I enjoyed reading this article by Steve Buttry Newspapers’ Original Sin: Not failing to charge but failing to innovate including his reference to all the folks who have been talking about this. Sure wish there were a way to get them all together around the same table. Here's the comment I posted:
TOTALLY AGREE that this is about a new business model and a new experience. The competition is not just newspapers and that doesn’t mean throw in some video and you’re competitive with all media.
There are clearly some hurdles that must be overcome to move forward. One is for the newspaper to breakdown the hermetic seal between them and their readers. The other is to enable a frictionless transaction/barter system that debits use and credits contribution – both by the reader and the newspaper.
In addition to the folks you’ve been debating I add the following input. Sure would be neat to see all of these folks around one table brainstorming:
There are lots of folks demanding and exploring new business models, new experiences, and new competition:
Al Neuharth who talks about innovation that competes beyond other newspapers.
Teenagers who in a survey say they want news to help them understand
the basics so they can form their own opinion an talk about : http://twurl.nl/0m848w,
Cody Brown identifies the inherent diference between print and interactive: “Real Time”:http://bit.ly/OzAxC
Business Week agrees: http://twurl.nl/1bclqh
Real Time enables community building the utlimate reward media offers:http://ow.ly/jZn1
AP Digital Wrapper is a technology which the AP hopes will enable
audience participation and use and is also open to the possibility of
syndicating and protecting any content online http://bit.ly/2UL6M7. Reuters also gets that we need a solution that embracing audience participation and protects content ownership http://bit.ly/RIFLe
And Mark Cuban believes in innovation and charging for media http://bit.ly/10IoiB
I have written a lot about strategies for developing a new experience, how to market it, and monetize it. http://www.comradity.com. So do others like George Kembel. He talks about the importance of starting with empathy for your customer: http://bit.ly/W7JNa.
That’s why I see the market going in the direction of innovation, paid models, and competing against brands not vehicle. I think this is now a persistent change and we are going through the uncomfortable part – it feels like we are sailing away from the mark, but once we commit to this new direction we will actually be very close.
All the best,
@comradity
Katherine Warman Kern
