Thu, 14 May 2009

Newspapers in the Digital Age

Do you read one? That is, do you subscribe to or buy the paper version of a newspaper daily, sit with your morning coffee and get newsprint all over your hands? I don't . . . haven't for years. At first it was a time thing. I just didn't have time to browse through the paper. Now, it's both a time thing and the fact that I can get news from the radio, television, and the Internet. So what's going to happen to newspapers? I don't know. The good ones -- really media companies -- will move into the electronic world and develop a new business model. Their current model is based on advertising, both display and classified. But the Internet and other media are sucking off these sources. Internet lists are decimating the classifieds and the display advertising is going to the Internet and other electronic sources.

Newspapers are suffering some because of electronic advertising models and aggregators, also. It's many times the aggregators who get the advertising dollars because people don't go to the newspaper site to read the full article, but merely get the gist of the information from the aggregator's page. I know that is what I do. Newspapers have to figure out a business model which can adapt to the situation or go under.

posted 08:06 [/bloids] permanent link