weeks. With a potentially serious gap opening in Bay Area news production, they’ve begun brainstorming ways in which to bring the newspaper up to speed with the 21st century. The planning is broken into three arenas, two of which I have time to cover before my own flight to SF:

Distribution Model

Let’s go digital. It’s all about the internet, especially in early adopter central (i.e. San Francisco). Reporting should be web first, and the print edition could be cut to once a week. Publish a news magazine-style edition on Fridays and make it a compilation of the best content from all around town. I’d bet there’s a number of blogs that would like to see print readers for a cut of the revenue.

Continue reading →

In the news: demonstrations in Haiti, climate feedback in the Arctic, and number near starvation skyrockets

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News that caught my interest in the past week:

Demonstrations in Haiti – The Freeport News
Hopes of the new US president supporting former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s return to power could lead to increased demonstrations and violence in Haiti.

Your Guide to Alternative Business Models for Newspapers – PBS Mediashift
A roundup of online business models for newspapers. None are strikingly original, however. More so, they just seem like attempts to justify huge news organizations.

Has the Arctic melt passed the point of no return? – The Independent
Study published may indicate the arctic is already experiencing a feedback loop because of climate change.

Evolution of the Web – Worldchanging
Lebkowsky argues that traditional marketing is going to face a serious wakeup call in 2009.

Oil Is Not the Climate Change Culprit – It’s All About Coal – Wired Science
Research is showing that coal is the significant contributor to climate change, and that oil is only a drop in the bucket.

Waking up to a morning without the newspaper – OregonLive
Oregonian decides to stop delivering to houses in the Eugene-Springfield area, and the old readers are disappointed.

Global food crisis needs global treaty, says Britain’s environment chief – The Guardian
“The number of people facing starvation worldwide rose 40 million to 963 million during 2008, mostly as a result of rising food prices.” Wow.

via Publish2