The New Business Models for News Summit brings together editorial and business executives from journalism with entrepreneurs and academics to seek and share new business models and best practices and to find next steps.
The audience is not measurable which is a big obstacle when it comes to evaluating competition and how to make a site better. Fred Wilson said to just use all the services that measure “ratings” or hits and to come to the best conclusion possible. Larry Kramer said there can be no improvement in this area.
There’s a focus on linking Newrooms together across the city/state/globe… to exchange ideas…
“There’s a public exchange of videos among some stations in Europe,” said Christiana Falcone, Wolrd Economic Forum, an example of journalist drawing closer to having a network for their newsrooms.
Should this be encouraged among journalism organizations in general?
Someone responded that you can’t create it for all of them, such as newspaper organizations because of the way they’re structured.
How would it be like if newsrooms have a network?!?
This question was not really address, but I don’t think most news organizations would want it. They like the competition too much. Everyone wants to be the one to release a breaking news first!
Is there money to be made from video? Kramer feels it becomes part of the content but cannot itself be monetized. It could possibly be another ad unit. TV commercials reach audiences more emotionally but some say you cannot think of video separately from online content.
Cohn and Rosen ask the group for a charge they can take back to the group.
Tofel, going back to a fee request, says “We couldn’t we pass a law that says if you sell ISP services, you must charge everyone 5 cents a month, and deposit the 5 cents a month in a fund? Such a law would be constitutional and administratible.”
Adam Davidson says “I don’t want to work for C-span and I don’t want to work for the symphony. I want to work for the vital beating heart of (American journalism).” He thinks technology model will change and prohibit a fee structure working. ”Now, every hipster wants to go into public radio. There’s more access to tools, there’s more ability to carve this stuff.”
“I don’t think we need to be even talking about old models of this stuff,” Davidson says.
Osnos: ”What you’re looking for is more funding…where do you want it to come from?”
Davidson: ”I imagine the advertising as like any for-profit business,” with the benefit of a halo effect “because we’re so good.” He predicts millions of audio journalists competing for user fees.
Tofel pushes back on the symphony model: ”Everything that you just said–for people who do love classical music–is how symphony’s are funded.”
“I do work for the symphony,” Davidson agrees. He cites an Ira Glass talk where he said NPR has 20% of stories that are really good. ”We are buffered from the audience demand by government funding. …We’re not earning it minute by minute on the air. I think we’re going to have to earn it in an on-demand environment.”
Paid content? Some feel that the right model for this hasn’t been found yet.
“How do you pay for the kind of journalism that doesn’t have revenue attached to it?” asks Willse.
Edward Roussel responds by saying that you first need to “urgently” reduce the costs from this type of journalism. “It’s untrue that money can’t be made,” says Roussel
“The greater the quality and quantity of the content, the greater the audience.” Thomas, Eisenmann, Harvard Business School.
People go to google, if they don’t find it, they go to Yahoo
The key is to make sure you’re meeting the needs of the audience. That’s what these two giants (Google & Yahoo) are doing. Some blog owners have links to other sites, and they direct people to visit those sites for more information/resources. In turn, they don’t loose their audience, which some sites are afraid of. Actually, people do come back to these sites just because they know that the site can lead them to where they’ll find what they’re looking for.
The product is more important than the content. If a product can move fast at a low cost, than it has a tremendous advantage over big companies who integrate their online media into their core revenue structure.
Richard Tofel of ProPublica says endowments are a form of public support that will endure.
The group debates the merits of temporary projects and pilot projects versus permanent journalism.
The standard of blogs joining networks have gone down. At first people started blogging because they believe strongly in a cause and feel like everyone should know about it. Today, people blog just about anything.
Some Reasons why people blog: (Chris Ahearn - Thomson Reuters)
To make money
To express themselves
To be heard
To make a difference
For fun
Some blog just as a way of living
Many people still have the idea that when you want to talk serious, blog it. When it’s not that serious, go to facebook/My Space.
The question is “Aren’t people spending more time on facebook/My Space than on blogs? … and aren’t they writing real stuffs on this social networks?…”
