Here is a business model for Newspapers
One of the main things bugging traditional media folks at the moment is how to find a new business model, now that it has become apparent that the old business of collecting news and selling them does not really work anymore. Everyone can twit and blog about what they see, photograph and record out there in the world, and it is faster and more reliable than the old press.
I just gave a talk at the DONA (Danish Online News Association) 10 years anniversary conference last week on the future of journalism, and that forced me to actually structure my thoughts, and try to make a real analyses. One of the things I am certain of, is that the media corporations that survive in the future, are the ones who understand that you have to be a hub that makes it easy for people to find and manage all the vasts amounts of user generated journalism - instead of trying to position yourself as the proprietary producer of stories that can only be bought exclusively form you (there might be a business model for this but it is very niche).
Once again Google leads the way. In this interview Googles Eric Schmidt calls figuring out how to rank real-time social content is “the great challenge of the age”: http://bit.ly/2u0Jlm. Part of what he calls “real-time social content” is what old media is calling “breaking news”. In other words Google is working hard at becoming the best at collecting and organizing breaking news produced by all of us.
While most of us had no idea what Google was about to do first time around (I remember thinking it was a great service but too bad they would never make money), this time around the Newspapers and the rest of the media industry actually have a chance to compete. Why should the best brands in old media not be able to create a great search technology and future business model for breaking news?
Will they do it? I doubted very much. Right now most old media organisations and the people working there are extremely far from the innovative culture of silicon valley and web startups. But my point is that it is a matter of mindset. If they actually started to think the right way, and support the right strategies, they would have the brands and the muscle to compete with Google (and others) in the future.
