Comments on: How to Save Newspapers; or, lessons of the Giant Water Bug

By: alittleclarity

alittleclarity — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 04:30:08 +0000

Michael,
First I have to say, you do beautiful and interesting work (http://dreaminpictures.com/blog/). And I was quite interested in your story on James Nachtwey’s TED prize and photography.

Your comment is exactly the same as mine — if we don’t find a way for the news outlets to make money off their content, then Google will have no news. They could try to scrape “citizen journalism” which is fine up to a point, but as we saw today (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/steve_jobs_had_no_heart_attack_citizen_journalism_failed.php) citizen journalism has limitations.

I want us to find a way for the frogs to live unmolested and the giant water bugs to go feed off some other (ad) stream…

Thanks so much for commenting. I feel lucky to have found your blog.

By: Michael Cummings

Michael Cummings — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:56:50 +0000

Its interesting to see the contrast of this situation to some projects I’m working on now. What happens when all the news outlets cant keep pumping the stories that Google uses? We have no news? If Google is the water bug in this situation, they will eventually run out of mainstream frogs….

By: Ike

Ike — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:59:12 +0000

To extend your analogy further (and therefore risk sounding too much like an actual Social Media strategist)…

Too many newspapers are trying to defend against the Water Bug by toughening their skins. Some want to evolve into Turtles, with a hard protective shell. But as we know, Turtles are slow.

Instead, they need to change the relationship. Don’t let the parasite suck you dry — give it a reason to keep you alive. Symbiosis.

[I'm leaving this discussion for now. Gotta get these Nature Channel images out of my head in time to settle my stomach for lunch.]

By: alittleclarity

alittleclarity — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:14:26 +0000

Ike,
See, this *is* what I love about the blogosphere. I honestly never would have thought of auctioning the headlines on my own. Brilliant. They will ask, “what’s in it for them?” of course. But perhaps the answer is, do you want the content? Or not?

Also agreed on locking the archives – there must be a smooth, relatively painless way to do this.

You know, when GOOG announced last month that it was generously posting all these old archives online, I tweeted and also asked directly those attending the news conference: do the original outlets (if still in existence) get a slice of the revenue? Or does Google keep it? And everyone answered me: “you know, Google didn’t say.” Which I found troublesome. I really hope they give some piece of the pie back to the original outlet.

I can’t tell you how glad I am you stopped by – such great ideas! I begin to feel hopeful…

By: Ike

Ike — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:26:11 +0000

Could it be micropayments?

Could it be pay-per-link?

Could Google “auction” the headlines? Think about it. 12 newspapers all run a similar story, and Google uses the AdWords algorithm to do a real-time auction over which paper gets top billing on Google News. After a certain number of impressions, the financial dynamics change and whammo! you have another headline sneak to the top.

One thing for sure — there is a HUGE demand for people who search for old news (just look at all the internet research for CRA and housing mess). Papers that lock down their archives will never earn a penny in ad impressions for those coming back for the old content.